May 1, 2002 (Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org; for instructions about subscribing and unsubscribing or changing addresses, see the information paragraph at the end of the article) –

The following message was preached by Dr. J.B. Buffington during his long and fruitful pastorate at Calvary Baptist Church of Lakeland, Florida. Used by permission:

“And then he said in his heart, I shall now perish one day by the hand of Saul. There is nothing better for me than that I should speedily escape into the land of the Philistines. And Saul shall despair of me to seek me any more in any coast of Israel so shall I escape out of his hands, And David arose, and passed over with the six hundred men that were with him from Aichish, the son of Maoch, king of Gath. And David dwelt with Aichish at Gath, he and his men, every man with his household, even David with his two wives, Ahinoam the Jezreelitess, and Abigail the Carmelitess, Nabal’s wife. And it was told Saul that David was fled to Gath: and he sought no more again for him.” 1 Samuel 27:1-4.

The record in 1 Samuel tells us of David who, one day feeling that Saul would catch up with him and kill him, says, “Well, I better run!” So he ran. And in running he got the pressure off him, but in a little while he had more pressure on him than he had ever had before.

As we think about problems, perplexities and pressures, let me remind you that everyone has problems. God designed it that way. God told man that he had dominion over all that He had made. The fact that we sit in an air conditioned auditorium and upon cushioned pews came about because there was the problem of heat and hard benches. Somebody solved the problem. The reason we have electric lights is because somebody said candles and kerosene lamps were not good enough; so they solved the problem, and we have electric lights.

Not only does everyone have problems, but everybody has perplexities. That is also good for us. When I am perplexed, and I don’t know what to do, it drives me to the Word of God to find the answer and to seek counsel and help from God. That is good for me: to be driven to the Word looking for answers.

Everybody also has pressures. That is good for us, too, for God has designed pressure to develop character. The diamond ring you wear upon your finger came about because of intense pressure. Carbon under pressure becomes a diamond. The gold ring I wear on my hand came about because of intense heat and pressure. We think about reducing valves in a water line: the more you reduce it the greater the pressure and the farther the water goes and the more power you have.

It’s good to have problems; it’s good to have perplexities; and it’s good to have pressures, provided we react properly to them. When we do not, then we do have problems, perplexities, and pressures. Some things are not harmful when we react properly. God’s method is not to remove the pressure but to change us. We say, “God, remove the pressure.” But God doesn’t remove the pressure; He changes us. In Romans, Paul talks about the word “tribulation.” We get our word, “pressure” from the word “tribulation.” “And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience” (Romans 5:3). Being patient in pressure is of great price with God.

David had a problem. He had Saul. Out of David’s problems came the Psalms. Where do you turn when you have problems? You turn to the Psalms. There you find yourself face to face with any problem you have or are likely to run across. Psalms was written by a man who had problems. David also had perplexities. How did he express them? He wrote about them in the Psalms; so that when I read there, I discover that someone else was perplexed like me. I am comforted by that. David had pressures. That was what God designed. David ran. Moses had a problem with pressure. He got tired of the problem of the pressures from the children of Israel, and Moses blew up. Nehemiah had a problem building the walls of Jerusalem. He had pressures within and without. They tried to get him to quit. They even had a separate meeting and tried to get him to go into the temple to save his own life. Nehemiah said, “I’m not going in; I came here to stay.” That is God’s design. When the air traffic controllers went on strike, one of their biggest complaints was that their jobs brought on intense pressures. They wanted relief from pressure. There is no one without pressure. Everybody has it. The thing is how are we going to react to this pressure? There is no such thing as an air traffic controller job without pressure. There is no such thing as being a mother without pressure. There is no such thing as going to a job without pressure. There is no such thing as having children without pressure. There is no such thing as having a business without pressure.

People think that if they could just get away from the world, they would get away from the pressure. No, there is no place on the face of God’s earth that we can go and get away from pressure. God designed it that way.

So let us consider, first of all, that EVERYBODY HAS PRESSURES.

Being a Christian does not exempt us from being under pressure. A lot of Hollywood television evangelists make you think that you can get saved and all of your problems will be solved. No, sir, they won’t. You will have the Problem Solver, though. Being a Christian only increases the area of pressure. A Christian has pressure that the world does not know. A person gets saved, and what happens? He has got a battle at home. Matthew 10:34, “Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. And a man’s foes shall be they of his own household.” In Matthew 13:21, “Yet hath he not root in himself, but dureth for a while: for when tribulation or persecution ariseth because of the word, by and by he is offended.” If you are a Christian, and you stand by the Word of God, you are going to be under pressure. Jesus promised that in the world we would have tribulations (John 16:33).

