Corinthians tonight. We're going to preach a message tonight. How many has had some rough things happen to you in your life? Raise your hand. Okay. The rest of you get ready. Amen. 2 Corinthians chapter 11, and we're going to be looking at some verses in there, starting at verse 22, and then we're going to go over to 2 Corinthians chapter 12. And we're going to look at a subject tonight of why did these things happen to me? Why did this have to happen to me? How many has ever said that? I have, I'll be honest with you. I said, Lord, why'd this have to happen? Lord, why'd this have to happen? Boy, I tell you, I know I shouldn't, but the old devil likes to come, he likes to drop his mail off in my mailbox, sister. Does he ever drop mail off in your mailbox? Sometimes you know and if it's addressed from the devil, you gotta throw it in the trash. Amen. Don't even read the mail Don't even read the mail because it ain't worth reading but once in a while. I'll Get something, you know, and he'll try to tell me well, why do I that really pays to serve God doesn't it? why'd that have to happen and this is what you get for serving God and so forth and all these things and he wants to get you in a situation, but I want to before I start reading say this your Lord said to you in the Gospels that it rains on the just and the unjust. And he calls of his son to shine on the good and the evil. When I see a cloud bank up in the Southwest and it starts moving that rain, you know, moving through and so forth, God doesn't go along with that rain clouds. Oh, there's some people that aren't saved that don't rain there. It just rains. When he lets the sunshine shine, he doesn't say, well, now I'm not gonna shine on that lost person or that guy that despises me or doesn't live for me. He lets the sun shine on him. That tells me that there are some commonalities about life that we've got to understand and accept. It rains on the just and it rains on the unjust. It shines on the just and it shines on the unjust. And we're not gonna escape problems and trials and tragedies and disasters and disappointments just because we're saved. We need to make sure we got that down good. The Apostle Paul was saved on the road to Damascus. Life totally turned around. And to be honest with you, if you read his story, he didn't have nothing but trouble almost for the rest of his life. I mean, just constant. He was in jail half the time or more. And he wound up, according to history, uh, having his head cut off, uh, according to secular history. And he gets second Timothy. He said, time, my departure is a hand. He said, I'm now ready to be offered. And, uh, he talks about some of these things he went through, but you need to read Paul about these disappointments and these heartaches and these things that happened to us. Because I just recently heard about a fellow who had some bad stuff happen to him, and they were in church, and some bad things happened. Tough stuff, rough stuff. And it just blew him out. He just couldn't get past it, why God let that happen in his life, and why did this happen? Why did this have to happen? He just couldn't get past it, and eventually, and you start letting that feed in, you don't get ahold of the scriptures on it. I'm gonna tell you something, it gets you now. And so I just want us tonight to just kind of feed, just as sheep in the pasture of God, I want you to get something, Lord, maybe help you get through a hard time, a rough time, sorrowful time, disappointing time in your life. Paul said in 2 Corinthians 11, verse 22, he said, are they Hebrew? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they the seed of Abraham? So am I. Are they ministers of Christ? I speak as a fool. I am more. In labors more abundant, in stripes above measure. Can you imagine? In stripes above measure, he'd lost count. How many times he'd been whipped. In prisons, more frequent. In deaths, off many times, he thought, this is it. This is it. Of the Jews, five times received off 40 stripes, save one. Count them up. Five times 40 is 200. Take off fives, 195, just from the Jewish people, just from the Jews. Not the jailers. 191 stripes. I want to tell you something. I promise you, now I don't know all about heaven, but I know this much. Jesus's glorified body, he told Thomas, that's in his new glorified body. He said, Thomas, I'm wondering if when we meet the apostle Paul, if we won't see on his back. A man taking 195 stripes, folks, is no wimp. And they weren't just doing that. Look at verse 25. Thrice, three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Thrice, I suffered shipwreck. Lord, I'm trying to serve you and the ship's wrecked. I mean, did I get on the wrong ship? I thought I was trying to go and do and be what you wanted me to be in life. And three times, you know, can't you imagine the devil saying to Paul, aren't you finally gonna get the message, Paul? You ain't following God, you wouldn't be having all this trouble. You wouldn't be having all this suffering. You wouldn't be having all this pain. You wouldn't be having all this disappointments and problems in life. If you were really following God, man, don't you... Thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I have been in the deep, floating out in the Mediterranean Sea. In journeys often in perils of water, in perils of robbers, in perils by my own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren, in weariness, painfulness, watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness, Can you imagine sitting in an old jail in Italy and Rome in wintertime? Don't have a blanket, don't have a coat, sit there shivering, nobody has any mercy, just sitting there literally freezing to death. You don't believe that, you read II Timothy, what he