God Writes Straight with Crooked Lines

Most of you are probably holding in your hands the same thing that I'm holding in my hands. This is the new King James Version of the Bible. You may have a King James Version of the Bible. Some who are more righteous than I am may have the original King James Version, because if it was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for them. I'd like to give you a brief history of how the King James Bible came to be.

So please bear with me. I'm kind of a history nut anyway, and I hope I don't take this too far. But I have a point at the end of telling you this little history of how the King James Bible, after all, we all just have the descendants of it if we have the new King James, how it came to be. In Britain, there was a civil war, and it was known in history as the War of the Roses.

It occurred from 1455 to 1487. There were a series of dynastic civil wars that were fought in medieval England between two houses, the House of York and the House of Lancaster. Eventually, the Lancastrians won the Civil War, and a man who won a major battle to win it for the Lancastrians, his name was Henry Tudor. Now, because God has such a great sense of humor, Henry Tudor was a Welshman, and he ascended to the throne of England and began what was known in history as the Tudor dynasty. One of the first things he did is he merged the warring families by marrying someone from the House of York.

Her name was Elizabeth of York, so he reunited those houses that had had a civil war together and he merged the rival signals. You see, the symbols of the Lancastrians was the red rose, and the symbol of the York was a white rose. So he created what was known as a Tudor rose. It was white and red, and that became known as the Tudor rose. Well, he became Henry VII. After he was coronated or crowned in 1485, he had a unique legacy.

It was to maintain peace and to create economic prosperity, and he was considered a fairly good king, even though he was a miserly and greedy man. He was very cheap, but he was known as a good administrator who began England on a path to greatness. Near the end of his life, unfortunately, when he died, throne was given to his oldest son whose name was Arthur, but Arthur died prematurely at age 15.

And so another one of his younger sons, his name Henry, became king. He became known as Henry VIII. Now, Henry VIII was self-absorbed, egotistical, and a complete tyrant, and those are his positive qualities. He did nothing less than start a whole new religion, a new church, because the pope would not allow him to divorce his first wife, who wasn't able to produce a son for him, because to continue a dynasty, you have to have lots and lots of sons. Particularly at that time, so many children died before they reached adulthood. It was important to have lots of sons.

His wife was unable to do that. The pope wouldn't give him a divorce, so he created an entire new church. And of course, being king, he made himself the head over that church. Today it's known as the Anglican Church, and the American version is the Episcopalian Church, and he did nothing less than create a new church because he couldn't get a divorce.

In his lifetime, he had six wives. A few of them, unfortunately, lost their heads in the Tower of London, and he was a very, very bad man. A good administrator continued England on the path to being recognized by other nations in Europe as a powerful nation, but he didn't have a lot of positive qualities. One good quality he did have, something that happened while he was king, is he authorized the first version of a Bible in English to be used. It was known as the Great Bible. And he authorized it in the English language so it could be read aloud in church services with this new church he had created, the Church of England.

It was called the Great Bible because of its size. It was really impractical for anyone else to read unless it was sitting on a large podium and read by a priest. Well, Henry eventually died. He was replaced by Edward VI. Edward VI was the son of one of Henry's wives, Jane Seymour, but he died at age 15.

And before he died, he was considered a minor, and he was actually guided by what was known as a Regency Council. And he moved to the Anglican Church to be even more Protestant. Realize that when Henry started the new church, it basically was still Catholic, and all of its doctrines and beliefs and practices, it's just now he was head of the church and not the pope.

But after he died, the Privy Council, the Regency Council moved the English Church to even be more Protestant, to have less ritual and become less Catholic. Well, because he died at age 15, they had to search for a new ruler, and they found Mary I, who was the daughter of another one of Henry's wives, Catherine of Aragon. Well, she restored Roman Catholicism, just to keep things interesting, as the official religion of the church, and she persecuted the Protestants.

