Dr. Charles Stanley: More important than God removing the

difficulty, hardship, pain and suffering; more important to Him

than that, is that you and I learn something; that we

benefit; that we walk away from whatever we're going through in

life, being able to say deeply within our heart, honestly,

Thank You, dear God, for all You've brought me through.

Thank You, dear God, for what You're in the process of

teaching me in this.

male announcer: Today on "In Touch," "Wisdom in the Midst of

Trials."

Dr. Stanley: Are you going through some trial in your life

that you don't understand?

You don't know why it has to happen to you.

You look back and you ask one or two questions.

What did I do to deserve this?

You can't come up with an answer.

God, why have You allowed this in my life?

Can't come up with an answer.

And to be truthful and honest, what you want most of all is out

of this.

I want to escape it.

I want freedom from it.

I want all this pain and hurt and disappointment and

hopelessness and helplessness and all the things that I'm

going through, naturally, I just want out of all this as quickly

as possible.

Do you think that's the will of God?

You say, Why sure it is because He's a good God.

Well maybe in a few moments you'll realize that God has

something far more important from His perspective than simply

getting you out of this difficulty, hardship or trial

Because what I want to talk about in this whole message

today, I want to talk about wisdom in the midst of trials.

How are we to respond?

How does God respond?

What is He up to in allowing all these things to happen?

In other words, do you want to benefit from it, or you just

want to get bitter and resentful and hostile toward God because

of it?

There's a choice.

I can benefit from whatever difficulty I'm facing; or I can

get bitter, blame somebody else, blame God and miss the whole

point.

So I want you to turn if you will to the book, and toward the

back of the New Testament in First Peter.

And I want us to look at this first chapter and the first few

verses here, because he's talking to people, writing to

people rather, who are going through some very difficult

times.

They're being persecuted because of their love for the Lord Jesus

Christ and their devotion to Him.

And naturally they've got some questions.

Listen to and read Peter's awesome response to what they're

going through.

And so he begins in this first chapter, beginning in verse

three.

Listen to what he says, "Blessed be the God and Father of our

Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us

to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of

Jesus Christ from the dead," He says we have a living hope.

This is the mercy of God, "To obtain an inheritance which is

imperishable, undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in

heaven for you," that is, for you, "Who are protected by the

power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed

in the last times."

Now watch this, "In this you greatly rejoice, even though now

for a little while, if necessary, you have been

distressed by various trials, so that the proof of your faith,

being more precious than gold which is perishable, even though

tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and

honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ; And though you have not

seen Him, you love Him, and though you do not see Him now,

but believe in Him, you greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible

and full of glory."

Now, think about it for a moment.

I don't know what you're going through, but more than likely

you've asked a couple of questions.

Why has this happened to me?

And, God, why don't You remove this?

And remember this.

More important than God removing the difficulty, hardship, pain

and suffering; more important to Him than that, is that you and I

learn something; that we benefit; that we walk away from

whatever we're going through in life, being able to say deeply

within our heart, honestly, Thank You, dear God, for all

You've brought me through.

Thank You, dear God, for what You're in the process of

teaching me in this.

Many people don't want to be taught.

Many people just want a quick escape.

But a wise man or woman does not want to go through heartache and

suffering and trial and all the things that can happen to a

person and just come out empty, hopeless and helpless, and

thinking again, Wonder what God is up to in my life in all this.

Do I believe that God loves me enough that He's up to something

good?

So, from the viewpoint of wisdom, what are the purposes

for these trials in our life?

And the first one is simply this, as he says in this first

chapter of--First Peter, listen to what he says.

He says, "In this you greatly rejoice, even though now for a

little while, if necessary, you have been distressed by various

trials," for what reason?

He says, Look, right now you're going through a difficult time,

"So that in order that; for this purpose," what is that?

"That, the proof of your faith."

And that is, not proof in like we think about it, but prove,

that is being approved.

That's what that word means.

In order that our faith would be approved; we prove that is

strong, "Being more precious than gold which is perishable."

He says in God's eyes, look at this, your faith is more

valuable as far as God is concerned, than gold and silver

and all the rest.

