It doesn’t matter who you are, we all travel through dark and fearful places at some point in life – and during those times, it can be so darned hard to remember that God, God is in the Light business.

The Darkest Nights

I am always so excited to be starting a new series of messages and that’s what we are doing this week on the programme – and it is a series that I have called “Dark Night, Bright Light.” Dark and darkness – I wonder what those words mean to you? There are all sorts of connotations when we apply them to our lives.

I remember when I was a young boy – even probably well into my teenage years – I was really afraid of the dark. I remember after dinner in the dining room, it was a long corridor – well it seemed a long corridor – especially in the dark. It was only about, I don’t know, only eight or nine meters from the dining room to my bedroom. But I have to tell you, when it was dark, it was a long way for me to go. And I was afraid to walk from the light dining room into that dark corridor to my dark bedroom.

Now in the house where we lived, we were blessed because there was a light switch for the lights at either end of the corridor so I could walk out of the dining room, turn on the light and the corridor was in light and then I could go to my bedroom – and I always used that switch. Now, we lived in a safe part of town and the house was secure and there was no logical or rational reason for me to be afraid of the dark – I just was – and it was a deep fear and I think a lot of kids go through that.

It seems that darkness and fear, well, they often go together in life – young or old. Now the truth be known we need both – we need light and dark in this world. I love it when the sun goes down and it’s time to go to sleep and again when the sun comes up in the morning and it’s time to get up and get on with living life. That’s a pattern we live by – it’s a pattern of life.

But imagine if it were only ever dark, how awful that would be. In some countries of course, far north and far south, they have many months of darkness. Now take a look at our own lives. If we look back on those dark times – those periods in life that we would rather forget – whether it was a broken relationship or sickness or the death of a loved one or some real financial difficulties or maybe you have been through a war and has seen people killed or been in prison. Perhaps you have seen everything that you have worked so hard for over so many years just go down the drain. Someone has hurt you incredibly deeply or someone you trusted – perhaps you have been through a time of depression or real loneliness or you are working so hard that you don’t feel as though you have a life – that list just goes on and on and on.

Life has its dark times, doesn’t it? Maybe you are going through one right now or maybe, who knows, there is one just around the next corner or next year or the year after and that’s why we are kicking off this series “Dark Night, Bright Light” because light is the opposite of darkness and when we are travelling through those dark times, light is the very thing that we need. The problem is it can be so hard to find; so hard to believe in or hope for and over these coming weeks, we are going to be spending some time with King David in Psalm 34.

But before we go there, let’s have a little foretaste about darkness and light. If you have got a Bible, I want you grab it; I want you to open it up at page 1 – Genesis chapter 1 and verse 1 – the beginning. Here’s what it say:

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said “Let there be light” and there was light. And God saw that the light was good and He separated the light from the darkness. God called the light ‘day’ and the darkness He called that ‘night’. And there was evening and there was morning – that was the first day.”

I might hear you say, “Well, Berni, I know that passage and that’s all well and good. You’re talking about physical light here, that’s fine but what about God shining His light into the darkness in my life?” We are going to talk about that shortly but the point that I’m making is this: creation tells us something about the Creator.

You and I create different things because we are different. God, the very first thing He creates – the very first thing – is light. That tells us something about God but what a light! We tend to just think of the sun there; one of just an estimated trillion, trillion stars. God is seriously into light and that tells us something about who He is.

Let’s take a look at just another couple of verses in the Bible. There are so many of them that talk about God and light – Ezekiel chapter 10, verse 4:

Then the glory of the Lord rose from above the cherubim and moved to the threshold of the temple. The cloud filled the temple and the court was full of the radiance and the glory of God.

Words from Isaiah chapter 60, verse 19:

The sun will no more be your light by day nor will the brightness of the moon shine on you for the Lord will be your everlasting light and your God will be your glory.

And perhaps my favourite of all, where Paul seems to bring it all together in Second Corinthians chapter 4 and verse 6:

For it is the very same God who said “Let light shine out of the darkness, that made His light to shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”

The Bible is full of references about God being our light and our radiance. Can you see why I have called this series “Dark Night, Bright Light”? Over these coming weeks I believed we are going to be transformed by God’s Word about darkness and light. If you have just been through a “darkness” or you are going through one right now or you are going to go through one in the future, the Word of God is going to shine a light into that dark place – “Dark Night, Bright Light.”

The Wisdom of Hindsight

As I said earlier in the programme we are going to spend some time in Psalm 34, this week and over the next three weeks. It’s an interesting Psalm because it comes out of King David’s life. It’s a Psalm of praise for deliverance from trouble. So it is a Psalm written, if you like, with the benefit of hindsight. David has learned something – something about God in a dark time.

Now we are not sure what that time was. The introduction to the Psalm says, “A Psalm of David when he feigned madness before Abimelech so that he drove him out and he went away.” Now we don’t have any other information about that. Abimelech was a judge; he was a leader of Israel; he was Gideon’s son. Anyhow the fact of the matter is, even though we don’t know the precise historical details it doesn’t matter. David had to engage in some deception, it tells us; if was a fearful and scary time and he needed to escape.

Now let’s have a look at the first part of this Psalm. If you have got a Bible, open it at Psalm 34 – we are going to look at just the first eight verses today. This is what it says:

I will bless the Lord at all times; His praise will always be on my lips. My soul will boast in the Lord, let the afflicted hear and rejoice. Glorify the Lord with me; let us exalt His name together. I sought the Lord and He answered me – He delivered me from all my fears. Those who look at Him are radiant; their faces are never covered with shame. This poor man called and the Lord heard him; He saved him out of all his troubles. The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear Him and He delivers them. Taste and see that the Lord is good. Blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him

It’s a beautiful Psalm! You see, it’s David looking back on a difficult time. And he starts out be praising God – “I will bless the Lord at all times; His praise will always be on my lips,” because of God’s faithfulness. And there’s a purpose in him praising; a specific purpose. Look at verse 2.

My soul will boast in the Lord, let the afflicted hear and rejoice.

See, the purpose of this Psalm is to let the rest of us know when we are afflicted that God is faithful in those darks times so that we can hear that and rejoice.

See, this Psalm was written for you and for me. Isn’t God good? And David says, “You know why I am writing this Psalm? It’s for you, you who are afflicted; you who are travelling through a dark and fearful time.” You know why? Come and look at verse 3 again with me. David says:

Glorify the Lord with me; let us exalt His name together.

In other words so that you and I can rejoice together even though we might be travelling through dark times. We are getting the benefit of what David discovered in his dark and fearful time.

And what he discovered, well, it is as profound as it is simple. Look at verse 4; this is what he says; this is the heart of this first passage for me. David says:

I sought the Lord and He answered me; He delivered me from all my fears.

You know what happens in the darkness? In the darkness we become afraid and that fear immobilises us – fear stops us dead in our tracks. We just kind of sit there and we ache and fear eats away at our hearts like a quick spreading cancer and in that fear – remember, David was as he had been many times before, in fear of his life; real fear – David had more than his share of dark times – he had real fear.