She had almost 300 religious dissenters burned at the stake, at something that's known as the Marian Persecutions, and it earned her the nickname Bloody Mary, and throughout history she's known by that nickname. During her reign, she suffered two phantom pregnancies. She thought she was pregnant, but she wasn't. Now, why would this occur? It's because there was a lot of pressure on her to bring forth a son. Constant pressure, she was married, to bring forth an heir, to continue the Tudor dynasty.

Well, the first time, she went through nine months and nothing happened. The second phantom pregnancy, she went through nine months and she died. And they found out she had a tumor in her stomach. And her stomach, indeed, did grow and grow, and she had all the other manifestations of being pregnant. She died at age 42, at St. James Palace, in the 1558. Now, she was succeeded by her half-sister, who became known as Elizabeth I.

She was the daughter of another one of Henry's wives, Anne Boleyn, who was one of them who lost her head in the Tower of London. Elizabeth I was the last Tudor in the dynasty, and she restored Protestantism as the official religion. So, out is Catholicism, back is Protestantism, it's time to persecute Catholics. She was coordinated in 1559, at age 25, and during her reign, she raised the prestige of England abroad. As a matter of fact, no one less than Pope Sixtus V said this about her. Quote, She is only a woman, only mistress of half an island, and yet she makes herself feared by Spain, by France, by the Empire, by all.

So that's what the Pope said about her. She's most remembered, of course, for the defeat of the Spanish Armada, which occurred when she was the Queen of England. It began to decline of France and the rise of England as a world power. She died in 1603, at age 70, after being a queen for 45 years. She never married, never had any children, so they had to find who was going to be a successor.

Well, even before she died, the Privy Council decided that King James VI of Scotland would become the King after she died. They didn't tell her that, because she would not have liked that idea. His claim to the throne was that his great-grandmother was Margaret Tudor, the daughter of Henry VII and an elder sister of Henry VIII. And after Elizabeth died, he became James I of Great Britain, and because he was Scottish, which was a separate nation, and he now took the crown of England, he worked very hard to merge England and Scotland together in a fragile alliance, which, of course, was never easy, because they were two different peoples with two different cultures and two different languages.

So King James I became the first descendant of what was known as the House of Stuart. The Tudors were gone, and he ruled England and Scotland and Ireland for 22 years, often using the title, the King of Great Britain. He was the first one who was able to say that, because the entire island was now under the rule of one individual.

He did that until his death at age 58. He was a very intelligent man, almost scholarly. He wrote books, he wrote poetry, he was very smart. But unfortunately, his personal life was a disaster, so much so that a contemporary remarked that James was the wisest fool in all Christendom.

He led a life of greed. He was a very violent man. He had Sir Walter Raleigh executed, and they said he was cheerful only when he was drunk. But they observed that he was cheerful much of the time.

He was paranoid that everyone was trying to kill him, and he was a sexual deviant. Now, because we want to be family-friendly, I won't go into any more details there. I'll let you do your own study if you want to know what I mean by that.

One positive thing happened during the reign of King James I, however. An Oxford scholar named John Reynolds suggested something that would make King James immortal among the physical world, of course, by encouraging him at a religious conference known as the Hampton Court Conference of 1604. He suggested that the king allow a Bible to be published so that all Englishmen could read from the same scriptures.

And the very smart but degenerate king gave his approval, but with limitations. First of all, he wanted limited Puritan influence in the translation. He didn't like the Puritans, who were dissenters of the Church of England. He persecuted them. Eventually, throughout history, many of them would migrate the New England, and they would become our forefathers of the American nation in the New England area.

He wanted no marginal notes, because some previous translations had said unkind things about kings of the Old Testament in it. And he was a king, and he thought anything that was said negative about an Old Testament king was a reflection on his authority. He wanted it to be supportive of the doctrine of the New Church of England, and he expected it to endorse the fact of the divine right of kings, that the king had absolute authority over everybody and everything.

And eventually, in 1611, we had the King James Bible, of which our New King James Version is a descendant of. A gentleman named J. D. Douglas, who was a contemporary at the time, looked at all of this history and looked at everything that had occurred, starting a new church, persecution, going back to Catholicism, going back to Protestantism, all the things that were going on in the men involved in the deviant lives of the people that were involved.

