Building the House of God - Trials Anger and Victory Part 3 — Phil Beach Jr.

God, please work this in our heart, work this truth in our heart, we pray, God. Preserve us, O God, from this perverse generation that we're living in. Preserve us, O God, save our souls, Lord, from the poison of this age that we're living in.

The poison that exalts the creature, that displays pride and arrogance, and self-sufficient confidence. O God, we pray that you'll have mercy, have mercy in our lives, Lord. We acknowledge our sin, we acknowledge our tendency, O God.

Be merciful to us, Lord. Let us not be without chastening, let us not be without correction, let us not be without scourging, lest we go our own way and bring reproach upon you and destruction to our lives and to our children's lives and to our family's lives.

We beg you, Lord, to have mercy. We beg you, Lord. We beg you, Lord. Do not stop, Lord. Do not stop your dealings in our life. We look to you, Father. We look to you. Arise, O God. Arise. Arise, O God.

Lower the mountains. Lower the mountains, O God. Lower the mountains of pride. Lower the mountains, O God, of arrogance. Lower the mountains of being critical and judging after the flesh. Lower the mountains, O God, of the love of money and the love of pleasure and the love of creaturely activity.

Lower those mountains, O God, in Zion. Zion is to be a place where the Lord alone reigns. God, we need your help. We need your help, O God. We need your help at this late apostate hour. We call upon the name of Jesus Christ.

Have mercy upon us, Lord. Have mercy. Build your house. Start with us, Lord. We depend upon your grace. We depend upon your mercy. Break the fight in us, Lord. The fight to do our own thing. The fight to have our own way.

Break it, Lord, we pray. We depend upon your mercy. We are encouraged in the midst of the deep dealings of God that you love us with an everlasting love. And now, Father, take your word, speak to us, Lord, and continue building your house.

Continue building your house, we pray in Jesus' name. We're looking in the book of James, but before we do, brothers and sisters, I want to encourage you to be prepared if the Lord is dealing in your life.

Flexibility Under God's Dealings

Be prepared to continue to pray for the grace to change. You know the old saying, it's hard to teach an old dog new tricks. Let me tell you something, and this is prophetic. This is prophetic. If you remain under the dealing of God, you're going to have to change.

If you think that God's going to perfect what He's trying to do in your life, and you're going to hold rigid to your ways, to your ideas, even to your theology, you are not going to see the fullness of God's work in your life.

You are going to have to change. That's the nature of the new wine and new bottles. New wine, new bottles. Because if you put new wine in old wineskins, what happens? The wineskins are old. The wineskins are calloused.

And the new wine expands. And with the expansion of the new wine, there is necessary for a new skin or a new container that will be able to expand with it. Jesus said, if you put new wine in old wineskins, and the new wine expands.

You see, the expansion there of new wine represents the growth of the kingdom of God. It represents the life of Jesus Christ. Listen, listen, the work of God is not sterile. The work of God is not sterile.

When you touch the life of Jesus Christ, and you are, spiritually speaking, impregnated with the very life of God through the new birth, and you stay, you stay in relationship with God, you stay under the work of God's Word and the discipline of God's Spirit, you are united to a living thing.

New wine. New wine expands. New wine is constantly expanding. New wine is not stagnant. And we must pray that we continuously remain flexible in the hands of our God and Father. The moment you get rigid, the moment you get so set in your ways that come heaven or hell, you're not going to move, you are, in a very real way, you are disqualifying yourself to move on with God.

God loves us. He gave His life for us. But He will be the servant to no man. Though He serves us and loves us, when it comes to the government of His kingdom and the executive privilege of calling the shots, He retains the authority to do it.

He'll go the second mile with us. He'll be merciful to our sins. He'll be kind to our stubbornness because He loves us. But when it comes to moving on in the kingdom, He's not going to say, so what way do you want to go?

Go ahead. I'll follow you. He's going to retain that executive right as head to tell you what you're going to do and how you're going to do it and when you're going to do it. He's the one that's going to say, jump, and you're supposed to say, how high, Lord?

How high? And it's human nature. It's human nature to get set in our ways. And this is a warning from the Word of God, as we'll see. This is a warning from the Spirit of God. Let God search your heart right now.

Let Him search your heart. How set are you in your ways? God wouldn't let the children of Israel get real set in their ways when they were in the wilderness. Anywhere from three days to three months they were in the wilderness.

