Well, everybody and his brother wants to see a miracle in this hour. Turn on the television and see them. Devils are jumping out here and eyeballs are popping in there. Legs straightened out and arms and all that. You're looking at the greatest miracle that you can see in this hour. An old sinner saved by God's grace and then God called him to preach. Send him up and down the country proclaiming the good news of the gospel. I'm looking at a congregation of miracles. Praise God for his good grace. Well, I'm grateful for the privilege and opportunity to be here tonight. You pray for us as we begin the service tonight. I was in Chesapeake, Virginia yesterday evening preaching, and we drove home, got in about 1.30 last night. Made several radio broadcasts today and hopped in and come on down to Atlanta. And I just think in what gracious provisions God has given us in this generation. My grandpa used to get in his wagon, load up some goods, and go to Greenville, South Carolina, and he couldn't make it in a day. They stopped at a place called Traveler's Rest, and they stayed there, they rested overnight, then they went on into Greenville, sold the goods, turned around, came back, slept again at Traveler's Rest, and then finished the journey the next day. And boy, my great-grandpa just wouldn't believe it. He had a grandson preaching in Chesapeake, Virginia Sunday evening, preaching on the radio going all over the country on Monday, and then on Monday evening preaching in Atlanta, Georgia. Bless the name of the Lord, amen? All of that, and I can still move. Ain't that good? Hallelujah. All right, I want you to turn in your Bible tonight, if you will, please, to 1 Peter chapter one. First Peter chapter one, as I prayed and sought the Lord's direction about the meeting, I feel this is the path the Lord would have us to trod this week. And when God allows us to go into the epistles of Simon Peter, it's always a blessing to my heart. For in Simon Peter I see a weather-beaten sailor, that's been through a lot of storms. He faced about everything you could face on the stormy seas of life. And he seems to be telling us novice sailors about some of the key thoughts of sailing and key truths of staying afloat in the midst of the storms. and I am grateful for God allowing the old ignorant and unlearned fisherman to pin down the brilliancy of the truth of the word of God in 1 Peter and 2 Peter. I want you to stand now, if you will please, as we read several verses together, beginning in verse one, where the Bible says Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the strangers scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ. Grace unto you, and peace be multiplied. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time, wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations, that the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ, whom having not seen your love, in whom, though now you see him not, yet believing, you rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory, receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls." Let's bow our heads and hearts and go to God in another word of prayer. Our Heavenly Father, We're grateful for the good day you've given us. Thank you for traveling mercies. Thank you, Jesus, for safety. Thank you, Lord, for another privilege to come to the house of God, gather as the assembly of your people, open the songbook, sing the songs of Zion, Then come to the word of God and read a portion of the inspired scripture. Lord, we don't take this for granted. Tonight, there have been times that I'd like to have been in the house of God, but I found myself on a sickbed or somewhere where I really didn't want to be. Lord, we bless you for the privilege tonight to assemble ourselves. Dear God, as we gather, we didn't come to hear Randy Bain tonight. Lord, we came to hear the voice of the Spirit of God speak to us. Lord, we came to hear your word, that it might penetrate our hearts, that you may break us from the wickedness of our sins, and Lord, you may bring us into the fellowship of our God. Lord, magnify thy name in our midst. Speak, Lord, thy servants heareth this week. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. You may be seated. I call your attention down to verse 7, where Simon Peter, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit of God, says, The trial of your faith being much more precious than of gold that perisheth. Now, you'll find the term precious many times in Simon Peter's epistles, and each time you find it, you'll see a different area of truth that God is magnifying as something that is dear, rare, precious, and very near to the heart of Simon Peter. Now, it's amazing to me that Simon Peter would be noted as one of the apostles that dealt with precious things. You'd think maybe John the Beloved would preach about precious things several times in his gospel, but not so. You'd think maybe that James, the son of thunder, would talk about precious things, but not so. God uses Simon Peter, an old