told Timothy, he said, I need a cloak, I need coats, prison. He said, bring the parchments, and so forth, the books. He wanted something to keep him warm. In fact, that's when he said, do that diligence come before winter. He said he knew what he's getting ready to get into. Verse 28, besides those things that are without, that which cometh upon me daily, the care of all the churches. Who is weak and I am not weak. Who is offended and I burn not. He said, you think you've had things said about you and done to you that ticked you off, burned you up? That's where we get the phrase, boy, that just burns me up. Paul said, you think you've had stuff? Don't you think I've had things said to me by people and done to me that didn't burn me off? When you get into chapter 12 and you get to verse, he talks about his special experience that he had with God about being caught up in the third heaven. And he realizes that he has had, that he is a special vessel of the Lord, that he has a special calling. It's gonna be unlike and unique to other people's experiences in life. And when you get into verse number seven, actually let's pick it back up verse number five. He said, of such in one I will glory, yet of myself I will not glory, but in mine infirmities. Now that's not a light statement. Paul said, I'm gonna glory in my infirmities. Now I'm interested, I don't know if you are or not, how a man can get to where he would glory in his infirmities. And what he's talking about that is the hard hits of life, the weakness and the trouble and the brokenness and the weariness and the painfulness and all the things that's happened to him. How can he glory in those infirmities? And specifically, now he's gonna talk about a physical infirmity that's on him. He said, verse six, for though I would desire the glory, I shall not be a fool for I will say the truth, but now I forbear lest, and here's why, lest any man should think me above that which he seeth me to be or that he heareth of me. He said, I don't want people to think more of me than they ought to. And I don't want to crowd out God's glory in my life by talking about all I've went through and all I've endured and all I've been afflicted with. He said, I don't want that to take away from Christ's glory in my life. And then he said in verse seven this, and lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan, wow, to buffet me. Now buffet is an old English word, means your fist up and hit in the face. He was uppercut. He was hit hard. Don't raise your, you've been hit hard. You've lived very long and served the Lord. You've been hit, you get hit hard. And he said, to buffet me, he said, to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure. For this thing, I besought the Lord thrice. He said, three times I went to God about this, that it might depart from me. Now this thorn in the flesh, I ain't got time to go there. Everybody's got their idea about what it is. But the issue is that he had it. and God let him have it, and God was actually using Satan to keep him down, to keep him being exalted above measure. In verse number nine, this is what he said, and he said unto me, he being the Lord said unto me, my grace is sufficient for thee, for my strength is made perfect in weakness. And then Paul concludes it by saying this, most gladly, therefore, will I rather glory in my infirmities that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore, I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ's sake. For when I'm weak, then am I strong. Lord, help us to preach tonight in a way that will glorify the Lord Jesus Christ. Help me, God, to feed the flock. And Lord, may this word be an encouragement and a strength and become the fabric of their soul. In Jesus' name, amen. There's three things that you can do when things happen to you. One of them is you can become bitter. And you can get mad at God and accuse God and blame God for what's happened in your life and go on the rest of your life being bitter. That's a choice that we have, we can do that. It's the wrong choice. Getting bitter is not gonna make it better. It's gonna make it worse. The second thing you can do, you can become self-pitying and just kind of live in a self-pity life of where you just feel sorry for yourself and my lot in life and you just kind of live in that low land the rest of your life. You have no joy, you have no vibrance, you have no enthusiasm about life. You just, you're kind of like Tippi the bird, you know, you just don't sing anymore. You just sit in your cage and you just kind of look out in a daze. You can be bitter, blame God, just live as a cankered soul the rest of your life. You can get into a feel sorry for me and self-pity deal and just live in that swamp. But the third thing you can do is you can get grace for it. You can accept it. And you can adjust to it. And that's what Paul did. And Paul learned, eventually, he said, the Lord told him, he said, my grace is sufficient for you. He said, Lord, I want it out of the trap. I want it out of the pressure. I want it out of the pain. I want it out of the problems. I want it out of the problems. I want it out of all this junk from inside, outside, every direction I turn, these problems and these disappointments in life and hardships and terrible things. I mean, you read that stuff, it's almost unreal. I can read that and act like I know what he's going through. I don't have no clue what Paul went through. Paul said God wanted him to know something. My grace is sufficient for you in whatever you're going through and whatever you're facing in life. And God wants you to know tonight that his grace is gonna be sufficient for you all the way through. He'll not give it to you before you need it, he'll give it to you when you need