The Word Made Plain

Guest (Male): Welcome to The Word Made Plain with Senior Pastor Tony Clark of Calvary Chapel Newport News in Virginia. Currently, Pastor Tony is teaching a study in the Book of Acts. Please open your Bible to Acts chapter 14, verses 21 through 22.

Tony Clark: This is my heart's desire: to take the word of God and strengthen your faith by feeding you the only food that can strengthen your faith, which is the word of God. Teaching it to you from Genesis to Revelation, chapter by chapter, verse by verse, and book by book.

Acts 20 and verse 32 says, "So now, brethren, I commend you to God and to the word of His grace, which is able to build you up and give you an inheritance among all those who are sanctified." The word of God strengthens and builds us up in our Christian faith.

So not only did they use the word of God to strengthen their faith, but they also exhorted them to continue in the faith. That implies that sometimes we want to quit. Sometimes we want to stop following God. Sometimes we just don't want to continue to press into the presence of God, the things of God. So they exhorted them to continue in the faith.

Why? Because these newfound believers would find themselves in the heat of tribulations and trials and difficulties. Satan will whisper in their ears and say, "Before you committed your life to Christ, things were a lot smoother. Why don't you get out of this thing? Kick this Christian thing to the curb and get back to life and living." Satan still whispers those types of things to people today.

And so here they are, not only strengthening their faith but exhorting them to continue in the faith. The Greek word for exhorting is *parakaleo*, and it means to come alongside, to encourage, to exhort, to comfort. And this is what Paul and Barnabas came back to do for these new believers.

The first part of their exhorting was to encourage them to continue in the faith. Perseverance is a characteristic of true saving faith. Why is this so important? Because they told these new believers at the end of verse 22, "We must through many tribulations enter the kingdom of God."

Paul and Barnabas taught these new believers the truth about Christianity, because we enter the kingdom of God through tribulation. Paul said "we," including himself, must go through many tribulations, not just a few. The word "must" means of absolute necessity. Before it's all said and done with us here on this earth, we're going to go through some things.

What are some of the tribulations we must go through? It is helpful for us to know when we accepted Christ as our Lord and Savior that we have enlisted into the army of God and we're now in wartime situations at all times. Many of you who served in the military or are serving, you understand wartime situations. I got out just before Desert Storm/Desert Shield hit, so I was doing peacetime. Many of you have been in the midst of wartime situations, but when you accept Christ as your Lord and Savior, you're enlisted in God's army and you're in wartime situations at all times.

Second Corinthians 2:11 says, "Lest Satan should take advantage of you, because we're not ignorant of his devices." The word "devices" can be translated as we're not ignorant of his schemes or his tricks. In other words, if we are ignorant of his tricks, he can take advantage of us.

The first thing we must understand is what Ephesians 6, verse 12 says: "For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against a spiritual host of wickedness in heavenly places." When I read this, it just sounds pretty dark and wicked.

Think about it. We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against a spiritual host of wickedness in heavenly places. That's pretty dark. This is who we're fighting against. We must understand that our battle is against unforeseen forces that use flesh and blood or people to accomplish their plan.

What is the plan? Which is to try to undo everything God is trying to do in this world. So your battle is not against your spouse. That's flesh and blood. It's not against your teenager, your coworker, your toddler (nothing a belt can't fix, but that's another sermon). Or your neighbor.

Your battle is against Satan and his highly organized spiritual army that is using your spouse, your neighbor, your boss, your toddler, or your friend to try to undo everything God is trying to do to strengthen you in your faith. And if you're ignorant of this truth, Satan will take advantage of you. He will take advantage of your ignorance.

Even though Satan is trying to use these people to destroy you, God will use these same people and these same tribulations to build godly character in your life. He will use these same people that Satan is using to destroy you. God will use these same people to build patience in you, kindness, love, long-suffering, gentleness, and other beautiful qualities that Galatians 5:22 and 23 talks about.

Why would God do that? Because Romans 8:28 says all things work together for good to them who love God and to them who are the called according to His purpose. See, God will take what Satan meant for evil and turn good out of it. So Paul and Barnabas taught them we must through many tribulations enter the kingdom of God.

There's something else I would like to draw to your attention, and that is in 2 Timothy 3 and verse 11. Paul mentions the cities of Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch and how much he suffered and was persecuted in those cities. In Antioch, he was ran out of the city. In Iconium, they barely escaped. In Lystra, he was stoned.

But 2 Timothy 3 and verse 11 goes on to say the Lord delivered him out of them all. And in each case, the Lord delivered him in a different way. In Antioch, he was kicked out. In Iconium, he heard about a plot to kill him and he left out of there. In Lystra, he was left for dead.

