The Blessings in a Beat Down, Part 2

that Pastor Ford just shared with us. It's better to walk with God in darkness than walk alone in the light. But I think that all comes down to whether or not we truly believe God is sovereign. You know, if we're not convinced of that, it can be real easy for us to become frustrated, to give up hope, to think we're going to turn to another solution to our

problems and our pain. But when we're convinced that God is sovereign, that he is in control, and that we can look to him in the midst of our pain, knowing that he's not letting anything impact us that doesn't pass through his hands. First, it helps us walk through that difficult situation. And there's also nothing wrong with asking God why he may not answer you. In fact, the answer may simply be what we've been talking about, that

he is sovereign and that he is enough. Well, that's what we're looking at today from the book of Isaiah. We're in chapter 50, so I hope you'll open your Bible and join us there as we continue the message, the blessings in a beatdown. Here is Pastor Ford.

it was a holiness convocation. I was I was their keynote speaker for the first night, and I and I and I told them, I said, now if you're looking for hooping, you won't get it. You'll get teaching. And when I came out, lady said, nice lecture, pastor. Yep. And the guy who invited me said, one day we're going to teach you how to preach, though, okay? I said, well. Yeah, yeah. And so here it is now, the song, this song we're studying has four stanzas. You know, what it stands

is right. It was a verse. And then the refrain, uh, or the chorus. Now here's the difference. This one starts off with the refrain or the chorus first. See, we usually sing the stanza, then the chorus. Everybody still with me? Choir. I at least get an amen out of y'all. Anyway. So watch this. Now watch this. Come on, follow along. Follow along with me. Follow along. Watch this here. Here is the first chorus. The Lord God. Now the stanza. All the way down to verse five. Second refrain or chorus.

The Lord God. Then all the way down to verse. You still with me. Verse seven. For the Lord God. And then down to verse nine. For behold the Lord God. See the chorus is the Lord God. The Lord God. The Lord God. Guess what he's trying to emphasize. The Lord God. So he gives the he gives the, the the stanza. And then he says, I want you to understand something. Let's start off with the Lord God. Why? Because we're always going to put the sovereignty of God first.

That this song is about the suffering servant who obeys God despite the fact that he's going through hell. Yeah. Mm. And so I'm just going to tell you, uh, what our Lord did, and I trust that we will follow suit. You say? What do you mean? How do you get blessings in a beat down? Uh, notice it's the sovereignty of God over your life. When you're going through a beat down, the first thing you need is that chorus. The sovereignty of God over your life. Here's the second thing.

The sovereignty of God in your learning. Here's the third thing. The sovereignty of God in your listening. Here's the fourth thing. The sovereignty of God in your lashings. Now y'all know why I said lashings instead of beating and suffering? Because it starts with L. I'm not going to, uh. I am not not going to alliterate. And then the sovereignty of God in your liberty. Let's walk through these real quick, and let me show you the example that Jesus leaves for you and I. He's on his way to die

for our sins. And he had joy in the midst of his sorrow because, number one, the sovereignty of God over his life. So notice again, the Lord God hath given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary. Notice what happens. He says, you know, let me give you the bottom line of everybody who's suffering, who says, you know what, I don't want to do this. I don't want to do I don't want to go through this. And that would be all of us at

one point or another. Here's what he's trying to teach us. You have to know that it's better to walk with God in the darkness than to walk alone in the light. Amen. That's what he wants us to know. Jesus always put God first, even and especially in his suffering. He obeyed God in everything. See, he wants us to know something. He obeyed God and everything, that God's purpose was more important than his pleasure, that God's purpose was more important

than his pain. Alright. Yes. In the Garden of Gethsemane. What did he say? Not my will, but thy will be done. How many times did he say it? Three times. Jesus! What are you doing? I'm letting people know that as the suffering servant, if you're going to be obedient, first thing you gotta do is you gotta have the sovereign God over your entire life, your blessings and your beatings, but especially your beatings. Uh, why did my business have to go bankrupt? Why did my husband or wife have

to break my heart? Uh, why did God allow me to have the sickness but heal that person on the other pew? I happen to see what they put in. They don't even tithe, I tithe. Why did God heal that person and not me? Why did Big Mama have to die? Why why why why why? There's nothing wrong with asking why. But here's what he wants to teach us. Sometimes the answer is because I am sovereign. Because I made you. And you didn't make me. Because I saved you and you didn't save me. We can't deal with that,

