Dennis Tuuri

We return to the book of Acts where we have descriptions of the early church. Jesus Christ acts through the apostles and early church in which he fulfills the very thing that we just sang of with those nations falling prostrate before the king of kings. The sermon text is Acts 14:20-23. Please stand for the reading of God’s word. Acts 14 beginning at verse 20.

How be it, as the disciples stood round about him, he rose up and came into the city. And the next day he departed with Barnabas to Derbe. And when they had preached the gospel to that city and had taught many, they returned again to Lystra and to Iconium and Antioch, confirming the souls of the disciples and exhorting them to continue in the faith, and that we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God. And when they had ordained them elders in every city and had prayed with fasting, they commended them to the Lord on whom they believed.

Just as during our communion service, we thank God for the elements before we take them and distribute them. So now we thank God for his word before we take it and distribute it amongst ourselves, consider it, evaluate it, taste it, and see that it is good. We pray now then based on our thanksgiving that God’s spirit would illuminate this text to our understanding.

The Days of Heaven

In preparing for a graduation talk I gave down at Port Orford, or rather at Coquille a month or so ago, my preparation led me to read in Deuteronomy where we’re promised that as we instruct our children in the way of the Lord to keep his statutes, his commandments and to keep covenant with him, that God promises that our days upon the earth will be as the days of heaven.

I think that primarily that reference is to length. It means the length compared to our days on earth to the days of heaven. Long life is promised in that text. But I’ve contemplated that phrase over and over this last month, particularly on the Sabbath days as we sit around outside after our worship service, after communion, after our Lord has fed us with his word and the preached word and also the word in the sacrament of communion.

And sitting around relaxing afterwards, I frequently think of heaven on the Lord’s day, particularly in the afternoons as we relax, enjoy the fellowship of the saints and the blessing and rest that God has won for us through our Savior. That same phrase came to my mind Friday evening as well at the homeschool advancement ceremony and at Emily’s graduation party. These times always remind me of that phrase now—the days of heaven.

And surely our days on earth can be as the days of heaven, not just in length, but also in the quality of those days as well. As we rest in the Lord particularly on the Sabbath day, we come together on the Lord’s day to worship him for these great blessings he has given to us and for who he is and for the revelation of his person and that is the central thrust of what we do this day. We come to worship.

We’re called forward not ultimately to fellowship or not ultimately to hear instruction but ultimately to worship God. But in the context of that worship service, God has I think in his word declared that the normative way that is handled is also with the preaching or instruction from his word. Why is that? That’s because as we come together to worship as a community, we also come together to exhort each other to faithfulness to that word and to correct our presuppositions about that word.

I’ve not read the article. I’ve misplaced it actually, but Deacon Garrett gave me an article by a man that cites a recent survey of religious opinions in America. Apparently the survey indicates that a large percentage of the population believes the word of God is the word of God and is inerrant. And yet many people, most people of the survey also indicate that they think that the scriptures are to be interpreted individually. That our interpretation of what’s right and wrong comes from ourselves ultimately.

And we come together as a church this day to hear instruction in the word to receive a message by which we transform our lives individually, the lives of our family and our culture as well. And that word is a word that challenges us to rethink our basic presuppositions about some of the elements of the faith. When we’re off by ourselves, we turn to interpret the scriptures in ways that justify our own actions.

We have in this church and the last few years seen various individuals take actions that have clearly been tinged with a degree of sinfulness and then come to changes in religious beliefs after those actions were taken and confronted. Our beliefs frequently follow our actions. So we come together in the Lord’s day to hear a word. It’s important we hear this word. It’s important that we confront each other with the truths of God’s word.

It’s a comforting word, of course. It’s the message of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. But it’s a transforming word and it’s transforming in that it confronts our presuppositions and changes them about how we live. Now this doesn’t happen in some great big mysterious way. Usually it’s small things. And today’s word I think helps us to understand not new truth but to refocus upon it. Truth that we don’t like to acknowledge in our minds, at least a portion of the truth we’ll talk about today.

And that is the need that we must indeed through many tribulations enter into the kingdom of God. It’s a truth we push out of our minds because it’s a truth that makes us uncomfortable. We want to live lives of comfort and ease. And yet the scriptures tell us in the center of this text that our lives will not be lives of the days of heaven throughout the rest of the week. Our week will be filled with many things, and certainly the Sabbath day and other portions of our lives are as the days of heaven.