I point all of this out because we have a tendency to think of deliverance only in one way, and that is out of our situation. Just like with Paul, God will deliver us out of all of our tribulations. Second Corinthians 1:10 says He delivered us (past tense), and does deliver us (present tense), in whom we trust that He will still deliver us (future tense).

God has delivered us, He is delivering us from something now, and He will deliver us in the future. However, God will not be boxed in by our methods and our ways. Yes, God may deliver you by taking you out of a job. You might get fired. Did you ever think about that could be deliverance? You ain't thought of that. That's a new thought for you.

God may take you out of a bad situation, but have you ever thought that God may deliver you by taking you through? You may have to go through the fire. Just ask Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. You know them by their Babylonian names: Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.

In Daniel chapter 3, Nebuchadnezzar builds this statue of himself, 60 feet tall. Why would he do that? In the previous chapter, he had a dream that no one could interpret. And so Daniel came in and told him, "Hey, Nebuchadnezzar, God is the one who answers dreams." He said, "I got your dream. You're the head of gold, and after you would come the Medes and the Persians, the chest and arms of silver, then the kingdom after that." He began to describe this statue.

Nebuchadnezzar thought about it. "I'm the head of gold and my kingdom is going to be defeated? Let me fix this." He builds a statue of all gold, saying his kingdom is never going to end. On top of that, "When I strike up the music, all of y'all are going to bow down to this statue."

Some of y'all are still bowing down to music, aren't you? When the music starts, you bow down to your rock idols, your musical idols. Why do you think the hardest thing to fight with your teenagers is over music? Because there's a demonic spirit behind it. They will be obedient to almost everything, but you mention music and it's a fight. It's time for an MMA fight.

If that was tried in my home, I was going to win every time. But that's why there's a fight. Because there's a demonic spirit behind the music industry that you know nothing about. That's why in your Christian walk, many of you can't shake this thing called music. And you wonder why. Satan is behind it.

Satan used to lead the host of heaven in worship. Do you think when he fell, he lost his musical abilities? No. Ezekiel 28 talks about it in verses 13 through 16. His voice was like a pipe organ, hands like tambourines. He was a musical genius until sin was found in him. And when he fell, he still knows how to play music. And that's one way he gets the worship that he wants, is by getting people to bow down when it comes to music. I didn't say that first service; somebody needs to hear that in here today.

And so here it is, this statue. Nebuchadnezzar said, "Hey, guess what? When the music starts up, one, two, three, hit it!" and everybody went down. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Everybody's bowing down; you can just see them standing up. And they said, "Stop the music." "What's up with you guys?"

In Daniel 3, verses 16 through 18, they said, "We're not bowing down to your statue and violate our walk with God and violate the second commandment which says don't make graven images of things in heaven above, on the earth, and under the earth to bow down and worship it. We worship the true and living God. We're not worshipping your statue."

Nebuchadnezzar said, "Maybe you didn't hear. Maybe you had earbuds in or something and you couldn't hear the music that we were playing. I'm going to give you another chance. One, two, three, hit it!" They said, "No, Nebuchadnezzar, no, it ain't going down like that." He said, "Heat that oven, heat that furnace seven times hotter. Seven times hotter! I'll show you."

He said, "Take Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, tie them up hand and foot and toss them into the fire." Boom! They went in there. "Teach you! Anybody else think they want to stand up?" All of a sudden, he said, "Didn't we throw three of them in there? How is it that we see four? And the fourth one is like the Son of God."

And all of a sudden, he looks in there. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego are walking around in there with Jesus. And I want you to notice something. They were walking around. First, they went in bound, hand and foot. Now they're walking around with Jesus. As soon as those ropes started burning, I would have ran out.

They were walking around because it was better to be in the fire with Jesus than out of the fire where it was more comfortable. It wasn't until Nebuchadnezzar called them out. "Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, get out of there!" and they just came out. And all of a sudden, it said that the fire didn't touch them and they didn't smell like smoke.

Some of you go through the fire, you come out smelling like smoke. Mad. You allowed the fire to burn you instead of bless you, and you came out bitter and not better. And then when people come around you, they're wondering, "What's that smell? You been in the fire, haven't you?"

This is amazing here. Sometimes we have to be delivered by going through the fire. Why? Because fiery trials will do three things. Number one: fiery trials help us see Jesus in a more intimate way. See, they were in the fire walking around with Jesus. That was better. They saw Jesus in a more intimate, personal way by being in the fire with Him. The Lord has promised, "I will never leave you nor forsake you," especially when you're in the fire.