Let me say it this way – he was in deadly fear and in the midst of his deadly fear he did the thing that he had learned to do over all of those times in his life when he had been in danger – when he was on the run from King Saul who was trying to kill him for all those years – he did the one thing he knew to do – Psalm 34, verse 4:

I sought the Lord and He answered me.

David sought God – he’d cry out to God for help.

The one thing that we can forget to do when we are frozen by fear is just to cry out to God – just to pour our hearts out to Him. And what a surprise, “God answered him and delivered him from all his fears.” I don’t know about you but I can relate to that. In life and in ministry I come against giants of opposition all the time and I can tell you, some days they scare me – seriously.

And we have a choice – we can just kind of sit there and tremble in fear and be completely immobilised or we can spend some time with God, crying out to Him in prayer and reading His Word and listening to Him – and He always delivers me from all my fears. David goes on to say this – verses 5 and 6 of Psalm 34:

Those who look to Him are radiant; their faces are never covered in shame. This poor man called and the Lord heard him and He saved him out of all his troubles.

There it is – the light word “radiance”. The Hebrew word that sits behind our English translation means literally ‘to beam or to burn with light’. It’s an “over the top” kind of word – it’s not a glow or a flicker or just a shine, but to beam and to burn with light and that’s exactly what happens when we look to God; when we put our trust in Him in the middle of our darkness.

See, in those dark times we are downcast; ashamed if you like, but David states this simple truth “This poor man called and the Lord heard him and saved out of all his troubles; He delivered him from all his fears.” This is such a humble and beautiful picture, isn’t it? David, probably the greatest King that Israel ever had, saw himself just as a poor man who cried out to God in his darkness.

Don’t you love it how the Bible is packed full of this real life stuff – this stuff that’s right down where we are? The Word of God meant for us here and now; right where the rubber hits the road – the light and the radiance of God in our darkness and fear – and all this out of a simple step that David took; so simple and yet when we are afraid, so difficult. “I sought the Lord and He answered me; He delivered me from all my fears.”

Taste and See

God is very much in the “light” business, isn’t He – taking our fear and replacing it with His radiance? Perhaps that’s why David writes in Psalm 18, verse 28:

It is You O Lord who lights my lamp; the Lord my God lights up my darkness.

And again in Psalm 139, verses 11 and 12:

If I say surely the darkness will hide me and the light will become night around me, even the darkness will not be dark to You. The night will shine like the day for darkness is as light to You.

You get the impression that David is a seasoned traveller through darkness and he has learned some stuff that God would have us learn, each in our own way. Now let’s head back to Psalm 34, verses 7 and 8, just to finish off our look at what David learned. Let’s have a read:

The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear Him and delivers them. Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him.

Now there are two things here we need to get into; the first is the bit about the angel of the Lord. Let’s have a look at verse 7 again:

The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear Him and He delivers them.

Angels have a kind of funny symbology these days in our society – fluffy little creatures with wings – but you do just a short study of the angels that God describes in the Bible and you discover they are a fearsome lot. Often God uses them as a messenger and the first thing the angel says is, “Don’t be afraid”. They deliver a specific message to God’s people to protect them from trouble and often they appear as fearsome beings to protect God’s people.

Look at Second Chronicles chapter 32, verse 20:

King Hezekiah and the prophet Isaiah, son of Amos cried out in prayer to heaven about this and the Lord sent an angel who annihilated all the fighting men and the leaders and the officers of the camp of the Assyrian King. So he withdrew to his own land in disgrace and when he went to the temple of his god, some of his sons cut him down with his own sword.

Get it? The angel is serious protection. Presidents or Prime Ministers or Kings or Queens all have their security contingents right around them when they travel. Well those security contingents have got nothing on an angel of the Lord. And you might say to me, “Berni, do you seriously believe in angels?” Absolutely! We can’t see them but when we fear God; when we reverence Him – we will talk more about that idea next week – when we belong to Him, He sends His angel to encamp around us; to surround us; literally, to lay siege around us to protect us.

How does David know that? Because he has been there; he has experienced it over and over again and that’s exactly what he says in the next verse.

Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him.

Now, this verse is so often quoted out of context “Taste and see” – suck it and see! When you are in the darkness; when you are afraid, David is saying, “Try this thing that I am talking about ‘Taste and see that the Lord is good’, you will be blessed when you take refuge in Him.”

It’s like an invitation to you and me today from God. Come on, try it – I can hear the Spirit of God saying through His Word – “Come on, try it because when you take refuge in Me”. God is saying, “you will truly be blessed”. I don’t know about you but God has seriously spoken to me today and encouraged me through His Word; He is in the light business and it’s something that David discovered through long, hard experiences in darkness and fear.

And he comes out the other side of that singing God’s praises specifically for you and for me to hear.

I will bless the Lord at all times; His praise will always be on my lips. My soul will boast in the Lord; let the afflicted hear and rejoice. Glorify the Lord with me; let us exalt His name. I sought the Lord and He answered me; He delivered me from all my fears. Those who look to Him are radiant; their faces are never covered with shame. This poor man called out and the Lord heard him and He saved him from all his troubles. The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear Him and He delivers them. Taste and see that the Lord is good for blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him.

Isn’t that an awesome Psalm? People sometimes say to me, “Berni, why do you talk about this stuff? You know, is this Christianity thing for losers?” You don’t have to be a loser to go through dark times – we all go through dark times – we all travel through difficult times. You know, a friend or a relative that is close to us dies young of cancer and we are left reeling and we think “God why has that happened?” We get retrenched; we lose someone else we love; we … – all sorts of things happen to us and at those times it feels like God has deserted us.

Listen to David again:

I sought the Lord and He answered me; He delivered me from all my fears.

In that darkness there is no light so bright as the light of God and His heart is to take a face that has been covered with tears and put His radiance on that face. God is a wonderful God.

I want to encourage you to join me over the next three weeks as we further explore the Word of God and what God has to say about His light amidst our darkness.

That’s what this series “Dark Night, Bright Light” is all about.

When you’re travelling through a dark and scary patch in life, there’s a strong temptation to do the wrong thing, to save your own skin. I’m pretty sure you know what I’m talking about.

But there is another way …

What We do in the Dark

Well, it’s great to be with you again this week. I’m not sure if you were able to join us last week but we began a new series called “Dark Night, Bright Light”. Darkness, well, we all travel through darkness in our lives. There are times when, I don’t know, the storm clouds just come rolling over the top and maybe we’ve been sick or maybe we have lost someone we love or maybe we have been hurt and it’s not to say that we are a bunch of losers. I don’t mean that, it’s just the reality of life.

Jacqui, my wife, was talking to a long time friend of hers and their children are growing up and there are lots of challenges and problems and she is just exhausted. Or a dear friend of mine whose son committed suicide and he and his wife are still reeling from that. Or a friend who has been retrenched and he’s in his fifties and it’s hard to find a job. Stuff like that happens – dark times; difficult times, well, in those darknesses, we just can’t see where we are or where we are headed.