it and as you need it. I wanna give you some reasons tonight from the Bible why things tough before God's people. Number one, I'll try to be quick. This is a little bit tough, but here it is. God allows some really, really rough things to happen to his people for his glory. There's a man born blind in the New Testament. And of course, they come up there and said, well, who's seeing, this man or his parents, that he's born blind? Jesus said, neither. But that the glory of God might be manifested. You know, if I lost my eyesight tonight, I'd think that was a rough hit. If one of your children tonight lost their eyes, you'd say, Lord, why did this have to happen? Lord, why couldn't they go through life seeing and enjoying everything? I don't understand everything, but I can tell you right now, there's some of the things bad that's happened to you for God's glory. It is. All this stuff that was going on, if you go back home tonight and read this chapter, these two chapters, you'll find out that basically Paul, he finally got a hold of it. He said, God is glorified through these things. Somehow or another, God's glory through it. I'm saying to you tonight, listen, for the glory of God, you take old Job. Now, I don't understand about Job, and I don't think he's got all the answer, and he just read over it, and I just got tickled. That's first read, and here I am, I'm gonna talk about Job. Job's wife, The whole thing was Satan accused Job of was that if you put the pressure on him, you send bad stuff in his life, he'll curse you to your face. And it got so bad that even his wife finally said, curse God and die. And I'll tell you something, this man, and then after that, the Bible said Job cursed his day, but he didn't curse God. And the Bible never says that God ever explained to him why this all happened. I want to give you my take on Job. Yeah, it's like Brother Akins up in Iowa that goes down to camp and says, he said, you know, the short explanation of Job is God's God and you're not. That's just in one phrase, that's it. Because if you try to say you understand all that, you'd go crazy. You don't understand it, I don't understand it, but I'm going to say this, that God was glorified through this man's life. God was glorified through his sufferings. Now, here's little Reg Kelly. Well, Lord, is that the way you get glory by allowing us to go through all kinds of problems in life? Can't you get your glory, Lord, some other way besides all us having to suffer? You know, those kind of stupid, idiotic stuff runs through my mind. It has run through my mind. Lord, I, you know. But can I remind us tonight that the Bible is very, very clear that you and I were created for His glory. I was not created to have fun. I was not created for enjoyment. I was not created to get rich. I was not created to have a smooth sailing life. I was created for His glory. And I see through a glass darkly. And it's like God told Job at the end, and I can't believe this scripture is read. God told Job, where was you at? You don't know nothing. You think you've got everything figured out and you think you've got to have an explanation to everything. He said, where were you at? when I created this thing. I want to say to you tonight, listen, I don't understand much about God in some sense of the word of why all this, a lot of things I don't understand, but I do know this, that I was created for his glory. And there is somehow another that through the disappointments and sorrows and pain and miseries of our life, if we respond in faith like Job did, God will get glory from it. And it's important to you and I that that's then here's what happens as we respond to it right and God gets glory for it. Somehow another I'm telling you the Holy Ghost of God is going to comfort and strengthen and bless those people and the sweetest people you've ever known in your life are people who've been through the trial and been through the fire and been through the trouble and still love God. I don't mean to Bless your heart, Bob, I love you to death. But I tell you, I can hardly look at that man without thinking the attitude and the spirit that he has having lost a son. Bob, I tell you, unless God would give me grace, I don't know how you took it. by His grace, got a good attitude, comes into church ready to go, worship the Lord. You wonder why I love that man and respect him? I know he's a sinner like I am. I know he's just as much in need of a savior as I am, but it encourages me. Do you understand that by his response, he has given God glory. He's not out there somewhere sitting with a beer can on the porch with his foot up on the railing, soaking himself in self-pity and bitterness the rest of his life. He gets up on Sunday morning and says, I'm gonna serve God, even though I went through a lot of heartache and I went through a lot of pain, and every day of my, I guarantee it's not a day in his life what he doesn't think of that son. But he responded with grace. And I'm gonna tell you something, God gets glory by that. I look at it and I say, I'll tell you what, Lord, if you can give a man something that still makes him wanna love you, when you've lost the most precious thing in your life, that's a God worth serving, amen? That's a God worth serving. The second reason tonight is that you may help some weaker brother. Did you know people don't get a lot of good out of preaching? I'm talking about in the sense of when they're, you know, oh, you can get up and preach all the theatrics and the whole deal, you can preach, but until it comes real in your life, do you know who helps you whenever you've lost a love, whenever you've been told you got cancer, whenever you've been told, whenever you went broke, whenever you're talking to somebody that's been