rough-rugged, double-fisted fisherman who came off the ships and the seashores of Galilee to tenderize his heart to such a degree that when he speaks of the things of God, he does it with adjectives that ladies often use. I mean, God has tenderized this great big old man to the degree when he sees something in relationship to the truth of God, with a tear in his eye and a shout in his soul, he just says, it's precious. It's precious. It's precious. Now, there was a time in my life and a time in your life when the things of God were not precious. As a matter of fact, they were the most least precious thing that we had any dealings with. We blasphemed the name of God, dodged the house of God, neglected the Word of God, had no use for prayer, had no use for holy doctrine or biblical manna or mead or the water that flows from our great God. We just wanted our own way. But since the Lord has saved me and God has saved you, He's made many things in the spiritual realm precious to our heart. This week, I want to preach on the subject, by the help of the Lord, precious things in Peter, and examine the different times the word precious is used, and see what Simon Peter is declaring to be precious to his heart, and may we be reminded afresh that we have some things that this world cannot give, Money cannot buy, and we did not possess before we were brought into the spiritual kingdom. If we're not careful when we study the Word, when we go through school, or when we hear good sound preaching week after week, year after year in our lives, it's very easy for us to grow callous and cold and indifferent and begin to take for granted the precious things of God. And I pray that the Lord may put the spirit of preciousness in our hearts this week, that we may afresh worship in thanksgiving, praise, and adoration to our God who's already done so much for us. Now, tonight I want to preach on the subject, The Precious Process. The Precious Process. Now, Simon Peter mentions the first of five different things to be precious, and the first was that of trials. Now, if we had placed a piece of paper at the entrance of the church and asked everybody as they came in to list the five most precious things to your heart, I wonder what we would have put on the top of the list. And I wonder if we would have put trials on the head of the list of those things that are precious or dear to our heart. No, most of us, if we had a book as thick as the Sears and Roebuck catalog right before Christmastime when it comes out, the fall issue, we probably would have placed trials at the very back of the book if we would have placed it in the book at all. But Simon Peter, being the ancient apostle, being the saint of God who's experienced many things along the journey, in heavenly wisdom, places the process of trials on the head of the list. So that tells me something about trials. It tells me how important it is for God to bring His children through the suffering, the anguish, the tribulation, the diverse oppositions and persecutions that all of us must face if we're going to live godly in Christ Jesus. Throughout I Peter and II Peter, you'll find the word suffering over and over and over and over again. For Simon Peter knew if the Son of God was to be made anything, he would be made what God would be pleased with through the process of suffering and trials that he would have to face. Now, notice with me, first of all, in verse 6, that while we are in the process of trials, we ought to have a rejoicing attitude. A rejoicing attitude. Verse 6, he says, wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations. He tells us, as we go through the process of trials, If we understand what God is doing, we can experience rejoicing in the midst of heartache, trial, tribulation, and suffering. You say, Brother Randy, I just don't know about that. Man, you just don't know where I'm living. You don't know the threshing machine. I'm going through at this time. You don't know how many steamrollers spiritually have just run over me. You're telling me all to have a rejoicing attitude right in the middle of all this? No, I'm not telling you that. The Word of God's telling you that. And when the Bible tells us something, though it may be against nature and contrary to our natural thoughts and tendencies at the time, praise God it'll work if we'll just trust the Lord. Amen? You say, why should we have a rejoicing attitude? Well, first of all, I want you to look at some scriptural reasons for rejoicing beginning In verse one, we see, first of all, that we can rejoice because of the big ministry. Now, I knew what I was gonna preach on tonight, and often I'll be driving down the road and I'll quote the scripture that I'm gonna preach, just rehearse it in my mind. And I said to myself, now, verse one says Peter. And then I said, mm-hmm, and I busted out laughing. for this reason. You see, Simon Peter was called an apostle in this Scripture. Now, I thought about how one lady up home took it when she found out I was called to preach. Somebody told her, said, have