Unlike those who first heard Peter’s letter read to them, most of us have not placed our life directly on the line for believing in the gospel. There may well be a direct correlation between this and the generally low awareness of Heaven that so many of us have in the West. When God is all we have to lean on, we lean much harder and pray more fervently.

Converts in the Early Church were taught that they would enter the Kingdom of God through many hardships and tribulations. (John 16:1-4; Acts 14:22; cf 1 Thess. 3:2-5; 2 Tim. 2:1-3; 1 Pet. 2:21-23; 5:8-9; 1 Cor. 15:58; 2 Cor. 12:7; Matt. 5:10-11). So far from this making them gloomy and morbid, the overwhelming impression we are left with from reading the Acts of the Apostles is that of a joyous and contagious faith which has experienced much suffering, but which considers it of little consequence when compared with the surpassing joy of knowing Christ. So long as everything is going well for us, we rarely identify with those who are suffering. Men at ease have contempt for misfortune, observed Job shrewdly (Job 12:5). Even a taste of real suffering can make us far more compassionate and prayerful. There is nothing automatically ennobling about this process: it can also make us bitter and cynical. If our sufferings cause us to turn from the Lord, we still have all our suffering but to deal with, but without the Lord’s help. 

Paul wrote from his prison cell to remind the Philippians that it has been granted to us not only to believe in Christ but also to suffer for Him (Phil. 1:29). While there are certain forms of distress that are common to all – illnesses, bereavements, partings and disappointments of many kinds – there is a deeper level of suffering which can only be embraced voluntarily. Paul describes how he longed to know Christ and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in His sufferings (Phil. 3:10).

There is an important sequence and gradation here. Having come to know Christ, Paul experienced His power flowing through him. Finally, he reaches the point where his love for God, and his longing for his fellow men combines to make him willing to suffer any tribulation for their sake. Far from making him retreat into a ‘safer’ practice of his faith, as so many people do, Paul used his sufferings as a means of identifying more fully with his Lord.1 Tozer, challenging on this as on most other subjects writes:

Let your spirit “swivel” now to identify people who are in distress. They may be particularly in need of your prayers or physical presence. Don’t put them out of mind just because they are out of sight!

Job’s Sufferings

The book of Job is a powerful rebuke not only to his presumptuous friends but to theological know-it-alls everywhere. Job’s counsellors assumed there must be an earthly reason for their friend’s sufferings. Once they had embraced this misunderstanding, it was only too easy to pass on hurtful judgements and to make ill-founded accusations.

If the Lord were less unflinching in His purposes, He would surely have put an end to the terrible tribulations that were assailing Job from every quarter. I often wonder if He was tempted to shout out, “Hold on Job. Just hang on in there.

When you get through this time of testing you’ll come out much the stronger! When God reveals Himself in the stunning final chapters of the book, however, He makes no effort to provide a reasoned philosophical explanation for Job’s appalling sufferings. Instead, He speaks about animals that cannot be tamed, such as crocodiles, wild oxen and mountain goats; animals that can neither be harnessed for any “useful” purpose and which may indeed be entirely inimical to us. Our natural inclination is to keep clear of such animals, or to hunt and destroy them, but God is clearly “championing” His creation here in a way that forces us to consider that just as He has a place for them in His scheme of things, so He must have a place too for the seemingly inexplicable episodes that come our way. Nothing is beyond His reach.

Most of us find that there is an adjustment period to go through when something serious happens. I have written in detail about handling grief and trauma in The Vale of Tears, but you will no doubt have heard about the example of Joni Eareckson. Having suffered the accident that left her completely paralysed, she came through intense depression and reached a place not only of acceptance but of being able to encourage multitudes to come to terms with their own disabilities and to a renewed faith in Christ. Is this not the fruit of knowing the Lord rather than knowing about Him?

Lord, renew patience and perseverance into every situation that we face: both the dogged kind that holds on in there, and the faith-filled kind that triumphs over every affliction.

The Way of the Cross

Any power without counterbalance becomes autocratic and leads to abuse and to folly. (Honoré de Balzac)

Cults and despots frequently attempt to justify their most extreme actions by branding opponents as “evil”, thereby making them appear lawful targets. When the intense and specific assaults Jesus experienced during His forty day fast in the wilderness failed to deter Him from His mission, the powers of darkness tried another line of attack, putting it into the minds of the Pharisees that He must be casting out demons by the hand of Beelzebub (Matt. 24-27). Labelling Jesus “evil” made it so much easier for them to justify pursuing Him to the cross!

