We would have to shut the motor down. Then the cutting cold of the night would slowly creep up on our unblanketed bodies. We'd have to do with only our coats. Eerie thoughts reared their ugly heads: first our toes would grow numb, then the frost would reach for the knees, ...
We didn't want that.
(Especially since I had to minister in a bible school not many hours later!)
So we prayed for help.
Then we looked out the window.
Nothing happened fast.
We kept our confidence though! I was fully aware of the spiritual law laid down in Hebrews 10, 35: "Don't cast away your confidence, because it has a great recompense of reward."
No confidence: no reward.
So we quietly kept on praising God. He'd make fertilizer out of this ice somehow! Bless God, he'd come through! A recompense of reward was coming! Even if icicles grew on our noses in the meantime and hoarfrost settled on our brow: we'd remain confident! On purpose!
Instead of discarding our confidence and nursing our worry, we cast our worry and kept our confidence.
So where was the recompense of reward?
After 5 minutes or so our wheels were still spinning helplessly, when we suddenly noticed a rivulet of water coming down our hill, seemingly out of nowhere.
It was aimed right at our left front wheel.
To me it felt as if Moses had smitten a rock somewhere up that hill in Istanbul, and now water was gushing forth to rescue us. Glory to God!
Actually, it was more a seeping forth. Like God tipped over a mop bucket which now refused to run dry. (You've heard of Elijah and the cruse of oil that wouldn't run dry. 1 Kings 17, 16.)
That little stream of water had melted the thin sheet of ice under it. Now we had an ice-free strip of road to get us up that hill.
Larry aimed the van's left rear wheel at the river of God, - a growl from the motor ... and up we went with flying colors!
On top of the hill the going was easy and before too long we were home and tucked into warm beds.
I seriously doubt that any kind of help would have come any time soon, had we not remained positive in the situation. We didn't mope. Also, we didn't ask ourselves the futile questions of: "Why us, God?"
"Nothing ever works out right!"
"Oh Lord, where are you when we need you most?"
God didn't say we would never face any trouble. Rather he proclaimed himself to be a very present help in trouble!
Believe that.
Praise him for it.
So, to speculate on just flowery beds of ease in life is far-fetched, unbiblical and ridiculous.
Years ago I determined, based on Hebrews 10, 35, that no matter what happened, I'd remain confident. Because I love God, you see, and according to Romans 8, 28: all things work together for good to them that love God. I endeavor to be moved only by what I believe. And I believe that God is good and he is willing to be a very present help in times of trouble.
Even though the circumstances may suggest different sometimes: God didn't fall of his throne yet.
And, once again: he came through that night in Istanbul.
This was not the first time I ever ran into travel-trouble.
Once I ventured into Canada, only to find that the US-border police wouldn't admit me back into the US. I needed to get back into Detroit, where my plane was waiting. To make matters worse: I had only a measly 50 $ in my wallet and no credit card. I wore a short sleeved shirt and had no coat with me. The police officers were not nice to me at all. And I was not a criminal! I had broken no laws. I just couldn't prove to them that I had money. So they didn't let me in.
Well, after honoring me twice with supervised deportation, they admitted me into their country by the third entry-attempt. I even made it to the airport just in time. God had made a special way.
We're talking about staying confident.
At another time I got bumped off a plane in Bujumbura, Central Africa, during their war.
I had a valid ticket, but Kenya Air refused to carry me and my co-worker back to Nairobi anyway. (Later we learned that we and 20 other customers got bumped for raisons-d'etat: Politicians took our seats.) There was a UN-embargo in place against Burundi at that time, and air traffic was restricted to one plane per week. We didn't have another week. Bless God, we flew out the following day on board a rickety old embargo breaker!
Confidence!
Hebrews 10, 35 says it has "a great recompense of reward."
Did you know that the Greek word for "recompense of reward" is actually the word for "salary?"
"Salary? You get paid for being confident?" you may say now, "That means God pays you for something?"
Decidedly yes.
"But if he pays you, it is not a free gift of grace!"
What we get from God cannot be earned, worked for, or deserved. God will not pay you for works. That would be legalism.
Everything we receive is by grace! Bought and paid for by the blood of Jesus.
But confidence is not an outward work! It is an inner disposition! And God will pay you for that inner disposition of confidence.
What is going on in you matters more to God than what is happening around you.
Is the sun still switched on in your soul? (Only you can switch it off!)
How do you see the world? What is your attitude?
Is the glass half empty?
