"Life’s Not Fair, But God Is Good" By General Pastor Peter F. Paine May 17th,
2015
You
may be seated. I am
so thrilled to be here with you,
today. I bring
greetings on behalf of
the mother of our ministry, Sister Davis.
I want to thank you for your generous gift to her:
flowers for Mother’s
Day; she received them, and appreciates them greatly.
I also bring you greetings from my wife,
Debbie, and our son, Adam, and our daughters, Holly and Heather. They’re doing well, and I
appreciate your
prayers and your love. I
look out today,
and I see many, many familiar faces; faces that I have come to know and
to love
and to appreciate more than I can tell you with words.
Now I’m done visiting with you, because I
brought a message. I’ve
been praying about being
here. I have no
notes, but I just have
something on my heart that I feel like the Lord would have me to share
with
you. I think this
message has a title,
and I think the title is, “Life’s Not Fair, But God Is Good.” I’m going to challenge you
today, to tell the
story of someone who gave their heart and life to the Lord and then
never had a
problem, never had a challenge, never had a struggle, never had
adversity,
never had a health issue, never had betrayals, never had, never had,
never
had. Just gave
their heart to the Lord,
and it was kindergarten all the time.
But, wait a minute, even kindergarten is not good
all the time. Don’t
you remember when someone took your
lunchbox? Don’t you
remember when
someone took your pillow that you were going to use for your nap? Even kindergarten’s not
good all the time.
But, as parents, when a child complains about
something that happened in kindergarten, we know better. We say, “Oh, you know what? Oh, to be in kindergarten
again. Oh, to have
those little problems
again.” But we are
older, and we’re
wiser, and we don’t think much of those little problems any more,
because now
we’ve got big ones. “What’s
your
message, pastor?” Life’s
not fair, but
God is good. You
might have gotten passed over
for a promotion, or you might have gotten fired instead of being
promoted. Somebody
went to pay the bills, and found out
there were more bills than money in the checking account. Somebody went to the
doctor and they got bad
news; they were told they had cancer, and they never did anything to
deserve
it—they didn’t smoke, they didn’t bring it on themselves. How come?
How come I? Somebody’s
child,
they were coming home from the hospital.
People are hurting today, aren’t they?
Life’s not easy; I’ll go further:
it’s not fair.
And if the devil
has his way, he’ll tell us that God has somehow left us. And if the devil has his
way, he’ll tell us
that somehow God is out of the picture, and we are in trouble, because
the
devil’s driving the car, and we don’t know where he’s going. But I came to tell
somebody today, we do know
where he’s going: He’s
going to
Hell. I’m not going
with him; I’m going
to Heaven. How
about you? The
devil and Hell are real, and we make a
choice every day whom we’ll serve.
We
just sang it, He’s worthy of our praise.
He’s worthy of our praise.
I came
today to tell somebody that the devil tries to get us to focus on our
problems
instead of on our solutions. Somebody
knows exactly why I’m here. Somebody
knows. Somebody
says, “Oh, my
goodness! I took my
eyes off the prize! I
started looking at how bad things are,
instead of how good God is. I’ve
started
telling God how big my problem is, instead of telling my problem how
big my God
is. I forgot that
He’s raised up men and
women who were able to kill the lion and the bear, and kill Goliath,
too, and,
you know what? He
called me by the same
calling. Some
of you have been told that
you’re weak and you believe it. Well,
if
that’s you, I came to bring some good news today.
I’ve got some good news in my baggage today. I came to give you a
letter today, that
you’re in good company, because Apostle Paul said when he was weak,
then he was
strong (2 Corinthians 12:10). If
you’re
feeling weak today, then I’ve come to tell you that’s good news,
because that
when God can be strongest. When
we think
we’re so strong that we don’t need God, we’re like the fifteen-year-old
who
says to his mom or dad, “I got this.”
Hmmm. Some
of you are teaching
your fifteen-year-old how to drive.
You
have more information than they want.
Sometimes
we’re that fifteen-year-old to our Heavenly Father.
He’s got more information than we want. Hello?
When our son Adam was fifteen, I told him more than
once, “I’m going to
outlive this, Adam. You
think I don’t
know how to fight my way out of a paper bag.
You think I’m not smart enough to come in out of the
rain. I’m going to
live long enough ‘til you find
out I’m smart again. When
you were five,
you knew I was brilliant.” Okay,
that was
a little humor to help this go down, but some of us are
fifteen-year-olds to
God. We don’t want
His advice any more,
we don’t want His counsel any more, we know better!