I have had them, you’ve had them and that’s life. Jesus said this amazing thing – He said: “I am the light of the world,” and one of the things we saw last week is that He is in the “light” business and that’s good news for anyone going through a dark patch. The very first thing that God created in Genesis chapter 1 was “light” – a trillion, trillion stars, at least – God is definitely in the “light” business. Halleluiah! Don’t you think?

And we spent some time last week with King David in a Psalm; Psalm 34. If you have got your Bible, grab it, open it up – we are going there again today. Psalm 34 is kind of a retrospective; a hindsight look at the dark times that David has been through where he was afraid and God showed up. Let me just read the first part of it again. Psalm 34, beginning at verse 1. David says:

I will bless the Lord at all times; His praise will always be on my lips. My soul will boast in the Lord; let the afflicted hear and rejoice. Glorify the Lord with me; let us exalt His name together. I sought the Lord and He answered me; He delivered me from all my fears. Those who look at Him are radiant; their faces are never covered with shame. This poor man called and the Lord heard him; He saved him from all his troubles. The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear Him and He delivers them. Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him.

You see, what David is saying here is that God is a God who shows up in the dark times and delivers us. And David is not saying that off the top of his head or out of a text book; he is saying it from having experienced God in all the dark times that he travelled through in his life. He spent such a long time on the run from Saul who was trying to kill him. He lived in dark places and lonely places, in fear for his life. He fought so many battles where he was hard pressed and he should have been killed but God was there for him – God showed up.

And one of the things that we touched on last week was fear – the bad fear that we have and the good fear. The bad fear is the fear that David talks about in verse 4 of this Psalm. He says:

I sought the Lord and He answered me; He delivered me from all my ‘fears’.

And we do get afraid and it immobilises us but the good fear he talks about in verse 7:

The angel of the Lord encamps around those who ‘fear’ Him and He delivers them.

The fear of the Lord – we are going to have a look at that some more today because it’s what the next part of Psalm 34 is all about. I want you to come with me now as we read just the next five verses of this Psalm. Psalm 34, verses 9 to 14 which is where we are going to spend our time together today. This is what David writes – he says:

Fear the Lord you His holy ones for those who fear Him will have no want. The lions may grow weak and hungry but those who seek the Lord will lack no good thing. Come my children, listen to me, I will teach you the fear of the Lord. Whoever of you loves life and desires to see many good days, keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking lies. Turn from evil and do good, seek peace and pursue it.

This is a really important part of the Psalm. The first part told us all about God and what He is like and that’s fantastic but this second part; it’s about the part that we have to play in those dark times. I want to tell you something about darkness. People will do things in the dark that they won’t do in the light. Let me say that again because it’s really important: people will do things in the dark that they won’t do in the light.

Think about it – we are much more careful about where we walk and what we do out there in the dark; in the night time than we are by day. Robberies, muggings, murders are all more likely to happen under the cover of darkness than they are in day light where the criminal might be seen and get caught.

The same thing is true in our lives – dark times – well, those are the times where we are far more likely to do things that we know are wrong. Let me just give you a few practical everyday examples. Things are tough; we are feeling down – you know what a lot of people do? They over eat – comfort food, they call it. They put on weight; they feel a whole bunch worse about themselves than when they started. Or a husband and wife – they are going through a tough time in their marriage and their minds and eyes start to wander; they start looking around; that’s how adultery begins – instead of holding each other close and working through the issues.

Or perhaps there is conflict at work – someone is just not treating us well and we are feeling under pressure. It’s really getting to us; the boss is being just horrible and we take that as an excuse to justify being lazy or stealing something or gossiping behind their backs or not servicing a customer properly so that the firm will lose some money.

Or perhaps money is really tight; there is real financial pressure in our lives and we are tempted to lie and cheat on our tax returns, or when the shop attendant makes a mistake and gives us too much change we just slip it in our pockets. Do you see how easy this stuff is? In the dark times; in those hidden places the temptation to do wrong is far greater than when the times are good.”

“No one is going to notice! After all, times are tough – I have to look after number one – me; I have to justify myself or protect myself or provide for myself.” That’s how we rationalise this stuff. And notice the central theme through all of that – me, myself and I.

In those dark times we often experience fear – the times when we are afraid and in those dark times we often experience the temptation to sin; to turn away from what we know is right because no one will notice. And we just have to; we have to sin to save our skin.

And the devil loves it this way; he’s so delighted to see this. The Apostle John puts it this way in First John chapter 1, verse 5 – he says:

This is the message we have heard from Him and declare it to you: God is light. In Him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to walk with Him and yet we walk in the darkness, we are lying and we don’t live up to the truth. But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus, His Son, purifies us from all sin.

So today, we are going to take a look at the wisdom that comes from David’s experience in those dark times – the wisdom about how we behave. What he learned to do when temptation came in those dark times.

Let’s Take a Closer Look

Well, we are going to take a bit of a closer look at this part of Psalm 34 because that’s how we learn what God is teaching us through David’s wisdom. Let’s read just a few verses again. Psalm 34 verses 9 to 11, David writes:

Fear the Lord you His holy ones, for those who fear Him will have no want. Sure the lions may grow weak and hungry, but those who seek the Lord will lack no good thing. Come my children, listen to me, I will teach you the fear of the Lord.

I love this because it’s a place where God gives us His solutions to our problems. See, it’s not good enough for Him to rap us over the knuckles with a ruler when we are doing the wrong thing. We need to know how not to repeat the mistake and that’s what this piece of wisdom is all about. Let’s look at verse 9 again:

Fear the Lord you His holy ones, for those who fear Him will have no want.

Last week we saw that the fear of the Lord has two parts. The most obvious definition of ‘fear’ is to be afraid but it also means to reverence and to honour. And I want to talk about those today – it’s important. You know, it’s really easy to imagine that somehow, God is just our buddy; like another friend, And to be sure, He is our friend but God is also an awesome God and ultimately, He will see justice done. There will be a day of judgement; there will be a day when we have to give an account before Him for all that we have done and all that we have said.

Jesus made that really clear in Matthew chapter 10, verse 28 – we can read this. Jesus said:

Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul, rather be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell.

We need to never lose sight of that – there are consequences to our sin; there are consequences to rebelling against God and if we just go on wantonly, stealing or lying or grumbling or hating or undermining or living in sexual sin or whatever it is, and we think to ourselves, “Well, that’s ok. God’s my buddy”, then let me make this clear: we are completely missing the point.

Yes, Jesus died for your sins and mine – absolutely. And when I get something wrong, I go to God and admit it and say, “Lord, I just got this wrong. I don’t want to go there again. Please forgive me God,” and He does. But that attitude is one that comes out of the fear of the Lord, I have to tell you. A casual attitude towards God; that thinks that we can just keep on sinning, is not on – He won’t honour it. Why? Because if you believe Jesus, His plan is for you and me to be holy; in other words, to be clean and pure and set apart exclusively for God’s use. Listen again to verse 9:

Fear the Lord, you His holy ones, for those who fear Him will have no want.