And he surveyed the history of what I just mentioned behind the publication of the King James Bible, and he remarked that God has an astonishing capacity for writing straight with crooked lines. Writing straight with crooked lines. What Mr. Douglas was saying is that God works behind the scenes to accomplish his will in unlikely people or in uncertain or unlikely events. And, brethren, it is a mistake for us to put God in a box and to think that he only works in ways that we think are appropriate or in ways that we expect God to work.

Turn with me, if you would, to 2 Kings 5, beginning in verse 1. We'll see an example of an individual who had put God in a box, an individual who expected God to answer his prayers or to do things his way, and actually became quite upset when things weren't done his way. 2 Kings 5, beginning in verse 1. It says, Now Naaman, commander of the army, the king of Syria, was a great and honorable man in the eyes of his master, because the Lord had given victory to Syria. Notice it was God's influence that allowed Syria to have that victory.

He was also a mighty man of valor, but he was a leper. And the Syrians had gone out on raids and had brought back a captive, a young girl from the land of Israel, and she waited on Naaman's wife. Then she said to her, Mistress, if only my master were with the prophet who was in Samaria, for he would heal him of his leprosy.

And Naaman went in, and he told his master, saying, This and thus said the girl who is from the land of Israel. Then the king of Syria said, Go now, and I will send a letter to the king of Israel. So he departed, and he took with him gifts to the king of Israel. He sent ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold, and ten changes of clothing. Then he brought the letter to the king of Israel, which said, Now be advised, when this letter comes to you, that I have sent Naaman, my servant to you, that you may heal him of his leper.

As it happened when the king of Israel read the letter, he tore his clothes, and he said, Am I God to kill and make alive that this man sends a man to meet, to heal him of his leprosy? Therefore, please consider and see how he seeks a quarrel with me. The king says, This is a sham. He's trying to pick a fight with me. He's looking for a reason to invade my nation, and he's just using this as a pretext.

So it was when Elijah, a man of God, heard the king of Israel, torn his clothes, he sent to the king, saying, Why did you tear your clothes? Please let him come to me and know that there is a prophet in Israel. When Naaman went with his horses and chariot and stood at the door of Elijah's house, Elijah sent a messenger him, saying, Go and wash into Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored to you, and you shall be clean.

But Naaman became furious. He's angry. He has God in a box. This isn't the way it's supposed to happen. This isn't what I expected. This isn't what I always thought is the way that God works. And he went away and he said, Indeed, I said to myself, He will shortly come out to me and stand and call in the name of the Lord of God, and He will wave His hand over the place, and He will heal the leprosy. Are not the Abadna or the Parfars the rivers of Damascus better than the waters of Israel?

Could I not wash a Naaman be clean? So he turned and he went away in a range. And his servants came and spoke to him and said, My Father, what are you doing? This is very simple. Just go in a river and dip seven times. They said, My Father, if the prophet had told you to do something great, you've done it. If he told you to stand in your head for seven days and eat camel dung, you would have said, Ooh, wow, that's deep. There must be tremendous symbolism behind that. I'll do it. But here he gives you something very simple to ask you to do, and you're all upset because it wasn't what you expected.

How much more, then, when he says, do you wash and be clean? In other words, they're saying, Just go do the simple command that he asked you to do. So he went down and he dipped seven times in the Jordan according to the saying of the man of God, and his flesh was restored like the flesh of a little child, and he was clean. And he returned to the man of God, he and all his aides, and came and stood before him and said, Indeed, now I know there is no God in all the earth except in Israel.

Now therefore, please take a gift from your servant, and we'll stop there in our story. So what was Naaman's problem? His problem was that he expected God to do things, to change events, to answer his prayers his way. He had limited God's power, and he put God in a box. Notice what he said in verse 11.

He said, I said to myself, two problems are I and myself. Those are the two problems with that statement. You see, he expected a big show from the prophet. He expected the prophet to come out in the trees to shake and make a mighty proclamation and wave his hand. Oh, and the entertainment value would really be good. That's his concept of what God was and what was supposed to happen. But God wanted to test Naaman's humility and his faith and simple obedience.