But we enter into those days of heaven through much tribulation and we’ll talk about that today.

The Text: Derbe, the Fourth Horn of the Altar

So let’s talk about this text. The title of the text is “Derbe, the Fourth Horn of the Altar.” I’ll explain that at the end of the sermon. But this is the fourth city now in a series of four cities that we’ve seen this missionary team go through on the first missionary journey. And we spent a week on each of these cities.

If you’ll have noticed what we’ve done here, we had Antioch. Actually, we might have spent two weeks on Antioch. We spent two weeks, I think, on that Sabbath sermon at Antioch Pisidian, which is the first of these four cities that is listed for us. And then we talked about Iconium. And then last week, Lystra. And this is the fourth city listed in this synopsis of events—Derbe—and then at the end of the preaching and evangelizing of Derbe we go on to read in the text for today of their return then to these three other cities.

So Luke in his account ties these four cities together as a unit. This four city scenario is preceded by the conversion of Sergius Paulus if you remember in spite of the naysaying of Elymas the magician the Jew who was a sorcerer and departed from the faith. And the movement of history I think portrayed for us here shows us also the movement of history of the world. The authorities—Sergius Paulus is a great proconsul in his area, big honcho so to speak in the Roman government and his conversion shows us the conversion of the heads of nations.

Ultimately it shows us the conversion of the whole world typified in the head and then we see that message carried out through these four cities of the Roman Empire and little by little the Roman Empire is conquered for the Lord Jesus Christ. But it’s in the context again of much tribulation suffered by these apostles. Remember at Antioch they were driven out of the town. At Iconium there were plots to kill them. And at Lystra the plot was actually carried out relative to Paul—stoned and left for dead. Much tribulation.

But we enter into Derbe, the fourth city of rest where we have no record of persecution either in the text before us or in Paul’s recounting of these adventures later in the epistles. He does speak later in the epistles of the afflictions and persecutions that he suffered at Antioch and at Lystra and at Iconium, but he mentions nothing of persecution in Derbe. He’s entered into that fourth city, the city of rest.

Two participles, two verbs essentially tell us the story of Derbe. And that is it. The only thing we’re told about Derbe is what I’ve entitled in the outline, “the two means of planting a church.” It is enough for us that this is what happens in the context of planting churches and at Derbe. This is the only thing that is recorded and really your English translation puts many more words into it than the Greek text does.

The only two things that happen at Derbe in verse 21 is they evangelize the city and they disciple them as well. So the two things that go on is evangelization and discipleship. And this happens in the context of the city of Derbe. And those are the two means of planting churches biblically. And it’s important that we see that those are two things.

Evangelize—that word there, you’re familiar with the term, I’m sure, means to speak forth the good news. The gospel, the good news, the ascension of Jesus Christ, Jesus Savior, Christ anointed one, high priest, prophet, and king. So the ascension of the Savior, King, Jesus Christ to the throne room from which he rules. The evangelization includes the message of the kingdom. And indeed it is into that kingdom that Paul says we must enter through much tribulation.

So the evangelization of a city, the planting of a church requires that evangelization, the proclamation of the good news that Jesus Christ has paid the price for sinners and he’s been resurrected and raised up and ascended to the right hand of the Father and glorified and the kingdom has now been ushered in and is a reality in a more manifest sense since the days of our Savior.

And so that is part of planting a church. But the second part of that is discipleship. This is where all too often evangelistic efforts fall short. Missionary efforts in terms of thinking that evangelization is the only thing that’s required. But clearly in the scriptures in this brief account at Derbe, we see that the second part of planting a church is discipleship. Teaching and instructing people in the truth. Causing them to submit their thoughts, their lives, everything that they have about them to the instruction of God’s word.

Not merely as some sort of intellectual exercise. Teaching and discipling is not that. We could have a word here that indicated simply intellectual activity, but that’s not the word that’s used. The word that is used means discipleship. It means to teach, but it means to instruct. Not just in intellectual truth, but in a way that brings that intellectual truth into everything that we do and say into our homes, into our workplaces, into our polling places, the voting booths, into our commerce centers, into our recreation, into every area of life and thought.

We’re discipled to be more and more in the image of Jesus Christ to grow up into the fullness of maturation of faith where we see ourselves growing increasingly like the Savior. So these are the two means of planting a church and that’s all it tells us about Derbe—no persecution. But notice too one other thing that it does say they evangelized the city—a comprehensive term—not a few people there many people.

