The Blessings in a Beat Down, Part 3

suffering and difficulty. And like Pastor Ford just said, you may not know it. You may not understand it. You may not be able to figure it out. In fact, you can be pretty miserable in it and even tell God that. But because God is sovereign, he is going to use that difficulty for his purposes to accomplish what he wants. And so as we go through that difficulty, understanding the sovereignty of God and trusting in that is so important to us. And I think it's also helpful

for us to look at Jesus. I mean, here we have God incarnate, God with skin on. And he suffered and he subjected himself to the father's will, which included drinking the cup of going to the cross. And if Jesus had to walk through that, if he had to go through suffering, why would it be surprising to us that we need to go through suffering as well? You may have heard Pastor Ford say this before. There are some things that you learn in the dark that you

just don't learn in the light. So sometimes in a sovereignty, God allows us to go through that darkness. Yes. Well, that's what we're looking at in today's broadcast. So if you can, I hope you'll open your Bible and join us in Isaiah chapter 50 as we continue the message, the blessings in a beat down. Here is Pastor Ford.

and that would be dinner. And even with ten kids, we'd have stuff left over because mama always made sure everybody was full and we'd have stuff left over. You know, we have next day chicken, rice, peas, corn and carrots. But guess what? They weren't individually on our plate, Reverend Strother. Like they were the day before. They're in a casserole with some kind of sauce on it. And we would say, mama, what is this? And she wouldn't say, this is the

leftover food from yesterday. You know, she'd say, this is Chicken Supreme. This is chicken a la king. And I would tell my brothers and sisters I was the oldest. I'd say, this ain't nothing but leftovers from yesterday. Now I say it under my breath so she wouldn't hear me. But God is like my mama. You wonder how in the world all this thing, this thing, this leftover mess in my life. Uh, somebody that messed over me, uh, somebody that hated on me. Somebody I done went through sickness.

I done went through pain. This happened and that happened. And God says, let me get a hold of it. I'll work it together. I'll take everything that's left over in your life. Put it together, serve it up and give it to you. As supreme, give it to you as Allah, King. Why, God? Because all things work together for good to those who love the Lord and those who are the called according. I'm going to make this work for you. Don't worry about what they did to you,

because I'm working for you. Because no weapon formed against you shall prosper. It ain't going to work. If I can sing, I'd break out into it. No weapon formed against you. But. But I don't sing. I teach the Bible. You know what the word form means? Come on, Dave, help me. What's the word form mean, Yasar? It's the same word God used when he's talking about making a woman. Yasar. It literally means to shape with a purpose. See what he says. No weapon that they have shaped and purposed

against you is going to prosper. Now, he didn't say that they weren't be able to start it. He said, I ain't going to let them finish it. Mhm. Yeah. It's amazing. It's amazing. It is now. Now get this, get this. You got to see what he's saying. Uh, follow along with me. Now that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary, let me just. Bottom line it can I. Bottom line. Say bottom line, pastor, for it. Because you got three more points and we want to get out of here.

We won't stay in here all day. Here's the bottom line. What's he saying? Jesus said I learned and the things I learned. I communicated that to other. Come on, help me preach this so I can move on. Look at your neighbor and say, neighbor, your ministry should come from your misery. Huh? He has ministry and he's learned. No, no, no, I got a bottom line. I. I got a bottom line because I got to go ahead. I got to drop these other three and just get out of here.

But here's what he's saying. You got pregnant out of wedlock. You ought to be the last one. Hating on some young girl who who got herself pregnant. No, you ought to be running to her and saying, girlfriend. It happened to me too. And and yeah, I was stuck on stupid at one time and. Yeah, yeah, yeah, but listen, listen, listen. God is able to sustain you. I got my education. I got me a job. I take care of my children. I take care of myself. I don't need a man

do anything for me. I got the man doing everything for me. So, girl, you just lift up your head. God can forgive you. You move on. Don't let your haters pull you down. Don't let your haters chase you out of church. Don't you let your haters talk down to you. And when they come to you, don't hold your head down. Lift your head up. Look him in the eye and say yeah and you ain't never made a mistake. Yeah. Mhm. Yeah I've repented of that. I've asked God to forgive me, but I see. I see

one thing. I can't be messing around with you because you're too busy worried about where I've been instead of where I'm going. Amen. That's it. Amen. And so he says, yeah, your ministry should come out of your misery. Yeah. Here it is. Here's third one. Sovereignty of God over my listening. Listen to what he says now. Now, you know, you know,

