Twisting Scripture When Circumstances Twist Us

How many times, friends, have you heard the expression, God won't give you more than you can handle? It's a well-worn phrase. Perhaps someone you know is going through a painful or difficult time, and a well-intentioning friend comes alongside them and tries to encourage them by saying, don't worry, God won't give you more than you can handle. But it's a lie, friend.

At times, God will give you more than you can handle, because your trial or sudden storm of adversity may be so completely overwhelming you, you're just hanging on by a tattered thread of faith. The old maxim, God won't give you more than you can handle, is a twisting of scripture. The biblical reference is taken from 1 Corinthians 10, 13, which states, there hath no temptation taken you, but such as is common to man.

But God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that you're able, but will, with the temptation, also make a way to escape, that you may be able to bear it. So we see, friends, that this verse is dealing with temptation to sin, not help in a storm of life. We need to be deeply familiar with our Bibles so we can speak honestly and truthfully to others.

The title of my message today, friends, is Twisting Scripture When Circumstances Twist Us. And my text today is found in the book of Isaiah. You can turn in your Bibles there now, friends.

We will be in chapter 28, and we will be in verses 24 through 29. The prophet Isaiah uses a parable here with the theme of a harvest and the agricultural principles related to the harvest. And within this little parable on farming are found deep truths of God in relation to how God deals with his people.

I will first read the passage in its entirety and then break it down in its meaning. Here now is the word of God, and may the Spirit of the Lord attend the reading of his holy word. Doth the plowman plow all day to sow? Doth he open and break the clods of his ground? When he hath made plain the face thereof, doth he not cast abroad the fetches, and scatter the cumin, and cast in the principal wheat, and the appointed barley, and the rye in their place? For his God doth instruct him to distression, and doth teach him.

For the fetches are not threshed with a threshing instrument, neither is a cork wheel turned about upon the cumin. But the fetches are beaten out with a staff, and the cumin with a rod. Bread corn is bruised, because he will not ever be threshing it, nor break it with the wheel of his cart.

For nor bruise it with his horsemen. This also cometh forth from the Lord a host, which is wonderful in counsel, and excellent in working. I will stop there, friends.

Here in our parable, the prophet Isaiah makes mention of four kinds of seeds, and he describes the different handling of those seeds by the plowman, the farmer. First he asks, does the plowman plow all day to sow? Well, of course he doesn't. That's common sense.

You just can't keep breaking up the ground and turning furrows in the soil continually. There has to be an end to it when its purpose is done. The fallow ground is broken up.

Now it is time to plant the seed. The fetches and the cumin are cast abroad and scattered, whereas the wheat and barley are carefully planted in their appointed place. They are handled differently as they grow to harvest.

The fetches and the cumin refers to the believer who is young and still spiritually immature, but youth does not pertain so much to age as one can come to Christ's late life, and although maybe middle age, yet still be spiritually immature. But this passage from Isaiah deals with spiritual understanding as to the means of the ways of the Lord in dealing with his people. Notice the difference, friends.

The fetches and the cumin just need a gentle tap on the head with a staff or rod to correct them. However, it is not so with the wheat and the barley. Bread corn is bruised.

Listen, friend, if you desire greater usefulness to God, then you will experience deeper discipline by God. Bread corn is bruised. The next time you are in a trial of adversity or you're tossed upon the waves of a storm of affliction, don't worry so much if someone tries to convince you that God won't give you more than you can handle when it seems like he is, because God will at times indeed give you more than you can handle so you can hand it over to him.

God will bring you to a place of a deeper understanding of him. Through your pain and your grief, God will bring you to a place of maturity through your adversity and affliction. As your circumstances overwhelm you and as you feel completely helpless beneath them, remember this, friend, remember the bread corn.

The bread corn is bruised before it's ready for consumption. For you to make a difference in another's life in regard to their spiritual growth, be prepared for very drastic handling by the Lord as you go through the bruising between his loving hands. For when circumstances twist us, there is always a hidden hand at work behind us and in us, as we see in Philippians 2.13, for it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.

Let us pray.