Thanking God In The Midst Of Trouble

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:12

Hello, my name is Paul, and I am the voiceover for a ministry provided to you by Jim Pugh at God is Government called Your Daily Bread, taken from Christ's teaching of the Lord's Prayer in Matthew 6, verse 11. This is a daily devotion ministry focused not only on uplifting Scripture, but scripture that will grow your spiritual connection with Christ. We hope that you receive these devotions to uplift you, encourage you, but most importantly, advance your knowledge base of the Holy Scriptures. Today's focused discussion will be on thanking God in the midst of trouble. This is the ability to give thanks before the battle begins for the victory that you know is going to come. Alright? First is after the fact. Second is in anticipation of the fact. Now, this is where the people of faith come in. These are the people who believe God before anything happens. These are the people who are celebrating before the war. These are the people saying, Lord, I see a problem coming. How wonderful. I'm going to believe you for victory in the midst of this, before it even gets there. This is Jesus. This is Jesus in John chapter 11, as he stands by the tomb of Lazarus. Everybody around him is crying, they're all weeping. He says, Remove that stone, and Martha gets all upset about doing that. Verse 41. Then they took the stone from the place where the dead was laid. And Jesus lifted up his eyes and said, Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me. Thank you, Lord, for what you are going to do. Now that's faith, isn't it? And then he said, Lazarus, come out. And he came out. Thanks in advance. Now, people, that's another level of spiritual maturity. That's the ability to say thanks before the thing really even unfolds. Are you one of those people who says thanks in advance, you see something coming, and you can believe God for the victory before it even arrives? Can you say thanks like Jesus did in anticipation of death? Can you say, I see a death in my family, I see a death of someone I love. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, that I know what's going to happen, he's gonna come through in resurrection life. Can you be thankful in the face of death? I'll give you another one. Look at this, this is fabulous. 2 Chronicles chapter 20, that's the Old Testament. 2 Chronicles chapter 20. This is really great. Now God's people, Judah, are about to have a war with a couple of real strong enemies, Ammon and Moab, the Ammonites and the Moabites, and they're getting ready for a wholesale war here. But Jehoshaphat is a pretty faithful man of prayer, so he goes to the Lord and he just tells the Lord all about it. He says, Lord, this is gonna be your battle. I mean, I just can't handle this thing. We can't do it on our own. He bowed before God, and he pours out his heart, and he says, Lord, you're gonna have to do with these people just what you did when you drowned the Egyptians. You're gonna have to do some wondrous miracle. You're gonna have to take care of this deal, Lord. I can't handle this problem. I can see it coming. I can't handle it. And he got all done with his prayer, and then he decided it's time to thank the Lord. And somebody might have said, Well, you're pretty presumptuous there, Jehoshaphat, because we haven't had the battle yet. You're going to praise the Lord first? Yes, we're going to praise the Lord first. In fact, first thing we're going to do is in verse twenty. And they rose early in the morning and went forth to the wilderness of Tekoah. And as they went forth, Jehoshaphat stood and said, Hear me, O Judah, and ye inhabitants of Jerusalem, believe in the Lord your God. Alright, let's trust God from the very start. So shall you be established, believe his prophets, so shall you prosper. Alright? We're going to believe God for a victory we haven't even seen. Now here's the first thing, and when he had consulted with the people, he appointed singers to the Lord, who should praise the beauty of holiness, as they went out in front of the army to say, Praise the Lord, for his mercy endureth forever. Listen, in Israel the Marines didn't land first, the choir did. They came first, because praise preceded the army. Do you see? Lord, how marvelous you are, we're going to win. I mean, can you imagine those guys who spent all their life learning music, and when it gets ready for the big war, the first thing they hear is, choir fall out, you're in front. Incredible. That's exactly what happened. And they began to sing, maybe a little wobbly at first, but they got it going. They began to sing and praise. The Lord set an ambush against the children of Amon, Amon and Moab, and Mount Seir, who were come against Judah, and they were smitten. For the children of Amon and Moab stood up against the inhabitants of Mount Seir, utterly to slay and destroy them. And when they had made an end of the inhabitants of Seir, everyone helped to destroy another. You want to know something? This is Jonestown. They all killed each other. Amazing. And when Judah came toward the watchtower in the wilderness, that's that would be their camp, they looked into the multitude, and behold, they were dead bodies fallen to the earth, and none escaped. They came upon a whole pile of dead bodies. And when Jehoshaphat and his people came to take away the spoil from them, they found among them in abundance both riches with the dead bodies and precious jewels, which they stripped off for themselves, more than they could carry away, and they were three days in gathering the spoil, it was so much. And God had promised them the spoil of the land, so it was theirs by right. But don't you see what happened? They didn't even have to fight the war. They believed God, and they gave God thanks, and before the battle even started, and the battle was theirs, you see. God wants your thanksgiving before the battle even begins, and this is tough. This is the test of your spiritual maturity. When you crack up and fall apart in anticipation of the problem, then you haven't reached this level yet. Thank God after the blessing, that's easy. Thank God before the battle begins, that's harder. But the hardest of all, are you ready for the third one? The hardest of all is to thank God in the midst of the battle when it looks like you're losing. That's tough. You can do it after the fact and you can do it in anticipation of, but can you do it right in the middle of it? Well, God's choice people have. The king set out a decree in the day of Daniel that nobody else should be worshipped or prayed to but him. Didn't bother Daniel. It says in Daniel chapter 6 and verse 10, Daniel went into his room as his custom was, and threw open the doors, as they always were open toward Jerusalem, and three times a day he bowed down and gave thanks unto the Lord his God. And he knew what it would cost, and they took him and threw him in the lion's den. But that was all right. He was going to give thanks to God in the midst of the trouble. Thank you for joining us in this exploration of thanking God in the midst of trouble. Until next time, remember to keep the faith, stay strong, and continue to shine your light in the world. To hear these daily devotions of your daily bread, please log on to goddessgovernment.com. Goodbye, and may your faith always lead the way.