Charles Swindoll
How To Trust When You're Troubled
Overcoming
Some of you are facing what could easily be called an unsolvable problem. It’s you I hope to encourage today. Often the situations with no human answers form the basis upon which God does some of His best work.
This is illustrated beautifully in the life of Job, who, in my opinion, is a living example of unsolvable problems. Job’s biography includes a clipboard full of questions about suffering.
Is God fair? Is this situation just? What is a person to learn when going through deep waters of suffering?
In Job, we have a unique and rare look within the veil of heaven and behind the scenes on earth.
The Lord said to Satan, “From where do you come?” Then Satan answered the Lord and said, “From roaming about on the earth and walking around on it.” The Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered My servant Job? For there is no one like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, fearing God and turning away from evil.” (Job 1:7-8)
What would God say about you if He were to address Satan right now and tell him about your life? “Have you considered _______,” and then He calls your name. As he describes you, what would He say? With some of you, it might fit very closely to what He said about Job—“blameless and upright.”
Job’s life was a wonderful model of courageous living. Job trusted God in the good times. Now the scene was set to determine if Job would trust God in humanly impossible situations.
The next chapter of Job’s life is a dark one. He endured loss like few have known. His home . . . destroyed. His family . . . perished. His health . . . ruined. His finances . . . wiped out. His friends . . . questioned his godly reputation.
In the long process of working through his questions and struggles, Job finally resolved to trust God—no matter what. He had worshiped. He had humbled himself. He had sat in silence. He finally responded to his wife, “I accept what God has sent. I have accepted good, now I accept adversity.” Read that once more. It is the secret of his stability.
I find three real reasons Job could respond like this. First, he looked up and was comforted by God’s sovereignty. He saw more than God’s actions; he saw His heart. He accepted what God gave and took away. He saw God’s sovereign love, and he said to his wife, “Should we not receive both without question?”
Dennis Wyer
The Keys of the Kingdom
Renewing Our Minds
Matthew 16:19: I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatever you bind (declare to be improper and unlawful) on earth must be what is already bound in heaven; and whatever you loose (declare lawful) on earth must be what is already loosed in heaven. (Amplified)
It's happened to most people, I'm sure. I was going out to sit on my back deck to enjoy the deer passing by in the woods and pulled the sliding door closed... while the lock was engaged. I had just changed from my office clothes and hadn't bothered to transfer the contents of my pockets to my leisure clothes. That's right, no keys. The problem here isn't whether the locks worked; they did. Without the correct key I was powerless to gain entrance to my own home. I was locked out of what belonged to me, my recliner, my remote, my PC, food, water, everything that provided comfort and sustenance.
The word "key" only appears ten times in the Bible. Six of those instances are in the New Testament and is the Greek word kleis meaning "a thing that provides a means of gaining access to or understanding something". In context this verse logically refers to the possessor having the power and authority to open and shut. In our text, first note that Jesus said He gives the keys of the kingdom and not to the kingdom. It is God alone Who still possesses the key to Heaven's storehouses (Malachi 3:10). Recognizing the word "of" is not in the original Greek text, we'll have to look at the full context of the surrounding verses to ensure its accuracy. 15He said to them, "But who do you say that I am?" 16Simon Peter answered, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." 17And Jesus said to him, "Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father who is in heaven. 18"I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades will not overpower it. 19"I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven."
