Hebrews 11:17 – By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac: and he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten son,

Hebrews 11:18 – Of whom it was said, That in Isaac shall thy seed be called:

Hebrews 11:19 – Accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead; from whence also he received him in a figure.

Hello readers, back with a new blog today. Apologies if there are any typos in here or autocorrect madness. This blog is a one take as I am tired but want to get these thoughts out! What happens when you’re tried? I’ve been thinking about being tried. Because everyone can say they’re saved, everyone can say they’re Christians, but when that fact is tried, and it will be many times over in this life… that’s when we truly know what our faith is worth. For many people… it’s not worth much. The fiery trial comes, and nothing remains. Remember back to 1 Corinthians which talks about the judgment of God, and what is going to abide the fire of God? What’s going to remain when you’re put through the fire?

This life has fiery trials. We all have different trials. There is no way you can be ready or see some of the trials that come. Yours may be very different to mine. We look through the Bible and all we see is trials… the trial of faith. Is your faith worth something? Is your faith in God real and true? Are you born again? See, the trials really reveal what’s real and what’s not in our lives. You can’t come forth as gold like Job said he would if there’s not something real there.

I was thinking, there were a lot of people that came of out Egypt with Moses. But the Bible says that afterward God destroyed those who believed not. Many came out of Egypt, but not many went into Canaan. There were many that did not believe. And the unbelief of the many held up the believers from entering in. Ever wonder what Joshua and Caleb thought as they’re cool their jets in the wilderness because of the unbelief and rebellion of the majority? So often our sin affects others, and the unbelief of the ten spies and the majority who believed them stopped that generation from every moving forward in life. By the way, that’s why you shouldn’t believe and follow the majority, your peers, but follow God’s word, the truth. The majority called God a liar, but the majority were wrong.

So today I’m thinking of this verse specifically…

1 Peter 1:7 – That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ:

This thought of the trial of your faith is further followed up in the same epistle…

1 Peter 4:12 – Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you:

1 Peter 4:13 – But rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ’s sufferings; that, when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy.

I look back at my life so far and I can’t believe what I’ve come through. Not because I’ve been through anything exceptionally hard, but really just seeing God’s grace and longsuffering for all the times I can and did go so far astray and God somehow kept me. No wonder he is called that Great Shepherd of the sheep. As the song says… Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it. Prone to leave the God I love. Big trials are going to come up, things which you never saw coming.

Job went through a big trial of his faith. What he went through certainly tested his faith in the God he claimed he believed in. The toughest aspect of his suffering wasn’t physical, but psychological and spiritual. But what do you think when you’ve served God and you love him, and all this horrible stuff is happening to you? What about John the Baptist, waiting in the dungeon, and he gets to wondering… is Jesus really the one? What about Joseph… you think he faced any trials in regards to what God was doing to him and letting him go through when he was sold to the slave traders by his own brothers?

Psalm 105:17 – He sent a man before them, even Joseph, who was sold for a servant:

Psalm 105:17 – Whose feet they hurt with fetters: he was laid in iron:

Psalm 105:19 – Until the time that his word came: the word of the Lord tried him.

God’s word tried Joseph. This is actually an amazing statement. God’s word tries all of us. It tries our heart. It tries whether we truly believe, whether we truly love the Lord Jesus Christ like we say we do. How will we go when our faith is tried? The Bible says that by faith Abraham… when he was tried… offered up Isaac. God’s word tried him. God had told him to go and offer his son upon a mountain that he would show him. What a picture that is. Until God shows you the cross, and that is, reveals his Son to you, you won’t be saved. But God’s word tried Abraham, because he told Abraham to go, and what Abraham did with the word of God was trying whether he truly believed like he said and thought he did.

We can think a lot  of ourselves. Peter thought a lot of himself. Lord, I’ll never forsake you. I’ll be with you to the end! I’m ready to fight and die. Yet somehow when the trial of that statement came, he fell very far short of his high thinking of himself. He failed the peer pressure trial. A bunch of people warming themselves by the fire ask him… are you one of his disciples? And he goes straight into denial mode. We are really not that different. How often we deny Christ for fear of rejection, fear of being outed for being a follower of Christ.

