Disclaimer:
Due to the large amount of sermons and topics that appear on this site I feel it is necessary to post this disclaimer on all sermons posted. These sermons are original to the author and the leading of the Holy Spirit. While ideas and illustrations are often gleaned from many sources including those at Sermoncentral.com, any similarities and wording including sermon title, that may appear to be the same as any other sermon are purely coincidental. In instances where other minister’s wording is used, due recognition will be given. These sermons are not copyrighted and may be used or preached freely. May God richly bless you as you read these words. It is my sincere desire that all who read them may be enriched. All scriptures quoted in these sermons are copies and quoted from the Authorized King James Version of the Holy Bible.
Pastor James May
DON’T THROW IT ALL AWAY!
Hebrews 10:35-39, "Cast not away therefore your confidence, which hath great recompense of reward. For ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise. For yet a little while, and he that shall come will come, and will not tarry. Now the just shall live by faith: but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him. But we are not of them who draw back unto perdition; but of them that believe to the saving of the soul."
Do you really believe that God will do what he has promised?
Do you really believe that God is faithful?
At what point will you give up on God?
When will the troubles and trials of life, the sicknesses, the pain, etc., cause us to give up?
What can Satan bring into you life that will destroy your trust in God’s power to deliver? …to heal?…to save your soul? … to preserve your family?… to supply your every need?
Too many people are throwing away their eternal inheritance because Satan is bringing doubts into their minds concerning God’s ability to fulfill his promises.
The reward of continuing with God far outweighs the alternative that Satan offers yet so many decide that Satan’s reward is greater – because its easier to give up than to keep fighting.
We need patience! What brings that patience? What builds your faith? How is your trust made greater in God? IT ONLY COMES THROUGH THE HARD TIMES AND THE TROUBLES, NO OTHER WAY!
Have you served the Lord and wondered, “Why does this have to happen? Why does that have to happen?”
...sickness
…financial difficulty
…family crisis
…spiritual weakness
Sometimes we reap these problems because we sow the seed that makes them come up, but not always. Sometimes they come simply because it’s time for a test of our faith.
You can’t stop those things from coming – they are coming!
It’s not what happens that will matter but how will you react to what happens!
Will you grow through it or turn back?
It’s fine to question, why – but be ready to accept the answer when it comes and you may not always like the answer that God gives but remember, he is sovereign and he knows what’s best even when we are convinced that we know better.
Remember this, the reward, the fulfillment of God’s promise, shall be waiting after the trial is over but if we are ever going to receive the reward, we must remain faithful to the end.
Sometimes it seems that the trials are more than we can bear. Sometimes they even cause us to question God. Sometimes they will bring us to the very brink of disaster in our spirituality because they even cause us to wonder if there is any such thing as a real God, in a real Heaven, with real power and that really cares about what I am facing and what’s happening in my family right here and now?
Is this some God, sitting in his throne, who doesn’t care about the small details like whether my bills are paid, my child is healed, my needs are met. Is he a too big to care about the small things?
Is this some God who only controls governments and nations while allowing the lesser things of individual needs to go unnoticed?
Which of us has not had some of these same thoughts from time to time?
Oh yes, we begin the battle with a lot of faith and trust. We are like Peter who faced Jesus at the Last Supper and promised upon his life that he would never deny Christ and yet found himself doing just that within only a few hours.
Why would Peter deny Jesus? What happened to Peter’s great faith and his great strength? Little by little doubts come in. Little by little the trials get worse, until there comes a point in every test and trial where we will have to make our decision whether to really trust God or turn and run.
Peter denied Jesus because the battle became too hot for him. His faith wavered!
Was this really the Son of God who would allow men to treat him so badly?
Was this really the Messiah, the deliverer who was giving himself to death?
Can I really put my trust in a god who won’t even protect his only Son from the powers of hell?
If Jesus won’t deliver himself, and the Father won’t even save his own Son, why should he even think about someone like me?
God has promised that he would never leave us nor forsake us so why is it that we often feel that God is a million miles from me and not in my heart. Why is it that we can’t seem to touch Heaven and our cries and prayers seem to just fall from our lips to the ground at our own feet and never reach the ears of God?
I want you to know that God even hears those words that hit the ground! He hears those words that don’t even seem to have the power behind them to cross our lips. God knows your thoughts and your reasons and he is allowing the trial to continue only long enough to see whether you will trust him and continue or throw in the towel and cry “Uncle” to the devil’s wares.
God has already placed a limit on your test before it began. Just as he did with Job, God allows the trial to go so far and no more.
1 Corinthians 10:13, "There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it."
When the limit of your ability to survive the test is reached, or when your faith and trust overcome the power of that test to destroy you, God comes quickly to put an end to the trial. The scripture says, “…he will come (quickly) and will not tarry.”
It’s the same way we react when we parents are having to watch over our children and see them going through hard times. We hold back, watch and desire to help but we know that they will never learn unless they face those times and overcome them. It’s only when we see them losing, see them giving up, see them going under for the third time, that we suddenly jump up and run to their rescue.
