How to Deal With a Crisis

Well, that's great. Thank you all for your donation. I know that's really helpful to be able to participate in community things and help out in that way. It's really great to be able to do that. It's really nice to be back here with all of you. We've got a pretty full crowd today. Wow! Both sides? Well, so it's nice to really see all of you here today. It's really great to be here with you. Like I said, we almost got lost the way down because we're still fogging. We can only see down the road about a quarter of a mile. But they cleared up just as we got here, so it's going to be okay.

Well, this is a new year. We're embarked on now. We've been into it about three weeks now, a new year. And you think ahead, you look at what happened, all the things that happened last year, and there were a lot of horrible things that happened in the situations around the world and here in the United States. And so you just wonder, well, what's this coming year going to bring? And you look at what situations around the world that happen every week.

I mean, you can't go a week without something happening that just dominates the news for two or three days and causes a crisis. And there were many last year that occurred here in the United States and around the world. And so you wonder what will happen this year. All of your things have happened this year. You had the thing at the Fort Lauderdale Airport, shootings there, five, I think were killed and eight, eight wounded. And there was something else this last week, I think over in Europe.

So those things are just happening. It seems like every week something happens that dominates the news for several days because it's a major event. So you have to wonder, what are we going to be like here in the United States next year? Again, we had several situations last year, but will the United States face a crisis in 2017? And I guess you could say right now, once we understand what a definition of crisis is, I guess for some who supported Hillary Clinton, maybe some the other way, you know, the change in presidency right now, that maybe that's causing a crisis for some.

I think it has caused a crisis for some of the Hillary supporters and then the other way around, if I might have caused a crisis the other way. But one thing that was interesting, you know, we watched part of the inauguration yesterday, and I just wanted to kind of see what it was like, because it was a historic thing. But it was very interesting just to watch from the perspective of the pomp and ceremony and all the pomp that was in there, and the balls and the dressing and the gals, special dinners and all this and so on, and all that that takes place. It's a very major event. And all the marching bands they had and all this thing, and you thought, boy, it must have taken a lot of people to try to plan something like that, to organize it and pull it off.

But I got to thinking about that, you know, I thought, well, what's it going to be like, and it's mentioned kind of in the opening message and in the opening prayer, what's it going to be like when crisis inaugurated as King of Kings? What's that going to be like? What kind of a ceremony we're going to have for that? What kind of an inauguration ceremony will that be? And I was going to be like to them, you saw these people come into different banquets all dressed up in their fancy clothes and gowns and everything, and the special invitations they had received to get there.

And we got that invitation to be at Christ's wedding supper. What's that going to be like? And I got to thinking, of course, outside a couple of miles away from what they were doing, or maybe a mile away, there were all these protests going on and all that. And I thought, well, there might be protests at Christ's inauguration, too, but it doesn't matter. It won't be too... it'll be taken care of pretty quickly, I do believe. So, that won't happen to boys for too long. But anyway, I just thought of that. So that's going to be quite a ceremony and quite a banquet that will pale in significance what we saw yesterday, what some people saw yesterday with that inauguration of Donald Trump.

But, you know, I'm going to talk about Christ's situation today, and from time to time, everybody faces a crisis in their life, one way or another. Sometimes churches face a crisis, and you think, now, maybe this is going to change a little bit in the next four years, I don't know, from some of the comments that Mr. Trump made, which are a little bit surprising. But, you know, the way it's been lately, with Christianity kind of taken a backseat in many ways, as our nation is becoming more and more secular, you think, well, if it keeps going that direction, Christianity may face a crisis in the years ahead of us.

Sometimes congregations, various denominations face crisis situations, sometimes even churches of God, our congregations face crisis situations, and sometimes a entire church organization could face a crisis.

So, I know there are different situations now, different congregations where there are facing situations that are difficult to deal with. It doesn't matter what the details are. I think what we all need to understand when it comes to facing those kinds of situations, wherever they occur, and however they might involve us, is how can we properly deal with a crisis situation that comes up?

I mean, in our lives, look back on our lives, and situations that we've gone through, I think we've all faced crisis situations at times in our lives. What does Scripture tell us when it comes to facing and dealing with a crisis situation that may come upon us? Because we never know.

We never know what's going around the corner, what happened, that it could be something that can happen. Sometimes it happens in this area, it affects people in one little area. But sometimes, like 911, that affected the entire nation, and something else can occur, right, where we are living, it can affect us, or maybe even divide and affect the entire nation. We don't know. How do we deal with that? What does Scripture say? What lessons can we learn when we have to face something like that? Did the patriarchs in the Old Testament, did they face crisis situations? What about the prophets? What about Christ Himself? What kind of crisis did He face?

How did He deal with it? Should a crisis, when we have that, should it be a stumbling block, or should it be a door of opportunity for us to learn something? That's what I want to look at today. I will look at what Scripture tells us when it comes to facing various crisis situations that might occur in our lives, either individually or collectively. We'll look at what a definition of a crisis is, and we'll understand what it is. Did the patriarchs, prophets, and apostles have to deal with crisis situations? And if they did, how would they deal with them? Should it be a stumbling block or a door of opportunity?

