One day, a cowboy was driving down a dirt road with his dog riding in back of the pickup truck and his faithful horse in the trailer behind. He failed to negotiate a curve and had a terrible accident.
Sometime later, a highway patrol officer came on the scene. As an animal lover, he saw the horse first. Realizing the serious nature of its injuries, he drew his service revolver and put the animal out of its misery.
Then he walked around the accident scene and found the dog, also hurt critically. He couldn’t bear to hear it whine in pain, so he ended the dog’s suffering as well.
Finally, he located the cowboy—who had suffered multiple fractures—off in the weeds. “Hey, are you okay?” the cop asked.
The cowboy took one look at the smoking revolver in the trooper’s hand and quickly replied, “Never felt better!” (Leadership, Vol.19, no.1)
Sometimes people say to one another, “Never felt better,” but inside they’re hurting real bad. These are hard times for a lot of people, but these are also times to look ahead with hope, because Jesus is coming again!
You may think times are bad now, but there was a group of believers in the 1st Century that had it a whole lot worse than we. They were going through so much trouble, they thought they were in the Tribulation; they thought they were in the great and terrible Day of the Lord; they thought they were experiencing the end of the age.
That’s when the Holy Spirit inspired the Apostle Paul to write some words of encouragement for those of us in any age, who are going through hard times. 1st of all, he assures us that we are NOT in the Tribulation. Then he gives us some practical advice on how to handle the hard times even when it feels like we ARE in the Great Tribulation itself.
If you have your Bibles, I invite you to turn with me to 2 Thessalonians 1, 2 Thessalonians 1, where we have God’s words of encouragement for hard times.
2 Thessalonians 1:1-5 Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy, To the church of the Thessalonians in God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. We ought always to give thanks to God for you, brothers, as is right, because your faith is growing abundantly, and the love of every one of you for one another is increasing. Therefore, we ourselves boast about you in the churches of God for your steadfastness and faith in all your persecutions and in the afflictions that you are enduring. This is evidence of the righteous judgment of God, that you may be considered worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you are also suffering… (ESV).
Their suffering made them better. It made them worthy subjects. It made them better citizens of God’s Kingdom. It caused them to grow in faith and in love.
Codfish are shipped all over the United States mostly from the northeastern part of the country. Public demand is so great for the codfish that at first it posed a problem for the shippers.
In the early days, they froze the cod before shipping it, but that took away much of the flavor.
Then they experimented with shipping the codfish live in tanks of seawater, but that proved even worse. It was more expensive. The cod still lost its flavor, AND it became soft and mushy. The texture of the meat was seriously affected.
Finally, somebody came up with a creative solution. They placed the codfish in a tank of seawater along with some catfish, their natural enemy. And from the time the codfish left the East Coast those ornery catfish chased them all over the tank until they arrived at their destination. When they got to market even on the West Coast, they were as fresh as the day they were first caught. There was no loss of flavor, nor was the texture affected. In fact, some said the codfish tasted better than before (Charles Swindoll).
Life is like that sometimes. You find yourself in a tank of inescapable circumstances. You may not be where you want to be. And to make matters worse, God has put some “catfish” in your tank. You feel like trouble is chasing you all over the place.
Tell me, does God do this just to make you miserable? No! Verse 5 talks about “the righteous judgment of God.” In other words, what God does is always right. God allows trouble in your tank to keep you alive, alert, fresh and growing. It is NOT his intention to destroy you. On the contrary, He wants to produce a Christ-like character in each and every one of you. And He wants you to arrive at your destination better than you ever were before.
So don’t let your troubles get you down. Instead, let God use them to bring you up.
GROW THROUGH THE PAIN.
Trust God to help you get better instead of bitter through the trial.
There once was an oyster whose story I tell,
Who found that sand had got under his shell,
Just one little grain, but it gave him much pain,
For oysters have feelings although they’re so plain.
Now, did he berate the working of Fate,
Which had led him to such a deplorable state?
Did he curse out the government, call for an election?
No; as he lay on the shelf he said to himself
“If I cannot remove it, I’ll try to improve it.”
So the years rolled by as the years always do,
And He came to his ultimate destiny – stew.
And this small grain of sand which had bothered him so,
Was a beautiful pearl, all richly aglow.