Or is it half full?
Your perspective alone determines what it is.
Is everybody but you an idiot?
That's not confidence.
Are you caring for a whole nursery of worries in your mind?
How's it going in there?
The apostle Paul is really my example in not casting confidence. He kept cool in hot spots. God did the most awesome things for him as a "salary" for having this attitude of "Glory! God will work it out."
In Acts 16 we find him in the Roman veterans colony of Philippi. They didn't like Jews there to begin with. Actually, you could say that the colony was very Nazi-like in a lot of respects.
Divinely bidden by a nocturnal vision Paul had ventured into Europe. However, initially he was not as successfull there as he had been in Asia Minor. No big crowds followed him yet. It was just like that in the European city of Philippi. He attracted hardly any followers.
At length he cast a spirit of divination out of a slave girl. Her masters expedited Paul and his companion Silas speedily before the magistrate where they were beaten without a trial and locked up in the innermost prison, their bruised backs bleeding, their feet fast in stocks. It was midnight.
But instead of moping, griping and complaining, Paul and Silas prayed and praised God in that midnight hour. You could say, they didn't cast away their confidence. They didn't just pray, they were PRAISING, too.
According to Hebrews 10, 35 a recompense of reward is now on the way.
It will come any minute now...
"Suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken: and immediately all the doors were opened, and everyone's bands were loosed." Acts 16, 26.
That was one supernatural earthquake! It opened doors and loosed bands!
Ordinarily God is not in the business of freeing criminals! Romans 13 explicitly advocates punishing those menaces to society. That right there shows me that those prisoners of Philippi were mostly of the Pauline kind: innocent victims of imperial injustice!
Good news for all tormented innocents reading this: God still busts bands and sets the captives free! Be confident!
"And the keeper of the prison awaking out of his sleep, and seeing the prison doors open, he drew out his sword, and would have killed himself, supposing that the prisoners had been fled."
If one of his prisoners would have fled, that dungeon master would have received that man's sentence for letting him escape. And the Romans were not known for taking kindly to their prisoners or to underachievers. That jailor would have rather killed himself than face the music in the morning.
"But Paul cried with a loud voice, saying, Do thyself no harm: for we are all here. Then he called for a light, and sprang in, and came trembling, and fell down before Paul and Silas, and brought them out, and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved?"
How about that: from tortured prisoners to revivalists in heavy demand IN ONE MINUTE!
"And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house. And they spake unto him the word of the Lord, and to all that were in his house." Acts 16, 27-32.
The breakthrough in ministry had finally come all right. But I seriously doubt that Paul hat that particular avenue in mind, when he first entered the city.
Anyway, now he has a brand new and rather unorthodox congregation: the jailor, destined to become the pastor, and the inmates of the jail as his members. What a church!
Would that kind of deliverance have come, if they had given up on confidence? Don't think so.
The life-changing qualities of confidence are once again displayed at the end of Acts. Once again the bible narrative features a prisoner named Paul. In Acts 28 Paul is marooned on Malta.
Larry Mills - the Istanbulian - and I have ministered on Malta in '95. We saw the St. Paul-Shipwreck-Church (that's it's actual name), on the rocky beach where Paul is said to have stranded.
By that time Paul had been a prisoner of Rome for several years. God didn't liberate him overnight, like he had done in Philippi and like he had done with Peter and the other apostles on several occasions, because he had warned Paul beforehand. The Lord sent disciples across Paul's path who told him by the spirit that he should not go up to Jerusalem. (Acts 21, 4.)
He didn't pay much attention to them.Then he came to Philip, the world renowned evangelist, whose four daughters prophecied. They probably prophecied over Paul not to go to Jerusalem.
Again, he didn't pay any attention.
Then God increased the caliber of the messenger again, and Paul met the confirmed and respected prophet Agabus, who bound himself with Paul's belt and warned him of pending doom and imprisonment in Jerusalem.
Paul didn't pay attention to this genuine prophet either and went anyway. He was summarily imprisoned, and God did not liberate him swiftly at all. What can you say?
Some say, it was God's plan for Paul to be imprisoned for those five years.
Now come on, silly, think again: Jesus came to set the captives free! Not to incarcerate his apostles! God made fertilizer out of that manure, all right, but Paul's imprisonment was not his perfect will for the apostle to the gentiles.
So inmate Paul is constrained to go wherever his Roman masters take him, and in Acts 28 he is on an involuntary voyage upon the wintry sea and winds up in a terrible shipwreck.