And what does God want us to learn when we face various crisis situations? The title of my sermon here this afternoon is, How to Deal with a Crisis. I went to a collegiate dictionary that I've had for a number of years. It's not too old. It's maybe ten years old or something. But it gave three definitions of a crisis. The first one doesn't really apply to what we're going to talk about.

But the first definition was being a turning point of a disease, which doesn't apply to what we're talking about today. The second definition is a turning point in the case of anything. A major turning point in the case of anything. Of course, we are right now in this nation with the election of a new president. It wouldn't matter who the president was going to be. Whenever you have an election of a new president, that's going to be a turning point. So that can be one part of a definition of a crisis. It's a major turning point.

Including with that second definition, a decisive or crucial time or event. And of course, right now we can look at situations and say, well, this is a crucial time. It was a crucial event. More for some than others. But the third definition is a time of great danger and trouble. Often one which threatens to result in unpleasant consequences. And so that's another definition. It takes it to another step. Today I want to touch primarily on the second and third definitions of a crisis. Of it being a crucial time or a turning point.

And sometimes resulting in unpleasant consequences. In fact, if you look up for a synonym, Webster's gives a synonym for crisis as the word emergency is what they use for synonym. Crisis being an emergency. That is a synonym that some dictionaries give. What's that would then make crisis a time of danger, a time of trouble, as stated in the third definition. So I want to just go through the Bible and look at what's amazing. When you look at the Bible, there's crisis situations throughout the entire Bible from beginning to end.

It's so interesting to look at that and to see how they dealt with those things and what we can learn from how they dealt with them. So first of all, then, let's ask this question. Did the patriarchs, prophets, and apostles, they have to deal with crisis situations in their lives? Let's first look at the patriarchs. What about the patriarchs? What kind of a crisis situation did they face? Let's go to one of those major crisis situations that anybody faced. Let's go to Genesis 6. Because you remember the Bible, you know what Genesis 6 is about.

It says, do what Noah and Noah's flood. Genesis 6, verse 5, we'll get in there. That's what a few Scriptures. Then the Lord saw the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. It's a matter of whether we're going that direction now. And the Lord, it was so bad that verse 6 says, the Eternal was sorry that he had made man on the earth, and he was grieved in his heart. I think God's probably a little grieved in his heart right now, when he looks down on mankind and sees what's going on.

Verse 7, the Lord said, I will destroy man who I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast, creepy thing and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I even made him.

So this was a crisis of unprecedented proportions. God was going to destroy all life from out the face of the earth. You can't get a worse crisis situation than that. Verse 8, first lesson, how to deal with a crisis. Verse 8, But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. The word grace basically means favor. So this then is a key for making it through a crisis.

There are some things that may turn the world upside down and that are totally beyond our control, as this was in the case of Noah pretty much, other than he found favor in the eyes of God. But if we as followers of Christ can find grace or favor in the eyes of God as Noah did, God can see us through that crisis even as he did Noah. And also Noah's family, which leads to a major aspect of this first point. Our personal relationship with God, like Noah, had a good, strong personal relationship with God, as Wayne was talking about in his sermon, how to have that. Because of that, he found favor with God, and because of that, God saw him through this crisis. And not only that, but another major aspect was, he darlin' saw Noah through it. He saw Noah's family through it.

And then God extended that favor, extended the favor that he gave Noah, extended Noah's family. Chapter 7, verse 1. Then the Lord said to Noah, because he says, come into the ark, not just you. He found favor with Noah, but he said, I don't just want to give favor to you. I'm going to extend it to your family as well. Come into the ark you and all of your household, because I've seen that you are righteous before me in this generation. So, I think about that, and I thought, that's quite an amazing thing, because it shows that if we have a good, strong relationship with God, maybe our family members don't have that same relationship, maybe they don't understand things the way we do. Maybe they don't have that righteousness of God extended to them, because they haven't found favor with God, or haven't had that relationship with God. Nevertheless, God can extend that favor to our family as well. So, our relationship with God can affect our family, who may not even have that same relationship. So, that's a very positive thing. Let's go to chapter 12. Let's look at another individual here.

Call from Noah to Abraham. Genesis 12, verse 1, You should be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you. I will curse them who curses you. And in you, I'm going to extend that blessing, because in you, then all the families of the earth will be blessed. So, when you think about the definition of a crisis, this being a major turning point, obviously, in Abraham's life. He's asked to leave his family, leave where he's comfortable, leave his income job, and just follow God where God told him. God didn't tell him where he's going to take him. He said, if you do this, I'm going to make you a great nation. But he doesn't give any of the details. He just says, follow me, go where I tell you to go. But this is a major crisis, or in this case, a major turning point in the life of Abraham. Now, what was the key for Abraham in making it through this crisis? What did it take? Verse 4, so Abram departed as the Lord had spoken to him.