Here's all you have to do. Do this. It's not hard. It's not complex. You're here anyway. Do it. You'll be healed. And he almost failed the test. Thankfully, he had some wise servants who encouraged him to do the right thing. He expected Naaman expected one thing. But you see, brethren, God writes straight with crooked lines.

You and I may have this problem. We may misunderstand God's will. And we have to be open to how God can work in our lives. We have to be open that God doesn't need our approval to do things that are part of his will and his purpose for us. He works in mysterious ways. He views the world. He views the purpose of our lives at a whole different plane and dimension than we're able to see with our limited hearts and with our limited minds. Well, that was kind of a negative example. Let's take a look at a positive example. If you'll turn with me to John 5, beginning in verse 1. John 5, beginning in verse 1. Here's someone who could have put God in a box, a man who needed to be healed, who could have only viewed the world one way with one expectation. And if he had, he would not have been healed. John 5, beginning in verse 1. It says, After this there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now there is in Jerusalem by the sheep gate a pool, which is called in Hebrew Bethesda, having five porches. In these lay a great multitude of six sick people, blind, lame, paralyzed, waiting for the moving of the water.

And an angel went down at a certain time into the pool and stirred the water. And whoever stepped in first after the stirring of the water was made well of whatever disease he had. Now that was pretty encouraging for people that had diseases. And they all sat there poised. I'm sure there were hundreds of them poised, just waiting for those waters to be stirred up by that angel.

The first one in was able to be healed. Now a certain man was there who had an infirmity for 38 years. When Jesus saw him lying there, he knew that he already had been in that condition for a long time, because Jesus knows all things. He can read the heart. He understands everyone's history, every thought that's going on in their mind. And he said to him, Do you want to be made well?

And the sick man answered him, Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up. But while I am coming, another steps before me. Now, what was his problem? Well, the key is, of course, there in verse 6, he's lying there, which implies that either was lame, or he might have been paralyzed, or he had a problem moving. He had a problem standing and being on his feet. He didn't have a chance. If he's around this pool with everyone else, there might be blind men there, but they're capable of walking and running, if they hear the word.

People might have other diseases, but they're capable of lunging themselves into the water first. Thirty-eight years, he doesn't have a chance. He can't compete in this kind of an environment. He can't get to the water first. Jesus has compassion on him. He understands all this. But did this man have God in a box? Does this only have to be done via the pool? And you're going to see later that at this point, he doesn't even know who Jesus is.

We'll read about that in a minute. Jesus said to him, Rise, take up your bed, and walk. And immediately, which implies the man listened, and he did it, immediately the man was made well, took up his bed, and walked. And it was on the Sabbath day. Then the Jews therefore said to him, who was cured, It is the Sabbath. It is not lawful for you to carry your bed. And he answered then, He who made me well said to me, Take up your bed, and walk, and ask him, Who is the man that said, Do you take up your bed, and walk?

But the one who was healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had withdrawn. Now that is faith. He wasn't even sure of who this man was. But the man said, With authority and encouragement, Take you to your bed, and walk, Forget the box that everybody else is in, The way they view God, Pick up your bed, and walk. And he did it! And he was immediately healed. So again, verse 13, But the one who had healed did not know who it was, For Jesus had withdrawn, a multitude being in that place.

Afterward, Jesus found the man in the temple, On him in the temple, And said to him, See, you have been made well. Sin no more, lest a worse thing come upon you. Now that's a powerful statement that we oftentimes remember, What Jesus told the woman, Caught in the act of adultery. And this is a very similar statement. He said, You know what? You've been healed, but you have responsibilities.

Don't sin, because if you do, Something worse than that disease could happen to you. That's an endorsement of God's commandments and God's way of life. To appreciate the laws, the commandments that God gives us, And to live a life of respect and obedience to God's values. Verse 15, The man departed and told the Jews it was Jesus who made him well.

