WHY ARE IN PERIL IN EVERY HOUR?

CHRIST THE ROCK CONGREGATION

SUNDAY MARCH 19^TH 2023

Sermon By Pastor Marc Simeon

WHY ARE WE IN DANGER EVERY HOUR?

1Co 15:30 And why do we stand in jeopardy every hour?

 31 I affirm, by the boasting in you which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily.

INTRODUCTION

• The title of the message today is not a cliché but a reality.
• These are the very words of the Apostle Paul.
• These are the words of someone who has rendered great services to the furtherance of the Gospel.
• Speaking for Christian leaders, Paul is asking, “why are we always in danger?”
• Why is the devil always targeting us?
• Why are we receiving evil for the good we do for God?
• Why has God not intervene to facilitate His work?
• Why the work of God has to be so painful?
• The bible is full of verses that seem to indicate a smooth sailing in the work of God while the contrary is often experienced.
• We have to wonder why those Christians who are passive about God seem to have it so easy in life while the passionate ones suffer.
• The Bible says: “Many are the afflictions of the righteous”, but why?
• Jesus told the disciples that “anyone who wants to walk uprightly will be persecuted” but why?
• We can spend all day asking those questions, but the reality will remain the same.
• My attempt in this message is not to unfold the mystery behind the hardship of the righteous, but rather to equip Christians who have been battled by the devil while doing service for God.
• To get a better handle on the suffering of the righteous, we have to take a trip to the Old Testament and examine the sufferings of Job.

THE WHY(S) OF JOB

• In the book of Job, we find at least 25 instances where Job is asking God why.
• Subconsciously, a just person does not expect any evil to happen in his life.
• In fact, a just person is one who tries his best to please God at all times in order to avoid being chastised by God.
• The just is expectant of the blessings of God at all times.
• Both Job and his contemporaries had the belief that bad things only happen to bad people.
• The Bible testifies that Job was the most upright person living in his time.
• Job was also adamant in making sure that his children were in line with God in an effort to spare them any wrath from God.

Job 1:4 ¶ And his sons would go and feast in their houses, each on his appointed day, and would send and invite their three sisters to eat and drink with them.

 5 So it was, when the days of feasting had run their course, that Job would send and sanctify them, and he would rise early in the morning and offer burnt offerings according to  the number of them all. For Job said, “It may be that my sons have sinned and cursed God in their hearts.” Thus Job did regularly.

• When we follow the narrative Job, we see that it was God who was bragging about his relationship with Job and not the other way around.
• The same way we brag of God is the same way He brags of us if we walk uprightly.

Job 1:8 Then the LORD said to Satan, “Have you considered My servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, one who fears God and shuns evil?”

• Although God said some good things about Job, but the conversation between God and Satan was the beginning of Job’s problem.
• What made it worse was that Job was not even introduced in the conversation.
• A wage was set between God and the devil. God bet that Job was going to sustain everything the devil may throw at him.
• God gave the devil the green light to attack Job and he did.
• Job entered a twilight zone where weird things were happening to him left and right.
• Every day, Job received a report of a freak accident that happened to his possessions and then the news came that all his children were dead.
• While Job was trying to keep his composure, God gave the devil the right to attack his health with an incurable disease.
• Job undoubtedly sought the assistance of God, but to no avail.
• Job’s wife and Job’s friends added more nails to his coffin by their advices and their false accusations.
• Job tried his best to hold it together until he was no longer able to do so.
• Job’s anger erupted at God at some point and began to question God.
• The following verses help us to permeate the state of being of Job after all hell broke loose on him.
• Job asked Why to God

Job 3:11 ¶ “Why did I not die at birth? Why did I not perish when I came from the womb?

 12 Why did the knees receive me? Or why the breasts, that I should nurse?

Job 3:20 ¶ “Why is light given to him who is in misery, And life to the bitter of soul,

Job 7:20 Have I sinned? What have I done to You, O watcher of men? Why have You set me as Your target, So that I am a burden to myself?

Job 9:29 If I am condemned, Why then do I labor in vain?

Job 10:2 I will say to God, ‘Do not condemn me; Show me why You contend with me.

