In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes the importance of looking to the children of Israel as examples of how God delivers His people from afflictions. The preacher highlights that the experiences of Israel, such as their bondage in Egypt and subsequent deliverance, serve as testimonies for believers today. The sermon also emphasizes that God is concerned about His children and their individual struggles, regardless of the magnitude or comparison to others. The preacher encourages believers to cry out to God for help and trust in His ways, as demonstrated in the Old Testament.

This message is one of the Times Square Church Pulpit series. It was recorded in the sanctuary of Times Square Church in Manhattan, New York City. Other tapes are available by writing, World Challenge, Post Office Box 260, Lindale, Texas, 75771, or by calling 903-963-8626. None of these messages are copyrighted, and you are welcome to make copies for free distribution to friends. This morning is learning through afflictions. Learning through afflictions. Hallelujah. Let's pray. Holy Spirit, you are here. Hallelujah. Holy Spirit, I said you are here, and I thank you. You have come. Lord, there's no service, there's no meeting, there's no purpose without you. And we thank you for your manifest presence. And now I pray for the anointing of the Holy Ghost to come upon me, from the top of my head to the soles of my feet. Lord, I know you gave me this message. I know this came from the throne. And I know you're going to help a lot of people this morning. Hearts are going to be changed and encouraged, and people are going to see things they've not seen before. Oh, God, open our eyes and our understanding. Sanctify me and sanctify our ears to hear. Oh, God, we're not worthy. You are our worthiness. You are our righteousness. We take your authority over every principality and power of darkness. We command every evil spirit, every spirit of darkness to depart this church and the minds and the hearts of believers. And we pray, Lord, that no evil shall come nigh us. In Jesus' name, amen. I want you to go to Psalm 119, please. Psalm 119, verse 71. Psalm 119, verse 71. I'm just going to read one verse to begin. Unbelievable verse. I'll wait until the leaves stop rustling. Psalm 119, verse 71. It is good for me that I've been afflicted. How many believe that's in your Bible? Is that in your Bible or do I have a special edition? Read it right out loud with me. It is good for me that I have been afflicted that I might learn thy statutes. There's my message. Learning through afflictions. Now, what kind of theology is this? It's good for me to be afflicted because the Hebrew word here used by the psalmist is very descriptive. It means browbeaten, troubled, abased, chastened, defiled, hurt, humiliated, weakened, depressed. Put it all together and you know how it reads? Incredible. It's good for me that I've been browbeaten, troubled, and abased, and chastened, and defiled, and hurt, and humbled, and weakened, and depressed. It's all been good for me so that I can learn the Lord's statutes. And the word statutes here means an engraved law. And what the psalmist is saying is good for me that I'm going through all the trouble I'm going through because in the process he's engraving his laws in my heart. It's been engraven. Not just written, but engraven. Like in indelible writing. Now, it's true that we are tested and tried and afflicted to be tested. Yes, there are tests, but that's not the primary reason of the afflictions among Christians. Now, I know that there are many of you hearing me now that are being afflicted. You are going through trouble. You sit here right now and say, Brother, that's me. I'm in trouble. It could be financial. It could be family problems. It can be affliction. The enemy coming against you at home and on the job or wherever it may be. You may be going through slander. I don't know what it may be, but there's affliction among God's people because the Bible said many are the afflictions of the righteous, and if you say you're righteous, you're afflicted. If you're not afflicted, I'd get worried. The righteous, many are the afflictions of the righteous. Let me give you an example of learning through afflictions. This past week, I was preparing a message. Boy, was I going to thunder it this morning. It was entitled The Pettiness of American Religion. The word petty means trivial, and it also means small-minded. While I was thinking of this message, I was really going to pour it out. I was all fired up for the whole week I'd been working on this, The Pettiness of American Religion. While I was preparing this message, I picked up a newsletter from our missionaries that we support, Roland and Heidi Baker, and they're going into Mozambique as missionaries very shortly. And in their newsletter, they told of the situation in Mozambique. Mozambique has been called by the United Nations the poorest nation on earth now. And the situation there has become so bad because they've been embroiled in a long civil war. The infrastructure has been destroyed with all the roads, the bridges, the villages, the schools and hospitals have all been—most all have been blown up. There's been all kinds of torture and killing. Millions have fled as refugees, and perhaps two or three million have died in the war. Over one million landmines had been planted, and it resulted in the world's highest percentage of maimed and disabled people, children running around with one leg or one arm, totally maimed by these mines that are being tripped up and blowing them apart. The children are dying of malaria. Children and adults are still wandering around in blackened, burned-out villages, naked and starving to death. Many pastors have been imprisoned and killed as the government has tried to do away with democracy, or rather with Christianity. And Roland tells about recently going by