That’s not a put-down; I used that analogy
because we can all relate to it. When
I
was fifteen, I had all the answers.
My
dad got stone-stupid when I was fifteen.
He didn’t have a clue!
He didn’t
know how to cut his hair; he didn’t know what kind of music to listen
to, he
drove too slow, he had stupid rules…
Somebody say amen; don’t leave me up here all alone! We’ve all been fifteen,
unless you’re
younger. Now I’m
warning you, when you
get to be fifteen, you’re parents’ brains will fall out. Here’s some good news,
when you get to be
twenty-one, or twenty-two, or twenty-three, it’ll happen sometime in
your life,
their brains will get back in. All
of
the sudden, you’ll say, “Man! I’m
so
glad you’re smart again! Where
did you
go?” Life’s
not fair, but God is
good. We’ll spend a
little time in First
Samuel. Reading
about my buddy,
David. Oh, my
goodness. David who
slew Goliath, who had favor in the
sight of King Saul. What
could be
better? The king
was going to give him
his daughter. They’re
going to get
married, and life’s going to be perfect.
He’s known all over the land, in fact, there comes a
popular song in the
day. You read about
it First Samuel, the
people are singing it. They
loved
David. Saul loves
David; everybody loves
David. David won
American Idol; I mean,
everything’s going perfect. Then
the
people start singing this song about David—oh, if he only knew. He’d have stopped them
before they got the
second verse out. They
were singing,
“Saul has slain his thousands, and David his ten-thousands.” (1 Samuel
18:7) And they were
singing it in the
streets, and Saul heard it. An
evil
spirit came on Saul, so much so that—I’m just paraphrasing through it;
read it,
First Samuel chapter seventeen all the way through chapter
thirty-one—David has
to flee. What
happened to everybody
loves David? What
happened? David
doesn’t deserve this. He
had a chance to kill Saul; he wouldn’t do
it, because Saul is God’s anointed.
What
happened? Why? What did David do to bring
this on? Life’s not
fair, but God is good. So,
David decides he’s got to go
someplace. He takes
six-hundred men, and
they leave. When
they come back, their
people are gone, their wives and sons and daughters are gone, and their
village
has been burned. Now
the men that were
with David want to stone him. What
happened to everybody loves David?
So,
David inquired of the Lord, “What do I do?” and the Lord said, “Go.” That’s a paraphrase; it
actually happened in
two parts, but they went, and, you know what?
God protected their wives and their sons and their
daughters, and they
brought them back. Then
everybody loved
David again. Except
Saul. Life’s not
fair, but God is good. What
chapter
are you in in your life? Everybody
love
you today, or nobody love you today?
Huh? “Oh,
good God Almighty, he’s
not meddling right in the middle of my life!”
Some days your husband looks at you and says you’re
the prettiest woman
he ever did see, and some days he looks at you and says, “What did I
ever see
in you?” God
Almighty, what happened to
that man; does he need glasses? Does
he
need a lobotomy? What’s
going on? Sometimes
you look at your husband and say,
“You’re a muscle-man,” and sometimes you look at your husband and say,
“You’re
a monster-man!” What
happened to this
woman? What
happened to cause her to
think that…? Life’s
not fair, but God is
good. What chapter
are you in your
life? You see,
David had high times, and
David had low times … Job; let’s
talk about Job for a few minutes.
Oh, my
goodness. Let’s go
there. Here’s this
upright man, he lived for God, he
loved God, God loved him; all is well with Job.
His wife loves him, his children love him, God loves
him, he loves God;
how does it get any better than that?
Job is on top of the world, so much so that when the
conversation takes
place in Heaven, God says to Satan, “Have you considered my servant
Job?” Oh, Job would
have said, “No, Lord, don’t say
it! Don’t say it! Don’t do it!
Let me be! I’ll
praise You! I’ll
worship You! Don’t
do it!”” Can I
preach today? Can
you imagine if Job could have been in on
that conversation? If
you’re not
familiar with the story, it’s an Old Testament story and it’s about a
man who
really is doing everything right.
A
conversation took place in Heaven, and God was so proud of Job, that He
said to
Satan, “Have you considered My servant, Job?
You know what?