The gospel age is depicted for us in the book of Acts as an age of success, victory—not in the sense necessarily of an absence of tribulation. We’ve seen much tribulation but success in victory in the fact that the word of God when preached forth in the power of the Holy Spirit brings people to salvation and not in small numbers but in large numbers. The entire city is evangelized.

Well, the text goes on then and we return now with Paul and Barnabas and the group to the other churches that had been established and we see there in addition to these two means of planting a church we now see the means of growing a church as well. In verse 22 at the end of verse 21, we read that they returned again to Lystra and to Iconium and Antioch. And then verse 23 tells us what they did there.

They confirmed the souls of the disciples, exhorting them to continue in the faith that we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God. And when they had ordained elders in every city and had prayed with fasting, they commended them to the Lord on whom they believed. So we have in those verses the recitation of the means of growing churches. These churches had already been planted as Derbe had been planted and they now go back to these churches and they grow these churches and these verses tell us in synopsis form what is necessary for the growth of the church.

Now the church is comprised of individuals, people, and those people, just as this church is comprised of people, these means are as well the means by which we grow in our Christian walk. It’s how we grow as a body of believers, but it’s also how we grow in the context of our Christian walk. And so it has very specific application to our life.

The Means of Growing Churches

First of all, and I could synopsize these other ways, but I thought it’d be good to take the first verse of instruction relative to this truth and split it off from the second. So verse 22 tells us that they taught the truth. That is, one of the means of growing the church is to teach the truth. And that is the summary of saying then these activities that Paul engages in.

First of all, he confirms the disciples. Confirming the souls of the disciples. Now, in the Greek that this is said there’s a connection between the last half of verse 21 and the first half of verse 22. They returned there for this very purpose. That’s what the Greek grammar means. Their return to these three cities was for the specific purpose of confirming the souls or the minds—the whole person of the disciples.

When we see disciples in these texts, we think of the ones that are converted in those particular cities. So that when we were at Lystra and the disciples surrounded Paul as he’s laying there stone and left for dead, we’re to believe and assume by that that those disciples that had come out of Lystra. Okay. Well, now they go back to take those same disciples. That’s the essence of what they’re called here—these disciples—and to confirm them.

Now this word confirm is used in other texts in the book of Acts. Acts 15:32, 15:41, 18:23. This is a repeated pattern of the apostles. So we have here much in the way that Genesis gives us material that’s then fleshed out throughout the rest of the scripture. We see here in this first missionary journey the pattern set for what will be their normal pattern as they work with churches throughout the world.

And repeatedly as these texts indicate they return to these groups to confirm them to establish them and to reestablish actually is the word here—to reconfirm the souls of the disciples. Now, this word means to reestablish. The root term establish is given for us in four texts of scripture that I have on your outline. Luke 9:51 and following. And this word means to—well these texts we’ll look at in just a minute.

These texts that talk about establishing people and then this word that Paul is using here or Luke is using here means to reestablish them to make them strong again and to do these things again and to cause them to be established again. Now, it’s interesting that in these four particular verses where this root word establish, strengthen, stiffen is used, we see some instruction relative to what this is all about.

In Luke 9:51, we read that our Savior steadfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem. That word “set his face” is the same word as established—the root term of the confirmation of the church that happens here. So to confirm the church, to confirm this body of believers and to confirm you individually means to cause you to set your face toward a particular direction to give determination, will strength of will and character to a particular end—to set your face.

The other uses of this term in the New Testament, some of them give us what we’re to set our face to do. In 2 Thessalonians 3:3, we read that the Lord is faithful who shall establish you and keep you from evil. Part of the establishment, the setting of our face is to keep us away from evildoing. So part of what Paul and the disciples do—or the apostles do—to grow this church is they keep this church, they get this church determined to keep themselves away from evil. Okay?

And that should be part of our process of establishing ourselves in the faith to set ourselves determinately in the power of the Holy Spirit to avoid evildoing. But it doesn’t stop there. Of course in 1 Thessalonians 3:13 we read that God may establish our hearts unblameable in holiness before God. It’s not enough just to establish yourself and determine not to do what’s wrong. You are to positively set your face toward holiness, toward a confirmation rather of God’s will.