highway up from South Africa into Mozambique, and they were driving a pickup truck that was loaded—had a camper top on it loaded with supplies to go into Mozambique, and they had to hit the border by five o'clock because the border closes into Mozambique. And they were about five hours away, so they tried to speed it up. And the closer they got, there was a car in front of them going further and further, they didn't know who was in the front car, but the car started slowing down. And they floored the gas pedal, and it still slowed down. And it slowed down, and they were right near the border, and the car almost died. In fact, they got right up to the customs office about two minutes to five, and it died. The motor just died. And they got out and couldn't understand because they had a meeting that night. Couldn't understand why. They'd prayed. They wanted to make that meeting so badly, but the car, the pickup truck just died. About five minutes later, they decided they were going to stay on this side in South Africa and go to Mozambique in the morning. And all of a sudden, people running around, officers running around, very excited, and a helicopter came in, landed, officer got up, and Roland asked, what's the matter? He said, well, there was an explosion, a warfare group, one of the roaring factions blew up the car ahead, and they were flying in the people by helicopter across into South Africa. If they had not, if the Holy Ghost had not slowed that car down, they would have been there, and they too would have been bombed. And the next day, they turned the key, started up, and everything was fine. The car just moved right on. And I was reading all of these reports of the suffering and the maimed bodies, and I thought, how can we compare our afflictions and our troubles to theirs? How can we compare our hurt and our feelings and our financial woes and our infirmities to those in Mozambique, because they seem so petty, they seem so trivial? You know, somebody slanders you on the job, bad hair day, my credit card bills are piling up, I'm working harder than ever, and I'm still falling behind financially, we can't seem to make it on what we're being paid, and these are the kind of talk that we hear. And there's another kind of thing that I was going to deal with this morning, but in a different way, because we hear so much today in the church about depression, so many people are depressed and downcast and blue. And I thought, how do you compare depression and the blues, or loneliness, with what is happening in Mozambique and in most suffering, war-torn, ravaged countries around the world where people are just trying to survive, something to eat, a roof over their head, pastors in prison? Now, of course, there is no comparison. You can't compare those kind of things with what is going on, and there are some things that we face as Christians that could be called trivial and small-minded. And I really, I tell you, I had a message. The pettiness of Christians focused on depression and their emotional, mental problems and the hurts caused by people talking about them and so forth, and I was going to get up and really lambast it today, except for one thing. On Friday, I got up, and something happened to me that very seldom happens. I was depressed. I mean depressed. I've never had patience with people who've been depressed because I've never been depressed. But I was depressed. I walked around the apartment. I said, what's going on? I had no reason. All kinds of emotions, grief and sorrow and self-pity and fear, everything, all wrapped up in one deep, dark, blue funk. You notice the dictionary calls a funk a deep, dark dejection, so bad you don't want to do anything or go anywhere or make any decisions or face anybody. Have you ever had that? I said, I'll walk it off. That's what I'll do. I'll walk it off. I walked 35 blocks, and it got worse. I said, Lord, it doesn't make sense. I'm going to preach about this on Sunday. I'm going to preach how petty, how trivial this is. I got to thinking, people are dying in Mozambique. Here I am focused on what I'm going through. But it was so bad, I went to the hospital. I sat down and cried for an hour. Just cried, cried. I don't know why I was crying. I can't begin to know what depression must be for those who have what they call clinical depression. It's not just the day, but they have it for days and weeks and sometimes months. They're down. They are down. They can't seem to get out. They try everything. Even medication doesn't help some people. They go to psychologists and psychiatrists. It doesn't seem to help. And, folks, I had something on me that was not trivial. It was not small-minded. This was life and death. I started taking authority over demons and everything else, everything I'd learned. It wouldn't go away. Folks, I learned something through that affliction. I learned, first of all, I couldn't get up here and lambast you about it. That's a big lesson. And I knew that I couldn't counsel anybody else and treat depression as something trivial and small. I also learned that in the eyes of God, it doesn't matter whether it's homelessness, it doesn't matter whether it's a maimed arm or anything else. If it's depression, whatever it is, He's touched with the feelings of our infirmities and He's a compassionate Lord. And I began to see it doesn't matter whether it's Mozambique or right here walking the streets of this city, God's concerned about His children and He's involved with you in your hurt. You can't compare it to anybody else or what you're going through. It may be you're in business and you can't see the future and you work harder and harder and you fall further and further behind. But I want you to know God's distance concern about that is as He is of starving children in Mozambique. He is concerned. He's a loving, compassionate Father. We're not to compare ourselves with anybody else. Because when