You think about it, moms, women. Us guys, we're wired differently. It's a little easier for us to just pick up and move. But a woman has the instinct of a nest. A woman has an instinct of wanting a nice home.

That's a God thing. But you think about what God did to Israel. He brought them in the wilderness and they camped. Okay? But God's Word was this, as soon as the glory of God ascended from the tent and the glory of God started to move, guess what all Israel had to do?

All Israel had to begin to pack up their belongings. They had to take their tent up out of the ground. Their tent pegs and pack them up. And they had to start following the Lord. They had to go wherever He was going.

Sometimes it was three days. Sometimes it was three weeks. Sometimes it was a month. Sometimes it was three months. They never knew. I'm sure some of the ladies would go to bed at night and say, Oh, Jehovah God, I just got the kids settled.

I just got the camp set up. I just got a sense of security. Oh, God, please not tomorrow. And then early in the morning before the sun rose, they were sleeping. And Joshua and Moses were in the tent and they took out the ram horn and they started blowing the ram horn, which was a sign to Israel that it's time to pack up because God is on the move again.

And there were mixed emotions and mixed feelings. But in spite of the feelings and in spite of the emotions, they had to do it. They had to remain flexible before God. They had to remain willing to move when God moved.

Remaining Open to God's Changing Seasons

And the Word of the Lord to the church in this late hour of apostasy is the same thing. Remain flexible. Remain tender. Remain open to the Spirit of God and the Word of God. Is God prospering you and blessing you today?

Well, thank God for it. But there's no guarantee He's going to do it tomorrow. There's no guarantee. Don't get married to the blessing of God. Don't get married to the provision of God. Don't get married to the season of God.

Because you're in a season now. But the times and seasons are in the hands of the Lord. And He'll change them as He will to accommodate whose purpose? His, not ours. Now listen, don't misunderstand this word.

This shouldn't be a discouraging word. This should be encouraging. Yes, I can see all the excitement. I can see. Brothers and sisters, I know in our humanity, this kind of word makes us go, oh my God, what's about to happen?

But brothers and sisters, think it through. Think it through. I'm always telling my daughters, think it through. Think it through. What would you rather have? A life governed by your own understanding?

Governed by your own wisdom? Arranged by your own limited peanut vision? Or would you rather have a life that might be uncertainty, difficulty, no real security down here, but you know that you know that you know that you are in the center of God's will and that His omnipotent hand holds you?

You tell me what you'd rather have. And because of the grace of God that is working in all of our lives, I'm quite confident that every one of us, possibly some of us with a little bit of reluctance because of our human fears, but every one of us would probably say, I'd rather be in the center of God's will in the midst of uncertainty than governing my own life.

How flexible are you today? How rigid are you today? How prepared are you to take a change? To take a turn? How prepared are you if you've only been looking at this direction and God turns you in this direction and you're going to go back in this direction and God goes like this and you go back and God says this way.

How prepared are you? May the Holy Spirit of God make us all to see the imperativeness, the utter necessity of simply coming to Him and saying, Father, heal my rigid heart so that change can be embraced if you require it.

Change, whatever it is. James 1. The dealings of God in the midst of tribulation. The dealings of God in the midst of trial and difficulty. We have seen so far that James, the entire chapter, is a chapter that addresses the inevitable experience of believers individually and believers corporately going through trials and tests and difficulties in our life.

But wonderfully, the Word of God clearly demonstrates, it clearly demonstrates in James 1 the things that God provides in the midst of trials and difficulties so that the difficulty of the trial and the difficulty of the affliction can be superseded by the work of grace that God's doing in our heart and in our life.

Trials Producing Patience and Christian Character

Now we've learned already in James 1 that there's joy present in the midst of trials and tribulations. Secondly, we learned that character is being built in the midst of trials and tribulations. The trying of our faith works patience.

Verse 3, Let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing. The producing of godly Christian character in the midst of a trial and test is one of the Lord's highest goals when He lets us go through something.

Notice the Word of God says, Let patience have its perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing. Do you see what God is trying to do in the life of the church? This is so incredible.

Think about this. A company of people in the world who are entirely content, lacking nothing, haven't experienced the perfecting of patience so that they are able at all times and in all situations to rejoice and give God thanks, knowing that their Father in Heaven is in control, and they demonstrate in the midst of the tests and the trials the kind of faith that Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego had in the midst of the fiery furnace.