This is my
man. Job.” And it’s true; He blessed
him. He had all
kinds of health and wealth
and… And Satan
said, “Well the only
reason he serves You like that is because You put a hedge around him,
You’ve
given him all that stuff.” And
God said,
“Not so. Take all
his stuff.” That’s
a paraphrase; you can read it. Read
the whole Book of Job. His
stuff was taken, and Job was still
standing. He lost
his family, and Job
was still standing. His
wife said, “Why
don’t you curse God and die?” But
Job was
still standing. Life’s
not fair, but God
is good. I came to tell you today, because you’re feeling sorry for
yourself. Somebody,
life’s not been fair to you this
season. You think
God’s left you; He
hasn’t. You think
somebody else got the
position you should have gotten. Maybe
it’s right here in this church; somebody else is doing something that
you’re
more qualified to do. “Why
does he get
to do that?” “Why
does she get to do
that?” “Why am I
not doing that?” “How
come they got appreciated and I didn’t
get appreciated?” “We
celebrate Mother’s
Day, but what about Son’s Day?” “What
about Daughter’s Day?” They’re
part of
the family… Moms
and dads know that
Son’s and Daughter’s Day is every day.
I
heard that, mothers. See,
if the devil
has his way, he’ll have us feeling sorry for ourselves.
We know that Job survived all that.
God blessed him and he had twice as
much. And then Job
got a little full of
himself—watch out, now, blessings will trip you.
Watch out, now; blessings will trip you—at
the end of the Book of Job, God had to remind him, “Where were you when
I
created the Heavens and the earth?
Where
were you when I put the stars in the sky?
Where were you? Who
do you think
you are, Job?” Remember
how it
started? “Consider
My servant,
Job?” But, then,
Job got full of
himself. Job got
full of himself, and
God had to say… So, I don’t
know what season you’re in in your life, today, but I came to tell you,
life's
not fair, but God is good. If
today
you’re feeling low, there’s a good remedy for that.
That’s the good news.
This is not all bad news.
This is not 5 o’clock; this is not Channel
Seven. There’s good
news in this news,
and here’s the good news: God’s
still
God. Whatever
season you’re in in your
life, wherever you’re at in your journey, God hasn’t quit being God. God’s still in the saving
business; God’s
still in the rescue business. Hmmm. We’re going
to back for a moment, and pick up that last part of First Samuel. Maybe you’re going to get
your wife, or your
son, or your daughter, or your husband—but, in the story, the men tried
to
retrieve, David and six hundred, well, four hundred by the time they
get there,
because two hundred stayed by the brook, but they went to get their
families
back. Maye you’re
here today, and you’re
saying, “My family’s gone.” That’s
too
broad a brush to paint with to make it personal to every circumstance,
but God
is still God. “Raise
up a child in the
way it should go and when he is old, he will not depart…” (Proverbs
22:6) If
their heart’s still beating, keep
praying. You might
even have to go do
some rescue. There’s
not a father or a
mother in here, that would have a child in a burning building and
wouldn’t get
in that building to get their child.
Am
I right about that? Not
because you’re a
hero, but because you’re a parent.
Well,
our Heavenly Father loves us more than we could love each other. Some of us need to rescue
our family. Rescue
them with prayers, if not with
people. Rescue them
with prayers;
petition the Almighty. “Bring
them back
to You, Lord. Remind
them of that
dedication service. Remind
them of their
calling. Remind
them of their love for
You.” Amen? Some of us have given up
on people God hasn’t
given up on. I’ll
say it again: Some
of us have given up on people God hasn’t
given up on. We’ve
got to be careful. So, let’s
talk about what Jesus said in Matthew 6:33, when He said, “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God… and
all these things shall
be added unto you.” I
want to
tell you that that verse doesn’t work backwards, and what I mean by
that is,
you can’t wait until all these things are added unto you, and then seek
the Kingdom
of God. It says,
‘first,’ it means
first. Amen? I promise you that if I
proposed to my wife,
Debbie, like I did a little over forty years ago, because we’ll be
married
forty years this June, and I proposed to her sometime in the fall, we
had about
a six month engagement, I proposed to her towards the end of the year,
I don’t
remember that day. I
remember our
wedding day—don’t stone me. We
were
married June 14th, 1975; I don’t remember what
day I proposed to
her, but it was a rea high-class proposal.