The key for Abraham, until his name was Abram here, became Abraham later. I think it means, princely father, ashamed father of multitude. But for Abraham, the key was that he acted on faith, and he lived by faith. God said, do it. He said, well, I believe God. God's real to me. That's the way he was pointing out in the sermonette. Because God was real to him, he believed God, and he acted on faith. So to make it through a crisis, we have to find favor with God, and we have to live by faith. As Abraham did here, he lived by faith. He did what God told him to do, not knowing what the outcome would be or where he was going. Now, there's also a tremendous historical side point, though, that we just read. Let's go back to verse 3. I'll bless those who bless you, and I will curse them who curses you. And in you, if you do this, all the families of the earth shall be blessed. I want to just give a little contact to this and spend a little time going through just what's happened in 2016. In this past year alone, in 2016, hundreds of thousands of people faced a crisis of monumental proportions. We're living here. We weren't entirely affected by it, but around the other parts of the world, the other side of the world, millions. There were hundreds of thousands, actually almost two million faced a crisis situation. Nearly two million people in 2016 alone. They fled their homes, they fled their families, and they risked their lives to leave their homes and their families and their countries. I wonder, how would that be? What if we had to do that? That's what Abraham had to do. He had to leave his home, he had to leave his country, leave his family, he had to go follow God. Well, there are people who have been forced to do that, in a sense. Two million people. You think about it, I think of the exodus of Israel, there are probably two to three million people in that exodus out of Egypt. Well, there were two million people last year that fled their countries and their homes. Some of them leave our family members behind. Sometimes the family members are able to go with them. But in 2016, there was an exodus of nearly two million people. Where were they fleeing from? Now they were fleeing from Syria, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, other Middle Eastern nations. Why were they fleeing? They were fleeing, in some cases, because their homes had been destroyed. The bombs, the lepon, the homes were destroyed. Sometimes they lost on, there was a dead, gone, husband and wife, children. They had nothing there. Their jobs were destroyed. No jobs left. No homes. No nothing. No nothing there to stay there for. And they know if they didn't leave, they were probably going to die.

Their homes had been destroyed, their jobs had been destroyed, their families had been decimated in some cases. They were fleeing because their lives were literally in danger. They were literally fleeing for their lives. I don't know if we understand what it would be like to be in that situation. We've seen it on television. We've seen it play out last year in the news. And it's still playing out today. Still happening.

And they left with what? Just what they could carry in their backs. That was it. Backpack. A few extra pieces of clothes, something that was it. They had to leave everything else behind. Kind of like the Israelites. They couldn't take much with them either, could they?

They fled by sea, they fled by land any way they could. And sometimes they lost their lives in that process. Especially when they fleeing by sea, caught there in the sea, and they got in the storm, they were bone-capped-sized, marvelled and drowned. But they're trying to find what? Well, they were trying to find freedom so they could live their lives in peace and security. And those who made it last year, it was not an easy journey. Sometimes it took several months, some longer than that. But most of them it took at least several months or more. Sometimes it would have been a better part of a year. Often going without food or water. The time is living in tents over in the open for weeks at a time, waiting at a border cross. Because they had to go from their country into Turkey, then they had to get up to the border of Turkey and get... They had to sit there at the border, either sleeping out in the open or sleeping in a tent somewhere, maybe for a month or six weeks at a time, with very little food, trying to scrap whatever food they could, any water they could, to survive. And waiting to get permission to cross the border of the next country and get into the other country, the border on the other side. Many were trying to get to France or to European nations or to the United Kingdom, and even some to the United States of America. They were trying to get to the modern day nations of Israel to a large extent. That's what I'm saying is, it says, in you all, the families there will be blessed. They wanted to go to a nation that was blessed, and the United States has been blessed. See, let's get to Britain, Great Britain's blessed. Let's get to the European nations. They've been blessed. They're Israelite nations. They're descendants of Abraham. They wanted to go where the descendants of Abraham were. They didn't think that. They didn't know that, and that wasn't coming. There's consciousness, but that's basically where they're headed for the most part. They were going to other countries like Germany as well, but for the most part they were headed for the nations that were blessed, which are the descendants of Abraham. And you, all the families there, should be blessed.

At this very moment, since the thousands are still embarking on that journey, playing the Middle East, trying to get to the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to where those descendants are today, because those are the nations that are most blessed today on the Earth. That's one side of the coin. That's the exe's side of the coin. There is another side of the coin, I think it was most of the Surrealites.

And the other side of the coin is the invasion side of the coin. These Middle East immigrants are now invading Europe, Germany, the United States, some coming to, I mean, the United Kingdom, I should say, and some coming to the United States.

And of course, we realize, because of where they're coming from, they're nearly 100% Muslim, the Islamic faith. And they are not necessarily integrating into their host nations. They're not becoming a part of that culture to a large extent.

