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Living Hope SDA Church

Christian Martin

Why Does God Allow Difficult Trials?

In all things, in all things, let us praise the name of the Lord.

As we gather together to worship, let's bow our heads in prayer and ask God to give us a special blessing through the scriptures.

Father in heaven, how thankful we are that we can praise your name.

Yes, in the good times when it's easy, but also in the difficult times when it's not so easy.

And today Lord, right in these very strange circumstances, we find reasons to praise your holy name.

And I ask Lord that as we take a moment now to hear a word from you, so we open the word of God, we ask that you would tune our hearts to listen to your voice.

Give us understanding of the message that you would have us understand today for such a time as this and we thank you in Jesus name, Amen.

I want to share with you a story about Chippy.

Chippy was simply minding his own business and singing his song there in his cage 1 day when his owner decided to clean out the cage using a vacuum cleaner.

The phone rang and the lady went to answer it, and that's when things began to go terribly wrong for Chippy.

You see, poor little Chippy, without the guidance of the woman, the end of the vacuum cleaner sucked up the bird and sent him to the dust bag.

Realizing what had happened, the woman came back and and she tore open that vacuum and ripped apart the bag to find Chippy fearing the worse.

However, Chippy was not dead but merely stunned and covered with dust.

Well the woman decided that she needed to revive the bird, and so she ran to the bathroom sink.

And she turned on the water and stuck Chippy under the flow.

Now, Chippy was cold and wet from the sudden bath, so the owner decided to dry the bird off, but not with the towel.

She got out her hairdryer and blew the bird off.

Chippy went from being sucked up to nearly drowned to being blown over.

The owner was asked by a friend just a few weeks later how Chippy was doing.

She replied well Chippy hasn't been singing very much anymore.

Life at times comes to us at an alarming rate and we are blindsided just like poor Chippy.

1 moment We don't have a care in the world.

And then the very next we're sucked up by trials and problems and difficulties.

There are times when life just seems to suck out the song right out of our hearts.

I believe that each and every day, each and every day, we are reminded of the fact that life is just not fair.

It's devastating enough to hear about the thousands of deaths that are happening on a daily basis all around the world.

I checked the news and the numbers in the last several days and weeks, well, they have gradually continued to increase.

But when infants like Erin, a six-month-old infant baby, an innocent little baby suffers from COVID-19 and is tested positive for it.

The greatest concern for Erin, Erin's mother right now is, is catching COVID-19 herself.

She said, if I show any symptoms, I will then be taken to another hospital.

And my baby Erin will be here alone when she needs her mom and dad by her side.

Can you imagine a most difficult trial for any parents?

You know, life can throw you unexpected curveballs, Things that you don't expect at times.

As we said earlier your life seems to go going quite well.

More than 22 million people have applied for unemployment claims in the last month alone.

That's a drastic number And it's happened in just the last 30 days.

Life in this world is filled with trials.

Life in this world is filled with difficulties.

People are murdered for no reason at all.

And family members are left to ask the question, why?

Traffic accidents lead to tragic disabilities for life.

Hunger is not just a condition in the third world countries.

No, in a recent stat that I came across, did you know that over 40 million Americans go hungry, face hunger, each and every day?

Difficult trials are an experience for all human beings.

And difficult trials can also lead, well, to suicide.

With Over 250, 000 deaths only since New Year's Eve, just merely 4 months ago or so.

These are the times that we're living in.

Devastation happens, difficult trials happen, And they happen in various ways, even by natural disasters.

And, you know, home was the Philippines for about 6 years.

My parents served there as missionaries and I lived there for 6 years.

And 1 of the experiences I have of living in the Philippines is there were only 2 seasons there.

We had the dry season and the rainy season.

And the thing about the rainy season is that we always anticipated these terrible storms, these rainstorms, these typhoons.

And A few years ago, the Philippines was hit with the strongest tropical typhoon to make landfall anywhere in the world in recorded history.

Super Typhoon Yolanda, it was called, made landfall with gusts of 235 miles per hour.

The governor of that region said this, When you're faced with a furious wind, you can only pray, pray, and pray.

Life can be very difficult when the wind blows.

And we can discover that the wind blew throughout the scriptures.

In Exodus, a mighty strong east wind ushered in the all-consuming locusts of the eighth plague when the wind blows.

In 1 Kings, great and strong winds tore into that mountain where Elijah was hiding for his dear life.

He was running as fast as his legs could carry him.

When the wind blows In the book of Job, a great wind blew across the wilderness and it struck that house where his children were having a feast And it killed all of Job's children.

And in chapter 148, the wind blows several times in between.

In Revelation, 4 angels standing on the 4 corners of the earth.

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Why Does God Allow Difficult Trials?

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