CHRIST THE ROCK CONGREGATION
SUNDAY JUNE 1ST 2025
SERMON BY PASTOR MARC SIMEON
BLESS YOUR PAST AND YOUR PRESENT INSTEAD OF CURSING THEM:
FURTHER ALONE YOU WILL UNDERSTAND WHY
Reading: Psalm 66: 8-12
Ps 66:8 ¶ Peuples, bénissez notre Dieu, Faites retentir sa louange!
9 Il a conservé la vie à notre âme, Et il n’a pas permis que notre pied chancelât.
10 Car tu nous as éprouvés, ô Dieu! Tu nous as fait passer au creuset comme l’argent.
11 Tu nous as amenés dans le filet, Tu as mis sur nos reins un pesant fardeau,
12 Tu as fait monter des hommes sur nos têtes; Nous avons passé par le feu et par l’eau. Mais tu nous en as tirés pour nous donner l’abondance.
Psalm 66: 8-12
Ps 66:8 ¶ Oh, bless our God, you peoples! And make the voice of His praise to be heard,
9 Who keeps our soul among the living, And does not allow our feet to be moved.
10 For You, O God, have tested us; You have refined us as silver is refined.
11 You brought us into the net; You laid affliction on our backs.
12 You have caused men to ride over our heads; We went through fire and through water; But You brought us out to rich fulfillment.
INTRODUCTION
The message I just received from the Lord is for everyone to bless the past instead of cursing it.
The present adversities tend to cause people to curse their past and their present.
Many times in life, one may find himself in an endless tunnel and down spirals with no sign of life ahead of him.
The devil will whisper, “Curse God and die”, but don’t do it.
Numerous people in the Bible have cursed their very existence as many of us have already done ignorantly.
Jer 20:14 ¶ Maudit soit le jour où je suis né! Que le jour où ma mère m’a enfanté Ne soit pas béni!
Jer 20:17 Que ne m’a-t-on fait mourir dans le sein de ma mère! Que ne m’a-t-elle servi de tombeau! Que n’est-elle restée éternellement enceinte!
Job 3:3 Périsse le jour où je suis né, Et la nuit qui dit: Un enfant mâle est conçu!
We need to ask God for forgiveness for those words of curse and dissatisfaction that we uttered against the Creator.
Isa 45:9 Malheur à qui conteste avec son créateur! -Vase parmi des vases de terre! -L’argile dit-elle à celui qui la façonne: Que fais-tu? Et ton oeuvre: Il n’a point de mains?
Ro 9:20 O homme, toi plutôt, qui es-tu pour contester avec Dieu? Le vase d’argile dira-t-il à celui qui l’a formé: Pourquoi m’as-tu fait ainsi?
As I travelled for vacation last week, and as I explored the vastness of the country, many questions came to mind.
To reach Virginia Beach, the GPS had routed me to several toll traps.
That was my only complaint for someone like me who knows how to prepare a road trip.
I also discovered some breathtaking natural sceneries, coupled with the beauty that only springtime can offer.
I had also observed human ingenuity to the max.
I crossed the 17.6 miles Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel, the third longest bridge in America.
That bridge is considered as one of the Seven Engineering Wonders of the Modern World, officially opened in 1964.
I also went to the Navy museum (NAUTICUS), and visited the warship called Wisconsin.
I thanked God for the occasion and I enjoyed the freedom to be able to move around freely in this vast country.
I also saw traces of injustice from the recent past, where people from my race used to be treated like animals and mere property.
Many of them never benefit from any glimpse of the glory of the Land, but not all.
No one can escape history because every generation is part of the tapestry, ours included.
As an observer, it is always easy to question the past and even try to teleport yourself back in time in aim to fix some wrongs.
I also realize that every generation has to deal with the issues of its time while intentionally paving better ways for the future generations.
What if one could go back in time and rearrange the order of things.
In so doing, you would also have to wipe out the good yielding resulted from that very turbulent past.
We often blame God for anything that goes wrong in our lives.
The prosperity and the freedom of the now often rest on the injustices of the unpolished past.
