Sermon Central
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The Battle Before The Breakthrough
Contributed by Richard Cook on Jul 30, 2010 (message contributor)
Summary: No battle is won without a fight, there is always a battle before our breakthrough.
5 For his anger endureth but a moment; in his favour is life: weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.
THE BATTLE BEFORE THE BREAKTHROUGH!
INTRODUCTION
The Bible tells us that our walk with God is going to be a journey of ups and downs.
We are continually moving from strength to strength, victory to victory, glory to glory!
However, in between the mountaintops of victory there are valleys of the shadow of death!
In between the victories there are struggles!
In between the breakthroughs there are battles!
And most of the time the devil knows how close we are to the border of a new land before we even realized how close we are!
The devil knows more about our strength than we do!
The enemy knows more about what God wants to do for his people than God’s people know!
And before every new breakthrough, there is a harder battle than ever fought!
At every new level, there’s a new devil!
And right at the point of the breakthrough, there’s a battle to be fought!
And it’s the job of the enemy of our souls to get us to turn back when the struggle heats up!
It’s the job of the enemy to get us to surrender during the weeping of the night so we’ll never experience the joy of the morning!
It’s the job of the enemy to get us to surrender during the battle so that we’ll never experience the breakthrough!
But, I’m telling you this morning, it may look like things are breaking up, but actually, we’re breaking through!
It may look like we’re going to die in the struggle, but we’re getting ready to step over some walls that have been brought down into our breakthrough!
It may look like you’re going to perish in the night, swept away on a river of tears, but just hold on, the morning’s on the way!
9 And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.
Don’t faint!
Don’t give up!
Don’t give in!
Don’t retreat and don’t dig in!
No right turn, no left turn, no u-turn!
Just keep fighting, this is just the battle before the breakthrough!
This is our Gethsemane!
This is our Peniel where Jacob wrestled!
Strength is not born by seeing miracles, its born in the struggle!
We’re being made ready to inhabit our promised land!
OUR GREATEST BATTLE COMES RIGHT BEFORE OUR GREATEST BREAKTHROUGH!
Chuck Yeager was the first man to ever break the sound barrier in an aircraft. Planes like the British Meteor jets that approached the speed of sound (760MPH at sea level, 660 MPH at 40,000 feet) had encountered severe buffeting of the controls. At that time, no one knew for sure whether an airplane could exceed "Mach 1", the speed of sound. The U.S. Army was determined to find out first.
The Army had developed a small, bullet-shaped aircraft, the Bell X-1, to challenge the sound barrier. A civilian pilot, Slick Goodlin, had taken the Bell X-1 to .7 Mach, when Yeager started to fly it. He pushed the small plane up to .8, .85, and then to .9 Mach, but backed off when the plane began to shake uncontrollably. The date of Oct. 14, 1947 was set for the attempt to do Mach 1.
As he approached Mach 1, that plane began to shake and rattle and be buffeted from side to side, so much so that he was not sure that he would not explode in mid-air.
But on this day Chuck said, “I refuse to turn back now! If I die, I die trying but I am not going to back down!I’ve been close before, but no matter what happens today, I am going for it!”
And with that he shoved the controls forward and headed for the sonic wall!
In the account of this momentous event recorded in the book “The Right Stuff” the author records:
The X-1 went through "the sonic wall" without so much as a bump. As the speed topped out at Mach 1.05, Yeager had the sensation of shooting straight through the top of the sky. The sky turned a deep purple and all at once the stars and the moon came out - the sun shone at the same time. ... He was simply looking out into space. ... He was master of the sky. His was a king
