And so see sometimes they're trying to communicate back there so that they'll be talking back and forth. Y'all have enough grace to understand. Thank God they're here. Who, do you have any prayer requests today? Yes. All right, Frances. Oh, that'd be fun. You about to die, Pansy? What's going on? You about to die? What's happening? I haven't heard about this. We'll get the funeral set up for you, okay? Well, you got your stomach hurting or what? All right. I mean, what do you... All right. I figured I got a crooked, which I think that's why my problem. I got a crooked. Everybody's supposed to be straight. Mine's crooked, so... Yeah. Oh, they'll fix that up for you. Yeah, put a little lollipop or something. Yeah. All right, let's see. What about... Yeah. You're doing... You figured out... Ronald was able to figure out by being persistent. You know, the hospitals aren't perfect. And, you know, you got to look at yourself a little bit. And so, or have somebody look out after you. And so, they found out that he has an infection that they weren't really aware of, correct? Yeah. Well, yeah, he's at rehab. Yeah. Yeah. Well, he was, he's been around, he knows his brother was acting a little bit differently. Like, y'all wasn't, I didn't really notice it. But he will, because it's his brother. And so thankfully, he looked it up. They checked him. His white blood cells are shot up, and they get him treated for that. So that's a good thing. But he's doing good, though. I make two trips up. Every time, I don't know, I keep missing him. You got dialysis all this week again, too? He has dialysis on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. So Tuesdays, Thursdays. Thursdays, he had to go see the cardiologist for a checkup. Well, what about this week? All right, so Tuesday, Thursday should be good. All right, I'll try it out. Did he tell you I left a note on his pillow? Did he see the note I left him? What I like going to where he is, the name of the place, you go in, it's like going to see Pansy. They give you a big bag of goodies. Chocolate. And nabs and as he says so you're gonna see somebody I said you are sure I am just take this bag with you It's just for you. Oh, it had a notebook in it. It had candy Reesey cups Hersey kid. I mean Yeah, what's the name of the place? Berkshire and Benton. Oh, it's a nice nice bag. I missed you. I'm a car I didn't take it inside cuz she'll be getting all the candy. So I Anyway. Oh, and I got David next. I was praying for my brother's son. He works for a power company that climbs over the school tower. They were in D.C. working, and Thursday, he was up on the bucket truck and had ice all over it. He fell off of it and landed on a pickup truck that was 15 feet below him. Broke three vertebrae in his back. I think one or two ribs. He does have feeling, and he can move his toes, so that's a good thing. But he's in the hospital. They've got him in DC. My brother, they went up Friday, him and his wife. So I'm not sure how long he'll be there. He's waiting for a body cast that they can fit him for. They said it should heal on its own, but he's got a long recovery. Oh, no doubt. Oh, my gosh. All right. Yes, ma'am. Didn't break the cement, did you? She didn't, the sidewalk cement, their head, her head met the cement. And it didn't crack the cement, did it? All right, so it still stayed intact, but yeah, you could have been hurt bad, falling backwards like that. Anything else? Yes? Wow. Second year? Okay. Yeah. All right. Yeah. It brings some interesting memories, I'm sure. Yes. Yeah. That's so, I mean. When God presents itself that you can talk about right division, you know, we know the gospel, right? The death, birth, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. We all should have that one down, very simple. And then we can talk about right division. I was watching, I like to watch, I mean, I do a lot of different studies, and I like to see, when I see somebody, like on YouTube, criticizing dispensationalism, right division, I watch them. And when I watch them, all it does is reaffirm the truth. I'm thinking you're trying to put it down, but you're not really putting it down. You're really supporting it. It's amazing. It's amazing when you watch that. So don't be deceived when you hear people say different things. You know the truth. The Word of God is the truth. You read your Word and you decide. Amen? You decide. Don't take my word for it. Father, we lift up all these different prayer requests over the room here today. and those are close by, those that are far away. And Lord, we always humbly ask you to heal physically, emotionally, as we prayed this morning. There are all kinds of issues we deal with. And like I said, like we prayed again, most of all, Lord, just please help us forgive. Please, Lord. Help us, we of all people as Christians, should understand the importance of forgiveness. Please help us, Lord. