“Hear me when I call, O God of my righteousness: thou hast enlarged me when I was in distress.”(Psalms 4:1 KJV)
Psalms 4:1
Want to hear a strange testimony? There are certain testimonies that everyone understands. “I was sick, and God healed me.” “I was in trouble, and God delivered me.” “I was in need, and God provided.” These are wonderful testimonies. They reveal God’s power and His love for His children. But the psalmist, David, gives a different testimony. He does not simply say, “God delivered me from distress.” He says,
“Thou hast enlarged me when I was in distress.” (Psalms 4:1)
Not after the distress. Not before the distress! But during the distress, God did a new thing. A big thing. This is such a remarkable testimony. Distress normally narrows our lives. It limits our options. It confines us. It holds us still in one place, often it places us in situations we would never choose. Yet David says that the very thing that seemed to restrict him became the means by which God enlarged him.
Friends, the things that appear to bind us are often the very things God uses to set us free. The things we call chains, God sometimes calls wings. The title of our message today could very well be called
“My Fetters Are Wings.”
As human beings, we naturally associate enlargement with increase. More resources. More opportunities. More strength. More freedom. But God often enlarges His children through the opposite process. He enlarged Joseph through slavery. He enlarged Moses through exile. He enlarged David through persecution. He enlarged Daniel through captivity. He enlarged Paul through imprisonment. Again and again God permits circumstances that appear restrictive because He sees something we cannot see.
A bird’s wings become strong by pushing against resistance. A tree’s roots grow deep during drought. Gold is purified in fire. Faith matures through trial.
God’s purpose is not merely to make our circumstances comfortable. His purpose is to prepare a people fit for eternity. This is especially important as we consider the closing scenes of earth’s history. The great controversy between Christ and Satan has always centered on one question:
“Can God produce a people who will remain loyal to Him under every circumstance?”
In Eden, Adam and Eve obeyed while everything was perfect. In the final generation, God’s people will obey when everything around them is collapsing. The issue has never been mere outward obedience. The issue is trust. Will God’s people trust Him when they cannot buy or sell? Will they trust Him when public opinion turns against them? Will they trust Him when earthly support disappears? Will they trust Him when they must live entirely by faith?
The final crisis is not designed by God to destroy His people. It is designed to reveal what His grace can accomplish within His people. What appears to be their greatest restriction will become their greatest enlargement.
The Bible does mention an all nighter. An east wind that blew all night. Recall Israel at the Red Sea. Exodus 14 tells us that “the Lord caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind all that night.” The people were trapped. Mountains on either side. The sea before them. Pharaoh behind them. To human eyes there was no future. Yet God was already working. Notice that the wind blew “all night.” Not just for a moment. Not for an hour. But all night.
The longest nights in a believer’s experience are often the nights when God is preparing a path that we cannot yet see. The people saw only darkness. God saw a highway. The people saw a barrier. God saw a doorway. The people saw the sea. God saw dry ground. Likewise, the final generation just before Jesus comes again will experience what appears to be a very long night of trouble.
Yet while darkness covers the earth, the Spirit of God will be preparing the way for final deliverance. The night itself will become part of the miracle. Perhaps nowhere is this principle more beautifully illustrated than in Daniel 3. God’s people set free by the fiery furnace. Jesus in the fire heated times seven right there in the flames. As the three Hebrews stood before the king of Babylon. Everyone else bowed. But they remained standing. As a result they were bound and thrown into a furnace.
Now, to human eyes they had lost everything. Freedom. Security. Protection. Influence. Life itself seemed moments away from extinction. Yet when Nebuchadnezzar looked into the furnace, he saw something astonishing. And he said
“Did not we cast three men bound into the midst of the fire?” (Dan 3:24)
The answer came
“Lo, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire.” (Dan 3:25)
The fire consumed only one thing. Their bonds. The very flames intended to destroy them became the means of their liberation. Friends, THIS IS how God works. The enemy thought he was binding them. God was freeing them. The enemy thought he was humiliating them. God was honoring them. The enemy thought he was bringing them closer to death. God was bringing them closer to Christ.
