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you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you As usual, you know, if you're, if you're sick, if you're not feeling well, it's best just to stay out of church so we don't spread diseases among, among the church. So all right, with all that being said, I'm going to ask brother Carter to come up. He's going to lead us in our next song. Oh, yes, sir. The one last announcement. So the Rogers family brought in some cake for Elijah's birthday. So that is going to be available after service to help yourself with that, with that cake. And I think that's it. Am I missing anything else, man? I'm, I'm, it's like the first time I'm up doing announcements or something. All right, with that, I'm going to hand the service over to brother Carter. He's going to lead us in our next song. Once again, that's hymn number 327. Number 327, Higher Ground. Higher Ground. Higher Ground. Higher Ground. Higher Ground. Higher Ground. Higher Ground. Higher Ground. Higher Ground. Higher Ground. Higher Ground. Higher Ground. All right. All right, we're going to have our offering this morning and get brother Nancy to take care of that. And while we go in our collection, if you can turn in your Bible, so first Corinthians chapter 10. We're going to read the entire chapter as our custom is here at Strong Roll Baptist Church. First Corinthians chapter 10. Once again, as first Corinthians chapter 10. First Corinthians chapter 10 beginning at verse 1 says, Moreover, brethren, I would not that you should be ignorant, how that all our fathers were under the cloud and all passed through the sea and were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea and did all eat the same spiritual meat and did all drink the same spiritual drink. For they drink of that spiritual rock that followed them and that rock was Christ. But with many of them, God was not well pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness. Now, these things were our examples to the intent. We should not lust after evil things as they also lusted. Neither be he idolaters, as were some of them, as it is written that people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play. Neither let us commit fornication, as some of them committed and fail in one day three and twenty thousand. Neither let us tempt Christ, as some of them also tempted and were destroyed of serpents. Neither murmured ye, as some of them also murmured and were destroyed of the destroyer. Now, all these things happen unto them for in samples, and they are written for our admonition upon whom the ends of the world are come. Wherefore, let him that thinketh he standeth take heed, lest he fall. There hath no temptation taking you, but such as is common to man. But God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able, but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it. Wherefore, my dearly beloved, flee from idolatry. I speak as to wise men, judge ye what I say. The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? For we being many are one bread and one body, for we are all partakers of that one bread. Behold Israel after the flesh, are not they which eat of the sacrifices partakers of the altar? What say I then, that the idol is anything, or that which is offered in sacrifice to idols is anything? But I say that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils and not to God, and I will not that ye should have fellowship with devils. Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of devils. Ye cannot be partakers of the Lord's table and of the table of devils. Do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than he? All things are lawful for me, but all things are not expedient. All things are lawful for me, but all things edify not. Let no man seek his own, but every man's another's wealth. Whatsoever is sowed in the shambles, that eat, asking no question for conscious sake. For the earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof. If any of them that believe not bid you to a feast, and ye be disposed to go, whatsoever is set before you, eat, asking no question for conscious sake. But if any man say unto you, this is offered in sacrifice unto idols, eat not for his sake that showed it, and for conscious sake. For the earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof. Conscious, I say, not thine own, but of the other. For why is my liberty judged of another man's conscience? For if I, by grace, be a partaker, why am I evil spoken of for that for which I give thanks? Whether therefore ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God. Give none offense, neither to the Jews, nor to the Gentiles, nor to the church of God. Even as I please all men in all things, not seeking mine own profit, but the profit of many that they may be saved. Let's have a word of prayer. Lord God, we thank you for our church and allowing us to gather one more morning, one more service, Lord. We ask that we will give heed to your word this morning and the words that will come forth. We ask that we be doers of it, most importantly. Let your spirit rest on pastor this morning as well as he preach. In your son Jesus' name we ask and pray, amen. Alright, so the sermon this morning I'm hoping will be a sermon that will edify you and one that if it's not something that you particularly need right now at the current stage you're at in your life or whatever's going on in your life that maybe you'll be able to get edified by it later to do this. Remember the sermon, remember these words of God that we're going to be covering this morning. And I tell them I start with your breaking point. We all go through a lot of different hardships and trials in our life and sometimes life can start to feel overwhelming. You might have a lot of burdens, you might have a lot of things going on, maybe a series of events that happen that are just real bad events or negative events or things that happen that kind of bring you really low. And you might get to a point where you just feel like I can't take it anymore. And obviously I think everyone probably has shared to some degree or another that feeling, that overwhelming feeling where you don't even know how you're going to be able to move forward from this point. Maybe certain things have happened. You can't even see that far ahead as to how your life can possibly get better, how things can improve, how you can keep going or anything along those lines. And what I want to do this morning is we're going to look at some various examples that we have in Scripture of people who have gone through really low points and really hard trying times. And we're going to see how God has delivered them out of those times every single time. And before we even get into those examples, we started off in 1 Corinthians 10 which explains, it does a very brief summary of a lot of the sins, a lot of problems that the children of Israel have done and all the judgment of God. But then it explains that these things happened unto them for in samples in verse number 11. You want to look down in your Bible. It says, Now all these things happened unto them for in samples, and they were written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come. So these stories are there for a good reason. They're there for us to learn from and understand. He says, Verse 12, Wherefore, let