We were on Sheridan Road, and we had stopped at “The
Spot,” and got a
cheeseburger and a root beer, and I had the ring in the glove box, and
I said,
”This is it; this is the night,” and we were driving down Sheridan
Road, and I
thought, “What’s the classiest way that I could do this?” So, I pulled in the
parking lot of the
Homestead Bar and Grill—I wanted it to be top class!—I don’t know if
it’s still
there, but it was on Sheridan Road in Kenosha; of course, this was
years
ago. I said,
“Debbie, could you check
the glove box? I
think there’s something
in there that I need,” and she opened it up and she said, “I don’t see
anything.” I took
this silver and black
ring box, and opened it up, and asked her to be my wife, and she said,
“Yes.” I old that
story for a reason;
why did I tell it? “Seek
ye first,”
that’s it. Thank
you for reminding
me. So, if I’d have
said to Debbie,
“Debbie, there’s these three or four girls that I’ve been thinking
about
marrying, and I’m going to ask all of them, but I wanted to get your
opinion,
and see where you’re at in this whole equation, because, you see, I’ve
got it
down to a short list. There’s
just these
three or four, and how do you feel about that, Debbie?
Do you think maybe we should get
married?” I don’t
think it would have
gone so well. One
of us might have just
wound up lying in that parking lot.
I
just don’t think it would have gone as well as it did.
Does that make sense?
What we read in Matthew 6:33 is that Jesus is
teaching ‘first’ and we get that first means first.
It doesn’t mean second is first.
First is first, right?
You hit the baseball from home plate, and if
you run straight to second, you’re out.
You’ve got to go to first, first.
Does that make sense?
You’ve got
to seek God first. Sometimes
we don’t
have all these things that are added on to you in the second part of
that
verse, because we haven’t sought God first.
You always look at somebody else and you say, “Why
does he have?” “Why
does she have?” “Why
do they have?” Have
you been seeking God first? Because
that verse doesn’t say, “Seek ye
first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and then, maybe…” because it already said it
will be added.
I’m not preaching name it and claim it; what
I am preaching is faithfulness. Even
when the season of your life doesn’t look good; even when there’s no
fruit on
the tree… Hello? Do you know what I’m
saying? Some of you
are looking at others coming off
the baptistery full of fruit and yours is bare, and you’re thinking,
“What
wrong with me?” Well,
this might be that
season of your life. I
don’t know if
everybody here has seen an apple tree, my father was—we grew up on an
apple
orchard. My father
grew up on an apple
orchard. You know
when you see an apple
tree in the winter, it looks dead.
When
you see an apple tree that’s pruned, it looks like you killed it. When that pruned proper
apple tree come out
of winter, when the warm winds of spring, and the rain descends, and
nourishes
the roots, and the leaves pop out and the flowers, and the apples
follow, and
it’s full… Some of
you are in a winter
season in your life. If
you’re in a
winter season, don’t forget that God is faithful.
Don’t forget that God is good.
Winter season only lasts for the winter, but
the spring is coming. Some
of you are
discouraged. Some
of you feel that God has
left you. Some of
you are comparing
yourselves to someone else. Why
would
you do that when God needs you to be you?
I came to tell you today that life's not fair, but
God is good. You
say, “Preacher, what kind of a lousy
message is this? We
came to church to
have you tell us that life is great; I’ll never have any illness, I’ll
never
have a doctor give me bad news, I’ll never have a bill that’s overdue,
I’ll
never…” Well that
just isn’t true. Why
would you come to hear something that
isn’t true? How
about hearing some
truth, that God’s good even when life is bad?
Tell me the story of the person that doesn’t have
challenges. But,
would you rather have challenges without
God or with God? Would
you rather have
challenges with God or without God? So, think
about the parable of the Prodigal son.
We see two sons in that parable.
It starts in Luke chapter 15 and verse 10. Think about this parable,
and, in fact there
were to sons in this parable, and one son is just full of, “I gotta go
do this;
I gotta go do that…” I
can relate to
that. I mean, if I
look back at my early
years; if I look back on my teen-age years.
When I graduated High School, I had enlisted in the
Navy on the Delayed
Entry Program, and I had several weeks before I actually came in the
Navy. When I came
in the Navy, we were still
sending troops to Viet Nam. My
oldest
brother was in Viet Nam, and I thought I was going to get in the Navy,
and go
over and help him finish the war, and we’d come home heroes. I had the whole thing
pictured in my mind,
the parade and all. I
was pretty excited
about how this was going to work, and he and I would be home-town
heroes, and
the couple that won the war, and the president would thank us, and the
nation
would be grateful, and it didn’t happen exactly that way. So, I graduated High
school—you haven’t read
my book—so, I graduated High School, and I had a summer job at the car
wash,
and I was, you know, going in the Navy, and I had three buddies, and
we’d
always talked about doing a trip.