In addition to that, most of them do not speak or learn the language of that host nation. They don't speak the language, they don't know the culture, and they're not trying to become a part of that culture. They're keeping their own culture, their own language, their own ways, which makes it extremely difficult because they don't even know the language of the nations that they're coming into. It makes it extremely difficult for them to get a job, to take care of themselves, to find a home. They're coming in such mass numbers, where do you put them? How do you have homes for them? How do you have places for them to live? How do you take care of them? They can't get jobs to take care of themselves, so the nation has to then put them up somehow and feed them and take care of them. Because they don't even know the language for the most part. They can't find jobs. So that's becoming a very big, large financial burden on the economy of these nations that they're coming into in mass numbers. There's also, of course, as we know, the additional risk that some of those may be terrorists. And some of them are terrorists. A small percentage, but some of them are. And you don't know who they are. So all of that is creating crisis situations in those countries. Even those who are innocent victims and who say they are fleeing in order to obtain freedom, they have, like I said, their own version of freedom. They want to be free to promote their own culture and their own religion. And eventually, in some cases, they want to become the majority. And that in itself has become a crisis for those nations that are trying to take care of these people that are coming in, whether they're being overwhelmed by this.

I thought about it. This is not the fulfillment of this prophecy, but I think it ties in in principle. This invasion from the south to the nations of the north is almost like the beginning fulfillment of Daniel 1140. Let's just turn there real quick. Daniel 1140.

Where it talks about the time of the end. And, of course, this is not the king of the north, the king of the south attacking. It's the people coming from where those kings of the south are not taking care of their people. Believers of those countries in such a horrible situation that they're forcing their people to have to leave. But people from the south are attacking, or the word attack can be invaded. The old King James says, at the time of the end shall the king of the south push at the north. They're going to be pushing to the north, and that's what happens. The invasion is pushing to the nations of the north. And the word attack could also be rendered in vain. They're invading those northern countries.

So, Muslims and Arabs fleeing from the south are now pushing out and invading nations to the north in mass numbers, leading to a great end time crisis. It's occurring right now. And how long will it take before it gets settled? I don't know. What's going to lead to? I don't know. But time to deal with that crisis is creating an even greater crisis. It's very interesting, just recently, and this was on the news, some of those immigrants, migrants coming between those Middle Eastern nations, they're actually getting to the United States on the Eastern Seaboard, they're getting across to the United States. And recently, there was a little snippet on the news that probably most people haven't heard about. It had to do with the state of Vermont. And an old town in Vermont called Rutland, Vermont. Rutland brought a very small little town, about 16,000. And what happened, our government actually took 100 of these immigrants and their families from the Middle East, in their plane, and got over to the United States, and the government actually took them and planted them in Rutland, Vermont. That's where they settled in. And all of a sudden, they find out, the leaders of this little community, the mayor and other leaders of the community, found out, well, we've got 100 refugees and their families here. And they don't know what to do with them. They don't have the housing for them. They don't have the financial means to take care of them. Now they're going to have to try to borrow money from the government, take care of them. They don't know how to take care of them. They don't have the financial means to do it. And it's created a crisis. What do we do with these people? And they try to figure, well, we need to get rid of them and get them somewhere else, because we can't take care of them. And that's just one little tiny situation that's happening in Rutland, Vermont. Of course, you've got all kinds of other situations besides the Middle East. Now we've got sanctuary cities here in the United States. We're trying to get illegal immigrants and incorporate them into sanctuary cities. That's causing a crisis in those cities. And that's not even addressing the other huge migration or immigration we have from South America. Coming up from South America, fleeing those nations, those governments, oppressive governments. Coming through Mexico and then trying to cross into the United States across our southern border. Do you know how many members from South America came up through Mexico and crossed over? Crossed a big thing in politics right now. How do we secure our borders? And how do we support the border of Texas and the southern border of New Mexico? Do you know how many people migrated into the United States across the border from Mexico? Last year, oh, home. Over 400,000. What do you do with 400,000 people? That's a lot of people. So this has become a world economic crisis, which is now greatly impacting America. Let's go to Exodus 1.

This is a crisis situation because of a change in leadership. In Egypt, in this case, New Pharaoh. Exodus 1, verse 8, Now, the rose of the new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph. Major change, major transition time, major crisis. New king in Egypt. And didn't know Joseph. This is going to cause a major change and a major crisis. Verse 13, So the Egyptians made the children of Israel now serve with rigor, and made their lives bitter with hard bondage, and mortar, and brick, and all manner of service in the field, and all their service in which they made them serve with rigor.

Creating a crisis for the people of Israel. Verse 15, Then the king of Egypt spoke to the Hebrew midwives, of whom the name of one was Shippra, the other, Pua. And he said, When you do the duties of a midwife for the Hebrew women to see them on the burst tools, if the son you shall kill him, or if his daughter she shall live. So this now becomes a personal life and death crisis for these two Hebrew midwives, these two Hebrew women.

They are killed with male sons.

What if you told them that? What would you do? How would you handle it? How would you deal with that crisis? What was their key to surviving this crisis with these two women? Verse 17, But the midwives feared God, and did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but they saved the male children alive.

