A Prescription for Spiritual Weakness (Hebrews 12:12-13) | Worship Service

Join us as we sing. Join us as we sing this morning,.

How Vast the Love. Let's hold that up a little bit.

Something has completely changed. Take this time and greet your neighbor. Check one.

Okay, I think we're ready. Here we go.

Praise, Thanksgiving, and the Opening Psalm

In Psalm 138, the psalmist says, I will give you thanks with all my heart. I will sing praises to you before the gods. I will worship toward your holy temple and give thanks to your name for your loving kindness and your truth.

For you have magnified your word according to all your name. On the day I called, you answered me. You made me bold with strength in my soul. All the kings of the earth, O Yahweh, will give you thanks when they hear the words of your mouth.

And they will sing the ways of Yahweh, for great is the glory of Yahweh. For Yahweh is high, yet he sees the lowly. But the one who exalts himself, he knows from afar. Though I walk in the midst of distress, you will revive me.

You will stretch forth your hand against the wrath of my enemies, and your right hand will save me. Yahweh will accomplish what concerns me. O Yahweh, your loving kindness endures forever. Do not fail the works of your hands.

We're going to sing a new psalm today called With Grateful Heart My Thanks I Bring, and it's through the familiar tune of the Solid Rock.

With grateful heart.

My thanks I bring.

Before the great your praise I sing.

I worship.

In your holy.

Place, and praise.

You for your.

Truth and grace. For truth and grace together shine.

When your most.

Holy word divine, when your most holy word divine, you did save the kings of Erdreth's word. Yea, they shall come with songs of praise. A couple of announcements for you this.

Morning before we turn in our Bibles to the book of Isaiah. First, last Friday, this last Friday, was our last night of Adventure Club for the year. We had 99 kids here that we were serving, which is our all-time high for the year.

And we are grateful that the Lord has blessed that ministry. There's obviously less than 99 kids here on a Sunday morning, so that means that we're having an impact and a ministry beyond the walls of our own congregation, which we're very grateful for.

And if you would like to help with this next year's Adventure Club, I would encourage you to talk to Dave or Diane Rich, either one of them. If you're wondering what the kids club ministry, Adventure Club ministry, is like, it's not a typical kids club where you just come together, you have a Bible story, and then you have fun and games and laughter and goof off.

There's plenty of fun and games there on a Friday night, otherwise we wouldn't have 99 kids joining us on Friday nights, but our goal is to catechize kids, so we take them through systematic theology over the course of three years, and we're taking them through all of the proper divisions of theology and teaching them systematic theology over that course of time, and every three years we just recycle and do that as long as they're in Adventure Club.

So it is a very worthwhile ministry of teaching kids the Word of God by teaching them systematic theology. Second, today is the last day for the conference sign-up if you want to get the free copy of the book God, Greed, and the Prosperity Gospel by Kosti Hinn.

He is our guest speaker for that first weekend in June, June 2nd and 3rd, and then he will be preaching here on June 4th as well. So you will get to meet him, and if you would like to be there for the conference that we're having, our equipping conference, make sure that you sign up and by the end of today would be good.

You can still sign up next week or even tomorrow, but we have to order books, so you will miss the opportunity to get a free copy of God, Greed, and the Prosperity Gospel. Will you please turn now in the Word of God to Isaiah chapter 35.

Isaiah chapter 35. I would just encourage you to read along with me thoughtfully because we're going to be returning to this passage. I won't be asking you to turn there, but during the message we're going to be returning to this passage as I read it to you.

We're going to begin reading in verse 16 of Isaiah 34, so just a couple of verses up above verse 35, beginning at verse 16. Seek from the book of the Lord and read. Not one of these will be missing. None will lack its mate, for his mouth has commanded and his spirit has gathered them.

He has cast the lot for them and his hand has divided it to them by line. They shall possess it forever. From generation to generation they will dwell in it. The wilderness and the desert will be glad and the Arabah will rejoice and blossom like the crocus that will blossom profusely and rejoice with rejoicing and shout of joy.

The glory of Lebanon will be given to it, the majesty of Carmel and Sharon. They will see the glory of the Lord, the majesty of our God. Encourage the exhausted and strengthen the feeble. Say to those with anxious heart, take courage, fear not.

