Having Faith in the Tunnel
Key Passage: Job 23:8-10
Date: June 7, 2024
Turn your Bible if you would to the book of Job, Job chapter number 23 of God’s Word. We were going through the minor prophets and just felt like the Lord had us take a detour and talk about faith. Sometimes in the midst of battles and problems, it’s easy to lose our faith. And we don’t want to do that because if we lose our faith, he could there do no mighty work. Say they laid a hand upon a few sick folk can’t heal them. We don’t want to get to that point where God can’t do a great work in and through our lives. We want to keep faith. So just a short series, I think this will be the last Wednesday night on this subject. I’m not sure, but as far as my planning, it is. We’ll see if the Lord changes that. I want to do what he wants, not what I want.
Job chapter number 23 of God’s Word. An incredible story in the book of Job. What a man of God. I’m very clear, the godliest man around. And yet the problems he went through, just amazing, just incredible.
I really have the privilege as a pastor of hearing a lot of sad stories. And I’d say a privilege because maybe the Lord used me to help a little bit, but I’ve never dealt with anything like this. Lost 10 of his children in one day. I’ve been to the homes and the house with moms, you know, or dads when they’ve lost your children. I can’t imagine 10 in one day, all your kids.
And then his finances, his friends—I think of those workers were his friends—lost all them, lost his health. His wife was grieving and just going through it all in kind of the middle of it or the early part of it. She said, “Job, won’t you just curse God and die?” And that makes it tough. Of course, she is going through it too. And Job, what a man. What a godly man. What a great testimony. Not perfect, but just a great, great testimony.
We’re going to look kind of in the middle of his situation. By the way, sometimes we think, well, it took a couple, you know, a couple days or a couple weeks. We don’t know exactly how long. Some will say about a year, a year and a half this trial took. And it’s something to go through something a couple weeks or a couple months, but a year or two—wow. And Job went through it. Of course, you know, I think the vast majority of all of us here tonight know the end of the story. God blessed him with 10 more children. We don’t know everything about the 10, the boys—the seven more boys—but the girls, they won’t take time to do it tonight, but the names are given in chapter 42. And the names are just amazing of these girls. “Bright ray of sunshine,” one of them, I think. One just about, oh, I can’t remember exactly, but it’s like they’re just so outgoing. Maybe the friendliest person ever met. I think the second set of children are just amazing kids. And then his influence, twice as influential for the Lord, and so on and so on, and finances, all that. Just amazing. We’re right in the middle of this thing here. The title tonight would be “Having Faith in the Tunnel.” Talking about faith. Having faith in… the tunnel.
We’re going to look right at Job, right in the middle of this. Saying, would you please stand as we read God’s Word together if you’re able to, please? Job 23 and verse number 8 of God’s Word. Job 23, verse number 8.
Job 23, look at verse number eight. Job here, he says, “Behold, I go forward, but he is not there. And backward, but I cannot perceive him.” By the way, this is his testimony. God was there. I mean, he’ll never leave you nor forsake you, but he couldn’t see him. “Behold, I go forward, but he is not there. And backward, but I cannot perceive him. On the left hand, where he doth work, but I cannot behold him. He hideth himself on the right hand, that I cannot see him.”
We preached recently, I can’t remember a while ago, maybe a month ago, about how sometimes the toughest part of the test is when, you know, the teacher is silent during the test. Sometimes the hardest part of the test is you feel like Jesus, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” You haven’t, but you feel like that. Jesus took it so we won’t be forsaken, but you feel that. You follow in Jesus’ footsteps in that test. Job was during that, maybe the hardest part of the test. He said, “I’m in the middle of all this and everything’s going haywire, and I feel like I can’t get any answer from God.” What a tough time. By the way, if you live for the Lord over the years, you’ll be here sometimes. And here’s the amazing thing right in the middle of this: the next verse, just amazing, verse number 10: “But he knoweth the way that I take, and when he hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold.”
Wow. He’s in the tunnel. He’s right in the dark time. He’s right in the thick of it. He still has faith. By the way, I don’t know. I tend to think this wasn’t such a self-righteous statement right here. I tend to think he’s like, “God’s going to—he knows the way I’m taking. He’s got me. I’m going to come forth as gold,” because God was all that. God did get rid of some self-righteousness in Job, but I tend to think that statement there is just dependence on God. I don’t know that, but I love the faith right in the middle of the trial, the middle of the tunnel.