him that thinketh he stand to take heed, lest he fall. Now, you know, we may find ourselves in various situations. I was just saying where you kind of get to a low point. Sometimes there are external factors that you don't really have any control over that could be going on in your life that are not self-inflicted. They're not brought on by yourself. It's just some series of events that have happened even when you're doing things that are right, and Job's a good example of that. We're going to look at Job a little bit later. But oftentimes we go through some really bad times to where you get to this point of being overwhelmed from our own deeds, from our own sins, from our own actions, and we end up reaping what we've sown. And the Bible's explaining here, you know, it says here, Wherefore, let him that thinketh he stand to take heed, lest he fall. You never want to get to the point where you get so lifted up and proud thinking that you're above these other sins. Oh, yeah, I would never do that. I would never do this. Look, I would never do those things either. But you know what? Sometimes we do things that we shouldn't be doing. And obviously it's not bad to have that attitude, that mindset of saying, you know, I'm never going to do these sins, right? Because we want to be minded in the sense that we're not going to do those. But don't allow that then to blind yourself into thinking that you now are becoming more invincible and immune to sin. Look, no one is immune. So we do want to maintain the mindset of, look, I'm never going to do these sins. But not allowing that to just get this false sense of security, because maybe it has been a while since you've committed a sin or you've never done a sin, you know, whatever. Don't allow that to puff yourself up into ignoring that you are still capable of getting involved in these various sins. That's why it says, hey, take heed. You know, you think you're standing and doing great right now. Take heed, though. Pay attention. Beware so that you don't fall. And he says in verse 13, There hath no temptation taken you, but such is as common to man. Look, there's temptations that's common to everybody. We are all capable of falling into these various sins and temptations that can arise. So all these other examples were given to you just so you understand, look, don't get involved in this. It's common. Even God's people can commit some really bad sins and suffer some serious consequences as a result. So take heed. Pay attention to those warnings so that you don't fall too. But the point I really want to stress here and what I think is going to give you some encouragement is that whatever temptation, because a temptation is really just attesting. Now, God, the Bible says that God doesn't tempt us with sin. He may test us. God tested Abraham to see where his heart was, but he's not tempting us with sin. But here's the thing. If you're being tempted of God, if God's going to try you and test you, and it's not going to be fun, that's what a test is. A test is going to be stressful. A test is going to bring some anxiety. A test is going to maybe cause you to feel overwhelmed when you're going through a testing time. But look at what the Bible says here. It says, But God is faithful, in verse 13, who will not suffer you. Suffer means allow. He's not going to allow you to be tempted above that you are able. But will with the temptation also make a way to escape that you may be able to bear it. So the good news is that no matter how bad things seem to be and how overwhelmed you may feel, in the moment you may not understand how things can work out, take solace and comfort in the fact that God will not tempt you above what you're able to bear. God knows where your breaking point is. And sometimes we feel like we could get right to that edge of your breaking point, and that breaking point would be like, You know what? I give up. I'm done. I can't do anything anymore. There's that breaking point where you just want to just throw in the towel and be done. God knows where that is for all of us. He knows where that point is. Now, He may allow you to be brought right up to that point. But He's not going to allow you to be tempted above what you're capable of bearing. So you could always know this, that no matter what you're going through, God knows that you're able to handle it. And that should be comforting, at least to some degree, knowing that, Okay, this is really hard to handle. This is really hard to bear. But God is not going to allow you to go through more than you're capable of bearing. So He knows that you have it in you to continue. And He also has allowed ways for you to, the Bible says, to escape, the temptation to escape, to get out when things are getting too tough for you to be able to bear it. So this is good news for us, that God is watching out for us, even through times of trials and testing, that it's never going to be so much that it's to the point where you just can't handle it at all. We should always be able to handle it. And if you feel like you're getting to that breaking point, then know this, just go a little bit farther because God knows where your breaking point is. And it's not going to last that much longer then since He knows. There's going to be relief coming soon. If you feel like you're getting to that point, know that God knows where that point is and to stick with it and to hang in there a little bit longer. Now, also remember this, that we get caught off guard sometimes with various events in our life because we don't see the future, right? We're living in time. We're bound by time. We live moment to moment, day to day, right? Things come up, things happen, tragedies happen, other things happen. Stuff that you never even may have considered or thought about happening may happen in your life. And to us, that catches us off guard. And that can cause a lot of stress and bring you to a point to where, again, you might feel like you're getting close to a breaking point because of all these things that happened that you didn't know. But another thing to remember is that God knew that those things were going to happen. Because God knows the beginning from the end. God knows everything. God's outside of time. He knows what is going to happen in your life. So since God knows these things will happen, even if you haven't been there yet, some trying times, troubling times, things that are going to be difficult for you to go through, He already knew that before. Which means that since God loves you, He's going to have already prepared a way out of the temptation for you to be able to bear it. So it's already there. So when something hits and hits hard, it may be hard to remember these things, but try to commit these things in your mind so that way you can have a little bit more strength to make it through it and it will make your difficult time a little bit easier understanding. And don't go down the path of saying, well, God knew this was going to happen, then why is this happening? Look, you won't probably understand it at the moment, at the time. Don't expect to have that understanding. That comes later. Much later. And we won't always understand why. And here's one thing just to quickly answer that question. First of all, God allows us to have a free will. If God interceded every single time that something evil was going