Lecture

Welcome back to “The Testing of Your Faith.” We’re right in the middle of a challenging section. This is the advanced two sessions, session five and session six. And of all the six, this is the most challenging to get your arms around and cope with what you’re going to be learning.

You know, we all have God in a box in our mind and our heart, and we believe that God will act according to where our box is. He certainly won’t do something outside of our box. That’s not right, that’s not fair, that’s not good. Why did you do this? But as long as God stays in our box, we are comfortable and we approve of God. But my question is this, what does God think about our boxes? And where is God’s box? Because what happens in our testing of our faith is, guess where we are tested? Outside of our box. And because we judge everything that happens to us outside of the box as being bad, we ask God, Why? You don’t belong here.

So what we’re going to do in this session is we’re going to deal with the biggest threat, the biggest threat to our faith. In fact, the great destroyer of our faith, of our belief, is called unbelief. Unbelief and unbelief happens to us. We experience it when it’s outside of our box that we’ve put God into. And we don’t consciously draw a map inside of our head with a magic marker and say, God, this is where you are. It’s just there. We get it from being raised and what we know about Bible or about religion, or about what we were taught in school, or whatever, and our preconceptions about who and what God is like. And anything that happens outside of that, we get rattled and we react. God certainly wouldn’t do that. What happens if God does that? We don’t believe that. That’s unbelief.

So the greatest threat to belief in the testing of our faith is something called unbelief. Now, unbelief is triggered. It’s triggered. Something happens to us that makes unbelief kind of, I don’t know, crawl out from underneath here and stick its head up and begin to rise in power. It’s almost like somebody’s pumping it up and up and up and up until it overpowers our belief.

What are those triggers? We’re going to get into that. This is quite a session. So I want you to prepare yourself, all right? Prepare yourself. Open your mind. And I want to make an important comment. We’re going to go through passage after passage after passage in this session and you’re going to find me reading the verses and showing you at times the Greek behind the verses. I’m not going to add my opinions to these. These are God’s words.

Why am I doing this? Because we’re triggered whenever God acts outside of our box. And what my responsibility in sharing with you is to walk you, open the door at the edge of your box, walk out your box, and let me lead you over here to this verse in the Scriptures and let’s read it together. What does God say He does? And you’re going to be sitting back here in your box in your mind saying, God, doesn’t do that. Wait, what are you going to do? What are you going to do? If you discover there’s a verse over here that says God does that. Wow! Who’s right? Is the Bible right about what God does or is your expectations and your assumptions and your box right?

Now, hold this. Where does unbelief come from? When God does something outside of our box. So you have to analyze it. Is our box right? Or is the box that the Bible reveals about what God does, whoa, is it much different than what we’ve expected? Because unbelief makes us fail our test. It’s a test of our faith. And if our faith crumbles because it’s unbelief, I don’t believe that, we fail it, we get angry at God, upset at God, turn our back against God, it’s because it’s outside of our box.

So, what would happen if I as your servant, really, I’m here to serve you, I’ve decided, how can I help people the most in this, so they succeed the most with their tests of faith? How can I get rid of the triggers that cause unbelief to rise up in your heart? What would happen if I took you then to this passage and showed you, God does do this? It’s the opposite of what you thought. Who’s right? Will you then and take the side of your box and put it around here? And is it okay if I visit another verse that says, who? No kidding God, what? And another one, and another one, and another one, and another one, and another one. Believe it or not, I’m going to do that with you. And you’re going to find, you’re going to find yourself emotionally wrestling with these passages.

But I want to just shout from the house tops. These are not my ideas. These are verses we’re going to read and I’m going to ask you to really face them head on. If the verse says this and you see it with your own eyes, it’s not my interpretation, it’s not going to be any of my interpretation. Why? It’s just in black and white. The Bible isn’t of private interpretation. There’s no secret interpretation. It’s right there. What are you going to do? Because if you then take your box and put it on this side of the truth, you can’t be triggered by God doing this. Did you get the big idea?

Alright, let’s kind of put this together with where we’ve been in all of our movement because you remember we moved from sessions one through four over to five, six, seven, eight. Let’s take a look at however, this time on our screen, session one is “The Purpose of Tests of Faith” for your goodness and for my good. “The Patterns of Tests of Faith.” Remember those five? Marathon, crisis, ordeal, cluster, and loop. “The Stages in Test Failure,” the three stages and the five words that we do. “The Steps for Test Success,” it’s on me. You know, I’ll never forget this. Yes, that’s it. Your feet probably want to go because David led us in that dance. All right. Session five, “The Tests of Belief,” the five tests. Provision, power, presence, plan, and purpose.

Now we’re moving to this sixth one, the triggers. What sets off unbelief in our heart? It’s like there is an explosive here and a fuse, and the explosive doesn’t blow up. But if you light the fuse, you better let go and run. It’s going to explode. But if you pull the fuse out, this will not explode. This is unbelief. Together we’re going to rip out these fuses.

Let’s go back to our basic chart which we’ve been using all along. In number six, which we’re in, “The Triggers of Unbelief,” the trial is a test of your faith. And the challenge is to endure the whole process until it’s finished so that you can get the rewards and the result of becoming transformed and become godly. What’s at the root of our failure here? Why do we go through the stages of test failure? It’s ultimately because of unbelief. We stop believing that this is for our good and that God’s in control and I can trust Him. We stop believing. That’s called unbelieving. That’s called unbelief. So the question is this, what sets off? What sets off unbelief? What gets it going? What makes this happen to you and to me? So it’s right here. What happens that that occurs to us? It’s outside of our box.

All right. Introduction. The trigger of unbelief is, is from something. It’s from a negative situation. Go back to the stages of a test failure. Remember you focus on the situation, then the source, then the sovereign. What triggers unbelief is a situation that’s negative to you. It’s negative. What starts unbelief? A negative situation.

Let me show you a little bit more deeply how this works. This is about John the Baptist being in prison. This is so helpful. So John the Baptist is thrown into prison and when John had heard in prison about the works of Christ, he sent two of his disciples and said to Him [to Jesus], “‘Are You the Coming One,’” Are you the Messiah? “‘Or do we look for another’” (Matthew 11:2–3 NKJV)? Wait a minute, wait a minute. John the Baptist is the one who said, pointing to Jesus, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” He’s the one who said to Jesus, “I’m not worthy to baptize you.” He’s the one who saw the dove come down. He’s the one who heard, “This is my beloved son.” He knew who Jesus was. Why is he asking this question? John the Baptist is so convinced that Jesus is the Messiah that he told all of his followers before this happened, stop following me. I’m not worthy to latch the laces on His boot. I’m not worthy to do it. I must decrease so He must increase. He’s got it together. What happened here? Are you the coming one, the Messiah, or not?

What raised its ugly head out of the pit right there? Ah, what did it? What was he expecting Jesus to do? He’s his relative. If He’s the Messiah, He would get up and set him free. Of course He would. He’s his friend. And besides that, John the Baptist gave all of his followers to Jesus. So, what’s he expecting Him to do? Aha ha, come on now. What’s he expecting the Messiah to do? Where is the edges of his box? He should have delivered me already. He mustn’t be the Messiah because the Messiah would’ve already set me free. Wow. Put this together. “Jesus answered and said to them, ‘Go and tell John the things you have seen and heard.’” What do you see and hear? Well, “‘. . . the blind see [because I healed them], the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised [up], the poor have the gospel preached to them’” (Matthew 11:4–5). John already knew that. But he couldn’t put it together, therefore unbelief: Are you Him or not?

My goodness, what takes place next? It’s a zinger that’s the key. Jesus continues and says, “‘And blessed [happy, fortunate] is he who is not offended because of Me’” (Matthew 11:6). Blessed is he who’s not offended because of my choices in your life, John. You are offended. Why? It’s outside your box of what you believed I should do for you, but I don’t live in your box. And I have a plan that’s different than your plan and my thoughts are higher than your thoughts, and my ways are different than your ways. But “Blessed is he who is not offended,” watch this now, “because of me.” Because of what I choose in your life.