Personal piety and holiness is part of the establishment of us as individual saints and the establishment of Reformation Covenant Church and the establishment of the Christian church throughout the world as well. A commitment to holiness. But even it doesn’t stop there. In 2 Thessalonians 2:17, we read that Paul wants to comfort their hearts and establish them in every good word and work. Having forsaken evil, having set our face to forsake evil, having set our face to move toward personal holiness in the presence of God, that establishment moves on to set our face to do particular things with two things—with our tongue and with our hands, word and work.

We’re to be established by the Lord Jesus Christ to perform good deeds and to speak good words. So this establishment in the faith has this connotation when he goes back to these churches and when the gospel comes back to us every Lord’s day, when Jesus returns in a special sense, the preaching of his word and with the strengthening of the spiritual grace of communion, he does so to cause us to determine to set our face away from evil toward holiness with God and to the establishment of good words and good works in our lives.

And there’s a means there of evaluating the confirmation and strengthening of your own soul. Examine your own life. Have you determinally set your face to not engage in evil actions? And have you determinally set your face to seek personal holiness before God? And have you determined to set yourself to works of service to the body of Christ, to your family, to your friends, to the institutional church, to the community in which you live?

Do you use your tongue and your hands to the establishment of good deeds and good words for the gospel and the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ? That’s what Paul and Barnabas did with these churches. They went back to strengthen them in these tasks, to reestablish them.

Some things are easy to acquire and hard to retain. And our Savior warned us that as the parable of the sower of the seeds, that there would be some who would not persevere that there would be those who persevered. And it is through this means of believers being strengthened by the ministers of the church to these particular ends. So God tells us here the means of growing a church is first of all to speak the truth and by way of confirming them and establishing them in these particular patterns.

Secondly though, he said that he went there to exhort them to continue in the faith. And of course, this is related to what we just read, but this is a different phrase. Instead of establishing now, they’re exhorting them, they’re coming alongside to call alongside of somebody to continue to persevere in the faith. Now again, here we have means whereby the word interprets the word, the scriptures interpret the scriptures, and we have means of evaluating whether we continue in what God wants us to continue in.

And I’ve given you three references here. First of all, in Galatians 3:10, and the context is a little different, but we read in Galatians 3:10 that cursed is he—is everyone that continueth not in all things that are written in the book of the law to do them.

Now, Paul is using this as a tool of argumentation to convince them that they cannot perfectly keep God’s law. And therefore, for somebody to say the basis of our righteousness, our righteous actions, we can merit salvation. Paul said that is ridiculous. If you slip up in one minor stroke of the law, you are accounted covenantally by God to have broken all of the law. And the scriptures tell us that you’re cursed.

Our right standing, our blessing with God is never on the basis of our deeds or our works. It’s only on the basis of Christ’s imputed righteousness. Nonetheless, that’s one reason why this verse is given to us in holy scriptures. But the other reason, I think, is to cause us to recognize that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try or strive to continue in the works of the law. God gives us a standard of righteousness in the law, the Ten Commandments, that we are diligently to strive to continue therein.

Now, we’re going to fall short. And the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ is the only thing that buys us stability with God in that eternal sense. But nonetheless, these verses, I think, indicate to us that one of the things that we are to continue in terms of the faith is to continue to try to strive to keep our lives in conformity to God’s revealed will of who he is, which is the declaration of his law.

Now, we are to strive, therefore, to continue to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love our neighbor as ourselves. We’re to strive to keep the first tablet of the law that tells us how to worship God and how to love him. And the second tablet of the law, we’re not to kill. We’re not to sleep with our neighbor’s wife. We’re not to have lustful thoughts. We’re not to steal. We’re not to lie and harm our neighbors with our tongues. And we’re to continue in these things.

That’s one of the areas that the apostles would exhort us as well to continue on in the faith. Secondly, in Hebrews 8:9, we read that speaking of the people that he led out of the land of Egypt, that they continued not in my covenant. Again, this is negatively put, but the positive side of this is that we’re to continue in the covenant of God as defined by the stipulations of that covenant and the gracious giving of us to us of covenant blessings in Christ.

So when Paul exhorts these churches and exhorts us and grows us by exhorting us to continue the faith, we can define that in terms of continuing in the covenant of grace and continuing to strive to keep the standards of God’s righteousness as declared in his will. But then finally, here’s another means of evaluating. This is the third means of continuing and that’s Acts 2:42 on your outline. And this is the same essential meaning as we read in when they exhorted the churches at Lystra, Iconium and Antioch and we assume at Derbe as well to continue in the faith.

