God's people are often a people who suffer and endure many trials and tribulations. Of course our first response is to try and get out of the trial and escape the pain of suffering. However, God often intends these trials and sufferings as a means of building up his people and causing them to trust him wholly instead of relying on their own strength. God enables his people to go through the fire of trials so that they may be a purified and holy people, to the glory of God.

Please open your Bibles to Isaiah chapter 43. Isaiah chapter 43. And why I want you to turn there is, Isaiah 43 helps us to think hopefully differently about suffering. You know, we've talked about thinking differently about suffering this whole conference long, and we've said that the trials of life, the sufferings, come from God. He is the original source.

There are secondary sources, but they come from God. You know, last night I wanted to speak in such a way to silence the prosperity gospel preacher in all of us, to think that life somehow shouldn't be full of trials, because the Bible actually says something completely different. Now, A thought I want to attack now is this desire that we have, we all have it, if we're in a trial now, we have it, and it's the impulse to get away from the suffering, to get away from it, to get out of it. Well Isaiah and many other places in scripture give us a different way to think about it. Instead of getting away from it, God shows us how to go through it, and that's what I want to talk about from Isaiah.

Now here Isaiah blows another of our thoughts about trials to smithereens, because we think that the greatest good is to get out of the trial. And Isaiah leads us in a very different direction. Let's look at verse one in Isaiah 43. "'But now, ' thus says the Lord, "'who created you, O Jacob, "'and he who formed you, O Israel, "'fear not, for I have redeemed you. I have called you by your name.

You are mine. Now here, God is declaring his favor toward his remnant in contrast to his disfavor against those he hates. Chapter 42 speaks about that. There's a transition that's taking place here in this context. Isaiah has spoken about his wrath against the wicked.

Now he's gonna talk about how he's gonna preserve his people. God treats his people differently, he treats them preferentially. And this first verse demonstrates that I created you. And then, he makes this very clear, that he treats his people differently. "'When you pass through the waters, I will be with you.

"'And through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. "'When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, nor shall the flames scorch you. And then in verse three he gives proofs of his care from history, for I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior, I gave Egypt for your ransom, Ethiopia and Seba in your place. Now, the language of redemption is in almost every word of verse three, I hope you saw that. We won't be able to go through every one of these, but here you have a savior, you have a ransom, you have the Holy One of Israel rescuing his people.

And then in verse four, he proves their value to him, Since you were precious in my sight, you have been honored, and I have loved you. Therefore, I will give men for you and people for your life." And then he gives the proof of his presence. Fear not, for I am with you. I will bring your descendants from the east and gather you from the west.'" And then he speaks of how he'll gather his children together for a purpose, And in that purpose is their ability to go through, not to escape, their trials. I will say to the north, give them up into the south, do not keep them back.

This is the end gathering of the people of God. Bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the ends of the earth. This is the gathering of the church. And what about that? Everyone who is called by my name, whom I have created for my glory.

That's the key to going through every trial that falleth from above. When you know that you're created, Not for your own glory, but for God's glory. When you know that, you can go through any trial, any trial. When you know that your sole purpose in this world is to glorify God, You can do that in the flood. You can do that if somebody hates you, treats you wrong.

You can do that if your spouse isn't happy with you, you're not happy with your spouse. I mean, this is the golden key for getting through trials. So there's the text there. Now, this passage of scripture is about many things, but it is at least about how God sustains his church through the trials. God does not keep his church from trials, he keeps his church through trials.

And this is again a contrast to the previous chapter. And he takes you through trials So that you would be changed by them. Like Dennis just communicated to us that these trials come that we might be perfect and complete lacking in nothing. That our patience has grown, we're stronger, we are emboldened to live life with joy. That's what trials do to you.

They're good in that sense. Now, I want us, not to focus on the whole chapter, but just small sections, verse two. The focus of this is verse 2 and verse 7. When you pass through the waters, the word through is the operative interpretive key to everything that I want to communicate. Through the waters.

I will be with you. And through the rivers. And they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, nor shall the flame scorch you. And then as you're passing through the waters, through the rivers, and through the fires.

