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When I was a new Christian,
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I was suffering.
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You say, what were you suffering?
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I had a friend: Craig.
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Craig had a family.
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I had a friend: Rod.
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Rod had a family.
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We were pretty tight.
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I didn't have a family.
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I would see them with their families -
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with their wives, with their children.
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I would drive home alone.
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Loneliness is a severe trial.
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You say, how were you helped?
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Jesus visited me in those years of my life
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in ways I don't experience now.
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Oh, I experience them, but not like I did then.
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He came to me.
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His presence was so sweet,
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it turned my darkness into light.
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My sister-in-law Mida...
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She was suffering cancer, going through chemotherapy.
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Bitter trial.
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She was on a two week rotation of chemo,
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and at that period where she would be most pressed
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by that chemo treatment, most weak
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most suffering...
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Jesus would come to her.
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And she actually wept when she was healed,
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because those seasons would not come anymore.
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Brethren, that's one of the ways He helps.
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He comes and He visits His people.
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I've told you this story before:
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Scottish Covenanters,
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one of these guys was so mutilated
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the Dragoons came in and they dealt
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like 8 mortal blows to him.
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They took his broken body
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and they just threw it on the dungeon floor.
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And as he laid there, his body broken,
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he said, "I don't know if I can withstand this any longer."
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And those bystanders thought he was talking
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about his wounds.
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He said, "the presence of Christ is so overwhelming
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to me right now, I don't know if I can
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handle anymore.
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Brethren, one of the ways that Christ helps us,
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is He visits us.
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The last thing you ever want to do
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in the midst of your suffering
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is turn away from your times in prayer
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and your times in the Word.
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Because that is so often right where He comes to us.
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It was in my seasons when I would go out
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in those early days,
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and loneliness felt at times like it would crush me,
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but I would go out in the fields and I would pray.
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And it was there praying - there were times
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when I would walk and I could feel
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His presence at my side.
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I could have reached over and touched Him.
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And brethren, there's times when He takes
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the pain of the suffering out.
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You may know this story,
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there was a time when Spurgeon
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was suffering the pain of gout,
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and it was so overwhelming,
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he had to ask the people in the room
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to leave.
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And he just cried out, you can almost hear it,
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almost like Jesus there out in the wilderness
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pleading with cries and tears,
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and Spurgeon there with crying and tears
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says, "please!" And God took the pain away.
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No doubt, not all of it. And not forever.
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But He took it away right there when asked.