Without pressure, we don’t get very far. Everybody, even little children, have pressure. Dr. Dobson quotes from a little boy, who is probably seven or eight years old, named Alexander. What a day Alexander had! “I went to sleep with gum in my mouth, and now there’s gum in my hair. And when I got out of bed this morning I tripped on my skateboard and by mistake I dropped my sweater in the sink while the water was running, and I could tell it was going to be a terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad day. I went to school, no better, and came home. There was lima beans for dinner, and I hate limas. There was kissing on TV, and I hate kissing. My bath was too hot. I got soap in my eyes. My marble went down the drain, and I had to wear my railroad pajamas. I hate my railroad pajamas. When I went to bed, Nick took back the pillow he said I could keep; my Mickey Mouse nightlight burned out, and I bit my tongue. The cat wants to sleep with Anthony and not with me. It has been a terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad day, and I believe I’ll go to Australia.”

Why do kids run away from home? They are under pressure. Why do kids quit school? They don’t like the pressure. So they leave town, cop-out, quit, run from the pressure. You can’t run from the pressure without getting under other pressures.

The only place where there is no pressure is heaven. It was made under pressure. The streets of gold, the pearly gates, the walls of jewels were made under pressure. The beauty in heaven reminds you of the intense heat and pressure below.

Here is a story for adults who think they may have had a bad day. It sounds fabricated, but it is supposed to be true. It is an actual statement written by a bricklayer who turned it into his employer with a request for sick leave:

“When I got to the building I found a hurricane had knocked off some bricks around the top of the building. So I rigged up a beam with a pulley at the top of the building and hoisted up a couple of barrels of bricks. When I had fixed the damaged area there were a lot of bricks left over. Then I went to the bottom and began releasing the line. Unfortunately the barrel of bricks was much heavier than I was. Before I knew what was happening the barrel started coming down and jerking me up. I decided to hang on since I was too far off the ground by then to jump, and half way up I met the barrel of bricks coming down -- FAST. I received a hard blow on my shoulder. I then continued to the top, banging my head against the beam and getting my fingers pinched and jammed in the pulley. When the barrel hit the ground hard, it burst the bottom allowing the bricks to spill out. I was now heavier than the barrel. So I started down again at a high speed. Halfway down I met the barrel coming up fast and received severe injuries to my shins. When I hit the ground I landed on the pile of spilled bricks getting several painful cuts and deep bruises. At this point I must have lost my presence of mind because I let go of my grip on the line. The barrel came down -- FAST -- giving me another blow on my head and putting me in the hospital. I respectfully request sick leave.”

Now that is really having a bad day. Everybody has problems, but problems are common to man. 1 Corinthians 10:13, “There hath no temptation taken you, but such as is common to man, But God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able, but will with the temptation make a way of escape that ye may be able to bear it.”

Pressures are common to man. We have been under tremendous pressures: family after family, multiple pressures, financial pressures, physical pressures, mental pressures, emotional pressures, marital pressures, pressures with children, pressures at the job. Family after family is under multiple pressures, under siege, under attack.

Let us consider, first, DO NOT RUN FROM PRESSURE.

David ran. When David ran, he had to live a life of deception for seventeen months. Only the grace of God restored him; before He restored him, though, his houses burned, his wives were taken captive, his children were in captivity. The greatest mistake he ever made was running under pressure. Don’t run from pressure. You will only find other pressure.

How do people run from pressure? Pressure in marriage: get a divorce. Pressure on the job: quit the job. Pressure at home: children run away. Pastors quit the pastorate; Sunday School teachers quit teaching; bus workers quit their bus routes; musicians quit the choir. There’s too much pressure, so they quit, quit, quit! That is running! Don’t run from pressure, because that is not the way out.

It is not God’s intention that you run from pressure. Romans 8:35, 36, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.” God tells us that we have forgotten the Old Testament word and prophecy that the Christian in this world is a sacrificial animal. He is a sheep for the slaughter. This world is not home. We are counted as sheep for the slaughter. Will the pressures separate us from Christ and His love? “Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.” Romans 8:37. We are conquerors in all things: in the midst of them, not apart from them or running from them.

God has designed victory in the very midst of the battlefield of pressure, not in running from the pressure. I learn to cope; I learn to stand; I learn patience; that is victory as God intends.

Some folks run all their lives. A man said one time, If anything bothers me, I get away from it. He has no roots anywhere. He is running all the time.

