One Day It Will All Be Set Rright/ Identity Check Part 13 Series

Psalm 34:19 reads like this. "Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all." That's all of it. That's everything. I love that about God. As we get ready to close this book, there is one thing I can promise you, and it's this. You and I may suffer for a little while here, but one day, at the second coming of Christ, we will never suffer again. That is your promise. That is your identity. That is what it's all about. Amen?

I want you to know that going in. When these verses speak to you today, and they will, God has designed it so that… First Peter has already been talking about how this world is full of suffering from time to time. At some times, it's very high. At some times, it's lower. We march through a world that is broken, but it is being repaired because of the resurrection of Jesus. Can I get a witness right there?

Many years ago, I went for the very first time on a mission trip to Honduras when I pastored in San Francisco. I remember going out of the country. It was my first time there, and I had a blast. Of course, God pricked my heart with that trip, and I've been to Honduras many, many, many times over. It has captured my heart for over 14 years, and I love it.

I remember the first time I went, I went with an associate pastor of mine, and I went with a dear friend of mine. We got there. We landed in Honduras. When we finally landed, we took a bus. We got on this bus, and we drove for about six hours. I was sharing a seat with five other people in a bus, if you can believe that. It was amazing, because it was extremely hot, and it was the Mosquito Coast. Of course, there were a lot of mosquitoes there. Can I get an, "Oh me"?

We took the bus, and we finally made it to a little air strip. We got on this plane, and we flew again for about another hour. I wasn't even sure where we were going to land, but as we were circling the landing strip, they were clearing cows out of the pasture. I thought, "My goodness, man. Where are you taking me?"

We landed. They moved the cows out of the way. They had this little building that looked like an outhouse where they checked your papers. Then we walked for about five miles, and then we finally came to the edge of this town where the next morning, we were going to get in a boat for a "little trip" up the river.

The next morning comes. We wake up. We get in the boat, and we go for about another four or five hours up the river. It keeps getting more and more narrow. We finally get about a mile or so from the border of Nicaragua, and there is this little village, and we pull into the village. We're thirsty. We're tired. We're hungry. We get in this little village. There were probably about 180, 200 people max at this little village called La Cruta.

When we get there, we are greeted by some of the children, some of the people. Immediately, they captured our hearts. We went in. They spoke Spanish, and they spoke Mesquite. Mesquite was their first language; Spanish was their second. No one there spoke English. We went in, and we had a blast. It was amazing what God did in our lives.

I remember we walked into this one little… You call it a home, but all it was was just kind of almost like a cardboard box. It had wood and cardboard. That's what made the house. It was up on some stilts. The river would run under it, and it would pull away at night. That's kind of the situation. It was very humid. It was very hot.

We walk in, and we're hungry, and the lady there (her name was Sister Lesbi gave us her very last meal. She didn't realize "the men of God" were coming. My associate pastor, who had a little bit of a relationship with them and had been there before, forgot to send word, so they didn't know. She was kind of embarrassed, because they're such inviting people.

They fish out of the river and those kinds of things, so she had fish for the week to supply her family, but with a grateful heart, she gave us literally her last meal. She cooked it up, and I knew immediately. I said, "I'm probably going to be sick," because she was making it with the water that came out of the river, and the river water was also their sewer water. Can I get an, "Uh oh"?