I sat there, all I could do is say, oh God, help! I cried out to God. Well, by five o'clock it was gone. I mean, it just disappeared. This old brother looks at me, I wish I had that kind of work in my heart. But God showed me some things and I want to share with you this morning what I believe we can learn through our afflictions. Lesson number one, you can't deliver yourself out of any affliction. That's God's work. You cannot deliver yourself out of any affliction. I don't care what kind of trouble you're in this morning. You can't extricate yourself from it on your own human power, no matter what kind of bondage. I'm going to tell you something else. I don't care what kind of habit you have, what kind of sin that has a grip on you. You cannot break that by yourself. You don't have the power. The devil's too big for you. You say, well, he's been defeated. Oh, he's been defeated as far as the ultimate victory is concerned. But he's still God of this earth. He's still God of this world. And he's going about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he can devour. And you are no match. Now, the secret to understanding how you can get victory or learn in your affliction, you have to go to the children of Israel and see how God delivered them out of their afflictions, because they were patterns, the scripture said. The Bible says, now all these things happened unto them, Israel, for examples, and they are written for our admonition or our instruction upon whom the ends of the world would come. First Corinthians 10, 6, all of these things happened unto them, and they are our examples. Everything that happened to Israel, their bondage, their deliverance out of Egypt, all the ways that God worked with them are testimonies, they are patterns, they're examples for us. He did in the natural for them what he does for us in the spiritual. He delivered their physical bodies, he delivers our spiritual bodies. He delivers us from the power of the darkness in our minds, in our bodies. The physical deliverance of Israel represents the spiritual deliverance we're to see, and all these steps and the ways of God are clearly outlined in the Old Testament. Do you ever wonder why Israel, when Pharaoh got so angry, he took away their straw, and he sent taskmasters and began to beat them, and they had no sleep, they had to run all over the nation looking for straw. Wouldn't you think that Israel would have risen up and taken matters into their own hands and said, that's enough. I don't have to, we don't have to take this bondage anymore, because let me tell you, even Pharaoh said of them, behold the people, the children of Israel are more and mightier than we. That was the testimony of Egypt. These people have outgrown us, they're stronger than us, let's deal with them. Israel knew that, they knew they were stronger. Why didn't they rise up in rebellion? Why didn't they say that's enough, we're going to do something about it now? Why wasn't there a revolution after the ten plagues? Egypt was devastated. By the time the firstborn had died in every home, every soldier had somebody, he had to go home and mourn and bury somebody. They were so busy in funeral parlors, they were so busy burying the dead, they couldn't fight. Why didn't Israel rise up and say that's enough, and take matters in their own hand? Because they couldn't have done it, because God said, I'm coming down, I'm going to deliver you. I will deliver you. This is the work of God. The scripture says, and the Lord said, I've surely seen the affliction of my people in Egypt, this is God speaking, and I've heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters, for I know their sorrows, and I've come down to deliver them. I know their sorrows. Now folks, if that doesn't give you comfort right now, nothing will. I know your sorrows, and I have come down to deliver you. Whatever you're going through this morning, whatever kind of test, whatever kind of suffering that you face right now, God says, I know your sorrow. You can't do it by yourself, you can scheme, you can dream, you can manipulate, you can do anything you cry, but this is my work. This is my work. Hallelujah. Are you burdened down this morning with a besetting sin, or a habit that won't let you go, or trouble that seems to linger on? I want you to go to Exodus with me, the sixth chapter please. Exodus 6. I want you to begin reading with me verse 6. Now folks, these two verses ought to be underlined in every Bible. You have your pen or pencil, underline or mark these two verses. Exodus 6, verse 6 and 7. Therefore say unto the children of Israel, I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will rid you out of their bondage, and I will redeem you with a stretched out arm and with great judgments, and I will take you to me for people, and I will be to you a God, and ye shall know that I am the Lord your God, which bringeth you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will bring you in. I will bring it. It is not in man that walketh to direct his own steps. It's not in man to direct his own steps. David came against the giant. Look at me please. He came against the giant, and you know what he quoted? Here's what David said when he faced that big giant. And the assembly shall know that the Lord saveth not with sword and spear, for the battle is, who? The Lord's, and he will give you into our hands. And 1st Samuel 1750 says, and there was no sword in David's hand. There was no sword in David's hand. David didn't take matters in his own hand. He didn't say, I'm going to bite the bullet, I'm going to fight this through, I'm going to do it on my own strength. Folks, you're bound for failure. You can't beat any giant in your life unless you believe that it's the Lord's battle. It is the Lord's battle. Hallelujah. Now folks, that takes the pressure off. That takes all of the pressure off. Does this mean that I have no part