Philippians 1:12 KJV But I would ye should understand, brethren, that the things which happened unto me have fallen out rather unto the furtherance of the gospel;
Philippians 1:12 AMPLIFIED Now I want you to know and continue to rest assured, brethren, that what [has happened] to me [this imprisonment] has actually only served to advance and give a renewed impetus to the [spreading of the] good news (the Gospel).
Philippians 1:12 THE MESSAGE I want to report to you, friends, that my imprisonment here has had the opposite of its intended effect. Instead of being squelched, the Message has actually prospered.
Philippians 1:12 Weymouth Now I would have you know, brethren, that what I have gone through has turned out to the furtherance of the Good News rather than otherwise.
I. INTRODUCTION—A STORY FROM THE HOLOCAUST
James von Moltke came from a long line of German warriors and soldiers. For two centuries the name Moltke resounded proudly in the history of the Prussians and Germans. But James would serve a different fate. He was just as brave and just as devoted but his devotions were to Jesus Christ and His Word and it would put him at odds with the Fuhrer, Adolph Hitler.
The gathering political storm clouds of the 1930’s confronted the best Germans with a painful decision—to flee or to stay. Many like scientist Albert Einstein, novelist Thomas Mann, and architect van der Rohe took refuge abroad. Others stayed and wondered how much tyranny they would accept and how much they would resist. Like Dietrich Bonhoeffer, James von Moltke, who was twenty-six when Hitler came to power, could easily have gone abroad. He nearly did but when the war broke out in 1939, he decided to stay. His name and character made him a natural rallying point for resisters to the regime.
Trained in international law, Moltke was drafted into the German military intelligence; little realizing that it was to be the center of anti-Nazi resistance. He used his job overtly to try and curb the Nazis with the restraint of international law. But covertly was where he had his greatest powers. He dedicated himself to countering the deportation and murder of Jews and the execution of captured soldiers. One of his greatest accomplishments took place in 1943 when he helped to save the lives of thousands of Jews in Denmark.
He ended up getting caught and going to a secret trial in January 1945 in the notorious “People’s Court” presided over by the vicious prosecutor Roland Freisler. It was a travesty of a trial and he along with seven others was condemned to die.
In a final letter to his wife some of the words that were written are particularly moving:
“Now there is still a hard bit of the road ahead for me. . . For what a mighty task your husband was chosen: all the trouble the Lord took with him, the infinite detours, the intricate zigzag curves, all suddenly find their explanation in one hour. . .”
Just a few months later, before the end of the war, he was executed.
-More often than not, it is the desperate places that seem to bring out the best in men. . . It also has the great potential to pull the greatest out of God’s saints. . . if we will allow it to be.
• Desperate places can give rise to courage.
• Desperate places can give us opportunities to finish well.
• Desperate places can present challenges to us to do our best.
• Desperate places can fill your life with a high purpose and ideal.
• Desperate places can fire your ambition not to waste your life.
-Look no further than the life of William Wilberforce, the great Englishman, who fought the slave trade. His life was so filled with fighting this great evil; three days after it had been defeated, he died.
II. PHILIPPIANS 1:12
A. Life Will Happen
-What life in the long run does to us depends on what life finds in us. If you can always remember: To those who love God all things work together for good.
-What happens to us from the outside pulls our triggers and pushes us to the greatest purpose and will of God. The purpose is in the saint of God all the time, there just has to be external forces at the hands of God to press us into that mold.
-Sometimes those external forces can be so painful to us. But God is in every detail of our lives that nothing is amiss with Him.
Job 23:8-11 KJV Behold, I go forward, but he is not there; and backward, but I cannot perceive him: [9] On the left hand, where he doth work, but I cannot behold him: he hideth himself on the right hand, that I cannot see him: [10] But he knoweth the way that I take: when he hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold. [11] My foot hath held his steps, his way have I kept, and not declined.
-This is what happened in the life of the apostle Paul. There was a proving trail that he had to go down.
-One of his earliest letters was to the Thessalonians and there are some good things in them. But the last letters he would write, like this one to the Philippians and the Ephesians far surpass the early letters. There is height and depth to them, there is majesty about them, and these were the things that were born out of his final imprisonment.
-Notice how much his influence changed. At the beginning of his walk, he was rejected by that young church but now at the end of his life, he has become the most influential of all the voices in Christianity.
-Life had happened to him:
• Worshipped as a god.
