Trials Test Your Faith (Part 1)

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You might ask yourself the question, if you�re a Christian, if you�re a believer, if you say you believe, how do

I know my faith is real? Remember, we can�t see Jesus. This is, you know, at the root, faith, it�s not sight.

And there is such a thing as a spurious faith, a fake faith, a faith that�s only knowledge or knowledge and assent, but not a trusting.

There�s a faith that doesn�t save. There�s a faith that people can have and on Judgment Day they�ll be saying, �Lord,

Lord ,� and He�ll say, �I never knew you.� So since this is not empirical and faith is invisible, and even the object of your faith right now is somewhere else,

He is at the right hand of the Father, you can�t see Him, how do you know your faith is real?

Well, one of the things that God does to show the validity of your faith is to test you, is to give you a trial.

And you can look at trials in the Bible and you can say, well, they�re stemming from the fall,

Adam�s fall, and how the earth now has got all kinds of fruit of the fall. You can talk about Jesus and His trials and temptations and testings.

You can look at Paul. He said he was troubled on every side, 2 Corinthians 4.

Or you could look at your own life or you just look around the church or your neighborhood and you think about all the trials that are in your life.

And they�re unavoidable, aren�t they? I mean, you just can�t get out of these trials. And you ask yourself the question, why, not why me,

I know when I got diagnosed with cancer I never said why me, I did say why not me, right, this is just how life goes, but why does

God send trials? And when you are in the book of Hebrews, as I have been studying the book of Hebrews for a year and a half now or something,

I know I�m not too far into it because of the sabbatical and the medical procedures this summer, you say to yourself, huh, very interesting answer in Hebrews chapter 3.

God tests the Israelites� faith and we learn from that.

It is easy to believe when everything�s going well. When I watch the fake, false, heretical, and aberrant teachers online or on TV when they�re talking about the word faith and prosperity and everything else, they can spout that all they want until it�s time for them to get cancer or trial, never mind their sunglasses, their eyeglasses and their lack of hair.

But everything�s going well, yeah, okay, yeah, I believe. But what about when things aren�t going so well and it is a biblical teaching that God uses faith, a tested faith, and trials to test that faith to show that that faith is true?

The bottom falls out, do you still believe? When you have a miscarriage, do you still believe? When there�s a death in the family, your mom dies, do you still believe?

You�ve got the little gown on and the doctor comes in with a white coat and says, I�ve got some bad news for you, do you still believe?

So God tests us, tests the Christians, and then afterward when we see not our perfection in response to the trials, but we still are trusting in the perfect one,

Jesus, that is encouraging, and that�s exactly what the Bible teaches in many places.

Testings either reveal false faith, you know, I�m not going to believe anymore because this is too hard, and testings reveal real faith, right?

They don�t reveal perfect faithfulness in response to a trial because we don�t have those, but they do reveal, yes, in fact, you have a real faith or you don�t.

It says in Hebrews chapter 3, �Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as in the day of rebellion or in the rebellion, on the day of testing in the wilderness.�

You can still see how when I read ESV that NAS comes out, �Where your fathers put me to the test and saw my works for 40 years, therefore

I was provoked with that generation and said, �They always go astray in their heart. They have not known my ways.

As I swore in my wrath, they shall not enter my rest.� Hebrews 3, 7 through 11.

And then he talks about an unbelieving heart and unbelief, they couldn�t enter in in chapter 3, verse 12, and then verse 18 and 19.

If you are listening to my voice and you�re a Christian, if you�re a believer, my response to you is, no matter what comes your way, keep believing.

And if you�re an unbeliever, my exhortation to you is, you must believe. You must believe.

There�s no more important relationship in your life, more important thing in your life than having

God as your friend instead of enemy. Sin is awful, sin is heinous, sin tries to assassinate

God, and God is, because He�s holy and just, not pleased with sin or sinners.

And you need to have a reconciliation, and that�s only found in the person and work of Christ Jesus, who, when you look at Hebrews chapter 1 and 2, is the great

God -man, the eternal Son who adds human flesh, lives a perfect life, dies on the cross, and is raised from the dead.

And this is an urgent thing today if you hear His voice. If you�re not a believer, you have to believe. Then he moves on in verses 8 to 10, verses that I just read.

You may sense, you may feel the temptation to harden your heart when you�re in a really bad trial.

That�s what he�s talking about. Of course, these Hebrew listeners to this sermon and then epistle, they feel the pressure of turning their back on Judaism, and now they�re getting persecuted.

So if I just go back to Judaism, if I just go back to my old religion, if I just go back to my old ways,

I mean, this could be very applicable for someone who�s coming out of Roman Catholicism and he�s getting persecuted, someone who�s coming out of Islam and they�re getting persecuted.

If I just went back to my old ways, when there was no persecution, I would no longer receive persecution.

It�s because of Jesus and my faith in Him, that�s why I�m getting troubled by these people and synagogue and mosques, etc.

And there�s the temptation. Don�t be tempted to doubt God�s goodness when things are going poorly.