Just for a little bit tonight, how do we have faith in the tunnel? You’ll go through tunnels. You will. Sometimes as preachers, and I hope I’m not taking too long here, but sometimes as preachers, well, get saved and everything will be wonderful. You’ll always have the peace of God. Well, maybe some truth of the peace of God, but everything will always be wonderful. And there’s going to be times you have to look for that peace, search and seek for that peace. And you’ll go through the tunnels, you will. How do you have faith here in the tunnel real quickly tonight?
There was a son. He was a grown son, but he was going to his dad, and he said, “Dad, I’m just going through a tough time. It seemed like I’m trying to find God. I seem like I can’t feel or see or know or get anything from God. And what in the world is going on? I just feel like I’m trying to—if they’re sent him alive, I’m willing to confess it. I’m going to be right, but I just don’t feel like I can get a hold of God right now.”
And the dad said, “Son, have you ever been through a tunnel?” And he said, “You know, Dad, I have been.” He said, “In the tunnel, do you see the sun? Is it a bright sun shining down in the tunnel?” He said, “No, I can’t see it, Dad. You know, I can’t see the sun in the tunnel.” He said, “But son, while you’re in the middle of the tunnel, you can’t see it, is the sun still shining up there?” “Yeah.”
And you’ll go through those times where it’s just dark and you can’t feel his presence like you’d like to, but he’s still shining up there. He’s still watching. He still knows the way that you take. And it’s so important that you have faith in those tunnels. It may determine where you’ll be miles down the road by what kind of faith you have right in the middle of the tunnel. It’s so key. In some ways, that’s a pivot point. That’s a crossroads. And having faith in the tunnel, let me give you five thoughts, not three, but five. Five thoughts on how to have faith in the tunnel.
Number one: Remember, just because you have… bad feelings, we’ll word it that way, doesn’t mean you can’t have faith. Faith and feelings are two different things. Now, I love it when I have feelings of faith. That’s wonderful. But just because you don’t have feelings of faith doesn’t mean you cannot have faith.
There’s a verse. It’s a very short verse. You don’t have to look it up, but it’s Psalm 56:3. And David says this: “What time I am afraid,” that would be feelings or emotions, he’s afraid. He said, “What time I’m afraid, I”—some of you know it—“I will trust in thee.” So his feelings were not on top side; they were fearful, but he still had faith, trust.
Now, friend, don’t let the devil—the devil, he’ll say, “Well, your feelings are so low and you’re so discouraged. You can’t have faith right now.” He’s lying. He’s always lying, by the way. But friend, you can have faith even when your feelings are catawampus. And when you’re in the middle of the tunnel, typically your feelings are not going to be on top side. Now, yes, rejoice in the Lord always. When I mention it often, notice, rejoice. You’re not going to be boom, you know, just—we want that—but you’re going to have to go down and you’ve got to rejoice. Okay. But when I’m down, that’s when your flesh and the devil will say, “Well, you can’t have faith right now with feelings like that.” Yeah, you can’t.
Would you look over in Hebrews chapter 11? We call that the Hall of Fame of Faith. And before he talks about all these things they did by faith, he gives us a good biblical definition of what faith is. So let’s just take out what everybody else says faith is. Let’s just find out what God gives us a definition of in His Word of what faith is. And let’s see if he talks about feelings in this definition of faith. Hebrews chapter 11. Look at verse number one right there. He gives us the definition of faith. He says, “Now faith is the substance.” Substance—that’s not feelings. That’s something tangible, substance. This pulpit is substance right here. “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for.” Let’s keep going. He said, not only that, but it’s the evidence of things not seen. Evidence is something.
