FROM THE HEART OF DR. REXELLA VAN IMPE

The Quest for Peace

I heard a story recently about a nagging wife who kept writing complaining letters to her serviceman husband who was on combat duty in another country. Finally, after receiving yet another hateful letter, the husband wrote back, “Will you please stop writing me vicious letters so I can fight this war in peace?”

We all want peace, don’t we? Personally and nationally we crave it. Yet, so few of us find it. I’ve read that over half the beds in our hospitals today are filled with people who have mental problems. These individuals have desperately sought for peace but haven’t found it. At last, they have reached the place where they can no longer cope with life, and they have become ill.

A noted doctor once said that if all the tranquilizers were taken away from the American people, we would have a national nervous breakdown so big there wouldn’t be enough well people to take care of the sick ones. People who take tranquilizers are trying to push the turbulence in their lives out of their minds. They have to resort to a little pill to put them in “peaceful” oblivion.

My heart goes out to those who do not know the meaning of peace. Each day is a repetition of the previous one, filled with hostility, despair, and loneliness. They are miserable, frustrated, and unhappy with themselves and everyone around them.

A picture of peace

Remember the story of the rich man who commissioned an artist to paint him a picture illustrating true peace. The artist painted a beautiful picture of a lake surrounded by trees. In the distance were majestic, snow-covered mountains.

When the rich man saw it, he shook his head. “It’s very beautiful,” he told the artist, “but it’s not a picture of true peace. Please try again.”

This time the artist thought a long time before he began to paint. On the canvas, he painted a huge, thundering waterfall. He showed the water churning over the falls and crashing onto rocks far below. Then, at one side of the waterfall, he painted a birch tree whose slender branches reached out over the roaring water. On one of the branches, he painted a little bird sitting quietly and contentedly on her nest, oblivious to the danger around her.

That is true peace — not an escape from the pressures and trials of life but the quiet repose of a heart at rest with God. Jesus said, These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world (John 16:33).

Jesus’ life was anything but peaceful. Yet, His last legacy to His disciples and to all those who would follow Him was the promise of peace. Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid (John 14:27).

I love the old hymn that goes:

Trust and rest when all around thee
Puts thy faith to sorest test;
Let no fear or foe confound thee,
Wait for God and trust and rest.
Trust and rest with heart abiding,
Like a birdling in its nest,
Underneath His feathers hiding,
Fold thy wings and trust and rest.

I don’t know the things in your life that cause you unrest and destroy your peace. But I want to remind you that there is a way to handle them. God has given us guidelines that can take us through these troublesome times.

Guidelines for troubled times

In His sermon on the mount, Jesus said, Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God (Matthew 5:9). What does that mean to you in your everyday life? It means that if you will turn your thoughts to God, He will take control. Then, regardless of the conditions around you, you have His abiding peace, joy, patience — whatever you need at the moment — to draw on.

The Apostle Paul tells us that He [Jesus] is our [way of] peace (Ephesians 2:14). It’s only when we follow after Him that the walls of hostility which surround us come tumbling down. He is our way of living at peace with others. Paul also speaks of those who do not seek after God, and he observes that they do not know the way of peace (see Romans 3:17).

A verse that has helped so many who were going through turbulent times is Isaiah 26:3, Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee. When you keep your mind on the Lord and trust unwaveringly in Him, you can truly live in peace though the world around you be filled with turmoil and strife.

My prayer for you today is that… the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus (Philippians 4:7).

A CLASSIC MESSAGE OF HOPE FROM DR. JACK VAN IMPE

What You Have In Common With Paul. Job, and a Host of Others – part 2

Paul Suffered Too

“When I am weak, then am I strong.” Does that sound like a contradiction? How is it possible to be weak, yet strong? There are many who find it very difficult to believe that this is possible.

On our weekly television program my wife, Rexella, had the unique privilege of interviewing men and women from nearly every walk of life. Many of these guests have written outstanding books which relate some crisis experiences they have had which would have sent someone of lesser strength into an emotional tailspin from which they might have never recovered. Yet, these people would be the first to tell you that in themselves they are not strong. On the contrary, they know only too well their own utter weakness. And that is just it – they are weak, and yet, they are strong. How can that be?