you heard that Randy Bain got saved and God's called him to preach? She busted out laughing in the lady's face and said, him? He's the last person on the face of the earth I'd ever dream would preach. Boy, when God opens this epistle, Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, I say, hallelujah, if God can take Simon Peter, the type fella he was, and bring him through the divine school, fill him with the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, use him to preach thousands getting saved, group him in the apostles of the Lord Jesus Christ, I say that's an encouragement right there to my heart. I mean Peter, the one that's always getting his foot in his mouth. Peter, the one that was seemingly falling down. Yet it was the same Simon Peter that made the wondrous confessions of faith and walked on the water. I see the divine mercy of God in showing us that even through sufferings and even through trials, God can produce in a life a character that'll be pleasing to him as he did in Simon Peter's life. Hallelujah to his holy name. So we see, first of all, the big ministry in verse one. He says, Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the strangers scattered throughout Pontius, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia. Now, notice what he says. He says, I'm writing to the strangers scattered. Now, he uses two terms to describe these people. Number one, strangers, and number two, scattered. The word stranger means they are not at home. And maybe that would help us a little bit in our trials and in our sufferings to realize we're not home yet, children. We're in a foreign country. We're in hostile territory. You wonder why people treat you bad. You wonder why they cuss you out. You wonder why they watch your tracks up. You wonder why they haven't given you the Citizen of Atlanta's award this year. I'll tell you why, because you're not home yet, children. Our citizenship's in another world. Though we may live here, we're just going through, this is just our trodden ground, and we'll be home one day. I'm reminded of an old missionary who spent all his life on a foreign field. He never came in for a furlough or anything, and finally he wrote in that he was coming home. He was real old, he was weary, he was wore out, he was tired. He wrote in to the mission board, he wrote in to his family and to the church that he came out of years before. Well, he got on an ocean liner, across the ocean he came, and said there was a pretty good crowd of people on board. And as the ocean liner began to pull up into the dock, he said, man, there was a huge gathering of people. said they were throwing the confetti in the air, and said the band was playing, and he said to himself, my, I didn't know the church appreciated me and my labors so much, and said he began to walk down the gangplank, and somebody grabbed him and pulled him back out of the way, and they ushered a big dignitary down the gangplank, and oh, they were just bragging on how they were glad to have him on American soil, and they all went away with the big dignitary. Well, the old man walked on down the gangplank, he stood there, he looked around, and the folk that were supposed to meet him didn't even arrive. So he went across the street, he found an old motel room, he called the folk and they said, we've been delayed, we won't be able to pick you up till in the morning. He said he laid down on the bed to try to rest a little bit, and he began to pray. He said tears came to his eyes, and he said, God, I've spent all my life on the farm field. I've labored and sweated and preached the gospel, and I come home and nobody's here to greet me. Lord, why is this? He said, it seemed the Lord spoke to his heart. Son, you're not home yet. Amen. Praise God, the old ship of Zion will pull up one day. Gangplank will be let out. There will be a celebration. There will be a time of reward. There will be a glorious hour when God's children are recognized for the labor and the sweat that they have performed down here for God's glory. There will be a time when we are brought into the presence of that great company of faith that's marched for God down through the years. You remember, Saint, you're not home. Amen. Then he uses a second term, not only strangers, but he talks about them being scattered throughout Pochus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia. Now, he mentions five different areas, and he tells them that they've been scattered into these areas. Now, when you think of the word scattered, I think about just, you know, shooting a shotgun, just blam, and, you know, the shot scatters out everywhere. It's a scatter gun. But the word scattered here goes deeper than that. It's a word that a farmer would use after he has bush-hogged the field, and after he's turned it under, and then he's came back and smoothed it out, and he's put rows in the places of the field he wanted the rows to go. Then he takes seed and he scatters it in the ground. He puts it in particular places where he wants