And for this reason, the Jews persecuted Jesus, And they sought to kill him, Because he had done these things on the Sabbath. But Jesus answered them, My Father and I have been working, Until now, and I have been working. The last verse, verse 17, translated from the New Century translation, Says, But Jesus said to them, My Father never stops working, And so I keep working too. Two points I want to bring out about these scriptures we read. First of all, when Jesus saw the sick man, he had compassion on him.

After 38 years of disease, It was virtually impossible for that man to get to the pool first. The man didn't even know who Jesus was at this point, But he had not limited God, And what God can do in your life, by putting God in a box. When Jesus offered an alternative to what everyone else thought, An alternative to everyone else's expectations, He was open to listening, being aware, And for that reason, he was healed. Another point I'd like to bring up about this story, Is that Christ states that he and his father are working, Are working on the Sabbath day.

You know, God created the Sabbath for mankind, And of course in Mark 2, 27, it says that, Jesus said, That the Sabbath was created for man. The word there is anthropos, Which means the Sabbath was created not for Jew, Not for Hebrew, not for Israelite, for all mankind. In the anthropos we get the word, you know, to study bones, And study the lives and history of mankind through fossils, and so on. The Sabbath was made for man. And Jesus, because he was in the flesh, Had no problem observing the Sabbath day. What he had a problem with was all the additional rules And do's and don'ts that the Jews had added to the Sabbath to make it a burden.

But the point that Jesus is making here is that there is work to be done. Now let me ask this question. If the Father and Christ are working, Jesus said that, they're working, they never stopped working. Jesus implied that he was working on the Sabbath because he did good, He healed someone who had a disease. If they're constantly working, what are they doing? Well, brethren, what they're doing is they're working behind the scenes and world events, And in thousands of lives to prepare for the restoration of the kingdom of God.

They're limiting the influence of evil forces. They're constantly trying to take over his people. They're observing the problems that we bring in ourselves. They're allowing other events to test us and affect our lives. They're intervening in people's lives, and they're hearing some prayers, And other prayers are saying, not yet, and they're holding off.

They're opening doors for some, they're closing doors for others. In essence, what they're doing, they're working, they are preparing a people. They're preparing for a new world to be established on the earth. And we don't see that because all of that is being done behind a spiritual curtain. There is a whole spiritual world, an entirely new dimension going on out there, that you and I rarely get a glimpse of, rarely can see or can understand.

I'm reminded of the story of a man who was in a flood, and he decided to get on his roof, and he said, God, I have faith. Please send an angel to save me. And the waters came up to his porch, and a woman came in a rowboat. She said, hop on in.

He said, No, I have faith in God. I've asked God to send an angel to save me. Okay, she pedaled away. Well, the God up now to the gutters, the waters up to the gutters, and a man comes by in a speedboat. Okay, buddy, hop on in. No, he says, I'm not going anywhere. I asked God to send an angel to save me, and I believe and trust that God's going to save me. The guy took off. Pretty soon the waters are up to the very roof of the house, and it's lapping against his toes.

Here comes a helicopter and a National Guardsman. A ladder comes down. Come on, bud! No, he says, I have complete faith that God is going to save me. I asked God to send an angel to save me, and he will. Well, eventually the waters came up, and the man drowned, and he died. And into resurrection, he was resurrected, and he was a little antagonistic, and he asked God why he didn't save him.

And God said, didn't save you. I sent a rowboat, a speedboat, and a helicopter. What more did you want me to do?

You see, in that story, the man put God in a box. He viewed God that God can only respond. God can only do things the way that I think that God can. And, brethren, that is always a mistake. Let's go to Philippians 2, verse 12. Philippians 2, verse 12.

Paul wrote a very encouraging scripture. He says, Therefore, my beloved, as you always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. In other words, there's certainly a serious part that we play. We're saved by grace. We're saved by faith. But we should have fruits and a byproduct of that saving faith and grace that shows the world and everyone around us that we have accepted God's values and that we're His disciples. Verse 13 is what I want to key on, however.

For it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure. That's translated again in the New Century, verse 13. It says, Because God is working in you to help you want to do and to be able to do what God pleases him or what pleases God.