This correlates back to Acts 2:42. And as the early church was formed in and reorganized on the day of Pentecost, we then find as we go through—remember back up just a minute—that the pattern we saw in the early chapters of the book of Acts things would happen, persecutions would happen and then we’d be given a picture of the church at rest and what they are doing normatively.

Times of persecution and great movements happening are not normal then you have the normal kind of synopsis of what happens in the church. Now we’ll see that here as well by the way as we move from Antioch and Iconium and Lystra and Derbe. Now next week we’ll see the return to Antioch—Syrian Antioch—where they were first commissioned and we’ll see the spending a long time there, the same way we had these descriptions of the fellowship of the church having gone through successfully various stages of persecution.

Well, the first of these is back in Acts 2:42 and we had a description of the normative life of the church. We read there that the disciples continued steadfast in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship and the breaking of bread and in prayers. And so we have there as well what God exhorts us to continue in the faith. The definition of that is spelled out for us in very clear terms that the growth of the church is dependent upon a continuing in the means of grace.

Those means are instruction in the doctrine of the scriptures, fellowship with God’s people, communion and worship, and prayer. Those are the four means. Elder Mayer has helped us to remind us of those things by structuring the announcement sheet every Sunday in those categories. And so we see those things laid out for us and that gives us a weekly means to evaluate our lives.

Are we attending to the apostles’ doctrine? Are we attending to the instruction that we receive in the scriptures from the men that God has raised up to minister the word in the context of this church and in your own personal reading as well and in your dialogue with each other? Are you continuing in the faith? Are you continuing in increasing your understanding and submission to instruction based upon the word?

Are you continuing the fellowship of the saints? Do you find yourself pulling back from fellowship or do you find yourself continuing in fellowship? We must needs be exhorted to these things. Our natural tendency is to fall away from hearing the word of God either corporately or individually. Our natural tendency in the flesh is to fall away from the communion of the saints and to go back to our own lives and retreat back out of community and out of fellowship.

Our natural inclination is to abandon the worship of the church. The scriptures exhort us to continue in the breaking of bread and in prayers. Now prayers and breaking the bread are two terms there I think that have primary significance to corporate worship. Prayers as well of course have significance to our own personal prayer life, a dependence upon God the Father.

These are simple things. These are things we all know. We’re reminded every week through the announcements and yet we need to be exhorted. We need to have each other come alongside of each other and call us to continue in faithfulness in these basic elements of the faith. These are the things that grow you spiritually. And if you come to me with problems, these are the things you should be evaluating. I should be evaluating in your life.

Are you attending to the basic means of God’s grace that ensures your continued growth and maturation in the faith? And I would ask you all this Lord’s day and at this time to evaluate your own lives in terms of these things. Have you been established and continue to keep the law of God and covenant with God? Have you set your face determinedly to serve in the context of the body of Christ in your family and in your community? And are you continuing steadfast in instruction both corporate—hearing what’s said here today, thinking about it, meditating upon it—reading your own scriptures at home and diligently studying them to see what the spirit would teach you?

Do you attend to—are you continuing in the fellowship of the saints, pulling together with other believers throughout the week for encouragement and exhortation and then do you continue in worship and personal prayer? These are the basic means by which Paul and Barnabas grew the churches they had planted and these are some of the basic means that we need to grow as Christians individually and as a church as well.

Now the scriptures go on to tell us more though. In addition to confirming the souls and exhorting them to continue in the faith, the apostles here give them a warning. We need the exhortation we’ve just heard and we need this warning that the apostles delivered to this church as well by means which it is to be confirmed.

It is courageous that the apostles returned to these three cities. I keep saying apostles. Paul is the apostle. Barnabas is an apostle in a limited sense as a sent one into this area. But these men go back to these three churches as an act of courage. Remember they have suffered much persecution and it’s really been from the same set of people—the same Jews beginning at Antioch and Lystra who then go to Antioch and Iconium who then go to Lystra and actually stone Paul almost to death.

Well, it takes courage. Part of the means of strengthening the church is that leaders have the character qualities that are pictured for us here and one of the character qualities we’ve seen is courage. The other one though pictured for us here is honesty. They’re not teaching what these people would want to hear. They’re teaching the truth to them. They’re exhorting them by means of God’s truth, not by means of what they think might the people might like to hear.