Job 10:18 ‘Why then have You brought me out of the womb? Oh, that I had perished and no eye had seen me!

Job 13:14 Why do I take my flesh in my teeth, And put my life in my hands?

Job 13:24 Why do You hide Your face, And regard me as Your enemy?

Job 19:22 Why do you persecute me as God does, And are not satisfied with my flesh?

Job 21:7 ¶ Why do the wicked live and become old, Yes, become mighty in power?

Job 24:1 ¶ “Since times are not hidden from the Almighty, Why do those who know Him see not His days?

• The way that Abraham is the prototype figure of the faith in God that the gentiles were going to inherit,
• Job is in the same manner the prototype of every righteous person living on earth.
• Every righteous person will have to undergo the test of authenticity from God.
• Call it the day of temptation or the day of evil if you wish.
• Call it the days of trials or the days of the silence of God.
• No true believer is spared Job’s experience in one form or another.
• Even if your head is filled with theology and Bible verses: mark my words, “you will be at shock.”
• You will question God.
• You will question your faith.
• You will question the Bible.
• All mature Christians have already gone through it.
• Let’s get back to Paul’s question’

WHY ARE WE IN DANGER EVERY HOUR?

• We know that next to Jesus, Paul had rendered the most service to the Christian faith by his zeal and by his writings.
• Paul was most deserving of the best that the church had to offer.
• The writings of Paul have generated a vast fortune to countless people throughout the ages.
• The churches that Paul had started were enough to make him rich.
• Instead of enjoying the fruit of his hard labor, Paul’s social life had nothing to write about.
• You see Paul asking for People to send him his old coat.
• Although Paul was not complaining, but he made the poignant observation that things do not usually go well for the servants of God.

1Co 4:9 For I think that God has displayed us, the apostles, last, as men condemned to death; for we have been made a spectacle to the world, both to angels and to men.

10 We are fools for Christ’s sake, but you are wise in Christ! We are weak, but you are strong! You are distinguished, but we are dishonored!

11 To the present hour we both hunger and thirst, and we are poorly clothed, and beaten, and homeless.

12 And we labor, working with our own hands. Being reviled, we bless; being persecuted, we endure;

1Co 4:13 When evil things are said about us we give gentle answers: we are made as the unclean things of the world, as that for which no one has any use, even till now. (BBE)

• The observation of Paul is still true for our days but many intruders have introduced another prosperity gospel to confuse the true men and women of God.
• Christians were never promised an easy life on earth.
• Anyone who upholds the cause of Christ will be harshly persecuted by the devil.
• Even in Paul’s time, many of the false teachers rejoiced in Paul’s sufferings.

2Co 11:23 Are they ministers of Christ? –I speak as a fool–I am more: in labors more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequently, in deaths often.

 24 From the Jews five times I received forty stripes minus one.

 25 Three times I was beaten with rods; once I was stoned; three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I have been in the deep;

 26 in journeys often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils of my own countrymen, in perils of the Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren;

 27 in weariness and toil, in sleeplessness often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness–

 28 besides the other things, what comes upon me daily: my deep concern for all the churches.

CONCLUSION

WHY ARE WE IN DANGER EVERY HOUR?

• Because we are citizens of a glorious Kingdom that is not of this world.
• Because the whole earthly system in under the control of Satan.
• Because it pleases God that we sustain the trials that He allows in our life.
• Because we are a threat to Satan’s kingdom of lies and deceit, for we know the truth.
• Because we are the only group on earth who can dare to resist the devil.
• Because of our glorious destiny ahead of us.
• Because we remind the devil of his past in glory and his future in damnation
• Because we are busy snatching people out of the grips of the devil.
• Because, Satan is a proud enemy who refuses to accept defeat.
• Brace yourself for more of the attacks of the enemy, for that is his only gratification to see you suffer since you will not be with him in the lake of fire.
• I want to end this message with the words of Paul in Romans 8:35-36

Ro 8:35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?

37 Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.

• I urge you to become more than conquerors for Christ in your moments of perils.

Ac 5:41 So they departed from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for His name.

 42 And daily in the temple, and in every house, they did not cease teaching and preaching Jesus as the Christ.

• AMEN!