And so it will be in the time of the end. The pressures Satan intends to use against God’s people will ultimately burn away the last remnants of self-reliance. Fear will be consumed. Worldliness will be consumed. Dependence on earthly systems will be consumed. The fire will destroy the bonds, but not the believers.
So, now move from Daniel 3 to Acts 2. The disciples had spent years with Jesus. Yet fear still lingered. Self-interest still lingered. Misunderstanding still lingered. Then came Pentecost.
“And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them.” (Acts 2:3)
The same God who walked with His servants in Babylon now rested upon His individual servants in Jerusalem. The fire of God’s Holy Educating Spirit again appeared. But notice what happened afterward. Fear disappeared. Cowardice disappeared. Division disappeared. All doubts vanished! The disciples who had once fled from a servant girl now stood fearlessly before rulers and kings. The fire had not consumed them. It had only consumed what hindered them. Everything between their souls and Jesus!
The final outpouring of the Holy Spirit will accomplish a similar work.
Before Jesus returns, God will have a people upon whom His Spirit rests. A people whose loyalty is not dependent upon circumstances. A people whose confidence rests entirely in Christ. A people enlarged by the very distress that the devil used to try and destroy them.
Another picture of the end-time experience is Jacob wrestling with the Angel. Jacob faced the greatest crisis of his life. He feared destruction. He feared judgment. He feared the consequences of his past. Through the long night he wrestled. At sunrise he was physically weaker than before. He walked with a limp. Yet spiritually he was stronger than ever. His weakness became his strength. His surrender became his victory. His distress became his enlargement.
“The sinner cannot depend upon their own good works as a means of justification. They must come to the point where they will renounce all of their sin, and embrace one degree of light after another as it shines upon their pathway. The believer simply grasps by faith the free and ample provision made in the blood of Christ. They believe the promises of God, which through Christ are made unto them sanctification and righteousness and redemption. And if they follow Jesus, they will walk humbly in the light, rejoicing in the light and diffusing that light to others.
Being justified by faith, God’s people carry cheerfulness with them in all of their obedience, in all of their lived experiences. Peace with God is the result of what Christ is to the Christian. The souls who are in subordination to God, who honor Him, and are doers of His Word, will incrementally receive more and more divine enlightenment. In the precious Word of God there is purity and loftiness as well as beauty that, unless assisted by God, the highest powers of humanity cannot attain to.” {adapted from 6BC 1071.10}
Friends, the final generation, just before Jesus comes again will have a similar experience. The Scriptures describe a time when God’s people cling to His promises with unwavering faith while every visible support is removed. Like Jacob, they will discover that the greatest victories are won through complete dependence upon God.
Many believers imagine that the final crisis is primarily about surviving persecution. But the deeper issue is character. God is preparing a people who reflect Christ fully. A people whose faith remains steady regardless of circumstances. A people who reveal the character of Jesus before a watching universe. The final crisis is not simply about exposing Satan. It is about vindicating God’s grace.The Bible says it like this:
“To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.” (Rom 3:26)
This IS the entire flashpoint of everything in the great controversy of Bible prophecy.
The universe will see that God’s power can transform fallen human beings into loyal followers of Christ. Into a people that do perfectly reflect His character to the world, a people who keep the commandments of their God. This is HOW distress becomes enlargement. The very pressures that reveal our weakness also reveal the power of divine grace.
There is nothing in faith, in or of itself that makes it our savior. Faith cannot remove our guilt. Christ is the power of God unto salvation to all them that believe. The justification comes through the merits of Jesus Christ. JESUS has paid the price for the sinner’s redemption. Yet it is only through faith in His shed blood that Jesus can justify the believer. To a real Christian, their fetters become wings when by faith they access Christ’s atonement.
Perhaps some listening today are already experiencing their own personal “time of trouble.” A prolonged illness. A broken relationship. Financial uncertainty. Disappointment. Loneliness. A burden that seems impossible to carry. You may be praying for God to remove the chain. Maybe you want God to get you out of a terrible trial? Sometimes that IS just what God does. But sometimes Jesus transforms our chains into wings.