Brother Frank, he got a ticket for driving when he was helping to set up the tent years ago. I’m just teasing. We’ll say Brother Frank got a ticket, and he goes to court. And the police officer said he was going, you know, on his road, Ammaville Road right there by LifePoint, it’s 30 miles an hour. Anybody can testify, it’s hard to go 30 miles an hour on that road. One day I was coming to BBS years ago and driving a bus in the morning time. I hadn’t gone 30, and I didn’t realize it, but that police officer realized that. Confessing my sins tonight, friends. And he didn’t have mercy on me because I was out of a bus full of kids. He didn’t have mercy. Anyway, I’m getting off. But Brother Frank, not me, Brother Frank. And the police officer said he was going 50 on Ammaville Road right there, and it’s 30. But Miss Wanda was in the car with him, and she’d seen he was only going 30. And so Miss Wanda would be, if you will, evidence. We’ll just say I don’t know, I’m making this up as I go, but we’ll just say that she took a picture of the speedometer. Well, I’m 30, I don’t know. And it was evidence.
Now, anyway, what I’m getting at: he says faith is the substance of things hoped for. Okay, and I’m all over the place here trying to explain this thing, but we’ll say, who’s praying for a lost loved one? Many of you. I think about Brother Marlin, he’s praying for his sister to get saved. Well, he’s hoping for that, but faith is the substance of things hoped for. Marlin has been praying every night for the last four years, I’m just throwing something out, that his sister would get saved. Now that’s substance. That’s not only that, but that’s evidence that he could enter into a court case: “Hey, I am praying for four years every night on my knees that my sister gets saved.” Now that’s substance, that’s evidence. It’s faith.
Now what I’m getting at, you realize when you look at biblically, faith—I love it when feelings are there, but feelings don’t have a whole lot to do with faith. Faith is substance, it’s evidence. See? And so when you’re in the tunnel, you get all this fear and your emotions are all catawampus, and the devil says, “You can’t have faith.” Yes, you can. Because faith is the substance, it’s the evidence. And so right in the middle of a tunnel, don’t fall for that thing, “You can’t have faith because your feelings.” No, sometimes it requires much greater faith because your feelings are all out of whack. So don’t fall for that. No, no, you can still have faith right in the midst of the tunnel, even when your emotions are going against you. And they will from time to time. You can still have faith. God wants you to have faith.
Sometimes when I’m witnessing someone and you come to where you’re trying to draw the net, try to give them in the boat, and all that kind of back and forth, and sometimes I’ll say this: I feel like the Lord’s leading. Look, here’s when you get saved. Someone gives you the gospel. Some of you hear from the Word of God. I shared the Word of God. How you get saved right there. And that gives you a little bit of faith. Well, man, Jesus died. I have put my faith in Christ. I’m excited about that. I believe he did that. But then there’s doubt often. It’s that easy. I don’t have to do all these things to go to heaven. I just put my faith in what Jesus did. And there’s doubt. And you’re a little bit of a crossroads. And the way you get saved, you got this doubt here and you got faith here, and when you go ahead, you just make a decision: “I’m going to step out on faith, even though I’ve got doubt here present with me. I’m going to go ahead and step out on the faith, and I’m going to make that decision.” That’s how you get saved. So when I’m getting that, how do you have faith in the tunnel? Don’t let the devil get you mixed up. “Well, my emotions are all out of whack. I cannot have faith.” No, you can have faith, maybe greater faith, while your emotions, your feelings aren’t there. Two different things: faith and feelings.
Number two. How do you have faith in the midst of the tunnel? Would you look over in Psalms 27? Number one, remember you can have faith even though your feelings aren’t where you want them to be. I want my feelings to always be wonderful, but they’re not. And yours aren’t either, but you can still have faith.
Second thing, second thing, look in Psalms 27, look in verse number 13. God’s speaking through David, maybe one of the lowest points in his life right here. He’s going through the tunnel. Look at what he says. Psalm 27, look at verse number 13. He said, “I had fainted, unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.” By the way, he’s not just talking about, if you will, and I use this term lightly, pie in the sky stuff; he’s talking about in the land of the living. He said, “I’d have fainted. I’d have gave up, I’d have quit, I’d have just lost all my hope, I’d have just threw in the towel, but I’d have fainted unless I had believed.” I couldn’t see it, but I had to believe to see the goodness of God down here in the land of the living.