That was going on. And when that begins to happen, you can think of Israel out there in the wilderness, and their hearts start to harden.

They don�t have faith like they should, and they don�t see that God must have a purpose for this and God could be trusted, and why would

He test me? And even in Exodus 17 it says they put the Lord to the test, and you�ve got the place called

Massa and Meribah, rendered rebellion and testing. They�re testing, actually, God.

When you get put in the test, then the test goes back to God, that�s an awful way, that�s a hardening of your heart.

The heart, again, it�s not your emotions are all hardening, you�re just walking around stoically as a robot. But the center of your personality, your mission control center, heart and mind linked together, becomes hard.

And that word for harden is where we get the word sclerosis, and you have hardening of the arteries, arterial sclerosis, that�s the word.

Don�t harden your hearts. You�re becoming disobedient, and you, not just with your emotions only, but your emotions and your mind and your will, and you do exactly what

Israel did when they were out in the middle of the wilderness, and they�re rebellion, and they�re kicking against the goads, and they�re fighting

God because of this testing. It says in Hebrews 3, 9, �Where your fathers put me to the test and saw my works for forty years.�

Well, that�s pretty amazing. This is not, well, I�m not trusting for a moment.

This is faithfulness, no, faithlessness for forty years.

Forty years. Wow. In the Septuagint, the forty years is connected with God�s anger, and so you can study that on your own.

Can you imagine? As Expositor�s Commentary said, the Israelites had rejected God for forty years, and it was now nearly forty years since their descendants had rejected

Jesus, a reason for serious concern. Now, if that�s exactly the way it�s played out and that�s the purpose of the author, it�s even more wild.

Forty years in the wilderness, Israel puts God to the test. Hey, we wish we could go back to Egypt.

We had leaks in garlic and slavery and other things. No straw for the bricks.

How short our memories are, just testing God. Forty years. Now, if Jesus was crucified around 30

AD, okay, 33, 29, however you�re going to calculate it,

He is crucified around then. Well, you fast forward to here in Hebrews, late 60s, it�s got to be before 70, it�s about forty years as well.

It�s almost been forty years since Jesus died. This would be a big, big problem.

Psalm 95, as the Scripture says, it doesn�t even say that, as the Holy Spirit says.

This is God the Holy Spirit talking, and this is a very, very big problem. God, I look at my circumstances, and I look at them and think, you�re not faithful.

God, you don�t love me. God, these are the things that are going on, and you don�t have any concern for me.

And what you�ve promised me in the past isn�t true. Now I am discontent with providence.

I am discontent with your sovereignty. I begin to murmur, and I begin to fuss and complain because of my problem.

That�s what was going on there, and of course, there in Exodus, and then what was going on in the writing of the days of the

Hebrews, the epistle to the letter, the epistle or the letter of Hebrews, hey, same thing, we�re hurting, we�re really getting persecuted.

We�re losing our homes, and we�re getting thrown into jail, and is this worth it?

We can�t even see this, Jesus. Is it worth it? Verse 10, �Therefore I was provoked with that generation and said, �They always go astray in their heart.

They have not known my ways.� God�s response is not, ah, whatever.

This is not some kind of grandfather response, oh God, George Burns response, for those of you that are old enough to know that.

This is not innocence. This is not, well, you know, they�re just having a hard day.

They are always going astray. Did you notice that? They always go astray in their heart.

Why is God displeased with Israel? This is the reason, and they�re not trusting

God with their hearts. We�re not remembering what

God has said and promised and how faithful He�s been in the past. Can you imagine how fickle these people are back in the day of Exodus?

How frail, how sinful. It sounds just like us. They didn�t know my ways.

They didn�t say, you know, they didn�t know about me. They did, but they didn�t know my ways.

They didn�t do it. Spurgeon had a little poem, �They saw his wonders wrought, and then his praise they sung.

But soon his works of power forgot and murmured with their tongue. Now they believe his word, while rocks with rivers flow.

Now with their lusts provoked the Lord, and he reduced them low.�

You hear the Word of God, you�re all excited about it. You say you�re a Christian, you believe, you�re happy, and then troubles come.

Then what? That�s why it�s so awful to promote

Jesus as the Jesus who fixes marriages. I�m going to just type that down,

Jesus, the marriage fixer. Now, sometimes Jesus does fix marriages, but sometimes

Jesus divides marriages. So you have to say to yourself, all right, how can

I process this? Now when you look at Hebrews, there�s another place in the

Bible that is very, very similar to this kind of idea. The Word of God is heard with great joy, but then a trial comes along and something happens.

So we�re going to look at Mark chapter 4. This is the parable of the soils, Mark 4, 15.

And these are the ones who are beside the road where the Word is sown, and when they hear immediately, Satan comes and takes away the

Word which has been sown in them. So Jesus has given the parable earlier in Mark 4, and now he is giving the explanation.

He is giving the commentary on it. And you�ve got seeds that are on the side of the road, and Satan comes along, and Satan of course blinds the minds of the unbelieving.

That�s what 2 Corinthians chapter 4 says. And here the Word makes no impression.