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. Then I'm going to talk about, what do you do? What do I do with my suffering? What do you do with your suffering? Any of y'all ever suffered? Any of y'all suffering now? Two hands went up. That's it. Anybody in pain now? More has come up. All right pain and suffering you go to court and sue for that can't you and you get money for pain and suffering? Anyway, where did where did pain and suffering start? Where did it start? don't overthink it. The garden, absolutely. When Adam and Eve sinned, right? When she was deceived and he ate and he shouldn't have. And that's where it started in Genesis 3. And so if you look today, you look today, you hear people talk about the good old days and this and that. And I look today and I am I'm thankful I'm at the end of my life. I really am. I see what's going on now. I can't believe I'm even living in it. Just look at our government. Just look at it. I mean, I can't even believe, you know, there's no righteousness, there's no justice. I can't, I just, I see that, I go, my, what is happening to us? And it could come get you any minute, man. I'm telling you, you just don't know. Post the wrong thing, you'll have the SWAT team at your house. I mean, that stuff like that's just, it's just, I don't know. And then you look at, you talk about evil, look at Hamas. I mean, there's nothing, I can't think of anything more evil than what they did. Nothing. I mean, when they're raping women, young girls, and putting babies in ovens, and laughing about it, cutting people's heads off, and taking videos into the parents as they're raping their daughter. You know, it's evil. It's beyond evil. And so we, you know, I definitely support Israel 100%. And I see these people out in support of Hamas. I'm going, what is wrong with them? I mean, just be honest. Just look at the facts. I don't want innocent people to die, do you? Of course not. But you know, if you're using somebody as a body shield, I mean, that's on them. And I've watched this lady, she was from Israel, and she said that, she was saying that before they, this lady said, oh they're just bombing and killing all these people. They send out letters and notices to people, flyers, saying we're going to bomb this building tomorrow, get out. They said, you couldn't even, no country in a war would do that. But Israel is. They're giving them heads up. We're going to be here tomorrow. I don't know the time, I haven't seen a note. But they do that to warn them. Well, you need to leave because we're going to blow this place to smithereens tomorrow. So I don't know. Anyway, so we live in an evil world and it's going to get worse. It's not going to get better no matter what your preacher told you. It ain't going to get better because the Bible very plainly says it's going to get worse. Amen. So we do have faith in a God. Do you believe that your pain is suffering is caused by your sin? Do you believe that your pain and suffering is God's punishment for your sin? Now, we're in church. I mean, you don't have to answer. I know you're probably afraid to because your mind's going back and forth right now. Do you believe it's divine retribution? They surveyed people. They surveyed a group. I don't have the survey. Roughly one-third of the people say they believe that their pain and their suffering is God's punishment for their sin. Roughly one-third of the people believe that. And they did a survey of pastors. I didn't know if it was Christian pastors. I wasn't paying that close attention. But they said 35% of pastors believe the same thing. They believe that their pain and suffering is God's punishment for their sin. Our problem, and I think one of our problems, we've got many problems, but see we want to blame somebody. No matter what happens to me or what happens to you or somebody else, we gotta find somebody to blame, because it ain't usually our fault, right? You were speeding. No, I wasn't. No, yeah, you were. No, I mean, it's always somebody else's fault, and I work really hard on not going that way. Mass shooters. Is it the gun's fault? Is it racism? Is it because he's mentally ill? Could be. You know, if we just let school teachers carry guns to school, we'd stop all that. We'd stop every bit of that. I read where they're promoting open carry and things like that, the crime rate just goes right down. Because if you know people carrying a gun, you won't. If everybody you talked to you knew was carrying a gun, you might not say the things you just said. You might not do something on the road where you met them. You just might, well, I better be careful. It would, it would stop it. It's just everything's designed to hurt the law-abiding citizen. You know, if I'm a criminal, I'll bet you today I could buy, I guarantee, if I could buy a gun at Rural Retreat or Rural King or whatever, I guarantee I could buy a gun somewhere today. I get all the guns I want. Probably get a serial number scraped off, everything else. Don't y'all see that? I'm not going to. I mean, I buy mine legally, but the criminals are always going to get the guns, just take them away from us. You see, that's why China hasn't attacked us yet, because they know most of us carry guns. They've studied that, because we are a gun carrier. But see, our government's trying to take them away from us. Now we're open for all kinds of stuff. But I read that China said, we're not attacking the United States. All those guys that got guns, they get shot. Sometimes I go on a back porch or the back backyard. I just shoot my gun four or five times about every couple months. I want everybody to know there's a gun in that house. I really do that. Toom! Toom! And then they'd say, you'd be surprised. I don't know. Do y'all believe that smoking causes cancer? Do you believe you get cancer without smoking? You know, I know a man who had cirrhosis of the liver. I think I'm right, but he didn't drink. Am I right, Danny? Didn't drink. See, all kinds of things happen to us. We're trying to blame somebody. What about a flood? What about an earthquake? Who did that? Who causes floods? Who causes floods? Well, he had to allow it. Satan don't