can we? Now, now, now we'll do it with our children. We'll do it with our children. Mama! Daddy! Why do I have to do this? Everybody all together? Because I said so. I brought you into this world, and I'll take you out. And we can say. Because I said so. How many bosses on your job? Oh, we ain't got any. We gotta get some businesses in here, then. You know, how many business people do we have that own your

own business? Nice and high. Amen. Do you go to your employees and say you know when you feel like it? I really would appreciate it. I hope I don't offend you by asking you this. No. Hey, this is what I want done. Get that done. Now, you may throw a please in there, but you want it done. On. Why? Because you are in charge. Jesus says, When God is in charge of your life, he can do whatever he wants to do now. Matthew 14. We studied it before,

but here it is. Matthew 14. What happened in Matthew 14? It says, Jesus told the disciples, get in that boat and go to the other side. Here's what I love Jesus. Do you know there's a storm coming? Yes. Then why are you sending them into the storm? Because I already told them we're going to the other side. You see, I didn't say go to the middle of the Sea of Galilee and drown. I said, get in the boat

and go to the other side. See, you need to understand that I sent them there because I'm sovereign over their lives. I can tell them what to do and get this. Here. Put this in your theological pipe and smoke it. They obeyed, yet they still suffered. Now I can I can go along with, you know, whenever I do something wrong and God, God is spanking me. I don't know if you like me. Sometimes I do wrong. I look up in the sky for the bolt of lightning when it don't hit me. I thank God for

his mercy. Amen. Amen. But I tell you, I don't like it when I'm doing everything I'm supposed to do. Given like I should give. Serve like I should serve. Worshiping like I should worship. Witnessing like I should witness. And then something happens that tears me up. I'm tore up from the floor up. And I look up and I say, just like you. Why? Yes. And God says you're asking the wrong question. The question is not why. The question is what? Here's the question. Can you trust

God's heart when you can't trace God's hand? Jesus did. What's going on here? Because and here's here's what I like about Matthew 14 two. Let me let me say this. I, I, I gotta come back to this. It says they were rowing and they had been rowing for nine hours, but it only takes six hours to get across the Sea of Galilee in good weather. So they're rowing nine hours against the wind, and it says they're only halfway. Now, I submit to you, most of would have said, let

that wind blow us on back. I ain't fighting that. They wanted God's sovereignty in their life so much that they fought against the wind to keep going in the direction that God told them. And God told you to wait for a godly man or a godly woman, and instead of you waiting for Mr. Right or Miss Right, you settle for Mr. Right now. Then you find out you knew his last name was right. You didn't know his first name was always. God told you what he wanted you to do. He wanted you to have your

own business, but it's so difficult. And now you want to go work for somebody else. It's a doctor filled moment. How some of this stuff working for you?

this broadcast on CD. Again our website address treasure truth radio.org. Back to the message. Once again here is Pastor Ford.

fairy tales, opera books and a great deal of poetry. Look. Look at this, look at this. This bird waits till the blackness of night to give the sweetest song. Isn't that what Jesus is doing on Calvary? Jesus is doing his best work on Calvary when things are at their worst. And that should be our example. You say, hey man, come on, Pastor Ford. I like what Thomas Watson said. When reason cannot wade, faith swims. Look at the people who accomplish some things of which we are aware. Look

at the fact that John Bunyan. It was not until John Bunyan was in Bedford Prison that his mind broke free to etch upon the pages of history A Pilgrim's Progress. Let me quote the Harvard Hooper. And it wasn't until J.S. Bach was stone blind that he was able to see how to write the B minor mass. It wasn't until Rembrandt was flat broke that he made the world rich with his art. It wasn't until Beethoven was deaf in both ears that he heard the Ninth Symphony and wrote

it down. How bad? Anybody remember what he did? Come on, holler it out. What did he do? He couldn't hear. So how did he finish it? He cut the legs off the piano and played it on the floor and felt the vibrations. All right. Mm. Yeah. It wasn't until George Frideric Handel was paralyzed on the right side that he was able to pull up with his left hand and pull down the Hallelujah chorus. Out of the clouds.