That is what you call a kingdom of priests under God. That's what God is looking for. That will be a highly effective means of letting the world know that Jesus Christ is real. When the world can start seeing the things that relate to Christ, His character and qualities, start coming forth in our life.

It's not when the good times are gone that the world looks at the church. The world rejoices when they've got money. The world rejoices when they're honored. The world rejoices when they're prospering.

The world rejoices when they've got friends loving them and sharing their interests. We're no different than the world when we've got a smile on our face because our circumstances are to our benefit. We are no different than the world.

Does that mean we're to be ungrateful when God's blessing us? Of course not. But we're no different. Listen, it doesn't take any grace or maybe very little grace to bless those who bless you. Jesus Himself said it.

Jesus said, what credit is it to you if you only love those who love you? Don't even people who don't know the Lord do that? Yes. What credit is it to you when you bless those who bless you? That's not hard to do.

What credit is it to us to have a song of joy when everything in our life is happy and everything is well and Ed McMahon just knocked on our door and the camera crew was there? It doesn't take grace. But you come to James and you come into the Word of God.

You come into the sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God. And you see what God's after in His house. And you see God saying, count it joy, when you go into testings and trials. Joy. The last thing we want to do is be happy when we are in the midst of trying and tests and difficulties.

But God is trying to take us out of an earthly man-centered perspective into a Christ-centered, God-centered, Word-centered perspective. We can't have joy if we can only see what's happening as it relates to our own limited vision.

We can't have joy if we can only interpret our world around us in light of how it's affecting me. We have to be emancipated out from the orb of centering our whole life around ourself. This represents what we were talking about earlier.

How God needs a kingdom of priests on the earth who have been emancipated from walking to the drumbeat of their own self-interest alone. Who have been emancipated and brought by the power of God's grace into a more fuller, a more divine perspective life where it's no longer I'm living to myself.

I'm dying to myself. But now I'm serving the cause of Christ. My life exists in order to bring God glory. My life exists in order to serve the church in whatever capacity God calls me to serve. Hallelujah!

And it's so good to be able to say that and know that the ulterior motive isn't connected to it. You know how most of the time when we hear you've got to serve the church, the next plug is get involved in our programs.

Or give me your money. But praise be to God! That's not what's coming forth here. And that's why it can come forth with truth and authority and freedom of conscience. And so God is in the process of refashioning the house of God.

Rejoicing in Fiery Trials and Dying to Self

Brothers and sisters, it's hard for me to communicate what is in my spirit. But I know from the Lord. I know from the Holy Spirit. I know from the Word of God. Think it not strange concerning the fiery trials that are trying you and I as though some strange thing was happening.

But rejoice! Rejoice! Rejoice! Rejoice! Be exceedingly glad. Leap for joy like a little lamb leaps. God is at work. God has not been knocked off the throne. He is sitting as the omnipotent God right now.

He is ruling and reigning over your circumstance. He is. Listen, He's giving you an opportunity for promotion. But remember, promotion of the kingdom of God comes through what? Demotion by the standards of the world.

Humbling. You want to reign in life? Then you've got to taste the dregs of death. You've got to know what it means by the work of God in your life to be brought to death where you die to yourself. You die to your hopes.

You die to your dreams. You die to selfish ambition. Recently the Lord's been talking to me about the idols that are in the church today. The idolatry that's going on. We say, oh, this person's insensitive.

No, they're not insensitive. They're proud. The word insensitive is not in the Bible. Listen, this person is a little insecure. Insecure? Jesus didn't die for insecure people. He died for what? Sinners.

Insecurity, the root. See, God wants to teach us how not only to identify behavior problems, sins, but to get to the root. When you get to the root of a behavior problem and let the Word of God deal with that root, that behavior problem is going to die.

Insecure people are proud people who, for the most part, care more about pleasing people than they do God. That's why they're insecure. The fundamental problem there is selfishness. Selfishness. And so God wants to teach us to let the Word of God, the pure, true Word of God, deal with our life.

And it will change us. Okay. Getting back to the Word of God. Listen closely. Verse 5 now. We've seen that there's joy and temptation when we get emancipated from self-centeredness and start realizing we've been called by God to serve His purposes.

What joy! What joy! Oh, if we could just see. If we could just see. Most people would be very joyful if they got a phone call from a very important political dignitary like President Bush or Vice President Cheney.