I think of a very special lady named Barbara Johnson. I was amazed to hear Barbara’s story of triumph over despair. Barbara learned how to cope with the crippling of her husband through a tragic accident on a slippery California mountain road and the death of two sons. One was killed in Vietnam and a drunken driver killed the other. Then, as if that weren’t enough tragedy for one woman to absorb, she made the horrifying discovery that another son was into the homosexual lifestyle.

Rexella asked Barbara how she coped with the death of her sons. Confidently, Barbara replied, “I found a great measure of satisfaction knowing both boys were Christians, and I knew they are now deposits in heaven. They are with the Lord. As Christians, we can have this kind of victory knowing that our loved ones are rejoicing around the throne of God.”

Barbara admitted that it was the experience of finding out that her third son was living the homosexual lifestyle that had caused her more heartache than the actual death of her two other sons. Still, out of the weakness she experienced, the trauma, the inability to bounce right back, and the peculiar pain a mother goes through in a situation like that, Barbara found strength.

The strength came as Barbara realized she was powerless to bring about change in her son’s life. With that realization came relinquishment. “You have to relinquish your child – or whatever situation is troubling you – into the hands of God. When you do, you find it releases you and you can reach out in loving care to others that need help. People all around us are fractured and broken. You know, to be restored means to put back in place. The word actually means to pop back in place. So now I am trying to help people like that, to restore those who need restoration.”

Barbara says, “God makes gold out of our lives one way or another – in the furnace of pain, in the furnace of suffering.”

Initially the very word homosexual made Barbara shudder and produced all kinds of unpleasant physical and emotional reactions. Today she explains, “We’re all ex-something in our lives. Sometimes the sin is so big – like a big black wall – that we can’t even find the sinner, and it is hard to love the unlovely. But God can remove all the stain of sin. Now I see them through His eyes, and I want to reach out to love and help them.”

“When I am weak, then I am strong.” It was the apostle Paul who first said that. Paul wrote that in the context of suffering. He explains in his second letter to the Christians at Corinth that there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me . . . (2 Corinthians 12:7). It sounds like the old story of Job all over again, doesn’t it?

Paul pleaded with the Lord for relief three different times. How did God respond to those pleas?

And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ’s sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong (vss. 9,10).

Paul’s afflictions read like a catalog of horrors. He writes of his jail experiences, hard labor, whippings, stonings, and shipwrecks. He faced grave dangers from mobs in the cities as well as possible death in the deserts, on stormy seas, and from men who claimed to be brothers in Christ who were not. He lived with weariness, pain, and sleepless nights. Often he went hungry and thirsty, shivering with the cold, without enough clothing to keep himself warm (see 2 Corinthians 11:23-27).

Paul’s confession of weakness was not an admission that he succumbed to depression or even defeat. Never! Paul accepted his suffering and whatever conditions and circumstances that precipitated it as opportunities for relying on the inexhaustible grace that God does supply.

What can we learn from the apostle’s experience? Paul’s prayers were not answered. His “thorn in the flesh;” whatever it was, was not removed. Did Paul become bitter about this? No.

God Is Preparing Us

What happens to some people when their prayers are not answered the way they want them answered? Surely you have seen the bitterness that invades their lives like the spreading tentacles of a monstrous spider. Bitterness usually means there is some selfishness in their hearts. It means we want our way, not God’s way. Does this mean God doesn’t want us well?

God takes no pleasure in seeing His children suffer. But suffering is a reality. God is peopling heaven. In the meantime, He is preparing us for a glorious future with Him. God is equal to the needs of His children in their hours of trial.

Paul counted it a privilege to suffer for Christ. He spoke of suffering as preparation that enabled him confidently and joyfully to become all that God had in mind for him to be. He was able to rejoice when he ran into problems and trials, for he knew they were for his own good – they were helping him develop patience .

. . . we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience; And patience [steadfastness], experience; and experience, hope: And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us (Romans 5:3-5).

For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us (Romans 8:18).

The apostle spoke knowingly of the things of nature, plaints and animals, suffering under the bondage of “sickness and death.” There is no perfection here on earth. He speaks of the “groaning” we all do as we await release from pain and suffering. We wait for bodies that will never be sick again and will never die. So all of this is meant to teach us to wait, to hope, and to trust God.