Now this tale has a moral – for isn’t it grand
What an oyster can do with a morsel of sand;
What couldn’t we do if we’d only begin
With all of the things that get under our skin (James S. Hewett, Illustrations Unlimited, p.19).
My friends, in those days when you feel like you’re in the Tribulation, trust God to help you GROW through the pain. Then…
KEEP ON GOING.
Go on with confidence that God will make all things right when Jesus comes again. Move forward with the assurance that God’s justice will be made plain at Christ’s second coming.
2 Thessalonians 1:6-7 …since indeed God considers it just to repay with affliction those who afflict you, and to grant relief to you who are afflicted as well as to us, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels… (ESV)
Those who trouble you will find trouble, and those of you who are troubled will find relief when Jesus comes again. Even though it seems that evil-doers so often triumph in these days, there is coming a day when God will punish the evil-doers, and they will not ultimately succeed.
2 Thessalonians 1:8-9 …in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might (ESV).
They will be “away” from God’s presence. That means they will be away from all that is good, for “every good and perfect gift” comes from God and God alone (James 1:17). But not only that, they will be punished with “eternal destruction” – or a better translation would be, “They will be punished with everlasting ruin.”
The Bible is not talking about total annihilation here. It is talking about eternal torment. Jesus Himself described hell as a place where “their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched” (Mark 9:48). Hell is a very real place, my friends.
Several years ago, Dr. Maurice Rawlings, a cardiologist at the University of Tennessee, wrote a book detailing the experiences of those who claimed to have near-death experiences. In the course of their emergency room work, he and his colleagues interviewed more than 300 such people.
Now, what made Rawlings' study distinct is that he conducted the interviews not months or years later, but immediately after the experiences had allegedly occurred. He talked to the patients while they were still shaken up in the immediacy of the moment before they had a chance to gloss over or to re-imagine what they had experienced.
Nearly 50 percent of them reported encountering images of fire, of tormented and tormenting creatures, and other sights coming from a place very different from heaven. In follow-up interviews, much later, many of these same people had changed their stories. Apparently, they were unwilling to admit to their families, and maybe even to themselves, that they had caught a glimpse of something like what the Bible calls hell.
Dr. Rawlings concludes, “Just listening to these patients has changed my life. There is a life after death, and if I don't know where I'm going, it is not safe to die” (Daniel Meyer, “The Light at the End of the Tunnel,” Preaching Today No. 238).
Tell me, friend, do you know where you’re going? You can if you put your trust in Jesus Christ as your Savior. You see, He died on a cross to take the punishment for your sins. Then he rose again three days later, and now He offers eternal life to anyone who believes in Him.
In John 5:24, Jesus said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment but has passed from death to life.”
I urge you, if you haven’t done it already, hear the Gospel and believe it right now. Trust Christ with your life and your eternal destiny. Then eternal life will be yours starting today! It’s not something you have to hope for in the future. Rather, it becomes a right-now, present reality for all who trust Christ.
And that allows you to live your life with confidence. You don’t have to fear condemnation ever again. In fact, you don’t have to fear even when wicked people try to put you down in this life. You don’t have to be afraid when evil-doers seem to triumph, because their day is coming. The Lord will punish them, vs.9 says. And those who believe in Jesus will be in awe of Him when He returns, but those who don’t believe will be gone.
There was once an atheist farmer who taunted the people in his small community who believed in God. He wrote a letter to the editor of the local newspaper, which said, “I plowed on Sunday, planted on Sunday, cultivated on Sunday, and hauled in my crops on Sunday; but I never went to church on Sunday. Yet I harvested more bushels per acre than anyone else, even those who believe in God and never miss a service.”
The editor printed the man’s letter and then added this remark: “God doesn’t always settle His accounts in October” (Bible Illustrator #1225, 11/1993.1).
God doesn’t usually settle his accounts right away, but one day He will, when Jesus comes again. So look forward to that day when God WILL punish the evil-doers, and look forward to that day when God will bring you relief.
Verse 7 says, “[God will] grant relief to you who are afflicted.”
That word, “relief,” in Bible days was used to describe the loosening of a bowstring. You see, sometimes God’s people get stretched very tight. They get pulled in every direction and find themselves under a lot of pressure from people in this world, but there is coming a day when the bowstring will be loosed. The pressure will be released and you will find relief forever.
More than that, Christ will ultimately be glorified in you, and you will marvel at His coming. You will be amazed and overwhelmed by how wonderful He is.