have authority over him. This cold weather, y'all might not like it, but I do sort of like it for a little while. You know why? It kills. You're 100% correct. It kills a lot of stuff. Get down to zero, two or three days, it just kills things that I don't like. You don't either. How many times, though, is it our fault? So we're suffering from pain. How many times is it ever our fault? Well, sure it is. Anybody ever abused alcohol? Mess up your guts, mess up your liver, mess up, wreck your car? Yeah, that's my fault. You know, what's weird is your body, God designed your body to such a point that if you drink too much alcohol, what do you do? You puke it up. Or you go to sleep. Your body knows there's too much in it, we gotta get it out of it. Well, same with food poisoning. Who's ever had food poisoning? Right? What happens? You dissent that in. Your body's trying to get it out of its system. Your body's protecting itself. So a lot of things, you know, it's our fault. A lot of things that happen to us, our pain and suffering is our fault. Yeah, I've never had, I don't think I've ever had food poisoning. But, can sin cause pain and suffering? Can you find it in the Bible? If you can't find it in the Bible, where did you get that idea from? Turn me to John 5, 6. John 5, 6. In the King James, God's written word, his holy word, his only true word. When Jesus saw him lie and knew he had now been a long time in that case. This guy had an infirmity in verse 5. Go to 5. And a certain man was there which had an infirmity thirty and eight years. He'd been sick with something for 38 years. When Jesus saw him lie and knew that he had been now a long time in that case, he said, will thou be made whole? The infinite man answered him, Sir, I have no man when the water is troubled to put me into the pool. While I am coming, another step is down before me. Jesus said to him, Rise, take up thy bed and walk. I've always wondered if I'm by the pool, and I'm really sick for 38 years, I mean, I'm going to almost have my feet in the water. I mean, I'm going to roll in. Right? I mean, I'm just saying, I ain't going to be over here when angels stirred the water. The Bible's true in what it said. The Bible's absolutely true. I'm going to be right there on the edge getting ready. Anyway, I think that's why Jesus said, you want to be whole? And then immediately the man, verse 9, was made whole, took up his bed and walked, and on the same day was the Sabbath. Bad for Jesus, right? He healed on the Sabbath. The jews therefore said unto him that was cured. It is the sabbath day. It's not lawful for you to carry your bed He said he that made me whole the same said to me take up our bed and walk, you know I if he made me whole said take up I don't pick my bed up. I don't care what day it is Here we go Then he said which man asked that take up the bed and walk verse 13 and he that was healed Was not who it was Jesus had conveyed himself away, a multitude being in that place. He got out of the crowd. Afterwards, Jesus found this guy in the temple. Jesus found him, and Jesus came back to him. Jesus went and found him at a later time and said, "'Behold, thou art made whole. Sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee.'" His infirmity of 38 years was because of sin, what the Bible says. Right? You see that? All right, go to John 8. John 8, 10. This is when the woman had been, they brought her in because she committed adultery. And when Jesus had lifted up himself, he'd been writing in the sand, and saw none but the woman, he said to her, Woman, where are those thine accusers? Hath no man condemned thee? Remember, they all walked away, the old one first. She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee. Go, and sin no more. See, if she hadn't of sinned, she wouldn't have been suffering. Y'all do know adultery is a sin, right? Plain and simple. But now, let's just try this one, just a little bit over. Go to John 9, 1. Let's just get things real nice and simple here. John 9, 1. And as Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind from his birth. And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin? His disciples asked him. His disciples asked him. Man, master, who did sin, this man or his parents, that he was born blind? See, back then they believed everything that was wrong with you was because of sin. That's what the Jews believed, everything. Jesus said, neither hath this man sin, nor his parents, but that the works of God should be made manifest in him. That man didn't sin, and his parents didn't sin, but he's that way because God's gonna manifest his glory through him. Interesting. So sometimes your sin, y'all can get punished for it, and sometimes what's wrong with you, it's not because you did anything. You may have something going on in your life right now, you be thinking, well, man, why am I this way? What did I do? What did my parents do? Well, I got scripture to show you, parents, and you may not have done anything. He said, maybe God's getting ready to manifest himself and show you, show his glory. I don't know. Don't know. Pain and suffering can be good, couldn't it? Can y'all think of a time when pain is good? Oh, I sure can. Oh, I know. You know, sometimes it's cold like today and I go down to the basement and I turn my lazy boy around backwards. Then I'll sit down, I'll put my feet over to the little gas heater. And if you have neuropathy, you'll understand what I'm saying. One day I was doing it, I said, wait a minute, no socks. I said, wait a minute, it ain't really hot. So I take my hand over where I put my feet, it burned my hand. So see, neuropathy, when I can't feel pain, I could just blister my feet and burn them. Fire's right too. Hot. Pain is a good thing. Pain is your body telling you that something is wrong. Let's just take another step. You're heartbroken. You got pain. Something's wrong. You're feeling pain because something's broken inside of you. Right? You're slicing a tomato. You're slicing yourself on the finger. Well, I'm glad I have pain. Otherwise, I might have kept on cutting my finger off. Right? Pain can be a good thing. What about Paul? What about this? Go to 2 Corinthians 12. 