What does it mean, offended? Skandalizo. It means to put a stumbling block in the way, to cause to stumble, to cause a person to distrust and desert, to be displeased or indignant. Was John stumbling? Yes. Why? Because Jesus didn’t do what he expected. And because Christ didn’t fit in his box, he was triggered. Lit the edge of his fuse. What are we going to do in this session right here? We’re going to rip out every possible fuse I could find. Why? Because we don’t want you to be offended at God’s choices. And the reason we get offended is if God doesn’t do something inside the boundaries of my box of where I believe God should be and He does something here that offends me, how does that sound like to be offended? That’s not fair. That’s not right. How could God, why did you, why? It’s outside the box.

But what happens if at the end of this session, if you’ll let God take the edges of your box, because that’s what’s going to happen. I’m preparing you as best as I can. Take the edges of your box. Here’s what He doesn’t do. He doesn’t take the box edge, hold on now, and walk here. No, He doesn’t. He doesn’t walk way off set. No, He really doesn’t. What does He do? He destroys the edge of anything. There is no edge of God. There is none. God is sovereign. God is loving. God is good but He is free to do whatever He wants with whomever He wants. He is free to make a decision to deliver John the Baptist or not to deliver John the Baptist. Is God free to do whatever He wants in you, or have you put Him in a box? God does not want a box. You get angry with Him because He is not doing what you expected. You’re offended. You’re caused to stumble. And when we’re stumbling down that’s when unbelief rises up and that’s when we don’t trust this person because look what He’s doing. And we fail.

I started this whole series in a very unusual way, didn’t I? Talking about the mysteries of God and talking about the initiation process that goes through simple stages and more and more serious stages, right? So that when you learn these and you hear them, you then use them, and you are a different person. It’s not that you need to try to be a different person. It’s not that you need to do your best to be a different person. Watch this. You are a different person, you know? It’s not that you’re still here trying to be here. Come on. It isn’t that. It is you’ve been initiated into a magnificent mystery of God and when you are you, boom, you move. You are not the same person. You’re not. You don’t have to try anymore. I don’t view that as offending me anymore.

What freedom happens to you then when you’re in a test of faith? There’s no trigger left to set you off. There’s no boxes here. God’s good. God’s loving. He has my best in mind, in all places at all times, no matter how it feels, how it looks or what’s going on. The answer is, of course it is. I don’t understand it all. I don’t need to understand it all. I trust you. That’s it. How do you live then? Man, you live above the whole thing. Why? You live in the boat, the ship called peace and contentment. Doesn’t mean you don’t have struggles, but you live at a different level. Initiated, live an abundant life.

So, let’s go on further. I tried to put this in a chart to help it make sense. There’s a trigger situation that happens. It’s a situation that triggers something and you say, this isn’t fair, this isn’t good as a result of this happening. Then you have an emotional reaction to this, this thing that happened. This was an immediate, this is an emotional reaction, and it makes you ask a question. As you’re thinking about this, Oh, is God really fair? Is God really good? Are you the coming one? Or should we look for another one? Whoa, that’s an emotional reaction. And that emotion has to be solved by us. We have to do something with it because we’re wondering, and we have to make a decision. We either decide to believe or we decide to have unbelief.

So let’s put this a little bit more carefully for you. The trigger situation causes us to stumble. We trip over the edge of our box. We trip over it. It’s not what we thought or expected or believed. And we have an immediate reaction that causes an emotional reaction. Is God really good or fair? And we begin to doubt God because He’s not doing what we thought He should do. Certainly God doesn’t do that. Well, what happens if He did? And you found out about.

For instance, let me throw you a curve ball, a curve ball, this is a curve ball. Does God ever lead you directly to be tempted by Satan? Does God directly lead you to be tempted by Satan? Does God ever do that? Wow, of course not. Really? So we get doubt. Then we have to make a mental decision, do we believe about the truth about this and therefore we commit our faith to endure? Or do we have a decision? You have to make a choice. You can’t be double-minded very long. One of these will win. Or do you have unbelief which causes you to complain? Complain follows unbelief and rebel and escape.

So the point is this. What happens if the trigger situation is no longer a trigger? It’s no longer a trigger. Therefore, are you going to be offended? Why? That didn’t trigger me. You’re going to have to deal with an emotional reaction. Why? I didn’t have one. Yeah, but everybody else did. Well, I don’t. No, it didn’t bother me. Yeah but. No, it didn’t bother me. Do you have any doubt? No, I don’t have any doubt. Why not? I believe this about God. Oh, how do we diffuse or disconnect everything that has the potential to stir up and cause you to be triggered?

I was at a conference once and at the end of one of my sessions, there was this couple in the back, a great, big, tall muscular guy and his wife was very petite. And he was yelling at her et cetera, et cetera. Somebody asked me to come back and help them. And I said, What’s the matter?

And he said, “She triggers me every time. She just knows how to push my buttons. She makes me so angry.”

And I said to him, “Sir, your wife has no power to make you angry.”

Yes she does.

No, no, sir. She doesn’t. Because anger is inside of you and you can choose not to be angry at an action or an attitude of your wife. You’re triggering yourself off of her. Pull it out. And then I talked to the wife. How does your husband feel about you triggering him? What do you do or what do you say that makes him? Have you ever thought of stopping that? It’s the trigger.

Now, let’s go back to this chart a little bit. Here’s the box where we put God. Anything outside here, especially if it’s way in over here, look how far that’s beyond what I knew God would ever do. That can’t be good. Why did you do that? But if these walls are not biblical, they’re just cultural, and we replace them with what the Bible says and the Bible says, no, God does that sometimes. Oh, what are you going to do if you read that? Because if it happens over here and you realize God does that, will that trigger your unbelief about God? No. Why not? You know He can do that and it’s okay with you. It’s okay with you. It’s okay with you. It’s your ways, not my ways. And I want to please you, so I have to know your ways.

Part one, “The Great Faith Destroyer Is Unbelief,” is unbelief. Well, let’s take a look at this in action and a different situation and you’ll see how this offense happens in normal life. “And when the Sabbath had come, He began to teach in the synagogue. And many hearing Him were astonished.” Oh, did you hear what He said? “Saying, ‘Where did this Man get these things?’” I never heard of such things. “‘And what wisdom is this which is given to Him, that such mighty works [miracles], such mighty works are performed by His hands!’” Okay now, next point: reaction. “‘Is this not the carpenter . . .’” we all know up the street? Who on earth does He think He is, having that wisdom and doing these miracles? Anyway, isn’t He “‘. . . the Son of Mary, and the brother of [the guys my kids go to school with], James, Joses, Judas, and Simon? And are not His sisters here with us?’” Who on earth does He, where does He get off doing those miracles anyway? “So they were offended” (Mark 6:2–3). Offended. It’s passive. Passive means, I don’t offend myself, it happens to me. That is, I see this, and I receive and I am offended by it. I didn’t do it to myself. That event did it to me. At Him, “offended at Him” (Mark 6:3). Blessed, John the Baptist, is he who is not offended at me and my choices.

What was the result of this? “Now [because of this] He could do no mighty work there.” He could, He could, He could do no mighty work there. You mean unbelief affects God’s choices to intervene? “He could do no mighty work there, except that He laid His hands on a few sick people and healed them” (Mark 6:5). And what was Christ’s reaction? I mean, they weren’t arguing about His wisdom. He’s got it. Where’d He get it? We don’t know. And His mighty works, we weren’t arguing about that but who earth does He think to do that? Where’d they have Jesus? In a little tiny box. You can’t possibly be different than us. “And He [Jesus] marveled because of their unbelief” (Mark 6:6).

Where did their unbelief come from? Hmm. “So they were offended.” Put it together. Offense leads to unbelief. If you’re not offended, guess what there won’t be in your life? Does tests of faith have challenging actions by God doing or not doing that causes us to be offended? If there was a good God, He certainly wouldn’t do this, would He? Wow. He certainly wouldn’t kill an innocent baby, would He? He certainly wouldn’t make a person born on purpose that he couldn’t speak or hear. Why would a good God do that and hurt and harm somebody? That’s not my God. My God is here. He would never do that. That’s Satan who does that. Okay. What are you going to do? What are you going to do, friend, if you find out that God does all those things Himself, and you’ll read it in the Bible? Well, you’re sitting there saying, Wilkinson, this has been a good course up to now but man, this is crazy talk. I understand. So unbelief is triggered by God’s actions or decisions that offend us and they offend us because they’re outside of our box we’ve put God in.