The people are not going to want to hear that it is through much tribulation that they have to enter into the kingdom of God. But that’s what the Apostle Paul instructs them in. And we have a need to be instructed in that as well.

It’s an odd way to confirm them and to cause them to be steadfast in their Christian faith—to warn them. If they do that, things will not go well for them in the flesh and frequently there’ll be trials and tribulations. But that’s God’s truth and we need to hear it today as well.

These tribulations are appointed by God. Paul says that we must—means have much tribulation to enter into the kingdom of God. Must. He doesn’t just say you must. He says we must. He doesn’t say we in the exclusive sense. He’s warning them that both him as well as them will suffer much tribulation as they enter into the kingdom of God.

Much Tribulation

Now, this term tribulation, I want to spend a little bit of time on this. The term means pressure—to be squeezed upon. Lenski in his commentary says the term means the pressure that squeezes painfully. Okay? Think of it as the clothes going through those old drying machines. You know, as you turn those two rollers and the clothes would come out squeezed painfully. Well, that’s what the tribulation here speaks of.

I’ve listed some scriptures for you. There’s three sets here under this outline. The first one beginning at Matthew 7:14 where our Savior said that straight is the gate and narrow is the way which leads to life. And that is the same term here. Narrow is the way. Tribulation is the way squeezed in, not a broad way. Now, salvation is a broad plane.

We’ve talked about that before. The picture of one of the great pictures of salvation throughout the scriptures is being brought into an open area. But the point is we get to that open area through a narrow gate, through tribulation and pressure. In Mark 3:9, we read about our Savior that the multitude—they were worried the multitude would throng him, would press in on him. Same word, same root word as this word tribulation that we read of now.

In 2 Corinthians 4:8, we are troubled on every side, pressed in. And then 2 Corinthians 7:5 gives us more descriptions. We were troubled on every side without were fightings within fears. We were pressed in upon. Paul says fightings going on, contentions and disputes around us and inside of us fears. He’s talking about that pressure that painfully squeezes us and that painfully squeezed him.

And notice there again, I said that it is courageous of the Apostle Paul to return to these cities, but I didn’t say that he was without fear. He tells specifically, he had fears within as he went through fightings and dissension and controversy without. Courage is not the absence of fear. Courage is doing the right thing in spite of one’s fear. Obeying God in spite of the fearful conditions that God may bring upon us.

Well, that’s a picture that these tribulations—is the pressing in, the squeezing of us painfully. Now, the text says that we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God. That word much doesn’t refer to quantity as much as it does variety of tribulations. And the scriptures indeed give us many pictures of the sort of things that pressure us and squeeze us painfully. And I list them on your text.

We just read one that Apostle Paul mentioned, a very significant one, and that is fear. Fear is one of the great pressures that come upon us. Fear in the context of dissension. But there are other things as well. John 16:21 talks about a woman in travail. Same word tribulation. Childbirth is a picture again of pressure and tribulation.

Childbirth is a means, one of God’s secondary means of bringing tribulations into our life. Famine in Acts 7:11 is also another form of tribulation when we don’t have enough food to eat. In other words, 1 Corinthians 7:28 says that those who marry shall have trouble in the flesh. And while it’s not my purpose here to go into a discussion of marriage and singleness, suffice it to say that Paul says that if you’re single, you don’t have some of the same pressures you have as if you marry.

And Paul tells us that indeed marriage has along with it a capability and in fact a surety for more pressures and more tribulations or trouble in the flesh than we would have if we were single. Nonetheless, it is a good state to be in. And so marriage brings various pressures and tribulations as well and it’s one of the sets of tribulations that we must suffer in the secondary means of God.

2 Corinthians 8:13 refers to financial hardship. He says, “I didn’t want to have you enter into financial tribulation by taking more money from you than from other churches.” By way of expanding them, we can extrapolate that out to say that the apostles understood that the lack of financial resources would be a pressure, a tribulation, a squeeze—pleasing sometimes painfully—upon God’s people.

Childbirth, fear, famine, marriage, things that happen in the context of marriage, of finances. These are all things that bring pressures and tribulations to our lives. Additionally, in 2 Corinthians 2:4, we read of the sins of the church bringing tribulation to leaders. He says that out of our affliction and anguish of heart, I wrote unto you with many tears. This is Paul writing to the Corinthians. Not that you should be grieved, but that you might know the love which I have abundantly unto you.