By subjecting Jesus to the shattering indignities of a trial before a corrupt and prejudiced court, Lucifer hoped that He would be driven by the intense physical and mental pain to retaliate against those who were treating Him so badly. He might even feel disinclined to pursue His mission to save the world! Mercifully, his plan failed. Longing, as any one of us would, to avoid the agony ahead, the Lord Jesus did the highest thing a man can do: He set His face like flint to fulfil what He knew to be His Father’s will, knowing that salvation would ultimately depend not upon what He did but upon what He suffered – and upon His Father’s ability to raise Him from the dead.

Even when hanging on the cross, Jesus’ concern was not for revenge, but to forgive those who had done such terrible things to Him. He was concerned for their eternal well-being, whilst at the same time making provision for His mother.
In their heart of hearts, the disciples perhaps harboured the secret hope that Jesus had not meant what He said about having to die. It was only later that they realized just how necessary His sacrifice had been. On the road to Emmaus, as He opened up the Scriptures to Cleopas and his friend, we see the Lord Jesus “looking back” on His sufferings for the first time. “This is what is written, He explained to them: The Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day (Luke 24:46).

If it were right for us to pin our ultimate hopes for happiness in this world alone would the Cross have been necessary? Jesus taught that we have no permanent home here below not only to whet our appetite for what lies ahead but also because Satan is recognized as the god of this world. All the saints of God have had to fight inevitable battles as they seek to advance the Kingdom of God – it is what comes out of these struggles that is so amazing! (Luke 24:46. See also John 15:18-20; Mark 13:11-13; Heb. 3:5-6; Rom. 5:3-4; James 1:2-4; Rev. 2:10, 3:10, 13:10.)

Given the ever-present reality of such suffering, Paul beseeches us not to become engrossed in the things of this world (1 Cor. 7:31). It is all too easy to think that we are trusting the Lord, when all we are really doing is relying on favourable circumstances.

Some people are so proud of their abilities they think they can do what they like with them. They think nothing of indulging in the debauchery and drunkenness that Peter warns against. There are all too many others, however, who feel as though they have no special abilities at all. Peter reminds these people that every one of us has gifts and that we are to use them for God’s glory. Above all, he urges, we are to love each other deeply, for love is of God, and it helps us to remain clear-headed so that we can pray and serve the Lord. (See 1 Peter 4:3-11)

Paul laments that everyone looks out for their own interests rather than those of Christ Jesus (Phil. 2:21). How sad. May we devote all we are and all we have to the Lord.

Some of us are so self-centred that we think we are suffering for Christ when everyone else can see that we are suffering primarily because of our own foolishness or unpleasantness. If we are about the Lord’s work however, there will inevitably be times when we meet with opposition. So far from being an expression of God’s disapproval, such persecution is when a sign of His approval of our work (cf Acts 5:41). We are by no means not called to seek out such suffering, but neither can we always expect to avoid it.

The prophecy that the Lord Jesus would be a “man of sorrows” undoubtedly embraces mental as well as physical anguish. (see Isaiah 53:3)

Can you imagine the pressure of living with continual suspicion and hostility from the powers-that-be? This is what Jesus faced daily – along with the constant presence of the sick and needy, which afforded the Lord Jesus and His disciples so little time in which to eat and rest. Beyond these physically draining aspects of His ministry lay His constant concern for the well-being of a nation who were “like sheep without a shepherd.”

Do we, too, not feel a constant ache for people who are unable to share the treasures we have found in Christ? It is especially hurtful, however, when this concern is thrown back in our faces and we face rejection. We must offer it all to the Lord, who understands our pain, and uses even the most troublesome events and relationships to further His purposes.

Perspectives on Suffering

We saw in the chapter “The Dark Night of the Soul” that many of God’s finest servants go through prolonged periods of feeling abandoned. John the Baptist’s confident declaration, Behold the Lamb of God! must have felt like a dim and distant memory after a prolonged spell in the gloomy fortress of Machaerus. John had been on the receiving end of Herodias’s Jezebel-like assaults, and was plagued by the thought that he had got it all wrong. The message he sent to Jesus reads pitifully: Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else? (Luke 7:19). But do we never wonder such things when we are going through the mill? Don’t forget, too, that John had spent a confined period underground. We should never underestimate the effect of daylight deprivation.