Brethren, God is in control of the world and He's in control of your life. Sometimes we get discouraged because we don't see anything happening in our lives. Day after day seems to go by and we might struggle with the same problems, the same frustrations, the same issues. Nothing seems to get better. Nothing may seem to change. But we must remember that God is working behind the scenes.

And if it were possible to pull back a spiritual curtain, you could see that God is working and He's fighting for you to prepare you for eternity. He's looking years down the road on your behalf and He's getting things in order. He's lining up the solutions, the problems that you don't even know yet. He doesn't work sometimes in your life. He's constantly working in your life, in ways that we don't even see, in ways that we can't comprehend. And I know it's easy to become discouraged.

You may be saying, Mr. Thomas, I've been waiting for years for God to answer specific prayer and He hasn't done it yet. But I want you to understand that that doesn't mean that God isn't working. Many times God works most when we don't see it because God writes straight with crooked lines. Let's take another look at another example in Daniel chapter 3 and verse 13. Daniel chapter 3 beginning in verse 13. We're all familiar with this story.

Nebuchadnezzar had built this big idol, and he expected everyone to fall down and worship this idol that he had built. There were three Jewish individual Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, and they refused to do it. There's a confrontation here. We'll pick it up beginning in verse 13. Daniel chapter 3, then Nebuchadnezzar, in rage and fury, gave the command to bring back Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. So they brought these men before the king. Nebuchadnezzar spoke saying to them, Is it true, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, that you do not serve my gods or worship the gold image which I have set up?

Now if you are ready, at the time you hear the sound of the horn, the flute, the harp, the lyre, and the sultry in symphony with all kinds of music, and you fall down and worship the image that I have made good. I said, I hope you do that. But if you do not worship, you shall be cast immediately into the midst of a burning fiery furnace. And who is the God who will deliver you from my hands then? Verse 16, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered and said to the king, Oh, Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter.

If that is the case, if that's your edict, if that's your ultimatum, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the fiery furnace, and He will deliver us from your hand, O King. But if not, even if our God chooses not to intervene right now, even if we become crispy, even if that occurs, we want you to know that we do not serve your gods, nor will we worship the gold image which you have set up.

Then Nebuchadnezzar was full of fury, and the expression on his face changed, because he liked these individuals. He had taken care of them. He had brought them. They were given the finest education. They were considered the king's counselors. These Jewish men were considered wise.

They were serving his nation. He liked them, but he had a problem with them because he was an unconverted, pagan gentile, and he couldn't understand why they insisted on worshiping only the God of Israel. So he says his expression on his face changed. He didn't like them anymore. No longer was he favorable towards them. He said, Lord Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, and he spoke. He commanded that they should heat the firmament seven times more than was usually heated.

He commanded that certain mighty men of Valor, who were in his army, to bind Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, and cast them into the burning fiery furnace. Then these men were bound in their coats, their trousers, their turbans, and their other garments. They were cast into the midst of the burning fiery furnace. Therefore, because the king's command was urgent and the furnace exceedingly hot, the flame of the fire killed those men who took up Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Powerful, important men, military men, died because of the knee-jerk, childish response of a king who was in fury. He just lost some very good men. Verse 23, And these three men, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, fell down, bound in the midst of the burning fiery furnace, then King Nebuchadnezzar was astonished.

And he rose in haste and spoke, saying to his counselors, Did we not cast three men into the midst of the fire? And they answered, and they said to him, True, O king! Look, he answered, I see four men loose walking into the midst of the fire, and they are not hurt. And the form of the fourth is like the Son of God. It's like something I've never seen before. Perhaps what fourth was even glowing brighter than the fire was glowing.

But he was struck by the fact that three were thrown in there, and obviously there was some supernatural being who was the fourth, who was there with the other three. Verse 26, Then Nebuchadnezzar went near the mouth of the burning fiery furnace, and he spoke, saying, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, servants of the Most High God, come out and come here. Then Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego came from the midst of the fire, and the satraps, the administrators, governors, and the king's councilors gathered together, and they saw these men, in whom the bodies of fire had no power.