When you're passing through, there's one thing you must understand, and that's verse seven. You were created for His glory. And this is why He made you, this is why He created you, this is why He caused you to be born at this time in history to experience the things that you'll experience in this time of history with the people he put you with, in the town he put you in, in the church he put you in, he put you in the particular moment in history, in a family, with friends. He did that and he did it for one reason, to glorify himself. Don't try to escape it, Don't try to find another life.

This is the life God gave you, but he gave it to you so that you could glorify him. So there you go. I think I could just walk off the platform right now. Because everything I'm gonna say is to try to sort of somehow illustrate and support that. Now, many years ago, I was with my daughter on a very remote island in Scotland, and she was bleeding to death on that island from her pregnancy that I just concluded not very long before.

And she's bleeding to death on an island with around 120 inhabitants, no hospitals, no doctors. It's a seven hour drive hopping from island to island to get to a real hospital. And she was bleeding to death and so, somebody called a rescue helicopter and picked her up, landed on this rocky crag, you know, on this island, and there I was with my daughter. And as they were strapping her onto the gurney, and wheeling her down toward the helicopter. I had my hand on her and she was reciting Psalm 46.

God is our refuge and strength. Never present help and trouble. Therefore we shall not fear. Though the earth should change and the mountains slip into the heart of the sea, though the waters roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake." And then she says, there is a city, there's a river which makes glad the city of God. God is in the midst of her.

She shall not be moved. God shall help her just at the break of dawn. And I thought, we memorized that in our living room. Probably when she was seven years old, eight years old. And there she is.

The strength is leaving her body. And she thought she was gonna die, and everybody else did too. And what was it that brought her through that moment? It was God. It was the Word of God.

And so the helicopter flew her to a hospital and gave her a transfusion. And she was rescued. I was very, very thankful for that. It really matters what you have in your heart when you're going through something. And it doesn't matter what it is, but if you don't have God and His Word in your heart, you won't get through it like God ordained you to get through it for His glory.

You know, that famous story of Elizabeth Elliot, whose husband was killed by the Alcas in Ecuador. When she heard, she says that when she heard that her husband was missing, the first thing that came to her mind was Isaiah 42. When you pass through the waters I will be with you And through the rivers they shall not overflow you and when you walk through the fire you shall not be burned Nor shall the flames scorch you Now Jim and Elizabeth Elliot had only hadn't even been hardly married two years. And, it really matters what you have in your heart. In a lot of ways, it's the only thing that matters when you go through a trial.

What voice is in your ears? And I could launch out into a long exhortation of how fathers and mothers should absolutely with all their heart every day make sure that they fill their homes with the word of God, that you memorize the word of God because there's a day coming. There's a day coming and your children are going to need it. And let me tell you something, when they're bleeding to death or someone has died or someone has betrayed them and they don't have the Word of God you leave them very very vulnerable and it's the parents faults who do not fill their homes with the fill their homes with the word of God. Well, you didn't pay for me to say that, but it's very critical.

Now, God's voice in your heart in a moment of difficulty is critical, especially when you have a prosperity gospel preacher yelling in your ear all the time that you don't need this, that you're done with this, you don't need this, you're going to get out of it. And you know, you might not get out of it. And that's just a reality of the sovereignty of God. Now God does move us through trials and things like that, but you never know how long it'll be for sure. We think that victory in a trial is only when everything works out really good.

Like what happened with my company and it worked out really good, but that's not how it always works out. You know, there was a Christian film a few years ago, and it was about a football coach who had a losing team, and he was facing getting fired, His appliances were broken, his roof was leaking, he was driving around a broke down jalopy of an embarrassing car. His wife couldn't get pregnant, they didn't have any children, their marriage was in terminal ill, and then they were in this big game and they were losing, and then a man in the stands raises his hands and he prays for God's favor, and they win the game. They win the game, it's amazing. And then the team buys him a truck, he gets a raise, the wife gets pregnant, the house gets fixed, the marriage is preserved, and the star of the team says there's nothing impossible with God.