So here then is the third major key for surviving a crisis. The first one was, we must find favor with God. Two, we must live by faith. And three now, as these two women, they feared God. We must fear God to survive a crisis. Fear God, not man. Favor, faith, and fear. Three keys to surviving a crisis. Let's move on to Moses. I'm not going to read the Scripture here. I'm going to summarize this. Did Moses face a crisis in leading Israel out of Egypt? We touched on it earlier, but we all know the story. And just go back to summarize, from crossing the Red Sea to the bitter waters of Mara, to Mount Sinai, to then 40 years of wandering in the wilderness, to viewing the Promised Land before he died, Moses faced one crisis situation after another throughout the entirety of his life almost.

How did he do? Well, you go back and read the whole story. I'm not going to go through that. I mean, I'll point, but sometimes he did great. Other times, not so great.

But he learned as he went. And in the process of both success and failures, he grew as a leader so he could be used in God's kingdom at the return of Christ. Let's go forward just a little bit to Joshua and Caleb. Before Moses died, he sent 12 spies to spy out the land of Canaan. Let's go to Numbers 13. Numbers 13. Let's look at 1st and verse 25.

Just to pick up the story here after these spies were sent out and they returned from spying out the land of Canaan. And they returned from spying out the land after 40 days. Verse 27. Then they told Moses and said, or Joshua, excuse me, not Moses, Joshua and Caleb, we went to the land where you sent us. It truly flows with milk and honey, and this is its fruit. But nevertheless, the people are strong. They dwell on the land. Cities are fortified. They're very large. We saw the descendants of Anak there, and they're huge. They're giants. And the Malachites, they're fierce warriors. They're skilled at war. They just destroy their enemies. And they dwell on the land. And the Hittites and Jebusites and Amorites, who dwell on the mountains in the Canaanites, dwell by the sea, on the banks of the Jordan.

It says, we can't move forward. You can do the promise land. They've got fierce warriors there. We're going to get slaughtered. We're not skilled at war. They're skilled at war. They just wipe out their enemies. They're harmful. And they have all the equipment that they have and experience in war. We're going to be obliterated. We can't move forward. Too much opposition. But Caleb quieted the people, verse 30, before Moses. He said, let us go up at once and take possession, for we are able to overcome it. But the men who had gone up with him, the other spies, said we're not able to go up against this people, for they are stronger than we are.

Just look at verses 30 and 30. The difference between verses 30 and 31.

What was the difference between those two opposing perspectives?

See, Caleb saw things from God's perspective, while the others, in the exception of Joshua, as we know, saw things from their own human perspective. They're looking at it from their own human perspective, not God's perspective. To survive and handle a crisis, then, we need to see things as much as we can from God's perspective, like Caleb did and like Joshua did. Not just from our own human perspective. Going forward to Numbers 14, verse 6. But Joshua, the son of Nun, and Caleb, who were among those who spied out the land, they tore their clothes and they heard the bad report from the other ten spies. They spoke to all the congregation of Israel, and they said, the land we pass through to the spy out is an exceedingly good land.

And if the Lord belights in us, then He will bring us into this land and give it to us, a land which flows with milk and honey. Only do not rebel against the Lord and appear the people, for they are our bread, and their protection has departed from them. God's on our side. He wants to give us this land. And their protection has departed from them. And the Lord, God, is with us. So don't fear them. What a different perspective they had, such as Joshua and Caleb had. So to properly handle a crisis, try to see things from God's perspective, as Joshua and Caleb did. If God is with us, who could be against us? God is far more powerful than any force that we might look at, humanly speaking. We tend to look at things humanly, not from God's point of view. Let's move on from the patriarchs. How about the prophets? What about Joshua and Jeremiah and Ezekiel and the twelve-minded prophets and Elijah and Daniel? You could spend hours going through that. We're not going to do that, but we'll talk about it in a little bit. They all had to deal with crisis situations when you stop and analyze their lives. They had to face one after another, one crisis after another. In the case of some of those, they actually were on a national level, meaning they had to go before the leaders of other nations to warn the leaders of Israel and Judah. But what happened if those leaders continued to lead their nations contrary to God? What was going to happen to the nation? Because they were leading people contrary to God in God's ways, that even by itself was creating a crisis for their respective nations because those nations were going into crisis because they were being led away from God. And also then, those who had to warn them faced a crisis situation because of the response they got from the leaders. But Israel eventually became threatened and eventually overthrown by Assyria, and his Judah became threatened and overthrown by Babylon, and those who had to give the warning message to those leaders and they all had to deal with a personal crisis because of the response of the leaders. Their lives were threatened and some of them were killed. Elijah had to flee for his life from Jezebel, the wife of King Ahab, didn't he? Jeremiah was arrested and cast into a dungeon and then lowered into a cistern and he remained a prisoner until Jerusalem was captured by the Babylonians. You can see, read all that in Jeremiah 38. It goes through the whole story of Jeremiah. What happened to him because he was trying to warn the king what was going to happen if he didn't change his ways. What about the prophet Daniel and his three friends? You all know the stories. Three friends were thrown into a fiery furnace and Daniel was thrown into a lion's den. You know, just think about it. Daniel's three friends, that's such an inspiring story.