See, we are not our own, we are bought at a price and God has this awesome plan to use us just as He pleases and the devil knows that. That’s why, when times are tough; when we are travelling through a dark place, he wants to smear us with that darkness. He is the deception – things are difficult, therefore I have to bend the rules to set it right – money is tight so I have to steal to provide for myself. The boss is giving me a hard time so I have to stab him in the back to set things right. My husband or my wife isn’t everything they should be, I have to start looking around somewhere else to find someone who is everything they should be.

The devil will play that rubbish over and over and over again until we swallow it hook, line and sinker and God’s answer is exactly the opposite. “

Fear the Lord, you His holy ones, for those who fear Him will have no want. The lions may grow weak and hungry but those who seek the Lord will lack no good thing.

God’s way is to provide for us – not all our wants, but all our needs. And when we fear the Lord; when we fear His judgement and honour Him and reverence Him with what we think and what we say and what we do, God will make sure that we have what we need. What a huge opposite to our natural inclination!

“Yes, times are tough; yes, money is tight but I will fill out my tax return honestly. I won’t claim expenses from my company that are really personal rather that company expenses. I don’t care how tough things get financially, I am going to fear the Lord because I am bought for a price; I am holy; I am set apart for Him and His Word says that in those dark times, if I fear Him, I will have no want and when I seek Him with all my heart I will lack no good thing.”

Do you get it? David is saying here, “I learned in my dark times just to stand for God; just to do the right thing; to fear Him, to be holy because he will provide for me.” And remember David is teaching us from having been on the run from King Saul who wanted to kill him for years – sleeping in dark caves; fearing for his life. This is what he learned in his dark places and that’s why he is telling us this stuff. He is saying, “Listen to me for I will teach you the fear of the Lord. Come my children, listen to me.”

In other words “Listen to me – this works – I know it does because I have been there.”

Where the Rubber Hits the Road

I hope you are being blessed as I am as we work our way through the wondrous Word of God. Imagine the God who created the whole universe speaking to you and me through His Word; through something that was written about three thousand years ago. I want to finish off with just the next few verses of this Psalm because they contain a specific challenge – a challenge that God is making to you and to me today. Have a listen – Psalm 34, verses 11 to 14:

Come my children, listen to me, I will teach you the fear of the Lord. Whoever of you loves life and desires to see many good days, keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking lies. Turn away from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it.

See, sometimes we wonder “Well, how do we live out this fear of the Lord? Do I sit in a corner and tremble?” No, not at all! David remember, this David who is speaking to us from his own difficult, dark experience – he is throwing down a challenge – he is teaching us how to live in the fear of the Lord.

Quite simply; paraphrasing, he is saying “Do you want to live a good life? Do you want to live a great life?” Well, here’s how to do it – by living out the fear of the Lord through what you say and what you do.

Whoever of you loves life and desires to see many good days, keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking lies, turn away from evil and do good, seek peace and pursue it.

Now, we are all different – we are all prone to different forms of the same thing that God calls “sin”. For some people it’s grumbling, for others it’s gambling or lying or stealing or carrying around hatred in our hearts and “speaking it out behind peoples” backs, or gossiping or sexual sin. You name it, the list goes on – overeating, getting drunk, closing ourselves off from other people and family – over and over again – the list is really long.

And my hunch is that we each know which one or two are the particular ones that we are prone to. And here’s the challenge: if we are in a dark and fearful place; a place where there is a temptation to stop doing good and to do wrong; to turn away from God and to sin so that we can save our skin – here’s the challenge: to turn away from that stuff and do good instead and put our faith in God.

That’s what it means in practical terms to “fear the Lord” – that’s how we live out the fear of the Lord, with our lives. See, we delude ourselves if we somehow imagine that in that dark place, God can’t see what’s going on. Wake up! Listen to what the Apostle Paul writes to his friends in Galatia – you can read it in Galatians chapter 6, beginning at verse 7. And if you have a Bible, come here with me and share in God’s Word with me.

I was with a group of Christians recently and they just paid lip service to God’s Word. Let’s be serious about getting God’s Word into us – Galatians chapter 6, verse 7:

Don’t be deceived – God cannot be mocked. You are going to reap what you sow. If you sow to please your sinful nature, from that nature you will reap destruction. The one who sows to please the Spirit, however, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. Don’t become weary of doing good for just at the right time we will reap a harvest if we don’t give up. Therefore, as we have the opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of God.

That was written about a thousand years after David and it’s saying the same thing in a different way. In those dark places it is so tempting to grow weary of doing good; to sin in order to save our skin; to provide for ourselves in our own strength. Paul is saying, “Just keep going. Don’t become weary of doing good because in God’s time you will reap the harvest.”

That’s the challenge! It’s the challenge for each one of us in difficult circumstances in dark place to stop making excuses. They are the very places where the devil wants to tear us apart. That’s the very place where we have to vigilant – to bow down our lives; to fear the Lord; just do the right thing day after day after day and His light will shine in that place. It has too – that’s who He is – God honours those who honour Him. And in those dark places, when step by step, we discover His light, that is such a precious, awesome and mighty thing – it changes us like nothing else. That’s why David starts his Psalm off with such gusto of praise because he knows all this stuff through his own experience.

I will bless the Lord all the time. His praise will always be on my lips. My soul will boast in the Lord – let the afflicted hear and rejoice. Glorify the Lord with me; let us exalt in His name for I sought the Lord and He answered me; He delivered me from my fears. Those who look to Him are radiant; their faces are never covered with shame. This poor man called and the Lord heard him; He saved him from all his troubles. The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear Him and He delivers them. Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him.

Fear the Lord you holy ones, for those who fear Him will have no want. The lions may well grow weak and hungry, but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing. Come my children, listen to me. I will teach you the fear of the Lord. Whoever of you loves life and desires to see many good days, keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking lies. Turn away from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it.

Isn’t it amazing how we can rationalise and complicate and make excuses in those dark places? When you and I are walking through the dark the devil sees what is going on and God’s see what’s going on and in that dark place, God is so ready; so willing to shine His bright light on that dark night.

Whoever of you loves life and desires to see many good days, just keep your tongue from evil; just stop your lips from speaking lies; turn away from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it.

God is in that place with you no matter how dark the night is; His bright light will shine in your heart.

Some days you’re just living life the best way you know how, honouring God and then … “Whamo” something so unfair hits you – right out of the blue.  Sensational! It’s just not fair is it?

His Way, Not Ours

There are times in life when bad things happen to good people. And perhaps you are someone who believes in Jesus and you have been living your life just the best way that you know how; just day after day walking with Him and all of a sudden “Whamo”; something happens. The sky turns dark and all of a sudden you are in one of those dark, black times that we can go through in life. A time of loss or pain or sickness or whatever it is and you kind of look around and think, “What is going on here, God? I mean I know I’m not perfect but every day I just get up and just do my best and I walk with You and now this!”

My hunch is that there are a few people who kind of relate to that today. And so I want to deal with that because when bad things happen to good people, it’s such a shock – it seems so unfair, especially when we take a look around and we see there is a whole bunch of “good” things happening to some really ‘bad’ people out there. “What is going on, God?”