I like exposition, but I'm I'm not going to execute this. Listen, it says he says, uh, verse four, be he waketh morning by morning, he waketh my ear to hear as the learned. The Lord opened my ear, and I was not rebellious, neither turned away back. Bottom line, Jesus saying, I listened to everything God told me. Yes, everything. Everything that God told him. And so he said. Lo is written in the volume of the book I come to

do thy will, O God. Man. If there's ever a time when we need to learn how to listen, uh, let me let me just do. I'm gonna see how many remember. But but listen to this. Uh, I want you to tell me, uh, have you ever heard of this person here? Have you ever heard of this person? Let me see. Have you ever heard of Shammua? How many heard of Shammua in the Bible? Oh, nobody. Okay. How many have heard of Shuafat? Shuafat? Anybody? Oh, nobody heard of Shuafat? Okay, how about, uh. Uh. Igor? Igor. Igor.

Anybody never heard of him? How about, uh, Paul? T p a l t I. Anybody? Anybody. Okay. Uh, how about, uh. Gideon. Gideon. Anybody heard of Gideon? How about Gadi? Gadi? Anybody ever heard of JD? How about Amiel? Am I? Anybody ever heard of Amiel? How about Seth? Uh, s e t h u r. anybody ever heard of them? How about Nobby? How about Gale? Gale? Oh, you never heard of them? How about Joshua? Yeah. How about Caleb? Let me tell you why. By reading this verse in numbers 1422. Why?

You never heard of those other ones? Because the ten men that I named, he says, because all those men which have seen my glory and my miracles, which I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, have tempted me now these ten times, and have not hearkened to my voice. Those are the ten of the 12 guys who went into the land and saw that it was a land like God promised, but they came back and they did not listen to the report of the Lord. They didn't listen.

Who shall believe the report of the Lord? And so God says, listen, I told you it was a land that flows with milk and honey. I told you there were giants. But I also told you I will fight your battles. And that's what you should have came back and said. And they came back and said, we are grasshoppers and they are giants. He told you that?

Radio org and click on that contact link. We'd love to know what difference this teaching is making in your life. And if you have a question, go ahead and ask that. Who knows, we might even answer that on a future broadcast. Again, it's the contact link when you come to treasure Truth Radio. Once again, here is Pastor Ford.

smaller families, more conveniences, but less time. We have more degrees, but less sense, more knowledge, but less judgment, more experts, yet more problems, more medicine, but less wellness. We drink too much, smoke too much, spend too recklessly, laugh too little, drive too fast. Get too angry. Stay up too late. Get up too tired. Read too little, watch TV too much and pray too seldom. we have multiplied our possessions but reduced our values. We talk too much. We love

too seldom, and we hate too often. He says we've learned how to make a living, but we haven't learned how to make a life. We've added years to life, but not life to years. We've been all the way to the moon and back, but have trouble crossing the street to help a neighbor. We conquered outer space, but not our inner space. We've done larger things, but not better things. We've cleaned up the air, but we polluted our soul. We conquered the atom, but not our prejudices.

We write more, but learn less. We plan more, but accomplish less. We've learned to rush, but not to wait. We build more computers to hold more information, to produce more copies than ever. But we communicate with each other less and less. I'm in the car with two of my grandchildren and they're texting. I said, who are y'all texting each other? Why are you texting each other? Because we don't want you to hear what we're saying. So I stopped the car and pulled over and said, give

me them phones. I want to see what they were texting. Yeah. And so let me finish it. So he said, this is a time of fast foods and slow digestion. Big men and small character, steep profits and shallow relationships. These are the days of two incomes, but more divorce, fancier houses, but broken homes. These are the days of quick trips. Disposable diapers, throw away morality, one night stands, overweight bodies and pills that do everything from cheer you to quiet you,

to kill you. It's a time when there is much in the show window and nothing in the stock room. Alright. That's good. Here's the last two. Take these down if you're taking notes. Notice and this is the central part. So take notes and say oh, you preach that before, and sometimes it's just like I go back to it because I haven't done this justice. You know me, it's like every word been screaming, say something about me now.