in my deliverance? No, you see, your part and my part is to believe what he said is true, that he will deliver you if you will trust him, seek him with all your heart, hate your sin, and then turn to him and say, oh God, you are my deliverer. You are greater than all my enemies. The sword is in your hand, Lord. You deal with the enemy. You deal with him. Hallelujah. Now here's the key. I will save you out of bondage so that I will be to you a God, and you shall know that I am the Lord, your God. What he's saying, you have read in the Old Testament how I delivered Israel. You read how I delivered David and Samson. You've seen the whole testimony, but God says, now I want you to let me be a God to you so that you experience miraculous deliverances so that you can testify just like these in the Word of God. I want to be God to you. I want to deliver you. I want you to see miracles. Hallelujah. That's the purpose of afflictions. God says, I want to show you that I will deliver you, and I want you to have the testimony that these you read about have. Hallelujah. Folks, I don't know if you saw the headline in yesterday's paper. Tough love, a dad shoots his firstborn to save his younger son from drug abuse. And this Costantinos Papadopoulos, 39-year-old father, had a 20-year-old son that was on drugs, and he was taking his 16-year-old brother out evidently to smoke pot. I don't know what the whole story, it doesn't give the whole story, but the father saw, he felt he'd lost his oldest son, and so he took a gun and shot his oldest son in the chest and in the mouth. And then he locked himself in his room, was going to commit suicide. The boy, even though he was bleeding profusely, and his younger brother broke the door down, went in, saved the dad from committing suicide. And the boy in the hospital apologized, said it took this to wake me up. And the father is so stricken, he said, I lost one. And he'd been under such depression, such horrible, horrible depression, because he'd lost one son, and he said, now I'm going to lose my other. And this 39-year-old father says, I can't take it anymore. His depression brought him to the point of trying to kill his own son, so that he could save his others, the other. Folks, that's not trivia. That's life and death. And what you're going through this morning, I'm going to talk just plainly to you right now. I'm not trying to impress you with preaching some powerful sermon. God's trying to get through to you, that you cannot bring yourself out of your depression. You can't bring it up. Go to any doctor. Go to any psychologist. Take any kind of medication. It's not going to last. There is deliverance. There is a way. And I'm going to talk about it now. This is lesson number two. Afflictions come to drive us to the Lord, to bend our knees, to teach us to learn to pray and cry out to God in all of our problems. Psalm 77 2 says, in the day of my trouble, David said, I sought the Lord. When I got in trouble, it drove me to the Lord. Before I was afflicted, I went astray, but now I have kept thy word. He's saying, I was lazy. I was spiritually dying. I was losing my first love, but since I've been afflicted, now I've been seeking the Lord. When he was in affliction, speaking of Manasseh, when he was in affliction, then he sought the Lord and humbled himself greatly before God. David said, I know, God, that thou in faithfulness has afflicted me. You've been faithful. The affliction that I'm going through is a part of your faithfulness, because God is, David is saying, God, I know why you afflicted me. You saw that I was just drifting. You saw that I was not shaking you. You saw that I was not really diligent in my ways. So you allowed affliction in my life to wake me up, and that is your act of faithfulness. Folks, whatever you're going through, stop and think about it for a minute. God, you're faithful in afflicting me because you're waking me up, driving me to my knees. Hallelujah. He wants you to seek his face. Exodus 2. Turn left to Exodus 2, verse 23 to 25. And it came to pass in process of time that the king of Egypt died, and the children of Israel sighed by reason of the bondage, and they, what did they do? They cried, and their cry came up unto God by reason of the bondage, and God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob, and God looked upon the children of Israel, and God had respect unto them. And that word respect means he took action, and God took action. Folks, look at me, please. There's something about the heart of God you and I must understand when we look at our afflictions. There's something about his heart. He hurts when you hurt. When you're afflicted, he's afflicted, the Bible says. Whatever you're going through right now, he is going through it with you. Now folks, how can you understand a God so mighty? It's to say this. Listen to it closely. Isaiah 63, 9. In all their afflictions, he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them. In his love and in his pity, he redeemed them, and he bared them and carried them all the days of old. Every time they were afflicted, God hurt with them. In fact, when Israel sinned, and they brought misery down upon them, and they're suffering for their sin, and there's some of you might be in misery and affliction now because of sin. That happens. Even then, though God said, and his soul was grieved for the misery of Israel, in the context of that, they had been in idolatry, and now they were coming to the Lord, and they were in terrible grief. Their sin had brought them misery and grief, and yet even that misery caused by their own sin, God said, his soul was grieved for the misery of Israel. I talked to a man, a brother who'd been delivered from alcohol. He said, Brother Dave, when I walk the streets, he said, I go past the bar and I can smell it, and the taste is still in my mouth. I love the Lord, the taste, and it's misery to me. I've