Suffering can become a Blessing.

 A Peruvian man had a hunger for adventure. Adventures can be exciting but they can also be fatal.

This man lost his way in the Amazon jungle. His family was sure he was dead, but he was adopted by an indigenous tribe and learned to live in the jungle. He not only learned their language and customs, but he learned to use jungle plants to treat tropical diseases. 

After seven years, he somehow found his way back to his own people, but he found a community in a tragic crisis. People were in the grip of an epidemic. Modern medicine was not working and many people were dying. 

He was not a doctor but he applied his knowledge of natural medicine he had learned in the jungle. It proved so effective that many lives were saved. 

The news of this success spread far and wide. Many botanists and medical experts came to learn from him. 

This man, who had been given up for dead, lived to the age of 91.

I have never known anyone who was lost in the jungle, but there are different kinds of terrible experiences which can lead to great blessings.

I have met people who have come out of prostitution, long prison terms and terrible drug addictions, but they have found faith in God and become a life saving help for many people.

I had a Christian conversion experience in my twenties but the first church I joined turned out to be a cult, where people were brainwashed and spiritually abused. After I was expelled from the cult, I spent a whole year in intensive full time psychiatric treatment.

It took me many years to recover, but God did not give up on me.

Corrie ten Boom was a Dutch Christian woman whose family protected Jews in the wartime Nazi occupation. She and her sister were captured and spent nearly a year in German prisons and concentration camps. Her sister died in the camp but she was released due to a clerical error. 

After this terrible suffering, she toured the world, bringing faith and hope to people without hope.

What kind of suffering have you been through? Prison, domestic violence, rape, human trafficking, cult brainwashing, severe mental illness?

No matter where you are, God loves you and has a plan for your life. In heaven there are murderers, ex prostitutes, people who have been witches, and also victims. 

In heaven there are babies who were aborted and mothers who aborted their babies.

No matter what you have been through, no matter what you are going through now, never, never, never give up.

Gaby Wentland is a German missionary preacher. She ministers to prostitutes and victims of abuse. She says there is more prayer in brothels than in many churches. 

God loves you no matter where you are, who you are, what you are doing, what you have done or what has been done to you.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. Jn 3:16 NRSVue

No matter whether you are the worst abuser or the most broken victim, Jesus died to take your punishment on himself. He hung naked on the cross to bare your shame.

But there is a condition. You must be willing to turn away from your cruelty, your selfishness and dishonesty. God loves you but you must be willing to change.

Call to me, and I will answer you and will tell you great and hidden things that you have not known. Jer 33:3 NRSVue

God is waiting to hear you cry for help.

Not only does God want to save you from guilt, from shame and abuse. He wants to use your painful experiences to help others. I have been wonderfully encouraged by people who have been in very dark places. 

The Peruvian man learned jungle medicine to save lives. If you have been in prison, in psychiatric treatment, in drug addiction or prostitution, God can use your experience to help people with similar experiences.

God has not Forgotten You

 Are you at the end of yourself? Has God forgotten you?

In the Old Testament, the Jews were desperate. They had gone wrong. They still believed in God to some extent, but they had not taken God seriously.

God had commanded:

“You shall have no other gods before me. Ex 20:3 NIV

God had strictly forbidden the worship of idols.

But those who trust in idols, who say to images, ‘You are our gods,’ will be turned back in utter shame. Is 42:17 NIV

Apostate kings in Jerusalem had worshipped idols since Solomon's time, and the people copied the sins of their neighbours.

Many believed in the god Baal and the goddess Asherah, Baal's supposed wife. This religion was all about sex and fertility. The priestesses of Asherah were prostitutes. The men worshipped the goddess by visiting these prostitutes.

This also happened in God's temple. This was supposed to make the land fertile so that they would have a good harvest.

It's a bit different here today. Sex is worshipped, but not fertility.
Exactly the opposite. We want to have very few children, and there are no longer enough young people in Western Europe.

The Jews in the Old Testament cruelly slaughtered their children in order to gain the favour of the pagan god Moloch.

Abortion is sometimes needed to save the life of the mother but millions of unborn babies are killed for all kinds of reasons.

God's prophets had warned again and again, but most people did not want to take the warnings seriously.

The people had surrendered to the rule of the cruel false gods. Finally, they had to reap what they had sown.

At that time the officers of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon advanced on Jerusalem and laid siege to it … 2 Kings 24:10 NIV

Nebuchadnezzar's army conquered God's people and Jerusalem was occupied.

The Jews were deported en masse to Babylon, where many were enslaved.

But what does this ancient history have to do with us? Does slavery exist today?

You can find drug dealers everywhere. If you have an addiction, you are enslaved. Many young women end up in prostitution to buy drugs.

There are boys on the street who spend the night with gays to avoid freezing on the street.

When people are exposed to such terrible alternatives, we can speak of slavery without exaggeration.

How can God allow such suffering? God has given us free will as human beings. We can suffer because of our own flawed choices, or often because of the evil choices of others.

One of the young Jews who was taken away by Nebuchadnezzar was Daniel. He was very intelligent and of noble birth. Even as a teenager, he was enslaved and castrated.

But God loved Daniel and all the deported Jews. In the prophetic book of Isaiah, we see God's heart for the suffering Jews.

But Zion said, “The LORD has forsaken me, the Lord has forgotten me.”
“Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you! Is 49:14–15 NIV

Daniel was determined to remain faithful to God in his miserable circumstances.