it. He may scatter some corn seed on this side of the field. He may scatter some soybeans in the middle of the field. He may scatter a few potatoes on the other side of the field. What the Lord is saying to these believers is that they weren't just picked up by the wind like a dandelion seed and just blown out yonder somewhere without any purpose or in some wild mannerism. What He's saying is God has taken you like a farmer would take his seed and He has planted you in a particular place for a particular time and a particular reason. Praise God. I like the little saying that came out several years ago, bloom where you planted. A lot of folk don't believe God's children are planted, but I know God has planted me and He's planted you. You're not in Atlanta, Georgia tonight by happenstance or by luck or by chance or by some wild whim of blind luck that blowed you into Atlanta. No, God put you in that family, God put you in that neighborhood, He put you in that school, He put you in that church, He put you where you're at for a particular reason that you may grow and bring forth fruit to God's glory right there where God has planted you. You know, that'll help you. Oh boy, I hear this a lot, preacher. Evangelists I meet across the country, they say, man, I wish I lived up in them North Carolina mountains. I hear them preachers just preach you to death. It's just a good central location. I hear there's just so many good churches up there and all that. I say, brother, we got the same difficulties here that you've got anywhere else in America. Whether it be Texas or Timbuktu, I know I'm in the heart of the Bible. But buddy, there's some churches up there, they wouldn't let me lead in silent prayer if I did show up. Amen? I preach more outside of my home territory than I do inside my home territory. And a lot of us are saying if I was somewhere else, we read the old history of revivals and we read the history of how God raised up churches in different areas. If we were in another time zone, man, if I was back there where Whitfield was, I could preach to those kind of people. I mean, there's good moral people. Sure there was, yeah. Yeah, just study their time and study their history. You'll find out there's a bunch of drunks and rabble-rousers and adulterers and fornicators just like they are in Atlanta today. Same wickedness, same darkness, same hellacious spirit that we have to contend with. The thing we need to do is just bog in and just grow to God's glory and produce the fruit He wants us to produce right where we're at. Amen. Wish I could get out of here. That's what we say when trials and tribulations come our way. We're just like the old hog. The grass is greener on the other side of the hill. My neighbor had an old hog. He had an electric fence that kept the hog contained in a little portion of the field. Well, they had good grass, had a lot of slop, and even had some corn growing in there, and all the hog had to do was just reach in there and eat all he wanted to eat. But he kept looking up on the hill. Just every little bit, that hog would run through that electric fence and go up on the hill and graze up there. And the man told me that the hog would go to squealing before he ever hit the electric fence he had been bit so many times. Man, I've seen so many people of God jump out of church or jump out of the boat where God's foot, they just go ahead and start squealing before God lays it on them, amen? But he says you're not only strangers, you've been scattered. You've been put there for a reason. Amen? The big ministry. Hallelujah. God's got a big ministry going on. I'm part of that big ministry. You're part of that big ministry. Little child, you love Jesus. You thank God for a godly mom and a godly daddy. You thank God for the Word of God. Teenager, you pray and you have a relationship with God. Listen, you're coming through a generation of teenagers that maybe don't know what you know. They don't understand what you understand. And God didn't just put you in that school situation around those folk that seem like there's no hope for, just to let you ride the mule through there. He put you there to be a witness and a testimony and to produce fruit right in the middle of all those folk that are so opposite of the direction God's got you going in. The big ministry. Secondly, notice the boundless mystery in verse 2. He says, elect according to the full knowledge of God the Father through sanctification of the Spirit under obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ. Now, in the scriptural re-encouragement, rejoice. You're part of the big ministry. You say it's troublesome over in this corner of the field. Well, God put you there, so just grit your teeth and bear it and go on and grow for God's glory. But then he talks about the boundless mystery in verse 2. Now, why in the world would Simon Peter bring up the great controversial subject of election at the very outset of his first epistle? I mean, does he not know what he's doing? Is this not supposed to be kept in a dark