You
know, when we graduated, we were going to—they were going to college,
the three
of them, because they did something different in High school, and they
got
accepted. I was
going in the Navy
because no college would accept me.
You
don’t have to make fun of me; I’m doing it for you.
So, I was going in the Navy, and we were out
of High School, and we were about three days into our summer break,
and, one
morning, I was leaving my house, and driving to the car wash, it
occurred to me
that we had graduated, and the clock was ticking towards what would
happen
next: college, and
the Navy, and all the
follow-ups. Instead
of going to work, I
went to my buddy’s house and I woke him up.
I said, “Are you ready to go on that trip?” He said, “Yeah, sure.” I said, “Pack your bags.” He did.
I didn’t think he would, but he did, and so he got
in the car. Now
there was two of us. I
hadn’t packed my bags yet, but I didn’t
tell him that. We
went to the next
buddy’s house, and we said, “You ready to go on that trip?” He said, “Yeah.” Then he said, “I got to
work this afternoon…”
We said, “Call
and quit, because that’s
what we’re doing.” So
he packed his bag,
and then we went to the third buddy’s, and then there were four of us
in the
car, and I said, “I’ve got to go home and pack my bag.”
Well, I took a lot of razzing from them for
that because I’ the guy that threw out the first dare, and I hadn’t
told them
that I hadn’t packed my bag. It
only
took me about a minute and a half to pack my bag.
You know when you’re eighteen years old,
there’s only so many things that you need to take.
So, I packed my bag, and we had all our
duffle bags, or gym bags, or whatever they’re called, we threw them in
the
trunk of the car, and we headed south.
I
grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and that’s about six, seven, maybe
eight
hours away from Washington, D.C. So,
around dinner time, I thought, “I’d better call my dad and tell him
where I’m
at.” I called my
dad, and I said, “Dad,
I’m in Washington, D.C.” He
said, “What
are you running for, Pete?” I
said, “I’m
not running for any office, dad, but we’re running for Florida. We’re going to go on down
the coast, you know. Larry,
and Tony, and Gary and I, we’ve
decided that we’re all going to take our trip, you know, that trip that
we’ve
always talked about making. My
dad said,
“I thought you had a job at the car wash?”
I said, “I did until this morning.”
There’s a reason for this story, stay with me. My dad paused for a while,
and he said, “What
made you think that was a good idea?”
I
said, “Dad, I’m just two months away from being in Viet Nam, and my
buddies are
just a few months away from being in college, and I’m eighteen, and I
own this
car. I bought it
with money I earned at
the car wash. I
don’t have any
bills. Frankly, I
don’t need my summer
job, because I’m going in the military; I’m not saving for anything. We’ve got enough money to
make this trip, and
it just seems like the right time in our life to do it.” And there was a pause on
the line, and he
said, “Well, you know, Peter, if I was eighteen years old, and I was
restless,
I think I’d be with you. Have
a good
trip. Stay in
touch.” I tell you
that story because we’re in
different seasons of our life. Right
now, that would be the stupidest thing I could do.
Wouldn’t couldn’t shouldn’t, no way, no how,
uh-huh. Back then,
it made sense, but
some of us are trying to be eighteen again.
Some of us are trying to live our lives as if they
were in a different chapter. Live
your life in the chapter you’re in.
Live where you’re at.
Let God be God.
Let God be God.
And, you know what?
If your parents are stupid—we talked about that
earlier, but I think I’m going to hit that one more time--remember they
love
you. Even if
they’ve made a mistake,
remember they love you. There’s
a couple
of people here that think I’m picking on you personally; I’m not. I’ve got broader shoulders
than that. I’d pick
on you all alone if that were the
case. I’m just
preaching what the Lord
would have me to preach today. I
came to
tell somebody today that God knows you’ve got a broken heart. I came to tell somebody
today that God knows you
carry a heavy burden. I
came to tell
somebody today that I know it doesn’t seem fair where you’re at right
now. I came to tell
somebody today that God knows that
you feel like you’ve forgiven more than you’ve been forgiven. I know that somebody here
today needs to hear
this: You’re
childhood wasn’t what it
should have been. You
don’t have any
good childhood memories. But
your
heavenly Father loves you. I’m
not here
to tell you that it doesn’t matter; it matters greatly.