through it and God took them through? It's not that preacher got up and said this and said that and he ain't never been through it and don't know, have an eye out of what he's talking about. It's that person that just kind of come alongside you and said, If you got time, visit with you. Did you know we lost a little child when we were first married? Or did you know we went broke one day and had to start all over again too? And I wanna tell you, it ain't the end of the world. God'll write another chapter and he'll write the last chapters and it'll get better. I know there's a cloud over your soul and you look at them and say, you mean to tell me that happened to you? And oh yeah, would you tell me more about it? Yeah. You see, God lets you go through some difficult times so you might be able to minister to another brother coming along behind you somewhere. I cannot tell you tonight, this is honest truth, there are days in my life when I starve to death for preacher fellowship. I don't know why God put me on the road of life that He did, and I don't feel sorry for me, but I'm honest with you, there's just times I think, boy, you know, I'd just be, there's times when I've wanted to call Brother Larry Brown, just think, could we just go spend two, three days together down somewhere, Bow Creek? Been times when I've wanted to call some preacher, there'd been, you would not believe the times since I buried Brother Oscar Cunningham, and I wished I could have called him in Springfield, but Brother Oscar, you're gonna be home. I'd just like to come by and visit with you. But I'm going to tell you this, there are preachers down through the years, whether by phone or by personal visiting or whatever conversation that I draw from every day from what they've been through. I'm telling you what, every day I get help. This old weaker brother got help from some preacher that went through some things and so forth and whatever. And I'm not going to get into all the stuff that can happen because there's plenty can happen. And those guys tell you how God took them through. And Reggie, I thought it was the end, but it wasn't. Reggie, God's been good. I remember sitting with my Uncle Dean and him talking to me about some things and telling me some things and just continually saying, but Reggie, God's been so good to me. God's been so good to me. God's been so good to me. There may be some weaker brother. You're going through something tonight. You're going to go through something and God's going to use it to be a blessing to somebody else. Might be 20 years from now. Some of you women, you went through something rough and tough, and some young mothers, kind of like the sister said this morning, you know, you're in Walmart, and you've got three kids and one on the way, and everything's falling apart, and somebody just knows what you're going through and wants you to get along. God knows that sometimes the things that happen to you, somebody else is gonna need it, and He's gonna use you in that ministry way. Thirdly tonight, God really does want you to know that His grace is sufficient. He really does. Grace is an amazing thing. God will bring you to the place of where all you've got left is His grace. How many have thought at one time in life that you were a good Christian? How many have since decided it's just by grace? My goodness, I tell you what, I think half of our Christian life is God getting us over the idea that we're something, when we're nothing. Amen. That's what he said, lest I be exalted above measure. There was given to me a thorn in the flesh to buffet me, to keep me knocked down, to keep me from thinking I was something more than I was. And you know, and God just lets us know that when it's all washed out, you know what I'm gonna need when I die, Brother Coop? Grace. I don't need 10 more dollars. I don't need three more acres. I need grace. God wants us to know that his grace will be sufficient for whatever need that comes in our life. And it's going to be learned through going through these disappointments. And when everything else is gone, ain't nothing else left. And there is grace is sufficient. How many has ever looked back and say, I don't know how I made it through. I don't know how I made it through that time in my life. How'd you make it through? His grace. It took you through. It's taking you through tonight. Number four. This one's a little tough, but God wants us to have the fellowship of Christ's sufferings. The Bible said in Philippians 3.10, Paul said that I may know him and the power of his resurrection. And everybody likes that part of that verse, but that ain't the end of the verse. and the fellowship of his sufferings that I may be made conformable to his death." I don't understand all about it, but I'm going to be honest with you. I have not grown in grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ by living on the mountaintop all the time. I have been more conformed to the image of Jesus Christ through my tough times, those times of Suffering. And I don't understand why that has to be, but it's just part of the process and ways of God that's through suffering that we're going to be more like Jesus. Suffering. It's going to conform us to the image of Jesus Christ. God says, I want you to have fellowship with his sufferings. I want you to be able to identify with him and what he suffered. And by the way, that's a long, hard subject because it talks about as a son, yet he learned obedience through the things which he suffered. Let me tell you about most of us when we're growing up with our mom and dad, we don't learn obedience by being, oh, dad said to do that, I'm gonna do that, that's wonderful. Most of the time we learned obedience by a stick on our backside, through the things