THEME: THE CHURCH LIFE IN TIMES OF TROUBLES/TRIBULATIONS

LESSON: Three

TEXT: 1 Thessalonians 3:4; Acts 14:22: James 1:2

MEMORY TRACK

In our last lesson, we found help by the Grace of God to explain Man in his three personalities and dimensions. We also found grace to explain how salvation occurs in each of man’s person (spirit, soul and body). We explained the kind of meal (teaching/doctrine) that provokes tribulations, and why tribulations. We found help to explain to a degree why TRIBULATION IS A MUST FOR AN UPWARD JOURNEYING BELIEVER.

Tribulation: A MUST IN THE JOURNEY OF OUR SALVATION
  1. At what point did it become A MUST for man to experience tribulations for to be saved? Acts 14:22.
  2. If Adam and his wife did not sin by disobeying God in eating the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, would they have still required tribulation to come into the fullness of their salvation/Everlasting Life before they’ll now be allowed to take of the tree of life?

These and similar questions are what our lesson today would be geared towards answering! Thank God for the grace of God on Our Daddy, Pastor Emeka Egwuchukwu.

Answer to Question 2:

Taking a cue from our last lesson, in which we highlighted the Hebrew (and Greek) definitions of tribulation from the Bible (as narrow, tight, strait, distress, adversary, pressure, persecution, trouble etc), we can say this in answering our second question above say: Yes, if Adam and His Wife didn’t sin by disobeying God in eating the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, THEY WOULD STILL HAVE REQUIRED TRIBULATION TO HAVE THE FULLNESS OF THEIR SALVATION/EVERLASTING LIFE before they would have been allowed to take of the tree of life!

That may sound alarming, but it’s true! In Isaiah 55:8-9, God through Isaiah the Prophet said, His thoughts and ways are not man’s thoughts and ways, THAT AS THE HEAVEN IS HIGHER THAN THE EARTH, SO ARE HIS (GOD’S) THOUGHTS HIGHER THAN MAN’S THOUGHTS, AND HIS WAYS THAN MAN’S WAYS. Although Adam and His Wife had not eaten of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and did not have sin in them, they did having God’s exact thoughts and God’s exact ways!

Tribulation is intended to straighten/beat into alignment/adjust/constrain Adam and his wife into God’s ways! The pressures that God would have put on Adam and his wife (or designed as the path to the fulness of Salvation/Everlasting Life), would have been troublous, distressful, burdensome (like an arrow to the souls of Adam and his wife).

That is what tribulation is. More simply put, it is walking a path/way that is comfortable and easy for God (because of His estate of life and salvation) but distressing to Adam and his wife, because of their estate in soul salvation (living, but not yet abiding).

Now it is good to add at this juncture that Adam and His Wife did not require MUCH TRIBULATIONS like the wicked man/soul does (Isaiah 55:7), but because their souls were earthy (lower than that of Angels and the throne/height of God), they still required tribulation in some measures (Psalms 103:19-22).

All of these are being said to show that, even if Man had not disobeyed God from the beginning, there were still some tribulations that his souls would have participated in before he can bridge the gap between His soul and that of God! TRIBULATION IS A MUST FOR MAN’S SOUL TO COME INTO SALVATION!

In Job 2:10, Job while speaking to his wife said… “shall we receive good at the hand of God and shall we not receive evil?” Many believers and Ministers have criticized and judged Job, but the truth is, a baby Christian cannot and will not agree with Adult spiritual reasonings. Job’s statement here must have been his own way of saying “by much

tribulations shall we enter into the kingdom of God!” Hallelujah! Tribulation is not an after thought, or in response to sin, rather, tribulation is part of the original manuscript for inheriting salvation!

We pray that God will help us adjust our hearts, and minds to fully agree with God’s route for the salvation of our souls! Amen.

Answer to Question 1

In answering question two above, question one has also been answered! But it’ll be good to add this, yes, Adam and His Wife from the beginning still needed some tribulation to come into the fullness of salvation, but they didn’t need “much tribulations” as Acts 14:22 says.

Because of the fall (Genesis 2:16-17; Genesis 3:6-7), man’s spirit has not only died (1st Corinthians 15:22), but much more, man’s soul has fallen deep and journeyed so far away from God (Romans 3:12/23), henceforth not JUST NEEDING TRIBULATIONS, BUT MUCH TRIBULATIONS to eventually get saved! Man has so fallen that He NOW NEEDS MUCH TRIBULATIONS TO JUST ENTER THE KINGDOM OF GOD, just to enter! Acts 14:22.

God’s normal ways and paths are where God’s thoughts can naturally be found, but those ways and paths are “tribulations to our souls”, while our souls journeys in the quest for God’s thought or God’s salvation (Isaiah 55:8-9). Where did the devil and evil spirits come in?

The truth is that the devil and his cohorts were not part of the original wisdom and arrangements of God in the workings of tribulations from the beginning. The devil showed up through the tree of the knowledge of good and evil to create an alternative to ‘salvation/everlasting life’. In doing this he (the devil) invented temptation which is different from tribulation.

Tribulation is a path/way of life peculiar to God but tortuous to man who walks that path for to inherit salvation. Temptation on the other hand is the alternative pathway of the devil (or in the devil) that lures man away from the path of salvation and/or makes the path of salvation tortuous (painful).

Satan infiltrates the way of salvation/tribulations with things like sickness, diseases (as in the case of Job, Job 2:3- 7), accusations, slander, deaths, imprisonment, lacks, perils of all sorts, persecutions etc (2nd Peter 11:20-28) just to both blackmail God and His ways/paths/life/things before His people and weary/discourage God’s people from the way of salvation/tribulations. Because of the infiltration of the devil as explained above, many of God’s people detest, preach and speak against and even reject tribulations.

We are meant to properly understand this and know where to stand our ground in prayers. Also, we need to get detailed understanding of what tribulation is, so that we will be empowered to stand on God’s word, to know when and where to insist on the devil not taking advantage of us in the path of salvation/tribulations, while still allowing and agreeing with God’s wisdom of tribulations.

Job didn’t have a mediator to plead his case before God, and he lived under an inferior Covenant. We have Jesus Christ Our Lord, and we are in a better Covenant. We know better through God’s word that though we are meant to go through tribulations, we are not meant to allow the devil take advantage of us. Hallelujah

CONCLUSION

Finally, if by much tribulations we must enter into the kingdom, then it is obvious, tribulations are ways/paths into the kingdom of God. To despise them or run from them is to despise/run from entering the kingdom (Acts 14:22). Amen!