But it doesn't always work out that way. God is not, I mean, how is God most glorified? Is God most glorified in a moment of victory? Or in a moment of failure, of crucifixion, of slander, of hurt, of loss. You know, it's easy to praise God when everything just works out exactly like you thought it would or wanted it to.

Or you claimed it to be, you know, wouldn't you think that it's more amazing, it's more miraculous, it's more powerful when you glorify God when you don't get pregnant. You glorify God when you don't get the girl or guy that you want. Or that you don't get the paycheck you want? You don't get the car that you want? You know when your baby dies?

Is it more glorifying to God when your baby lives and you trust him and love him and you cleave to him? Or does it glorify God more miraculously when your baby dies? When you lose your money, and your money doesn't matter to you that much anymore as God did, or when you're slandered, and you're drawn to God alone as your defender and your refuge. This is where the prosperity gospel fails everyone, Because it doesn't always work out like that. The prosperity gospel is a failed, bankrupt, wicked, completely unbiblical proposition.

Because God actually created us for his glory. And the afflictions of life are reality for everyone. And one of the things that your children need to know from you is that you're mature enough to understand that. But if you're a parent and you don't understand that and you're gonna train children who the only thing they can think about is how to get out of a trial and not how to glorify God through a trial. And then when they get married, they're gonna try to get out of their marriage because it's a trial instead of glorifying God through their marriage.

Or with their bad boss, sometimes you get a bad boss. Sometimes you get a bad government. How are you gonna survive in this world if you buy in to the escapism of the prosperity gospel. You won't, you can't survive. You can't survive happily.

You're always gonna be pining away, you're always gonna be asking questions. Why, why, why, why, why? That's what we do. Rather than what? What has God called me to do?

To glorify him. You know afflictions are the normal experience of all who live in this fallen world and People lose and friends die. But Jesus said, these things I have spoken unto you that in me, that's critical, in me you might have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But be of good cheer, for I have overcome the world.

And, You know, Job understood this very well. He explained it, he said, man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward. That's normal life. Your children need to be trained to understand that. So that they're not always trying to escape some trial, but they understand that they can love God, glorify God, love the people around them through the trial.

And they can find their only hope in him. He's the only one that lasts in this world. You know, frankly, as a new Christian in my teens, I really thought that because I loved God and wanted to follow Him, He was gonna protect me from all trouble. That if I was a good enough guy, you know, I could sort of work through everything. Well, I'm here to tell you that was really a dumb idea.

You know, it really hasn't worked out that way at all. Because The whole fabric of history has its center point in suffering. The center of all of history is the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Suffering. The center of history is the suffering servant who suffers for his children so that they can suffer in joy.

Now, Thomas Manton said it like this. God had one son without sin, but no son without a cross. And that's true of all of us, it was true. Jesus Christ, the son of God, and it's true of us as well. And that's where the blessing is, for we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with us in our weaknesses, but he was in all points tempted as we were, yet without sin.

And it's critical that we have a mature understanding of life, that we know that it's not the escaping from the trial where the glory is. The glory, the beauty, the joy, the peace, it comes through going through the trial with God. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you. And through the rivers and through the fire. Now, God in saying these things about the water and the river and the fire He isn't saying that you won't get wet He isn't saying that you won't get hot he's saying that he won't destroy you Is it gonna get wet is it gonna get hot But you won't be consumed you you won't be destroyed and And the Bible makes that very, very clear.

He's not saying that there won't be any floods. He's not saying that there won't be any rivers. He's not saying there won't be any fires. He's saying that when the floods come, when the fires come, when the river's raging, he will glorify himself in you. The question is not if you go through the fire and the river and the water, it is when, when you go.

Not if. You know David understood this very well, you know, You can go to the Psalms in almost any place and you'll find a suffering servant. You'll find somebody who's bearing a burden a heavy burden very most of the time if you want comfort go to the Psalms and you'll meet comfort there, but You know David David speaks of this scene where the wicked are coming against him. In Psalm 27, he said, "'The Lord is my light and my salvation. "'Whom shall I fear?