So, he says one of the reasons that we're going through it is

for God to do what?

He's going to do something to your faith.

He's going to strengthen your faith.

One of your greatest assets is your faith, because it's by your

faith.

And how many times we go to the scriptures and we find verses in

the Bible about prayer and linked with that of faith,

trusting God.

And so God tests us by allowing us to be persecuted, hurt, pain,

suffering, all kind of loss, whatever it might be.

And as He watches us walk through that and He, as He sees

our faith growing and we persevere and we don't quit, we

don't give up.

We don't grow bitter and resentful and hostile toward

other people because of what's happening to us.

What happens?

Our faith grows.

And the greater your faith, the stronger your personal

relationship to the Lord.

Now, a second thing is this, the testing of our devotion.

Do I love Him?

Do I only love Him when everything's going my way?

Can I honestly say that I love Jesus Christ as my personal

Savior?

And so oftentimes we find out where we are.

Test our devotion.

When I feel pain more than I think I can bear, can I still

say, God, I truly love You.

It's those tests in which we find out who we really are; what

we're like.

Then of course, there is the purpose of purifying our life.

And when I think about God purifying us, think about this.

Pain is--has a purifying factor in it.

There's something about pain that purifies.

It reaches the depths of our soul and our spirit and brings

us to the reality and the truthfulness about ourselves.

And a person can go along in life and sort of get along as

they would think and I'm doing fine as a Christian, and a lot

of things in their life that shouldn't be there.

And all of a sudden the bottom drops out of their life; there's

pain, suffering, heartache, troubles and trials; and then

what do they do?

They want to cry out to God to help them.

And most of the time, what is He going to do?

He's going to start, not with the physical ailment.

He's going to start in the spirit, in the heart, what's

going on in your life.

And many people prolong the suffering because they will not

acknowledge that God is in the process of purifying their life.

Now another reason is that God takes an opportunity to do what?

To show Himself strong in our life.

We go through trials and heartaches and we think, God,

how am I going to handle this?

And God steps into that situation and demonstrates His

awesome power.

And He demonstrates what He's able to do and what He's willing

to do, what He can do in your life if you're willing to listen

to Him.

So, God has purposes.

He doesn't let these things go by without specific purposes.

And so that's one of them.

Then, as we said, His purpose is to provide Christ-like character

in our life.

So, if we stopped right there, we'd say, Well, God have any

purpose in all this?

Yes, He does.

And that's some of the purpose, and I'd just add one more.

And that's very clear in Second Corinthians chapter one, verse

four, listen to this.

Verse three says, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord

Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all

comfort, Who comforts us in all our affliction so that we will

be able to comfort those who are in affliction with the comfort

with which we ourselves have been comforted by God."

He says one of the primary reasons He allows these things

in our life to do what?

To equip you and me to be able to help other people through

that difficulty.

For example, let's say that you're going through some real

bad difficulty in your life.

Maybe it's a physical thing, some pain.

Who do you want to talk to?

Somebody who's in perfect health?

Never had a problem at all in their life and wonder why you're

where you are.

No, you don't.

If you're going through something in your finances, and

you don't know which way to turn to--who--you want to turn to

somebody who has been there, who has wisdom and knowledge about

their finances.

You can take any aspect of life.

Because God, listen, God intends, watch this, He intends

that you and I profit from all the hardships, disasters that

happen in our life.

He has something good in every single one of them.

Now, if you believe that, and I certainly hope you do, and you

can look at the scripture, lots of scriptures.

Then I should be able to walk out of here saying, You know

what?

Enough of this complaining and moaning and groaning and feeling

like a victim, and blaming somebody else.

God's up to something good in my life.

Oops, I know it hurts, God, but I know You're up to something

good in my life.

It'll change your attitude.

Now watch this.

Just physiologically, when your attitude gets right, it's

amazing the effect that has on your physical body.

I'm not saying you can think yourself into healing, but I

know this.

When I understand that God is up to something good even though

I'm hurting, whatever the source of it may be, there's going to

be a feeling; there's going to be a sense of encouragement;

because you don't see it as just isolated pain or isolated

disease or isolated loss.

Or somebody has attacked you for something.