Look, when you’re in the middle of a tunnel, you don’t see the goodness of God. And sometimes it seems when you’re in the tunnel, you don’t get hit just one angle, and you get every angle coming. That’s what happened to Job. And everything, you know, what do they say? When it rains, it pours. Now we’ve got flash floods going on, you know. And you get hit from every angle and it’s just bombarding you. And at that time, friend, there’s going to be times you don’t see the goodness of God in the land of the living. Now whether I see it or not, he’s still good, amen. He’s always good. But there will be times you don’t see it. What do you do in the middle of the tunnel when you don’t see the sunlight? You believe to see the goodness of the Lord. That’s all right to do that. Hey, can I say tunnels are only temporary? You don’t camp out, you don’t sleep, you don’t park in tunnels. And you look for the light at the end of the tunnel. In the middle of it, you say, “Well, I want to see the light.” You’re probably not going to say it in the middle of it. But he said, “I’d have fainted unless I had believed.” Some of you lost loved ones, the ones you just love very much. And boy, I tell you what, at that moment, you’re not going to see the goodness of God in the land of the living, but you believe this: “I’m going to see the sunlight one day. I don’t see it right now. I don’t feel it right now. I don’t understand it all right now, but I believe to see it.” Can I just say this about that? Often on the other side of the tunnel is beautiful territory. Man, so often you cross over the mountains, you know, and you get on the other side and watch this beautiful scenery over there. And you believe just… Tunnels are always temporary, even for a saved person that passes through the valley of the shadow of death. You talk about beautiful scenery on the other side. Tunnels are always temporary, always.
Tunnels are always temporary. And so sometimes you believe, and can I say this, while you’re right there and you can’t see it, that’s when the devil and your own flesh will just bombard your mind. Oh, you know Satan—Satan can plant things in your mind. You know that? Acts 5:3, “Why hast Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost?” Satan can do that. Now once it comes in there, you’re responsible, but I can’t control everything because Satan can put it in there. And he will bombard your mind with all the trash and the negativity and the bad, and he’ll just keep putting it on your mind, your mind, your mind. And realize you’re going through, right at the moment, you’re going through spiritual warfare, and you’ve got a battle going on in your mind. Can I say something here? But when you’re there, sometimes you need to say, “Wait a second, wait a second, wait a second. I’ve got maybe my flesh, maybe the devil, maybe one of his demons, one of his spirits are oppressing me now.” Oh yeah, friend. Sometimes you may need to say, “Hey, you know, Jesus often said, ‘Hey, what is your name?’” He’d tell those demons. “Hey, I want to recognize what is this? What is this spirit?” Maybe it’s just a spirit of oppression, a spirit of discouragement, a spirit of jealousy, a spirit of lust, a spirit of gossip, or whatever. And that’s just depressing your mind. And sometimes, “Hey, I want to—what’s going on?” And you identify that spirit. That’s the Holy Spirit to lead you in that thing. Then you tell that spirit, “Hey, this mind is mine, and I have given this mind to Jesus. It’s his property, and you don’t have the right to put all your junk and your trash and your negativity in his mind. Get out of here, devil.” You have the right to do that by the Spirit of God and by the power of Jesus Christ. And you claim, “Hey, this is Jesus’ mind. It’s given to him, and you don’t have the right to be here.” By faith, you rebuke it, you cast it out. I don’t want you there. I’m not talking about some speaking in tongues, holy roller, crazy junk. I’m talking about biblically claiming by God and by the Spirit of God the victory Jesus has given. Greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world. There’s spiritual battles going on. Your mind is right in the middle of it, and especially when you’re in the tunnel. He’ll bombard your mind, and you must fight that.
We’ve had some people on the property over there bring limbs. We don’t know who it is. Brother Anthony’s put signs up. Something about don’t dump them on this property. You know, “Trespassers will be shot. Survivors will be shot again,” that type of thing. And the crazy people did it one time right after they put the sign up. They dumped again. We’re going to hang out there one night with our shotgun door. We might want to do that. We’re not going to do that. But, hey, sometimes I’ve got to post a sign: “Hey, this is Jesus’ mind out here. You claim it by faith. You don’t have the right to stay here. Get on out of here.” You get your mind on what God wants it to be on. Right in the middle of the tunnel, that’s where the battle goes on.