to happen to anyone on this earth, then that would essentially eliminate the free will. God has given us, in a sense, a sovereignty over our own selves, over decisions that we could make. Now, there are times where God may supernaturally intercede and allow for things to happen and can work things, but God is not just a puppet master with a bunch of puppets on a string controlling what everyone is capable of doing. So when bad things happen, it's a result of man being given a free will and being able to make the choice of sin and then those consequences of that sin falling out then upon other people. So that is this one reason why things happen. And as I mentioned before, starting to question, well, why would God do this? Why would God do that? God sees the whole picture, beginning to end. You can say, I mean, there's so many situations, but even, you think of Stephen the Martyr, in Acts 7, when it's like, hey, here's a guy that was full of the Holy Ghost, and the Lord is doing all this stuff for God, I mean, great, right? Why should he die? He could say, well, why are you allowing me to be stoned to death, and I'm in my prime, I've got so many more years left to serve you, and other people might be thinking, now, Stephen, I don't think had those thoughts because he saw the Lord, he's just like, amen, he's God, I can see Jesus standing at the right hand of God the Father like, Lord, receive me, I'm ready. He's good to go. But other people might be like, oh, man, Stephen, God, why do you have to take him? But God always has a plan. And one thing we can infer from that passage is, you know, we see Saul of Tarsus was there and witnessed that event and was kind of involved in the covering up for the people who murdered Stephen, and I believe that that moment had a major impact on Saul's conversion to becoming the apostle Paul. But regardless, and you can see the work that he did, so in the grand scheme of things, that martyrdom, that Stephen holding fast to the faith and showing and proving and making a huge testimony of keeping the faith unto death, in the face of death, is extremely powerful and has a much, I think, greater impact oftentimes on what people are seeing, that they're seeing someone, hey, they're able to stand fast, hold fast that faithful word unto death. That's huge. That makes a big impact and resonates and can end up that story. I mean, look, that's in the Scripture. So you think, well, Stephen could have done so much more. I mean, this story about Stephen's life, how many times has that been preached and how many people know about that story? Way more than however many people he could have reached physically in his lifespan, you know, than if that story wasn't included in Scripture. How many more billions of people get to know about what he did and how much of an impact that has because it's recorded in Scripture as opposed to just if he would have lived out his life. I mean, that's a big deal right there. So we don't always understand all the workings of what might happen, of why bad things happen, but we need to trust that because God is good, because God is long-suffering and merciful, because we know that God is love, if things are going to happen, when He knows about them, He's prepared a way out for you. And it may have caught you off-guard, but it doesn't catch him off-guard. Now turn if you go to Exodus 15, and I'm just going to show you here one example from the children of Israel. This is right after they have crossed the Red Sea. Moses has led them out of Egypt. They've been witnessing all these various miracles that the Lord has performed against Egypt, against Pharaoh. And how the armies were consumed in the Red Sea that followed after them, after the parting, and they crossed over on dry ground. They're now being led through the wilderness, and we're going to start reading in verse 22 of Exodus 15. The Bible says, So Moses brought Israel from the Red Sea, and they went out into the wilderness of Shur, and they went three days in the wilderness and found no water. So first of all, just to put yourself in their place, they've had all these different events happen. It's been extremely stressful having the Egyptians chasing you. Now look, God was protecting them, but that doesn't mean that they were just like, oh, this is no big deal because God's protecting us. No, they were living, I believe, in fear of the Egyptians this whole time, and they were stressed out about the fact that they're being chased by the Egyptian soldiers. This was not just some walk in the park for them, especially when there's the Great Red Sea. What are we going to do now? We're trapped. So God miraculously saves them through all of that. Praise God. But for them going through that, it was a very high stressful situation. You could see where people might be getting their breaking point already, and then after that, they've been delivered. Everything's going all the way. We could finally just relax a minute because we're safe, because God destroyed the Egyptians, but now we're going through the wilderness, what are we going to do? There's no water. Now, I don't know about you, I've fasted before. I fast from time to time, and even just fasting for a day can be a little stressful. You start thinking more about food. It's not that big of a deal a day, but I usually drink water during my fast. I usually don't withhold liquid. But when you withhold drinking water for three days, try not drinking anything for three days. That's going to put you in another state of mind going, man, this is bad. Now it's going to be another problem. It's going to bring that stress back up to a really high level. You could go a day or two. This is what they're doing. They've gone a couple days. The third day, they're going, we're going to die. Because you can only go so long without water anyways. I always like to try to put yourself in a situation because it's really easy to give the children of Israel just this really bad rap because of all the complaining and murmuring and everything. Look, that's all wrong. It should be preached against the attitudes that they had. But at the same time, put yourself in that situation because it's also easy to read about this and be like, oh yeah, those people, they were just really terrible believers. Well, what about yourself when you go through hard times? You may not have to go without water for three days, but what if you did? Would you start questioning God then? You just get this great victory in your life. It was really stressful. You had all these problems, and now you've got another challenge that comes up immediately, like right away. You don't have time to just recover from what you've just gone through. Now you're going through something else. And they didn't have water to drink, and then not only that, look at verse 23, and when they came to Merah, they could not drink of the waters of Merah for they were bitter. So now they finally get to a place where they're like, oh man, there's water here, great! Oh, but we can't drink it. It's like being trapped in the ocean and you've got all this water around you and you can't drink it, because it's salt water. It's going to dehydrate you. Therefore the name of it was called Merah. So now they're upset, and in a fleshly sense, you can see why. We just went through all this trouble, endured so much, and now we