2 Thessalonians 1:10 …when he comes on that day to be glorified in his saints, and to be marveled at among all who have believed, because our testimony to you was believed (ESV).
Dear believing friend, look forward to that day, and it will help you live today. It will help you persevere through any pain.
One morning, a couple of cowpunchers went out on the range to bring in a wild steer from the mountains. They brought with them a burro—one of those shaggy, little, gray donkeys. Now, a big three-year-old steer that’s been running loose is tough to handle, but the cowboys knew what they were doing. They got a rope on that steer and tied him neck and neck, right up close, to the burro. Then the cowboys let them go.
At first, the burro had a bad time. The steer threw him all over the place. He banged him against trees, rocks, and into bushes. Time after time, they both went down. But there was one great difference between the burro and the steer. The burro wanted to go home. And no matter how often the steer threw him, every time the burro got to his feet, he took a step nearer the corral. This went on and on. After about a week, the burro showed up at the corral, and with him he had the tamest and sorriest-looking steer you ever did see (Bible Illustrator #491)
Sometimes we feel tied neck and neck, right up close, to our problems, but the thought of “home” keeps us going.
Jesus is coming again to take you home, so grow through the pain, and keep on going with confidence. Finally, when it feels like you are in the Great Tribulation…
GLOW WITH THE GLORY OF CHRIST.
Let Jesus shine through you. Glorify His name in all you do.
2 Thessalonians 1:11 To this end we always pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of his calling and may fulfill every resolve for good and every work of faith by his power (ESV).
Despite your trials, Paul prays for your success. Now, he does not pray for material success; rather, he prays for spiritual success. Specifically, he prays that God would fulfill (or complete) every good thing you set out to do and every work that your faith in Christ prompts you to do.
When you set out to please the Lord, then God Himself comes right beside you to finish the task through you. Why?
2 Thessalonians 1:12 …so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ (ESV).
You see, God desires to glorify His name through you. He wants to make Jesus shine in you, so that the world will marvel at His awesome majesty. But that can happen only as you depend upon His grace. When you depend on the Lord, He is glorified in your life. When you depend on the Lord, then Jesus shines through even in your pain.
Some time ago, a group of ladies in a Bible study were discussing a phrase in Malachi 3:3, which they found remarkable but a bit confusing. The verse starts out, “He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver,” and there were various opinions as to what that actually meant. Then one of the ladies proposed to visit a silversmith and report back what she found.
A few days later, she went to the silversmith’s shop without telling him her purpose and begged to know the process of refining silver. He described it to her fully. Then she asked him, “Sir, do you sit while the work of refining is going on?”
“Oh, yes,” replied the silversmith. “I must sit with my eye steadily fixed on the furnace, for if the time necessary for refining be exceeded in the slightest degree, the silver will be injured.”
The lady at once understood the meaning of the phrase, “He shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver.” God sometimes puts us into a furnace of pain to refine and purify us, but even then He never takes His eyes off of us. His wisdom and love knows exactly what we need, and He will not allow us to suffer one second more, lest we be injured.
As the lady was leaving the shop, the silversmith called her back, and said he had forgotten to mention how he knows when the process of purifying is complete. He said, “I know it when I see my own image reflected in the silver…” (Author Unknown; http://therefinersfire.org/refiners_fire.htm)
That’s what Christ is looking for in you when you’re in the fire. He waits to see His own image reflected in you, and He designs your furnace of pain not to injure you, but to help you more fully reflect His image.
So when it seems like you’re in the Tribulation itself, just remember three words: grow, go and glow. In your suffering, GROW up to maturity, GO on in confidence, and GLOW with the character of Christ. But don’t do it in your own strength. Instead, ask God to help you.
I like the way Dick Innes put it in a prayer published in Servant Magazine some time ago: Dear Lord, Please grant that I shall never waste my pain, for to fail without learning, to fall without getting up, to sin without overcoming, to be hurt without forgiving, to be discontent without improving, to be crushed without becoming more caring, to suffer without growing more sensitive, makes of suffering a senseless, futile exercise, a tragic loss, and of pain, the greatest waste of all (Dick Innes, Servant Magazine, Nov/Dec 1993, p.11). When you face trouble of any kind, don’t waste the pain. Instead, ask God to use it to make you more like Jesus.