known people, drug addicts, alcoholics, all who've had habits, and cigarettes, some of you fighting a cigarette habit. You're doing pretty well for a week or two, and then you get the smell of it, and something comes up in your flesh. The taste is still there, and the battle rages on, and you're in misery, and I'm gonna tell you something, folks. God shares, he knows the misery you go through, and you can make yourself a million promises, I'll quit smoking, I'll quit drinking, I'll quit this. Folks, how many promises have you already made and broken? Thousands and thousands of promises are made, and they are broken, because we do not lean on the Lord as our only source of hope. He alone has the power, and these things should drive us to the cross, should drive us to our knees, till we learn to cry out, and folks, that's how my deliverance came on Friday. I stayed on my knees crying out to God until the victory came. I got into his Word, and I began to build myself up in the faith, and I began to realize that all I could do is stand still and see the salvation of the Lord, that this was his battle, his battle, and I'm his child, and he loves me, and he'll come and bring deliverance, but you have got to understand, no matter what you go through, no matter what your trouble, he hurts with you, he feels with you, he grieves to see you broken, and he wants more than anything else to deliver you. I don't serve a God who hangs around, said, you're miserable because of what you did. You failed me, and now you're paying the price, and I'll just sit and wait until you have hurt long enough, and then I'll come to your rescue. We don't serve a God like that. We serve a loving Father. The moment you feel grief, he feels your grief. Hallelujah. You may not know it, you may not see it now, but God started your deliverance the first moment you cried. The first time you got on your knees and cried out, oh God, deliver me, God went in motion. God, you may not see it, there may be no evidence to you in front of your face, but God heard you. Now, I had just read to you the scripture here in Exodus, this sixth chapter. I just, no, second chapter, again, verse 25, and God looked upon the children of Israel, and God had respect unto their cry. They had just cried. God says he heard their cry. Look at chapter three. The next thing you read, immediately, God falls on the bush. You fall on your knees, God falls on the bush. Immediately. The first time they cried in their misery, God said, I heard you, and he goes out to Mount Horeb, and he lays his hands, let me read it to you, and Moses kept a flock of Jethro, his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the back side of the desert and came to the mountain of God, even to Horeb. And the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush, and he looked, and behold, the bush burned with fire, and bush was not consumed. Now, folks, he just, Israel's just cried out to the Lord. They don't know it. They don't see it. But God has already taken charge. God's already set in motion their deliverance. They weren't going to see it for a while. They're not going to see it. They're going to complain, and they're going to wonder if God's ever heard their cry, but the whole time they're wondering, why hasn't God heard me? God's already working. He's fallen on the bush. He's calling a man. He's trained him, and folks, within a few days, Moses is going to be making his journey toward them. The deliverer was on the way. First time you prayed about what you're going through, first time you prayed, God heard you. God started acting. You don't see it. You may be totally blind to it. You say, I don't see any evidence of God doing anything for me. He's already put the bush on fire. He's already set the deliverer. Hallelujah. The answer is being shipped to you. Hallelujah. The righteous cry, and the Lord hears and delivers them out of all their troubles. Many of the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers them out of them all. Hallelujah. I know sometimes God would love, I think he'd love to pull the curtains back of divine providence and show you and me his whole plan. You know why he doesn't do it? Because the moment you saw it, you'd get lazy. You wouldn't have any faith. You didn't need it. You said, I saw what I'm getting. I saw what he's gonna do for me. You'd go around boasting to everybody. I saw it. You don't know what. I got a secret. And you'd be so proud nobody could live with you. God said, no, the only way I can teach you to believe, I'm working, but I'm not going to show it to you so that by the time it comes, you'll be living in faith. Oh, I'd sure like to know what he's got for me. He may give you some hints. Lesson number three, afflictions get much worse just before the deliverance comes. Oh, you better believe this. Look at chapter three, verse 14, verse 14. And God said unto Moses, I am that I am. And he said, thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I am hath sent me unto you. And God said moreover unto Moses, thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, the Lord God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, hath sent me unto you. This is my name forever. This is my memorial unto all generations. Go and gather all the elders of Israel together. Say unto them, the Lord God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, has appeared unto me and said, I have surely visited you and seen that which is done to you in Egypt. And I have said, I will bring you out of the affliction of Egypt into the land of Canaanites, Hittites, and so forth. They shall hearken to their voice and shall come down, the elders of Israel, to the king of Egypt. And ye shall say to him, the Lord God of the Hebrews hath met us, and now let us go. We beseech thee, three days' journey to the wilderness, that we may sacrifice to the Lord our God. And I am sure that the king of