David said, “I’d have fainted unless I had believed to see the goodness of God in the land of the living.” Years ago, we were up visiting my brother-in-law and sister in Michigan. We were going to go over into Canada. Sarah went with me. John was just a little fellow, a little baby. And so we crossed under the Detroit River. There’s a tunnel. It’s called the… The Detroit-Canada Tunnel, the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel, something like that. It’s a tunnel that goes underneath the Detroit River. And it’s just two lanes. It’s 22 feet wide, not super wide. There’s two lanes. The clearance is only 12 feet, 8 inches. Most semis cannot go there. It’s a pretty small tunnel.
And you’re traveling for good ways, and sometimes there’s traffic. And, you know, actually, as you’re driving, you can kind of tell you’re going down, and then you kind of get to the bottom of the river, and you kind of level out and you come out, you know. And they say when you’re in the deepest part, you’re 75 feet underwater. Now this is about 14, maybe 15 feet tall right in the center. Can you imagine 75 feet? I’m here underneath water. Now you’re traveling down this tunnel, it’s dark, you know, they got lights and all that, but still it’s not like you can’t see the sun. And if the traffic’s backed up a little bit, it’s interesting—I was reading about it today a little bit. I don’t know if they do it anymore, but they say they used to have wreck trucks if somewhere to break down in that tunnel or an accident or something. They have special wreck trucks, so they have a driver on each end. They’ll drive down there, and then he’ll hook up to the car or this driver, and then the guy on the other end, they’ll drive them out of there. They don’t have to hardly get out sometimes, you know, with some of those things. It’s very interesting to keep the flow of traffic—12, 13,000 cars going through there a day. And this tunnel, it’s almost right shy of a mile long. And here’s the thing, man, when you’re there and traffic’s backed up a little bit and you don’t see the sun and you’re going underneath this thing and you think, “Man, all this water on top of me here is 75 feet under water.” You know, a little bit, you know, we’re tough us guys. We never admit it, but, you know, in our minds, you know, we don’t say anything, you know. Then we start kind of picking on our wife, “What if that were to fall through?” Really, we do that and try to cover; we’re scared, you know, dead way, you know.
I tell you what now, and you come up on the other side of that tunnel, and it’s kind of just encouraging to see the sunlight. Look up and see the sky, and the sun’s there shining. And friends, sometimes when you’re in the tunnel, you’re not going to see the sunlight, and you have to believe to see. You say, “I’m going to get on the other side of this. I’m going to see the sun over there. I’m not going to be here. I’m not going to be so heartbroken. I’m not going to be so just depressed down. I’m not going to be here forever. This time is temporary. There’s going to be sun on the other side.”
I believe to see. How do you have faith in the midst of the tunnel? Number one, you realize there’s a difference between faith and feelings. Number two, you believe to see. Number three, very quickly, number three, you’ll know the verse. Help me out. It’s Romans 10:17. “So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by what?” The Bible, the Word of God. That’s the basis. Yes, there’s hearing, and we’ve talked about that by the Word of God. Number three is this right here: While you’re in the middle of that tunnel, 75 feet under, you keep your eyes on the promises. Man, you keep your eyes on the promises of God. I’m so happy some of you are praying, “Lord, what verse do you want to memorize?” Because it may be you’re going through the tunnel sometime down in the future here, and the Holy Spirit is going to bring, “Hey, you’ve got that thing hidden in your heart,” and he’ll bring that promise up. Or it may be right now you’re in the tunnel, and it brings that promise up. But you learn to keep your eyes just focused on the promises.
I was reading today about a man that he had his pilot’s license, but he was trying to get his instrument rating, and he was going through training for that, just small plane. And he lived in Utah, and his trainer had a couple days where he could just do whatever. He said, “Could you get a couple days where we could travel down to Southern California?” He said, “Now, if we fly in the clouds up here in Utah in February, there’s a lot of icing going on in the wings, and we don’t do that, but if we go to Southern California in February, we can go through storms, and we’re fine.” And he said, “Could you?” And the guy said, “I’ll make the time.” He said, “Literally, it was the most valuable time of my pilot training.” And so he got four days they went, and they’re going to fly down there and do a lot of training. And he’s going to learn more by instrument flying, and you fly on simulators and all that. From the very beginning, they took off of Utah and started heading that way. They flew what they call “under the hood.” Now, what does that mean? That means they have actually like a cardboard hood, if you will, that they put inside the windows, and they cover up where you can’t see anything outside. You’re flying under the hood, and you actually have to fly by instruments. And he said, man, we were flying down there. His trainer was an ex-Navy pilot and flown forever, just kind of his hero as far as a pilot. He said, “I could not believe he was on me. You have a flight plan and you have certain degrees you’re flying on the altitude.” And he said, “Man, if I would veer just a little bit, he would just, if I get off just a degree or two, he would be on me: ‘You’re getting off.’” And he said, “I’ll be honest with you, though, it made me a much better pilot, and it made me pay attention to the dials and the instruments all the time.” We were flying down there, we’re flying under the hood, and man, he’s right there with you every step of the way, you know, and keep right there. He said, he didn’t mind if I got off just a little bit. He didn’t mind saying something, “Hey, you’re getting off.”