They wanted you to serve on their cabinet. Oh my! You tell everybody. You know I got a call from President Bush or from Vice President Cheney or from the Secretary of Defense Colin Powell. He actually wants me to serve on their committee or he wants me to be a part of their plan.

Oh, you'd be so pleased. But brothers and sisters, if you've heard the voice of God and you have responded to God's grace and He's saved you, you've been called by the King of Glory to serve on His agenda.

Tell me what would exceed that? There's joy. There's where joy comes. If any man lacked wisdom, we learned that wisdom is available to us when we are in the midst of a trial. We learned that there's four questions we ask that help unlock wisdom to us when we're in the midst of a trial.

All this is on tape, the past tapes. We're just going to do a quick review because we want to get right here in a few verses up. That's where we're going this morning for a few moments. Do whatever brings maximum glory to you.

That's the first thing we pray when we're going through a trial. What that prayer does is it sets us free from, oh God, this is what's happening to me so I want You to do this. That might not be what God wants.

Now that might be what's good for you. That might make you feel better. Isn't that our tendency in a trial? The first thing we do. The knee-jerk reaction. We're in a trial, we pray a prayer that has to do with asking God to do something to alleviate us from what we're going through.

God's not angry when we do that. He loves us. He understands our frame is but dust. He understands that. He's not upset with us. I mean, any parent would understand a child's frustration if the parent decided to do something that the kid didn't like.

The child goes up and makes a request and the request happens to be the very thing that would free the child from what I've just told him to do or I've allowed to happen. I understand that. And I would probably embrace and say, sorry, it's not the way it's going to be this time.

So we pray, Father, what brings maximum glory to You? What are You trying to teach me? What is the next step? And then lastly, okay, Father, though You slay me with Your grace, I will trust You. God, work that in me.

Work that in me, Lord, because I know Peter said, though all men forsake You, I won't. And he did. So I know, Lord, that unless You work that grace in me, it's not going to happen. There's wisdom. But we have to ask that in faith.

That is, we have to believe that God loves us and that He cares about us. Okay. Let's go to verse number nine. Let the brother of low degree rejoice that he is exalted, but the rich man, and that he is made low.

Because as the flower of the grass, he shall pass away. Listen carefully for the next few moments. It is inevitable that when we are going through a trial, we are going through a test. When you are going through a trial, when you are going through a test, there's two dynamics that are always happening.

There is a lowering and an exalting. Trials have the inevitable effect of producing in the life of the believer a lowering and an exalting. Now, let's look at what God is after. First of all, what does it say?

Let the brother of low degree rejoice, but let the rich rejoice. It's implied. So listen. I'm telling you, brothers and sisters, this will change your life. Whether you are being humbled or whether you're being exalted, you should be rejoicing.

We tend to associate rejoicing with God raising us up and being humbled or being lowered. We tend to think that that's not grounds to rejoice. But the word of God says, whether you're being lowered or whether you're being exalted, rejoice.

Lowering Pride and Exalting Dependence on Christ

Now, this is one of the means by which God will bring a leveling in the house of God. Everyone in the house of God must be leveled to ground zero. Ground zero represents the foot of the cross. It represents the truth that no one in the house of God can glory in anything or anyone, can glory in human wisdom, can boast in human strength, can rely on self-confidence, but that we all must be reduced to the fact that our glory is in Christ alone.

Our glory must be in Christ alone. And so the lowering process that trials produces in us is simply this. Through the trial, we are made to see areas in our life where we are yet trusting in something other than Christ, His finished work, and His merits alone.

Any time we're in a trial, there's going to be areas in our life that are exposed. And when they are exposed, the language of the Scriptures refers to that process as a lowering. As a lowering. We are being lowered.

We are being brought down. Any form of trust in the house of God that is towards something other than Christ, someone other than Christ, and something other than the grace and the virtue and the wisdom and the enabling that comes from Christ is a high place.

It's a high place in the house of God. And all the high places in the church, all the high places in the living stones, all the high places have to be removed in our lives. But this isn't something that we should mourn over, although there will be mourning.

But the mourning has to be eclipsed by the rejoicing. Why wouldn't we want to be humbled? Why would we want to hold on to our human wisdom? Why would we want to hold on to our human understanding? Why would we want to hold on to anything other than Christ?