He had love for the church, and that love caused him tribulation, caused him pressure and grief. Same word is used here, anguish of heart. So a concern for one’s flock. By way of extension, your children, if you have children, if you’re a husband or wife, a mother or father, that is, your children bring pressures upon you and they are part of the tribulations, the wide variety of tribulations that we must endure as we enter into the kingdom of God.

In Philippians 1:16 Paul says that other preachers of the gospel can bring pressure or affliction. The one preaches Christ of contention, not sincerely, supposing to add affliction to my bonds. The Apostle Paul said, “There are men out there preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ, and their purpose in doing so is not to glorify Christ, but it’s to bring affliction, pressure, persecution to me.” Other men ministers can bring pressure or affliction to ministers.

The false church, of course, is pictured for us emphatically in Revelation 2:9. Those that say that they are the Jews, but are instead the synagogue of Satan, bring great tribulation to God’s people. In the context of these three cities, Antioch, Iconium, and Lystra, we’ve seen the false church bring great tribulation of a physical and mental torment to the body of Christ that is pictured there. And so this will happen.

These wide variety of tribulations will indeed occur. You must know that to grow in your Christian faith, to not simply be brought into the Christian faith, but to mature in your Christian faith, we all need the same warning that Paul gave to these churches. We need to be warned that it is through much tribulation, wide varieties of pressures that painfully squeeze us that we must enter into the kingdom of God.

This will happen. It will happen because it is God’s ordination. He has divinely and sovereignly appointed these things that he might cause this affliction in our lives. Well, that’s essential to understand if you’re going to respond to these things correctly.

Ultimately yes, men sin. The men that tried to hurt Paul preached the gospel sinned against him. And God gives us assurances that he will indeed recompense those who bring tribulation to his people. We’re told that in 2 Thessalonians 1:6. Nonetheless, the scriptures tell us emphatically that God is sovereign in the affairs of all things, all created things. And that then that sovereignty has divinely appointed us to suffer tribulation.

They intend it for evil. God intends it for our good. You must get that at the bottom of your souls. There have been people who have sat under the ministry of the teaching of this church and men much more gifted in the scriptures than I am that we’ve had here for various conferences, tapes, books, etc. who have left this church after years who have never learned this basic truth that behind all the afflictions in our life is not ultimately some wicked turkey out there who’s trying to hurt us, but rather it’s the sovereign God who loves us and who brings these pressures into our lives to perfect us and to grow us and to cause us to persevere and to give us patience and to cause us to enter in through that narrow gate into the wide opening of salvation and blessing.

You know, I was talking to my wife about this last night. We were down in our basement in her craft room and I looked around and that craft room looked great and the house looks great. Do you know why? Because we had this pressure of getting ready for this advance Friday night. Tonight we went through a couple of weeks of pressure in terms of trying to clean up the house, get the yard ready.

A few people came out—the Garretts and a few others—to help clean up the yard a few weeks ago. The Garretts, Pam and Emily and Becky, I’m not sure if Gina was there on Friday or not, came out or maybe it was Thursday, one of those two days, and cleaned inside the house, helped us get the house all ready. They had pressure upon them and that pressure then squeezes painfully at times as you’re striving hard to get ready for an event such as this. But then the end result is Friday night now. The days of heaven have come upon us again.

The days of fellowship, relaxation, and rest with God’s people. And then as all that’s gone, the house is cleaner. The yard is more trimmed up than it’s been before. It’s a picture of what this is talking about here. You go through these great tribulations, but behind those pressures, and that’s not a great one. That’s a small one, but by way of illustration, behind those pressures, it’s God’s sovereignty who’s bringing these things to pass, not men’s problems, not men’s wickedness, not men’s sloth. Maybe those are the secondary means, and God will recompense them. Be sure of that. But understand that you’ve been divinely appointed to suffer these things.

The gospel of personal peace and affluence is a wicked lie from hell because it tells you when you have problems, something must be wrong in your life. Now, something may be wrong in your life. And ultimately, I suppose it is. God has been perfecting you. You’re moving from glory to glory. But it is the normal means by which that occurs. And if you think that somehow because your life has affliction and pressure that you’re doing something wrong, no. Our Savior tells us that everyone who does the will of God will suffer persecution and affliction of this world.