We also see, number two: fiery trials will free us up from those things that are binding us up. Fiery trials have a way of setting us free. Remember, they went in the fire bound, hand and foot, with ropes. And they came out set free from those ropes. Fiery trials have a way of freeing us from those things and people that are seeking to bind us up.

Number three: fiery trials will cause the Nebuchadnezzars, the skeptics around us, to believe in our God. When Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego came out of the fire, Nebuchadnezzar was so blown away that he bowed down and accepted the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.

There are Nebuchadnezzars all around us, skeptics of Christianity, of the Bible, of our relationship with God. And you have all this advice for them when they're going through tough times and difficulties. But they want to see what's going to happen when you go through the fire. And then when you come out of the fire, not even smelling like smoke, they too will bow down and accept your God.

Because they can see that your relationship is real. It goes beyond just talk. Because we got a whole lot of great scriptures we're quoting to people when they're going through tough times. "Oh, just look to the Lord. Oh, He will never leave you nor forsake you." Okay, that's fine. That's great. You can quote that. But I want to see you quote that to yourself when you're in the midst of the fire.

Can you still quote those verses? That's what the Nebuchadnezzars are waiting for. They're waiting on you to come out of the fire so they can look at you, so they can smell you, and see if you smell like smoke. And they want to see, did the fire burn you or did it bless you? Are you going to come out better or are you going to come out bitter?

Talking about, "Well, if I was God, I wouldn't put my children through that kind of stuff," implying that you're better than God. Be careful of always putting God in a negative light because of what you think God should be. The Bible says God's ways are beyond our ways. His thoughts are above our thoughts. Even as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are His ways higher than our ways and His thoughts higher than our thoughts.

The Bible says God's ways are past finding out. Even if God gave you a billion years to try to figure out His ways, at the end of the billionth year, you would have been asking, "You got any more time you can give me?" His ways are past finding out.

If God was big enough for your little pea brain, if He was small enough to fit into that little thing you call your brain, He wouldn't be big enough for your problems. And God wants to be a God beyond. This is why I was praying through the Psalms and how the Bible says, "O magnify the Lord with me, let us exalt His name together."

To magnify means to make large. So often, we don't magnify the Lord; we magnify our problems. And we make God small, and we magnify what we're going through. It says, "O magnify the Lord with me, let us exalt His name together." God wants you to look to Him. He will be with you in the midst of the fire, no matter what it is you're going through, no matter how hot it is, even if it's been heated up seven times.

He will be with you in the midst and He is doing a wonderful work. Number one, He'll be with you. Number two, He'll burn whatever it is that's binding you up. And He'll cause the Nebuchadnezzars in your life to believe in Him. What a beautiful thing. So sometimes we have to go through. We have to go through.

I know we want to be taken out of every situation. Sometimes deliverance will come by Him taking us through. Keep in mind that God will deliver us from all of our tribulations. And it may be by being taken out of your situation, but it may be by taking you through the fire, or through the lions' den like Daniel, or through being stoned like Paul.

And don't forget, what Satan meant for evil, God will use it to build godly character in our lives. Right now, you're more gentle, you're more loving, you're more kind, and you have more of these things in your life. And it hasn't been from the good times. It's been when Satan tried to destroy you and you had to exercise patience. It's when someone was hating on you and you still showed them love.

This is what God is working in us. I just wish that God would just download the fruit of the spirit like we download an app or something. I wish God would just download and say, "Okay, I'm more loving. I'm kinder." That's not how it works. I wish it was like that, I really do, but that's not how it works.

God will use that annoying coworker, that teenager that just can't get it together right now, that neighbor that's just so annoying. Like mine, he blows the leaves back into my yard because it came from my tree in my yard, so he blows it back in my yard. Amen! And I hear that annoying blower every day and I know what he's doing. God bless you!

I'm more annoyed over the loud blower than anything else. But God bless him. He's just trying to keep his driveway clean. That's all. And my leaves are getting over in it. Amen! Just how it goes. And God has to give you patience. Isn't it wonderful how God works?

He says all things work together for good to them who love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose. "All" means everything and excludes nothing. It means the good as well as the bad.

Father, thank You so much for this word You've given us. Thank You for the work that You're doing in our lives. Lord, thank You so much for being with us in the midst of the fire, no matter what we're going through. Lord, I pray for those who have come out of the fire and they smell like smoke. Lord, may they run to You. May they run to You now, Lord.

Lord, I pray for those who are here who have never repented and prayed to ask Jesus to come into their heart. I pray that today would be the day of salvation for them. Move upon Your people by Your Spirit, in Jesus' name. Amen.

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