Signs of a Promise
I was working late last Tuesday, doing things that needed to get done. A storm had begun that afternoon, and started to dissipate at about six. As I was working, one of the custodians stopped by my room, and asked if I'd seen the rainbow. I hadn't, and as I looked outside my window, the promise that God gave Noah was shining in the sunset. At the time, the rainbow was so strong that it was a complete bow, with the afterglow of another one behind it. As I ran out to my car to grab my camera the rainbow had already started to disappear, so my pictures of it aren't nearly as good as what I first saw. But I thought I'd share anyway:
I.KNOW_ JEFF.IN EASTER.MESSAGE.BOOK SUNDAY_ 60-0417S
43 And why does God let troubles come? God harnesses trouble, puts bits in its mouth, and makes it obey Him, and those troubles bring us into a closer fellowship with God.
There had been no rainbow until the flood came. But after Noah was pressed into that condition that he was in, to float forty days and nights in a storm and the little ark pitching up and down in the water, it was after the flood was over that he saw the rainbow for its first time, the covenant of hope, the covenant of promise. After he'd went through the tribulation, then he saw the promise.
That's the way you see the promise, after you've gone through the tribulation. I've liked that poem, or psalm:
Must I be carried home to Heaven on a flowerly bed of ease,
While others fought to win the prize and sailed through bloody seas?
We ask for comfort and peace; God gives us the best He could give us: trials and tribulations. That's better than comfort and peace. Our comforts is just beyond the river.
I.KNOW_ JEFF.IN EASTER.MESSAGE.BOOK SUNDAY_ 60-0417S
47 It wasn't until the Hebrew children was forced into the fiery furnace, on one of their most outstanding trials, that they seen One like the Son of God stand among them. Their troubles produced the Son of God standing among them in the breezes to wave away the heat wave. But not until they went into the fire did that Comforter appear.
It was Daniel who had purposed in his heart that he'd not defile himself with the things of the world, and was forced through a trial, whether he'd pray to God or go to a lions' den. But it was after the heat was put on, and he was throwed into a lions' den, that after that, he saw the Angel of the Lord standing in the midst of him, keeping away, that great Pillar of Fire standing between him and the lions. And the lions could not get him, because he'd went through the trials and temptations and troubles. He knew that his God was able to deliver him from that.
I.KNOW_ JEFF.IN EASTER.MESSAGE.BOOK SUNDAY_ 60-0417S
49 It was Abraham, after he'd seen the ground get barren, and the drought come, and Lot separate himself and go down to live deliciously into the world; it was after he had heard the whines and cries of--of his herdsmen, with no grass for his cattle, but he maintained in the land that God gave him and told him to sojourn in. And as on that day, after he'd been tried till his--his patience was at the end; it was on that day that when after the trial was over, he spoke face to face with Elohim under the oak that day. It was after he'd suffered his trials, after he'd went through the troubles that he'd been through, that God appeared to him in the form of a Man, and set there and told him he was married and his wife's name was Sarah, and said she laughed at Him in the tent behind. It was there that Abraham called Him Elohim. It was after the trial and tribulation.
I.KNOW_ JEFF.IN EASTER.MESSAGE.BOOK SUNDAY_ 60-0417S
50 Oh, if the Church could only wake to Itself today, to find that after the troubles, and trials, and laughs, and made fun of, the things the church has been through, the Pentecostal church, that we see God in our midst, doing great signs and wonders.
After the toils and troubles of day,
After it's all passed,
Then we shall see Jesus at last.
He will be waiting for me,
Jesus so fair and true,
On His beautiful throne,
He will welcome us Home
After the day is through. (While it's day, let us labor.)
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