Verse 10, But let the rich, and that he is made low, because as the flower of the grass he shall pass away. Luke 6, verse 24, Jesus said, Woe unto you that are rich. You are full. This not only refers, if you look at the whole counsel of God, this not only refers to those who are rich and trust in their money, because that's what it's referring to, but it also refers to any area in our life that has fullness, that we're getting fullness from, that we're being satisfied with, that's not directly linked to the Lord Himself.

Listen, there's many things that we can receive from the Lord's hand and we can be thankful for, but if we start getting satisfied in those things, if they start getting too important to us, they become idols in our life.

They become idols in our life. Listen, a friendship is nice, isn't it? But if I want that friendship a little bit too much, guess what it becomes? Idolatry. Husband and wife relationship. I love my wife, but if I can't live without my wife, guess what God's going to have to do?

Some heart surgery. Because I can never get to the place where I can say to someone, oh, I can't live without you. I can't live without you. As I mentioned several weeks ago, I got a phone call from someone who asked that I come and pray with them, and in weeping and tears, they said, God has shown me I love my family more than God.

This person said, I would deny the Lord before I would deny my own children. Some lowering needs to take place. What's going on in your life? This is why God entrusts us with trials and tests. What about the exalting?

But let the brother of low degree... The brother of low degree... The phrase low degree simply represents what a blessed state it is. Blessed are the poor in spirit. Blessed are the poor. The low degree are those in whom God's Spirit and God's Word has worked so that there's no glorying, there's no boasting, there's no trusting, there's no hoping in anyone or anything but God alone.

Low degree is being reduced by the power of God's grace into the proper relationship that you should have with God and one another. The proper relationship. The relationship of branch and vine. I am dependent upon God.

Creature, Creator. I am creature. God is Creator. I owe Him everything. I exist for His pleasure. All His blessings are for His honor and glory. And all of the evil things that happen to me, He has a purpose and I will yet trust Him and I will yet love Him and I will yet look to Him.

That's the brother of low degree. Now that brother is exalted. What is he exalted to? That relates to what we were talking about earlier. The brother of low degree is exalted in order to live and walk in the glory and the power of the kingdom of God.

Where the righteousness of Christ is his life. The power of Christ enables this brother or sister to reign over sin. To reign over flesh. To reign over the devil. To reign over the works of evil. This brother of low degree is exalted so that he can be in the midst of brothers and sisters who are in strife and envy and he can become a vessel of peace.

Sowing love. This brother can give wisdom to those who are confused. This brother can walk in the midst of snakes and remain unstung. The exalted position of the brother of low degree is Psalm 91, dwelling in the secret place of the Most High God.

Being entrusted with the treasures of heaven. Now there's going to come a day in everyone's life where God's going to say, what do you want? Do you want these spiritual treasures that are in Christ? Do you want to live a life where people touch Christ?

You remember Esau? What did he sell his birthright for? A bowl of porridge. This is the birthright of the church. Esau's birthright had nothing to do with his salvation. It had to do with the blessing, the double blessing.

It had to do with the blessing that he had as the firstborn. The birthright of every child of God is the full inheritance. The full inheritance is Christ Himself. And all of His virtues and all of His character, intimacy with God.

But to get the birthright, we have to be willing to let God bring us to death. Death to everything else. So that our hearts are after God alone. Esau, for one fleshly desire, sold his birthright. And many of God's children today are having offered to them in the Word of God the full blessing, the birthright of walking with the Lord and partaking of the inheritance.

And for what? The fleshly, earthly desires of this life. They're selling their birthright. And they're taking the applause of men over the praise that comes from God. They're taking the wealth of this world over the wealth that can come from God.

You say, well, can't someone have all that stuff? And still be wealthy in God? Well, let me say this. You might not receive it. But if that question even comes into your mind, it proves that you still have a problem.

If that question comes into your mind, it proves that you've got an idol in your heart. Because you shouldn't even be concerned about things. Well, I believe that, you know, you don't have to be poor.

I mean, you could be spiritual and still have money. What we say means a lot. What, does it bother you with the thought of not having any money? Well, I need money. You're wrong. You need God. You need God.

Well, that's a nice thing you say, brother, but I live in the real world. You still need God. Well, I just believe that God will give me both. What if He doesn't? What are you going to do? Some people serve the Lord because they thought He was going to deliver them from the Roman tyranny.