Behold, your God will come with vengeance. The recompense of God will come, but he will save you. Then the eyes of the blind will be opened and the ears of the deaf will be unstopped. Then the lame will leap like a deer and the tongue of the mute will shout for joy.

For waters will break forth in the wilderness and streams in the Arabah. The scorched land will become a pool and the thirsty ground springs of water. In the haunt of jackals, it's resting place. Grass becomes reeds and rushes.

A highway will be there, a roadway, and it will be called the highway of holiness. The unclean will not travel on it, but it will be for him who walks that way and fools will not wander on it. No lion will be there, nor will any vicious beast go up on it.

These will not be found there, but the redeemed will walk there. And the ransomed of the Lord will return and come with joyful shouting to Zion with everlasting joy upon their heads. They will find gladness and joy and sorrow and sighing will flee away.

Will you stand with me as we pray? Our Father, you are such a great and merciful God. You have filled your word with promises of hope, with promises of grace and strength. You are the one upon whom our eyes and our minds and our hearts must focus so that we may find our joy in you, that we may have affection for you, that we may be satisfied and be at peace because of what you have done and because of who you are.

We thank you for your holiness, your righteousness, your great grace, your mercy. We thank you that you are a triune God who dwells in perfect unity, who has always existed in perfect harmony and love.

And we thank you that the abundance of your love has overflowed to us and that you have demonstrated that by calling us to yourself, by drawing us nigh unto Christ, by paying the price for our sin so that we may have forgiveness and redemption and righteousness and eternal life.

And then you have sealed us with the Spirit, granted us faith that we may believe, regenerated our hearts and our dead spirits so that we may commune with you. You have opened our eyes to the truth and you have regenerated our hearts and given us new life.

You have given us the righteousness of your Son. You have adopted us into your family. You have drawn us near. You have brought us near to yourself. And then you beckon us to come. And so we thank you for these graces and for these joys that are ours because of what Christ has done.

And we pray that you would abundantly bless us in our worship and in our understanding of your Word today that you would be honored and glorified through your Word in the hearts of your people. Help us, we pray, and strengthen us to give hearty affirmation to the truth of your Word and to express to you with loud voices and lifted hearts the praise which you are due for all your great works of deliverance and redemption and strengthening of your people.

Unite our hearts together today in our worship and through your truth, we pray in the name of Christ our King and all God's people said, Amen.

...says the Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God and of children also heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.

For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us. We're going to end our music service this morning and sing, Jesus I my cross have taken.

Jesus I my cross have.

Taken.

All to leave.

And fall.

Destitute despised.

Forsaken but I cherish every fall I saw.

You'll need your copy of God's Word open to Hebrews chapter 12. Hebrews chapter 12. We will turn to read that here in a moment but let's bow in prayer before we begin. Our Father it is with great expectation that we can come to you every time we open up your Word for we believe that you will speak to us in the pages of Scripture in our understanding of your Word that you will illumine our hearts and our minds.

We pray that you would sanctify us by the truth that you would strengthen us to apply every grace and every means of grace to our hearts in our walk and in our lives that we may pursue holiness and pursue you and enter into the joy that is ours in our fellowship with you.

We pray your blessing upon this time and strengthen a strength for us and open eyes and open hearts that you may be glorified in and through your people. We pray this in Christ's name.

Amen.

In almost any gathering of Christians of any size you're going to find mature and immature believers. You're going to find believers who have been Christians for a very short period of time and people who have been believers for longer periods of time.

In fact you're going to find people who have been Christians for a short period of time but have grown to a remarkable level of maturity and then you're going to find people who have been believers for a long period of time who have grown very slowly and acquired a very low level of maturity.

Some in any congregation are going to have a great degree of understanding and there are going to be those without that degree of understanding. Some are going to grow slowly and some will grow quickly.

Some will be in the midst of suffering and others will not be in the midst of suffering. You're going to have strong believers and weak believers and anyone who steps into a pulpit and teaches in any gathering of God's people has to be aware that there are all of those kinds of people gathered on a Sunday morning and I am certainly, I am certain I know for certain without a doubt that in this congregation of this size I have described probably everybody in here.

Because we have such a varied mix of people from different backgrounds and different stages and ages of life we are going to have inevitably some that are weak and to borrow the metaphor of Hebrews chapter 12 verses 12 and 13 we are going to have people with weak hands and feeble knees and limbs which are lame and those are metaphors for spiritual strength or better spiritual weakness.

