A Test of Strength” – FBC Morning Light (9/28/2023)

Well, a good Thursday morning to you. Today we're reading in Isaiah chapters 63 and 4, 1

Timothy 4, and Proverbs 24. We've been looking at some verses in Proverbs this week, and I want to continue that today, actually, and look particularly at verse 10.

I remember when I was in college, where I went to school, the academic classrooms had these little sayings above the chalkboards.

That tells you how long ago it was when I was in school, chalkboards. Up above these chalkboards, there were these sayings that were little aphorisms made by the founder of the university.

One of them that stands out, as I read through Proverbs 24, and then especially landed on verse 10, was this saying.

He said this, the test of a man's character is what it takes to stop him.

Ever think about that? The test of a man's character is what it takes to stop him.

A good biblical basis for that statement and that observation is what we read in Proverbs 24 .10.

It says this, if you faint in the day of adversity, your strength is small.

What does it take to get a person to quit? Some people, not very much. Now, there is a point where quitting is the right thing to do.

For example, this past summer, my sister and I had planned to do a through hike of the

Vermont Long Trail. It's a 273 -mile hiking trail.

We were going to backpack it, had all the plans set, got everything set up.

We were going to do it. We were there. We got started on it. The very first day was a tough day.

We had a difficult climb to get to the trail, to start the trail. Then several miles and some more elevation gained to get to the first shelter of the night.

Ran into a little bit of rain along the way. The second day, we headed out and we somehow got off the trail.

We missed a turn that we were supposed to make and ended up a mile down the wrong trail and had to turn around and come back up.

Then ended up getting at the shelter that we didn't want to get to. We had to stop earlier. Then another day, we're climbing down.

We're going down a descent, a very steep descent. It was very rocky.

I don't mean stones. I mean rocks. My sister slipped.

When she did, she broke her hiking pole. That was an absolutely vital piece of equipment for this trip.

We actually had to get off the trail, go to town, get new hiking poles, but we got back on the trail.

I don't know if you followed it or not, but this summer in the month of July, Vermont had some of the heaviest rains it's had in history.

This one particular night, we got eight inches of rain overnight. There were flash floods.

There came a point where what was once a little brook that you could simply step across, walk across, was literally a raging torrent.

There was no way to get across it. It would have been certain death if we had stepped foot in that raging torrent.

It was not even possible. We had to turn around and back to a shelter. We keep meeting one obstacle, one difficulty after another.

There were a couple of times when I felt like just throwing my hands up in the air and quitting.

But we carried on. We trudged on. We kept on. We kept on until that last night when we met up against that raging brook and we couldn't get across.

The flash floods from the night before resulted in washouts in many parts of the trail.

The Green Mountain Club that manages that trail sent out a notice and asked all the people who were hiking to get off the trail and stay off the trail until a further assessment could be made and any repairs made and so forth.

Well, by the time we did that, we complied willingly.

I was not interested in losing my life. So we willingly complied, and then

I'm looking at the schedule and realize there's no way we can make up the time. So we ended up calling it quits.

Well, there comes a point where the adversity is significant enough that you get the message that you should not go on.

What Proverbs 24 .10 is talking about is the person who is inclined, as soon as they meet some measure of adversity, to just quit, because they can't handle adversity.

If you faint in a day of adversity, your strength is small. Now think about that, for example, in today's higher education climate.

Have you seen these cases where a conservative speaker goes to a secular college campus, and because he's conservative, his opinion is in a minority opinion on that campus, and the place where he's scheduled to give a speech gets attacked, it gets assaulted by hecklers and people that are opposed to his way of thinking and shout him down.

They will not tolerate hearing what he has to say, because it's too painful for them.

They can't handle that kind of opposition to their way of thinking. Now there is a case where a whole bunch of people are just weak.

They cannot handle hearing opinions that are adverse to their own.

There's just another way of illustrating this very principle, that if you faint in the day of adversity, your strength is small.

Let's be people of strong character that is willing to stand against the adversity and to work through it, and not to just throw our hands up in despair and quit.

Our Father and our God, I pray that you would make us people of good character and strength and stability, that we would not quit just when the least little bit of adversity comes up, we pray in Jesus' name, amen.