2 Corinthians 12, and let's go to verse 7. The Bible says, this is Paul speaking, and lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure. For this thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me. And he said to me, My grace is sufficient for thee, for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly, therefore, I will rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me." Paul speaking. Therefore, I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong. God sent a messenger from Satan. I think a messenger is an angel. I think he sent a messenger of Satan to torment Paul, to prevent him from sinning. Verse 7, and lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations. I think God saw what could happen to Paul. He said, I'm going to protect my man from sin. I will send ambassadors of Satan. So God did that to Paul, Apostle Paul. Right? So I want you to see it's a lot of different situations for you to understand. This is the guy that God called on the road to Damascus. and then gave him the mystery program for all the Gentiles. This guy, this is the guy who became the apostle of, our apostle of the Gentiles. This is the guy who Jesus spoke with for three years privately in the desert, training and teaching him. This is the guy we're talking about. But God said, I'm going to send a messenger of Satan to torment you. It's right there, plain. I think it prevented sin. Sometimes I think, I think you'll agree, I think you'll agree with this, sometimes our pain and suffering is a wake-up call. Sometimes I think it is a wake-up call just to sort of get your attention. See God sees way on down. He sees way beyond where we see. And I believe things happen because He sees where it's going and He does love us. I mean no greater love that I have than a man laid down his life for his friends. He laid his life down for us. What about Job? You want to mess up your theology, go to Job 1.1. Before Psalm, this, I mean, still one of my favorite books, especially the last few chapters, one of my favorite books in the entire Bible. Job 1.1, there was a man in the land of us whose name was Job, and that man was perfect and upright, and he feared God and eschewed evil. That's a pretty good guy. That's a really good guy. He was upright. He feared God, and he didn't do evil stuff. Well, what happened to him? What happened to him? He lost his house, he lost all his family except his wife, and then he lost all his possessions, and then his body was just covered in sores and boils. Then he's got three buddies that come over and taunt him. It's all your fault, Job. It's all your fault, Job. That's my side of it. God let Satan do that. mess up your theology. I mean, it could. Most ministers, they don't even talk about that. There's no way to get me to bring that up. Can you see why people become atheists? Now be honest with me. Can you see why some people become atheists? Well, I can. they look around and see all this bad stuff, all this evil, there's no God. I can't believe there's a God. They're wrong, obviously, but I can see how they, I can see where they get to that. They're trying to analyze things. You've got to have a reason for what's going on. And it's a sad, it's a sad state of affairs. They just can't, they've got to explain the evil in the world and there can't be a God because look at all the evil. Well, I know there's a God, you know there's a God. There's only one. I don't know about, I can't speak for you, but I can't speak for me. At this point in my life, where I am in my spiritual maturity, which has nothing to do with how old you are. At my spiritual maturity level now, pain and suffering draws me to God. Now, if I go back 30 years, I'd have been on the fence. I mean, why are you doing this? What's wrong with you? But now, I can tell you in 100% certainty, the more pain and suffering I feel, the closer I pull and I go to God because I know who He is. I don't understand why things happen, but I know that's my comfort in Him. I got no place else to go. I was thinking back years ago, how in the word of faith and charismatic, remember how you would talk to declare something and speak it over it and it would come to life and you take all these scriptures back in the Old Testament that were for the Israel and you try to speak them into existence today and those scriptures weren't even to you? Remember some of those? And then every time something happened, well, I just didn't have enough faith. If I had enough faith, that wouldn't have happened. That was what I grew up with and was taught for years and years and years. Mess your mind all up. Because see, everything's on you now. And so everything's on you. If things bad happen, it's on me. It ain't always on you. It ain't always on you. Don't go there. I mean, you need to know how to rightly divide. Don't be going back in the Old Testament and then picking out