Child's Accident and Surgery
The point: Understand the purpose of God in affliction so you can embrace your afflictions rather than run from them.
A child with a compound fracture, waking to see a masked surgeon with a needle and scalpel, initially reacts with terror. Once the purpose of the instruments (anesthesia, healing) is explained, the child welcomes what was initially feared. This illustrates how understanding God's purpose in affliction transforms a believer's reaction from resistance to submission.
The worldling looks upon it as enemy, all enemy, nothing but enemy. And yet sad to say many children of God to some degree or another have absorbed that mentality and do not understand the purpose of God in affliction. Now what I want to do tonight is turning to this passage in 2 Corinthians seek to lay out before you in a very sketchy way the divine purpose of God in affliction which when understood by the child of God will help him to embrace his afflictions rather than to run from them as an unwanted enemy. Let me illustrate the difference this perspective will make. Try to picture a little...
7:19 - 8:25 Read in full sermon