Well, over these last few weeks on the programme we have been just working our way through Psalm 34 in a series that I’ve called, “Dark Night, Bright Light”. Psalm 34 is a Psalm written by King David and King David was a man who went through more dark times in his life than you or I would ever hope for. And yes, he makes some mistakes but right from the beginning God had him picked as a man after His own heart. And yet David lived through so many dark and difficult times; scary times; on the run for his life from King Saul who wanted to kill him, for years; battles with enemies and it looked like he would lose and yet, God would show up.

When you take a look at his life and you weigh David’s life on our human scale of justice, well, you come to the conclusion David was definitely one of the good guys. He tried with all his might to honour God and even though some days, he blew it, he was probably the greatest King that Israel ever had. And I’m sure that as David would take a look at his life, he’d probably come to the same conclusion. And yet this man went through so many difficult things – dark and lonely times – times when his people criticised him and times when he was in fear of his life. So God, what’s going on? Why is that? How come bad things happen to good people?

I’m not sure I can answer all of those things. I mean, God is God and He decides those things but as we continue to walk through Psalm 34, let me share with you David’s own wisdom on this, because Psalm 34 is a Psalm where he looks back on all those bad times and he reflects with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight. Let’s pick it up in Psalm 34, verse 15, he writes:

The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and His ears are attentive to their cry but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil to cut off their memory from the earth. The righteous cry out and the Lord hears them; He delivers them from all their troubles. The Lord is close to the broken hearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. Many are the afflictions of the righteous but the Lord delivers him from them all.

Well, David doesn’t even bother with the “why” question here, does he? When we hit those dark times the first question we want to know is ‘Why me, God? Why is this happening? Right?

And the second question is: “How long is this going to go on, God – how long?” Well, David doesn’t carry on with any of that. He seems in this Psalm to accept the sovereignty of God and after all that he has been through in his life, he draws this obvious conclusion – Psalm 34, verse 19:

Many are the afflictions of the righteous but the Lord delivers us from them all.

In other words, stuff happens – it just does. Jesus put it this way:

Your Father in heaven causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good and He sends the rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.

Good stuff and bad stuff happens to good people and bad people – there you go, that’s just it. And it seems to be a rule that the more a man or a woman turns their lives to following hard after God, walking in the footsteps of Jesus, the more afflictions they suffer.

It’s such an incredible contradiction because on the one hand, God wants to bless us – He does – all the way through His Word the Bible, He tells us that. But on the other, when we set our hearts like flint to follow Him, it seems like the rest of the world wants to stop us.

Many are the afflictions of the righteous.

“Many” – gee, there’s one of the promises of God! I don’t hear many people shouting, “Halleluiah, Amen” to that promise.

But the Lord delivers us from them all. His eyes are on His people; His ear is attentive to their cry.

We cry out, He hears us and He delivers us from our troubles.

You know what I have learned? He doesn’t always deliver us in the way that we expect Him to. Sometimes we want Him to do one thing and He does exactly the opposite. Sometimes we cry out to Him and things seem to get worse. Sometimes we want Him to do “A” and He turns around and does “B”.

And sometimes it seems like His solution; His answer means that we lose and someone else wins. But in the wondrous fabric of His mighty plan for our lives, He is so much more interested in our characters – who we are – and our relationship with Him than He is in our perceptions of what we think we need and our comfort. He is so much more concerned about His glory shining out into this world than He is about some of the things that at the time, well, we think they are important but in the bigger scheme of things, they really aren’t.

The Apostle Paul puts it this way in Romans chapter 5:

Suffering produces endurance and endurance produces character and character produces hope and this hope doesn’t disappoint us because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit.

And the longer we walk with God the more afflictions we have to suffer, the more we discover the truth of King David’s words:

Many are the afflictions of the righteous but the Lord delivers us from them all.

It’s not Fair

You know when I think when the darkness is the worst? I think when something happens to us that’s not fair – someone treads on us or hurts us or stabs us in the back and it’s not fair. And when that happens, instead of running to God, we are so tempted to behave badly – to stoop as low as the person that has hurt us. If they stabbed us in the back, well, we have to do the same only ten times worse.

Many are the afflictions of the righteous and we will avenge them all, right? No, that’s not what God tells us in Psalm 34:

Many are the afflictions of the righteous,

He says in verse 19,

but the Lord delivers us from them all.

But boy, oh boy, it is so tempting to carve the other guy’s heart out isn’t it?

I want to take you to one of the most challenging verses in the Bible, for me – I mean, really challenging. It’s talking about when things happen that are not fair and it’s about a slave and his or her master. It was written a thousand or so years after King David penned Psalm 34, by the Apostle Peter.

Come with me almost to the end of the New Testament – to the letter, First Peter – it’s a letter to Christians who were being persecuted. They were going through incredibly dark times; it was incredibly unfair, and Peter writes this piece of wisdom. First Peter chapter 2, verse 18 and listen, if you have a Bible, open it up, come with me here to this verse – First Peter chapter 2, verse 18. This is what he writes:

Slaves, submit yourselves to your masters with all respect. Not only to those who are good and considerate but also to those who are harsh, for it is commendable if a man bears up under the pain of unjust suffering because he is conscious of God but how is it to your credit if you receive a beating for doing wrong and you endure it? But if you suffer for doing good and you endure it, this is commendable before God.

This is what you are called to because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example that you should follow in His steps. He committed no sin and no deceit was found in His mouth. When they hurled insults at Him, He didn’t retaliate. When He suffered, He made no threats, instead, He entrusted Himself to the One who judges justly. He, Himself bore our sins in His body on that tree so that we might die to sin and live for righteousness: by His wounds you have been healed. For you, like sheep, have gone astray, but now you have returned to the Shepherd and the overseer of your souls.

Do you find that challenging? I certainly do. See there’s something in our makeup that when injustice happens to us; when we are on the receiving end, we want to rail against it and in the hurt and the pain and the anger – we want revenge, we want justice … Peter is writing to slaves – I mean, slavery is something in the twenty first century, we just find disgusting and abhorrent and yet here in God’s Word, Peter is writing to slaves – one human being, being owned by another human being, to labour without payment – human degradation at its worst.

How can one person do that to another? And yet Peter says: “Submit to your masters who are harsh.”

Slave, submit to your masters with all respect. Not only to those who are good and considerate but also to those who are harsh, for it is commendable if a man bears up under the pain of unjust suffering because he is conscious of God.

See, travelling through pain, we want to end that pain in our own strength – it is a natural human instinct. It is so unnatural to honour God in that place. It is so unnatural to wait for Him to deliver us. It is so unnatural for us to do what is commendable in God’s eyes but if you suffer for doing good and you endure it this is commendable before God. To this you are called because Christ suffered for you; leaving you an example that you should follow in His footsteps.

It is unnatural to suffer for doing good but it is commendable before God and in that, Christ is our example.

He committed no sin and no deceit was found in His mouth and yet when they hurled insults at Him, He didn’t retaliate. When He suffered, He made no threats instead He entrusted Himself to the One who judges justly.