turn the other theirs. And Jesus said, I turned my cheek. And then in that day, a beard was a man's glory. And he says he plucked out his beard. Plucked out his beard. What's the point? Here's the point that Jesus is saying, I know that what I'm going through is in the will of God. So what I'm going to do is I'm not going to seek vengeance. I'm going to seek acceptance. So what did he do? If you break it down, you'll see in these two verses there's

purpose and perseverance. A lot of people got purpose, but they don't have perseverance. You don't want to go through anything. There are people. And I'm glad I don't know. There are people who. You just ran into a problem at the other church. There was somebody that was ignorant and rude with a toxic personality. And instead of you dealing with them and facing them and confronting them, you said, Imma go to another church. I ain't got to put

up with this. But guess what? When you come here after running there, you going to meet somebody just like them and you going to keep running until you get up in somebody's face and say, hold on a minute, homie. Hold on a minute, girlfriend. Let me just tell you what you're doing is biblically wrong and I'm not going to accept that. So you go do that to somebody else. You don't do that to me. Don't talk to me

like that. Don't talk to me like that. I remember we used to have a person in here most of the men were afraid of. And one day she called me out. And we had three services in the old sanctuary. And she called me out right as Sunday school was dismissed. And I'm going to my office, I heard, Pastor Ford, I want to talk to you. And I said, almost called her name sister So-and-so. And I want to talk to you. And everybody's, like, buzzing and everything. Get down.

to me. Now I've seen her do it to other brothers, and I try to pull their coat. Hey, she did it to me one time. Come on, let.

God to send me a husband for 13 years. Okay. Keep waiting. Keep waiting. Sarah and Abraham waited 25 years for their baby. Moses waited 40 years before he got into the Institute of the Holy Ghost. In 80 years before he started. Keep waiting. Keep waiting. Well, my biological clock is running. God can rewind it when it runs out. God, I'm sick of this. I'm sick of this. I'm sick of this. No! God says you will be in it until I say, here's what I love. It says to

the church of Smyrna, you will be persecuted ten days. Now, now, I don't know if you caught that. He said ten days. Do you know what that means? Ten days means ten days. You know what he was saying? Ten is the number for testing. You know what he's saying? I don't care what you're going through. One day is going to be over. Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning. I need to close. And you've been so gracious. But you remember what happened, uh, in, uh, in New

York City? Uh, there was a man by the name of Wes Autrey, and Wes Autrey was a 50 year old construction worker, and he had his two daughters with him. And, uh, he always would think, like most people who traveled, uh, that New York subway system. What if I ever fell on those tracks? You know, there's two electric, uh, rails, uh, and, uh, you could be electrocuted on those things. He said, what

if I fell in, or what if somebody else fell in? Well, he found out one day, uh, because there was a man who had a seizure who fell in, uh, as the number one was coming. Wes Autrey didn't even think about it. He jumped down, pulled the man in between the tracks and covered him. The train saw them, but couldn't stop and ran over them. The train was over them. They cut the power so that they could crawl out. They hollered down, are you Alright. And what said I'm okay?

And this man is okay because I covered him. You and I were on the train of life. Uh, we were waiting for the train of life. But our sin paralyzed us and pushed us on the tracks. And Jesus Christ covered us. He covered us and he said, we're alright. We're both getting up out of here. And though we were dead in trespasses and sin, we are alive in

Jesus Christ. Listen, there are blessings in a beatdown. And I trust the next time you're in tribulation, the next time you're in trial, the next time you're in trouble, you'll remember that God wants you to bring something out of the tribulation that you never would have had had you not gone through the tribulation. And so when God brings you to it. You need to know that God will bring you through it.

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when you call us at one 888 644 7660. I'm Steve Hiller. Our producer is Amy Rios. Join us Wednesday as we learn how to experience and apply resurrection power here on Treasure Truth. A production of Moody Radio, a ministry of Moody Bible Institute.