Egypt will not let you go, no, not by a mighty hand. But folks, get the picture. Here's Moses now. He's appeared on the scene, and he's got this good news. God sent me to deliver you. You are going out of bondage. You're going into the promised land, the land of the Hittites and Jebusites, and God's going to drive them out, and you're going into a land of milk and honey. The promise is given to them. Isn't the word wonderful? Aren't these promises glorious? Huh? And boy, will they test you. Until his time came, the word of the Lord tried Joseph. He was tried by every promise. And now they've got the promise. They're going around saying, oh, hallelujah, we're going to be free. My bondage is all over. Hallelujah. But Ashotha was in Israel, in Egypt, among the Israelites. The deliverer is here. We are finally free. Boy, a lot of times I thought, boy, I'm out of the tunnel. Didn't tell me there was another one, right? Look at chapter 4, verse 29. This is just after they've been told, oh, here it is. And Moses and Aaron went and gathered together all the elders and children of Israel. And Aaron spake all the words which the Lord had spoken unto Moses, and did the signs on the side of the people. The people believed. And when they heard that the Lord had visited the children of Israel, that he had looked upon their affliction, then they bowed their heads and they worshipped. Isn't that wonderful? Deliverance. Wonderful. I'm free. Go to chapter 5. See how free. Let's start with verse 19. And the officers of the children of Israel did see that they were in evil case after it was said, ye shall not minish ought from your bricks of your daily task. See, they've just come out from meeting Pharaoh. Now, up to this time, they had straw for bricks. And now, after they were told they were going to be delivered, they get no straw. And things get worse. And they have taskmasters now beating them. And Pharaoh said, get out of my sight. Go to work. And now Moses is waiting for them after they came out from meeting Pharaoh. And when they met Moses and Aaron, who stood in the way as they came forth from Pharaoh, and they said unto them, the Lord look upon you and judge, because you have made our savor to be abhorred in the eyes of Pharaoh, in the eyes of his servants, to put a sword in their hand to slay us. And Moses returned unto the Lord and said, Lord, wherefore hast thou so evil and treated this people? Why is it thou hast sent me? For since I came to Pharaoh to speak in thy name, he hath done evil to this people, neither hast thou delivered thy people at all. Wow. Lord, everything you said did not happen. Lord, it's worse than it's ever been. Moses is incredulous. He can't believe. God, why did you send me? Why did I go out on a limb like that? Why did I tell the people they're going to be delivered? They're not delivered. They're being beaten. They have no strong now. You have not kept your word. Let me tell you something about this. Look at me. Do you think for a moment the devil is going to sit by? He knows that they're going to go. He knows deliverance is coming. The devil knows it. He says, I got just a little time left. In the time I got left, I'm going to throw everything in hell at them. I'm going to empty hell and I'm going to come against them. I'm going to harden Pharaoh and I'm going to make him so hateful and I'm going to put a whip in the hands of those test men. I'm going to beat these Israelites down to a pulp. I'm going to work on them because he knows he has a short time. You know when God gives you these promises and God comes to you with the living word and you know it in your heart and the devil knows it. He knows every promise and this book is true and he sees what you're driven to your knees. He hears when you pray. You better believe the devil watches you when you pray. He trembles every time you go into the secret closet. He hears your cry. He knows that every tear you shed is being bottled by the Lord. He puts your tears in a bottle. He knows when the Holy Ghost gives you the promise. He knows all about it. You think for a minute he's going to stand still. The sure sign that deliverance is at the door is that things get worse. That's a sure sign. You know the devil's mad because he knows. He knows you're coming out. He knows that weeping endures for a night but your joy is coming and it's morning. He knows it. So folks, if you've been praying and praying and it's getting worse, start rejoicing. Start rejoicing. Your deliverance is right at the door. You've heard me say it over and over, the hardest part of faith, the last half hour, because that last half hour gets so bad. So I'm going down. I can't make it. Oh God, just keep crying. Just keep trusting. Just keep praying. Seek his faith. Don't let go. Get a hold of the feet of Jesus the Lord. I'm not letting go. I can't do it myself. You have to do it. Folks, it's on the way. The devil heard you crying out. He knows you're going to be set free. He's going to inflame every situation around you. He's going to inflame people around you. He's going to get mad at you. He's going to get people mad at you. He's going to lie to you and about you. He will do everything now because he knows this great and glorious thing that God has planned. Hallelujah. Now like Moses in Israel, we forget that an enraged devil that's gone berserk against us is clear evidence that God is on the scene. Hallelujah. You got a mad enraged devil at you, enraged, angry at you, trying to do everything to pull you down, destroy you. I want to be around the next few weeks to watch the glory of the Lord come, deliver you by his power. Hallelujah. Moses didn't know that God had already determined the next day he's going to take matters in his own hand the very next day. Then the Lord said unto Moses, now shall thou see what I will do to Pharaoh. With a strong hand shall he let them go, and with a strong hand shall he drive