back alley somewhere? Huh? No. Simon Peter just puts it up right there. As you enter in the room, he says, here it is, hanging right out where everybody can see it. Why did he do that? Well, he talked about the fact these believers were elected or chosen personally by God for this reason. These children of God were losing their homes, they were losing their jobs, they were losing everything they had for the cause of Christ. As a matter of fact, Nero was taking Christians and placing wax all over them and using them to be the candles to light up his wicked parties that he would have at night. The children of God were very, very unpopular. They couldn't get elected to anything. Praise God, He reminds them. Though the world be against you, and though the whole tide be pushed against you, you can rest in this fact that God has chosen you. You're not a red-headed stepchild that just drifted accidentally into the family, or was produced by an accidental message of some preacher somewhere. He says, no, you've been in the divine purposes of God before there was ever a world. One of the most reassuring, comforting things to me as an evangelist preacher traveling up and down the land is that I'm not in this thing by luck or chance or happenstance, and I'm not here just because I chose to be here, but I'm here for God as a purpose and a design and a reason for me to be here. That does not stop my evangelistic zeal, and it does not stop yours. As a matter of fact, Paul said to Timothy, he said, I'm going to endure all things for the elect's sake. He said, let them whip me, let them beat me, let them slap me down. He says, I know somebody's going to get saved down the road, and I'm going to hang tough till they do. Amen? I was studying through the book of Acts. Old brother Paul and Silas were whipped and beaten, thrown in the inner prison. Now, a few chapters later when they strung Paul up, he said, I'm a Roman citizen. And the fellow said, huh, watch it now. Let's talk this thing over." They talked it over and said, we better not whip him, he's a Roman citizen. Now why did Paul not declare himself to be a Roman citizen there in Philippi? For Philippi was a Roman colony. I'll tell you why. The Holy Ghost said, just shut your mouth. Take your beating. Let them throw you in jail. I'll handle this situation." Down there in the midnight hour, they began to sing psalms and praise unto God. Hallelujah, the jailhouse began to shake and quiver. God shook that thing and there was an old Philippian jailer that was in the dead of sleep that got shook out of his sleepiness and got saved that night because old Paul and Silas were willing to take the whipping and the beating. That ought to encourage us, friend, to rejoice when we're going through tribulation. We may be partakers of Christ's suffering, but Christ had to suffer that we might be saved, and God may let you suffer so somebody else down the road might get saved. Hallelujah to his name. Thirdly, the begetting mercies of God. Look in verse 3. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to His abundant mercy, not just mercy, but abundant mercy, hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. God begot us. He birthed us into His family by the mercies of God, through the resurrected Lord Jesus Christ. He tells us to rejoice because of the big ministry and the boundless mystery, but He also reminds us of the begetting mercies of God. He says, remember, no matter where you're at or what you're going through with, you can say, Blessed be God! for His mercies that hath begotten us to a lively hope. Amen. The disciples came in cutting flips and shouting, swinging off the chandeliers. They were having a time. The devils are subject to us. The devils are subject to us. We're having a meeting. Jesus stood up, knocked the shouts, slammed out of them. Rejoice not, He said. I thought he liked this rejoicing business. But then he finished his message. He said, don't rejoice in all this business. And the reason was it'll change. Later on down the road, they run into a big, ugly, greasy, slimy booger that wouldn't move. They prayed and they fasted and everything, and He wouldn't budge. And if they'd been shouting because devils are subject to them, they'd have quit shouting right there. That knocked it out of them. So Jesus knocked it out of them before the devil could. He said, don't rejoice in all this. But He said, rejoice because your names are written in the book of life. Praise God whether devils are subject to me or not. whether people love me or cuss me, whether I'm preaching 52 meetings a year or no meetings a year, hallelujah, this one thing will never change, that is, my name has been written in the book of life. Come on, may, praise God, I'm a citizen of that other world, a child of God. Hallelujah to His blessed name. Then in verse 4, He talks about the blessed mansions, I use that for alliteration sake, but He says to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you. He's saying not only did God get you, bring you in, God has