The Blessedness of Affliction

Greetings to the Pastors and Elders, the Admins, the Saints scattered throughout the world, May God help as we look into this brief words, Psalms 119:71 "It is good for me that I have been afflicted; that I might learn thy statutes"  Charles Spurgeon said:, we must acknowledge affliction under the sovereignty of God. He said: this Men will never become great in divinity until they become great in suffering.”
       There is no University for a Christian like that of sorrow and trial, Afflictions and Sufferings are one aspect of the gospel that many don't want to talk about today, with the invasion of the African borders in the 70s with the Marauding prosperity gospel, Africans began to learn the art of claiming everything, eliminated suffering from the gospel and saw earthly blessing as the mark of being born again. But consider the statement of David here: "It is Good for me...How many of us in all that we have gone through and still going through can come out and say, It is good for me that I have been afflicted".

       The prophet, God's messenger to this generation, in the message Works is Faith Expressed, 1965 said, there are SCHOOLS OF SUFFERINGS that we have to go through. Afflictions simply describes the state of being pained or distressed, and it has different levels applicable to every Christian.Remember our walk with God is Personal and Particular. In the Bible Affliction is used interchangeably with Suffering and in the Hebrew, it is applied in

• To lower, humble, or “deny”
• Depressed

Affliction is not without PURPOSE, David highlighted here that the purpose is that HE MAY LEARN GOD'S STATUTES, the word translated STATUTES actually means ENGRAVED LAW. DAVID is saying when I am afflicted, then God is able to engrave and write his Law upon my heart, he had understanding that the Law of God was not to be on tables of stones but fleshy tables of the heart
      There are virtues in the Christian Journey that we will never get by Fasting, Praying, going to Fellowship, Singing, Prophesying but by AFFLICTION, Psalms 34:19 "Many are the afflictions of the righteous: but the LORD delivereth him out of them all."  I love the Bible, it says MANY some preaching are trying to make it FEW, but it said Many. Hence, Scriptures say Count it all joy, when you encounter divers trials, temptations. Paul in 2 Corinthians 4 called His Affliction Light, but when you read the profile of his afflictions in 2 Corinthians 11, you begin to wonder what he was talking about, and if we are called unto Just weights and balances, how then can we call our affliction HEAVY, too Big, when Paul called his own light. 1st Thess 3:3,4 Paul said, we are ORDAINED unto these Afflictions. When I was studying this, I got an understanding that, you can't teach the Doctrine of Election, Predestination and Foreknowledge without Affliction, if we are ordained from the foundation of the world unto LIFE, WE are also ordained unto Afflictions. We Can't run away from it

    Now in most of Paul's writing, he emphasized a KNOWING, knowledge. You will see him saying Know Ye Not? Cos without the Proper Knowledge or a KNOWING, we would miss God's purpose in Our Affliction There are 2 verses that should give us consolation in Affliction and we will look at it. We must also note that affliction is not an indication that you are not Living Abundant Life

1. Isaiah 63:9
In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them: in his love and in his pity he redeemed them; and he bore them, and carried them all the days of old.

In all their affliction, HE WAS AFFLICTED. This should comfort us that God himself is Afflicted in our Affliction, he is with us in the affliction and surely as God can't be brought down by AFFLICTION, so you can't

2. Hebrews 4:15
For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.

We have a faithful and merciful highpriest, who can be touched by the feeling of our infirmity[afflictions, pain etc] because he also has partook of flesh and blood and understood Hunger, Rejection, Depression. Someone is saying was Jesus depressed, yes, around the time of his death, the Bible said and His soul began to be sorrowful exceedingly unto death, Bro Branham after the death of his first wife and daughter went into depression and wanted to commit suicide, Charles Spurgeon had fits of depression so bad that a time he said he looked at the Bible and hated the Bible. Let's note the following points quickly

1. You cannot deliver yourself out of any afflictions, it's God work

Hmmm, but we have Prayer Warriors, Fasting Machines, Tongue Talking and Demon slaying brethren, just Calm down, In psalms 107:25-30, Two things are striking for me

• God brings them to the place called wits ends - a place where all their wisdom and strength is futile and fails
• God then brings them to their desired haven

Am not ruling out the place of prevailing prayers and strong supplications, please don't misunderstand me, but there are some things that we must pass through, no matter how we pray, Jesus made strong supplications, plea when he was confronted with Death, BUT He was to Go through the death, But if we will be sincere, we have had dark seasons in which we prayed and it seemed as though God didn't answer....

