Who said mans extremity is gods opportunity

And, sometimes, a church may get down so very low that it appears as if it would become altogether extinct. One is afraid that the doors of the chapel will have to be closed, that the altar-fire will go out, and that the testimony for God will cease in that particular hamlet, or village, or township.

When you are in such a state as this, what you have to do is to lay the condition of the church to heart, and to cry unto God to raise it up again. For, next, if you pray in faith , God will return to you. I believe that half-a-dozen persons, with vital religion in their souls, and really in earnest, may pray a church right out of any ditch into which it may have fallen, or bring it up even from the sepulchre where it has been buried, and make it live again in fulness of life; only there must be an intense determination that it shall be so, and real anguish and travail of soul until the desired end is attained.

The fact that the church has come to her extremity of weakness should cheer you, rather than drive you to despair; for when a thing is so low that it cannot get any lower, there is some consolation in that fact. Now is the time to hope that the tide will turn; if it has ebbed out to the very uttermost, now let us trust that it will soon begin to flow again.

I do not know whether the common saying is true, that the darkest hour of the night is that which precedes the dawn of day; but let us hope that it is so with your church, and that, when it has got very, very, very low, it has reached its limit of weakness, and that God will raise it up again. When he was converted, the world was as dark spiritually as it well could be; yet God then found, even in the monastery, a monk whose preaching of the gospel shook the world.

Never be afraid of the ultimate issue of the great battle; God will beat the devil yet. Never admit into your mind thoughts that shall lead you to despond concerning the end of the conflict. I may be addressing someone to whom these words of Moses shall drop as the rain, and distil as the dew. They have struggled against many difficulties; but, at last, the difficulties have proved more than a match for them.

You may be like Job, who had no friends left, except the miserable comforters, who spoke more like enemies than friends. The worst about your trial may be that it may seem to you, and seem truly, that some of your suffering is the result of sin.

You may not have been walking with God as you ought to have done, your heart may have grown cold; so that which has come upon you may be a chastisement for your wandering, it may be a rod in the hand of your loving Father, smiting you because of your folly. But I beseech you, now that all human power is gone, do not run away from God, but fly to him.

Do not give up your hope in him. However deplorable your circumstances may be, let them drive you to God, and not from him. Your only hope now lies in the compassion of your God. It is possible that it was absolutely necessary that you should be brought as low as you are in order to cure you of your sin.

You have come to your last shilling, have you? I have known a doctor to keep his patient almost without food, and bring the man down very low in order to starve out the complaint from which he was suffering; and in a surgical case, the knife has had to go in very deeply so as to get at the roots of the cancer.

In like manner, it may be that it was necessary that your affliction should not be stopped midway, but should be allowed to proceed to the bitter end, in order that it might be the means of curing you of the evils which were rankling in your spirit. Possibly, too, the affliction was permitted to develop to the uttermost in order that you might be induced to return to your God.

It may be that, in your prosperity, you had grown so careless and so fond of the world, and you had so little delight in God, that it was necessary for you to have your gourds withered, and your flowers all made to decay, in order that you might, in your abject distress, turn again unto your God. Or it may be that God intends that you should for ever bear a testimony to his faithfulness such as no ordinary man can bear.

Those people who only sail in a little boat on a lake have no stories to tell of adventures at sea; but he who is to write a book describing long voyages must travel far out of sight of land, and behold the sea in the time of storm, as well as in a calm. A precise and direct message without doubt to non christian and religious people to preach them. Back to the Basics. The Best Christmas Ever. The Always God. The Prince of Peace. This sermon is about how God helps a beleiver even in extreme difficulties when it appears as though all hope is lost.

View all Sermons. Stanley Vasu on Jun 22, message contributor based on 44 ratings. SIN 2. SHAME 5. But what do You say? Download Sermon with PRO.

Browse All Media Related Media. Talk about it Rafael Jimenez commented on Aug 27, Sign in to reply to this comment. God many times suffers His dearest children to fall into the mouths of these lions, so that to a carnal eye they seem hopeless and helpless.

That God will deliver His from this great danger. He that brought thee into the mouth of the lion will bring thee out again Daniel Parallel Verses KJV: At my first answer no man stood with me, but all men forsook me: I pray God that it may not be laid to their charge. WEB: At my first defense, no one came to help me, but all left me.

In the scene before us, this absurdity is very apparent; for what could be more absurd than to suppose that the vessel could possibly sink with the Son of God on board?

And yet this was what they feared. It may be said they did not just think of the Son of God at that moment. True, they thought of the storm, the waves, the filling vessel, and, judging after the manner of men, it seemed a hopeless case. Thus it is the unbelieving heart ever reasons. It looks only at the circumstances, and leaves God out. Faith, on the contrary, looks only at God, and leaves circumstances out.

What a difference! Faith delights in "man's extremity," simply because it is "God's opportunity. Such is faith. It would, we may surely say, have enabled the disciples to lie down and sleep beside their Master in the midst of the storm. Unbelief, on the other hand, rendered them uneasy; they could not rest themselves, and they actually aroused the blessed Lord out of His sleep by their unbelieving apprehensions. He, weary with incessant toil, was snatching a few moments repose while the vessel was crossing the sea.

He knew what fatigue was; He had come down into all their circumstances. He made Himself acquainted with all our feelings and all our infirmities, being in all points tempted like as we are, sin excepted.

He was found as a man in every respect, and as such, He slept on a pillow, and was rocked by the sea's wave. The storm beat upon the vessel, and the billows rolled over it, although the Creator was on board in the Person of that weary, sleeping Workman. Profound mystery!

The One who had made the sea and could hold the winds in His almighty grasp, lay sleeping in the hinder part of the ship, and allowed the sea and the wind to treat Him as unceremoniously as though He were an ordinary man. Such was the reality of the human nature of our blessed Lord.

He was weary; He slept; and He was tossed on the bosom of that sea which His hands had made. O reader, pause and meditate on this wondrous sight. Look closely; think deeply. No tongue, no pen, can do justice to such a scene. We cannot expatiate; we can only muse and worship. But, as we have said, unbelief roused the blessed Lord out of His sleep.

What a question! How could they ever think that He was indifferent to their trouble and danger? How completely must they have lost sight of His love, to say nothing of His power, when they could bring themselves to say, "Carest Thou not? And yet, dear Christian reader, have we not in all this a mirror in which to see ourselves reflected?

Assuredly we have.