Some people serve the Lord because they thought that He was going to keep filling their bellies with fresh bread. Some people serve the Lord because they thought by virtue of association, when He finally took over Jerusalem, they would be close to Him and maybe they'll have a place with Him.

But guess what? All those people who had wrong motives in serving the Lord ended up forsaking the Lord in the day of trial. You better be careful if you come to the Lord because you want God to give you a wife or a husband.

I've seen it over and over and over again. We're faithful to God, but it's not because our heart is being changed and we're loving God. We're faithful to God because deep inside we're expecting God to do something for us.

And if He doesn't do it, then we really don't want God. See, God's in the business of exposing the motives of our heart to purify them and cleanse them. And this is what is entailed in this whole process of lowering and exalting.

Isn't that awesome? Isn't that awesome? It's God's Word precious. Oh God, we live by Your Word. We want You to have Your way in our life. Now let's read on and just let the Word of God speak. Verse 11, the nature of trusting in something other than God.

For the sun is no sooner risen with a burning heat but it withers the grass, and the flower thereof falls, and the grace of the fashion of it perishes. So also shall the rich man fade away in his ways.

So also shall anyone who is satisfied with anything other than God. But blessed, verse 12, is the man that endures temptation, for when he is tried, when he is proven true, that word tried means to be proven and tested genuine.

When he is proven genuine. This is our last point. We're not going to go on to verses 13 -27. We'll save that for another time, which is very important in the midst of a trial. They address very important issues.

But we're just going to look at this issue of endurance in temptation. Endurance in temptation. It is vitally important that we endure. The word endure means to stay under. To stay under. One of the strongest temptations in the midst of being tried is the temptation to somehow, some way, escape.

Get out from under the pain. Get out from under the heat. Get out from under the difficulty of the trial that you're in. Sometimes the Lord will give us a way out, but it won't be His way. For example, some people turn to the bottle of alcohol as a way out.

Now the Lord doesn't just remove that bottle from them, does He? He doesn't explode that alcohol in their refrigerator or underneath their bed. He lets it there. But as long as a person is going to alcohol, he is not enduring whatever it is that's drawing him to the alcohol.

And therefore, he is not enduring the trial. He is coming out from under it. Listen, a lot of young people, a lot of single people, they're in a test. They want to get married. They have sexual needs.

Guess what they do? They fail to endure the test. And they fornicate. The blessing isn't there. The blessing is where? Blessed is he that what? Endures. Endure. Put under. Stay under it. Stay under the pain.

Go to God. Go to God in prayer. Some people have a little plastic card called credit. And guess what they do? They're just so distressed because everyone has this. And everyone has that. And they're in a little test.

A little test. All the tests that have been failed in the church over this little 2x4 card, only eternity will reveal. And so they feel the heat and the pressure. They feel the test. And instead of enduring and waiting for God and going without, oh, it's such a crime to go without for the young generation today.

It's such a crime. If a teenager is told that they can't have a brand new car, it's like, oh my God, it's like the biggest insult. Endure the pain of being around your peers and not being able to say, oh, I've got a new Lexus.

Oh, I've got a new Cadillac. Oh, I've got these brand new clothes at what's one of the hot places where clothes cost $100 a shot. Just name one. Gap. What's that other word? Aberycomber. You need to go to college to pronounce that word.

Aberycomber. Boy, if you don't have those clothes, listen, listen, listen, listen. There's a little bit of humiliation. Oh, that's good for you though. That's good for you. That's good to feel that. It's good to have secondhand shoes when you're with people who have $200 shoes.

It's good for you. It's good for me. But what do we do when we're in that test? You see, nowadays, the culture doesn't teach to endure the test. The culture teaches do what it takes to change it. And so what do we do?

We take that little credit card. We go to the store. And we get our little heart's desire. The pain is gone. We feel the relief. And then all of a sudden, what happens? The bill comes. And we take the bill and we put it underneath all of the clothes.

And we say, well, praise God, it's only 29 interest. It's only 33 interest. I can pay it off in the next 10 years. And it grows and grows. Guess what? You just lost the blessing. You say, did God forsake you?

No, He didn't forsake you. But you lost the blessing. The blessing that distinctly comes upon those who what? Endure. Endure the test that you're in now. Stop taking it into your own hands. Stop trying to work it out yourself.

Endure. I will bless you. And you'll receive the crown of life that is promised to those who what? Love God. I'm telling you, God is speaking to every one of us through His word today, isn't He? God has spoken.