• Stoned as a felon.
• Shipwrecked three times.
• Loved as a brother.
• Hated as a heretic.
• Imprisoned as a criminal.
-In the end, all of it had amazingly worked together for good. But what life did to him at the end depended on what life found in him. The circumstances and compulsions of life shape us but only what is in us will be the thing that sets us apart.
B. Life Is Often How You Look At It
-That is why that we are forced to look at our lives in a much different way.
• For all that your life does not have.
• For all of the friends that you do not have.
• For all of the things that you do not have.
• For all of the opportunities that you do not have.
• For all of the perks that you don’t feel like you have.
-There is far more that you do have than what you do not have. Despite the confinements of a desperate place, there is still much blessing and strength there. You will have to work at it but if you keep your attitude right and your heart right it will be the best.
-A lot of people are trying to figure out if life is worth living but the reality is that nobody ever finds life worth living. . . . you have to make life worth living.
-There will always be unsavory assignments that will contend for your time and energy. Don’t give into the bitterness of those assignments, change your attitude and let them help you.
-We run across them people all the time who complain that life is not fair. It never has been and it never will be. You will have to get over it. Don’t let life whip you and baffle you—get a dream bigger than you are and go after it.
A famous trapeze artist was instructing his students how to perform on the high trapeze bar. Finally, having given full explanations and instruction in this skill, he told them to demonstrate their ability.
One student, looking up at the insecure perch upon which he must perform, was suddenly filled with fear. He froze completely. He had a terrifying vision of himself falling to the ground. He couldn’t move a muscle, so deep was his fright. “I can’t do it! I can’t do it!” he gasped.
The instructor put his arm around the boy’s shoulder and said, “Son, you can do it, and I will tell you how.” Then he made a statement which is of inestimable importance. It is one of the wisest remarks I have ever heard. He said, “Throw your heart over the bar and your body will follow.”
-Don’t let all of your excuses bottle up the purpose of God in your life! Get on with it! Do the will of God!
Mark 9:23 KJV Jesus said unto him, If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth.
Matthew 17:20 KJV If ye have faith . . . nothing shall be impossible unto you.
Matthew 9:29 KJV . . . According to your faith be it unto you.
C. When Life Happens. . . Prevail!
-If you were to divide all the people in history into halves, you would find that the people who did well with it were those who seemed most ill-equipped to do it.
• Jesus—Homeless, poor, and crucified.
• Helen Keller—Blind, deaf, and bitter.
• Willard James of Harvard struggled mightily with depression.
• Spurgeon struggled with depression.
-Despite those obstacles, they prevailed. Every person in the church has a calling to answer and it is crucial that they do so.
• Adversity does not mean you have sinned.
• Adversity does not mean you have wasted and squandered your opportunities.
• Adversity frequently comes to the lives of God’s best men.
• Adversity can expose us to who your real friends are.
• Adversity can develop gratitude and thankfulness toward God.
• Adversity has a multitude of blessings for us, if we can only see them.
-What the darker side of life would like to do to all of us is make us feel trapped. The darker side wants to corner us and make us feel as if there is no hope.
-When people are making a success of life and everything is going well, we have the tendency to think that we are well and are responsible for it. When life is going bad we tend to think that we are failures and that life is victimizing us.
-In all of this, there is a rhythm of life and it will be filled days of prosperity and days of difficulty. It is called life but those desperate places need not to cause us to give up.
-The reality is that we are most often productive in our places of desperation. Put Paul in a prison and notice what he writes to his Philippian brothers. Put him in a desperate place and he still knows he is free to do something about it.
-Stop being a fatalist. Get some faith in your heart. Stop reacting to life and start letting life respond to you!
-There is nothing like contagious faith. Others sense it when we prevail against the obstacles. Courage causes others to be courageous. The saints in Rome were losing heart but the faithfulness of Paul comes along and it is like a trumpet to them.
-There can be no depth in man until he has placed his faith, trust, and confidence in God. What that means is that there can be no depth of soul in a man until his life has been tested. If you are going to have a testimony, you will have to be tested.
The great general, Stonewall Jackson planned a daring attack. One of his men fearfully objected, saying, “I am afraid of this” or “I fear that. . .” Putting his hand on this subordinate’s shoulder, Jackson said, “General, never take counsel of your fears!”
-Fear will do its best to pull the life out of you!