God’s intention for us is similar to a pressure cooker. You know what a pressure cooker will do. You put it on the stove and fill it with meat and beans. Then you set the little valve at the top. You turn on the heat, and steam gets inside. The pressure builds and builds and builds and inside that cooker things get very tight. But the pressure is good, because it is cooking the meat and beans. There better be some way of releasing that pressure though, and that is what the little valve does. It is the relief valve. After awhile steam begins to come out through the valve. The fire is not turned off -- it is still there. The pressure is still there,. but it is being released through the valve. If that valve does not work, and the fire stays on hot, what will happen? You will have beans and meat all over the ceiling! God has designed life so that the fire, the pressure is not turned off, but we are expected to use our minds to solve the problems and cope with the pressure.

My wife sometimes hears me say that I would like to be a woman for just about five minutes. Why? So I could cry. I want to cry; I need to cry. I have steam inside and can’t get rid of it. God has designed tears to relieve pressure.

I learned to cope when the steam builds up inside. I listen to people with their problems and sorrows and steam builds up inside of me. I counsel; preach funerals; deal with people and have to restrain my emotions. The steam builds up. What do I do? I find something really sad that makes me cry; when I cry, I am a new man. Why? I get rid of the tension; I relieve the pressure. You must get rid of emotional pressure. Five minutes periodically being like a woman and just crying relieves my pressure, Women can cry over most anything. God just made them that way. It is a relief valve.

Secondly, AVOID SIN.

If you play around with sin, you will get under pressure. David sinned, and the pressure in his life began to build. In Psalms 32 he tells us, “For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me.” Now that is pressure. Adam had no pressure. He had absolute freedom, and Satan sold him a bill of goods. He lied to Adam, “Ah, you’ll be as gods knowing both good and evil.” When Adam listened to Satan, he had pressure that he had never known before. There was pressure between Adam and his wife; there was pressure between him and his environment; there was pressure between Adam and his children; there was pressure with the physical, the emotional, the spiritual. When you sin, you invite pressure.

Thirdly, DO NOT NEGLECT THE MORNING WATCH OR DEVOTIONS.

This would solve about ninety-five percent of the ills in a Christian’s life. I am not speaking about five minutes with a devotional book in the morning. You can’t see the Lord’s face and get his peace in five minutes. The trouble with many is that they wait until nighttime. They are already uptight and have much pressure in their lives. They try to get rid of the pressure at the end of the day, How about getting the ear of God and the face of God and the peace of God and fellowship with God early in the day BEFORE the pressures build up? When we have had sweet fellowship with God, the pressures do not build like they do when we miss that time at the beginning of the day. I can’t emphasize too much the importance of the morning watch. If you rush out into the world and get your mind and life cluttered with the affairs of life, it is hard then to get still and quiet. David said in Psalm 119:147, “I prevented the dawning of the morning and cried: I hoped in thy word .” He says he was up before morning. “They that seek me early shall find me.” If we can get a message from the Word for our hearts before going out into the battlefield, it will be a different day! Psalm 46:5, “God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved: God shall help her and that right early.”

The morning watch will do more for you than that cup of coffee. If I hear God speak to my heart and have peace in my heart and fellowship with Him and have been refreshed in His Word, I can face the battle with strength I do not possess in my own self. The morning watch is the place of being still enough to hear God speak. We move around so much, we can’t hear God unless He comes at us like a clap of thunder and streak of lightning. He almost has to cause an earthquake to get our attention sometimes. In 1 Kings 19 we see Elijah running. He was under pressure, and he ran. He had a problem: Jezebel. He had perplexity: why wasn’t there revival? So he ran; and in running got himself under pressure from God. He is God’s prophet, and he is hiding in a cave. Verse 11, “And he said, Go forth and stand upon the mount before the Lord. And, behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the Lord; [now, that ought to get anybody’s attention!] but the Lord was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the Lord was not in the earthquake [that should have gotten attention]. And after the earthquake a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice.”

You wonder why God sent Moses to the wilderness for forty years? why John the Baptist stayed in the wilderness until he began his ministry, which some believe only lasted six months? John the Baptist spent thirty years in the wilderness just being quiet and still, so he could hear the voice of the Lord! We can’t rush home wide open, run off to a service, and hear God speak. We can’t get up, rush off to work, come home, drop to our knees and hear God speak. We just can’t do it.