finally get to some water, but the water's bitter. We can't drink this water. It's no good. So they're kind of getting to the breaking point. It says in verse 24, and the people murmured against Moses saying, what shall we drink? Now, it's not right for them to be complaining against Moses, who just led them out of slavery, out of bondage and everything else, and God's obviously using him, but you can at least see where they get to this point. What I want to show you here, we're going to read the rest of the story, the next three verses. What I want to show you is that, obviously God already knew that this was all going to happen. God knew that they were going to be let out. He knew that they were going to only be able to go so far, and that they need water, that they need sustenance. God knew this. God knew this in advance. So had they had a little bit stronger faith, they would be able to get through this time easier without murmuring and complaining against Moses, because they would just have to know, well, if God is going to bring us out and deliver us, He's going to have to provide for us as well. And this is what we need to remember, whether it be this story or something going on in your own life, God doesn't want you just to suffer and die. God didn't save you just for you to suffer and die. You may have to suffer in this lifetime, but God's going to always allow for a way out of it. And anything that you suffer for the Lord, He's going to reward you for. So let's keep reading here. Verse 25, the Bible says, And he cried unto the Lord, and the Lord showed him a tree, which when he had cast into the waters, the waters were made sweet. There he made for them a statute and an ordinance, and there he proved them, and said, If thou wilt diligently hark into the voice of the Lord thy God, and wilt do that which is right in his sight, and wilt give ear to his commandments and keep all his statutes, I will put none of these diseases upon thee, which I have brought upon the Egyptians. For I am the Lord that healeth thee. So they turn unto God, Moses turns unto the Lord, and the Lord provides for them a way to drink that water that was there. God heals. And God answers their prayer of turning unto Him in this situation. They don't know. But I want to point out, we didn't read verse 27. Verse 27 says, And they came to Elam, which was their next major destination point, where there were twelve wells of water and threescore and ten palm trees, and they encamped there by the waters. Had they gone just a little bit further, God had already prepared this place, twelve wells of water, right? I mean, it's already established. There's already this place. You would have been well taken care of had they just pushed through a little bit more, then they wouldn't have had to murmur against Moses and everything else. They could have just gone a little bit more and trusted, hey, God's going to take care of us. God is still leading us. God is still guiding us. There's the waters. And they were there. Now, in this situation, I think that God still understands them and gives them and answers that prayer because they still don't fully know where they're going and they've already dealt with so much and that they've already had enough burden on themselves that God was able to show grace and mercy, even though He already had planned it for them. In that moment, it had gotten overwhelming for them and God allowed a relief, God allowed a respite, even though it's like, hey, look, I already planned this for you, but it had gotten so bad for them and it's early on. This is before all of their complaining and moaning that continues on. This is right after they're delivered, right? So God's showing them more grace and I think once they see this, they should have learned even more then by saying, hey, look, God's merciful is great. He helped us, but, look, He had this plan the whole time. And that should prove further in their own minds and hearts that, oh, we could have gone a little bit more. Right? You could see that then. God's kind of proved Himself in multiple ways and maybe He's done that for you at some point where you've gotten to really bad times, He gives you a little bit of relief and then you realize, oh, yeah, this would have been over anyways a little bit, just not that much later. Why? Because God knows. God knows where your breaking point is and turn to 1 Kings 17. 1 Kings 17. We're going to see another example here. And a lot of examples that we see that I'm using from Scripture and the ones that I was able to think about for this sermon, they have to do with thirst and hunger. That one had to do with thirst and this one has to do with hunger and then we're going to see another one has to do with hunger because that's such a strong fleshly desire. When you go without food or water, that becomes all you can think about because it is a need. Obviously, there's a representation of our flesh and the desires of our flesh, but at the same time, we need to eat and drink in order to survive as a human being. To be alive on this earth, you have to have these things so your body will crave that more and more and more because your body wants to survive. So when you withhold that for a long period of time, it becomes a very strong urge, a very strong desire. And what we're seeing here contrasted with that fleshly desire is doing right spiritually, doing right by God, and trusting that the Lord will meet your needs. 1 Kings 17, verse number 9, we have this story where Elijah is, there's the famine, there's the drought, I should say, in the land and Elijah was by a brook and then the brook dried up and now God's told him to go unto this certain city and this woman is going to take care of him there. He's going to feed him and watch over him and we see multiple things happening in the story. I'm not going to focus as much on Elijah, but first of all, the man of God, he's following the Lord. He's seeking first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and guess what? God is taking care of him. He steps out in faith. He's serving the Lord. He's the one who's just following what God has for him to do and what does God do? God takes care of him every step of the way. Now he doesn't know necessarily from day to day where he's going to be fed from and where he's going to be provided from, but he's trusting in God every day that God will just take care of him and he does. He fulfills that every single day and you may get to a point and see now most people are pretty comfortable. I think, you know, financially, just in general, you know, you're not worried from day to day if you're anything like me, you know, we've got, I've got a pantry in a freezer and, you know, some food that if I were to go, you know, broke today, we can still survive for X, I mean, whatever, however many days. I don't know how many days, but, you know, a certain amount of days because there's already a store there. Well, Elijah didn't have that. He's going day to day, just like, you know, the Lord's Prayer, give us this day, our daily bread, I mean, just asking God every day to provide and to feed, right? Now I'm thankful for what I have. I'm sure you're thankful for what you have too, but, you know, there may come a day and, you know, especially with the times that we're living in, there may come a day relatively soon where you might