promised blessings on the other side. He says there's an inheritance. That inheritance was given us in the Lord Jesus Christ. What kind of inheritance? It's an incorruptible inheritance. There'll be no taxation of this inheritance. Amen? There'll be no thieves break through and steal this inheritance. The IRS will not eat this inheritance up. You won't get more than you can pay for or keep up. He says this inheritance is incorruptible. And then he says it's undefiled. You won't make all the rest of the kinfolk mad because you get it. Amen? How many people do you know who's had an inheritance? And because they got a little bit of Uncle Joe's money, the rest of the family just got all tore up and upset about it. Now, I mean, they just lived in trouble the rest of their lives. God said, that's not going to happen. He said, it's going to be undefiled. He said, there'll be no canker. There'll be no fuss over this. There'll be no defilement over this. And He says, it fadeth not away. Boy, you remember as a kid, you said to yourself, at least I said to myself, I can't wait till I get my driver's license and buy that 67 green doodlebug for my sister. I'll have me a beautiful little car and I'll just run up and down the roads. And I got it and I thought I was in hog heaven, but you know what? That thing needed some tires after a while. And it wasn't long until I was coming down the mountain and the gas line came off and spewed all over the motor and the thing caught on fire and burned it to smithereens. Well, it'll all need a little front end work, need the paint job, and this and that and the other. I found out that it would fade away after a while, and if you ask me where that Volkswagen is at, I couldn't tell you. It may be in a junk pile for all I know. God says, what I have to give you will never fade away. Oh, listen, friend, folk are beating themselves silly to lay hold on stuff that glitters for the now, but it's going to fade away. It just keeps fading further away. It has less beauty, less usefulness. Glory to God. As you invest in the kingdom of God and in the things of God, we'll get to that blessed city. And instead of it fading out, it'll get brighter and brighter. brighter and brighter and brighter as eternity rolls. So I say, hallelujah, have a rejoicing attitude. Then in verse 4, because of the boundaries made by God, we can rejoice. Somebody says, yeah, preacher, hallelujah for the inheritance incorruptible undefiled. Glory to God, but I just wonder if I'm going to make it. Verse 5, who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time. You say, well, preacher, it says we're kept through faith. Well, that is a blessing. You say, well, my faith might quit. Yours might. But that which God has given you as a gift will never quit. Hallelujah. For divine faith. If God beget it, he said in Philippians, he which hath begot a good work in you will perform it till the day of Jesus Christ. Hallelujah. My human faith may fail, but that divine faith is going to continue to roll. That's why I go out and say John 3.16 the way he said John 3.16. For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. Glory to God, I'm glad faith keeps on working, keeps on producing, keeps on clinging, keeps on linging on God. Amen? So we see there ought to be some scriptural re-encouragements for us to have a rejoicing attitude. Then secondly, there's a seasonal realm included for us to have a rejoicing attitude. He says, though now for a season, in verse 6, if need be ye are in heaviness. One fella said his favorite text in the Bible was It Came to Pass. If now, for a season. Man, I'll never forget. I went through three years of Bible college, and I thought the Lord never was going to let me out of prison. I mean, I had evangelism in my bones. I could hear the Macedonian call out there. I said, what in the world am I sitting here under Brother Hughes and him telling me what a dangling participle is? When I could be out there on the street corner somewhere getting somebody's say, I said, ugh. But you know what? Those three years. It passed just like that. Now I've been in the ministry nearly 11 years. And I look back and I say, goodness gracious, where did it go to? How fast it goes by. Boy, sometimes we get down in the low dark valley, we think it will never have an end to it. We look back and it seems like it's been so long, we don't even remember when it began. Don't you remember the last time you were in that dark valley? It felt the same way, but God brought you through it. You came out on the mountain peak in better condition than you were before you went in. And don't you remember the time before that, and the time before that, and the time before that? Friend, this thing is but for a season. It'll be over with one day. Praise God, we'll go to the land where there is no more trials. Hallelujah. A rejoicing attitude. Are you having one of them? We're just like old hibacca. We rejoice in figs, fruit, flocks and folds. We rejoice in getting a raise. Amen. I guarantee you if you'd got a big $50 