"'The Lord is the strength of my life. Of whom shall I be afraid? When the wicked came against me to eat up my flesh, My enemies and foes, they stumbled and fell. And then he said, though an army may encamp against me, my heart shall not fear. There's an army there, okay?

That's going through the water, That's getting wet, that's getting hot. Though an army encamp against me, my heart will not fear. The war rise against me. In this I will be confident. And then he gives the answer to how you go through the water and the fire.

One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in his temple. For in the time of trouble, He shall hide me in his pavilion. In the secret place of his tabernacle, he shall hide me. He shall set my feet upon a rock, and now my head shall be lifted up above my enemies all around me. Well this is a picture of going through the fire, but being protected in this pavilion, in this tabernacle, it's the secret place of the Tabernacle of the Most High.

It's where God is, it's this bubble. It's like when you're going through the fire and the water and the river, you go into this bubble, you go into this pavilion, this protective place. It's a fortress. And it's invisible. It's of God.

It's supernatural. And you can go there anytime, all the time. You go there when you're going through the fire. You know, in Psalm 31, a Psalm which carried me through many, many days of some of the hardest moments of my life as a pastor. Psalm 31.

David says, how great is your goodness which you have laid up for those who fear you. So there's goodness laid up for you. For those who fear God, it's laid up, it's waiting, it's God has accumulated it. Those who trust in you in the presence of men. And then he says, you shall hide them in the secret place of your presence from the plots of man.

They're plots. They're plots going on against you. He hides you in the secret place. You shall keep them secretly in a pavilion from the strife of tongues. There's plots against you.

There's tongues. There's slanders. And where do you go? You go to the secret place of the presence of the Lord. And that's why David said in Psalm 34, verse 19, many are the afflictions of the righteous, But the Lord delivers them out of them all.

You know, how do you get through the trials? Don't go to a counselor, Go to God. God says in the time of trial, I will instruct you and teach you in the way in which you should go. I will guide you with my eye. This is Psalm 31 verse 8 and then God says don't be like the horse or the mule which have no understanding.

When you pass through the waters I will be with you and through the rivers they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned. Nor shall the flames scorch you. Why trials? Why don't you get the girl?

Why don't you get whatever it is, fill in the blank? Why is there a hardship? Answer, he sent you through the trial So that he might be with you. I think it's very important that we understand a very key distinction between punishment and chastisement. Does God punish his people?

I like the way that A.W. Pink describes this problem. What is God doing When his children experience trouble, what is he doing? You know many people when someone is going through a trial they think God's punishing him that's what they think That's what job's friends thought And We're very much like Job's friends. We're incredibly pompous in our judgment when we think that we know what anybody's going through.

A.W. Pink says that the way to understand this is that God treats his children very differently than he treats those who are not his children. And he says, you must understand the difference between chastisement and punishment. And Pink says that God doesn't punish his children. He punishes the wicked.

His children receive no condemnation. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus for the law of the Spirit of Life has set you free from the law of sin and death. Who will bring a charge against you? Who? That's what Paul asked.

Who? Is there anybody? Who's gonna bring a charge against my son? And the implication is, don't you dare. Don't you dare.

Because there's no condemnation. I've paid all of his bills. He's free. He's pure. In my sight.

But the unbeliever, he comes as a judge. Believers receive no condemnation. Unbelievers, God comes as a judge. To the believer, God comes as a friend. To the unbeliever, God comes in anger.

To the believer, God comes in love. To the unbeliever, he comes in wrath and destruction. And there will be a day when he will expose them to everlasting torment. God doesn't treat his people that way. And so Pink says, God doesn't punish his people, he chastises his children like a father because he loves them.

And of course, the writer of the Hebrews speaks of this very clearly in Hebrews 11. Furthermore, we had fathers who corrected us and we paid them neglect and we paid them respect. Shall we not much more readily be in subjection to the Father of spirits and live? And then he tells The story of how God treats you as sons, he's your father. He's chasing you because he loves you.