They came before the king, never convinced her, and they said, either you bow down before me or you're going to go into this fiery furnace and you're going to be gone. And they said, well, you know, king, we don't know what God's going to do. We don't know whether he'll save us or not. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter because God can save us if he wants to. And that fire furnace will do no damage at all. And God can preserve us, our lives. But we don't know if he will or not. We don't know. Maybe we'll die, but that's okay. If we die, we die because we're going to follow God. We trust in God and murder for our future in God's hands. So go ahead and throw us into the furnace. Daniel's in the same thing. The lion's dead.

If you think about it, what would they, what would they be threatened, their lives would be threatened for? What were they doing? Chad Raggum, you're checking a bit, and you're going, Daniel, what were they doing? They were just doing the work of God. They were doing what God told them to do. And now they handle their various crisis situations. How simple! They just put their lives in God's hands. Period.

They did what God called them to do, regardless of what the consequences might be. It didn't matter where they lived or died. Their future was in God's hands. They were going to trust God and follow God and obey God.

They stayed the course, and they stood in the gap. And we have to do the same, regardless of what happened. And there is a huge gap. You think about standing in the gap. There's a huge gap between the ways of the world and the ways of God, isn't there? That gap is getting wider all the time. Sometimes we might have to be called to stand in that gap and support God in God's ways, even though we don't know what the consequences might be.

We haven't called to stand in that gap. We point people to the ways of God, regardless of any personal consequence in our lives. What am I to do to us? What about the apostles? We know all our twelve apostles. As far as we know, we don't know all the details of the story. We know some of the apostles were martyred for sure, and from tradition it hasn't, that all but the apostle John were martyred before they died, that they were actually put to death.

That's the tradition we have. We don't know all the details of that. John, of course, is the one who wasn't martyred. He was imprisoned on the Isle of Patmos. That was his crisis. What about the apostle Paul?

Let's go to 2 Corinthians 11. 1 Corinthians 11 verse 1. 1 Corinthians 11.1, where Paul said, Over, you would bear with me for a little folly, and indeed you do bear with me, because there were other ministers there saying that they were true ministers of God, and that Paul wasn't. And so he said, bear with me for a little folly.

Paul then enumerates the many crisis situations that he faced, or 1 Corinthians 1 verse 18. He says, See that then it then boast, according to the flesh, and he says, Well, let me know what I went through in my life. I won't ever say that I'm not a minister of Christ. Look what I went through. And then he starts enumerating what he went through, starting in verse 22. You talk about crisis situations. He said, Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are the Israelites? So am I. Are they of the seat of Abraham? So am I.

Are they ministers of Christ? I speak as a fool. I am more. And labors more abundant. And strikes above measure. Talk about the crisis situation he faced. I don't think anybody faced greater crisis situation than Paul did. And strikes above measures. And prisons more frequently. And deaths often from the Jews. Five times I received 40 strikes, minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked. A night and a day I was thin and a deep. If those things happened to you, would you think maybe God would abandon you? Could you keep the faith?

Could you be strong? Could you still trust God? Going through all this? Paul did. And journeys often in perils of water, in perils of robbers, in perils of my own countrymen, and of the Gentiles, and the city, and the wilderness, and the sea, and among faults of brethren. In weariness and toile, and sleeplessness often, and hunger and thirst, and fastings, and cold and nakedness, besides the other things. What comes upon me daily, my deep concern for the churches, for which Paul gave his entire life, and dedicated his entire life.

But the Apostle Paul faced one horrendous crisis situation after another throughout nearly his entire life. The very next chapter, chapter 12, refers to another crisis he faced. 1 Corinthians 12, verse 7. Unless I should be exalted up and measured by the abundance of the revelations, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan, and be exalted me lest I be exalted above measure.

Incursorant concerning this thing, verse 8. I pleaded with the Lord three times, and it might depart from me. But God didn't deliver him, did he? So I moved three times for God to remove this from me, but God did not remove the crisis. Instead, he left it for Paul to deal with. How did Paul handle this crisis? What did he learn? While he dealt with this crisis, by continuing to forge ahead, not allowing anything to discourage him to the point of ever giving up, he continued to remain positive in spite of the overwhelming negative crisis situation he faced.

What did he learn? What did he learn from God not removing this crisis, making him have to deal with it on his own? Did he learn something? Did he gain anything from that, having to do that? God doesn't allow anything without a purpose. He didn't intervene in this case. Even though he pleaded with him three times, he didn't have to deal with it himself. What did he learn? He learned that when he was weak, he was strong. He learned that facing and having to deal with those crisis situations forced him to have to go to God to receive God's strength.