Unbelief is disobedience? Unbelief is disobedience? Yes. To Christ’s command to have faith in God. “So Jesus answered and said to them, ‘Have,’” present, active, imperative, “‘Have faith in God’” (Mark 11:22). Unbelief is no faith in God and He’s commanding you and me and all of us, listen, belief or unbelief is in your control. It’s always been in your control. I don’t want you to have unbelief, but you can choose to have unbelief. But I’m commanding you, have faith in God; therefore, having not faith in God is disobedience and it is a sin. Unbelief is a sin.

Number three. Oh man. Is it. . . Hold on now. Come on. Is it possible, here I am. Okay. And I’m filled with unbelief, and I’ve got reason to be filled with unbelief. Is it possible for me when I’m filled with unbelief to choose on the spot to replace unbelief with belief? You’re probably sitting there saying, No, it’s impossible to do that. You can’t go with unbelief to belief. Really? Because if you could, doesn’t that help you understand you aren’t helpless? You’re not a victim. It’s always been in your power, you just haven’t used it. Look how it happened in the life of Jesus and one of His friends. “Then Jesus said to Thomas,” doubting Thomas, “‘Reach your finger here, and look at My hands; and reach your hand . . .’” Oh man, this is so, ugh . . . “‘And reach your hand here, and put it into [the hole in] My side.’” Then the shocker, “‘Do not be unbelieving, but believing’” (John 20:27). “Do not be unbelieving” is present imperative. I command you, stop being unbelieving. Stop unbelief. Replace it with belief.

My goodness. So what’s the truth then? Unbelief is our control, under our control and can be overthrown by our choice to believe. Do you know the people that really keep going in their life spiritually and become amazing people on earth and in heaven are the people that keep passing more and more tests of faith until their test, their faith is so strong, so mighty, so unwavering, no room for doubt, no place for unbelief no matter what happens. Ah, that’s it. That’s it. Be perfect as I am perfect. You can be, you’re called to be. Don’t hassle over my method to help you get to where I am. Christ said to them, “Where is your faith” (Luke 8:25)?

“Jesus answered and said, ‘O, faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you?’” Listen to the angst in this. “‘How long shall I bear with you?’” Come on. When are you going to get it? “‘Bring him here to Me.’ Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, ‘Why could we not cast it out?’ So Jesus said to them, ‘Because of your unbelief’” (Matthew 17:17, 19–20). And Christ solved the problem. But if Christ wasn’t there and we didn’t read the rest of this passage, but I want you to get the big idea. That person could have never gotten the deliverance because of the disciples’ unbelief. That person wouldn’t have been helped. Because of why? In this case, because of their unbelief. Because of your, not his, your unbelief. Therefore, unbelief can limit the acts of God that benefit our life or somebody else’s life. It has a terrible negative consequence.

Number five. We know about this. We’ve read this a couple times. “And immediately . . .” Peter walking out there, “Jesus stretched out His hand and caught him, and said to him, ‘O you of little faith’” (Matthew 14:31). And this is the question. Why did you choose or permit doubt? Why? Just turn around son. Look how far you walked. You stopped looking at Me. You looked at the situation. You looked at the situation and you said, This is impossible. You put Me back in the box. You walked all the way out here. What? Why on earth did you do that? Because you didn’t have to do that. You do not and I do not. We do not ever, ever have to choose or accept unbelief. We don’t. It goes this way. Belief, doubt, unbelief, failure in the test. But if there is no trigger and there is no doubt, there’ll be no unbelief and you will finish your test, and you will become more and more what Christ called you to be.

Therefore, it’s important that you as an individual, you as a person make up your mind. Is Christ telling the truth here? Don’t be disbelieving, don’t be unbelieving. Stop. But be believing. Therefore, the next time you have unbelief rose up in your mind, just realize, I’ve been offended, something really that God did or didn’t do really makes me upset, and I have unbelief because I doubted and had an emotional reaction and made up my mind. This is not God putting it behind us and . . . Stop. Unbelief is a sin and it’s not a little one. It’s a big one. Wait till the next session.

Now unbelief is preceded, it’s preceded by doubt, but it’s defeated by bringing every thought that I have captive. Grabbing a thought. Hey Peter, why did you doubt? That’s right here. I can’t possibly be walking on the water. That’s the thought. Rip that out. I have been walking. I am walking. Jesus is right there. I can continue to go. I don’t have to have doubt, I don’t have to have unbelief. You can take control or captive over your thoughts. And this next passage is clear about this. “Though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not [fleshly or] carnal but mighty in God.” Okay, what are the weapons for? “For pulling down strongholds” (2 Corinthians 10:3–4). What’s a stronghold? A stronghold is a lie we believe to be true and don’t know it’s a lie. And that lie controls the behavior related to our believing in it. And this passage says, “Pull down those lies.” It’s not only that but, “cast down,” cast it down. Casting down what? Arguments. Where? They’re either in your head or somebody else’s head and they’re talking about it. Cast it down, pull it down, rip it down, throw it down. Stop it, stop it. Casting down arguments. And every high thing that, look at these words, “exalts itself.” The thought exalts itself against what? “Against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5).

Therefore, how do you defeat this? You grab your straying thought that’s left the truth and got into the ditch of doubt. Go grab it before it blossoms into unbelief and causes you to be defeated. Grab it. Pull it down. I will not sin with doubt, I will not sin with unbelief. I will not. I will be strong in my faith.

Part two, “The Five Universal Triggers of Unbelief.” These are five categories. I went from Scriptures from one end to the other end, looking for what are the triggers of unbelief? And I put them under five big headings. And the second heading, we’re going to be really attacking the walls around your box.

Okay, when I thought of a trigger, which is a situation that causes a reaction, an emotional reaction in me. What happens that causes it? And I remember as a kid, I had three little sisters, and they begged our parents to buy them some little white bunny rabbits. And they got these little white bunny rabbits, and they dressed them up and they cleaned them up and they loved on them. They put them in a box in their bedroom and they . . . And every time they saw them, Oh, there’s Fluffy. There’s Fluffy right there. That got an emotional reaction, that bunny.

But now I want you to ask, what does this give a reaction to you? If you’re walking down in a new place and you turn the corner and you see a great big web, and there’s a huge black spider, and you run right into it. Oh man, what will that trigger you to do? You will scream. I don’t care how big of a man you are, you will scream and you will leap back. Why? You didn’t have time to think about that, did you? No. It triggered you.

What situation triggers your unbelief? Just like that. Boom, boom. That’s an offense. Boom, boom. And we travel to Africa frequently and what do you see? If you see a black mamba or some of the other snakes that are dangerous in Africa and you see one, I tell you, your heart begins to pound and you make a decision whether to stand still or to back up slowly, or depending on how fast that snake is, whether to turn around and run. It gets an immediate triggered reaction.

What triggers you? Lesson to you is not triggered by my choices. People can be triggers. What does Hitler trigger? Especially certain people. Anger, wrath, hatred. What happens if you grew up with a dad who was an alcoholic and would come home from work late and in a drunken stupor and lost control and would beat you and your sister? Just the coming of his car into the driveway. What about your favorite grandmother who loved you to death and always made your favorite chocolate chip cookies? You see how things trigger us, whether it’s different animals or insects or people can trigger us. So what triggers our unbelief?

Five categories. We’re going to start out easy, go much difficult and the last two are relatively easy. Unbelief number one, look at the person that’s being pushed by the screws on the outside. We’ve read this passage so many times. “In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials, that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 1:6–7). I’m to rejoice because of what’s going to come later on. But what is the first unbelief trigger? Number one, it is suffering triggers us and to respond in faith and rejoice.

We’ve been talking, this is what the whole tests of faith is all about. Number one, underneath this, unbelief can be triggered by God-arranged tests of faith, either in provision, right, or power or presence or plan or purpose. Either a marathon or a crisis or an ordeal or a cluster or a loop. It’s going to all happen. It happens and it makes many people triggered.

Number two, we’ve not talked much about this. Look at this passage in 1 Peter 4, “Beloved [other Christians], do not think it strange, [don’t think it strange] concerning the fiery trial,” which is the trial, “which is to try you.” The fiery trial is to try me? Yes. “As though some strange thing happened to you.” This isn’t strange. This happens to all believers. “But” oh my goodness, “rejoice.” When this happens, “. . . rejoice to the extent that you partake [are a part of] Christ’s sufferings [that He suffered], that when His glory is revealed, [at the coming of Christ], you may also be glad with exceeding joy.” Exceeding joy there and you’re rejoicing. “If you are reproached . . .”—attacked, shamed. If you’re rejected, if you are rejected “for the name of Christ” because you take a stand, look at these words. “Blessed are you, for the Spirit of glory and [the Spirit] of God rests upon you.” That’s why you’re blessed because this is part of what God wants you to do. “Yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God” (1 Peter 4:12–14, 16). And the fact that they’re going through intense persecution, this persecution. If God loves us, He would protect me. He’d protect me. He wouldn’t let that guy come in and attack us.