find yourself going day to day trying to make sure that you can make ends meet and have food for your family. That may very well happen. I don't know, but the way that this money's been being spent, you know, politically with all the trillions of dollars in spending and inflation's going up and labor shortage and everything else, it could have a very severe, serious economic impact. I'm not saying for sure that's going to happen here, but you know what? The signs are all there that things could get really bad really soon, so we may be experiencing things, you know, similar to what Elijah was going through here. But here's the point. Follow God. God will take care of you. God will provide for you, and if you get to a point where you feel like, man, this is my breaking point, hang in there because God always has a way out and God will provide. Let's read this story. Verse number 9, 1 Kings chapter 17. The Bible reads, Arise, get thee to Zarephath, which belongeth to Zidon, excuse me, and dwell there. Behold, I have commanded a widow woman there to sustain thee. So a couple things to note, and I just want to point this out before we get to this story because this story reads kind of funny. I actually like this story. It always makes me smile a little bit, just the interaction between Elijah and this woman. But don't forget, verse number 9, he says that God has already said that he's commanded a widow woman to sustain thee. So it's not like this isn't just completely unknown to this widow woman because when you read it, it seems really funny, like if you're just coming up to this widow woman and saying, hey, give me a drink of water. Oh, and by the way, make me some food, you know. But she's already been commanded through the word of the Lord to take care of Elijah when he comes, essentially, that she was commanded to sustain him. Verse number 10 says, So he arose and went to Zarephath, and when he came to the gate of the city, behold, the widow woman was there gathering of sticks, and he called to her and said, Fetch me, I pray thee, a little water and a vessel that I may drink. So he asked for some water, right? Obviously, he's been going for a while and been without water. He asked for some water, verse 11 says, and as she was going to fetch it, he called to her and said, Bring me, I pray thee, a morsel of bread in thine hand. She was saying, hey, hey, lady, can you get me some water? And she does it. She's going to say, oh, yes, you know, yes, sir, I'm going to go get you some water. Oh, by the way, can you go get me a little bit of food, too? Can I have something to eat to go with that water? Verse 12, and she said, As the Lord thy God liveth, I have not a cake, but an handful of meal in a barrel. She doesn't even have enough food, enough, like, meal, you know, corn meal, whatever kind of meal it is, right, some flour or whatever to be able to make a cake. She's like, I don't even have enough to make a cake with it. She's like, I just have a handful of meal in a barrel. Like, basically, my whole food supply is gone. All I've got is just a handful of meal and a little oil and a cruise, so just enough to be able to fry it up and kind of get this food prepared. She says, Behold, I am gathering two sticks that I may go in and dress it for me and my son that we may eat it and die. Basically, she's saying, we're out of food, buddy. I mean, we're going to eat our last meal. We will prepare this food for me and my son, and we're just going to, I mean, that's it. We're done. We've reached the limit. We're about to die. And you can see how this is that breaking point for this woman. She's reached it. I mean, that's it. The resources are spent. There's nothing else. She's kind of feeling like we're ready to die. There's nothing else I can do. This is the breaking point that stands out to me because even though she hits this point, she still does what's right. She still does what she was commanded to do. He asks for water, and he says, verse 13, Elijah said under her, and this is what I think is kind of funny. First he says, fear not, which is great. He's comforting her, saying, don't fear. Don't be afraid. Fear not. He says, go and do as thou hast said. Well, go ahead and do what you were going to do. Go ahead and collect those two sticks. He says, but make me thereof a little cake first, and bring it unto me, and after make for thee and for thy son. Say, well, yeah, yeah, but take care of me first. Then you can go ahead and eat your cakes and die or whatever, but just take care of me first. It seems kind of funny, but along this whole way, though, the widow was told. She was informed to take care of Elijah, and he also said, hey, don't fear. Do this, but then he also explains himself too. He doesn't just let her go away like, man, that guy's kind of rude. What do you mean serve me first or whatever and then go ahead and die, but he says in verse 14, for thus saith the Lord God of Israel, so he continues on speaking to her, the barrel of meal shall not waste, neither shall the cruise of oil fail until the day that the Lord sendeth rain upon the earth. So he tells her, look, this is what God said. Okay, this is the word of the Lord. You're gonna continue to have the meal and the oil until rain comes, so you're gonna be provided for. You're gonna be sustained, so go ahead and do that, and it says, and she went and did according to the saying of Elijah, and she and he in her house did eat many days. So just that little, but here's the thing. You know, it's always a little bit. It doesn't say that all of a sudden the barrel became full of meal. It was always that handful of meal. It was always just a little bit, but it kept on miraculously being there to provide, just like when Jesus had the loaves of bread, the five loaves and the fishes, you know, he was able to divide that. It was still just the five loaves, but he was able to miraculously feed the 5,000, right? And that small amount, it's not the amount that matters. See, you get to this point of stress and anxiety and going, man, I don't know what I'm gonna do. You can reach a breaking point where you think you're about to die. You can't handle it anymore, but stay faithful because we see many examples in scriptures, and we know that God's not gonna make it too much for us to bear. Remember the story of this widow woman and her son and still being obedient unto the Lord. Say, okay, well, I'm gonna take care of you and being blessed as a result. Elijah was following the Lord. He was blessed. He was taken care of. This woman obeyed and followed the Lord, and she was also taken care of. Turn back, if you go to Genesis chapter 25, we're gonna see another battle with hunger, but then where the wrong choice is made, where someone gives in to that flesh and kind of ends up making a bad choice based on the problems that they're in or the time of need that they're in, and they make the wrong choice, and this is with Esau. Genesis 25, we'll see this story here in verse 29. The Bible says, And Jacob sawed pottage, and Esau came from the field, and he was faint. So Esau legitimately is in a condition where he's faint. He needs food. You know, his body physically needs some food. Verse 30 says, And Esau said to Jacob, Feed me, I pray thee, with that same red pottage, for I am faint. Therefore was his name called Edom. And Jacob said, Sell me this day