See – insults and He didn’t retaliate! Imagine what the Son of God could have done to those people? When they hurled insults at Him, He bore them like nails in His flesh; when He suffered, He didn’t make any threats; He didn’t utter any words of revenge.

And you might say, “Berni, how can you be preaching this stuff at me? How can you believe this stuff? This is so hurtful.” Well, the answer and the solution come in the very next verse. Listen:

Instead, He entrusted Himself to the One who judges justly.

There it is again – a millennium after Psalm 34 was written, Peter is saying exactly the same thing that David said in Psalm 34, verse 19:

Many are the afflictions of the righteous but the Lord delivers us from them all.

So many of the things that happen to us in life aren’t fair but in that darkness God’s light shines; a certain hope. Look at how Peter finishes off this letter:

God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. Humble yourselves therefore, under God’s might hand that He may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on Him because He cares for you.

God’s Deliverance

I just want to finish up today by encouraging you that God is in the deliverance business.

God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble,

Peter writes in First Peter chapter 5, beginning at verse 5:

Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand that He may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxieties on Him because He cares for you.

You know, for me as I have travelled through these incredibly dark times, every now and then, when I have been treated unfairly – what I have learned is that it is not about getting my outcome or my way – it’s about humbling myself before God and that is so hard sometimes. It’s about being like Christ and saying, “God, not my will but Your will be done.”

And God somehow always, always comes through and so do I, but as a changed man. A few more of the rough edges knocked off; a little of God’s polishing here and there – definitely a work in progress but it changes you, little by little.

When we are passed over; when we are being ignored; when someone who is half as good as us is promoted twice as quickly; when people whisper behind our backs, those are painful times. Yet they are precious times when we have a choice to make – to get our own back or to humble ourselves under His mighty hand; to retaliate and threaten or to wait patiently in pain for God to deliver us like He did with Jesus; to be like everyone else in this world or to be Christ like – to be about the devil’s business or about God’s business.

We started off today looking at this wonderful part of Psalm 34, beginning at verse 15:

The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and His ears are attentive to their cry. The face of the Lord is against those who do evil, to cut off their memory from the earth. The righteous cry out and the Lord hears them; He delivers them from all their troubles. The Lord is close to the broken hearted and He saves those who are crushed in spirit. Many are the afflictions of the righteous but the Lord delivers us from them all.

You see, God’s eyes are on the righteous; He does hear our cries. And God is a righteous God – we are going to look at that next week. God is against those who do evil and ultimately, there will be a price for those people to pay. One day they will stand before God and be judged.

When we cry out God hears us and He delivers us from our troubles. When we are broken hearted; when it’s so dark and it’s so lonely and it’s so scary, He is in that place. And even sometimes when we can’t see it, He’s out there protecting us; keeping us safe; doing things that we can’t imagine.

Take a look back a page or two at Psalm 31, beginning at verse 20. See, this is one of those times that David is talking about that is so unfair. This is what he writes:

In the shelter of Your presence You hide them from the intrigues of men. In Your dwelling you keep them safe from accusing tongues. Praise be to the Lord our God, for He showed His wonderful love to me when I was in a besieged city. In my alarm I said “I am cut off from Your sight,” yet You heard my cry for mercy when I called to You for help. Love the Lord all His saints. The Lord preserves the faithful but the proud He will pay back in full. Be strong and take heart all you that hope in the Lord.

Isn’t that wonderful? Isn’t it sometimes when we are the subject of the intrigues of men and accusing tongues, it’s God who keeps us safe in Him? And when we come through that and we see what’s happened and we are changed, we can look back and say, “Praise be to God for He showed His wonderful love to me when I felt like I was in a besieged city.”

Have you ever felt that? In relationships it’s like everyone turns against you and you feel like you are under siege.

Praise be to the Lord for He showed His wonderful love to me when I was in a besieged city. In alarm I said “I am cut off from Your sight” yet you heard my cry for mercy when I called to you for help.

So often in those dark places it just kind of feels like there is no one there. It feels like “I’m cut off” – we are afraid and we cry out “I’m cut off” but God is always in that place.

Can I just say to you from now on, when you are suffering afflictions; when you are the subject of human plots or accusing tongues; when you are in that incredibly dark place; when you feel cut off like a city under siege; when it’s black, I believe that the Holy Spirit is going to shine a light into that dark place.

I remember back in my life when it hurt so much and it was so dark, I just quietly sat there in pain and somehow the Holy Spirit turned my heart to humble myself. See, I was so used to lashing out – I was so used to stooping as low as the other people who were inflicting the pain and yet the Holy Spirit did something. And I believe that as we receive His Word today, the Holy Spirit is going to speak His Word, this Word into your heart, one day, just when you need it. Just when you feel like a city under siege; just when you are in that dark place, this beautiful Word that we have looked at in Psalm 34 and Psalm 31 and First Peter chapters 3 and 5, this is the very Word of God.

Many are the afflictions of the righteous but the Lord delivers us from them all.

I don’t know about you but some days are really rotten. You know, we go along; we do; we live our lives just the best way we can and something comes out of the blue and it’s so unfair and you know, it’s so unexpected and it hurts and it’s scary. And dark nights – well, they are so dark aren’t they?

They are so lonely and often so painful but in that dark night there is a bright light and it’s a light that shines when we put our trust in Jesus Christ – the same Jesus who suffered a scandalous death on the cross; a death that was unfair; a death that He didn’t deserve. When they hurled insults at Him; when they beat Him and when … He just took it. He just humbled Himself because He knew there was a purpose; He knew that He would have to die for you and me.

When we put our faith in that Jesus to deliver us in His time and His way, He will. See, we can have faith in Jesus from a distance; you know, we can believe in Him with our heads from a long way off but that sort of belief is pretty useless when you get to one of those dark nights.

Because Jesus never meant for us to have Him at arm’s length; He never meant for us to believe in Him just with our heads; He never meant for us to say, “Well, yea, I have an insurance policy”, He meant to be part of our lives.

And when we believe Him with our lives – do you know what that means? It means in those dark times when people are doing bad things to us, not lashing out in pain. It means saying, “You know, I’m not going to do the thing that comes naturally, which is wrong, I’m going to humble myself; I am going to believe in Jesus’ deliverance with my life and just sit here and be like Christ – not like the rest of the world.”

When we believe like that with our lives; when we put our lives on the line and honour Him in those times of affliction, that’s when He shows up.

For God opposes the proud but He gives grace to the humble. Many are the afflictions of the righteous but the Lord delivers us from them all.

May He bless you as you receive His Word, today?

When life sometimes looks on the dark and dangerous side, as it does from time to time, what we need, you and I, is a place of refuge.  Fortunately that’s something that God’s Word talks an awful lot about, as it turns out.

God’s Refuge

I want you to imagine that you are out one night, walking along a dark and lonely street and all of a sudden you see some drunk and unruly men coming towards you. They are swearing and they look to be wielding knives. You take a quick look around and there is not another soul in this street and just then, you see a house to your left – you look in the window and you see a family sitting down to dinner. What do you do?