That’s how God is for his children. At the point when God sees us reach our limit, he rises quickly and flies to our rescue. He will not allow Satan to destroy us. He will not allow us to fall! He not only cares but he has the power to overcome anything that faces us, no matter how hopeless it may seem to us.
Don’t you think it hurts God when he has to watch his kids hurt? Does his inaction to stop the pain mean that he loves us and cares for us any less? NO!
When you take a child to the doctor and that doctor has to administer a hypodermic needle to that child, it hurts us to have to allow it to happen. When our children are sick we hurt for them and we only wish we could take the pain for them! What makes us think that God feels any less for what we are facing?
It is easier to give your own body to the sickness than to watch your children be sick. It would be far less painful to take the shot for your children than to have to hold them down while they scream at taking the shot.
I can remember when my own daughter was involved in an auto accident and I had to literally hold her down while they shot her face with Novocain and starting sewing in over 140 stitches, then held her down again as they did the same thing to her leg and drilled into the side with an auger type bit to install a splint in her broken leg. It would have been far easier to have taken her place than to stand there and listen at her scream in pain and beg for me to let her go, but the pain had to be endured and the suffering could not be removed because I could not do it for her. The only thing I could do for her was pray and be strong enough and loving enough to hold her down so that the necessary work could be done.
So we will not forget God’s great love just remember this – God didn’t feel any less about his own Son and he doesn’t love us any less either. God painfully, tearfully, angrily, and lovingly gave his only begotten Son just so we could experience deliverance and salvation. What a loving, merciful God our Father in Heaven is!
Why does sickness sometimes come, and sometimes stay for a while? Why do trials and tests come?
“…Now the just shall live by faith: but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him.”
My daughter and your children will only survive if we place our faith in God’s ability to heal and deliver. God may choose to use the limited knowledge and skills of the plastic surgeons, the pediatricians or nurses, and thank God for even that limited knowledge. Or, God may choose to use his supernatural, miracle working power to deliver. The choice is his and we can’t question his choice because he has reasons that are far above our understanding. BUT IT ALL HAS AN ULTIMATE PURPOSE MEANT FOR OUR OWN GOOD!
So, are we going to trust him to bring us to the end in victory – or will we take matters into our own hands because we don’t trust him?
Are we going to continue on in faithfulness or turn away and blame God for failing us?
Are we going to believe God to fulfill his promises and bring the growth of our faith and patience in his own time and in his own way or will we fail the test and be destined to repeat the grade all over again?
No one can cheat on these exams. No one can shortcut God’s lifelong lesson plans. No one can re-write the test to make it easier.
God’s tests come in many forms:
Fill in the Blanks – that allow us to write in our own actions and reactions, which, in turn determine how the rest of the test will go.
Multiple Choice – where we face the confusing task of determining which move to make, which path to take and what answer is right and wrong and they often appear to be too close to call.
True or False – questions arise as to what is ethical, right and good and what is not and only the discernment of the Holy Spirit within can reveal the right answer.
The good thing is that all of God’s tests are Open Book Tests. The bad thing is that most people won’t search the Book for the answers. They would rather cheat and run to a Pastor, a neighbor, a friend or a brother or sister in the church than go to the Word of God for the answer. God’s Book contains the answers to your tests, not me or anyone else. We can only give you the same answer that God’s Book gives, so look there first and save yourself some heartache.
Another problem is that most people you go to for answers haven’t checked the Book either and their answers are often wrong because they make them up out of their own limited knowledge and understanding.
The Book contains the answers. Read it. Ask God to reveal it to you in His Word. You will be amazed at what God can show you in his Living Word.
God gets so much satisfaction and so much pleasure out of his children who come to him and remain faithful through every circumstance and trial. These are the Children of God who are moving up in the realm of the Spirit as they go from mountain top to mountain top. They don’t spend a lot of time in the valley even though they go through them like everyone else. Their trials are just as hard, and maybe even harder, than anyone else’s but they don’t seem to keep them down because their faith and trust in God doesn’t waver and God just keeps lifting them higher.
None of us enjoy being around rowdy, untrained and rebellious children who are out of control. Sometimes you just want to take them aside and just apply the “Board of Education” to the “Seat of Knowledge”. Oh but don’t you enjoy those who are model kids, when you can find them. They are a joy to everyone and that’s the way obedient and faithful Christians are to their Heavenly Father.
That’s the kind of kids we need to be to our God. Faithful in every trial. Trusting in every test. Obedient in every circumstance. That’s the only way to pass God’s tests.
We don’t want to throw away God’s blessings! We don’t want to cast aside our faith or our confidence and trust in God. We don’t want to fail any of God’s tests. So we must continue on in complete faith, knowing that somehow, no matter how it may seem right now, God has it all under control and we will come out on the other end of this trial with a great victory. We will be wiser, more patient and stronger in our faith if we just keep on being faithful right now.
That’s what “living by faith” is all about. Don’t throw it all away! Just hang on and watch God move. The test will soon be over and you will be glad that you didn’t quit!