Joshua 1:6 KJV Be strong and of a good courage: for unto this people shalt thou divide for an inheritance the land, which I sware unto their fathers to give them.
1 Samuel 4:9 KJV Be strong, and quit yourselves like men, O ye Philistines, that ye be not servants unto the Hebrews, as they have been to you: quit yourselves like men, and fight.
1 Chronicles 28:10 KJV Take heed now; for the LORD hath chosen thee to build an house for the sanctuary: be strong, and do it.
2 Chronicles 32:7-8 KJV Be strong and courageous, be not afraid nor dismayed for the king of Assyria, nor for all the multitude that is with him: for there be more with us than with him: [8] With him is an arm of flesh; but with us is the LORD our God to help us, and to fight our battles. And the people rested themselves upon the words of Hezekiah king of Judah.
D. Witness While You are Waiting
-There can be a great capacity to witness while you are waiting. That is what Paul did.
-He told his life story to the soldier who was guarding him. The next guard comes along and Paul repeats the story. The soldiers tell their families and their friends and before long, conversions are taking place.
-Then they give him a pen and he can write. . . “It has become notorious among all the Imperial guards, and everywhere, that it is for the sake of Christ that I am a prisoner; and the greater part of the brethren, made confident in the Lord through my imprisonment, now speak of God’s message, without fear, more boldly than ever.”
-You have a story to tell! It is a testimony of the power and deliverance of God. The things that happen to us make up our experience and God uses them to further the Gospel. It might be a desperate place but it is a place that God can use.
III. CONCLUSION—EXTINGUISHED CANDLES
Brother Bennie Demerchant tells the story of an incredibly desperate place in his book Full Throttle in the chapter called “Extinguished Candles.” The work in Brazil had been very productive with churches being established and converts being won. But in August 1976 he would face one of the darkest trials of his life.
He was invited to come and preach at a rally 165 miles east of Manaus and the only way to get there was by his seaplane. So on the afternoon of August 31, 1976, Brother Demerchant, Sister Margaret Calhoun, and a young preacher, Jose Cinque, boarded the plane to go to the rally.
About eight miles away from the city, a rain shower along with heavy winds, overtook them soon after takeoff. In the middle of that storm, the engine stalled and the plane plummeted toward a bay of water. The storm was whipping the winds into six-foot waves and down the plane bolted toward them. He managed to land upright but the storm surge caught one of the wings and cartwheeled the plane. The plane begins to sink with all of them trapped in the plane. Somehow Brother Demerchant made it to the back of the plane and punched out a window and swam to the surface. But Jose and Sister Margaret could not get out and drowned despite their efforts to get them to the surface.
Unable to free them, a boat from the shore managed to tow the plane to the shore. Brother Demerchant said that when they unloaded the bodies of this young man and young woman they had to lay them on a boat ramp until the police and fire department arrived. He said that it seemed like an eternity before they finally got there.
The next three days were difficult at best as he went through all the arrangements of taking care of Jose’s funeral and shipping the body of Margaret Calhoun back to the states. But during this time the media in Brazil had a field day. Some creative reporter wrote the crash had been on purpose for the sole reason of collecting insurance settlements. Others dreamed up other stories that were meant to totally destroy Brother Demerchant in Brazil.
He felt so betrayed because some of the prominent members of the community whom he had helped to fly many thousands of miles for medical reasons turned their backs on him. The loss of those two lives exhausted him and he could not sleep and discouragement shouted at him to give up and quit!
But in the early morning hours of September 3, he wept and prayed earnestly as he questioned God. “Why, why, why, Lord, would You allow this to happen when it seemed the future was so bright?” Suddenly a tall man in white appeared in the door of the room. He approached Brother Demerchant, turned sideways, and slightly bent his shoulders. He looked down at Brother Demerchant as he placed his hand on his shoulder.
“Have I not called you to this country to preach the Gospel? I am pilot-in-command of your life. Get up and go on with the work. I will bless you and the work as never before!” He turned and went out the door.
Brother Demerchant wrote that a calmness and relief came over him. A tremendous load had been lifted. He felt light on his feet and even giddy in believing what that man had told him. Fearlessness buoyed him. He knew that thousands had heard of the accident and were praying for them, but this incident engraved itself permanently in his mind.
-There is more to the story but needless to say, God always meets us in our desperate places and it will be for the ultimate glory of God!
Philip Harrelson
May 30, 2010