thy birthright. And Esau said, Behold, I am at the point to die, and what profit shall this birthright do to me? Now, Esau's saying he's at the point to die. I don't believe he's at the point to die. I don't. I think he's setting a breaking point for himself that's not where God knows where his breaking point is. And had Esau just been able to go a little bit further, he probably could have made it to Mom and Dad's house, where they would have fed him, instead of trying to buy, you know, sell him food for his birthright, which he never should have done. And, you know, there's a lot more symbolism in here, and there's a lot more impact that I really want to spend time getting into. But basically, he's just, you know, he's at this point where I'm just willing to do anything to just have some food, right? Because he didn't know how to deal with that going without. Verse 33 says, And Jacob said, And he sware unto him, and he sold his birthright unto Jacob. Then Jacob gave Esau bread and pottage of lentils, and he did eat and drink, and rose up and went his way. Thus Esau despised his birthright. Turn, if you would, to Hebrews chapter 12. That's the story of Jacob and Esau, and Esau, you know, selling his birthright, but we're going to get a little bit more insight into the meaning of this in Hebrews chapter 12, and a little bit more about why this was such a big deal. Hebrews chapter 12, verse number 15, the Bible reads, Looking diligently, lest any man fail of the grace of God, lest any root of bitterness set up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled, lest there be any fornicator or profane person as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright. For ye know how that afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears. That one act, that one giving in to his flesh, giving in to that desire of his hunger, instead of doing what was right, that cost him dearly than for the rest of his life, and when you are going through the hard times, you know, you may be tempted to make that physical pain or discomfort to stop because you don't want it to continue anymore, but you end up making a choice that's wrong, and that could have ramifications for the rest of your life. I mean, think about it. It's easy to think about people who would steal because they're going hungry or their family is going hungry or whatever. They're going through a hard time, and they say, well, I've got nothing else to do. Now I just got to steal. Well, no, you don't have to steal, and that would be a choice that could have severe ramifications for the rest of your life if you end up making the wrong choice instead of staying faithful to the Lord because the Lord has promised. Look, if you seek first the kingdom of heaven and his righteousness, Jesus Christ made this promise, you know, that he will add all these things unto you, all these things being the food and clothing. What you need to be sustained, God will provide for you. I mean, so many times, the Bible says, basically, there's a paraphrase, don't you know that if you give good things unto your children, how much more will your father in heaven give unto you, right? So if your son comes unto you and he asks for a bread, a piece of bread or something that's good for him, something that he needs, you know, the father's not going to turn around and give him a scorpion or a snake or something that's bad for him, right? And the Bible teaches that if you're not going to be able to do that as sinful human beings and sinful parents aren't going to be that bad to your kids, how much more is your heavenly father going to be good unto you, right? Ask and you shall receive. Seek and you shall find. Knock and it shall be open unto you. We need to remember these promises as children of God. God doesn't want you, like I said before, just to suffer and die. Now, you may end up having to go through our times, but keep that faith and don't make the wrong decision because that could come back and bite you later on. Stay faithful. Matthew 4, hunger can be a very powerful influencer. We've seen this many times and this is when Satan likes to work on people when they're already at a difficult stage, when there's already high stress, high anxiety. There's uncertainty going on in your life. This is when Satan wants to try to attack because you're at a weak point. You're weak. Physically, when the children of Israel were going without food, without water for days on end, you're being weakened physically, which is going to cause you then more doubt and uncertainty to crop up in your mind and that is the time when Satan really loves to get an attack on a person, especially on someone who's trying to follow the Lord. We have Jesus Christ as a great example of the devil tempting Jesus in the wilderness. Matthew 4, verse 1, the Bible says, Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. And when he had fasted 40 days and 40 nights, he was afterward hungered, so he went 40 days without eating. How many of you have done that before? I've never done that before. Has anyone gone fasting for 40 days and 40 nights and never eaten anything? I can't imagine the level of hunger you get after 40 days and 40 nights. I know it's been done before people outside of Scripture, but man, talk about being hungry. I'm hungry after the fasting for a day. Sometimes I'm hungry after skipping lunch. It's like one meal. You're hungry when you wake up, man, I want breakfast. I want to break that fast that's been like 10 hours. I'm ready to eat. Okay, 40 days, that's a long time. So again, you've got to put yourself and I encourage you if you've never fasted before to do it. It helps you. I should probably preach a sermon on fasting. I haven't done that in a long time. Fasting helps you get control of your body. It helps you to put your body in subjection and hopefully, if you're doing it and you're thinking about it, meditating and praying, it can help you to overcome sin in general because when you learn how to control your fleshly lust and desire, something as simple as eating food and you can tell yourself no, you can build that strength, the inner strength of being able to say no to then hopefully other areas, other fleshly desires that you have to be able to say, no, I'm not going to do that and gain more control over your body by withholding and understanding what it feels like to withhold things that your flesh desires for an extended period of time and doing so with a fast is helpful in that way among many other reasons why it could be a good idea to fast. Now, Jesus fasted for 40 days so obviously, he's going to be very hungry, very hungry at this point. So it says in verse 3, and when the tempter came to him, so that's who Satan is, he's a tempter, right? He wants to bring a temptation. He wants people to sin. He said, if thou be the son of God, command that these stones be made bread. So he's tempting him, one, to prove he's the son of God, but he's doing it by saying, hey, I mean, I know he's hungry right now. I know he's physically going through this place where, man, he just wants to be able to eat because his body needs it. Why don't you turn these stones into bread? You could do that. You're the son of God, right? Go ahead. Just turn that into bread. I mean, that'll help your hunger pains to go away. That'll give you some satisfaction, right? That's the