"god Won’t Give You More Than You Can Handle" Series

Last week we began a series entitled: “THE BIBLE DOESN’T SAY THAT”, looking at some popular

sayings that many BELIEVE are found in the Bible, but are not.

1. The first one we studied last week was: “God wants me to be happy.” (If you missed that lesson, you can listen to it in the sermon archive on the GCC website.)

2. Although these sayings sound GOOD and BENEFICIAL, in reality they can be HARMFUL, especially

when they are attributed to God.

ILLUSTRATION:

Before we get into today’s lesson, let me ASK you a QUESTION. How many of you know who Nicholas Sparks is? He is an author of several ROMANCE NOVELS that are made into MOVIES that sell a lot of KLEENEX. Such as: “The Longest Ride.” “Dear John.” “The Last Song.” And,

probably the most popular of all: “The Notebook.”

In my generation, Erich Segal was that author. His most famous book that was made into a box-office hit was LOVE STORY. …It came out 50 years ago this year during the Christmas season of

1970. If you were going to take your DATE to any movie, LOVE STORY was that MOVIE.

The movie starred Ali MacGraw and Ryan O’Neil whose characters were two good looking college kids who meet early in the movie. He is a young BRASH JOCK and she is a SARCASTIC

INTELLECTUAL, and they instantly HATE each other.

The first hour of the MOVIE is COMEDY as you watch these two college kids move from HATING each other to gradually FALLING in LOVE. Then there is about 5 minutes of SHARED HAPPINESS, followed by 40 minutes of TRAGEDY where Ali MacGraw’s CHARACTER gets

LEUKEMIA and eventually DIES. (SORRY IF I SPOILED THE MOVIE.)

In one of the last scenes as she lies in a HOSPITAL BED dying, he expresses deep REGRET. And then she says a LINE that became the most POPULAR SAYING of the 70’s. Can someone tell

me what it is? “LOVE MEANS NEVER HAVING TO SAY YOU’RE SORRY.” Ahhhhhhhh!

COMMENT:

That is a DUMB THING to say! If you’ve done something WRONG to your WIFE or HUSBAND or KIDS, or whomever, you better say you’re “SORRY” or you’re going to be having some real PROBLEMS in that RELATIONSHIP.

B. This brings me to today’s SAYING that many believe is found in the BIBLE: “God won’t give you more

than you can handle.”

1. This is a saying most often used in an ATTEMPT to bring COMFORT to someone who is going through

a TOUGH TIME.

a. But instead of bringing COMFORT, it usually creates greater HEARTACHE.

ILLUSTRATION:

There is a photograph of my daughter Carissa sitting up in a hospital bed holding her BABY BOY, our GRANDSON, before her that she had CARRIED for 8½ months who was STILL-BORN.

You can see the indescribable PAIN in her face—the PAIN of a mother who had everything READY in PREPARATION for her BABY BOY to come into this WORLD and be DEEPLY LOVED

and CARED FOR by his MOTHER, only to be holding the LIFELESS body of her SON.

Do you think the WORDS: “Remember Carissa, God won’t give you more than you can handle”, would have brought her any COMFORT? Or would she have said something like, “Who does God think I am to take my BABY BOY from me just to let me know that I can handle it!”

b. Job said to his so-called friends who came to “COMFORT” him after losing everything that he had, including his children: “I have heard many things like these; miserable comforters are you all!”-

Job 16:2.

2. No, the Bible does not say that “GOD WON’T GIVE YOU MORE THAN YOU CAN HANDLE.”

COMMENT:

Before we get into PASSAGE from where this SAYING has been incorrectly DERIVED, I want to ANALYZE why THE BIBLE DOESN’T SAY THAT.

MESSAGE:

I. WHY IS THIS SAYING UNBIBLICAL?

A. Saying that “God won’t give you more than you can handle,” implicates God as the one administering

TRAGEDY in our lives.

1. James 1:17a- “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father…”

a. Every good and perfect gift that we enjoy comes from God.

COMMENT:

I don’t know about you, but if God is RESPONSIBLE for the TRAGEDIES in my life, the DIFFICULTIES I have faced, the LOVED ONES I have lost, the HURTS that I have experienced,

then I wouldn’t call that a very GOOD GIFT.

I have never had one of those GIFTS on my Christmas LIST. At no time have I said, “For Christmas this year, I would like to LOSE a child in a CAR WRECK. Or to have my HOUSE

BURN DOWN. Or to CONTRACT a TERMINAL DISEASE.”

b. Do you really believe the Bible teaches that God our Heavenly Father heaps one TRAGEDY