There was a time when I thought my life was over…I suffered terrible burns to 50% of my body. The scars and the suffering for years made me feel ugly, unwanted. And yet, those very flames were the means and the place where I met Jesus. The scars which multiplied my fetters and chains became wings and God later blessed me with the gift of marriage and two wonderful sons! We called our first son Jonathan because that means “Jehovah Gave,” and our second son Joseph, because that means “Jehovah Added.”
I recall another time recently, when I was out doing home visitations and Bible readings in a remote area. I had just finished visiting one place, and as I was leaving something happened to my car and the transmission just stopped working. For a moment I panicked. But then I thought that the people I just visited need to see a better witness than that. I started telling them about Creator God and how even though I didn’t know how, I just knew that God already had a solution. They thought I was off my rocker to be talking like that in the middle of such a challenge. I ended up waiting hours for a tow truck and during that time neighbors kept coming over and wondering what was happening. And I got to also talk to them about Jesus too. If my car didn’t break down just when and where it did I would not have been able to speak to all of those people about Jesus!
Friend, what if your trial is preparing you for greater usefulness? What if your burden is deepening your dependence upon Christ? What if your limitation is enlarging your capacity for Heaven, and “the things that accompany salvation?” (Heb 6:9). One day the redeemed will look back over their lives and see that many of the things they feared most were actually among God’s greatest blessings. The prison gave Joseph a throne. The furnace gave the Hebrews fellowship with Christ. Patmos gave John Revelation. The cross gave the world a Savior. And the trials of God’s people will prepare them for an everlasting kingdom. (Rev 12:11). The kingdom spoken of in “the everlasting gospel.” (Rev 14:6-7) Then, “at just such a time as this” (Esther 4:14) they will fully understand David’s words:
“Thou hast enlarged me when I was in distress.” (Psalms 4:1)
Their testimony will be:
“My shadows became light.” “My sorrows became strength.” “My chains became freedom.” “My fetters were wings.”
Friends, the question today is not whether distress will come. The question is not even how do I get out of the crises, or through it? But the question is going to be “do we trust Christ when the distress comes? Will we allow Him to use our trials to enlarge our faith? Will we let Him burn away the bonds that still hold us? Will we permit Him to prepare us for the final outpouring of His Spirit? Will we learn now to trust Him completely so that when earth’s last crisis arrives, our confidence rests securely in Him?
Jesus THE Christ (Mat 16:20) is seeking a people who will stand with Him, just as the three Hebrews stood in that fiery furnace. A people who will receive His Spirit as the disciples received it. A people who will cling to Him as Jacob clung to Him. A people who can say with David:
“Thou hast enlarged me when I was in distress.” (Psalms 4:1)
“The salvation that Christ made such a sacrifice to gain for us all, is that which is alone of value, that which saves from sin. Sin being the cause of all the misery and woe in our world. Mercy extended to the sinner is constantly drawing them to Jesus. If they respond, coming in penitence with confession, in faith laying hold of the hope set before them in the gospel, God will not despise the broken and contrite heart. Thus the law of God is not weakened, but the power of sin is broken, and the scepter of mercy is extended to the penitent sinner. {6BC 1072.3}
Our fetters become wings. (Isa 40:31)
The eagle of the Alps is sometimes beaten down by the tempest into the narrow defiles of the mountains. Storm clouds shut in this mighty bird of the forest, their dark masses separating her from the sunny heights where she has made her home. Her efforts to escape seem fruitless. She dashes to and fro, beating the air with her strong wings, and waking the mountain echoes with her cries. At length, with a note of triumph, she darts upward, and, piercing the clouds, is once more in the clear sunlight, with the darkness and tempest far beneath. So we may be surrounded with difficulties, discouragement, and darkness. Falsehood, calamity, injustice, shut us in. There are clouds that we cannot dispel. We battle with circumstances in vain. There is one, and but one, way of escape. The mists and fogs cling to the earth; beyond the clouds God’s light is shining. Into the sunlight of His presence we may rise on the wings of faith. {Ed 118.2}
Seeking our own wings through our own fetters, our testimony becomes:
“Thou hast enlarged me when I was in distress.” (Psalms 4:1)
May that be the testimony of God’s people today, and throughout eternity. May your fetters become your wings of faith is my prayer in Jesus’ name.
