Desperation, Resignation - Part 6 — Keith Daniel

Seeking God Alone for Survival and Comfort

To God for survival. They devour the time with God alone. They have to. They seclude themselves every moment they can get for healing, for comfort, for faith, for something to get them up and go back in spite of the cruelty that's going to hurt them, and they know it.

Well, God has his way in not taking out of their lives. They, somebody who devoured the Word of God as a source of survival, that others who are not sensitive will never devour the Word and identify with every promise, and the book becomes their destiny to survive.

The Thorn in the Flesh and John Wesley's Perseverance

Oh, God knows what he's doing, your child. See, others with thorn in the flesh can be a person, a messenger of Satan, sent by Satan to buffet me, like John Wesley. Do you know who John Wesley's thorn in the flesh was?

You know, Wesley, they threw him off a cliff, left him for dead. He got up and he walked to the men who threw him off the cliff. I mean a high cliff. He was left for dead. They were scared that what was happening in all the towns and cities would happen in their town, these men of sin.

He got up, he walked into the town. Oh, he was in a state, covered with blood and bruised and limping, and he led the whole town to God, beginning with the men that threw him off. Nothing could discourage him.

Wesley's Response to Persecution and Revival

They stoned him. Do you know they stoned him for fear of what was happening, that the stones literally covered his whole body, these about a hundred men, stoning. We don't want this to happen here. They walked away, he's dead.

He wasn't. He pushed the stones off eventually, got out. Oh, he was in a terrible state, but Wesley, what did he do? He didn't go and say, Oh, what have they done to me? Bring the law, you know. He walked in there with this terrible, he was in a terrible state, and he stood there and he called out to them in a way, and they all came to God.

The whole town turned to God. The drinking places closed, the dance floors, the world places closed for some two hundred years. They wouldn't allow alcohol after Wesley had been in these places. Do you know that?

Do you know what God did there? He was a very short man, you know. I'm glad I wasn't that short. Now, Wesley was about this short. Think about it. Imagine being a preacher and being that short. But he was discourageable.

About twenty men one day were punching, because they were so enraged that he was daring to come near their way of life. And twenty men lay unconscious and Wesley walked away, because he was short, you know.

They had knocked each other out. It's good to be short if you're a preacher, I think. I'm not sure. But Wesley had had his good points. Nothing would discourage him. They said nothing discouraged Wesley.

Wesley's Gentleness Amid Social Persecution

Nothing, nothing. No matter what they did, he didn't come up with venom, he didn't come up with anger. He had this gentleness. He had nothing of anger in him against men that, in the end, the king of England, by law said, the stops.

By law of the king, all his persecution against Wesley and his followers stops, because there's a bloodbath in France and Europe. Most of nobility were killed by the guillotine by that time through the anger and the hatred and the resentment of the poor who had been unjustly treated.

But Wesley stopped. One man stopped this bloodbath through England. Hell was going to start, don't doubt it. And the poor came to Christ in their masses, and they forgave the rich. They didn't have anger, and the rich came to Christ in their masses, from the royalty on.

And they found suddenly compassion to the poor, and they began to set up a nation where no other nation was doing these things of good, coming from those who had wealth, because God brings healing in a land.

And he did through this one. The king said, this land, the history of England is changed through one man, and we've been spared of a bloodbath. We've got to acknowledge that no man is to touch this man or his followers again.

By law of the king, let God turn us all together to God. Oh, it was wonderful. But one thing, one thing only drove Wesley to despair of life. They say he despaired that he sobbed. He sobbed. Only one thing, nothing, not stoning, not throwing him off, leaving him for dead.

Wesley's Personal Suffering Through His Marriage

Not a hundred men trying to murder him in their anger. That didn't make him despair. That didn't set him back one iota. Only one thing made Wesley despair of life was his wife. She was godless. She at some point decided she didn't want God.

She hated God. And she ridiculed him. She made his life such a, it was like a scourge came upon him. Do you know, nobody judged Wesley. Not one, even the unsaved, didn't dare to judge him and say, how can you preach just if your wife doesn't even love you?

Everyone knew it wasn't Wesley's fault. It was Charles Wesley's fault. His brother, his brother in those days, a brother, older brother, had authority. A great authority once the father was dead. The oldest brother was the authority.

It was just that way of life. And Charles Wesley stopped John Wesley with marriage and chose someone else for him. And he made a mistake. It was his mistake. It wasn't what Wesley wanted. There was even some sort of a stand trying to stop him.

But because of Charles' insistence and strength of character, Wesley submitted and he made this terrible, terrible grief because this woman, this woman made him despair. It drove him to his knees that he sobbed and sobbed again and again.

God-Allowed Thorns That Produce Spiritual Greatness

But nothing else made Wesley sob. And yet God allowed it. God didn't want it. It was the devil's doing. But God allowed it to a man that led a nation to God. To some, the thorn in the flesh can be a person.

Listen carefully here. Oh, how often the thorn in the flesh is a person sent by the devil to stagger me, allowed by God to help me spiritually. A person who thinks it is their God-given duty to criticize you and undermine you and treat you with contempt because of something the devil has told them about you.

Oh, how often it's a person like that, that God allows to come along your way, whether you're a preacher or someone just wanting to go through with God. The thorn in the flesh can be a person who thinks it's their God-given duty, even in the church, to criticize you and undermine you and treat you with contempt because of something the devil's told them about you.

At times you will think it is their life mission to destroy you. It seems that nothing will ever pacify them until you're destroyed. But these things will not destroy you, beloved. They will make you.

Trust God about that. They will make greatness in your life that would never have been if it hadn't been for the very thing you're despairing about. God doesn't allow anything that can destroy you. You only will be destroyed if you lose sight of him and lose sight of faith in him, that he is in control and he's allowing something for a very definite reason in your life that he's not dealing with, not to torment you but to bring you to a place of greatness.

Family Opposition as a Thorn in the Flesh

To others, it can be one of their own children. The thorn in the flesh can be one of your own children. Now, that's tragic. When a man's enemies are the members of his own household, there's five verses in the Bible, five passages, sorry, where Jesus speaks of this and Micah speaks of it.

Because of Christ, a man's child rises up against him in variance because the child wants the devil. All children who do not want to follow God, not to follow your God, they want the world. That can drive a man to the dust, let me tell you, as very few things can.

God didn't want it, but he allows it. He could deal with that child, and I've seen him actually do it when it got too much.