We were just with a whole group of men, leaders down to the campus in South Africa with Teach Every Nation, that were from Sudan. And they were telling the stories and showing pictures of the attacks from the north coming down and they would just chop off both hands of the Christian community and the pile of body parts that were just done. If God was loving, He wouldn’t allow that. Really? Did Satan overcome God? This idea of persecution. Unbelief can be triggered by God-permitted persecution. God-permitted persecution.

How does God feel about this? Blessed are you. “Blessed are you when they revile you and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely.” They’re lying and you know it. But you’re blessed because it’s for my name’s sake. “Rejoice and be exceedingly glad.” Why? Hold onto this now. Why? Because “great is your reward,” but it’s not on earth. What? The reward isn’t on earth. The reward is in heaven. You mean I get a reward in heaven? Yes, and it’s not a little one. It’s a great magnificent reward. And what happens if persecution is coming and I say, it’s not worth it to stand up for Christ, and I retreat or deny? You missed the great reward. “For so they persecuted the prophets who were before you” (Matthew 5:11–12). Second Timothy, “Yes and all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution” (3:12). Look at Philippians. “For to you it has been granted on behalf of Christ, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake, having the same conflict which you saw in me and now hear is in me” (1:29–30).

Before I get to trigger number two and trigger number three, remember there’s five of them, but trigger two and three are challenging. I want to review real quickly what we’re going to do. We talked about the fact that everybody puts God in a box. And we get offended if something happens over here because we say, God would never do that, like John the Baptist. And that leads up to doubt, which gives room for unbelief, which causes a failure of our test. So, what would happen to a person that, hmm, we got rid of those boundaries? What would happen? How does that occur? You know, those of us in ministry, we typically leave the passages I’m going to be showing to you out. We don’t talk about them. We don’t know what to do with them. Why? Because most of us in ministry have a box too. Actually, all of us do. And anything that God does in the Bible that’s outside of our box, we avoid it like the plague.

So what am I going to do to try and serve you? Because that’s the only reason Teach Every Nation and our whole team creates this course, all the courses. This is the fifteenth course we’ve made and there’s fifteen other courses that we’ve made with other people who teach and have specialties. But what is this course trying to do? We’re trying to walk all the way over to here and show you there’s no box here and there’s no box here, and there’s no box here, and there’s no box here, and there’s no box here.

Now, what’s the approach going to be? Ooh. I’m going to take you with me and we’re going to walk right over here, and we’re going to read that verse, and you’re going to be looking at it, and I’m going to stand right behind you, saying to you, Will you accept what the Bible says about God no matter how far it is from the box you used to have? Because every time you do this, part of your box gets cleared out. So I’m going to actually, if you don’t mind, give me freedom now to push you in the corner on purpose. Not in the middle of the room, but in the corner. Why? I don’t want you to run away. What good is it to run away from truth? It can’t be helped that way. You’ve got to deal with the truth.

Let’s jump into it. Remember I said to you, would God, would God ever do something as ridiculous as leading a person directly to be tempted by Satan? Of course not. Why would God ever do such a thing as that? So unbelief number two. Look at this. “Then Jesus was led up by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness.” Why? “To be tempted by the devil” (Matthew 4:1). Mercy. What? I knew that verse but I never saw it. You mean the Holy Spirit purposefully took a hold of Jesus and led Him into the wilderness for the purpose to be tempted by the devil? Yes. God pushed Jesus to be tempted by the enemy. Does God ever do that for you? Of course. What? What, what? If God does it to the Son of God, God the Father does this to the Son of God, there must be a purpose in this. Does God want Christ, does God the Father want Christ to sin? No. Does God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit want you to sin when you’re tempted? No, it’s not to sin. But you’ve got to fight against it.

Now, hold on to this passage that you all know but you maybe never put in context. It’s called the Lord’s Prayer. “And lead us not into temptation” (Matthew 6:13 NIV). Of all the things Jesus could have taught His best friends, you would’ve never, ever, ever thought Jesus would say, One thing for sure you should do is ask God not to lead you to be tempted, but deliver us from evil. It’s a wickedness. The Bible’s very clear, God does not tempt anyone. But it’s also very clear, God does lead you to be tempted, not for you to sin but for you to overcome it and not sin. Whoa, are we pushing the edge of a box here? Of course we are.

Oh, when I was a young man still in seminary, I went from Dallas where I was in graduate school to Baltimore, Maryland on the east coast to teach a Walk Thru the Old Testament seminar all day. It’s from 9:00 to 5:00 and you’re working, having a terrific time. We had hundreds and hundreds of people there and had a terrific day, and you are emotionally, spiritually, mentally, and physically exhausted. And they brought me back to my hotel. I couldn’t wait to sit on the bed and just relax. And I got in and just sat down, just sat down like this and there was a knock at the door. And I thought, somebody needed something from the seminar.

So I get up and there was a scantily dressed very, very attractive young woman who looked me right in the eye and said, Hey, big boy. Let’s have a night together. No one will ever know. And right away my whole mind, I need to witness to this lady. And I knew, I am so weak.

And I said to her, No, ma’am, no thank you. And I slammed the door, and I was trembling because I was unprepared for the temptation, and I sat down and I said, Man, had I done that, who knows the wreckage and the carnage it could have been in my own life, in my wife’s life and our family’s life, and the ministry’s life. Did God set that up? I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. But He did lead His Son to be tempted by the devil himself and that wasn’t a devil, that was a lady. My point is this, don’t ever say the Lord doesn’t lead you to be tempted because He did and He will, not to sin.

Trigger number two is Satanic. Respond in faith and wrestle. So point number one underneath Satanic. We’ve already dealt with the first trigger, which is suffering and there’s two parts, right? The tests of faith and persecution. Now we’re on the second trigger, which is Satanic and the first point we made is unbelief can be triggered by God-ordained Satanic temptations. Just accept it. Why? Because that’s what you read.

Number two. This is Christ speaking to Simon Peter. Hold on, we’re going to knock on the side again. Peter, Peter, “Simon, Simon! Indeed, Satan himself” has asked, “has asked for you.” Why? “That he may sift you as wheat” (Luke 22:31). I mean. Sift and sift and sift and sift. Well obviously, what is Jesus going to say to Satan about his request? Jesus Christ is going to say, Satan, of course not. This is one of my best friends and I don’t want him to go through that. That is a terrible thing for anybody to go through to be sifted by Satan. Oh my goodness, the answer is no. But Jesus didn’t say no. What? He should say no. Hmm, that’s an interesting conclusion. “But I have prayed for you.” Why are you praying for me? Why didn’t you say no? “I have prayed for you, that your faith should not fail.” That’s the whole deal, isn’t it? All of life is tied to your faith and the sifting of Satan is going to try your faith like something you’ve never imagined. And then Christ finishes it off, “And when you have returned to Me . . .” (Luke 22:32). Wait a minute, wait a minute. What are you saying, Jesus? Yeah, the sifting is going to take place and because the sifting is so terrible and your faith is so attacked, you’re going to leave me. Wait, wait, wait. You’re going to leave me for a while. You’re going to wander. But I prayed your faith won’t fail.

Listen to Christ. “And when you have returned.” Did Christ know it was going to almost destroy Peter? Yes. And that he’d run away? Yes. And that his faith was going to be fragile? Yes. And why did a loving Jesus do this to one of His best friends? For Peter’s eternal good, that’s why. Is it okay with you if Satan comes along to God and says, I want to sift her hard. And God says to Satan, Yes, you can. Oh. His ways are not our ways. And no matter what God permits, it’s for our eternal good. And someday Peter will thank Christ for not stopping Satan because of what he got out of it.