them out of his land. And God said unto Moses, and God speaking to Moses said unto him, I am the Lord. He said, Moses, I've not let you down. Remember who I am. I am the Lord. Folks, don't forget it. But Israel was so down and Moses spake unto the children of Israel, but they hearkened not unto Moses for anguish of spirit, for cruel bondage. They were dead inside. They said, I've suffered too much. I can't even hear a message of deliverance. Folks, I've met Christians like that. They're so beaten down. They've gone through so much. They come to church and they sit there. The message goes in one ear and out the other. They're too crushed. They're too broken because of their problems, their troubles. I'll tell you what, God understood that. God didn't condemn them. A gracious Heavenly Father who is hurting with them understood what they're going through. And some of you are at that place now. I preached it just recently, a place called Wits End, where you are so down, you're so crushed and so depressed and so blue and so troubled that nobody can encourage you. You're beyond encouragement. That's where these people were. He spoke to them, but they hearkened not. They didn't listen because of anguish of spirit and for cruel bondage. They couldn't understand it. But folks, let me tell you something. And here's one thing you've got to learn about affliction more than anything else. You are being afflicted because God is working on a jewel. He's working on a jewel. There's a prophecy from Isaiah. I want you to go this before I close, Isaiah 54. And I want to show you this, why God's taking you through this. You know what a piece of coal is? It becomes a jewel through friction. A diamond used to be a piece of coal. In fact, every time I go to the Lord and pray, I say, Lord, I'm giving works of just a piece of coal. And God looks down and said, no, he's a jewel because he's working on me. And I want you to see this, Isaiah 54. Start verse 11. Oh, thou what? Oh, thou afflicted, tossed with tempest. You toss and turn at night, not comforted. No man, nobody can seem to comfort you beyond comfort, beyond encouragement. Behold, I will lay thy stones with fair colors and lay thy foundations with sapphires. I will make thy windows of agates. And you know what the windows of agates mean? Agate is crystal clear. It's purified by fire. It's been through the fire, becomes crystal clear. That means the windows have to do with your eyes. The Lord said, this affliction, if you'll just embrace it in the name of the Lord, don't fight it. Just say, Lord, bring me through. And turn to the Lord with all your heart. God said, in the process, in this fire you're going through, I'm going to give you clear, transparent eyes. Your heart will be transparent. Your eyes will see into the unseen. You have clear vision. I'll give you discernment through this. I will teach you things you couldn't have been taught any other way. Folks, some of the afflictions I've been through lately, I've been thanking God for lately, because I have learned things. God's been telling me that in the next few years, I'm going to be going out a few weeks of the year to ministers, to teach ministers, and to minister to ministers. In fact, like Australia, they've invited me to come bring the whole, all the evangelical ministers together in Australia, and in South Africa, and other countries. And there'll be hundreds and thousands of ministers. And folks, if I had not been through, you know, ministers out there, they don't relate to a multi-million dollar theater on Broadway. They don't relate to that kind of thing. What they relate to is the suffering and the hardship. And I was not ready, because I would have been hard. I would have been very difficult. I wouldn't have the patience. I wouldn't have had the compassion. But oh, I do now. Oh, I've learned some things. I have learned some things to be compassionate with these pastors, and loving because of the hurt that they're going through, and the abuse all over the place. And folks, that's what God's saying. I'm working on you to produce a jewel. Fair colors have to do with a bed of jewels. And he said, your windows, your eyes, are going to be crystal clear through affliction. You're going to see things you've never seen. I see better now than I've ever seen through affliction, and so do you. Then he goes on, the gates of carbuncles. And most scholars believe that should read gates of pearl. And you know what pearl, how a pearl is created? Through a piece of sand in the belly of an oyster. Irritates and irritates, and it ejects a fluid and works on that piece of sand until it becomes a pearl. You know, have you been through irritation lately? What's God doing? He's working on a pearl. I mean, he's working on a jewel. You understand this? And all the children, all thy children shall be taught of the Lord, and great shall be the peace. He said, I'm going to give you peace through this, and righteousness shall thou be established. He said, you'll be more righteous when you come through this. Thou shall be far from oppression. Thou shall not fear and from terror, for it shall not come near thee. Hallelujah. God is working on a jewel. He's working on you. Hallelujah. In closing, one last verse. Go to Revelation 21. Revelation 21. Remember the picture of the city coming down out of Jerusalem? Look at verse 18. And the building of the wall was jasper. The city was pure gold, like clear glass. Foundation of the wall garnished with all manner of precious stones, jasper, sapphire, chalcedony, emerald, sardonyx, sardius. He names all of these precious jewels. You know who those jewels are? Doesn't the scripture say that he is the foundation? He's a tried stone. Tried by fire is what the original says. He is a stone that's been tried by fire, and nobody builds on this foundation except stones that have been tried by the fire. Folks, you can't build. This is speaking