a week raise, you'd come in here grinning like a possum tonight. Sprang along, Brother Dickerson said, boy, hallelujah, you must have been in touch. Yes, sir, I'll tell you what. God has blessed me. Well, what happened? You know that boss man I told you been giving me trouble down there? Yep, he gave me a $50 raise today. Woo, hallelujah. Boy, this is a bouncer, he let the same crowd come in, he just give them a $50 demotion. Huh? Ain't gonna have much of a meeting this week, preacher. Amen? Because we rejoice in the outward circumstance. But old Habakkuk finally got glued in to the just Shaliba faith. He just went down through there saying, though it all fails, though it all folds under and it fizzles out, there's no crops and no flock and all. He said, I'm going to rejoice in what? In the God of my salvation. Hallelujah. Your worst day as a Christian's better than the best day you ever spent out there in that world, for you knew God. And your poorest day as a saint of God, you're richer than you were any of the days out there in sin. Hallelujah. Have a rejoicing attitude. It ain't against the law of God. You don't have to show your spirituality. Bye. Amen? I know there's heaviness. God said there was. You don't have to be like a little boy. He's out playing out on the porch. He's having him a time. It's Sunday evening. Grandpa said, son, quieten down. Get a somber look on your face. It's not time for that. Little boy walked around the corner and he seen an old rooster and he jumped up on the fence and crowed real big and took off. He said, you ain't got religion, rooster. And he went on around the corner and he seen a little bunny rabbit hop on. You ain't got religion. He'd hopped on off. Said he came to the old mule. Walled out, long face, down head. Said he run up there and hugged it and said, I'm glad somebody's got religion like grandpa's got. Amen. Well, he looks at us and says, man, if that's religion, I don't want to catch it if it makes you look like that. The joy of the Lord is my strength. Praise God. Alright, secondly, I'll be brief on these other points. The cause of not only the rejoicing attitude we can have, but trials are precious because of the refining act. In verse 6 and in verse 7, tells us we'll go through manifold temptation. Now the word manifold, it means many colored or multi-colored like the rainbow. God said there are manifold temptations. When I began to study this, I said, now Lord, how can you liken temptations unto various colors? And then I thought about red, that's the fiery trials. There's yellow, the devil tries to put a yellow streak up your back and get you to be a coward in the things of God. Then there's blue, get you to whine in the blues like I'm so lonesome I could cry. And then there's black temptation, the old dirty, defiled, wicked, corrupt, filth that just, you know, just awful demonic stuff. Then there's green temptation, that's a new color, the color of newness and spring. The devil's always got something else in his bag of tricks to throw at you, you've never seen before. And then there is the gray color, that's neither white nor black, it's just in between, that's the compromise color, you know, don't be white or don't be black, don't be this or don't be that, just sort of go down the middle of the road and smooth it all over in a gray sense. I was in Knoxville, Tennessee with Brother Larry Wales, and we were visiting the hospital, and this lady came in, and she was visiting the same lady we were, and course of the conversation, I asked her where she went to church at. She said, I go to Compromise Baptist Church. I said, you're kidding me. She said, no, that's the name of our church, Compromise Baptist Church. She's telling the truth. I just grinned to myself, got outside, and I told Brother Wells, I said, well, at least they got honest and hung it on the shingle, amen? Then there is the pink color. Oh, law, there's a lot of them getting hooked into the pink color, you know. Then there is the white. That's the absence of color, but it's a temptation too. If the devil can't get you to wander around down there in the cesspools, in the depravity, he'll get you into the white realm, where you stick your fingers in your spiritual suspenders, row your head back and say, I tithe, and I'm not an adulterer nor an extortioner. And I this, and I that, and I the other, and I am what I am by what I have done, and I have achieved by the power of my abilities to the status where I'm at in the spiritual status quo. Amen? And if the devil can't get you down in the dumps, he'll get you so high and mighty with a holier-than-thou-art attitude that stinks so bad God can't use you there either. Amen? Then he goes on, in verse 7, he says, the trial of our faith is likened unto the trying of gold that perisheth though it be tried with fire. He tells us about the trying of gold. He says these manifold, these many colored temptations that come against you will be used as fire underneath the gold that's in the pot. to bog you, to turn you inside out, and