The hair of their head was not singed, nor were their garments affected, and the smell of fire wasn't he? They didn't even smell like fire. You talk about an incredible miracle. You know, what, brethren? Sometimes God works out events differently than we expect. If you would have said to these three individuals, How do you think God's going to work this out? A huge wind is going to come and go, and blow that fire out.

How do you think God's going to work this out? A huge thunderstorm is going to dump all kinds of water, and it's going to extinguish the flames. The last thing they would have thought was that they would be hurled in there, and not die, and joined in this fiery furnace by the one who later would become Jesus Christ, who gave them divine protection while being in a fiery furnace. That is the last thing that they would have expected. But sometimes God desires to save us by going through a fiery trial.

I know that we're only human. Naturally, we want God to save us from a trial, but sometimes His plan is to save us by going through a trial rather than avoiding a solution, or providing a solution, or avoiding a problem. There are times in life when God may want us to walk through the valley of the shadow of death while we hold on to the hand of Jesus Christ, especially regarding a health situation, a serious financial situation, or something that's very difficult going on in our lives.

Another misconception that we may have if we put God in a box is we may think that we have severe problems, and we have trials, and we're burdened because somehow we've fallen away from God's will. We may think that everything negative that happens to us is because of sin, because we've done something wrong and we're being punished. I'll ask you this question. Can you tell me what the three Hebrews did wrong? Nothing. They did everything right. They refused to bow down to the golden image. They refused to put Nebuchadnezzar above God, yet they went through the fiery trial.

They were being faithful to God's command, and they were still going through a near-death experience. Now, it's true that we often bring problems on ourselves, and we suffer from the consequences. I understand that. I've been there, done that, so I can relate to that. But we can't put God in a box, brethren. God also allows difficult problems to occur when we haven't done anything wrong. We have to remember that there are dark spiritual forces at work who want to do nothing more than make our lives miserable. Just like Job's life was made miserable, there are forces unseen that we don't quite comprehend and understand, that want to harm us, that want to throw trial after trial upon us, that want to make our lives miserable, and that want us to throw away everything that we've been given, to toss away all the truth that God has given us.

So we have to realize that sometimes God also allows difficult problems to occur when we haven't done anything wrong. God knows what He's doing. God knows what He's allowing to happen. Again, He's working behind the events. He's orchestrating the scene in a world that we can't quite comprehend, and we just don't recognize most of the time exactly what God is doing.

The reason is because God writes straight with crooked lines. Let's go to Galatians 6 and verse 8. Galatians 6, beginning in verse 8. Again, Paul was inspired to write to the Galatians, verse 9. This is important.

In due season, that's God's timing. If we haven't thrown it all away. If we haven't given up on what we've been taught and what we know is to be true. If we haven't forsaken the way of life that God has called us to. God is orchestrating events right now that will forever change our lives for the better. He may work behind the scenes for 10 years, 20 years in your life, and then one day when it's least expected, a loved one comes back to church. A promotion that you weren't expecting is offered.

A sickness you've been dealing with is healed. A difficult trial suddenly is alleviated and goes away. We need to have the faith of knowing that God has not abandoned us. He's constantly working on our benefit and for our behalf, behind the scenes, in a world and in a way that is impossible for us to perceive and comprehend.

Every day, brethren, we need to live with expectancy. That we are one day closer to that problem or that trial that we're suffering from to be removed. If it doesn't happen today, it just might happen tomorrow. Or it might happen the day after that. At the exact right time in due season, that's God's timing, He'll provide an answer. God isn't surprised by any problem that we have. He isn't baffled when we do something poor, when we make a decision that's foolish. He's not shocked.

He's not baffled. He's seen it all before for thousands of years. And He's always working behind the scenes because He loves us. And He wants to mold us and make us to conform into the image of Jesus Christ. He already has a solution for anything that we're going through, any problem that we have. And He's waiting for His right time to intervene and change things. I'd like to give you an analogy of a game I used to play in my computer called Chess Master 2.