temptation. And after 40 days, it may look attractive. I mean, a piece of bread would sound really good right about now. I mean, anything sounds really good after 40 days. But what does Jesus do? He doesn't give in to the temptation. Verse 4 says, but he answered and said, it is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. And this is another important point, extremely important point, to remember, when you're going through those tough times, to not just give in, not throw a towel, not just try to make the temporary pain stop at the cost of sin, right? And say, oh, I can make this all go away if I just, you know, fill in the blank. And whatever that is in any particular situation, you might be able to cause some temporary relief from persecution, from affliction, from some type of temptation. But if you know it's wrong to do it, then don't do it. I mean, even if physical hunger, oh, well, I could cause this to stop if I just go and steal. I know my neighbor's got a bunch of food stored up, and I could just go over there. He won't miss it. No, no, no. And I could feed my family. I mean, I gotta feed my family. We gotta survive. No, you can go a little bit longer, and God will take care of you instead of doing the wrong thing. And this teaching that man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God is extremely important. And we can learn from Jesus that we should always go to the Word of God no matter how strong the flesh may try to direct you. Right, the flesh is gonna try to lead you down a certain path to do a certain thing. Oh, turn these stones, you know, in Jesus' case, turn these stones into bread. But no, go to the Word of God. What is the Word of God saying? That's gonna direct you right every single time. God was leading the children of Israel. He was leading them to water. He knew that they needed. He knew that they needed. He was leading them there. Trust that. Even if you can't see it in the moment, that's where the faith kicks in to trusting, well, God is going to take care of me. Keep doing right. We'll look at Job, Job chapter 1. Even after Job's losses, he still maintains the right attitude. Going through his temptations, he does so with integrity of heart, and we're gonna see the end of Job and how he ultimately ends up being blessed because he came through his temptations. He went through his trials and came out good. He came out righteous. Look at verse number 20 of Job chapter 1. Job chapter 1, verse 20. This is after all the reports, and I've gone through this chapter recently, so I'm not gonna reread that part where, you know, all these messengers keep coming and saying how his different herds and flocks are killed and the Sabeans came upon him and these other people came upon him and barbarians came upon him and then he lost his 10 children when the roof of the house collapsed, where they were. This great whirlwind came out and the house was destroyed and all his children gone. You know, so he suffered massive loss, massive, massive, massive loss. I mean, talk about a low point. Talk about being stressed out. Talk about being brought to a point to where, I mean, the breaking point, right, and that's the title of my sermon, is a breaking point. We all have our own breaking point. Job, of anyone, you know, being brought to this point, I think that could bring any one of us to a point where we feel like this is a breaking point. I mean, I don't know if I could deal with this. You know, the loss of one child is tragic enough. All your children and all of your substance, I mean, all your substance is one thing and you could even say if it was just your substance, well, I mean, I got my family, things are so good. He lost his substance and his children. I mean, that's huge. That's a pain I don't ever want to have to feel. An experience to go through, Job was brought through that pain. And that was a direct result of Satan, by the way, not himself, not God. That was Satan that was bringing that attack. God didn't have it in his heart to put Job through that. Satan did. Now, God allowed it to happen. Yes. And there's a good reason for that, too, another purpose for that as well. And again, we get to see Job come through this and I think the good that is done through Job having to go through that is immense by this, again, another story being in Scripture for every generation thereafter to be able to learn from and gain from and see and compare, well, whatever you're going through, just don't forget Job. Whatever your low point, whatever your breaking point is, whatever circumstances are going on in your life, again, the point is it can always be worse. Right? It really can. It can always be worse and thank God that it's not worse. One, and two, don't go foolishly blaming God for bad things that happened to you. And this is what we see with Job. Look at verse number 20. This is what we see with Job is that he didn't charge God foolishly, is what the Bible says. Verse number 20, then Job arose Obviously, he's grieving. He's sad. This is appropriate for him to be doing these things when this stuff just happened. He fell down on the ground and worshiped. All this stuff happens. What does he do? He's still gonna worship God and said, Naked came out of my mother's womb and naked shall I return the other. The Lord gave and the Lord taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. He still recognizes that everything in his life, everything that he received, all those good things is from the Lord. So what is it if the Lord chooses to take those things away? This is the mindset that we need to have. Wherever you are right now, if you start experiencing loss and experiencing some setbacks and man, things get really hard, don't forget that you experience all that good for that length of time and that was all given to you by God. You didn't have anything when you came into this world. Nothing. It was all given to you. So we need to remember no matter how much you work and how much we do to try to earn and better ourselves, at the end of the day, everything boils down to God's goodness and God's grace giving you what you have. And Job recognized this and just says, okay, well you know what? God is still good. If God chose to give me all this and then God takes it away, blessed be the name of the Lord. Verse 22 says in all this, Job sinned not nor charged God foolishly. He didn't just go and blame God for everything. He just said, well, if this is the way it's going to be, then blessed be the name of the Lord and he's still alive. And then in the next chapter, he gets afflicted with this disease because Satan now is even more angry that Job didn't do what Satan said he was going to do because Satan was accusing Job, he was railing on Job to God saying that, oh yeah, well you've just protected him so well and you've blessed him with all this stuff so if he doesn't have all this, then he's going to curse you. And did Job do that? No. He proved Satan wrong to be a liar, to be a false accuser. So then Satan is going to try again and say, oh yeah, well, you know, I mean, since he still has his health, that's why he's not cursing you. Right? If you take that away from him, then he'll curse you. Look at verse number 7 of Job chapter 2. So Satan went forth from the presence of the Lord and smote Job with sore boils from the sole of his foot unto his crown. Head to