Well, I know what I’d be doing – I’d duck in and knock on that front door and as quickly as I could, I’d ask if I could step inside until those men disappeared. Wouldn’t you do that too? Now there is a name for that – it’s called “seeking refuge”.

It’s not a sign of weakness; it’s doesn’t mean that somehow we are a loser. It just means that in that dark and dangerous place, we need to be somewhere safe; we need a refuge. The problem is that in this world, when we are going through difficult times; dark times, so often there doesn’t seem to be a refuge to be found.

“Refuge” is a word that appears over and over and over again in the Bible. In fact, just in the Psalms it is used forty eight times and forty six of those times, the refuge that God is talking about is God Himself. Have a listen to just a few of those in Psalm 36, verse 7. It says:

How priceless is Your unfailing love, God. Both the high and the low among men find refuge in the shadow of Your wings.

Psalm 62, verses 7 and 8:

My salvation and my honour depend on God. He is my mighty rock and my refuge. Trust in Him at all times, people – pour out your hearts to Him for God is our refuge.

And Psalm 119, verse 114:

You are my refuge and my shield. I have put my hope in Your Word.

I’d like to spend a bit of time today looking at this idea of “refuge” because when we are going through those tough times; those dark and dangerous parts of our lives, a refuge is exactly what we need. Over these last few weeks we have been working our way through a series that I’ve called “Dark Night, Bright Light”. And it’s been based of a Psalm written by King David; Psalm 34.

It’s a Psalm that David writes with the wisdom of hindsight because he’s been in lots and lots of dark and dangerous places through his life. And in this Psalm he praises God because what he has discovered is that, at the end of all those dark times, God delivered him. God came through no matter how grim or how dark or how dangerous it appeared at the time.

That’s great stuff! And if you have some time, I really encourage you to get aside and have a good read of Psalm 34 and just discover for yourself the things that David learned in those dark times. But it is one thing for David to tell you and me what happened in his experience – “WOW!” says David, “I discovered that God delivered me every time.” And it’s so easy for you and me to respond, “Well, that’s fine for you, Davo, that’s brilliant – glad that God came through for you but right now, I’m out here in that dark place and I’m petrified. The fact that God showed up for you doesn’t help me much right now.”

And that would be a pretty natural human response. When we send out an SOS to God, it may well be that God will come through sometime but what about the meantime? Well, have a listen to the end of this Psalm of David’s – Psalm 34, we are going to look at verses 19 to 22 because in the very last verse of this Psalm, God answers that question.

Let’s pick it up at verse 19 – if you have a Bible please go and grab it; let’s do this together. Psalm 34, verse 19:

Many are the afflictions of the righteous but the Lord delivers us from them all. He protects all our bones; not one of them will be broken. Evil will slay the wicked; the foes of the righteous will be condemned. The Lord redeems His servants; no one will be condemned who takes refuge in Him.

There it is, that word “refuge” – it means to flee to Him for protection. Now we understand that in a physical sense – that’s what we started the programme off with today; that little story and that makes sense. But when something in life is scary; when we have been diagnosed with cancer or our finances have fallen in a heap or our marriage is falling apart or one of our kids is on drugs, what does it mean to take refuge in God then?

Good question because here’s what happens when we take refuge – we feel safe. The fear is gone – that’s the point of refuge. Along the journey, through a dark place in life we want to know that we are safe. And that story that I just shared with you at the beginning of the programme – you know, you are walking along that dark street and you see these drunken youths with knives coming at you and you duck into a house and you knock on the door and you seek refuge and you go in through that front door with the family – the whole point of that is, once you do that and you go through that door and that door is closed, you feel safe.

The way that God best explains this, through any part of the Bible, is through a passage that I come back to again and again and again and again. The Apostle Paul wrote this about a thousand years after King David wrote Psalm 34. Paul is locked away in a Roman dungeon on death row and he writes these words in Philippians chapter 4, verses 6 and 7:

Don’t be anxious about anything but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, put your request to God and the peace of God which passes all understanding will guard you hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Don’t be anxious about anything. What man by worrying or what woman by worrying can add one hour to the length of their lives. Don’t be anxious about anything.

Take it to God, put your trust in God, pour your heart out to Him – in fact that’s the other meaning of that word “refuge”. To put your trust in someone or something; to rely on them; to resort to them – out there in a dark place, put my trust in God.

Just go to Him, pour it out in front of Him and then He does something; He fills us with peace.

Don’t be anxious about anything but take your prayers to God, present your request to Him and the peace of God which passes all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

See, when it’s dark and dangerous, God’s peace doesn’t make sense, but when we take things to Him; when we take our concerns and our fears to Him; when we present our requests to God; when we put our trust in Him, that’s taking refuge in Him.

And His peace defies any human reckoning or logic – the only way I can describe it – because I have been in that dark place, time and time and time again – is it’s like a light. Darkness is scary – God comes in and shines His bright light; the light that you just know is Him and the darkness isn’t scary any more. You just know He will deliver us – Dark night, bright light.

A Just God

If you were able to join us last week on the programme, you may recall that we talked about the afflictions of the righteous – the fact that so often bad things happen to good people. A lot of the times it seems unfair – sometimes evil appears to triumph in this world. Sometimes someone who lies and cheats and stabs people in the back seems to be the centre of attention; they get all the applause and the promotions and the accolades.

And maybe we are just living our lives, quietly, day by day for the Lord and we miss out or we are the victims of injustice and not only is there pain to deal with in all of that, but there is the injustice of it all. We have this built in sense of justice and when we are at the receiving end of injustice – WOW that really gets us.

Now, obviously, King David had been through that. It is something he writes a lot about in the Psalms and in particular, in this Psalm. Have a listen again – in Psalm 34, verse 19:

Many are the afflictions of the righteous but the Lord delivers us from them all. He protects all our bones, not one of them will be broken. Evil will slay the wicked and the foes of the righteous will be condemned. The Lord redeems His servants; no one will be condemned who takes refuge in Him.

I particularly want to focus, just for a moment, on verse 21. Let’s have another read:

Evil will slay the wicked; the foes of the righteous will be condemned.

You know what that tells me? That God is a just God – He sees everything that goes on; every act, good or bad and in this world there are wicked people. Sometimes what they do shrouds us in darkness.

Africa is a continent that is very much on my heart – almost a billion people, many living in the poorest of conditions; many starving. And then you see the wicked profiting from their misery or fighting for power or wealth with wars and riots and innocent people being killed and food and aid being stolen and misappropriated.

I know that there are so many people today, listening to this programme right across Africa and you’ve seen atrocities; you’ve seen greed; you’ve seen riots; you’ve seen people being exploited in the most horrible ways and this guy from Australia has the hide to get on the radio and talk about a God of love and a God of justice.

For much of my life I ignored God; I was against Him and not for Him. The Bible is full of this word “wicked” – when I look back and describe myself as wicked – yea, probably – I was selfish; I was self seeking and you know, as I look back on that, God didn’t stop me once from doing what was wrong. He never bound my hands or struck my down or held me back because He gave me a free will. And often my wickedness; my wrongs hurt other people. But again God didn’t stop me, not once – He let me decide for myself to be for Him or against Him. He never slew me and that’s the reality of this world.