And he said, finally we got down more to Southern California, and they stopped at many airports. It took them a day or so to get down there. He said he’d always say, “Check the weather.” He said, “I didn’t realize when I was fueling the checkout and all that, he had been checking the weather himself, and so he always knew what I was talking about.” He said, “Well, the weather—there’s low coverage and there’s storms. I don’t think it doesn’t look good for us to fly in it.” And the trainer said, “I want you to go ahead and make a flight plan. We’re going into it.” So I made him a flight plan. And we took off, had the hood on. And he said, “I felt like we were flying right into the storm.” And actually, they were. And he said, “All right, he said, I want you to take the hood off.” And he took the hood off. You could look out and he said, “Actually, we were right in the middle of the storm. Cloud—you couldn’t see anything.” He said, “But I was amazed. I trained in simulators and I’d flown under the hood, but when I was actually there in the storm, I could see it. And I could see the tips of the wings.” He said, “Man, my mind just wanted to go different courses. My mind started playing tricks on me. I thought, ‘Heck, I needed to turn this way and that.’” And he said, “The guy was on me the whole time: ‘No, I want you to keep right there on that degree and this altitude. Don’t pay attention to any of that.’” And he said, “He just trained me right in the middle of that storm with all my motions going this way and that way. I kept my eyes on those dials. I didn’t take them off.”
He said, one time when they were flying in the storm down there, many storms, he said, at one point, he said, “My engine was off, but I was in the clouds, couldn’t see anything, but the engine started running rough.” And he said, “It wasn’t—sometimes your mind plays tricks on you. Well, it’s not kind of sound, but it really wasn’t. It was truly running rough.” And I tried to adjust a little bit. He said, “I enriched my fuel mixture, you know, and thought that didn’t solve the problem. And I was trying to change all these things.” He said, “It was running rough.” And he said, “I was nervous. I was messing with everything.” And he said, “I’ll never forget my instructor was sitting over there. He just had his arm up, just calm and cool.” And finally, he said, “I’m trying to ever dialogue and find every little thing, you know.” And finally my instructor said, “What are you doing?” He said, “Well, you hear the engine? I’m trying to figure what to do about it.” He said, “You can’t do anything about it. Just fly the plane.” He said, “I knew what he was doing, but I didn’t want to listen to it because I’ll never forget him telling me, ‘Just fly the plane.’” And he was trying to tell me, you can’t fix that problem. There is a problem, but you can’t solve it. Just fly the plane. And quit all that. Just look at the—keep your eyes on the dial, do what you’re supposed to do, and fly the plane. And they eventually landed, and they found the problem later on. But sometimes you just fly the plane, you just keep your eyes on the promises. You don’t feel right, things don’t sound right, you don’t like anything around you. You don’t see the goodness of that moment, but you just keep flying the plane. In time, you’ll figure out, God will show you what’s going on. But you keep your eyes on the promises.
Right dead, 75 feet underground in the water, you’re in the midst of the tunnel, you just keep your eyes on the promises, the instruments. That’s how you have faith.
How do you have faith in the midst of the tunnel? Number one, you realize there’s a difference between faith and feelings. Number two, you believe to see. Number three, keep your eyes on the promises. Number four, yield to the Holy Spirit, yield. Stay right with the Holy Spirit of God. He’ll give you faith. He’ll give you faith.