Oh man, change your mind. But He said to him, “. . . returned to Me, strengthen your brethren,” which is exactly what he did. But Peter is reacting and he’s saying, What? “But he said to Him, ‘Lord,’” come on, “‘I am ready to go with you both to prison . . .’” (Luke 22:32–33) and I’m ready to die for you. Was he exaggerating his commitment? No. Peter, if somebody came and said, You’ve got to deny Christ or I’m shooting you right here. He’d say shoot me. But that didn’t stop, did it? It’s part of . . . “Blessed is he who is not offended because of me.” We don’t know the whole picture. We don’t know it. My, my, my, my, my.

So unbelief can be triggered by God-permitted, in this case, Christ-permitted Satanic, Satanic, Satanic sifting. Did God sift him? Nope. Did Satan sift him? Yes. Was he brutal? He was brutal.

Number three. This is in Revelation 2 when Christ is talking to the seven churches. And He says to one of the churches, “Do not fear any of those things which you are about to suffer.” You’re going to, not yet. Does Christ know? Yes. Of course He knows. “Which you are about to suffer. Indeed . . .” the suffering’s going to be really something. “. . . the devil is about to throw some of you into prison” (Revelation 2:10). Okay, Jesus. You’re all powerful. You’re in heaven at this point. You’re ascended. All authority is under you in heaven and earth. You’re above all principalities and powers, including Satan. Stop them. Nope. “Some of you into prison, that you may be . . .” Oh, come on, there’s that word. “Tested” by Satan. Yep. “And you will have tribulation ten days.” That’s how long. It’s rare for God to reveal how long this happens. “Be faithful until death” (Revelation 2:10). You’re going to die in this. Yes. Do I know it? Yes. Could I have stopped it? Of course. Should I have stopped it? Of course not, not in this case. It’s for your good. “And I will give you . . .” a reward that you’ll have for eternity, “. . . the crown of life” (Revelation 2:10). My goodness, this is just too much, isn’t it? Unbelief can be triggered by God-permitted Satanic-implemented martyrdom.

Therefore, if the day ever comes for you like it is for many places in the world now where if you don’t deny Christ and convert to a different religion, they could slaughter you or rape one of your children. All the rest of it. Why? Why didn’t You intervene? “Blessed is he who’s not offended because of me.” I am still good. I haven’t moved. Trust Me anyway and don’t put Me in that box.

Oh, take a deep breath. This is going to be a challenging passage. What are we doing? We’re going to hard passage after hard passage, after hard passage. Why? To help us understand God is free in His loving wisdom to do whatever He wants to but He’s never against Himself. He never is. This is about the apostle Paul. This is a challenging truth. And Paul’s speaking and he’s writing to his friends in Corinth, “And lest I should be exalted [made proud] above measure by the abundance of the revelations,” that he got when he went to the third heaven, “a thorn in the flesh was given to me” (2 Corinthians 12:7). What’s his thorn in the flesh? No one knows what it was. I’ve read probably twenty theologians and I’ve heard, I’ve seen everything from it’s an earache to sexual immorality or to eyes, to a deformed face, to stuttering. I’ve heard all kinds of things, twenty different answers. We don’t know. It’s okay if you don’t know specifics but I do know from what the text says next.

“A thorn in the flesh was given to me.” Paul, what sin did you commit for this thorn to come? No, I didn’t commit any sin. No? I didn’t commit a sin. But it’s future, that “I should be exalted above measure” because God gave me so much revelation. It hadn’t happened. I didn’t do something wrong. It’s amazing that God gave me all this revelation. It was given to him.

Next sentence. “A messenger of Satan . . .” A messenger of Satan? This thorn in the flesh is a messenger of Satan? Do you know what the Greek word behind “messenger” is? Here’s what it looks like in Greek. Angelos. It is a Greek word, angel. And this Greek word may also be translated sometimes as a messenger that isn’t an angel. But I want to make a real clear point. What does the text say? It’s a messenger of a person. It’s a messenger of Satan. What’s this messenger of Satan going to do to Paul? “To buffet me” (2 Corinthians 12:7).

I studied this passage a long time. I want to understand, what exactly was Paul saying? When it says, “to buffet me,” that Greek word means to pound with clenched fists, the face and the body of another person. Kaboom, kaboom, kaboom, kaboom. And it’s present active tense. It does it to me. And when I checked the other places that Greek word is at, it’s the same identical Greek word as when it says that Christ was buffeted, beat up terribly until as, Isaiah says, he couldn’t even recognize who He was anymore. That’s the same Greek word. This is terrible and it’s ongoing, and it’s active. Listen carefully. It’s actively doing, beating up Paul.

Who gave it to Paul? Oh, really? Hmm. “Concerning this thing I pleaded with the Lord three times that it might . . .” be healed. No. There’s not healing. “That it might [leave me] depart from me.” This messenger of Satan that beats me. And what was His reaction? “And He said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient,’” it’s enough in this. It’s enough for you. The answer is no. I’m not taking it away. My goodness is enough for you in the midst of all this buffeting, which continued the rest of his life. Which continued the rest of his life. “‘For my strength is made perfect in [your] weakness’” (2 Corinthians 12:8–9). This messenger of Satan made Paul incredibly weak. Yes. Beat up a bunch. Whoa.

I wanted to know, I studied these words in the Greek language to understand, what is he saying? I want to know, Paul, how did you handle God saying, No, this messenger of Satan will continue to buffet you for the rest of your life and it’s not going to leave, it’s not departing. I’m letting it stay. And he pleads, doesn’t he ask, he pleads. Sounds like Somebody in the garden, pleading with the Father three times, Lord, if it’s possible, take this cup from me.

So I wanted to know, what does Paul, how does Paul cope with this being revealed to him? You talk about knocking on somebody’s box. Oh man, he knows who’s doing this. And Jesus is saying, No, it’s not going away and “My grace is sufficient for you.” “My strength is made perfect in your weakness.” And Paul would be saying, Yeah, but I prefer if it’s, your strength is made up in my strength too. You’d help me. No. So I wanted to know, how did this amazing man cope with this revelation? Did it trigger anger toward God? I thought you love me. You’re letting this thing beat me up? In a minute you’re going to see how Paul describes this buffeting that he’s going through. It’s just, ah!

What was his reaction? Oh man, I tell you this. I don’t have words to express how deeply I respected Paul on the next two sentences. It was almost to the point of awe of another person just like you and just like me coping with this revelation. He said no. And Christ’s strength will be made perfect in his weakness. “Therefore . . .” as a consequence of learning this, “most gladly . . .” Oh man, I pleaded with Him three times. Watch this. He turns around, boom. Truth, response. “Therefore,” that’s your choice. I trust you. I don’t understand but I don’t have to. “Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities” (2 Corinthians 12:9). Why? You just pleaded with Him to take it away from you. These infirmities are from the messenger of Satan. Boast in my infirmities, plural. Not one thing, not my eyes or my ears. It’s ongoing buffeting. Why are you going to gladly boast in your infirmities? Why Paul? “That the power of Christ may rest upon me” (2 Corinthians 12:9). I so value the power of God resting upon me that if this is God’s price tag, I take it and I embrace it so that the power of God in Paul’s life would be released. It’s a small price.

Then he goes even further. Oh man. I just was overwhelmed. I’m in my 70s and I’ve studied Paul all my life almost. But this really affected me. “Therefore I take pleasure . . .” Oh, man. I’m not only not pleading that it’d be taken away, but I take pleasure in it. Yes. I take pleasure in the very things I pleaded for you to get rid of it. “I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches . . .” I take pleasure in needs that I have. Watch this. These are all words related to the messenger of Satan. These are the results of it. “In reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ’s sake.” It’s all for Christ’s sake. “For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12:10). Oh, mercy.

How do you feel about paying such a severe price tag so that the power of God and the glory of God would come through you as just a normal person? Is it worth it to you? In which you feel, emotionally, I take pleasure, I do? I do, “I take pleasure,” said Paul. Blessed be the name of the Lord. If He wants us to be the price tag, so be it. Christ is worth any single price tag. Unbelief can be triggered by the buffeting of a God-permitted Satanic affliction.

How are we doing? What am I doing? I’m taking you with me and I’m pushing you into a corner, you know? Into a corner. Look at this verse. What’s it say about God? Did you ever think that God would take this position? Will you get rid of your box? Will you set it aside? Then you’re not going to be triggered. You’re not going to be triggered.