scriptures and speaking them over your life. They don't apply to you. So what's the point in pain and suffering? What's the point in it? I know somebody who knows more about pain and suffering than any of you. And we've had some people in here who've suffered. Who is that? Who do you think knows more about pain and suffering than anyone? Jesus. He knew no sin, but was made sin for us. Jesus Christ and all His disciples left Him. I mean, he's going to the cross. He kept telling them over and over, I'm going to die through this. And they didn't believe him. They wanted their kingdom, because they knew he was the king, and he's going to have their kingdom, and they want their kingdom. And then when he goes into the garden, and then they fall asleep, and then he says, can you all step a little while, guys? They fall asleep over and over and over. And then they come arrest him, and they take him in, and they pedernize him over and over and over. You can study that more than three times. That's a long story. I might do that sometime. if you check all your verses out he denied him several more than three anyway but then they all leave him it's his disciples they abandon him think about that and then he's on the cross and I'm afraid of it and then he goes my God my God why have you forsaken me turned his back on Him. He took all of your sin. All of your sin, your sin, your sin, your sin, your sin, your sin, your sin, your sin, your sin, your sin, times billions. He took every sin on the cross and paid for it. I can't imagine. I mean He took some pretty bad sin. Child molesters, I mean He took some pretty bad stuff. Hamas sin, He took them. He knows more about your sin than anybody else would. Nobody's experienced the pain and suffering that he has. No one has. I don't care how sick you've been. I don't care how many treatments you've had. Nobody has come close to experience the pain and suffering that Jesus Christ did. Nobody had. Nobody has. But see, what that does for me, that gives me hope. I have hope. I have confidence knowing what he did for me. I know what he did for me. I know what he did for me. He became a human, lived here for 33 years. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us." You know, how many different ways can you know God? I mean, it's sort of a trick question, but what's the one way, if you know you want to know God, what's the one way to know Him? Read your Bible. The Word. That is His Word, the written Word. Is there any other way? Well, you know, Hm? When I tell you, you're gonna go, yeah. What about if I bring up Stan? Stan. Nature. You could be in some country over there and eating bamboo or whatever, eating monkey meat, I don't know. But then, and I'm not making fun of that either. I didn't mean it to be funny. I mean, I wouldn't try and make fun of somebody. But see, they look around. I mean, they look at the stars, they look at the trees, they look at the animals, they know there's a God. You're without excuse. Just look at the trees. You can know God, I mean, you know there's a God by observing nature and by the written word. Okay? But you're only saved by one way. Don't get confused. How do you know somebody? You talk to them. The more you talk to somebody, the more you know them, correct? Right? If you don't talk to somebody, you don't know. You don't really know who they are. It takes a while to get to know somebody, I think. You can't know somebody in a couple of months. It takes longer than that. And what I'm confident in is things happen to me and with you and people that I care about. And I pray for y'all almost every day. And so when I think about these things, I do know, excuse me, that at some point there's gonna be a judgment. It's all gonna be made right. ain't got to worry about making it right, God's going to take care of it. At some point, all believers, all of us are going to be in Heaven for eternity as believers. Unbelievers are going to be where? Alright, get more graphic than that. Three words. Lake of Fire. They're going to be in the Lake of Fire. That's where the devil is going to be. He's not in Hell now. We get all these weird things. No, He's not in Hell now. He's walking around here going back and forth to Heaven like in Job talking about. He has free reign where He goes. But yeah, one day goodness is going to be, there's going to be a reconciliation and we're all, all unbelievers at the white throne judgment are going to be judged and be sent to the lake of fire. I was thinking about Christianity today, and what sets us apart from everybody else? Every religion. One thing starts with a G. Grace. That's just me talking. There's no grace in whether you're Buddhist, if you're Hindu, if you're Islam, if you're Roman Catholic, if you're Mormon, if you're Jehovah's Witness. They're all merit-based programs. They're based on what you do. You gotta do this. And see, I got thinking about it, and Adam will laugh when he hears this probably, but see, many of us, many, not of us, many Christians, they view their relationship with God like the owner's manual in their car. I gotta change some oil every 5,000 miles. I gotta check my air filter. I gotta rotate my tires. Their relationship with God is nothing more than an owner's manual. All these things I have to do, and if I do all those things, then my relationship stays good. Do you really think, how do you believe that? There's nothing good about you or me. It's all His grace. You think God's going, man, good job. I mean, do you think, like, when Ginny sings, she has a wonderful