Jesus’ reply left room for faith, just as many of His answers do to our own troubled questions. (Matthew 11:3-5). It is usually the Lord’s way to point us towards the truth, rather than to overwhelm us with convincing “proofs.” Jesus wanted to rekindle the faith of His doubting servant by helping him see that He really was fulfilling the Messianic verses, and that He therefore must be the One John had originally supposed Him to be.

Does this sound fair?

Watchman Nee was forced to copy out communist tracts by hand during the twenty-five years he spent in prison. He died almost as soon as he was released. There indeed was a godly man consigned to spend many years in futility – yet all the while his writings were bearing fruit around the world, enriching the lives of countless thousands. What prayers that man must have prayed for the growth of the Church in China during those years – and how spectacularly they are being answered in our own day!

The example of Watchman Nee brings us face to face with a man who was being prepared to rule and reign in a higher sphere, in eternity. Neither is his example unique in the remarkable annals of the suffer-reign Church in China as God moves in miraculous power at work among His people despite appalling suffering.3

A fishing boat that is being tossed in the ocean swell can still catch fish. I witnessed an example of this when Billy Graham visited Oxford. He was suffering at the time from a painful broken rib, and a group of anarchists suddenly burst into the Town Hall, shouting obscenities and releasing fire extinguishers. The sense of evil was almost tangible, but God was not thwarted. More people committed their lives to the Lord that night than on any other – despite the atmosphere”

In the history of the Early Church, the Lord often intervened not just to give His children grace to endure, but to rescue them as well (eg Acts 5:19-20, 12:5-11, 16:22-36; cf Daniel 4:24-25). He has not changed. We have heard modern day stories of widows’ cruses; of a bowlful of rice that continued to feed young Chinese children whose parents had been taken from them.4 In an example which parallels the ravens supplying Elijah with food, rats also brought sweet potatoes to a man in prison who had been condemned to die of hunger. Truly, God provides all that is necessary for those who trust in Him.

We can never be certain how the Lord will work in any given situation. Neither can we base a doctrine around an experience, no matter how precious. Why were so many of the Lord’s prophets slain by Jezebel, while Elijah was fed by ravens? Why, for that matter, was James beheaded while Peter was miraculously delivered? (Acts 12:1-11) Or why was Madame Guyon imprisoned in seventeenth century France for over a decade for no other crime than loving God, while other equally devout souls lived out their lives in peace and quiet? We can never understand all the Lord’s purposes in and through such suffering. There is no doctrine in Scripture of “how to escape from prison with the help of angels,” and it would be quite wrong to assume that Peter had more faith than James.

What we do know is that we are not alone in our sufferings. Countless Christians around the world are experiencing similar trials, and are drawing on the same strength that we are looking to. If we are sometimes tempted to think, “Why should such a lovely person have to suffer so much?” remember how our Heavenly Father must have felt as He watched His only Son being tortured to death at a religious festival that was supposedly convened in order to worship Him. He is no stranger to affliction – but it dishonours Him when we mistrust His love and purposes.

Let Nothing be wasted (John 6:12)

From the depths of the Soviet persecution of the church I came across this remarkable story.

After the feeding of the five thousand, Jesus told the disciples to gather up the remaining loaves and fishes. In one of my favourite phrases in the Bible, He declared, “Let nothing be wasted” (John 6:12). Jesus was showing here not only that God’s provision is sufficient for every situation but that He is able to weave the apparently dark and disconnected threads of our life into something gloriously coherent. Is He not working to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ, when the times will have reached their fulfilment (Eph. 1:10).

The picture of Jesus standing at the right hand of God to welcome Stephen is an image for us to meditate on. As the gospel has spread around the globe, so too has the opposition. More people are thought to have died as martyrs during the twentieth century than during the preceding nineteen put together.

In our own day, many Christians face intense persecution in certain parts of the world from fanatical Muslims and Hindus. In some parts of the world, it is considered entirely appropriate not just to exclude but even to kill someone who converts to Christianity. It is so important for us to be aware of what our brothers and sisters in Christ are going through, and to remember them in our prayers.