Sometimes the weakness of certain believers is self-inflicted because of apathy or indifference, because of disobedience or pride, because they have neglected the means of grace, because of sin or sloth, because they make excuses or justifications they are spiritually weak and it seems like they inflict that condition upon themselves simply because they will not apply the means of grace and they will not walk in obedience and they just approach all of life, particularly their spiritual life with a degree of apathy and indifference.

Sometimes weakness is a result of a natural state in which they seem to be wired. For whatever reason there are people who are just constitutionally weaker than others. We'll get to that here in just a moment.

And sometimes spiritual weakness is due to a lack of sound teaching or discipleship. Some believers for whatever reason spend years of their life sitting under teaching that is vapid and shallow and benign.

It is absolutely banal and empty and devoid of any content utterly benighted. Pastors skip over briefly passages of scripture not allowing their people to even sit and gaze upon the text for any period of time before they're off onto the next hobby horse, the next series of the next topical tripe that they want to indulge in.

They haven't.

Fed their soul. They have neglected their duties as pastors and they neglect to feed the souls of their sheep and for whatever reason sitting in an environment like that seems to appeal to some Christians, maybe those who are born constitutionally or spiritually weak in the faith.

They just like that. They hunger after it. Others are led astray into those environments and those environments unfortunately, but inevitably foster a degree of spiritual weakness. After the discourse on discipline in Hebrews chapter 12 in verses 12 and 13, the author turns his attention to encourage the weak among that congregation.

Read with me verses 12 and 13. Therefore, strengthen the hands that are weak and the knees that are feeble and make straight paths for your feet so that the limb which is lame may not be put out of joint but rather be healed.

There is in this passage from verse 12 all the way down to the end of verse 17, there is here encouragement to these brand new believers in the faith. Some of them were weak. Some of them were strong.

Some of them were tempted to go back to their old paths of life, but now they have come into the Christian faith. They are enduring hostility and reproach from their neighbors. They have suffered the loss of things.

Their property has been seized. They have accepted this joyfully. The author is honest about their afflictions back in chapter 10 where he describes them at the end of chapter 10. And now the author turns in chapter 12 to remind them that the afflictions and hostilities that have come upon them, these are in fact God's methods of training his children, disciplining them and cultivating in them the very things that are necessary for their spiritual strength.

And now we get to the end of this passage on discipline after verse 11 and the author listen carefully, though he is changing his focus, he is not abandoning his previous subject. Now you're thinking to yourself, Jim, you promised us last week or the week before that we were going to be off the subject of discipline soon and we are actually off the explanation of discipline but now we get to verses 12 through verse 17 and the author begins to give us some practical exhortations of things we ought to do in order to make right use of the discipline that God brings into our lives.

So you see in chapter 10 he tells them that they are facing hostilities. In chapter 11 he gives to them examples of heroes of the faith who also endured hostilities and he reminds them it is by faith that you too will endure the hostilities of this world as you look forward to the reward that is to come.

Then in chapter 12, 1 through 3 he says you are to run this race with endurance in the midst of the hostilities understanding that the trials and the difficulties that come into your life are in fact God's moral formation.

They are part of God's plan for you. He is making you fruitful and strong through the discipline, through the difficulties and he explains to us the purpose of this discipline. That it is preparing us for the world to come.

It is shaping us and making us fruitful for God's purposes. He says that we are to endure this and we must be strong and run a straight race. But now in verses 12 through 17 the author gives a series of commands or imperatives.

Exhortations to you and I of things we ought to be doing, ought to be remembering, ought to be disciplining ourselves with so that we will make good use of the discipline that God brings into our lives.

In verse 12, there are in verses 12 through 17 five imperatives or I should say commands. One of them is actually a participle that functions as an imperative but there are five commands in the passage.

Let your eyes wander over them as we read them. Verse 12, therefore strengthen the hands that are weak and the knees that are feeble. Strengthen is the first imperative. In verse 13, make straight. That's the command.

Make straight paths for your feet so that the limb which is lame may not be put out of joint but rather be healed. The third command is verse 14. Pursue peace with all men and the sanctification without which no one will see the Lord.

Verse 15 is the fourth command. Seeing to it, that's the participle that kind of functions as a command, seeing to it that no one comes short of the grace of God, that no root of bitterness springing up causes trouble and by it many be defiled.