voice. Who gave that to her? God. He didn't give me one. Right? You understand? Some of y'all in here are not smart. Some of y'all in here are geniuses. Who did that? God did that. God gave you the books, God gave you the ability to do engineering, God gave you the ability to do this and do that. Everybody else ain't got what you got. But God made all of y'all, all of us. We all have different abilities. Do you see that? But we all suffer, we all have pain. I promise that. You know, if you could, and I'm gonna step on a nerve here, but it's gonna be a good one. How many of y'all, like, miss people? You miss people. You loved them. Well, let me just, here's where I get people irritated. I'll forget somebody. Then you can just call me bad, whatever. What if you could see Maxine now? What if you could see Chris now? What if you could see little Eric right now? Or Terrence? Your whole attitude would change. It would be totally different if you could see, and I am making a very big assumption that they're all in heaven. If we could see them now, what would that do for us? Oh my gosh, you wouldn't be sorry. You wouldn't be crying about it. You'd be so, oh my God, you got that? That's yours? This is what you're doing? Oh my, I can't wait to get here. Save me a spot. I mean, it's entirely different. We don't even think about eternity. I promise you, if you could see your loved ones, the people you cared about, and see the ones that are in heaven, your whole attitude, your pain and suffering would be nothing. It'd be nothing to see the joy that they have. Me, me, me. Me, me, me. Them, them, them. You know, Paul went to heaven. He got back, couldn't talk about it. He couldn't even say what he heard. I don't know if anybody else has been to heaven to come back. These guys on TV, they're all liars, man. Don't y'all believe these goofballs? Jesse Duplantis asking God his opinion. People believe that. They believe those things. You come and tell me God came to you and asked you your opinion, I'm going to laugh in your face. I was just talking to God the other day and he wanted to know what I thought about this. Oh really? He asked you your opinion. Paul went there, our apostle Paul, he couldn't even, he couldn't say what he saw, he couldn't tell what was spoken. I can't do it. We've got people just go all the time back and forth. People stand up like they're prophesying for God, like they're predicting the future. Don't y'all get caught up in those kind of weirdo people. Please. We've seen how false they are. We've been through that before. Everything you need to know is right here. Right here, it's right there. Anything I say, you need to back it up. So, what are we supposed to do? What are we supposed to do with our pain and suffering? Ain't that the point? That's my point. What are you supposed to do with it? What are you supposed to do? Because you got it. I'll bet you every one of y'all in here, every one of us has some kind of pain and some kind of suffering. Everyone I'm looking at, I bet every one of you is looking up here too. What are we supposed to do with it? Enjoy it? Why do we have it? Why do we have it? The one thing that you all ought to be doing in your pain and your suffering, you ought to be telling people about the gospel of grace. You ought to be telling people how they can be born again. It's not complicated. Oh, they'll laugh at me. Matter of fact, I'm going to do that maybe next Sunday. We're going to talk about how to do that exactly. I might have hand. We'll see. You've got to share the gospel with somebody else. They can reject it. They can laugh at you. You just be prepared. Invite them to church. I can't think of anybody that came to church without being invited. Maybe you know somebody. It's not hard. Hey, would you want to come to church with us? Yeah. Here's what I want to get to. This is the crux of what I want to teach you today. Go to 2 Corinthians 1. 2 Corinthians 1. We're going to read about four verses. Let's start in verse 3. let's do two real quick. You see where it says, verse 2, grace be to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. That's in every one of Paul's epistles. Every one of his epistles have that in it. Paul 13 of them. Romans to Philemon. Verse 3, blessed be God, even Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort. All is all. who comforted us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God." If you have the right relationship with God, you will be able to receive His comfort when you are in trouble. You'll have God's peace and comfort. It's readily available. Verse 5, for as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also aboundeth by Christ. And whether we be afflicted, it is for your consolation and salvation, which is effectual in the enduring of the same sufferings which we also suffer. Or whether we be comforted, it is for your consolation and salvation. afflicted or comforted. Verse 7, And our hope of you is steadfast, knowing that as ye are protectors of the sufferings, that ye shall also be of the consolation. Part of your, a great majority of your pain and suffering is for you to be able to relate to people who have pain and suffering. I say that there are people who have never taken care of their parents as they've gotten older. And then until you do that, you're not going to know what it is. There are people who may have not been able to have children. They're not really going to know what it's like for people to have children. Right? I'm not making fun of anybody. I'm not, not at