The title of my message today is: BLESS YOUR PAST AND YOUR PRESENT INSTEAD OF CURSING THEM: further alone you will understand why.
Although God is not the author of evil, He craftily orchestrates all the happenings of this world to complement His master plan.
The plans of God are always in our benefit.
Jer 29:11 For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.
11 Car je connais les projets que j’ai formés sur vous, dit l’Éternel, projets de paix et non de malheur, afin de vous donner un avenir et de l’espérance.
The United States of America is really what you could call a New World.
Its composite is what you would call a melting pot of people from all sorts of geographical locations, tribes, races, colors, joining together to form one nation under God.
Rewind the clock by 500 years, all you would be seeing is trees, rivers, seas and mountains in most places.
When God had in mind to create a new world, he knew that the people from some of the remote and unprivileged corners of the world would not be able to get there in the conventional way.
While human wickedness would play a vital role in the process, yet God remains the mastermind behind human history.
While others may have perceived their fellow human beings as animals and acted upon that mindset, yet the master plan of God remained in full swing.
People might have seen slaves, properties, free labor, yet God saw civil right leaders, preachers, doctors, teachers,
law enforcers, entrepreneurs, governors, mayors, scientists, and even presidents resulting from the very slavery system.
As we flip the pages of history and see where the trajectory of the past has led us to, the less we question the sovereignty of God for what seemed as passivity of evil.
At the end we realize that God loves us equally and that He is not a respecter of people.
We Haitians so love Haiti, but should we curse God for how our forefathers got there.
Should we praise the villainous people and nations who planted us there? No way!
To God be the glory! At last, the slaves overturned their masters and claimed the Land for themselves.
THE LIFE OF JOSEPH
While Joseph could not see the hands of God in the sad episodes of his life that landed him in Egypt.
He lived to see the end result of the betrayal of his brothers.
The very wrong they did to Joseph prompted him to become the Prime Minister of Egypt.
Don’t curse God because of present trials, for they may become the launching pads to your glorious destiny.
Some were deprived of maternal and paternal love in their childhood; they blame God heavily for it, yet they fail to recognize that the absence of such privileges also fostered them to become the very person that they are today.
If God sees that the end result will be beneficial to you, He will not spare you the unpleasant adventures that will lead to it.
Joseph was to be raised away from his jealous brothers and also away from his loving lover father in order to achieve God’s destiny for his life.
We need to stop complaining about the past.
We need to stop holding grudges on people because of the past.
Instead of becoming sarcastic and bitter, thank God rather for turning your ashes to beauty.
THE DETAILS OF GOD’S COVENANT TO ABRAM
Ge 15:13-16 Et l’Éternel dit à Abram: Sache que tes descendants seront étrangers dans un pays qui ne sera point à eux; ils y seront asservis, et on les opprimera pendant quatre cents ans.
14 Mais je jugerai la nation à laquelle ils seront asservis, et ils sortiront ensuite avec de grandes richesses.
15 Toi, tu iras en paix vers tes pères, tu seras enterré après une heureuse vieillesse.
16 A la quatrième génération, ils reviendront ici; car l’iniquité des Amoréens n’est pas encore à son comble.
When God made the promise to give the land of Canaan to Abraham, He also gave him some important details.
I give you this land today, but you cannot have it yet.
I give you this land, but you will die before this promise becomes a reality.
If I give you this Land right now, it would be injustice on my part.
If I give you this Land right now, you would have no one to inherit it.
As wicked as the Canaan people were, their wickedness had not yet reached the point for God to judge them so harshly by eradicating them to give their land to others.
Based on the rate of the moral degradation of the Canaanites, it was going to take another 400 years for them to reach the intolerable level of wickedness whereby God’s judgment would automatically lavish upon them.
Even when God turns his eyes and allows evil to become rampant, it always fit rightly to His master plan.
As for your people, I will raise them in a foreign land.
Oh, I forget to tell you Abram that your descendents will undergo one of the harshest forms of slavery.