Was I triggered with the stroke that came that has debilitated me? No, I wasn’t triggered. Did I have unbelief? No, I did not. Was I glad for it? No, I was not. Did I really pray that God would take it away? Yeah. I prayed that twice, hard. Then I blessed Him and honored Him. Why? I had ripped out that fuse so it can’t get a trigger of being offended at God’s choice in my life, including a stroke. I didn’t know if I could walk again. I called Darlene in the first hospital and said, Sweetheart, I don’t think I can ever walk again and I’m having trouble talking, and I can’t control my left hand. Okay. Who’s behind it? Obviously, Satan’s behind it. Really? You got it so backwards. You think Satan overpowered God to do this to me? See that’s when you get triggered unbelief and you turn your heart against God and you become hard against Him, and you say, I’ve served you for fifty years. How come you’re doing this to me? Whoa. Man, there’s a person who’s never been awakened, initiated to think that way after fifty years of being a believer. Come on. This is meant for all of us.

Sub-point number five. It’s a well—known story of Job “Then the Lord said to Satan, ‘Have you [Satan] considered my servant Job?’” Who’s starting the conversation? God. “‘That there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, one who fears God and shuns evil?’ So Satan answered the Lord and said, ‘Does Job fear God for nothing? Have You not made a hedge around him, and around his household, and around all that he has on every side?’” Didn’t You do this? Didn’t You bless him? The work of his hands and the possessions and made him rich? Didn’t You do this? Yes I did. And “‘you have increased in the land. But now, stretch out Your hand and touch all that he has, and he will surely curse You to Your face!’” He’s only loyal because you bought him. “And the Lord said to Satan, ‘Behold . . .’” Woo, this is outside of our box. The Lord said to Satan, You can do this and this and that’s it. Did He limit him? “‘All that he has’” because you’ve told me it’s because of what I gave him that he’s loyal and I’m going to prove to you it’s not. Therefore, all that he has you can take away. It’s in your power. Any way you want, any way you want “‘. . . only do not lay a hand on his person’” (Job 1:8–12).

What did Job do wrong to deserve this severe, severe gut-wrenching attack directly by Satan? He did nothing wrong. He did everything right. In fact, God was bragging about Job to the enemy. Now, you know that Satan took the challenge up and he sat back and said, how can we destroy this man? We can’t touch him but let’s take away everything in such a way that he rises up, gets so furious against God, he ends up cursing God and we win and prove there’s nobody loyal on the earth. And that’s why he did it the way he did.

The Sabeans came and took this asset and killed all the servants and the guy shows up, and the second one was. . . There was fire from heaven. There’s no doubt that’s from God, from Job’s point of view. There was fire from heaven, and it killed all the sheep. The fire killed all the sheep, not some of the sheep, all the sheep and killed all the servants except for one. Oh! And while that was taking place, oh, the Chaldeans came, and they took all of them and they killed all the servants except me. And there are all three of them standing here and then a fourth one runs weeping. I’m sure there was a wind. Who’s in control of the wind? God is. And the wind came and knocked over the house where all of your kids, not some of your kids, but all of them died and all of the servants and myself as well. And all this, Satan didn’t hear the words, he heard the exact opposite. He heard, ah, blessed is the Lord. He gives and He takes away. Blessed be His name. In all this, Job did not sin with his lips.

The issue here is unbelief can be triggered by repeated, by. . .What was this? Come on, what was this? This was one of these. Kaboom! Kaboom! Kaboom! Kaboom! That’s a cluster. Sabeans, fire, Chaldeans, wind. Boom, boom, boom, boom. Just slogging it out on poor Job to destroy his faith but at the end his faith stood up and in front of all the angelic hosts, and all the demonic forces. I have a feeling Jesus stood up and shouted, All right! Loyal to Us without knowing why the suffering. Oh, talk about being initiated. Unbelief can be triggered by repeated God-permitted violent Satanic attacks.

In two times in my life, I’ve said to another human being that had something like this, not as bad as this but something terrible. Kaboom, kaboom, kaboom.

And the man said to me, “You know, where is God?”

And I said, “Could it be that God put you on display and the only thing that God wanted was for you to hold on at the other end and to resoundingly say, I trust my God even though everything broke around you? This could be your greatest day in eternity is the day you stood and gave God such glory that the angelic hundreds of millions of them shouted your name in praise for standing for the Father and the Son and the Spirit.” You don’t know. And he wasn’t told until he got to heaven.

Number six, unbelief can be triggered by God-permitted Satanic warfare. It’s God-permitted warfare. Isn’t it something that the Bible says, “My brethren [believers], be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. Put on the whole armor of God.” Why? Why do I need the armor of God? I’ve got God as my protector. “That you may be able to stand against the strategies and the attacks of the devil.” Wait, wait. God wouldn’t let the attack of the enemy come after us. “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood.” We don’t wrestle against flesh and blood, no? “But [we do wrestle] against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age . . .”—demons, angels, negative archangels who have fallen—“against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.” That’s who we fight. Where is God stopping them? No, he’s not. Why not? You must learn to be strong. You must learn to fight. You must learn to stand. “Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand” (Ephesians 6:10–13). You mean God permits this? Yeah. Absolutely He does. And the more you proceed to serve God and grow His kingdom, the harder the enemy will come against you, and He’ll permit that to occur.

Well, we’ve talked about two of them. Maybe that’s all you want to hear, but I encourage you to hang in there. We’re going to go to category number three. That’s a picture of the throne room of the Almighty in heaven. And unbelief trigger number three is called Sovereignty. God’s right to rule anywhere, at any time, in any way He so chooses. He’s the Almighty. How am I supposed to respond? I’m supposed to respond in faith and accept and I’m going to give you some challenges about the sovereignty of God that’s going to push you to the point in which you’re standing in the corner of your own little box about God. And I pray you come to the corner of your box, and you flat out kick it down. There are no more boxes, there are no more triggers. They’re gone. It’s okay with me that God is God, and I don’t know it all. It’s okay.

So this is a passage about David and remember the sin with Bathsheba, and the murder of Bathsheba’s husband. So David said to Nathan, or after Nathan confronts David about his sin of adultery and murder, “‘I have sinned against the Lord.’ And Nathan said to David, ‘The Lord also has put away your sin; you shall not die. However, because by this deed you have given great occasion for the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme, [the Lord], the child [still in the womb of Bathsheba] the child also who is born to you shall surely die.’” And Satan struck the child? “And the Lord struck the child” (2 Samuel 12:13–15).

Unbelief can be triggered when God’s sovereign acts appear unfair. Everything in us wants to say, What did that poor child do wrong that God, hold onto this,—“and the Lord struck the child”—that God killed the child? It didn’t die. God killed the child. God killed the child. God loves children. How can this be? It’s unfair, it’s un-right. God would never kill a baby. God did. But what did the child do wrong? Nothing. The parents did something wrong.

If you visit the child in heaven, do you think the child would be upset at God at how God made up for that which occurred on earth? Because you know, I don’t know if you’ve ever thought about this. Here is life on earth, seventy, eighty years. It’s that little dot. Here is eternity. Woo, it goes off the chart. It has no end, it has no end. So that child didn’t live to seventy or eighty years and what do you think God did, who’s always fair to everybody, and just and righteous? Justice, justice, justice. The child, if we met the child which is, this took place 1000 BC and we’re 2000 AD, it’s 3,000 years later. What will the child say? Oh no, it was fine with me. Yep. No, it’s great. Yes. It appears unfair to us and that’s where people get angry.

Next point. “Now as Jesus passed by, He saw a man who was blind from birth [he never saw]. And His disciples asked Him, saying, ‘Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?’” Obviously, blindness is because of sin. That’s their theology. That’s their box, their box. If you’re blind, what’s true? You or your parents sinned. That’s a punishment. Really? “Jesus answered, ‘Neither.’” You talk about a shock. Neither. “‘Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but that the works of God should be revealed in him. I must work the works of Him who sent me while it is day’” (John 9:1–4a).

What did Jesus say in common language? This man was born blind for this moment of time when God can get glory as I heal him and he could see. Get a little bit more crass. So this man was born blind and all of his life, to this moment, he suffered in his blindness for one moment of Christ’s glory? Yes. Yes.

Unbelief can be triggered when God sovereignly creates disabilities. Is God’s glory more important to God than a man’s blindness? And when the blind man gets to heaven, what’s he going to say to God about using him to get glory for Jesus Christ? Is he going to say, You made a mistake, you should have never made me blind? Or is he going to have totally different picture? Is everybody for all of time going to say to this guy, Are you the guy that was born blind, that Christ Himself did a miracle over you? Yes. He’s going to be famous in heaven in a sense.