God gives us a free choice – that’s why there are wars; that’s why there are riots; that’s why there are over twenty million slaves still in the world today; that’s why there are millions of refugees in this world because God gives us a free choice. And, yes, sometimes the wicked will appear to triumph but a day of reckoning is coming – a day is coming where the wicked will have to give an account and the Lord will deal with them.

God is a God of justice – David writes about that in Psalm 11, verse 6. If you have a Bible, grab it and open it there; Psalm 11, verse 6. He puts it like this:

On the wicked He will rain fiery coals and burning sulphur; a scorching wind will be their lot. For the Lord is righteous; He loves justice; upright men will see His face.

It is such a hard thing to come to grips with but one of the things that you and I need to know is that when we are on the receiving end of wickedness, He is our refuge. See, we don’t always see justice prevail on this earth. Did you know that in the twentieth century, more Christians were killed or martyred for their faith than in the previous nineteen centuries since Christ was on this earth all put together? That’s a fact!

And no matter what situation we are in, how dark or how dire; how unfair or how many wicked people surround us, sometimes to hurt us and pull us down, David learned this:

Evil will slay the wicked; the foes of the righteous will be condemned but the Lord redeems His servants. No one will be condemned who takes refuge in Him.

Now you may well say to me, “Berni, how does that help me here and now?” And my answer is this: We who place our trust in Jesus Christ; we have a certain hope for the future. The decision to save us from the wicked today, tomorrow, next week, next month is entirely God’s decision – His will; His purposes.

Jesus wasn’t saved from the wicked! He was obedient to God and allowed Himself to be nailed to that cross. He died, He suffered but He rose again and then … then He was delivered; then He had victory. You see, Jesus went to God in that Garden of Gethsemane and said:

Lord, if there is any way You can take this suffering away from Me, do it! But not My will, let Your will be done.

It’s the same for you and me. Sometimes God chooses to give us that victory – today, tomorrow, next week, maybe in our lifetime – other days we will have to wait until we stand before Him to see the justice. But then … then we will have victory for all eternity and that is a very long time.

The Weaver

As we come towards the end of our time together today, I want to share a poem – it’s a really special poem that perhaps you have heard before – it’s a wonderful poem that I carry around in my head and my heart. I don’t know who wrote it; it’s fairly old – it’s called ‘The Weaver.’ Just have a listen:

My life is but a weaving between my Lord and me
I cannot choose the colours as He weaveth steadily
Sometimes He chooses dark threads and I in foolish pride
Forget He sees the upper and I, the underside.
Not till the loom is silent and the shuttles cease to fly
Shall God unroll the canvas and explain the reason why
The dark threads were as needful in the weaver’s skilful hand
As the threads of gold and silver in the pattern He hath planned.

Isn’t it so true that when we are in the trenches of life, it can be so hard to get a handle on God’s bigger purposes and even though He will reveal some of it along the way, much of it we won’t know until that day that we stand before Him in glory. Truly, I look at some of the things I have gone through in my life and you know when you are going through them, they hurt so much, it’s so hard to see that God has a bigger picture and a bigger plan.

And even afterwards, you look back on some of them and think, “Well, why hasn’t God fixed that? Why hasn’t He gone back and addressed that? Why did I have to go through that?” You know the sort of stuff I’m talking about – we all have those but God doesn’t always explain Himself.

Job is an amazing Book. Job was a wonderful and righteous man of God. This is a book in the Old Testament; comes just before the Book of Psalms. It’s the story of how the devil goes to God and says, “Look at this Job – you have pampered him all his life. What if he starts to lose everything, he won’t honour you then” and God said this to the devil “Well, go for it”. And the devil takes away Job’s possessions, takes away his health, takes away his family, takes away his friends, takes away everything. God lets the devil rob him of the lot, even though he was such a righteous man.

And Job went through so much pain and so much suffering over the years and over and over he asks God “Why? Why did you let this happen to me? I’m a righteous man; I have lived my life just for you; I couldn’t have done any better.” And God’s basic response – and you can read the whole thing in Job chapter 38 and onwards – God says, “Well, Job, you are not God. Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Where were you when I made the stars or the land or the ocean?”

In other words God’s saying, “Job, I’m the sovereign God and I’m not going to tell you. My ways aren’t your ways and My thoughts are so much higher than your thoughts.” God says to Job, “I don’t have to explain Myself to you” and so often that’s the way.

Things happen to us and we just have to humble ourselves and say, “You know something, God? I don’t know why – I don’t know why You are letting me go through this but I’m just going to trust You.” And that’s what Job did – Job remained faithful to God all through his years of suffering.

And let me now read you just the last few verses of the Book of Job – this is how the story ends – Job chapter 42, beginning at verse 10:

After Job had prayed for his friends, the Lord made him prosperous again and gave him twice as much as he had before. All his brothers and sisters and everyone who had known him before came and ate with him in his house. They comforted him and consoled him over all the trouble the Lord had brought upon him and each one gave him a piece of silver and a gold ring. The Lord blessed the latter part of Job’s life more than the first part. He had fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, a thousand yoke of oxen and a thousand donkeys and he also had seven sons and three daughters.

The first daughter he named Jemima, the second he named Keziah and the third Kerenhappuch. Nowhere in all the land were found women as beautiful as Job’s daughters and their father granted them an inheritance along with their brothers. After this Job lived a hundred and forty years – he saw his children and their children to the fourth generation and so he died, old and full of years.

In other words, Job went through some really dark times and Job’s dark times lasted a long time.

And at the end, after Job had prayed for his friends, the Lord made him prosperous again and He gave him twice as much as he had before.

Job was given by God double for his trouble, as it were.

See, sometimes God does that. Sometimes we see things turn around in our lifetime on this earth and we go through dark times and they only last for a short while and God turns them around and we look back and say, “You know, God, I wouldn’t go through that again for anything and I would wish that time on my worst enemy, but thank You so much for delivering me.” But other times … other times, we will have to wait until we stand in glory before God.

The question is this, when we come right down to it – are we prepared to stand completely alone on this earth for Christ sake; to honour Him; to humble ourselves before Him? Because God is looking for those sorts of people – people prepared to take up their cross to follow Him.

Jesus promised that we would have tribulation – He promised dark times and He is looking for people who will just trust in His light in those dark times. And those people, He will shine His bright light into their dark places; He will take their fear away with His perfect love; He will comfort them and hold them and protect them – those who would be prepared to lose their lives in order to gain them.

Because unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a single seed but if it dies, it produces many seeds and if we love our life we will lose it but those who are prepared to lose their lives in this world, will keep them for eternal life.

“Whoever serves Me,” said Jesus, “must follow Me and where I am, there My servant will be too and My Father will honour the one who serves Me.”

That’s the promise of God – to follow Jesus means to suffer like Him.

But the promise of God is that He will honour us.

Whoever serves Me must follow Me and where I am, there my servant will also be and My Father will honour the one who serves Me.

God will honour us; He will make His face to shine upon us; He will be our bright light amidst the darkest night.