That there be no immoral or godless person like Esau who sold his own birthright for a single meal. And then verse 7, for you know that is you are to know that even afterwards, that is Esau, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected for he found no place for repentance though he sought for it with tears.

Those are the five commands. Strengthen, make straight, pursue, see to it, and know in verse 17 is the last of them. Now each of these is addressed to our response to the sufferings of this life. Keep this in mind, we're not changing radically a focus.

The author is addressing to us how it is that we are to address the sufferings of our lives. The affliction that comes into our life which is God's discipline. In verses 12 and 13 we must strengthen our weaknesses and walk straight paths.

In verse 14 we are to pursue holiness and peacefulness, peace with all men. In verse 15 we are to mortify the bitterness that defiles us and others. You recognize that bitterness is one of the possible responses to suffering, right?

Affliction? That you could grow bitter? That's why the author brings that up in verse 15. And in verses 16 and 17 we are to guard against the fleshly lusts that rob us of the spiritual fruit. Like Esau who was a godless and immoral person, Esau was driven by his lusts, driven by his passions, and he would rather satiate his immediate and temporal desire as appetite rather than endure and receive a much greater reward.

Esau was the type of man who would exchange a long-term benefit for a short-term reprieve. And the author is warning us, don't be like Esau and think that you should be willing or could be willing to trade the long-term reward for some short-term reprieve from your suffering or your affliction.

So each of these addresses real dangers that we face. The danger in verse 12, and again I'm just giving you another outline, I'm actually giving you three outlines here for the passage as we've gone through it now three times.

In verse 12, the danger that we face is that we would give out in weakness and not endure. In verse 13, the danger that we face is that we would trip and stumble and fall out of the race. In verse 14, the danger that we face is that we would miss the benefit of sanctification and trials.

Why would you be struck and not profit from it? You don't want to do that. Don't let the discipline be in vain. At least benefit from it in some measure. That's verse 14. Verse 15, there's the danger that we would become bitter by our afflictions and defile others.

And then in verses 16 and 17, there is the danger that we would trade our eternal blessings for temporal reprieve. These exhortations are widely applicable. They're applicable at all times. So listen, if you are in your Christian life and you're about ready to go into discipline.

You're before discipline. You're not in suffering right now. There's no hostility in your life. There's no difficult times. Everything for you is smooth sailing and nothing but blessings. This is applicable to you.

Difficulty and afflictions and suffering are coming. I don't know when. I can't predict that. But they are coming. Therefore, you should strengthen yourself and prepare yourself and know certain things and already fix in your heart and your mind how you will use those sufferings for your own benefit and for the glory of Christ.

If you are in the midst of discipline, enduring the affliction, then here's the counsel to you. Strengthen yourself. Strengthen the hands that are weak. And make good use of others in your lives who will strengthen your hands that are weak.

And if you're on the other side of difficulty and affliction and you're not in the current time suffering, I have some good news and some bad news for you. Suffering is coming. So if you're on the other side of suffering, there is more affliction that is yet to come.

So strengthen your hands that are weak and your knees that are feeble and make straight paths for your feet. This is applicable no matter where you are at in the suffering and affliction spectrum. It's also applicable not just to us as individuals, but also to all of us as the body of Christ.

What is my responsibility as an individual in the midst of suffering before suffering and after suffering? It's to strengthen the hands that are weak and to make strong and straight paths for my feet.

What is our body, the body of Christ, what is their responsibility corporately toward those who are suffering affliction and who are weak? We need to strengthen the weak and the feeble knees and we need to make straight paths for their feet.

See, this is applicable individually. It is applicable corporately as a body. It's also applicable in a number of different ways. You see, I must address these things in myself and you must address these things in yourself and then we also must be aware of how we can help others address those things in their lives, come alongside them, and help them in this struggle.

So, our text today is verses 12 and 13. Correction, our text today is verse 12. You're going to notice two commands in our passage in this sentence, a command in verse 12 and a command in verse 13. The command in verse 12 is to strengthen something, strengthen the hands that are weak and the knees that are feeble.

The command in verse 13 is to make straight paths for your feet. So we have something to strengthen and something to straighten.

Now.

That is the makings for a great preaching outline. Something to strengthen and something to straighten. And it just gets better. What we are to strengthen is our weaknesses and what we are to straighten is our ways, our paths.