Verse 8 again, He continued to sing, I pleaded with the Lord three times that it might depart from me, but he said, My grace, my favor, Paul, that I give unto you, you were born on the road to Damascus, you were born the wrong way, you were fighting the churches of God, you were fighting me. What did I do? I blinded you and I called you and gave you this tremendous special calling to go to the entire world at that time to help God's people. I gave you tremendous favor. God should be sufficient. The calling I've given you should be sufficient. How about us?

Is it calling? The promises that God has given us, is that sufficient? My grace is sufficient for you, and my strength is made perfect. Christ says, My strength, God's strength, is made perfect in your weakness. Therefore, most gladly Paul says, excuse me, this Paul, he said to Paul, My grace is sufficient for you for my strength, God's strength is made perfect in your weakness, Paul. Therefore, Paul says, most gladly I would rather boast in my infirmities that the power of Christ might rest upon me.

Therefore, I take pleasure in infirmities and reproaches and needs and persecutions and distress and distress, saying, for when I am weak, when I'm weak physically, when I'm at the end of my rope and I don't know what to do and it's beyond my control and I can't do anything about it, then that forces me to go to you, God, to get your strength to see me through. When I am weak, then I'm strong because that means it forces him to go to God to receive God's strength.

That is how the Patriots and the prophets and apostles dealt with their crisis situation. What about Christ? How did he deal with his crisis? He said the ultimate gap, the ultimate gap between eternal life and eternal death. For Christ, you know, he had to give his life, created for him the ultimate crisis, of having to suffer and die and excruciating death on our behalf.

How do you deal with his crisis and what can we learn from that? There are two scriptures that tell us how Christ dealt with his life and death crisis. The first one takes place in the Mount of Olives on the night he was betrayed, that night of the Passover. Let's go to Luke 22.

Luke 22, verse 41. He was a drop on them about a stone's throw and he knelt down and prayed, knowing that he was going to be betrayed that night. What he was going to go through the next day, how he was going to have to die for mankind. And he said, verse 42, Father, if it is your will, take this cup away from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done. For here in these two verses, in verses 41 and 42, Christ did two things. Number one, it says he prayed. And number two, he prayed, didn't just pray, that not my will be done, but your will be done. So this first special reference gives us two more ways and how we can handle a crisis.

Number one, we should take it to God in prayer. But not just take it to God in prayer. When you take it to God in prayer, don't pray. God, work this out for me the way I want it to work out. That's even more important. We should not pray for what we want or for what might be best for us from our perspective. Instead, we should pray as Christ did here, in handling his crisis.

We should pray, God, your will be done. He knows what's best. And maybe his best is to leave me to deal with it. And you have to go through it so I can learn to be strong, like Paul did. We should always pray, not only pray, but pray for God's will to be done. And the second scripture, which shows how Christ dealt with his crisis, took place when he was actually dying on the stake, dying on the cross. Next chapter, chapter 23, verse 32.

Luke 23, verse 32, There were two other criminals led with him to be put to death, when they had come to the place called Calvary. There they crucified him, and the criminals won on the right hand, the other on the left. And then Jesus said, verse 34, this is a very important lesson, a key lesson in dealing with a crisis.

He said, Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do. Nearly every crisis situation any of us will ever face will involve at least two or more parties. Regardless of which party may or may not be at fault, each party needs to forgive the other party. And each party needs to also ask God to forgive them for any part they may have played in that crisis, and they think they played a part. The only way to resolve and heal a crisis between two or more parties is for both parties to seek forgiveness for themselves and to seek forgive the other party.

And what is God looking for in each and every one of us? Bottom line, what He's looking for, let's go back to the Old Testament for one scripture here. Let's go back to Isaiah 66. Isaiah 66, verse 2 verses. Isaiah 66, 1, Thus is the Lord, Heaven is my throne, the earth is by footstool, Where is the house that you will build me? Where is the place of my arrest? I dwell in the entire universe. I dwell in eternity.

I have the entire universe to dwell in. I don't need to be confined to any building or dwelling. And not only that, for those things my hands made. It's like Mr. Stewart was talking about in the sermon. I've made these things. I made the entire universe. I created the worlds. All those things my hand is made. And all those things that exist, says the Lord. There's two because of me, because of my power, because of my creation. So what God is saying here is that He controls all things, that He's soft and open for all things. He doesn't need mankind's help. And mankind can do things for him. We all need Him. What then is God looking for in each and every one of us?

That part of verse 2. On this one will I look. On him who is poor and of a contrite spirit who trembles at my word. Now look on those who are humble, who need my help. Sometimes who desperately need my help. Who realize they don't have the strength to make it through this crisis. And those who seek forgiveness, who want to extend forgiveness to others. And who tremble at my word, which says in Mark 6.15. This is one part of God's word for us to tremble at.

If you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive you your trespasses. That's the scripture I tremble at. It shows how important it is for me to be forgiving. So three keys to surviving a crisis were faith, favor, and fear. Now we can add forgiveness to that. Favor, faith, fear, and forgiveness. Plus the other points we've made as well. I want to move on to two final overall points here. One of them, first one is should a crisis be a stumbling block or a door of opportunity?