I’m not here to tell you that your hurt isn’t
real; it’s very real. I’m
not here to
tell you that divorce doesn’t till make you lie awake at night and
wonder what
happened, how did it go wrong; I know it does.
Life's not fair, but God is good. Life's
not fair, but God is good. I
came to tell somebody stay on track; don’t
give up, because the Bible says that it is one appointed for men to
die, and
then the judgment (Hebrews 9:27).
And, you
know what? Some of
the battles we’re
fighting now—are you kidding me?—what difference does it make? I want to
tell you about another story about my relationship with my family. I just feel pricked in my
spirit to tell this
story; some of you have heard it, and I apologize for repeating it. I was an adult; our
children were already
born, and I was visiting my brother Gary.
I’m one of six children; I have four brothers and a
sister. I was
visiting my brother Gary, who is a year
older than me, in his home on Columbus, Ohio.
The point of this story—I’ll tell you now, so you
don’t get lazy on me; I
want you to hear this story—the point of the story is that… I was talking about our
childhood, and I said,
“Oh, Gary, you remember that house we grew up in?
Remember how we used to we could walk out the
back door of our house, and once you got to the end of the yard, it was
just
woods, and the woods went on forever, and we used to play in those
woods hours
and hours and hours, and not come home ‘til late at night? Remember how we used to
build lean-to’s?” Those
of you that didn’t grow up in the
mountains probably don’t know what that is, but that’s a fort on a hill. All you have to do is
build a roof out from
the hill, because the hill is steep enough.
We called it a lean-to, I don’t know if that’s a
slang name or the real
name, but that’s what we called it.
Sort
of, you could build a fort, and you could build one after another. “Remember how dad used to
take us to Canada to
go fishing, and you remember how…” and I just went on and on and on,
talking
about all these great memories of my childhood, and a lot of them had
to do
with how wonderful our parents were, and how wonderful our life was. It occurred to me, after a
little while, that
Gary was becoming increasingly troubled about me taking to him. He had this expression on
his face, and he
was bothered by my stories. I
was just
reminiscing about our childhood, and our quality of life, and our
father was still
alive then. My
father was always an
alcoholic, but his drinking problem just much worse toward the end of
his
journey. It was
very bad at this point
in his life, and I tell you that because what Gary said to me next was,
“Pete,
are you talking about the same dad that was too drunk to go to your
High School
graduation, and, when you came home and asked him why, he said, ‘Oh, I
didn’t
know you were graduating today.’?
Are you
talking about the same dad that…” and Gary went with a list,
rapid-fire, of
things that had happened that he was still hurting over. When I probed him a little
further, I didn’t
realize this until then, but Gary had broken off his relationship with
his
father, with our father. Gary
had then,
and has now, two sons, who are both adult men now, but, at that time,
they were
in High School, and he had severed the relationship from his sons to
their grandfather.
He had become
bitter, and he was
angry. His memory
of our childhood was
such that he had been dealt such a bad hand, he’d been given such a
poor deal,
why would he ever have any good memory of our father?
IF it feels like I’m leaving my mom out, she
got very, very sick when I was young; I don’t want to leave her out,
she was a
wonderful mother, but at age ten, she had a cerebral hemorrhage that
left her
in a nursing home for the rest of her life, so she wasn’t much of our
day-to-day life at home. She
was very
much a part of our lives, but my dad raised us up as a parent. It’s great that we got the
best of him. I’m
not making light of it, it’s a serious
problem. Some of
you know the pain of
that, and Gary became involved with bitterness.
But I pled with him that day, and I said, “Gary,
someday he’s going to
die, and, if things go their normal course, he will proceed you and I
in death.
And, if you
don’t resolve this, all you’ll
have left is bitterness and you’ll carry it to your grave. You will leave it as an
inheritance for your
sons.” I’m done
with
the story, because that’s all I needed to say to make my point. Are you bitter about
“Life’s not fair” so
much so that you’ll carry it to your grave and leave it as an
inheritance for
your children, or are you ready to put it behind you, and say, ”Life's
not
fair, but God is good.”? I
now I’m not
preaching evangelistic now, I’m not being funny now, I’m not being
dynamic right
now, I’m just trying to be as sincere as I can be and tell you that
life's not
fair, but God’s still good. Somebody
say
amen. When the
devil tries to tell you
why you should go and kill Saul… Now I’m
going
to wrap it up right where I started.