let you see what you really are. Don't you imagine the gold was sitting there in the ground. Man, I'm doing pretty good. I mean, I glitter better than anything down here. But then there's a rumble, a roar, and a dynamic move, and he's possessed by another, and carried away into a house that he'd never seen before. That's salvation. Amen. Then he's put in the pot and the heat's turned up. Boy, all the filth and sludge comes to the top. The goldsmith wipes it away. And the gold says, man, I didn't know I had all that in me. Then he turns the fire up again. The gold squirms around. And the sludge comes to the top again. And the goldsmith wipes it away. And the gold says, I thought you had it all dealt with last gold round. And here's some more stuff comes out. And he does that about seven times till finally they get that gold 99.9% pure. They're saying it's almost perfectly pure. You know, God sends us through trials and he lets us face many of the things we have to face so the Lord can show us where we're at and what we're in need of and the great master goldsmith can come along and deal with that and remove it out of our lives. Have you ever thought you were refined? Huh? then your wife spent $50 more than your checking account allows and your refined tipper suddenly flowers up again. Drive a preacher. Well, I'm gold too. I don't mean we're perfect. That means we've got to get somewhere and ask the goldsmith to wipe his smudge off of us and get this filth out of us and refine us more. One fella said it's just like peeling an onion. You get one layer off and there's another layer right there just like it that needs dealing with. It's just a continual process. Amen? I thank God for trials. I confess to you, I'm not perfect. But I'm going to be like Job one of these days. He said, when I am tried, I shall come forth. It's pure gold. God's going to call me up and glorify me in a moment, and He's going to completely finish the work that He's been doing in my life all these years. That brings me to the last point. Not only is it precious because of the rejoicing attitude and refining act, but in verse 7, because of the results that's attained. He said that it might be found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ. Praise God just like the gold. It goes through a rough process, but after the goldsmith has cut it up and beat it up and engraved and fixed all his designs and his delicate works in it, he brings that gold and puts it out where everybody can see it. A lot of goldsmiths will have a jewelry store that'll have a glass right there on Main Street so that everybody that goes by will be able to see the beautiful work of that great craftsman and brag on, oh, what a goldsmith! Oh, what a craftsman! You know, one of these days, when it's finished, when it's over with, When we look back on our trials, we're going to see where God made this little engraving and that little engraving, where God fixed us in this fashion and that fashion, and He had something in mind all along the journey. When we get to heaven and God puts us there on display, hallelujah, we're going to see a perfect work of the Master Goldsmith bringing glory and praise and honor unto Him. I see that in the world to come, but I also see it now. You can get a little glimmer of what He's doing in our lives now. You know, one day, I think one of the glorious blessings of heaven is going to be God telling us the different stories behind the different people and the different measures of grace that it took to get them where they are as they're displayed in heaven. I've got two sets of deer horns hanging in my living room. One of them, I've got the story, give and it shall be given you behind it. Some fellas from church came down, and they wanted me to put them in a deer stand, and there were a bunch of them come down, so they took all my deer stands that I'd hunted out all week long. I went ahead and gave it to them, and I went across the road. I didn't even know if there's any deer over there or not. I sat there in the head of the swamp, and about 10 o'clock or so, here come this humongous eight-point buck down through there. Make a long story short, I killed him. Everybody that comes through sees that trophy hanging on my wall. Tell me about that. And I've got a story behind it. I've got a nine-pointer that I killed when I was down here in a meeting. Brother Dickerson is sitting under my stand. He gets in on that story every time I tell it. I've got a story behind that trophy. God is going to reveal one of these days what it took to bring us to the end of ourselves, then to bring us into the kingdom of God, and the measures of grace it took to bring us along, and then finally perfect us in the very image of our God. And a great portion of His workings are going to be seen in the trials that we went through with. So praise God, I believe if we entered the vestibule tomorrow night and had a piece of paper out there, some of us now might could include trials on the list, if not at the head of the list. Let's all stand.