We should have paused and proceed to ask, what STATUTES do you want me to learn through this, In Exodus, God said I am now come down to deliver Exodus 3:8, In one of my recent meditations, I was pondering how the Lord would save Ishmael, knowing so well what would become of Ishmael and how he would Afflict Israel, then I understood that God saved him from dying as a baby so that he could be an instrument of affliction for Israel. Jeremiah in lamentations 3:1 Said he has seen Affliction, he was called the Weeping Prophet. Brothers and sisters, weep if you must weep...When you are under that rod of affliction See what God said in Isaiah 48:10 Behold, I have refined thee, but not with silver; I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction. We are chosen in the FURNACE OF AFFLICTION. Outside the furnace, we are not chosen but INSIDE THE FURNACE OF AFFLICTION, that's where God has chosen us. Jeremiah 10 :23 It is not in man to direct himself, God proceeds to say, I know their SORROWS, The question now is Do you Know that God Knows Your Sorrow? The Battle is The Lord's not Yours Sister.

2. Afflictions come to Drive us to the Lord

         Psalm 119:67 (New Living Translation) I used to wander off until you disciplined me; but now I closely follow your word
Psalms 77:2 In the day of my trouble I sought the Lord: my sore ran in the night, and ceased not: my soul refused to be comforted.
A preacher said  something and i quote:
"Afflictions either drive you to the Lord or make you hardened against the Lord". For Job, it wasn't about Denying the Existence of God, but it was a matter of how can I keep trusting This God. Recently Pastor Nice taught us on faith and hope. We saw how TRIBULATIONS [AFFLICTIONS] work Patience, patience experience and experience HOPE in the stature of a perfect Man, you can never pray for patience, you LEARN it, in the School of Affliction.We see this employed in book of judges, again and again God employs afflictions to make his people return to him. In the 7 feast of YHVH in Lev 23, the 6th feast is Atonement and the people must Afflict their Souls. The final feast is that of Tabernacles and truly before they can dwell in the BOOTHS of God, they must have been in the FURNACE OF AFFLICTION

3. Afflictions Get much worse before Deliverance Comes

      Just around the time Israel was to be delivered, the Taskmaster refused to give them materials for bricks and doubled their Labor, Maybe your afflictions has just gotten worse,that child has gotten wayward beyond repair, your finances are shrinking, your health deteriorating, that marriage is getting sour and sour by the day and you are enduring instead of enjoying marriage, young sister, it's as if no brother would come for you. Just know that, Afflictions get worse before Deliverance Comes

4. You are being afflicted because God is working on a Jewel.

Isaiah 53:11-14

11 O thou afflicted, tossed with tempest, and not comforted, behold, I will lay thy stones with fair colours, and lay thy foundations with sapphires.
12 And I will make thy windows of agates, and thy gates of carbuncles, and all thy borders of pleasant stones.
13 And all thy children shall be taught of the Lord; and great shall be the peace of thy children.
14 In righteousness shalt thou be established: thou shalt be far from oppression; for thou shalt not fear: and from terror; for it shall not come near thee.

If you check all the characteristics of those precious stones mentioned, they Point to Jesus, The Precious Stone. Yes God is molding us for his eternal glory, that we may be More like Jesus.

Isa 28:16
Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD, Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner stone, a sure foundation: he that believeth shall not make 

The Stone Proven Under Trial, have you ever read it like that.

And we are the Lively stones of God that wants to be made pillar in the house of God.We must be proven under TRIAL.

Father we thank you, help us to See the Blessedness in Afflictions and if there be any one passing through so hard afflictions at this time, we pray Lord that you will bring to the other side and we may like Paul say, our light affliction worketh for us an exceeding far weight of glory and like David say, it is good I was afflicted, that I may learn thy statues

THE ABOVE WAS TAUGHT BY BRO GIDEON EJIOFOR