He's taking you through the fire, through the raging river, and through the water because he loves you, And he's drawing you to himself. And as we heard from James chapter one, he's increasing your capacity for joy so that you consider it joy when you encounter various trials. God is doing something we learn through suffering when the door slams in your face. You know, and five years later, you look back and you say, oh my, Look at how God used that in my life. The church will not be overflowed.

The church will not be drowned. They will experience trials and they will be a persecuted people. But God's people will be cared for in the midst of their trials. And then he says in verse 5, Fear not, for I am with you. You know, I had a funeral this year, last year, and one of the men who leads us in singings, his wife died, A very godly man.

At the near that time, our church was going through some real trials and he wrote a song. And He wrote a song that carried us through that time. And I don't know how he led us in this song because his wife had just died. But it was a song that was, it's actually a direct quote from Isaiah 41, 10. It's a beautiful song, I love this song.

Fear thou not for I am with thee. Be not dismayed for I am they thy God. I will strengthen thee. I will help thee. I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness.

And that song carried us. And that song carried us. It carries me today, but God is assuring his people of his presence, and he says, "'Fear not, for I am with you, ' in verse five." And then he comes down in verse 7. And explains the heart. Of all good things in going through the fire.

Everyone who is called by my name whom I have created for my glory. I have formed him, yes I have made him. Now I read somewhere that this is the only time where the Bible explicitly says, in no uncertain terms, that the reason God created man was for his glory. You might check that out and see if that's true. I got that from some scholar.

God created man to enjoy God and to glorify Him forever. This is why God gave us a life. This is why you were born. What's your birthday? God ordained the day of your birth so that you would glorify Him in the world.

That's the purpose of your life. The purpose of your life isn't to get what you want, it's to glorify Him through everything He gives to you. That's the purpose of life. You know, I love to do marriage conferences and bring couples together and they sit in my house in couches and I just get to speak to them. One thing I always tell them is if you understand the purpose of your life, you'll always know what to do.

If a husband understands that he's playing the role of Jesus Christ, representing Jesus Christ to his wife, he'll always know what to say. He'll always know where to get his lines from the Word of God. If a woman understands what God has ordained for her to do, to respect her husband and to submit to him, and to help him, if she understands that, and if she understands the likeness of Jesus Christ, that she's a glorious church without spot or wrinkle, her speech is pure speech. If she understands that she is designed to be a glorious church, She'll always know what to do. Even if her husband is not doing very well.

She'll always know what to do. She can always glorify God. It doesn't matter what happens to you, you can always glorify God. It doesn't matter. Don't try to escape what God has done to you, glorify God through what God has brought to you.

That's the teaching of this passage of scripture here. So Consider your fires, consider your rivers and your floods. God has promised to walk with you when you face the trials and the losses. Not that you would escape them, but that you would go through them. And you've got to always understand the purpose of your life.

The purpose of your life is to bring glory to God in this world. And often, you know, we become, we become depressed because we lose a sense of why we were born. And you can never be happy until you, until You learn why you were created. You can never really go through anything that's difficult particularly, or even anything that seems to be marvelous to you. The Apostle Paul learned that.

He said he could be content, translation glorify God in abundance or in poverty. So God is your sufficiency in trial. In the midst of trial, feed upon God. Go into the secret place of the tabernacle of the Most High. Go into the bubble of the protective pavilion of God.

And that's how you'll get through. God is sufficient for everything. God is mighty to save in every situation. The English Puritan George Swinnick said it like this. He speaks to how God Himself is the strength that we have for every weakness, every fear, every suffering.

He says, He is self-sufficient, alone sufficient, all sufficient. Nothing is lacking in him, either for the soul's protection from evil or from the soul's perfection with all good. If God were your portion, you would find him whatever your heart could desire and wherever you go. Are you ambitious? God is a crown of glory.

Are you covetous? God is unsearchable riches. Are you lustful? God is rivers of pleasure and fullness of joy. Are you hungry?

God is a feast. Are you weary? God is rest. Are you weak? God is everlasting strength.

Are you in doubt? God is marvelous in counsel. Are you in darkness? God is the son of righteousness and eternal life. Are you sick?