It just falls on the surface of the heart. It�s like water off a duck�s back. There�s too many other things going on in one ear, out the other.

You listen to a sermon, you think it�s interesting, but because of indifference and foolishness and other things, it says that the cares of the world, let�s see, when they hear immediately,

Satan comes and takes away the Word which has been sown in them. That�s Mark 4, 15.

That�s not the cares of the world, that�s the hard, that�s the hard -hearted, that�s the calloused.

They don�t want to believe, and Satan helps them along. There�s another heart soil in verse 16, and in a similar way, these are the ones on whom the seed was sown on rocky places, and when they hear the

Word, immediately they receive it with joy. This is the one that�s parallel to Hebrews chapter 3.

You hear a sermon, you receive it with great joy. You�re not passive, you really listen, and you�re glad, but it�s superficial.

And the second something comes along that�s going to jar you, your reception of this

Word with gladness, it pales, it faints, it is upended.

You have the superficial response to the gospel, it�s not one of counting the costs, it�s shallow, and the text says in Luke 8, a parallel passage, �They receive the

Word with joy, and these have no firm root. They believe for a while, and in time of temptation they fall away.�

Why is this so superficial? Verse 17 of Mark 4, �And they have no firm root in themselves, but are only temporary.

Then when affliction or persecution arises because of the Word, immediately they fall away.�

That was Israel. That was the readers, some of the readers, in the book of Hebrews, and that�s exactly what

Jesus is talking about in Mark 14. The person�s heart is hard, and when affliction arises, and actually

Matthew chapter 13 says, �When affliction or persecution arises because of the Word, immediately he falls away.�

He or she, obviously, they fall away, there�s a scandal, there�s a stumbling, because it�s not real faith.

That�s the book of Hebrews, shallow -hearted, surface -only, hear the message, like the

Master, like the passage, euphoric feelings, maybe they study the Bible, but like the hard and unresponsive heart soil, this super -temporary, superficial and temporary heart soil, it�s not saving.

And then there�s another one, of course, we might as well look at, since we have Mark 4 open, �And others are the ones on whom seed was sown among the thorns.

These are the ones who have heard the Word, and the worries of the world, and deceitfulness of riches, and the desire for other things enter in, and choke the

Word, and it becomes unfruitful, smothered, choking the world�s worries, the riches that cause all kinds of trouble and other desires for other things.�

Probably this is the person that on Sundays they�re the church person, and the rest of the week they�re not, and they know.

Sometimes with surety and sometimes without, deep down, of course, you can�t serve two masters.

None of these soils produce fruit, only the seed that was sown on good soil that hears the

Word and accepts it and bears fruit. The gospel goes out, it has different results in different people by the sovereignty of God, and the people that hear the

Word of God and get all excited about it and say they want to follow, the test comes along, and then they say no.

That�s what�s going on here. When God tries your faith and tests your faith, what�s your response?

Now something is very similar in 1 Corinthians 10, looking at Israel�s failure as a helper so you don�t do the same thing.

1 Corinthians 10, 11, �Now these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come.�

You look back to the previous verses and there�s a warning, caution, there�s an advisory, don�t follow

Israel�s example. Don�t do that. This is a warning.

Remember what God did to Israel? This is like a speed bump for you. What was written about Israel is written for our admonition, our instruction, danger.

Don�t do that. God is trying to show you through instruction so that you would be alert, and that you, when you see the red light go on on the dashboard, you pay attention, you don�t just keep going, plow ahead, speed up when the temperature gauge says it�s overheating.

Scripture is relevant, and it will tell you about these things. It says in verse 12 of 1

Corinthians 10, �Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall.�

In light of all the people in the Bible, these men and women, you think you�re the most holy, the most godly, the most immune to any kind of temptation?

Therefore, be careful, in other words. Don�t have a false security.

Don�t think you Corinthians were so strong in the faith that you never could be tempted to fall.

You think you�re going to stand and survive everything. Well, you better be careful because pride goes before destruction, does it not?

And haughty spirit before a fall. Don�t be overconfident. You can see different places in the

Bible where there�s all kinds of overconfidence. Here�s the good encouragement, though, and you know this next verse, and that is, �No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man.

God is faithful, and He will not let you be tempted above or beyond, rather, your ability, but with the temptation

He will also provide the way of escape that you may be able to endure it.�

Hey, God has set boundaries for these temptations, and He knows what you�re going through, and it�s happened to other people before, and you think that you are inevitably going to fall because you�re just sinful as well, there�s help for you.

Failing is not inevitable, that�s the point. Well, we have to stop there because the time is up.

No Compromise Radio. My name is Mike Abendroth. I�ve thought over the years, since this is 8 Years Daily Radio, I thought about just doing a weekly show.

I don�t know if that�d be encouraging to you or not. Maybe more people would listen because why, you know, if you have to listen to five shows a week, that�s a little bit much unless you�re totally, you know, loco for noco.

Maybe one show a week, and I could just do it for an hour. Who knows? If you have any thoughts on that, you can let me know.

Info at NoCompromiseRadio .com or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.

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