Alright, let’s go a little bit deeper than this. Hold on to this passage. This is as God is calling Moses to go and bring His people out of Egypt in bondage and slavery and down to the Promised Land. And there’s this conversation because God wants Moses to go to Pharaoh and have this conversation with Pharaoh and bring His people out, and Pharaoh needs to buy off into that. So “Then Moses said to the Lord, ‘O my Lord,’” He’s talking to him out of a burning bush. “‘O my Lord, I am not eloquent, neither before [we started talking was I eloquent] nor since . . .’” you began speaking to your servant. I’m still not eloquent. “‘But I am slow of speech and slow of tongue’” (Exodus 4:10). Is that true? Yes. That was true. Why? God didn’t correct them and said you’re lying or exaggerating, it’s true.

What’s Moses saying? You want me to go talk to him and before we started talking, I couldn’t talk very well. And since talking to you, you still haven’t healed me, and I still don’t do well with speaking and. . . “So the Lord said to him . . .” whoa, you talk about knocking the sides of the wall of our box in every direction, like an explosion, kaboom! The Lord said, “‘Who has made man’s mouth?’”—that you’re arguing over me about? “‘Or who makes the mute, the deaf, the seeing, or the blind? Have not . . .’” the devil? Wait. God. God makes the mute and the deaf and the seeing and the blind. God Himself. Yes. That’s what God just said. “‘Have not I, the Lord? Now therefore, go.’” And God says I’m going to heal your mouth because I made your mouth the way it is. I did. Who made man’s mouth? I did. I know you’re having trouble. I want you to depend upon me. “‘Now therefore, go, and I will be with your mouth.’” You’re going to heal it? Nope. And I’ll “‘teach you what you shall say’” (Exodus 4:11–12) and that’s enough. My grace is sufficient for you.

Wait, wait, wait, wait. God, God makes some people blind? Yes, that’s what He just said. “Who makes the blind? Have not I, the Lord?” Somehow, we have this idea, that although God is sovereign, Satan sneaks in and makes a person blind. And God didn’t want them blind. That’s not true. “Have not I, the Lord” done this? Is it okay if you don’t know the end of the story and you don’t know why God made this person deaf or dumb or blind or seeing or stuttering or all the rest of it? Is it okay with you if you don’t know why yet? Do you have to allow yourself to be arrogant, arrogant and say, I know everything about the eternity and why God’s doing it, and I’m judging God. And God is not just, He’s not loving, He’s not fair, He’s not good for doing that.

How much of eternity, by the way, have you experienced? Have you been up there a few hundred thousand years? No. What do we have? We have this little tiny spot. Let me put a spot here. See it? And we are attacking God as we look at the spot. And God is sitting there saying, How much do you know about why I did what I did and how do you know I did that for that person’s good? And they’ll bless Me forever for doing that. Why are you judging me for your stupid little dot? Why are you despising My brilliance with your arrogance? Ooh.

Number three. This is Ezekiel. This is another trigger, trigger of offense. Offense that causes doubt, that causes unbelief, because we look at that dot and we make a judgment that God’s not good. So this is Ezekiel. “Also the Word of the Lord came to me, saying, ‘Son of man [talking to Ezekiel], behold, I [God] take away from you the desire of your eyes with one stroke.’” I’m taking away the person you love the most, your wife. “‘Yet you shall neither mourn nor weep, nor shall your tears run down.’” When I do this, I want you to “‘sigh in silence.’” Don’t let people know about this. “‘Make no mourning for the dead.’” None. “‘Bind your turban on your head . . .’” Comb your hair, wash it, “. . . and put your sandals on your feet; do not cover your lips, and do not eat man’s bread of sorrow.’” So, I love this. “So I spoke to the people in the morning, and at evening my wife died; and the next morning I did as I was commanded” (Ezekiel 24:15–18). And if you read Ezekiel, you’ll find out why God took his wife. Unbelief can be triggered when God sovereignly causes an unwanted death. Who killed that woman? God. And when that woman got to heaven, what was the woman’s attitude toward God?

Now this is an extremely important passage as we close this third category. “And what more shall I say? For the time would fail me. . .” I don’t have enough time. “. . . to tell of Gideon and Barak and Samson and Jephthah, also of David and Samuel and the prophets,” lots of people. I don’t have enough time. “Who through . . .” uh-huh, faith. “. . . through their faith subdued kingdoms.” They overthrew them. They worked righteousness. They obtained the promises. They stopped . . . their faith stopped the mouths of lions. All right! Their faith quenched the violence of fire. They “. . . escaped the edge of a sword, out of weakness were made strong, became valiant in battle, turned to flight the armies of the aliens. Women received their dead raised to life again” (Hebrews 11:32–35). Because of their faith. That’s terrific. That’s terrific.

But others, uh-huh. “Others were tortured.” Wait, wait, wait. Where’s their faith? If they had their faith going and it was strong, then they wouldn’t have been tortured. Is that true? That’s what we think. Because look at all this, therefore you have faith like this, that wouldn’t have happened. “Not accepting deliverance, that they may obtain a better resurrection. Still others had the trial of mockings and scourgings, yes, and of chains and imprisonment.” Yeah but what about the deliverance, you know? “They were stoned.” Where was their faith? They should have had faith. “They were sawn in two.” Oh man. “They were tempted, they were slain with the sword. They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute.” Oh, that weakened faith, that’s why that happened. “They were afflicted, they were tormented—of whom the world was not worthy.” Where was God? “They wandered in deserts and mountains, in dens, and caves of the earth.” And oh, boy. “And all these . . .”—who didn’t have a happy ending, didn’t have a happy ending. “. . . obtained a good testimony through,” what’s the word? “. . . faith, did not receive the promise . . .” (Hebrews 11:35–39) of deliverance.

So here you have a group of people that had great faith and they had amazing miracles happen to them. And here’s another group of people who had the same faith and God didn’t come through for them. Therefore, can any of us say to another person, if you only had enough faith, you wouldn’t have been tortured by the enemy. Your child would’ve been resurrected. I know you broke your neck and you can’t walk but if you had enough faith, you’d be healed. And you’ve got to understand it’s God who decides for everyone under every circumstance what’s best for that person in the point of view of eternity. It’s forever. So unbelief can be defeated with bold faith and yet at the same time end in seeming tragedy.

Now we only have two more and we’re going to spend just a little bit of time here. These are positive triggers. There are negative triggers. That is my suffering and Satanic. And there’s a neutral trigger, God’s sovereignty making choices. But then there are two positive triggers. What are those two positive triggers? Well, what happens if God makes it clear He’s asking you to do something you don’t want to do? And you feel, I can’t possibly do that. Who am I to do that? I don’t know how to do that. What about all this and all about this and this? I can’t, I can’t. And you have unbelief that rises up and you’re offended that God asked you to do this and change your entire life.

Take a look at Jonah. “The Word of the Lord came to Jonah saying, ‘Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry out [preach] against it; for their wickedness has come up before Me.’ But Jonah arose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord.” What was that? That was a test of faith. Jonah didn’t want to do this. So “He went down to Joppa, and found a ship going to Tarshish; so he paid the fare, and went down into it, to go with them from the presence of the Lord” (Jonah 1:1–3). How did he handle this test of faith? He didn’t. He failed, F.

So what is this? It’s trigger number four. When God asks us to do something for Him that we don’t want to do, that causes unbelief. And we’ll give all kinds of reasons not to do it, whereas we need to respond in faith and work. Take a look at what happened to poor Amos. “Then Amos answered, and said to Amaziah: ‘I was no prophet . . .’”—I wasn’t a prophet—“‘nor was I son of a prophet, but I was a sheep breeder and a tender of sycamore fruit. Then the Lord [without my permission] took me as I followed the flock, and the Lord [simply] said to me,” I want you to “‘Go, prophesy to My people Israel’” (Amos 7:14–15). Go be a prophet. Oh my goodness.

