Chapter 39

Hard Times

Sections

1. General
   1. Prologue: God’s People Still Have Hard Times
      • Trouble is characteristic of human life
      • The wicked seek to oppress the righteous and the poor
      • Examples of God’s people undergoing hard times
      • Examples of God’s people even attributing hard times to God
      • Note: The desire to contend with God over one’s plight
   2. Mourn Loss
      • Mourn and weep over loss – particularly deaths
      • Mourn and weep before God
      • Openly express your sorrow and grief
      • Fast in mourning
   3. Keep in Mind God and His Word
      • In hard times, remember God . . .
      • . . . and remember what God has done
      • Seek God in hard times
      • Do not forget God’s word
      • Keep meditating on God’s word and obeying it – living righteously
      • Put your hope in God’s word
      • Take comfort in God’s word and delight in it
   4. Trust in God
      • During hard times, trust in God
      • Commit yourself to God and take refuge in him . . .
      • . . . For God saves and protects those who take refuge in him
      • Accept hard times from God
      • Do not complain against nor contend with God because of hard times
   5. Hope in God and Wait for Him
      • During hard times, put your hope in God
      • Look resolutely and expectantly to God
      • Wait for God
      • Wait for God patiently and quietly
      • Wait with confidence and in the knowledge that God will act . . .
      • . . . For God cares for and blesses those who wait for him

2. Praying in Hard Times
   1. Express Your Anguish to God
      • Tell God of your plight and how you feel . . .
      • . . . Pour out your heart to God
      • Prayer anxiously speaking of God’s seeming remoteness and of apparent isolation from him . . .
      • . . . Consequent longing for God amidst suffering
      • Prayer despairingly speaking of God as even the source of one’s suffering
      • Prayer desperately asking God how long suffering and his apparent inaction or wrath is to continue
   2. Ask God for Help (I): General
      • When facing trouble, call on God . . .
      • . . . Cry out to God for help
      • Ask God and Jesus Christ for mercy
      • Ask God for strength
      • Ask God to guide you
      • Ask God to preserve and protect you
      • Ask God to deliver you
      • Ask God to hear and answer your prayer . . .
      • . . . Ask God to quickly answer and help you
      • Persist in prayer to God
      • Note: Prayer asking for retribution for wicked enemies
   3. Ask God for Help (II): Things to Appeal To
      • God’s righteousness
      • God’s steadfast love and faithfulness . . .
      • . . . along with God’s mercy
      • Your devotion to and relationship with God . . .
      • . . . and God’s promises to his people
      • The sake of God’s “name”
      • Note: Believe that God will hear you and answer your prayer – and tell him so
   4. Praise and Rejoice in God
      • Praise and thank God amidst trouble
      • Rejoice in God amidst trouble
      • Determine and promise to praise and thank God for deliverance
      • Praise and thank God when he answers prayer made in hard times
      • Rejoice in God’s deliverance from hard times
   5. Epilogue: God Does Respond to Suffering and Cries
      • God is near us in hard times and when we pray
      • God does not ignore the suffering and cries of the afflicted
      • God comforts his people in hard times, and in delivering them
      • God hears the cries of the godly and rescues them . . .
      • . . . God has compassion on his people, saving and blessing them
      • Further testimony to God answering prayers in suffering and trouble
      • Further specific examples of God answering prayers in suffering and trouble

 ➜Major headings in: 39. Hard Times (and all of Unit H)

Pray for persecuted Christians