which we suffered. We get a desire to be like Jesus and to be with the Lord through the things that we suffer. Too bad, but it's the way it is. But that's why God allows some of these bad things to happen so we can be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ. And then finally, let me say this, because God has to chasten his children. whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth." Why does bad things happen? Let me tell you why a lot of bad things have happened in my life. Now listen to me tonight. It ain't all been about being conformed to his image. It ain't all been about helping some weaker brother. It ain't all been about the glory of God. A lot of what I've suffered has been chastisement. Now, sometimes I wonder, is this chastisement or am I, you know, God trying to grow me in the Lord? Sometimes you have a little trouble figuring that out. But God says that every son whom he receiveth, he chasteneth. And he said not to despise the chastening of the Lord. For whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth. And some of the stuff that's going to happen in your life or has happened, God was chasing you. And then the best advice and preaching that a preacher will ever give his congregation is, do not despise the chastening of the Lord. Be thankful when God chastises you. I don't know about you, but let me tell you the way God sometimes chastens me and that's, he's chasing me financially. When I let money get between me and the Lord, he lets me know that I don't control money and nobody else does, he does. And he can vacuum your bank account out so fast, make your head swim. Right? He can bring bills that you never dreamed you'd have to pay. And sometimes he chases us that way. Sometimes he chases us with health problems. Not saying that it all is at all. Don't believe that. But he talks about that. Some are sick. You know, sometimes he chases us with reaping of our past sins and so forth in various ways, but One of the ways that reasons things happen that they do happen is that we're being chastened So I want to encourage and I say Reggie, what do we do? What should we do? And I know y'all know this I'm just gonna remind you of what you already know The first thing I believe we ought to do when things happen to us that's pretty tough is humble ourselves real quick Get low Somebody has said when the bullets are flying in the war you get down dig you a foxhole. That's under the ground. If you're going to make it through some of the shelling, you might have to dig you a foxhole. You got to get humble. You don't stick up here and say, try to hit me. I'm tough. I'm rough. No, you ain't going to be there very long. You get down. You get humble before the Lord. Things are tough. Here comes a hard time in your life. Humble yourself under God's mighty hand. Second thing is draw nigh to God. Get close. I heard an old preacher say one time when he's talking about God chastising us, he said, now listen, I'm going to tell you how to handle God's chastening. He said, I learned it when I was a boy. He said, my dad would grab my left arm and we'd go into a dance. He said he was the one playing the fiddle. But he said, I learned something. He said, boy, we'd be going around and dad would be whooping me. But he said, I learned that if I would nudge in getting tied up against daddy, he couldn't hit me very hard. And he said, he'd be doing this. When you're under chastening and you're going through a hard time in life, you get close to God. Draw nigh to God and he'll draw nigh to you. There are times, beloved, when we need to do like the apostle John, sit down at the table of fellowship and lay our head on his breast. He's a shepherd. Draw nigh to God. By that I mean this, get along with the Lord. Get in that book, pour it over your soul, saturate your soul with the word of God. Then thirdly, thank Him. In everything give thanks, for this is the will of God and Christ Jesus concerning you. It's not so much thanking him for what happened, it's thanking him for his purposes and what he's going to do through it. I don't understand, Lord, what you're doing or why you're doing it. I don't have a clue about it all, but I'm going to thank you. Have a good attitude, good response to it. And then trust him. Do you know what? The older I get, the more I just say, I don't know what else to do. Just trust him. I don't know what else to do, but just trust him. Karen and I was going through our wedding line. No, we weren't going through, they were going through, and we were standing there. And old brother Sylvie, my pastor, who married us, old man, come by. I was trying to be spiritual, I guess. I said, brother Sylvie, you got any advice for us? He said, yeah. I said, trust him. That's all he said. Went on out the line. trust him. Now, if he'd went into a five minute preaching speech to me, I wouldn't remember what he said, but he said, trust him. When your ship is wrecked, when you're out in the deep, whenever you feel like you've been beat to death, just trust him and get his grace because Paul said it'll be sufficient. I hope you never have another rough wave the rest of your way toward glory. I hope it's clear, smooth sailing for every one of you all the way. I really do. I hope the sun's out and bright and shiny and the waves of life are just as tranquil and sweet and every once in a while God lets you rock a little bit. And I hope you get that all the way to glory, but I doubt it. Wouldn't surprise me if a typhoon or two doesn't catch your boat before you get there. but I want you to know tonight, there's reasons, there's a purpose, and God will take you through. His grace will be sufficient. Let's stand together tonight. Brother Jim Landis, would you dismiss us from our service tonight?