It wasn't until the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King Jr. Was jailed in 1963 that he became eligible for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. It wasn't until Fanny Cosby was blind that she could see to write. Jesus, keep me near the cross. Savior. More than life to me. Blessed assurance Jesus is mine. Pass me not, O gentle Savior. And almost 3000 more gospel hymns that we sing. She wrote them while she was blind. See? Flowers must be crushed to yield the sweet fragrance of a perfume. Grain

must be threshed. And then ground, and then kneaded and beat into flour. And then put in the oven before it can become toast. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Metal must submit itself to the fire before it becomes bling bling. Blink. Yeah. Yeah. A diamond. You know what it is? It's just coal that yielded to, uh, 600 degrees of heat. £5,000 of pressure over a long period of time. You know what a pearl is? Irritation in an oyster. Oyster gets sands in it. Then it secretes sand, and the sand gets

around it to ease the irritation. Then more sand gets in and more irritation and more sand gets in. And finally you got a pearl. Something that we value came out of the tribulation of an oyster. Amen. The sovereignty of Yahweh God. Over. Here's the second one. Notice the second one. What kind of blessing do we have in the beatdown? The first one is you learn the sovereignty of Yahweh God over your life. The second one is you learn the sovereignty of Yahweh God over your learning.

Listen to verse four A the Lord hath given me the tongue of the. Learn that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary. And so here it is. Jesus learns something in suffering. That's. Oh, I wish I could get us to understand that. That we learn. You going all off and and being tore up from the floor up. And you fail to realize. I just want to get out. Just get me out of it. I need know God is trying to do something in the midst of what you're going through. Jesus

is the obedient servant. Here's what it says. Hebrews five eight. He learned from the things that he suffered. Alright, if Jesus needed to learn from his suffering, you don't think that we need to learn from our suffering? See, there's some things you learn in the dark. You don't learn

in the light. I wish I could get some help, I wish I could get some help that you learned how to love Jesus in the dark when you had nobody else, and you was a gang enforcer, and you had hit rock bottom when you was in the light and everything was going well. You weren't looking for Jesus. But whenever you got down and out and you said, oh, what am I going to do? You begin to look up for your redemption draweth nigh, and you can let somebody know you can be gangbanging all you want, and

God can take you from a gangbanger to an elder. Amen. Some of you know, see, Mother Teresa said it this way. You will never know that Jesus is all you need until Jesus is all you have. And what did Paul say? I have learned in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content. I won't keep you much longer. I'm going to hasten it. But. But it's getting exciting to me now. I I'm really I feel my help coming on. Oh, oh, oh it's a it's a TV moment. Uh, I'm getting

ready to get in the flow. What does that mean? No, no. What are you talking about? I mean, it's like you don't know what God wants to do until you allow him to teach you something in the rough times. My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into divers temptation, knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. But let patience have her perfect work, that you may be complete and entire, lacking nothing. Tribulation worketh patience in

the world you shall have tribulation. But be of good cheer. I have overcome the world. Jesus teaching us, listen, I'm on my way to Calvary and you need to understand something. You can see things in the darkness that you can't see in the light. Guess what? The stars are out. If you could look through these windows up here, you don't see any. But how many people from the country. I mean, real country folk. Okay. We have 3 or 4 who are willing to admit it. I'm from the country.

Let me tell you what I know. You can see the stars in the day. Now, how many of you know know how that can happen? I'm not going to call on you, but I just want to see how many know you from the country where I'm a country folk. Here's how you can see the stars in the daytime. Any day when you go back south to Big Mama's house. And that old whale that she used to have and get water from. But now she's got running water. Take a ladder. Put it down in that well, get on

that ladder. Go down in that well and look up, and you will be able to see the stars in the daytime. You want to know why, say why? Because the well is pitch black so that it becomes the lens through which you are viewing and not the sun, so that you can see the stars in the daylight when you're in the depths of a dark well. I came to tell somebody, look, and this is what he says. Listen what he says. He said, well, no, I'm not. I can't pass it up. I can't pass it up.

Because what did. What did Joseph say? You meant it for evil. God meant it for good. What was he saying? Now we talk about it all the time. He understood God had a purpose and that his purpose was greater than his need to have freedom from pain. He knew that his purpose was greater than his need to be free from the pit. He knew that his purpose was greater than him being free from Potiphar's. He knew his purpose was greater than his need to be free from prison.

And it wasn't even about the palace, even though that's it was about Psalm 105 106. Here's what it says. He sent a man before them, even Joseph, who they bound in fetters, and they hurt him. His pain was for God's purpose.

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go online to Treasure Truth radio.org. If you prefer to write and send a check in the mail, our address is Treasure Truth, 820 North LaSalle Boulevard, Chicago, Illinois 606 ten. You know why believe the Bible isn't just a book for people who are struggling. It's also a powerful tool that will equip you to explain your faith to friends or family members who ask why you trust such an

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The blessings in the beatdown. Treasure truth with Pastor Ford is a production of Moody Radio, a ministry of Moody Bible Institute.