all. But see, there's some things, if you don't do them, your pain and suffering is so you can help those people around you and their pain and suffering. That's why it's important to have a church. That's why it's important to be with people. Not be a YouTube church, not be a Zoom church. That's why you come to church. There are people that are here today, I guarantee you'll talk to somebody and they'll receive comfort from you. Or you may receive comfort from them. Because they know what you're going through. They've been through it. I was trying to think about it. When I looked up the word here, tribulation, it means severe affliction, distresses of life, trouble. And so many of us going through tribulations, we are here to comfort those around us. Afflictions, in verse 6, is pain, 1828 dictionary, pain. distress, suffering, sickness, losses. If you've ever had a sick spouse, you know what it is to have a sick spouse. If you've ever had a sick parent, you know what it is to have a sick parent. If you've ever had a sick child, you know what that is. You know what it is to do those things. Or even an injured child, or an injured parent, or an injured spouse, you know those things. I looked this up. I think, I looked up in the 1828 dictionary, no, no, no, I'm sorry, this is a direct dictionary. Sympathy and empathy. What's the difference between sympathy and empathy? There's a heck of a difference between the two. Sympathy, feeling of sorrow or pity for another's distress. All of us can feel sympathy for different situations. Empathy. The ability to understand and identify with another situation. Huge difference. Huge difference. Sympathy, you feel sorry. Empathy, I can identify with, because I've lived, I've had that same pain and suffering. I know what she's going through. I know what you're going through. I have empathy for that. And I got to think about that. They make fun of me. Like when I watch movies at home and I got my feet all kicked out, all the kids know I'm about to cry when my feet start doing that right there. I start wiggling my toes and wiggling my feet a little bit. And they said, he gonna cry? I mean, you know, right? Oh, it's getting dead. It's getting dead, because he's weak. You know what I mean? He's just weak on his feet a little bit. Because see, I'm trying to fight that emotion. I'm trying to not, I don't want to do that. And so I move my body to try to fix it. How many of y'all can watch a commercial and cry? Just watch a commercial and cry. Like a dog or a puppy or something. OK, see, that's not, I mean, that's not sympathy. That's empathy. You feel it. You feel what's going on. I think it might be why, I think it might be why that I like, I love watching movies. I think it's because I don't, I'm not no special, but I think, and you are, some of you love movies too. but I think those that love it because you identify, you feel what that character's feeling, and you can cry, laugh, whatever's going on, because you can identify with what's going on. If you just have sympathy, well, I mean, that's sort of bad what happened. And sympathy's still good, but empathy is the next level. And so, Years ago when I was telling people about taking care of my mom and dad at home and what all went on, some people, I'm really sorry, you know, it's too bad. Some people who did it, who had lived it, they looked at me and they knew exactly what the heck I was talking about. The people who hadn't done it don't know exactly. They got an idea, but they don't know exactly what you're going through. And so when we have pain and suffering, it's part of what God's given us so we can comfort those people around us who are going through their own pain and suffering. You know, probably too it is. That's a vast majority of that. You may, hang with me a minute, you may have been addicted to drugs, and you're free now, but then you know how you can talk with somebody who is addicted. Because you've been there, you know that pain. Right? Well, I'm leaving my husband, he cheated on me, and blah, blah, blah, whatever's going on, and whatever. Okay, let's say you've been divorced. So your husband cheated on you. You would be able to identify, right? Right? To a certain degree. Our pain is suffering, and most all of us in here have suffered a lot. And all of us in here have pain. We live in pain. It could be physical pain. It could be emotional pain. So many different places to go there. But I believe, when I read my scripture, it says right there, whether you be, verse six, whether you be afflicted, it's for your consolation, salvation. If you suffer, you be comforted. Verse four, we comfort us all in our tribulation. We may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble. By the comfort we're with, we ourselves are comforted. We as Christians need to have, we need to be at the point where we know I'm going through, this is bad, this is really bad. I don't know what's gonna happen, this is really bad. But God, we know you got it, we know you're in charge, and we thank you for giving us comfort. Then in turn, we've identified with whatever we're going through, whatever distress, whatever tribulation, we in turn can look over here and go to people who may not know the Lord. They may not have any idea. They may be mad at God, but we'll still have the ability to go to them and bring them comfort because we've lived that. We've lived it. You say, well, how can we do that? I mean, how am I going to do that? How am I going to do that? I mean, I know what they're going through. I