toe. And he took him a potsherd to scrape himself withal and he sat down among the ashes. Talk about a miserable place to be. After losing everything, now you've got this disease from head to toe where you're covered in boils, it's itchy, you're sitting in the dust and all you can do is get a piece of a broken piece of pottery to scrape because it just itches so bad to try to relieve some of the itch of this disease that he's diseased with from head to toe. Verse 9, then said his wife unto him, dost thou still retain thine integrity? Curse God and die. I mean, he lost his entire family and all of his wealth and now his wife is turning against him. I mean, talk about being in a bad spot. I mean, if this isn't a breaking point for someone, I don't know what is. And even through this, look at Job's response to verse 10, but he said unto her, Thou speakest as one of the foolish women speaketh. What? Shall we receive good at the hand of God and shall we not receive evil? In all this did not Job sin with his lips. So he rebukes his wife saying you're foolish. No, I'm not going to curse God. I mean, she's had it. She's just like, just curse God and die. Get it over with. And Job's saying no. Now, Job doesn't charge God foolishly in chapter 1, doesn't sin with his lips, doesn't sin with his lips in Job chapter 2. Then he has his friends who came to comfort him that end up trying to expose some sin that wasn't there as to why Job was going through everything and falsely accusing and saying things that were not correct and not giving him good advice. Go to Job chapter 42. We're going to end with this. We're going to see the end of Job's ordeal. Job making it through his breaking point. Verse number 10, Job chapter 42, the Bible reads, the Lord turned the captivity of Job when he prayed for his friends. So not only... I mean, talk about being humble. He lost everything and his friends were railing on him. Then God instructed him basically to pray for his friends. God was angry with his friends for giving him bad advice and for saying these things that were just not correct. He said, look, everything that Job said was right and what you guys said was wrong. God rebukes Eliphaz and his two friends. He's saying, look, you guys were wrong. You better ask Job that he will pray for you so that you can be forgiven. So then Job prays for his friends. That's humility. After a lot of the things he said, you could say, man, he could be bitter right now because he was just justified in the eyes of the Lord saying, aha, who was right, who was wrong? But he still prays for his friends and that's why he says the Lord turned the captivity of Job when he prayed for his friends. So that act then, that final act of being able to still pray for the people that were railing on you and whatever else, having that humility, it says also the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before. So in the end, the end of this matter, Job makes it through. God blesses him with twice as much as what he had before. Verse 11, then came there unto him all his brethren and all his sisters and all that had been of his acquaintance before. Yeah, where were they before? They left him. But now they come back, right? And did eat bread with him in his house and they bemoaned him and comforted him over all the evil that the Lord had brought upon him. Every man also gave him a piece of money and everyone an earring of gold. So the Lord blessed the latter end of Job more than his beginning. For he had 14,000 sheep and 6,000 camels and 1,000 yoke of oxen and 1,000 sheasses. He had also seven sons and three daughters. So his 10 children that had died previously, God blessed them with 10 more children. And it says he was able to live to a ripe old age and be able to see his great-grandchildren and be able to just live a long life. That's the result of not just cursing God and dying when you reach what you think is your breaking point. God provided a way out. God knew Job's breaking point. Job had a lot of strength. I don't think everyone has the same breaking point, by the way. I don't think everyone would be able to get through what Job went through. But God knows where everyone's individual breaking point is. And whatever you're going through, if you feel like you're at that breaking point, you're not yet. Because God will allow a way out. Don't ever forget God's faithfulness. Don't ever forget that God knows the future. Whatever hits you and blindsides you and just knocks you off your feet, going, man, how could this have happened? What am I going to do now? Just know that God already knew that was going to happen. He already knew. And he's got a plan. And especially when you are living your life sold out for the Lord, God will guide you. Seek to the word of God. Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. That will guide you in the right path. So when things come across your path and things suppress you and you go through these hard times, stick with it. God's looking out for you still. You may not feel like God's there. Job didn't feel like God was there. But have the faith to know He is. And just stick with it. And if you're still going through it, then you haven't reached a breaking point yet. Because God will relieve you when needed. Let's have a word of prayer. Dear Lord, we love you. We thank you so much for looking out for us, dear God, for all the promises that you make in Scripture. We know that you're true to your word. And I pray that you will please help all of these words, all of your words, to stay with us as a church, collectively, dear Lord, to be able to help us get through the difficult times that we may be experiencing in our lives whenever those times come, Lord, that you can help bring to remembrance these Scriptures, these stories, the multiple stories in the Scripture, dear Lord, of people who have gone through very difficult, challenging times. But that you've led them through. And I pray that you would just help us to stay faithful unto you, unto death, dear Lord. We love you. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Alright, we're gonna sing one last song before we're dismissed. Let's turn to song number 224. Song 224, there shall be showers of blessing. Song 224. Sing out that first verse. There shall be showers of blessing. This is the promise of love. There shall be seasons refreshing, sent from the Savior above. Showers of blessing, showers of blessing we need. Mercy comes when the sun falling, but for the showers we need. There shall be showers of blessing, pressures reviving again. Over the hills and the valleys, sound of abundance of rain. Showers of blessing, showers of blessing we need. Mercy comes when the sun falling, but for the showers we need. There shall be showers of blessing, send them upon us, O Lord. Pray to us thou of refreshing, come and now honor thy word. Showers of blessing, showers of blessing we need. Mercy comes when the sun falling, but for the showers we need. There shall be showers of blessing, all that today they might fall. Now as to God we're confessing, now as on Jesus we call. Showers of blessing, showers of blessing we need. Mercy comes when the sun falling, but for the showers we need. Amen. All right, we're dismissed this morning. Don't forget there's some cake out there for Elijah's birthday and we're dismissed. Thank you for being here.