It's a game that I have in my computer. It was a software game, and I hated this game. What Chess Master 2 allows you to do is play chess with someone else, or if you're really gutsy, you can play the computer. And you get to choose your level. Moron all the way up to advanced. I usually chose the moron level. I'm still lost. Most of the games I might add. It's a software program, and what it does is it calculates in advance your next move. So when you're playing chess, you have free will.

You can move any one of a dozen pieces in different directions to try to win this chess game. And what was most frustrating about it is I would ponder, and I would think, for 15 minutes, 20 minutes, the perfect move. If I do this, no, it'll respond. If I do that, I better... So I'm going to do this move. And I would ponder 15, 20 minutes, and as soon as I made the move, the computer would immediately respond. That really got to me. But the point is this. And here's the analogy. It was just a software game. I was playing against this computer.

I had free will. And I could make any one of a number of choices. But no matter what I did, the purpose of that game was to come to the ultimate conclusion to make me submit. It wanted, eventually, to conquer my king and make me submit to it. And in the same way, I think we need to realize, my friends, that even though we have the option, and we have free choice, and we make different decisions in life, some of them good, some of them bad, in a similar way, God is working behind a spiritual curtain to get us to an ultimate goal.

To mold us, to chip away at our block-headed human nature and our selfishness, to make us conform to what He wants us to be so that we can serve in the family of God for all eternity. Now, we can do this much like that game. You can do it the easy way, or you can do it the hard way. But no matter what you do, God is going to advance. He's going to adjust for a good decision or a bad decision. And as long as our heart is right and we're trying to follow His way of life, He's going to get us to the end result.

That end result is submission, humility, growth, and the ability to be useful in His family. Let's go now to Philippians chapter 1 beginning in verse 1. Philippians chapter 1 beginning in verse 1.

We need to remember that we may make good decisions or poor decisions, but God will use any of these decisions to achieve His will for us. We can either do it the easy way or we can do it the hard way. Philippians chapter 1 beginning in verse 1, our final scripture.

Paul wrote here, Paul and Timothy, bondservants of Jesus Christ to all the saints in Christ Jesus, who are in Philippi with the bishops and deacons, grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I thank my God upon every remembrance of you. He was thankful for His brethren. I hope we're thankful for each other and pray for one another. Verse 4, always in every prayer of mine, making requests for you all with joy. So, again, joyfully, he prayed for his brothers and sisters. For your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this very thing, that the one who began a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ. That is, until the day that Jesus Christ returns. Just as it is right for me to think this of you all, because I have put you or I have you in my heart in as much as both in my chains and the defense and confirmation of the gospel, you are all partakers with me of grace. So here Paul is saying, first of all, he's saying that he's in prison. And Mr. Hooper and I and my wife and the Hooper family had a chance to walk in the dark, dank area, the tradition says, was the prison that Paul was kept in. And let me tell you, it's nothing like an American jail. There wasn't even cable TV in it. It was something else.

But I can't imagine any human being being in there for more than a week without literally going nuts. It took a tremendous, strong-willed individual to endure that kind of an environment and keep their sanity. And this is a prison epistle. He's writing this while he's in this prison. And he's uncertain about his own future. He doesn't know if this is going to result in his death or if he's going to be freed or what's going to happen to him. Yet, Paul knew that God was working behind a spiritual curtain in his life and in the lives of all the believers. And what did he call this that God is doing? He called it a good work. And he knew that God would complete it for all of us. That God would complete that good work for each and every one of us. And he also wanted to remind the reader that we're partakers of God's grace. That was in the end of verse 7. Partakers with me of grace. And of course, that's God's favor. And that's God's pardon. Because God loves us and he's working behind the scenes. And he's going to make everything come out to his will, to his ultimate purpose. So in conclusion, brethren, let's allow God to work in our lives and not limit him by putting him in this little box that we've created in our minds. Realize that God doesn't always go from A to B to C to D to E. Sometimes he goes from A to D to C to B and then to E. Why does he do this? He does it because God writes straight with crooked lines.