Several years ago a classmate of mine told of praying with a black preacher. He said, “We knelt, and it seemed like ten or fifteen minutes passed. Directly, the black preacher said, ‘Lord, it’s me, Jim.’ He waited and waited and directly he began to pray. I was afraid to open my eyes for fear I’d touch the Lord standing right there in our midst.” Now what happened? He got still. It is the hardest thing in the world to get still. We feel like we have to move. And it is so hard to get quiet. Voices call to us out of our conscious mind, our subconscious, also, and keep us from being quiet inside. God said, “Be still.” The best time to get still is when you have already been in bed all night long and have been still. Your emotional system is already slowed down, so the time is excellent to start out with God. It is difficult to get still an hour or two after coming home from work. Do not neglect the morning watch.

The morning watch is a place of getting quite and a place of pouring out your heart. I believe in a confessional, but not here below. There is no one here that you confess your sins to. There is one in heaven who hears our confessions -- the High Priest. David said in Psalm 62:8, “Trust in him at all times: ye people, pour out your heart before him: God is a refuge for us.” That is the place where you tell God everything. You won’t surprise Him; you won’t shock God by telling Him what you thought and said. Tell Him Your feelings; tell Him your doubts; tell Him your fears; tell Him your sins; tell Him you perplexities. If you are doubting God, tell Him! If you feel rebellious toward God, tell Him! Don’t try to pray some pious prayer. Tell Him that feel in rebellion toward Him. Tell Him how you feel. Tell Him what you are. Tell Him exactly what is in your heart. You won’t surprise Him. Tell Him! Pour out your heart. Empty your heart.

People come to my office with, problems and burdens, and I sit. “Yeah, uh huh, Yeah, that’s right.” I don’t say anything else. After a while, they stand up and say, “Preacher, you did me so much good. I appreciate your counsel.” What did they do? They got it out. Some of you carry problems around, and you will be like the cooker that blows beans all over the ceiling. You carry it all around. “Pour out your heart before Him.” Tell Him your joys; tell Him your sorrows; tell Him your fears; tell Him your misgivings; tell Him your sins; tell Him all. He knows it all, and He won’t be shocked. People come in and start pouring out problems. They try to act spiritual. I tell them to stop trying to be spiritual and to just tell me how they feel. And God knows me better than I know myself, so I won’t shock Him. Neither will He turn away from me for He told me to tell Him all about it. What happens? He is moved with the feelings of our infirmities. That is the morning watch. The watch is a time of stillness, quietness, a place of rolling onto Him all your cares. 1 Peter 5:7, “Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you.”

Counselors can sit professionally and let it all go in one ear and out the other unmoved and unstirred; but you don’t pour out before Jesus without His being moved and stirred. He cares for you. You might say that circumstances don’t look as if He cares. It doesn’t make any difference about circumstances. He cares for you. He cared for Job when he lost all he had, when he lost all ten children at one stroke, when he went financially broke, when he lost his health. He careth for you. Cast all your cares upon Him, for He careth for you.

We are like the man who is going down the road in a wagon. He meets a man on the side of the road with a big, heavy sack on his back. He pulls up his horse and says, “Hey, would you like a ride?” The man says, “Sure, I would.” So he gets up in the wagon and sits down and holds the heavy sack on his back. The driver says, “Hey, why don’t you put the sack down in the wagon bed?” The man replies, “I appreciate you giving me a ride, but that would be asking too much of you,” Now, God cares about all of us and all of our burdens. He picked us all up, and it is no extra burden upon Him to take all of our cares. Why? He cares for us. “Learn of me for I am meek and lowly of heart, and you shall find rest for your souls.” At his feet is the place of learning. That is the morning watch.

We have seen, first of all, don’t run; secondly, avoid sin; thirdly, do not neglect the morning watch.

Fourthly, FACE YOUR PROBLEMS.

Face your problems one day at a time. Live one day at a time. Matthew 6:34, “Take therefore no thought for the morrow, for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.” About all that we can handle is 24 hours. Even the strongest man comes in a short while to the time when he has to lie prostrate upon the pillow and go to sleep. About 24 hours will fix most of us. God says that we are to concern ourselves about just one day at a time.

You have to know your problems in order to face them. Sometimes we get mixed up about what our problems are. Ron White, one of our missionaries in Japan, was learning the language. In Japanese some words are almost alike, The words “sin” and “wife” are almost alike and there is very little difference in the pronunciation. He got up to preach about the greatest problem. He thought he was saying that “sin” was the greatest problem, but he was saying that the “wife” was. He kept saying, “You need to get rid of your “sin” -- which was coming across “wife.” The Japanese were listening and for the whole sermon he kept saying, “Get rid of her; get rid of her.” He was using the wrong word. He was hitting at the wrong thing.