The ship breaks apart and Paul clings to a piece of floating debris as he is out there in the deep. In the end he is washed ashore on the rocky beaches of Malta.
At least "the babarous people shewed no little kindness: for they kindled a fire, and received us every one, because of the present rain, and because of the cold." Acts 28, 2.
Let's get Paul's situation right:
He is a prisoner. Has been for a long time.
He was forced to travel by ship when his intuition counseled against it, for it was already winter and the weather had gotten unpredictable. (Acts 27, 10.)
His ship had broken apart in a fierce storm, tossing him into the icy sea.
Before the ship broke apart his Roman wardens were inclined to kill him and his fellow prisoners. Luckily the centurion had stayed their hand just in time.
On top of all that it was rainy and cold when he finally was washed ashore on a very uncomfy rock-beach.
This had not been a good day.
Now Paul and his yokefellows are surrounded by a growing throng of nosy natives, carefully looking everybody over. At least the natives are not yet hostile. They just point their fingers at the new arrivals and mumble among themselves. Nobody told them that the stranded men are criminals awaiting trial in Rome.
But word gets around ...
Paul, - far from despairing in that destitute hour -, smiles at their ranks and tosses wood onto the bonfire in the middle of the ring.
Paul quietly keeps his confidence.
But what is this ...?
He is still smiling at the crowd when a venomous viper flashes out of the underbrush he had been carrying, and bites him in the hand.
This day is not getting any better fast!
There he stands! The snake dangling from his hand for everybody to see.
There are growls and yelps from the gathering masses as they watch him, wide-eyed. Their faces grow dark.
No more friendly barbarians.
They point at him and shout "Murderer! Murderer! This man escaped the sea, yet vengeace suffereth him not to live!" (Acts 28, 4.)
Isn't that just what you want to hear after you got bit by a snake?
This is getting worse all the time!
But instead of casting his confidence, Paul casts that noisome pestilence of a snake into the fire. AND SUFFERS NO HARM! Satan's snake on the other hand hisses as it burns up.
Confidence!
Lesser men would have broken down at that point. The average christian would have thrown himself down, flailing the ground with his fists, tears streaming down his dirty face, yelling:
"Oh God!
"First years of imprisonment!
"Then the sea!
"Then the cold and the rain!
"I suffer from hypothermia! My toes are numb.
"I haven't eaten in ages!
"Is there anything to drink anywhere! Somebody, pleeease, run down to the next QuikTrip and get me some hot coffee!
"The snake! I'm full of poison! I'm bleeding! Call EMSA, call the Red Cross! I'm dying!
"And now the barbarians are pointing at me, calling me murderer! I'm not a murderer! I'm a victim!
"HEEELP!"
You almost couldn't blame them for giving up. But confident Paul knew: a recompense of reward is coming. So he shook the poisonous pest off into the fire, and felt no harm.
"Howbeit they looked when he should have swollen, or fallen down dead suddenly: but after they had looked a great while, and saw no harm come to him, they changed their minds and said that he was a god." Acts 28, 6.
From murderer to GOD in about 30 minutes! Call that crowd fickle.
... the recompense of reward! The Sun of God is dawning! Finally.
As is only becoming to a god, Paul was introduced to the leader of the island, a man by the name of Publius. "And it came to pass, that the father of Publius lay sick of a fever and of a bloody flux: to whom Paul entered in, and prayed, and laid his hands on him, and healed him."
What to you think the islanders thought of Paul - a god in their eyes already - after he healed that man?
"So when this was done, others also, which had diseases in the island, came and were healed: Who also honoured us with many honours; and when we departed, they laded us with such things as were necessary" Acts 28, 8-10.
How powerful: get shipwrecked and strand penniless on a dreary island. Get bitten by snakes. Get called murderer. Smile, and become a god. Spend the winter there and lead the entire island to Jesus with signs and wonders. One has to shake his head in awe and wonder - of God and Paul.
Malta is to this day a christian island.
God wants to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us. (Eph. 3, 20.)
The key to those abundant manifestations is: not casting away your CONFIDENCE. If you cast away your confidence, you also cast away the recompense of reward, - the deliverance -, for which you are waiting so desperately.
Wishing you God's best always,
Gert Hoinle
Editor of Teaching News
P.S.: TN is received by individuals on four continents. Thank you out there for your frequent feedback and encouragement thru calls and mails. Many blessings. G.H.
Copyright (c) 1998 by Gert Hoinle