If
the devil is telling you to go kill Saul because he’s not fair to you
and—for those
of you who are not familiar with the story, I don’t mean to talk over
your
head, I just mean to say: Here’s
David,
he has done nothing to deserve the wrath of Saul, the king, and yet,
Saul
wanted to kill him. David
didn’t get
bitter, he got better. And,
by the way,
I’ll close with this—I didn’t think I was going there, but here I am—by
the
way, when David sinned with Bathsheba, David, after he was king—I know
I’ve
gone all over the Scriptures in this message, I hope you’re with me—if
you’re
not familiar, I’ll just try to take a moment to say that David became
king, he
was anointed, but he forgot. I
know this
is our of order chronologically, but he forgot a message that was as
sure for
David as it is for us today, “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His
righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you.” David somehow got mixed up
and thought he was
as good as the song they were singing about him.
He was reading his own press clippings. He looked from the
rooftop, and he saw
Bathsheba, and he had her brought to him, she conceived. He covered it up and tried
to kill Uriah—he didn’t
try; he had Uriah killed—her husband.
How did he get there?
How did he
get there? So,
maybe somebody today, maybe
somebody today needs me to tell you that, even if that’s the chapter in
your
life, and you’ve slipped and you’ve fallen, and you’ve sinned, maybe
you’ve
brought embarrassment on you and your family, God’s still God. God’s still God. The God I know is still in
the forgiving
business. The God I
know is still in the
saving business. And
the God I know is
still good. Somebody
here is down on
their back, and they’re thinking, “Count me out,” and you think there’s
no way
to get up, but God’s already made a way to stand up, and He says, “Just
hold my
hand,” like Peter and John at the hour of prayer. Great
God Almighty. Somebody
came here today and thought, “Well,
I’ll just go through the motions ‘till I die.
There’s nothing good for me left.”
That’s a lie from the pit of Hell, and you call it a
lie, and you call
the devil the liar he is, and say, “God, You’re my
God, and You’re still good. I ended with that story about David
and Bathsheba because I feel pricked in my spirit that somebody here
needs to
be reminded: You
might have slipped and
fallen, but falling isn’t failure unless you refuse to get up. I’ll say that again: You might have slipped and
fallen, but
falling isn’t failure unless you refuse to get up.
God still loves you!
Life's not fair, but God is good.
As for me and my house, we will serve the
Lord. You think
I’ve ever felt like
quitting? I have. I hope that doesn’t
discourage somebody; I apologize
if it has, but I’ve been discouraged.
I’ve
felt like quitting. Parrish,
come stand
with me. I remember
the day it happened
to me, Parrish. I’ll
never forget. I was
just so hurt and so discouraged and so
frustrated and so overwhelmed, and I forgot that God is good, and I
thought, “Woe
is me!” I got
feeling sorry for myself;
I got eat up with, “What about me, God?”
So I went in the coatroom at 621 Belvidere, and I
was just crying out to
God in that room all alone. It
was
summer; there weren’t any coats in there.
I was just standing in that dark room; I didn’t even
turn the light on. I
was just crying out to God, “Have pity on
me. Why would you
save me if You’re just
going to mock me? I
would You save me if
I’m just going to have a useless life?
Why would You save me if my life won’t ever matter? Why would you save me, if
it’s all for
naught? I’m
standing there all alone,
saying, “God, is there any hope left?
Is
there any hope? Is
there anything at all
left for me to do, or should I just give up and quit now? Can I just get out of the
way right now?” This
man walked into the coatroom; he turned
on the light, physically and spiritually.
He said, “I don’t know why, but the Holy Spirit
pricked my heart, and
told me to come to you right now and say, ‘Your ministry matters.’ To come to you right now
and say, ‘Your
testimony matters.’ To
come to you right
now and say, ‘Your sacrifice matters.’”
Maybe you need to tell somebody today that their
ministry matters, that
their sacrifice matters to God and for God.
If the devil told you your days are no good, that
you’re worthless, say,
“I’m God’s child; He’s still got something great for me to do. He’s prepared a place for
me in heaven. If it
were not so…”
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