Today we are talking about the trial of your faith. Elisha’s faith was tried and tested. He’d been with Elijah, and now Elijah was gone. So often death is what tests what was real and what wasn’t. What happens when you lose someone you love. What happens when the security you have that someone else provides you with is taken from you? What happens? Did Elisha just go back to his old job as a plowboy? No, he took up the mantle and continued on. Many old men and women of God have gone on just like Elijah, and that mantle has been left there lying on the ground because we weren’t legit.

What’s going to keep you in life’s trials? Are you going to keep you? No. What happens when you meet someone who steals your heart from God? If it can happen to Solomon, it can happen to you. He loved women, and they caused him to do abominations and to completely go away from following God. All the wisdom in the world and his heart was turned away from God by a woman. Will you survive that kind of trial? See, you may be confident now… but the Bible says this in 1 Corinthians 10:12 – Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.

Trials of our faith can take many different forms. They can be outright persecution, but they can be a lot more subtle than that. What happens when you go through health problems? Financial problems? Relationship problems? But what happens if you get into problems with lust, envy, pride, greed… all these things that can slip into our lives. What happens when lies get into our life, lies that take us away from believing and obeying and trusting God’s word? What’s going to keep us in all the millions of things that can happen in our lives which end up leaving us not knowing what hit us. What happens when we sincerely think we are right when we are wrong? What happens when we start opposing the truth? David ended up living in Gath… that’s how messed up he got… he was on the run from Saul and he sought safe haven with the Philistines. He sought refuge with the Philistines and dwelt in the city that had produced Goliath, the giant he’d killed all those years back. How do you get out of that kind of mess? Trials and tests can get us in a big mess. We’re good at making a mess of things. David wasn’t trusting God, he was going by his own reasoning and thinking.

But here’s the truth. If your journey started with the Spirit of truth, you will always be led into the truth. If you are truly born again, that’s how you will be kept through the trial. See, remember that burning bush that was on fire… yet was not consumed. What’s going to keep us from getting consumed by sin, by pride, by lust, by lies, by our selves, and we are our own worst enemies ain’t that the truth? But what’s going to keep us from burning up and burning out? The same reason that bush didn’t burn… God was in the bush. If God is in you, that’s how you make it through… because he takes you through… he will bear you up on his wings and take you through.

See, the trial really just proves God is sufficient, God is able, and the trials of life for a Christian serve to deepen the relationship and fellowship with have with God. See, Job at the end of it, he had such a deeper understanding of God, his faith was strengthened. That’s what trials do… yes they weed out the tares… but they strengthen the real believers. It was under great persecution when the early church grew. It was under great affliction and bondage that the Israelites multiplied and waxed stronger and stronger in Egypt. Trials are what we don’t want, but often what we really need as hard as that is to say. Trials prove us.

Think of the three Hebrew children in the book of Daniel. They faced a trial. Bow down or thrown in the fire. They had a fiery trial, they are a picture of what we have been discussing from the verse in 1 Peter. They were chucked in the fire. And look at the person that was in there with them. The fourth person. The Son of God. God doesn’t test us to hurt us, to ruin us… no… the trials are when we see God, when we are closest to him. Without being chucked in the fire they would’ve never experienced walking the fire with the Son of God. With the Son of God in your life, you can walk the fire. Oh, and the heat may get turned right up many times, just as Nebuchadnezzar turned the heat up on that furnace. What happens when the heat gets turned up in your life?