At the appointed time, I will raise a deliverer to save them and take them out of the Occupation Land to the Promised Land.
“Excuse me Lord, did you say that I will die and not see any of these promises in my lifetime.”
“What’s the point Lord, I will not even be there to enjoy it.”
If so, how can you justly say that you will be doing these things for my sake?
God would reply: “I am not the God of the dead but of the living.”
The blessings of God transcend all generations after you.
WHY SHOULD A CHILD OF GOD BLESS HIS PAST AND HIS PRESENT?
Ps 66:8 :8-12 ¶ Peuples, bénissez notre Dieu, Faites retentir sa louange!
9 Il a conservé la vie à notre âme, Et il n’a pas permis que notre pied chancelât.
10 Car tu nous as éprouvés, ô Dieu! Tu nous as fait passer au creuset comme l’argent.
11 Tu nous as amenés dans le filet, Tu as mis sur nos reins un pesant fardeau,
12 Tu as fait monter des hommes sur nos têtes; Nous avons passé par le feu et par l’eau. Mais tu nous en as tirés pour nous donner l’abondance.
All the details of one’s life are part of the big plan.
The injustices, the harshness, the slavery, the humiliation, the threats, the sicknesses, the storms, the mountains, and the valleys, the famine, the exile, the discrimination are all part of the puzzle.
Now that we know the full story of Children of Israel, it makes perfect sense to us why they had undergone the trials they went through.
The Children of Israel had no knowledge of God while slavery was enforced upon them, yet they were in the center of God’s master plan.
Nothing goes wasted or unnoticed by God.
The good, the bad, the ugly, and all that life throws at you become instrumental in the hands of God who will turn them to your advantage.
How can I convince you that what you are going through right now is necessary in order for God to accomplish His good will in you?
God can make a masterpiece out of the good, the bad and the ugly scraps of life. He can turn ashes to beauty.
Don’t get too attached to your troubled past, it may obscure you from seeing the big picture.
You may be locked down right now in the prison of the past, filled with bitterness toward God and toward mankind.
Don’t limit the promises of God just to yourself; the blessings of God will perpetuate from generations to generations after you.
Abraham received a 400 years prophecy, yet the blessings of his covenant are still relevant today for his descendents.
Are you part of a long term prophecy like Abraham?
What role are you playing in it?
Are you part of the first crew of 70 people from Jacob’s family to descend from Canaan to Egypt?
Are you part of the early settlers and the farmers in the land Goshen in Egypt?
Are you part of the slave builder generation under the brutal hands of Pharaoh?
Are you part of the exiled generation, wandering in the wilderness for 40 years?
Are you part of the warrior generation to conquer the Promised Land?
Are you from the generation of first settlers to the Promised Land?
No matter where one fits in the spectra, God’s master plan is still in action.
You should thank God because the promise is still alive regardless where you fit in it.
Maybe your children will know better days than you.
Every aspect of the journey is as important as the previous and the next.
Remove any of it and the result would be alternated to something else.
CONCLUSION
BLESS THE LORD AT ALL TIMES AND IN ALL CIRCUMSTANCES.
Ps 34:2 ¶ Je bénirai l’Éternel en tout temps; Sa louange sera toujours dans ma bouche.
Eph 5:20 rendez continuellement grâces pour toutes choses à Dieu le Père, au nom de notre Seigneur Jésus-Christ,
1Th 5:18 Rendez grâces en toutes choses, car c’est à votre égard la volonté de Dieu en Jésus-Christ.
Les longues années de stérilité d’Anne amenèrent à la naissance du grand prophète Samuel.
La stérilité Rachel aboutissait à la naissance de Joseph.
Les longues années de servitude des Enfants d’Israël produisaient des hommes forts, travaillants et robustes; cette même fin devint servile après leur sortie de l’Egypte.
Servons de nos déboires comme des essors pour nous lancer vers notre destinée bienheureuse.
Bénissons le Seigneur pour notre passée, notre présent et notre futur. « Pi devan n’a konprann pouki »
AMEN !
SAINTE CÈNE
Pasteur Marc Simeon 