Know your problem. A man went to the doctor because he was having intense headaches. The doctor asked, “Do you smoke?” He said, “Yes, Sir.” “Well, quit.” The headaches continued, so he returned to the doctor. “Do you drink?” “Yes, Sir, quite frequently.” “Then stop it.” He still had headaches. When he returned to the doctor, he was asked if there was anything at his job that put great pressure on his back. When he said that there was, the doctor told him to quit his job. He quit smoking, drinking and his job. He still had his headaches. Finally he discovered he had a size 16 neck and was wearing a size 15 collar! Now that will give you a headache!

Know your problem! Sometimes the things we think are our problems are really just the hiding places for the real problems. Quit running from the problems. Face them. Face your fears. My oldest daughter came screaming in the house one day. I thought surely that a murderer was loose in the street. I rushed to the door, and there was a fluffy little puppy. She was paralyzed with fear. There is no reasoning with the fear of dogs. What did I do? I got a dog. It wasn’t long before she was playing with a good sized dog. What happened? She faced her fear. When a pilot cracks up on take off or landing, what happens? They put him immediately back on a plane and send him right back up. If he sleeps on it or waits a week, he has more fear. Deal with your problems; face your problems; face your fears now. Don’t run from them.

There are a lot problems you have that you may not even recognize as problems. Turn off that television. If you are under pressure, you will not find relief with that television or a radio blaring forth. We don’t think we can live without sound or music or noise. A guy was mowing the lawn down in Ft. Myers the other day, and he had a headset on listening to something while he mowed! We are afraid of stillness. One thing I love about going to Canada in the middle of the winter when it is 45 degrees below zero is walking around in that beautiful and quiet northern woods. There is no smoke, no noise, no horns, no sirens, no radios or television blaring forth. There is just quiet stillness -- wonderful, wonderful quietness. Turn off the noise and the racket, and you will be surprised what it will do for you.

Fifthly, DON’T ACCUSE GOD.

When we are under pressure, the devil’s whole purpose is to shake our confidence in God. Regarding Job, the devil said to God, “I’ll put the pressure on and make him curse you to your face.” Why is it we want to blame God when pressures come, yet we don’t even take the time to say thank you when the blessings come? Believe His Word; claim His promise. Isaiah 40:29, “He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength. Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall: But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.”

I have been there many times. Don’t accuse God. Wait, wait, wait, wait on God. Sometimes we see someone and we say we wish we had the patience of so-and-so. Some have an uncanny knack of smiling when inside all is turmoil. We can give the impression of waiting upon God but be like the Korean boy I read about. Some soldiers rented a house and hired the boy to do their housekeeping and cooking. The little Korean they hired had an uncommonly positive attitude, they thought. He was always smiling. (There are folks who can smile and smile and smile and you can’t tell they are worrying on the inside.) They played one trick after another on him, and he just kept on smiling. They nailed his shoes to the floor. He would get up in the morning, pull the nails out with pliers, slip on the shoes, and maintain his excellent spirit. They would put grease on the stove handles and he’d wipe each handle off smiling and singing his way through the day. They balanced buckets of water over the door, and he would get drenched. But he would never fuss, just dry himself off and go on. Finally they became so ashamed of themselves that they called him in one day and told him they would not play any more tricks on him. “You mean no more shoes nailed to the floor?” “That’s right no more.” “And no more sticky on handles?” “That’s right no more.” “And no more buckets of water over the door?” “No more.” “O.K. then,” said the Korean boy, “I no more spit in the soup.”

We can say, “Oh, yeah, I’m waiting on God and still be ‘spitting in the soup.’”

Lastly, do you want to get out from under pressure? BE A PEACEMAKER.

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.” There is something to the law of the harvest: “Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.” The critical, the fault-finders, and the troublemakers will find that it will all come home to them. You want to get out from under the pressure? You be a peacemaker. In spreading peace, you will find peace and peace will follow you. There are folks with financial pressures. What to do? Wait on the Lord.

Use your brain where you can to solve the problems. The perplexities should serve to drive you to the Word of God. In pressure, do not run. Wait on God. In physical pressure what can we do? Use the mind to try and find a cure. In my perplexity I am driven to the Word for His promises. But in the pressure I must not ditch my faith. I must wait, wait, wait on God. What if He fails? He cannot! What if He doesn’t give me my health back? You are going to lose it someday. Everyone is. You won’t go to heaven healthy.

Problems -- everybody has them. Perplexities --- everybody has them. Pressure -- everybody has it. Use the relief valves that God has given you. It will keep you from running. It will keep the pressure off so that you don’t reach the breaking point and can get the roast cooked and the beans done, and life accomplished, and the diamonds made into diamonds and the gold made pure. Don’t run.