So we make strong those things that are weak, our weaknesses and then we make straight paths for our feet. So let's look first of all well, let's just look at we must strengthen our weaknesses, verse 12.

Not first of all, because first of all implies there's going to be a second of all. And you know me well enough to know that I'm not going to waste a good outline like that on one Sunday. I'm going to stretch it out over two.

So we must strengthen our weaknesses, verse 12. Notice what is weak in the passage. The hands that are weak, the knees that are feeble. Verse 13 he mentions feet and limb. These are parts of a body. They are obviously metaphors for elements of our lives that get weak and feeble and lame.

And I don't think that the author's intention here is for us to say hands represent work and feet represent this and limbs represent that and etc. He doesn't intend for us to take this allegory and try and flesh out every element of the metaphor.

He is in fact returning back to the metaphor that he began this chapter with which was running. What do you need in order to run well? You need hands, you need feet, you need knees, and you need limbs.

Correct? You need all of those things. So he is returning back to the athletic metaphor that he started in verses 1 -3. He's coming back full circle to that because all of these elements that he mentions are weak are things necessary for running a good race.

If you just think in terms of the athletic contest, hands must be strong and those hands must be strong and arms must be strong because central to a runner's ability to run is the ability to use his hands well in timing with the rest of his body.

No runner can run the 40 yard dash in 5 or 6 seconds with his hands at his side hanging down. You have to get the hands in motion so the hands have to be strong, the feet have to be strong, the knees cannot be feeble, they have to be strong.

So in order to run our race well or walk out our Christian life and persevere to the very end, we have to be strong in certain areas and in suffering and enduring affliction.

Well, weakness.

Is the result not only of the afflictions but also sometimes of our makeup. We have to be aware of what causes us to be weak. The arms and the feet and the knees all must be strong to run well and in fact these are the very things that he identifies were weak in them.

And again, it is a metaphor for spiritual weakness that he is describing. If a runner is weak in these areas, he cannot run well. He will never finish his race and he will fall out of the way. Notice the description, therefore strengthen the hands that are weak.

There are two very interesting words there, the word weak and the word feeble. Hands that are weak, that word weak that the author uses there is a word that is translated weak here but it means weakened or it means to fall to the side or to fall off the side.

It was used of something that would slip off the side or fall off or drop beside something else. It was used figuratively to describe avoiding work. We talk about something that sort of falls away, sort of falls off to the side.

You keep moving it to the back burner and then to another back burner and pretty soon it just falls off the stove entirely and it's kind of your way of avoiding doing certain tasks. That's sort of the word that is used here.

It means at the side or dropping beside or hanging down. It literally means you're drooping hands. Hands so weak that they hang down. Like a boxer who if you ever watch a boxing match that goes on for 9, 10, 11, 12 rounds, you see those boxers that put their hands it comes to a point where they have a hard time even lifting their hands up to compete anymore.

Same thing with a runner. You can get so weak that your hands just hang down at the side and it pictures somebody who has gone on so long and so hard and given their everything that now they've reached a point of utter exhaustion and they can't even lift their arms up and run like they should with their hands.

The strength is gone because they let them hang down. The ESV translates this phrase lift up your drooping hands. The New King James strengthened the hands which hang down. They've fallen down to the side and they're that weak.

And the person so weak isn't even willing to lift up their arms again. The word that is used to describe the knees here is the word feeble. Paraloo-o is the word. You can hear our word paralysis or paralyzed in there.

Paraloo-o. It describes being weakened or tottering. It is difficult to run a race with paralyzed knees isn't it? Sometimes, for those of you who know our friend Justin Peters, who's been here before sometimes he'll say to me when we're at an event or something, he'll say I'm just going to go run and do this.

I'll look at him and say, come on now. I've seen you walk. I know you're not running anywhere. And he enjoys that kind of repertoire back and forth. But it is very difficult to run if your knees are paralyzed.

If they're loosened and if your arms are hanging down at the side. So this describes somebody who has reached a point of spiritual weakness. Somebody who is in the race. We're not talking about unbelievers here.

We're talking about people in the race but they have been weakened to a point where they're not able to run well. If at all. It's a metaphor for spiritual weakness. Now what causes this condition? Some people are born, as I said earlier, born spiritually weak.

