Magnify His Name in Difficult Times

Text: 2 Kings 6:16 – “Fear not, for they that be with us are more than they that be with them.”

Introduction

Beloved, one of the most comforting statements we love to hear as Christians is: “Fear not.”

These words echo the voice of God throughout Scripture.
They calm us in the storm, give us peace in the fire, and renew our strength in weakness.
We remember the great deliverances of the past — Daniel in the lion's den, Lot rescued from Sodom, Joseph elevated from prison to palace, and the Israelites led out of Egypt.
We rejoice and magnify God's name when He answers our prayers — healing the sick, opening doors of opportunity, blessing the fruit of our labor, blessing us with fruit of the womb.

But let me ask you:

What about those times when we have prayed and prayed and yet… nothing?

No answer. No miracle. No deliverance.

Do we still say, “Blessed be the name of the Lord”?

Do we still magnify His name — not just when we pass the exam, but when we fail it? Not just when we receive the promotion, but when we’re rejected? Didn't He say we should give thanks in all things, whether good or bad? Do we?

Let us explore what it means to magnify God — even when we are broken.

Difficult Times and God's Will

Often in hardship, well-meaning people say, “It is God's will.”

But let us be careful. While God is sovereign, not everything that happens is His desire.

God has given man free will — and with that comes the possibility of sin and its consequences.

• When a drunk driver kills a 3-year-old child, is that God's will? No — that is man’s choice against God’s will.
• When a woman is assaulted or robbed — do we say it was God? Certainly not! Someone chose evil.

Some of the terrible things we experience are not God's doing — they are the bitter fruits of a fallen world.

Yet — and this is where hope enters — God can use even the darkest situations for His own good purpose.

Even when life breaks us, God is still at work.

God Uses Broken People

Hear this truth, beloved:

Your pain does not disqualify you from God's purpose. Your weakness is not a barrier to His power. The fact that we are in very difficult and painful situations do not limit the power of God to work tremendous works in us

God uses broken people.

Physically Broken

Some face physical challenges from birth. Others through accidents. Does that limit God? Do we blame God or do we magnify His name?

Take Moses — a stammerer. God never healed his speech. Yet through this man, who doubted his own tongue, God delivered an entire nation. Moses became one of the greatest leaders of the old testament time
The stammerer became a spokesman for God!

Consider the four lepers in 2 Kings 7. The nation did not considered them fit to be among the people (NB: it's how God sees you that matters). They were outcasts. Untouchables. Still leprous — yet God used them to save Samaria from famine.

They weren't healed first. They were used while still broken.

God doesn’t need perfection. He needs obedience.

Spiritually Broken

Some are broken spiritually. Eg: A young man who lived his life serving God for many years and due to weakness falls into sin. Some are able to get back up and continue faithfully with God, but others become broken. They become so broken that they are not able to worship and serve God anymore, some even fall deeper in their sin, and some even take up other bad habits (like drinking, womanizing, gambling, smoking, etc) as a result.

Have you ever fallen spiritually?
Started well with God — then temptation crept in? You promised never to fall again — but you did?

Look at David. A man after God’s heart — who fell into adultery and murder.

He tried to hide it. He was spiritually broken. But God sent a prophet. David repented. He became broken in spirit — and in that brokenness, he found restoration.

David later wrote in Psalm 119:67

“Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I obey Your word.”

He later said in verse 71 that, "It is good for me that I have been afflicted; that I might learn thy statutes."

His affliction was not God’s desire — but God used it to bring David back.

God is not done with you because you fell.

Emotionally Broken

There’s a kind of pain that cannot be seen — emotional pain. It is extremely difficult to loss a loved one to the jaws of death. Until it happens to us, we cannot fully comprehend the pain that people go through.

The grief of loss (child, husband, wife friend, ..., etc.), betrayal, divorce, death. It breaks a person deep inside.

Think of Naomi — she lost her husband and both sons. She was so broken that she renamed herself Mara, meaning "bitter." Ruth, her daughter-in-law, also lost her husband. Yet they clung to God. And in time, Ruth married Boaz and God blessed them with the baby. Naomi became a grandmother to Obed — the grandfather of David — the ancestor of Christ Jesus.

Despite their emotional brokenness, God used them to bring redemption to the world.

What About Paul? Job? Jesus?

• Paul was beaten, imprisoned, shipwrecked, stoned — and yet he wrote, “I glory in my weaknesses, for when I am weak, then I am strong.”
• Job lost everything — wealth, children, health — yet he declared, “Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him.”
• And what of Jesus? The perfect Son of God — beaten, betrayed, crucified. He bore the greatest brokenness — so we could be made whole.

Conclusion

Beloved, if there’s one thing you must take away today, it is this:

There is no greater testimony than that from a broken man.

Not because the pain was good — but because God was faithful through the pain.

• He is the God of the stammerer.
• The God of the lepers.
• The God of the fallen yet a great king.
• The God of the grieving widow.
• The God of the broken.

So wherever you find yourself — in sickness or health, in sin or sorrow, in joy or grief

Magnify His Name.

For it is true: “they that be with us are more than they that be with them.”

Final Word

Let the weak say, “I am strong.”
Let the broken say, “He is my healer.”
Let the grieving say, “He is my comforter.”

Let us say — even in our lowest moments — “Blessed be the name of the Lord.”

Amen.

Br Valentine Kekeli Dzah

([email protected] / +233 26 848 2093)