Causes of Affliction – 2

Hardness of heart –

Exodus 4:12

Now go;  I will help you speak and will teach you what to say.”

Idolatry –

Judges 10:6-10

Again the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord.  They served the Baals and the Ashtoreths,  and the gods of Aram,  the gods of Sidon,  the gods of Moab, the gods of the Ammonites  and the gods of the Philistines.  And because the Israelites forsook the Lord  and no longer served him,   he became angry  with them. He sold them  into the hands of the Philistines and the Ammonites,   who that year shattered and crushed them.

For eighteen years they oppressed all the Israelites on the east side of the Jordan in Gilead,  the land of the Amorites.   The Ammonites also crossed the Jordan to fight against Judah,  Benjamin and Ephraim;  Israel was in great distress.   Then the Israelites cried  out to the Lord, “We have sinned  against you, forsaking our God and serving the Baals.”

Read = 2 King 17

Forgetting God –

1 Samuel 12:9-10

But they forgot  the Lord their God; so he sold them  into the hand of Sisera,  the commander of the army of Hazor,  and into the hands of the Philistines  and the king of Moab,  who fought against them.   They cried  out to the Lord and said, ‘We have sinned; we have forsaken  the Lord and served the Baals and the Ashtoreths.  But now deliver us from the hands of our enemies, and we will serve you.

Hypocrisy –

Read = Matthew 23

Thoughts 

. There is nothing anybody else can do that can stop God from using us.  We can turn everything into a testimony. - Corrie ten Boom

. The effective Christians of history have been men and women of great personal discipline–metal discipline, discipline of the body, discipline of the tongue, and discipline of the emotion. - Billy Graham