Look what happened to Moses. “‘Now therefore, behold, the cry [said God to Moses], the cry of the children of Israel has come to Me, and I have also seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them. Come now, therefore, and I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring My people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.’ But Moses said to God, ‘Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and that I should bring the children of Israel out of Egypt’” (Exodus 3:9–11)? He was saying, No, get somebody else. I don’t want to do this. That’s a test of faith. It’s not just suffering or Satanic attacks or God’s sovereignty. It’s when God asks you to do something that you don’t want to do and you make, or I make a conclusion. A conclusion that says, God’s idea is no good. It’s not. It’s not for my benefit that I do this act of service that God’s asking me. My idea is better than God’s. I’m going to do this. I’m not going to do this. What is that? That’s unbelief. I don’t like your idea. It isn’t any good. It’s not for my good. I’m not going to do it. That’s unbelief.

So as you think about this, how many times has the Lord knocked in your life and said to you. . . I don’t know how He lets us know. Sometimes He just nudges us a little, but we know it, we know it. And He nudges you to go help that person, but you don’t even know their name. And you say, What am I going to say? Who am I to go talk to that person? What happens if they ask me a question? I don’t know the answer. Ah, I’m not comfortable doing that. And we say no to God. And we have no idea what we missed down here or what the eternal impact of that meeting that you didn’t want to do could do for you. Do you understand how important this is? So it’s acts of service where we have unbelief and we fail. “Also I heard,” said Isaiah, “the voice of the Lord, saying, ‘Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?’” I love his answer. “‘Here I am! Send me’” (Isaiah 6:8). Send me.

And trigger number five. Christ is talking to this young man and Christ says to him, What do you want? And he said, “‘All these things have I kept from my youth.’” I’ve obeyed the commandments. “‘What do I still lack [to be perfect]?’” Teleíos. Not saved. He’s not talking about salvation. He’s talking about maturity. And “Jesus said to him, ‘If you want to be perfect . . .’” There’s our word. It’s not saved. When you’re saved, you’re not perfect, you’re born again. But you could be very immature. Jesus said if you want to be mature, in this case with this person—this isn’t a universal. “‘If you want to be perfect, go, sell what you have . . .’”—shock—“‘and give it to the poor . . .’”—shock—“‘and you will have treasure in heaven.’” What? I didn’t know you could have treasure in heaven. “‘And come, follow Me.’ But when the young man heard that saying [by Christ], he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions” (Matthew 19:20–22). What did he do? He decided, my life is much better not giving, not sacrificing for something you ask. And I want treasure now and I don’t know about treasure in heaven.

So what is this? Trigger number five is sacrifice and respond in faith and give. Look what Christ said here. “If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple. And whoever does not bear his cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple” (Luke 14:26–27). I talked all about this in the other course in Bible School on Wheels year two, the five levels or stages of being consecrated and sold out to God. “So likewise, whoever of you does not forsake all that he has cannot be My disciple” (Luke 14:33). Whoa, a call for sacrifice to be sure.

So as we conclude this. There were two negative triggers. One neutral trigger, this is a trigger, all these. Two positive triggers. This transforms the person. This you have to submit to God and this you have to deny yourself and do what God’s asked you to do. The first one is suffering. It’s a negative trigger, often brings about in the test of faith great unbelief. This one was a hard one for all of us. The reality of how Satanic warfare takes place and who’s ultimately in charge. The trigger of God’s sovereignty, to accept His sovereignty. Positive triggers, washing of the feet, of acts of service and work. And lastly, the sacrifice of giving something you don’t want to give but God asked you to do it.

Conclusion. What’s the truth? No trigger of any kind, no trigger of unbelief is valid. None. There’s no trigger of unbelief that’s valid. They’re only triggers because we have boxes about what we believe God, a good God does.

So how does this work? We have a life experience that triggers us and that negative life experience, or something we see, triggers, we’re offended, we’re upset and that generates unbelief. The only way you get unbelief is by [being] triggered. It doesn’t go, a life experience, unbelief. It triggers an emotion in you that you’ve got to either move off of doubt and move into belief or unbelief.

What’s this session trying to do? Get rid of the triggers. Get rid of them and get rid of unbelief. Unbelief is a big sin. Instead, to replace it with belief. When the life experience comes, you don’t have a reaction. God, I know about God, God can do that if He wants. I don’t have to agree or disagree. I trust Him and we’ll go on. That’s this, this. You skip this. You don’t have this, you live this way. Like He said to Thomas, “Do not be unbelieving.” You don’t have to be. Don’t be unbelieving, but be believing.

Now here I have something very unusual right here. Very surprising. This is a lock, a trigger lock. That’s what this is called. If you have a pistol, a gun, revolver or a shotgun and you want to make sure that none of your kids or somebody else can use it and get hurt, you buy a trigger lock. And you unlock it. And you put this right where the trigger is and you put it through, and it locks it, then you take out the key. And no matter how many times a person takes that gun and tries to pull the trigger, it’s impossible. It’s impossible. The trigger won’t work. That’s what this session is all about. Getting a trigger lock that no matter how many times you went into something that makes you want to have unbelief; it just won’t start. It won’t start.

And as I thought about this early this morning, I did, do you know what I thought about? Ultimately, this is a trigger lock, but the more powerful way is to go over to that revolver, open it up, and take out all the bullets. All of them. There’s no ammunition in it anymore. You can pull that trigger all you want and all you hear is a little noise. That’s what this session is to do to you is to free you up and have no boxes around God. And no matter what happens, you are not offended anymore at God. You believe He’s always in control of everything and that you aren’t going to judge God’s motives or evaluate His methods because we don’t know. We don’t know, we can’t know. He won’t tell us why He’s doing what He’s doing and no more are we going over to this dot and judging God because that’s all we see. How arrogant, foolish, and dangerous is it to judge the Almighty from our limited position. We’re not a million years old. We don’t have all power, all knowledge. We don’t have any of it.

Do you have enough information to never again allow yourself to be nothing happens. Trigger, trigger. Nothing happens. Nothing happens, nothing happens. I want to show you a passage as we close. This is how Paul, the man who had the thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan, and who turned his whole life around by reacting and responding to the truth that he was told. “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?” Or what shall separate us from the love of Christ? “Shall tribulation [difficult times], or distresses, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or the sword?” Going to separate us? Really? “Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors “through Him who loved us. For I am . . .” man and was He ever, “I am persuaded . . .” of it. As I hope you are much more persuaded. I am persuaded that nothing can separate us from the love of God. Nothing, nothing that happens or could happen. Nothing. “That neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers . . .” What is that? The Satanic hierarchy. They can’t separate me from the love of God. “Nor things present nor things [in the future] . . .” that I can’t even know about. Nothing, nothing. Now, back then, or in the future. “Nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, which shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:35, 37–39). What’s Paul saying? If you have no box left and you know God is trustworthy and good and loves you so much, He gave you His very own Son, then nothing is going to separate you. You trust Him. You do. How free is that? And you go and grow more and more perfect.

So as we close this I want you to see this passage. Because remember, faith and the Hebrews passage, all these people had miracles. And all these people had no miracles. It’s the same Greek word. These people had faith. God says yes. These people had faith and God said no. How do we cope with this? We believe, we believe, but we’re like this to God. Yes, whatever you want, whatever you want, my God, my Father. Whatever you want. Whatever. The answer is yes. The answer is yes. The answer is yes! That’s it.

Look how it worked for these guys. Our God. This is about the furnace and Daniel. “Our God whom we serve . . .” Look at this faith now, “is able.” “Our God whom we serve is able to rescue us from the furnace of blazing fire;”—when you throw us in—“and He will rescue us from your hand” (Daniel 3:17). What is that? Strong confidence in God, it’s terrific. Pass the test. “But even if He does not . . .” Wait a minute, you just told me He’s able and that you believe He will. Yeah, I did. I did and that’s true, I believe that. But it’s not up to me, it’s up to Him. And God’s yes is no better than God’s no. That’s why we are so backwards. God’s no is just as good as God’s yes because it’s God’s best no matter what His answer is. Look at this answer. “But even if He does not, let it be known to you, O king, that we are not going to serve your gods nor worship the golden statue that you have set up” (Daniel 3:18).

What’s the point, my friend? That God is God. And what warms His heart is when any of His children, in the most difficult season of their life where nothing makes sense, where they can’t give a valid answer to anybody because they don’t understand and that they’re filled with pain and sorrow or whatever. When that child climbs up in their heavenly Father’s lap, holds onto His neck and says to Him, I don’t know what you’re doing, Dad, but I trust you because I know you love me, and I love you. That’s it. Never again. Never again do a John the Baptist. “Blessed is he who is not offended because of me.” May that be your testimony.