Steven Furtick Sermon Why Am I Going Through This: Have you ever survived anything? Have you ever given up hope, and just when you gave up hope, hope didn’t give up on you and grabbed hold of you in the depths?
The Bible says that those islanders were so kind to the prisoners, 276 of them in all, that they built them a fire, Paul was such a good dude he decided to help. They’re building a fire, and Paul doesn’t want to stand over there like me at a Love Week event, looking like some lazy preacher who doesn’t know how to do anything.
Paul grabs a piece of wood “He gathered a pile of brushwood and, as he put it on the fire, trying to help, a snake came out.”
Let’s go back to everything that has happened to Paul, He’s imprisoned for preaching the gospel, He’s shipwrecked because the sailors are too stupid to follow his advice, Now he’s cold on Malta, Stuck and stranded, shivering and cold, uncertain, in an unfamiliar place.
Just as he thinks he has made it to safety, a snake strikes him. This is almost comical, unless you’ve been there, Just when you thought the fight was going to be over, here comes something else, The snake pops up out of the fire that Paul was simply trying to help them build on an island called Malta where he never even planned to go, and the Bible says it fastened itself to his hand.
So this is not some quick little strike, this snake bit down on Paul, Watch what the people did, because you have to be careful about people, People will always assign a reason to why you’re going through what you’re going through. We hear people say things like Well, if I were her husband I would have left too.”
They never say it to you, they just think it about you, They think the reason bad things happen to you is because of something you did. Well, the islanders are watching this guy who has a snake on his hand, who just came crawling out of the sea with some seaweed around his ears, and he claims to be a preacher and a servant of God. If you’re a servant of God, why isn’t God protecting you?” Has the Devil tried to convince you lately that if you really had a God you wouldn’t be going through what you’re going through?
So they stood back and said, when they saw the snake hanging from his hand, they said He must be out of the will of God. For though he escaped the sea, the goddess Justice has not allowed him to live.”
When Paul saw them all looking, he knew he had a captive audience. He didn’t say a word; he didn’t try to convince them that God was With him, He didn’t feel sorry for himself, He didn’t go on Facebook and write a response, and He did what you have to learn how to do when you make it through the storm and all hell breaks loose on the shore, when they talk about you, when it looks like this is the end, when you’ve been through it and it keeps coming.
“The Bible says Paul shook it off”.
Pastor Steven Furtick says we should Shake it off right now before it gets in our System, Shake it off right now before it kills you, Shake it off right now while they’re standing around watching you, You have to do it right now.