The Power of Suffering - Intro

The atmosphere surrounding today’s evangelical church, with its emphasis on easy believism and “feel-good-about-yourself” Christianity, has fostered an unbiblical attitude among believers toward the existence of suffering and persecution in their lives. In addition to the natural aversion to pain and difficulty, many Christians have acquired the notion that hardships should not even cross their paths. When various difficulties do come their way, they believe these difficulties are not from God. But this has not been the mind-set of Christians from the earliest days of the church.

An important example of how Christians in other eras dealt with persecution is the case of Martin Luther, the great Reformation leader of the 16th century. Even before the debates and controversies of the Reformation were fully underway, Luther was known for his faithfulness to the truth: “The firmness with which Luther relied on the Holy Scriptures imparted great authority to his teaching. But other circumstances added still more to his strength. In him every action of his life corresponded with his words. It was known that these discourses did not proceed merely from his lips: they had their source in his heart and were practiced in all his works.” (The Life and Times of Martin Luther)

Luther’s most well-known stand for truth happened in the spring of 1521. By then he had already been excommunicated from the Roman Church and was known throughout most of Europe as the leading critic of the church. Luther earnestly and persistently taught justification by faith alone and the supremacy of the Scripture’s authority. The church opposed Luther on these and other points and vigorously tried to silence him. He was ordered to appear before an assembly (Diet of Worms) of secular and church leaders in Germany to explain his teachings. The assembly hoped Luther, under the intense pressure and intimidation of being “called on the carpet,” would retract his views and give the church and empire some peace.

But Luther stood firm for his convictions. When the leads of the assembly at Worms insisted that he retract all his past statements, Luther refused:

“Unless therefore I am convinced by the testimony of Scripture, or by the clearest reasoning – unless I am persuaded by means of the passages I have quoted – and unless they thus render my conscience bound by the word of God, I cannot and I will not retract, for it is unsafe for a Christian to speak against his conscience…here I stand, I can do no other; may God help me! Amen!” (Quoted in D’Aubigne, 433)

Luther’s handling of this personal crisis and challenge testified to the greatness and sufficiency of God. At such a tension-filled, pivotal juncture in the reformer’s life, his reactions to the events must have been pleasing to the Lord. Luther did not react with anger or second-guess God for his difficulties. Neither did he turn away from the situation in cowardly fear. Instead, Luther lived out Jesus’ promises in Matthew 10:18-20, “and you shall even be brought before governors and kings for My sake as a testimony to them and to the Gentiles. But when they deliver you up do not become anxious about how or what you will speak; for it shall be given you in that hour what you are to speak. For it is not you who speak, but it is the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you.”

Christians at the end of the twentieth century are unlikely to face the kind of opposition Martin Luther did during the early part of the 16th century. It is also unlikely most believers will ever face the imminent threat of martyrdom. However, I believe it is more difficult to make such assertions with certainty today than it was thirty or forty years ago. Conditions within our post-Christian culture and an unstable evangelical church are changing and declining so rapidly that believers need to be prepared and not get caught off-guard when confronted with persecutions and various hardships. Job 5:7 speaks of humanity's general condition and what we ought to expect: “For man is born for trouble, as sparks fly upward.” Concerning the potential persecution of believers, the Apostle Paul is even more pointed: “And indeed, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted” (2 Timothy 3:12).

“Christian bashing” is increasingly popular. It has become a favourite pastime among journalists in the liberal media and among liberals in education, the arts, and politics. Bigotry is back in style, and the politically correct form of it is to assault Christians. Often it is those who preach “tolerance,” “non-judgmentalism,” and “intellectualism” who are most intolerant.

If there are confusing thoughts and misplaced expectations among believers concerning persecutions, there is also much misunderstanding concerning the more general role of trials, sufferings, and troubles in the Christian life. We tend to forget even the basic fact that all people live in a fallen world – we are sinful creatures living in a corrupt, sin-cursed society. Believers should not be surprised, perplexed, or resentful when they encounter difficulties throughout this life.

Job 14:1 says, “Man, who is born of woman, is short-lived and full of turmoil.” In Psalm 22:11 David said, “be not far from me, for trouble is near.” The Preacher in the Book of Ecclesiastes summarized well life’s difficulty when he wrote, “So I hated life, for the work which had been done under the sun was grievous to me; because everything is futility and striving after wind” (2:17).

Jesus tells us that we should expect troubles: “in the world you have tribulation” (John 16:33). He Himself did not avoid dealing with hardships and experiencing feelings of distress: “When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her, also weeping, He was deeply moved in spirit and was troubled” (11:33; see also Mark 14:33).

In 2 Corinthians 4:8-9 the Apostle Paul, based on personal experience, gives a partial list of his troubles: “We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not despairing; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed.” Even history’s greatest evangelist and missionary was not immune to sufferings, trials, and persecutions.

So we see that in God’s sovereignty all kinds of difficulties and hardships are real and should be expected in the lives of genuine Christians. One primary reason many believers today have a hard time accepting the role of suffering in their lives or in the lives of friends and loved ones is that they have failed to understand and accept the reality of divine sovereignty. Many also fail to see adversity from God’s perspective. In so doing, they completely overlook the positive, strengthening, perfecting effect that trials are designed to have on believers’ faith.

(from The Power of Suffering, John MacArthur, Jr.)