Think of John the Baptist again. He’s sitting in the dungeon. The axe is coming, and he’s about to get his head chopped off, all because he told Herod the truth of God’s word. He’s sitting there in chains and he’s about to get executed because Herod made a stupid promise to his deceitful little stepdaughter. He’s about to lose his life at the whim of a vindictive woman. And he sends some of his disciples to Jesus Christ and they ask him “Art thou he that should come, or do we look for another?”. What a question. The greatest born of women is struggling with doubt in the moment of darkness and despair. If John the Baptist wasn’t fit to loose Jesus’ shoe latchet… well we probably aren’t fit to loose John the Baptists shoelatchet. We probably aren’t likely to end up in a dungeon like John the Baptist and Joseph though, because we are too comfortable in our life of apathy, indifference and sin. We’re not likely to get persecuted for our faith because our faith isn’t worth the persecution.

What about David? He somehow ended up in a world of lies, deceit and wickedness. The sweet Psalmist of Israel, the man after God’s own heart… he’s deep in sin. That’s where we can end up. All because he was simply tried by beautiful woman bathing on the rooftop. That’s how easy we can lose the plot. What saved David? Did he get himself out his mess? No. God needed to send a man of God to the man of God. That’s incredible. But think about it. David’s biggest trial wasn’t Goliath. His biggest trial was his own lust and the deceitfulness and wickedness of his own heart. So often we can become the biggest mission field, we who should be impacting others, we need someone to come and tell us the truth about ourselves. The thing is, David assented to the truth, that was the thing that separated him from Saul. Saul was confronted with his wrong and he went into justification and excuse and victim mode… that’s more like us right. That’s why Saul was rejected. He’d done wrong and he’s saying nah I did right! Yeah God got it totally wrong Saul… we need to stop disagreeing with God’s word and start submitting to the truth of it.

So today, as usual, we’ve barely touched the hem of the garment of the topic. But expect your faith to be tried and tested. A faith that is tried and tested is worth something. You don’t know how much your faith is worth until it’s been proven. For many people, there’s not much left after a slight bit of adversity. Jesus talked about the kind of believers who have no root, they start out ok, but pretty soon they wither and die. There’s no root in them. There’s nothing substantial, there’s no deep work of the Holy Spirit. There’s no repentance. There’s no new birth. See, what will keep you is whether you are one of his sheep. Jesus keeps good track of his sheep. You can’t keep yourself. We need to be kept… and he is the shepherd and he sometimes has to go into the mountains to fetch us off some cliff face that we’ve got ourself onto. We’re good at getting lost, but he’s better at finding us.

So really the trial of your faith just proves how legit you are. That’s why you need a legit salvation. Your salvation needs to be based on truth. So many Christians don’t come the Lord’s way, they don’t come to God through repentance and faith in Jesus Christ, for salvation from their sin. They aren’t Christians based on the truth of God’s word. You may be a tare in that big field of wheat… there’s heaps of tares in there… but one day you will be weeded out… rest assured. Were you planted by good seed? See, because the type of seed you are born of is vital, because it’s the difference between you being a wheat and a tare. Corrupt seed produces a corrupt plant. What is the incorruptible, pure seed? It’s God’s holy word, the gospel, the word of truth. That’s what has the power to produce life, that’s what God honors… and that’s what our salvation and hope and eternity needs to be pinned on. No matter where you are at in life, I pray that God will truly work in your life, that your life will be a sincere work of the Holy Spirit, that your life is holy ground, for if it is, you will be well rooted and stablished for what is going to come in your life. God will take you through the trial, there is light at the end of the tunnel, and he will take you through.

The trial just proves if something, if someone, is there or not. Is the Lord Jesus Christ there? He that hath the Son hath life, and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life. It really is simple as that. If you have the Son, you will make it. It was the Son of God with the three Hebrew children that made all the difference. And you can walk through the trials of life with God… and guess what. The smell of the fire wasn’t even on them! That’s some deliverance aye. And then guess what, it caused a selfish, proud, heathen king to glorify God and get saved himself. Your life is testimony and epistle to others, what’s going to be read of your life and the trials you went through? What’s going to come forth? Gold? Silver? Precious stones? God will take you through them, look to the Lord Jesus, get saved and abide in him, and you’ll make it to the Canaan of his perfect love.

Philippians 1:6 – Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ:

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