mean, I have an idea. I've been through something similar. None of us know what they're going through. You don't know. What are you going to do? What are you going to do? It's simple. The first thing, you got to be there. You got to be there. You got to be there. And all you may have to do is just reach and put your arm around them and just cry with them. Just look him in the eye. You ain't got to say squat. Just the fact that they can see that you care and that empathy is transferred, they can see that, that may be all the comfort they need. Don't be too quick to be throwing out scripture. I'm not saying it's inappropriate, but just be careful. There's a point there to where it might not be appropriate. but it may be all they need. You go to a funeral. Somebody's died. You go to the funeral. Well, you know, they're in a better place. All these different things you can say. Y'all can do what you want to do. I don't do that. I shake their hand. I say, I'm sorry. I mean, they don't want to hear a lecture from me. They probably don't even know I came. I can hug them. All they may need is just for you, in your pain and suffering, what you've lived through, what you've dealt with, what you constantly struggle with, knowing what you should know by now, that your comfort comes from Jesus Christ. God brings the comfort from all. He does that. I think it's Psalm 34, 19. Let me see if I've got that right. Sometimes it's scary when verses come in your head. Not scary, I didn't mean scary, just it's interesting. Yeah. Many, Psalm 34, 19, many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivereth him out of them all. You've been made righteous by the blood of Jesus. You're going to be afflicted. You're going to suffer. There's no question about that. Don't you think, oh, it's a good day, man. Everything's going. You realize some of y'all got plenty of money. You know what I mean? I don't mean plenty. You got all the money you need. Some of y'all got great health. I mean, you don't even understand, why is he limping? Why is this? Why is he got? You know, your health is great. But you know, one day you could lose all of that in just a heartbeat. You can lose everything you've got. Oh, yes, you could. Identity theft, stock market crash, lose all of that. And then all of a sudden, you do what? I got stage four. What? It's inoperable. That could happen from this day to tomorrow. You can lose everything you've got overnight. Do you see that? But there's one thing you can't lose. You cannot lose your eternal life. You can never lose that. No matter what gets taken away from you, no matter what's been told to you, no matter what they said, you can never lose your eternal life. It's eternal. It's there forever. You've got to have confidence in that above everything else. Remind yourself of that. Oh, they can take that from me. Oh, they can take that from me. But no, the one thing I know, I have an eternal destiny to be with you in heaven for eternity. That's my destiny. I may be broke, I may be dying of this or dying of that, but the one thing I do know is I'm gonna be in heaven because I believe in the death, the burial, the resurrection of Jesus Christ. My faith is in what his blood did for me, my sins have been paid for. And if that, you should be able to look around and say, I got it covered, I got it covered. If you ain't got that covered, it's gonna be bad. You thought you lost it all, you got a whole lot coming. You got a lake of fire coming for eternity where the worm does not die. You're gonna suffer, no question about it. It's been promised, it's been promised to you and to me, but we don't have to go there. When we suffer, reach out to those who are suffering because we have empathy for them, we identify with what they're, and see you may not have that. You may not, you may not, doesn't mean, you may be sympathetic, you may not have empathy with people. I mean, I know you can, how many of y'all can just shut stuff up sometime? How many of y'all can just cover your emotions up and just, they're not even there, I'm just ignoring it, you know, you know, right? And you do that to sort of preserve yourself, otherwise you go nuts. But sometimes it's right not to be that way. to be able to reach out to somebody. You ain't gotta say anything. Just be there. Just hold their hand. Just sit there. Don't talk to them. Don't explain what happened. Don't give them some kind of bull crap answer about what God did. You don't know what God did. You don't know what his hand is in that. You've got no clue. Don't you be talking like you do know it. Don't go there. Just be there. Hold their hand and hug them. If you feel like crying, cry with them. That's all. That's why. That's why we're the body of Christ. That's why we have hands, feet, toes, fingers, heads, eyes. Well, we thank you for your word. Your word is absolutely true, there are no errors in it. And Lord, please help us as we go through life now with all the things happening around us, all this chaos and all this evil. Father, give us empathetic hearts that we'll be able to respond and help those who are struggling, who are having pain and suffering, they don't really know what to do, they're at the end of their rope. But Lord, we will be there for them because you will give us a heart that can react to that. We can identify with the situation, and we won't get up talking a bunch of junk and smack. We'll just be there for them. Help us, Lord, to think about others over ourselves. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. Amen.