of the character of Christ. All of these bright things that shine out of us have to do with all the rays, the character of Jesus. I don't know of any Christian I've ever met in my life that shows the character of Jesus except those who've suffered. I've seen men that were proud. I've seen women that were cocky. I've seen women and men, even ministers of the gospel, you couldn't talk to. And God allows suffering in their life, and they come through it. They are mellowed. They have a peace. There's something about them. They've gone through it in suffering. And I've known of all my children, four children in the ministry, and I've seen it in my children. I've seen it in my family. It's the suffering. Now, suffering can make you bitter. It can make you hard. If you don't see Jesus in it, if you don't yield to it and say, Lord, I surrender to this. I'm going to trust you through it. You can get hard. You can get cold. You can get bitter. You get mad at God. It'll destroy you. But God's purpose is to refine us, to make us jewels. And that's that city that's coming down out of heaven. Precious jewels. Clear-eyed people, transparent in their living, no part dark, trusting in the Lord, no confidence in the flesh. Hallelujah. It was good for me that I was afflicted, that I might learn His statutes. Will you stand, please? I must tell you, Saints, that now I'm going to give an invitation in the manner the Holy Spirit directed me. I was allowed to taste, just for a few hours, this terrible down, terrible depression. And Lord spoke to my heart, there'd be a number of you here today, and you're standing in front of me now. You say, Pastor Dave, that is me. I can't seem to come out of this deep, dark pit. I don't know what the emotional pain may be, but it's in your mind, and it's a heavy heart. Please don't get on the phone and try to get somebody to talk you out of it. You can't be talked out of it. You say, well, I need some Valium. I need some Percodan. No, because you see, as soon as the Valium wears off, it's twice as bad as it was before you took your Valium. Medicines won't do it. Psychologists, psychiatrists, sometimes it can get worse, because they just show you more of your own sinful human nature. If you keep looking inside, you're not going to see anything good. You got to keep looking out of yourself, looking unto Jesus, the author, the finisher of our faith. What you can do is what I've told you, is to cry out to God. Oh, God, your word says you're my deliverer. This is beyond me. I'm coming to surrender to you. Live or die, I'm going to trust you. Hallelujah. Don't be afraid when it gets bad. Just hold on, because joy is coming. I want you in the balcony. You can go to exits on both sides, down any stairs, down any aisle. Here on the main floor, if the message has touched you this morning, and this is you, I want you to get out of your seat and come here. I'm going to pray for deliverance for you this morning. I want to ask God to deliver you, set you free. Up in the balcony, down here. If you're backslidden, if you've lost your love for Jesus, if you're not right with God, if you don't know Jesus, you come with these that are coming. You get right into the aisle. Come, the Lord, this could be a miracle day for you. God can change your heart, and you can be set free right now. Hallelujah. You that have come forward, I want you to pray this prayer with me, and then I'm going to pray for you, but out of the innermost part of your belly, right out of the inside gut. I want you to pray this with all simple childlike faith. Pray with me. I want you to repeat after me. This prayer won't save you unless your heart is in it. You have to have your heart. Pray this with me. Jesus, I'm going through a hard place, and I need your help. First of all, forgive me all my sins, blot out all my transgressions, and help my unbelief. I believe you, Lord, to be my deliverer, to set me free from all my troubles, all my burdens. I cast upon you now, because you said you care for me, and I accept that. I need you, Lord. No one else can help me. Touch me. Heal me. Heal my mind, and my spirit, and my body. Help me, Jesus. There's no place to go but you. Now, just bow your head while I pray. Holy Spirit, you are the one who comes. You are the one who changes hearts. You are the one who gives assurance. You're the one who brings peace. You're the one who manifests Christ. You're the one who teaches us about you, Lord. You've taught us to understand that we come to you like a child. You will no wise cast us out. We've come like little children, and we've presented our hurts to you. And you said you are grieved when we're grieved, and you hurt when we hurt, when our affliction, you're afflicted. Oh, Jesus, see the pain of your children today. See their hurt, the anxiety. I come against the depression. Some of them, Lord, have a spirit of depression from hell. Lord, I ask you to take authority over that now. Satan, the Lord rebuke you now. The Lord rebuke you. You have no right to harass any longer. Oh, God, bring hope to those who are downcast. Bring hope to those, Lord, who've been depressed. I speak against that depression in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, my God and Savior. Oh, Jesus, break the powers of darkness. Break the spell. Break the hold. Break the hold. Break it, Jesus. Break it now. Break it. Lift your hands and thank him right now. Lord, I lift my hands and I thank you. I thank you, Jesus. I give you thanks. Whom shall I fear? You know that? Whom shall I fear? Whom shall I fear? Whom shall I fear? Folks, ask the Lord to take all the fear out of your heart. No fear. Lord, take the fear away. Take all fear. How many of you that came forward really believe in your heart that Jesus loves you with everything in his being? Well, please seek him with all my heart. I'm going to keep calling on his name. This is the conclusion of the tape.