God sees your heart and His heart beats for you, as it did for Daniel. Daniel became the administrator of the government under Nebuchadnezzar and one of the greatest prophets in the Old Testament.

Are you in a mess where you can't see a way out?

God has not forgotten you. He loves his suffering daughters and sons, just as he loved Daniel.

God's love never gives up.

God's Laws for a Just Society

 When Jesus preached in his hometown of Nazareth, it was the Sabbath day, and he read this text from the Old Testament.

“The Spirit of the LORD is upon Me, Because He has anointed Me To preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, 

To proclaim liberty to the captives And recovery of sight to the blind, To set at liberty those who are oppressed;
To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD.” Lk 4:18–19 NKJV

The acceptable year of the Lord was the Jubilee.

Every fiftieth year was the jubilee. Anyone, who had sold his inherited land to pay debts, could repossess his inheritance free of charge.

Jesus read this text on the Sabbath. Every seventh day was also a day of rest. This was a great mercy for workaholics and poor labourers.

In addition, every seventh year was a year when the land rested. The crops that grew in this year must not be harvested by the landowners, but the poor could help themselves.

Every seventh year, all debts were also cancelled.

In the OT Law of Moses, the Hebrew landowners harvested the grain, the olives and grapes, but they were not allowed to harvest too thoroughly. They had to leave a generous portion of unharvested produce for the poor to gather. This was called gleaning.

An evangelical preacher in the USA explained these laws. He then asked his congregation, what they would think if these laws were not in the Bible and we applied these principles today.

The conservative congregation answered, that this would be Communism.

Does this shock you? It seems to me, that evangelical Christians in America and similar countries have badly misunderstood what it means to be Bible believing Christians. We have been indoctrinated to accept uncritically the priority of maximising investment returns and corporate profits.

What does the bible say about financial greed?

Woe to you who add house to house and join field to field till no space is left, and you live alone in the land. Is 5:8 NIV

In America, Australia and some other countries, real estate speculation has resulted in mass homelessness.

These Bible laws were not just principles for believers to follow, but laws to govern a just society. If we live in democratic countries, and governments are not adequately providing for the care of the poor, the disabled and the sick, churches should do more to provide help. 

In the past, many schools and hospitals have been founded by churches to help people in need.

But it is not enough for Christians to help. We should also call upon governments to do more.

When the Luke and the Apostles wrote the New Testament, they said very little about principles of government. It was already in the OT. The early church also had no possibility of influencing Roman laws. They were like the church today under dictatorships.

In democratic countries, Christian political activists do try to influence laws. Many oppose homosexual marriage and try to restrict abortion, but conservative activists often ignore the OT principles of making adequate provision for the poor.

Many churches do help the poor but they don’t understand that they should pressure governments to help the poor and sick adequately.

Many American Christians have become so indoctrinated with the philosophy of big business, that they think affordable universal medical service is evil socialism.

What many conservative Christians fail to understand, is that poverty often leads to prostitution and more abortions.

In most democratic countries, the majority of people are no longer bible believing Christians. Political action to stop abortion has usually had little or no success. Adequate social welfare for poor or single mothers could reduce the desperation to get abortions.

THE POWER OF PEACE

James 3:17 (ESV)   But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere.

The peace of God is a lovely thing. It is full of kindness and understanding. God enables us to be tolerant and reasonable with most unreasonable people. 

Jesus taught us to maintain our dignity when provoked and insulted but not to respond to arrogant aggression in the same aggressive spirit.

Matthew 5:11-12 (NLT)  “God blesses you when people mock you and persecute you and lie about you and say all sorts of evil things against you because you are my followers. 

• Be happy about it! Be very glad! For a great reward awaits you in heaven. And remember, the ancient prophets were persecuted in the same way.

The peace of God is holy. 

When you live and move in the peace of God, you are like Jesus Himself, who was and is gentle and kind but never at the expense of holiness and truth.

• There are Christians who campaign against abortion who have no peace in their hearts. They threaten abortionists with violence and right angry letters to women, accusing them of murdering their unborn babies and condemning them to hell fire.

• There are other believers who minister the peace and holiness of Jesus. 

  • An evangelist addresses women by telling them their aborted babies are in heaven and then tells them how to repent and be reconciled to God and reunited to their own children who have gone to heaven before them.

The peace of God is not weak but strong like the water of a great river, the River of God that flows from heaven and cascades down upon the thirsty earth.

Isaiah 44:3 (NKJV)   For I will pour water on him who is thirsty, And floods on the dry ground; I will pour My Spirit on your descendants, And My blessing on your offspring;

Revelation 22:1 (NLT)   Then the angel showed me a river with the water of life, clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb.

• In the middle of its street, and on either side of the river, was the tree of life, which bore twelve fruits, each tree yielding its fruit every month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. Revelation 22:2 (NKJV)

This River is a manifestation of the Spirit of God Himself who is the Spirit of Jesus and the Spirit of peace.

• Galatians 5:22 (NKJV)   But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace ...

John 7:37-39 (NKJV)  On the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, "If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink.

• He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water."  

  • But this He spoke concerning the Spirit, whom those believing in Him would receive; for the Holy Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.

To understand how the River of Life in you generates NEW LIFE, click on this link:
OUT OF YOUR BELLY WILL FLOW RIVERS ...