And so really, it’s the complete reverse of what we should be thinking. If you have a life never marked by the pressure that squeezes painfully, then you have reason to question whether you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, have committed your life to him and are taking those steps of steadfastly setting your face to your words and deeds to the holiness of God and away from evil. If you steadfastly set your face, it’s because there’s going to be trials of that determination on your part that God calls you to do that.

And so, the scriptures want us—and like I said, if you don’t get this, you know, I don’t know what I can tell you. It’s the work of the spirit that has to do this—to drive home in the depths of your being that afflictions are appointed by God. 1 Thessalonians 3:3, “No man should be moved by these afflictions, for yourselves know that we are appointed thereto, ordained by God thereto.” And so then Paul tells us that he desires that we faint not at these tribulations.

The danger, the warning is one, that tribulations will happen, and two, that we are going to be tempted to faint under them and to quit and to give up doing what he has just commanded we be steadfast in doing, avoiding evil, moving to holiness, moving to service in the body of Christ. Our temptation is to drop all of that, thinking that somehow it is the cause of our affliction.

And I know men who have dropped away from doctrines of the faith, essential doctrines of the faith, essential actions of personal holiness and righteousness, because they don’t like the pressure that it brings into their life. And when they do that, they drop out of the means by which God sanctifies his people. And they never enter into the days of heaven, the broad days of salvation, because they’re afraid of the narrow gate.

We’re all afraid of it. None of us want persecution, sufferings, affliction, but God tells us to persevere. He says he’ll recompense these things. Romans 8:35 tells us these things cannot separate us from Jesus Christ. Romans 5:3 tells us these things work patience in us. 2 Thessalonians 1:4 says to have patience and faith in the context of tribulations. Romans 12:12 tells us we’re to be patient in tribulation. Over and over, patience, patience, patience is what these verses tell us.

You don’t got to do great acts of faith in the context of persecution and afflictions. The biggest thing you have to do is simply maintain the course that God has set you on and have patience and suffering under the afflictions that God brings to your life. Whether it’s money, family, children, your mate, lack of food, persecution, dissension, whatever it is, you’ve got to keep on keeping on in obedience to God.

Patience is the big thing that he commands us over and over to engage ourselves in. You see, God wants to drive out of us that quitter spirit that when the times get tough, we stop and we turn back. And he causes us to go forth in patience and that’s how he moves us from glory to glory.

God tells us indeed that he will comfort us in our tribulation. 2 Corinthians 1:4 and very importantly he tells us that because he comforts us in our tribulation, we are then able to comfort other people in their tribulation. We’re going to have an anointing with oil in a little while here. One of the members of the congregation is sick. She’s requested anointing of oil.

And you know, one of the things that can happen when people are anointed with oil is they can either get better or they can continue with the problem. Paul three times prayed that God would relieve his affliction in terms of a physical problem. God said, “No, no, no.” And Paul then realized, I think based on these texts and others, that he was understanding physical affliction that he may be better able to assist those with physical affliction and comfort them in their affliction. That’s one of the reasons for affliction is that we may be comforted by God in them and we may then turn around and comfort others.

1 Thessalonians 3:7 says, “Indeed that churches can comfort their leaders as leaders have tribulations and need comforting, the church can do that as well.” We received a card this last week from one of the couples here. And it is always an encouragement and comfort to us when we receive those sorts of things.

The tribulation God warns us—and these, as you’re going to grow a church, as we’re going to grow as individuals, we must recognize the tribulations are sovereignly ordained of God and they’re for our good. And the biggest thing we need to do is to have faith in God. Trust ourselves in him. We hate to do that. To trust ourselves in him and to have patience until God moves us through that season of affliction into the season of wideness and openness of blessing again.

And that’s the other thing he does here. He promises them that we must through much tribulation—that’s not the end. It isn’t that we just must have much tribulation, but rather through that we must enter into the kingdom of God. As Matthew Henry said, “Yes, it is a red sea, but the Lord has opened a way through it. Yes, it is a narrow gate, but he brings us to broad open pastures of the kingdom through those very means.”

As surely as we’ll have tribulation, so as surely as we move through them patiently, suffering under the hand of God, he moves us into his kingdom in time and in history. He brings us to those days of heaven on the Lord’s day or on Friday night or other times in your home sitting around your house with your family, I’m sure you have experienced that same thing I’m talking about. These are the days of heaven.

This must be what heaven is like. A godly Christian family worshiping together, enjoying God’s creation. But God—