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? . . . Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 8:35, 37-39).

Paul cautioned against criticizing God. He used the analogy of the potter working with a lump of clay. The thing made cannot say to the one who made it, “Why have you made me like this?” Just so, the apostle warned against resisting the will of the Father (see Romans 9:15-24).

Paul was not calling upon Christians merely to “endure” what comes their way. He was challenging them to allow their suffering to work for them here and now as well as for their ultimate good, an eternity spent with the Lord in the heaven He has prepared for those who believe in, love, and trust Him.

Rexella interviewed Michelle Price and her parents. Michelle is a young lady who at the age of eight had a leg amputated because of a malignant tumor. Her parents were very frightened. They feared they would lose their precious daughter.

“I knew that I had to completely let go of Michelle,” her mother explained. “If we could just learn to give things to the Lord `palms down’ instead of ‘palms up,’ where we keep taking the situation back. But I had to remind myself that Michelle was a gift from the Lord, and He loved her very dearly – in fact, more than I did. the doctors only gave her a four percent chance of surviving.”

Michelle’s father explained that he used to try to understand God and all that was happening. “Now it’s really great to know that I don’t have to understand God – that I can just trust God and believe in Him.”

After her surgery, the chemotherapy, and the many long months of recuperation, Michelle said she would awaken each day and think, “This is the day that the Lord hath made. I will rejoice and be glad in it! He is my strength:”

The many people Rexella has interviewed who have gone through some very painful and traumatic experiences all quoted the apostle Paul in one way or another. How glad we can be that Paul persevered, that he trusted himself to God’s mercy and grace. He allowed the suffering to be as a servant. He didn’t regard his painful experiences as an enemy or as his master.

The Reverend David Biebel is another example of someone who used the suffering he experienced to work for him, not against him. Reverend Biebel and his wife suffered greatly when their small son died. Healing came for them as they reached out to others going through other or similar suffering.

“‘We went through many different kinds of emotions,” he said. “One of the hardest things was to really face the fact that our son was no longer with us – to truly face the truth. I think we denied that at first.

“In the beginning we found ourselves asking the question that is so common in the face of loss: ‘Why?’ “

Because he was a pastor, David Biebel was plagued with additional feelings of guilt. “You get conflicting thoughts and feelings. Your mind tells you one thing that God is in control and He loves you, that your loved one is in heaven. But your heart is still broken. You get involved in feeling angry, and you might even become somewhat bitter. I wrestled with these things. I had to get up and preach and teach and represent this God, and often I felt like I was living as a hypocrite.”

By confessing his conflicting thoughts and feelings to God, David Biebel was able to surrender back to God what had been given to him and his wife. Someone has likened it to placing our pain on the altar as an act of worship to the glory of God.

Keep Your Eyes on Jesus

We come back to the apostle Paul – to the truths he learned as he accepted his suffering as God’s special gift, entrusted to him.

For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels [that is, in our weak bodies], that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.

We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed, Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus might be made manifest in our body.

For we which live are always delivered unto death for Jesus’ sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh (2 Corinthians 4:6-11).

Paul explained that this is why he never gave up. Though he knew his body was dying daily, his inner strength in the Lord was growing every day. Troubles and sufferings are, after all, quite small, he said, and won’t last very long. These are actually short times of distress in comparison to what awaits us in eternity.

Do not look at what you can see right now – the troubles all around you – but keep your eyes fixed on Jesus. Look forward to the joys that await you in heaven. The troubles will soon be over, and the joys to come will last forever (see 2 Corinthians 4:15-18).

CHANGED LIVES-one at a time

Dear Rexella,

So glad to have the ability to see and hear you again, this time online. God has blessed the World by your messages of His Love and also His Accountability.  Please never, never give up your calling.  We have your Bible which educates us by your personal reflection.  We love you. 

Bill & Gail B.

Thank you for all you share with us that is the truth.  As you know, many pastors seem to be afraid to preach the whole truth that is in the scriptures. We need the truth to be able to discuss Jesus with others to glorify the Kingdom.

May God bless you and keep you always!

Charlotte C.

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