Because we can look on a crisis as a very negative situation that we're dealing with. But can that be a very positive thing? See, what is our goal? What is the bottom line goal that God wants all of us to strive to achieve? What are we really striving for in the calling that God has given us? Let's let the Apostle Paul answer that for us in Ephesians 4. Ephesians 4, beginning in verse 11, Paul writes, referring to God. And he himself, or Christ, I should say in this case, he himself gave Son to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints, for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, to we all come to the unity of the faith and to the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, as it says in New King James, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.

Because what this is really talking about is talking about coming to spiritual maturity. To a perfect man would be better rendered to a spiritually mature man, or spiritually mature individual, to spiritually mature men and women. When it comes to striving for spiritual maturity, what is our aim? What is our goal? Our goal is to strive to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, to strive to see the same spiritual maturity that Christ had, to have His mind in us, to have handled things the way He did, to have that kind of spiritual maturity, to the fullness of Christ's maturity.

That's our goal. We're trying to become spiritually mature to the stature of Jesus Christ, to what He exemplified for us, to be able to handle Christ's situations in the manner that Christ did. Which means, then, that a Christ should be a door of opportunity, a door of opportunity to be able to grow spiritually and become more spiritually mature, to the shyness, the maturity of Jesus Christ. That's the door of opportunity, that every crisis affords us, so we can be more like Christ.

Finally, then, what lessons does God want us to learn? I've already given many of those lessons, or lessons, I should say. I just want to end with one final lesson. Sometimes we can find ourselves in the middle of a crisis that we don't understand. That often happens when we don't know why this happens and when this crisis happens. And we may not even understand all the details of it. In some cases, if it involves a group of people, some may understand and others may not.

And this happens to a whole group. Part of the group will understand why this crisis is there and others might not. And there can be a situation where those who do understand can't explain to those who don't understand. Why would that be? Well, I can think of two reasons. One, it could be because if one tried to explain it to the other side, they wouldn't believe it. Because you just can't see that perspective. Maybe they never experienced it, or whatever. And the other reason they might not be explained is because maybe some of the things that they would have to say to try to explain it would be confidential.

It shouldn't be said. But a proverb was recently pointed out to me. It gives us important lessons. Let's go to our final scripture. Let's go to Proverbs 18. Interesting proverb. I can say this is just pointing out to me not too long ago. Proverbs 18 verse 17 says, The first one to plead his cause seems right until his neighbor comes and examines him. Now, why might the first one to plead his cause seem right?

Because that may only be one side of the story. It may seem right because that's the side of the story. I understand that. That's just one side of the story. It may seem right then. It may not include the whole story. There may be one side of the story that nobody sees. It may just be a few people. And if we'll examine it, if all the facts were known, the first one to plead his cause might no longer seem right.

But what do the rest of the facts need to be kept confidential? That can happen. We then need to apply all the points in this sermon, and how to deal with a crisis, and how to handle a crisis. We need to strive to find favor with God, to live by faith, to fear God and not man, to try to learn from each crisis we go through, to try to see things from God's perspective, to try to just put our lives in God's hands, let God take care of it, and ask God for His strength, to take it to God in prayer, asking for God's will to be done, not our will, but our humble contrite hearts, asking God to forgive us, and asking God to help us forgive the other party.

We don't even think the other party might need to be forgiven, but ask us to give us that forgiveness anyway. Because that's where human comes from, comes through forgiveness. And remember this proverb, the first one to plead his cause might seem right, but that would be all about the whole picture. Until his neighbor comes and examines him, until all the facts were known, he's going to pretend the whole picture might be different.

I want to conclude by reading just the first paragraph of Dr. Ward's letter from the chairman dated January 4, 2017, right at the beginning of the year. Just the first paragraph. Dr. Ward wrote, We are now entering a new secular year in the midst of a rafts of the most critical, crucial period in human history. The whole world is in some state of transition, and the transition of major change is defined as one of the definitions of a crisis, a major turning point.

And we're now in a major turning point. So we could say the whole world is in some state of crisis in all of its institutions. Dr. Ward goes on, says, We daily read, see, and hear of nearly every one of the pre-tribulation signs of Matthew 24, now being fulfilled all kinds of the same time.

They've always happened in the past, but now they're all copying at once. It's like a culmination is taking place. It's building through a climax. Then he says, contrary to what any political leader might claim, the world is increasingly becoming a more and more dangerous place. And we certainly know that. We see that every week in the news. People lose their lives.

Or some crisis will occur in their neighborhood, in their city, or their nation. In the end, that first paragraph says, Who knows when the next shoe will drop? Or we could say, Who knows when the next crisis will occur? We do know what's going to come. It could be a major crisis that might impact all of our lives, or it might be in the area where our living work could impact our lives.

We don't have to be afraid. Because everyone God has ever called and worked with, when you look through God's Word, they've all faced many, many, many crisis situations in their life. So apply these lessons, and learn from these physical examples on how to handle a crisis, and you will be prepared, no matter what happens in the months and years ahead of us.