The process by which such tyranny develops is only too familiar and well-worn, even apart from specifically religious causes. As Walter Savage Landor reminds us, “Despotism sits nowhere so secure as under the effigy and ensigns of freedom.” Many of the greatest tyrants on the records of history have begun their reigns in the fairest manner. But the truth is, this unnatural power corrupts both the heart and the understanding . . . Despots govern by terror. They know that he who fears God fears nothing else; and therefore they eradicate from the mind . . . the only sort of fear which generates true courage.” (Edmund Burke)

“Despotism and freedom of the press cannot exist together, Leon Michel Gambetta, warns, echoing Charles Caleb Colton’s warning that “Despotism can no more exist in a nation until the liberty of the press be destroyed than the night can happen before the sun is set.” Have we not seen this in Zimbabwe recently, and again, increasingly, in Russia? The Bible urges us to remember those who are ill treated as if you yourselves were suffering (Heb. 13:3). Ask the Lord to put those who are suffering for Him on your heart, and to give you words of encouragement for them, and prayers that bring release.

Overcomers or Overcome?

If suffering reduces us for a season, as it so often did the psalmists, to crying out to God for grace and strength to cope with the next half hour, then at least we are looking in the right direction, and refusing to allow circumstances to daunt our seeking. God hears and answers our cries.

In the meantime, it is comforting to know that He identifies with every situation that we will ever have to go through and will always provide a way forward for us (1 Cor. 10:13; Heb. 4:14-16). This is true – even when our sufferings are primarily the consequence of our own recklessness. It is so easy to recriminate, ‘If only I hadn’t been so proud or angry or careless, this would never have happened!’ Whilst it is always right to face up to our part in these things, it is also important to let the Lord lead us on from wherever we are. As Francis de Sales urges us:

It is important not to underestimate the effect that being under the weather physically or emotionally can have on our spiritual life. If you are on antibiotics, for example, it is quite normal to find it difficult to experience the Lord’s presence.

I for one do not find my spirit leaping for joy when the Lord highlights this verse from 1 Peter 4: Dear friends, do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering, as though something strange were happening to you. Many trials can not be averted, but it is important to focus on how the verse continues. . . But rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when His glory is revealed (1 Pet. 4:12-13).

“Stuff” will always happen to us, so in one sense it is not so much what happens that is all important so much as how we respond to it. As always, God is often less interested in what we do than in the spirit in which we do it. Here is a thought to ponder. For most of us, it is not that our trials are too large, but rather that our love is too small.
Assuming you have done your best to face our sins and shortcomings, may I encourage you for the moment to leave them to one side, and to see your sufferings as a privileged sharing in the suffering of Christ?

Selah

Lord, we recognize that the spiritual battle in this generation is strong. Where our sufferings have allowed a legacy of doubt or disappointment to lodge in our hearts, wash us clean. Let no trace of bitterness or cynicism fill our hearts.
		Thank You that no situation is beyond the reach of Your help, and that there are no limits to Your power. Bring about great and necessary deliverances on behalf of those who are suffering for Your sake. Delight Your heart and confound Your enemy. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Grant grace today to all Your servants who are suffering for their obedience to You. Keep them from despair and wrong reactions when doors shut in their faces. Help them to trust You to open new and better ones elsewhere.

References

1. On more than one occasion Paul listed the intense sufferings that had come his way because of his faith and missionary activity. 2 Cor. 11:23-30 shows how selective Luke had been in drawing up his account of Paul’s ministry, since we have no other record of many of the incidents alluded to here. But Paul writes triumphantly from prison: I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel. (Phil. 1:12, cf 2 Cor. 1:8-11; 6:4-10; 11:23-30; Col. 1:24; Rom. 9:1-3,10:1; 1 Pet. 1:7; James 1:3; cf Job 1:6-12, 2:1-6 14).
2. The Root of the Righteous (Christian Publications Inc., Harrisburg, PA). Kingsway’s publication The Best of Tozer is a good starting place for discovering this unique man’s writings.
3. Lilies Among Thorns (Sovereign World) is a powerful testimony to the sufferings and the glory of the contemporary Church in China.
4. God’s Smuggler to China Brother David (Hodder and Stoughton) pp 295-6
5. Quoted in The Wisdom of the Saints, Jill Haak Adels (O.U.P.).