Constitutionally weak. And I don't mean that they have a weak understanding of the Constitution. I mean that they are born.

Constitutionally weak.

That is their makeup. Some people are wired.

Weakly.

They're spiritually born that way.

Just as you have.

Babies that are born brawny and babies that are born scrawny. And it's the grace of God that those two words rhyme. So you have people born into the kingdom of God who seem almost instantly spiritually strong.

They have a grasp of truth and discernment and a theological understanding and an ability and a willingness to pursue Christ passionately and quickly and they grow quickly. They seem spiritually robust right out of the spiritual womb as it were.

They're ready to go. They're strong. They're strengthened. They're wise beyond their years. Seems like you can just give them things and they're able to handle them and adapt quickly and grow quickly.

And other people are born spiritually scrawny. They're weak and their limbs are just flesh, skin over bones and it seems as if they're never able to strengthen themselves. They're never able to grow strong in the faith.

And you can come along those people and try and help them in their condition and their situation but it's always a difficulty. It's always a challenge. To describe this person, I'm just going to quote to you Charles Spurgeon because I cannot describe this condition or situation any better than he can.

Spurgeon said this and this is a more extended quote but it's worth your time. ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...

Sound of which they go off instantly. Let some divine discover a novel doctrine and they're on a new track at once, never thinking where it will lead them. Let a would-be philosopher suggest some fresh theory which clashes with the word of God and the things of the Spirit, and their eager appetite is whetted, and they will leave the old fields of truth to wander in the barren wastes of science falsely so-called.".

It just describes some people. Now, I don't think that that kind of weakness is what the author is describing here primarily. He said, then, Jim, why would you spend this much time talking about this?

Because I think that we need to be aware that some people have this tendency to be weak and the remedy is the same. For those who are made weak by discipline and those who just seem to be born spiritually weak and struggle to ever become strong, the remedy is exactly the same.

These people who are born this way, they're not weary from the battle, they're weary from the beginning. It's a good way to remember it. There are people who are weary from the battle and there are people who are just weary from the beginning.

Now, we need to be careful with each kind. We need to be gentle with each kind. The prescription is the same. We need to understand that some people can be very strong at times and very weak at others.

And by the way, weakness is not a virtue. It's actually a weakness. Spiritual weakness is not a virtue. There are people who approach their spiritual weakness as if it is a virtue and they will use it as an excuse, their apathy, their indifference, their laziness, their lack of service, their lack of diligence and discipline, and they just simply say, well, that's just me.

That's just how I'm wired. That's just how I am. That's using it as an excuse. Your weakness is not a virtue. If you know this about yourself, address it. Correct it. You say, this area is my weakness.

All right, then attack that and get strong in that area and don't let it ever be an excuse for apathy and indifference. First Corinthians 16 .13, Paul said to the Corinthian church, I love this verse, be on the alert, stand firm in the faith, act like men.

Be strong. Now, I wasn't suggesting that the Corinthians, that the Corinthian women cut their hair and put on pants and start speaking in a deep voice and taking on the outward characteristics of men, but the Apostle Paul was saying that there are certain virtues that men, by nature of their constitution, seem to have in greater abundance and more regularly than women.

Can I say that without being accused of being sexist in our age? That there are certain things that men have by nature of their nature, they just have them because that is what they are by nature, a fortitude, a courage, an aggression, a natural strength.

And he is saying that these things, spiritually speaking, if you are in the Corinthian congregation, act like men. Be courageous, have fortitude, address your weaknesses, be aggressive, grow up and act like men.

Not act like young men, not act like children, but act like men. In other words, pursue maturity and be strong. So if you have this weakness, if it's constitutional or if it is the result of the battle that you're in, that's some good counsel.

Be on the alert, stand firm in the faith, act like men and be strong. Address the weakness. Now there are some, this is the second cause of spiritual weakness, there are some who are made weak by trials, tribulations and afflictions, and especially protracted trials.

The afflictions that go on for a long period of time become increasingly difficult to navigate and to deal with. That is a reality. And those prolonged difficulties have a way of taxing us and sapping our strength and draining us of our vitality.

They tempt us to despair, they distract our focus and they exhaust our resolve. And somebody who has endured afflictions for a long period of time, even though they may have started out spiritually strong, can become spiritually weak just as a result of being in the battle.