He is the God of your health. Are you sorrowful? He is the God of all comfort. Are you dying? He is the fountain of life.

Are you in distress? His name is a strong tower to which you may run to find safety. He is a universal remedy against all sorts of misery. Whatever your calamity, he can remove it. Whatever your necessity, he can relieve it.

He is silver, gold, honor, delight, food, clothing, house, land, peace, wisdom, power, beauty, father, mother, husband, wife, mercy, love, grace, glory, and infinitely more than all of these. God is our refuge and strength. When you walk through the fire, He will be with you. Now I just want to conclude with a story. And it's a story that should help us to refrain from pre-judging our disasters.

And you can find this story. It's a story that comes out of my father's life. My father was an Army Air Corps pilot, he flew P-51 Mustangs in the Pacific War off of Iwo Jima. And he had a best friend by the name of Arthur Bury. And you can, the story I'm going to tell you can find in this book preparing boys for battle This books full of stories that my father Told me and that I learned in the intervening years, you know learning about the battle for Iwo Jima.

But this is a story about my dad's best friend on Iwo Jima. And he too was a pilot. Well, they were on a massive raid against the mainland of Japan. And Arthur Bury was shot down. And he went into the water and it was calm, but a typhoon, a massive typhoon, the largest typhoon of the Pacific War, I really love the name of this typhoon.

Typhoon Nana, because my grandkids call my wife Nana. So Typhoon Nana blows through and Typhoon Nana destroyed the largest ships in the Pacific fleet of Admiral Nemesis fleet there. Typhoon Nana was sweeping airplanes off the decks of aircraft carriers, pulling the covers off of aircraft carriers, sinking ships, and Arthur Burry was floating in a three-foot one-man life raft during Typhoon Nana. And he floated, and he floated out there for days and he was delirious. And there's some very funny stories that my father tells about this whole scene, but he's floating, getting flopped over, over, and over again, 50 foot waves coming over this three foot, you know, rubber raft that he's sitting in.

And he's rescued. And his newspaper back home reports this remarkable story. And so the war ends. Now, flashback. When Arthur Burry was a little boy, two years old, His mother was killed in a car accident, leaving six children and a young father.

And the people that were counseling the father urged him to put his children up for adoption. So he did what everybody did in that era, they did what the professionals told them to do. As if they were gods. And so all the children were put in an orphanage. And Arthur, after some time, was adopted by a family and he lost track of his family.

He didn't know where anyone was. All those years and all through the war, he was connected from most of his family. And one day, his sister, who's now 32 years old, two years after the war, She's cleaning out the attic, and she's carrying newspapers down to the street for the garbage man to take them away. And she takes one load of newspapers down and another load. And she goes back for the last load.

And right on top is a front page picture of an Army Air Corps Airman who was rescued. And she looks at the picture, and she says, That boy looks like my brother. And so she started checking around. And it took a while of making a lot of phone calls, but as a result she was able to find her long lost brother, the last time she saw him was two and a half years old. And he was that airman that was rescued out of Typhoon Nana.

And the whole family was reunited. But who could have thought that your airplane, malfunctioning, and you parachuting into the Pacific in enemy waters, into the greatest typhoon of the Pacific War, to be rescued and have your picture on the paper that the greatest disaster of your life would be the means that God would use to bring your whole family together. You never know what God is doing in a trial. You don't know how God will use a disaster in your life. You don't know.

Don't prejudge disasters. Don't try to get out of your trials. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you. And through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned.

Nor shall the flame scorch you. Because God is in control, and because of his mercies, we are not concerned. And you pray with me. Oh Lord, you have put us into a world of trial and trouble like the sparks fly upward. You have done it so that we would trust and we would be weaned from this world, that we would be strengthened, that we would learn how to love even those who hate us.

That we would love through every trial, recognizing that every joy or trial falleth from above, traced upon the dial by the Son of God. And so we can through every trial, we can sing praise to the Lord, the Almighty, the King of creation. Oh my soul, praise Him. He is my help in salvation. Amen.