Number five, we’re done. Number five, we’re done. Help me out. What’s that verse? You’ll know it. Hebrews 11:6. “Without faith, it is impossible to please God.” So a big element of you pleasing God, it must be involved, must be part of the formula, is faith. So faith pleases God. So when you’re right in the bad time of it, your feelings are all catawampus, and nothing’s going right, you’re trying to keep your eyes on the promises, you’re trying to believe to see the goodness of God one day coming up, and you’re trying to do something—stop and realize that’s probably the greatest opportunity you have to please God. That’s when God is more pleased with you if you’re trying, you’re living out there, than any other time. Because that’s the time it requires the greatest faith. I mean, when you’re on top, everything’s gone wonderful, it doesn’t take a whole lot of faith. When everything’s bad, everywhere you look at, I mean, you touch it and it turns to mud, it takes a lot of faith. That’s when you have the opportunity to make God smile more than ever. God’s so pleased with you.
How many, be honest, how many of you, when you go through a tunnel, how many of you, be honest, how many honk the horn? Come on now, all the smart people do, all right. Come on, all you dignified people doing. Man, I do. I do. When I cross the state line, my kids know, if I cross the state line, I go through a tunnel, it’s just standard, you honk the horn? I still get a little bitty one, and she can’t hardly hear it, you know, just a little bitty one, you know. That’s just part of it—you go through a tunnel, you’ll honk the horn, you know, if you get to hear the echo. If you got a good tunnel, you can do the “ah, ah, ah,” you know, and get somebody honked back. Come on now, y’all. Come on now, this is good preaching tonight. I’ll tell you what, now, you know. Yeah, that’s your standard, you know. And then when you just, if you will, you honk for the Lord in the middle of the tunnel. That’s what Job was doing. He said, “I go forward and he is not there, and backward, but I cannot perceive him. To the right where I can’t even—I don’t know if he was there.” And he said, “But he knows the way that I take. When he hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold.” He’s honking his horn.
Have you ever heard that song? I think a lot of you, the Bushos used to sing it. Beautiful. To hear me sing. You know what I’m talking about? How many of you ever heard that song? “I want to hear me something.” Yeah, it’s kind of based on Paul and Silas. And they were singing—singing to God, praising God at midnight. Let me just read it. I’ll spare you. I won’t sing it for you. I heard that. Who’s that, brother? God, no, I ain’t going to do it. Maybe just to agonize Brother Tim there, you know.
But it says God wants to hear you sing when the waves are crashing around you, when the fiery darts around you, when despair is all you see. God wants to hear your voice. Wise this man has spoken and says your circumstances are as hopeless as can be. That’s when God wants to hear you sing. I’m not saying I did a good job at it when my wife had cancer. I was going through chemo. I tried to sing that song a lot. The second verse is amazing to me. The second verse just says so much: “He loves to hear praise on our cheerful days when the pleasant times outweigh the bad by far. But when suffering comes along and we still sing him a song, that is when we bless the Father’s heart.” That’s, friend, when you can please God more than any time. Right? Smack dab, 75 feet underwater in the tunnel. You can please God.
You say, “Preacher, I want to have faith in the tunnel.” I want to have faith in the tunnel. That’s you tonight, you slip your hand up, “Preacher, I want to have faith in the tunnel. I want to have faith.” God bless you. That’s so key. That’s so key because you will go through the tunnel. God bless you.
I’m telling you this thing, your mind is so crucial. That’s when the devil, in the middle of the tunnel, he’s going to jump on your mind. You’ve got to battle it. Submit to God. Submit to what God’s allowing in your life. It starts with submitting to the Lord. And you resist. You fight. “No, this is God’s mind. No, it’s not your dumping ground for your trash. No, I’m…” And you battle your thoughts, battle it, submit to God, resist the devil, and he will flee. He’ll run. It’s God’s promise. There’s so much of the battles right there, right in your mind. That’s where such a battle’s going on. It is. Praise the Lord, you’re in church on a Wednesday night. I’m so glad you’re here. That’s just awesome, right where you ought to be on a Wednesday night. We’re glad to have every person here, praise the Lord for it.
Brother Steve Page, we dismiss with his word of prayer, please.
Original File: Having Faith in the Tunnel - Pastor Paul Chisgar -Wednesday PM 07272022