Hope & Responsibility Part 3

[00:00:01] Greetings and welcome to Part 3 of our current series about Hope and Responsibility. We have been studying for the last two broadcasts, first Corinthians 10-13, and the great promises of God to his children in that verse.

[00:00:37] Of course we can only scratch the surface of all that he says there but we've been pointing out the tremendous hope of this verse and also the fact that we are responsible for far more than we may have dreamed.

[00:00:49] Let me read 1 Corinthians 10-13 for you for a final time. No test, or trial has overtaken you but such as is common to men. And God is faithful who will not allow you to be tested beyond what you are able to endure,

[00:01:08] but with the test to provide the way of escape also in order that you may be able to endure it. Now we have seen as we have looked at this part of the promise that three full promise that no test or trial that you endure is ever unique.

[00:01:27] God brings the same problems into the life of all persons and since the time of Adam on this time, no man has ever had to face a unique problem. Of course they are unique in the superficial aspects but down at the bottom when you scrape

[00:01:44] all of that stuff off, all problems are common. And so since they are all common and others have been able to handle them properly using God's ways and using God's strength, using the scriptures and relying upon the spirit of God, you can too, you are responsible.

[00:02:04] But there is hope in that. If others have gone through the problems successfully, so can you. And then secondly we saw in the last broadcast based on the very faithfulness of God himself he says, God is faithful.

[00:02:19] If this promise should fail, that we are about to talk about, God's very faithfulness would fail. Based on that faithfulness of God, he promises, he goes on record, he gives his word that he will not allow you to be tested beyond what you are able to endure.

[00:02:39] That is a marvelous promise. That's more than we could ever have hoped for or expected. It's so hard to believe that he has to assure us that it is as sure as the faithfulness of God itself.

[00:02:52] Now we come to the last part of that verse and a third aspect of this promise. Not only is no problem every unique, but not only is the problem uniquely suited to each individual so that he will not have anything more than he can bear under take him.

[00:03:10] But listen to this with the test. God will provide the way of escape also in order that you may be able to endure it. Now did you get that point? What he is saying is that it will not go on forever.

[00:03:28] I know you wonder when you are going to get out of that great trial, a heartache, that sorrow, that sickness, whatever it may be. It won't go on forever. It won't go on forever.

[00:03:40] There is a way out and God will provide the way of escape along with the trial itself. No trial, no test, no temptation comes. Except as a trial that also has a long with it away out. Now I don't know how God will provide the way out.

[00:03:59] It may be that you feel like you are in a box all closed in. No way out. No escape. No doors. No windows. No light coming in. No way to escape. You may feel all boxed in on all sides. Top. Bottom. Every direction.

[00:04:16] There is none of his children are ever in a box. If they are, it's only temporary. There will be a time when God lifts the lid on the box and takes you out.

[00:04:28] It may be that he will make the walls of the box to fall flat as the walls of Jericho and you walk out on top of the walls themselves. It may be that the bottom will fall out but God promises somehow some way in his time

[00:04:42] there will be an end. You are going to get out of that problem. That test, that trial, that tribulation will not go on forever. It may be that God will take you out of it as he takes you to himself.

[00:04:58] It may be that He will take you out of it tomorrow or later on even today. But God promises that there is a way out and often hooked right on the trial itself and the very midst of the problem is the solution.

[00:05:13] Is the door, is the way out? Is the key to unlock that door? You know, if you go camping and you enjoy doing camping and you forget the can opener and you've taken a can of soup, you're really in trouble.

[00:05:27] You are in the soup or out of it in another sense. But you take the can of soup and you have no can opener. Now how do you get a can of soup open if you don't have a can opener?

[00:05:39] That's really a problem if you have a tried and if you get the can opener going camping. You may be either on a rock and try to get a hole in it, get some soup out.

[00:05:49] And of course, at least after the soup if you ever succeed, probably you won't. You only succeed in denting the can. You may try biting a hole in it with your teeth or hammering a hole in with a hammer or whatever but without a can opener.

[00:06:05] It's a pretty hard job to get a can of soup open but if you took sardines, you're in business. You know why? Because hooked right onto the can of the sardines is the key. It's the can opener.

[00:06:18] That sort of how God says about temptations that he will provide the way of escape also with the temptation. Together with the temptation comes the way out and he says this I want you to know in order that you may be able to endure it.

[00:06:35] If the test or the trial is sickness or heartache, maybe even terminal sickness, that may be that the way out is the very key that comes right with the sickness hooked right on the side entrance into the very presence of God himself.

[00:06:51] Put a wonderful and glorious fact to look forward to. That may be that in the trial which is only temporary and it may be that the temporary ness of it depends upon your finding the key in the word of God as to the solution to

[00:07:05] it that as soon as you begin to search the scriptures and find out what God wants you to do about it and do it. That problem will end. I don't know but the problem is there and one way or another. God will bring an end to this trial.

[00:07:22] It will not go on forever. And you know he says I want you to know that in order that you may be able to endure it. You see, you can take anything if you know that it has an end.

[00:07:37] You can endure something if you know it's not going to go on and on and on. That's why some of you are able to listen to this broadcast because you know that there has to come a time when we sign off.

[00:07:51] The scriptures and school as well as students can endure the classes year after year semester after semester because they know that they come in packages. There comes a time when the course is over. The final exam is taken.

[00:08:07] The end of the course approaches and finally it comes and you can sit through that course and you can grit your teeth and you can go on and on and on and on and on and on and on. And then it's finally going to come.

[00:08:19] That's the only thing that keeps you going in it. And so it is when God tells you very plainly that the test or the trial that you're facing will not go on forever. They'll will be an end. The Bible also says and it came to pass this too.

[00:08:38] Well, pass. And that end is right end. It is his end. It is the end that he wants you to look forward to. And if you keep your eye on the fact that it will be over, it will be over soon.

[00:08:52] It will be over in God's time that really this life is not all that long to begin with and that therefore anything is over with really very soon. You can endure it. Our life is but grass it grows up in the morning and at new knit withers.

[00:09:10] It's all going to be over soon. Lord help us to look upon you as the end in the final goal of everything and to endure for Christ's sake with pray. Amen. Thank you for listening to the three episodes if you had the opportunity to do so with

[00:09:27] respect to hope and responsibility. We live in a world that doesn't offer too much hope. But we have to stop looking at the horizontal and look to the vertical. God offers the hope and he wants you to have hope in him.

[00:09:43] Use him being part of the being responsible with his response is to hope. Thanks for listening. Make it a blessed day.