OVERCOMING ALL AFFLICTIONS
(week 42/10)
OLUBI JOHNSON
Psalms 34:19 MKJV: Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but Jehovah delivers him out of them all.
Here, the scripture tells us that God delivers the righteous out of, not some, but all his afflictions.
Afflictions are bodily (like sicknesses, weaknesses, physical torture) and circumstantial difficulties (accidents, shipwrecks etc) that Satan attacks us with to discourage us from believing and acting on God’s Word.
Mark 4:17 MKJV But they have no root in themselves, but are temporary. Afterward when affliction or persecution arises for the Word’s sake, they are immediately offended.
Sometimes afflictions arise because of our foolishness and sin:
Psalms 107:17 MKJV: Fools are afflicted because of their rebellion, and because of their iniquities.
The good news is that however they come, God wants us to overcome all afflictions so that other Christians and the world can see God working in and through us and so be drawn to know Him better.
2 Corinthians 2:14 MKJV: Now thanks be to God, who always causes us to triumph in Christ, and He revealing through us the odor of the knowledge of Him in every place.
John 6:44 ESV: No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day.
Here, Paul by the Spirit tells us that God always (not just sometimes!) causes us to triumph in Christ and so reveals the odour of Himself through us like He did through Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego:
Daniel 3:23-30 ESV: And these three men, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, fell bound into the burning fiery furnace. (24) Then King Nebuchadnezzar was astonished and rose up in haste. He declared to his counselors, “Did we not cast three men bound into the fire?” They answered and said to the king, “True, O king.” (25) He answered and said, “But I see four men unbound, walking in the midst of the fire, and they are not hurt; and the appearance of the fourth is like a son of the gods.” (26) Then Nebuchadnezzar came near to the door of the burning fiery furnace; he declared, “Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, servants of the Most High God, come out, and come here!” Then Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego came out from the fire. (27) And the satraps, the prefects, the governors, and the king’s counselors gathered together and saw that the fire had not had any power over the bodies of those men. The hair of their heads was not singed, their cloaks were not harmed, and no smell of fire had come upon them. (28) Nebuchadnezzar answered and said, “Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who has sent his angel and delivered his servants, who trusted in him, and set aside the king’s command, and yielded up their bodies rather than serve and worship any god except their own God. (29) Therefore I make a decree: Any people, nation, or language that speaks anything against the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego shall be torn limb from limb, and their houses laid in ruins, for there is no other god who is able to rescue in this way.” (30) Then the king promoted Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the province of Babylon.
In our article next week, we will see how to overcome all afflictions
