THE GIFT OF SUFFERING
PART ONE
MIKE CUNNINGHAM
NOVEMBER 2, 2008
Among the folks
who are in my constant thoughts and prayers are those who always seem to be
suffering in God’s dreaded “furnace
of affliction.” You know the kind of people I’m referring to. They’re
the ones who have been patiently struggling with a very painful ordeal, sometimes
for years, with no letup in sight, and also those Christians who are constantly
going through a seemingly non-stop series of awful trial’s, one right after
another. Perhaps it’s someone who through no fault of his or her own, lost
their job--again. The prospect of winding up behind that all too familiar
financial eight-ball, and the miserable consequences, looms menacingly just
beyond the horizon. The person may be having relationship problems, or is
once again experiencing the painful heartbreak of having been deceived or
betrayed by someone they trusted very much. Others remain in a state of shock
and disbelief because according to the latest test results, their health appears
to be headed south, apparently without the possibility of a u-turn. Then again
it may be someone who is slowly recovering from the often devastating aftermath
of an unexpected divorce, or the loss through death of someone they love dearly.
Center stage
in the minds and hearts of many afflicted Christians are the nagging thoughts
of the possibility that a person they love dearly remains adamant in their
refusal to have anything to do with Jesus, or His love for poor lost sinners.
Those very concerned Christians can’t seem to get rid of the gushing torrent
of all those frightening what-if’s that keep flooding into their mind. And
only God knows how much tossing and turning and sleepless nights are experienced
by Christians who can’t stop thinking about a loved one who is enslaved by
alcohol or drugs, and the awful price they may have to pay on this side of
eternity and eventually the other. It could even be all of the above--at the
same time!
Its life altering events such as these which have a
way of leaving people numb and play havoc with their emotions. These folks
are always struggling with some sort of affliction. Unlike most of their Christian
friends who appear to enjoy relatively lengthy periods of respite from their
trials, there are many who are caught up with relentless non-stop life dominating
challenges, each of which have a way of testing their faith to the max, and
draining them emotionally and/or physically.
I recently finished
reading an outstanding book entitled POLISHING GOD’S MONUMENTS. I can’t recommend
it too highly. It was published last year by a pastor named Jim Andrews who
chronicled what he characterized as being “the fiery trials my daughter Julie
and son-in-law Paul have endured since 1987 as they both struggle with the
debilitating illness known as CFS (Chronic Fatigue Syndrome) and my daughter
with MCS (Multiple Chemical Sensitivities).” (A) Speaking of just one of his
daughter’s symptoms in a letter to friends, Julie’s father writes: “Julie
describes the sensation as a kind of “temporary painful paralysis,” where
every movement bathes her muscles in what feels like a paralyzing poison-causing
pain, heaviness and intense pressure. Continued exertion increases the symptoms
until she has no alternative but to lie still and rest until the toxins break
up and leave her system. Only then can she attempt another movement, which
starts the whole process over again.”
“... Julie is
not simply “tired.” Imagine for a moment having the strength literally drained
from your body so that the slightest exertion leaves you utterly exhausted
and unable to move for hours or days. Imagine living in constant pain, when
every movement you have the energy to make is agony. Add to that a devilish
sleep disorder, which makes it impossible for you to sleep, sometimes for
weeks at a time. Mix in the pain of being misunderstood, labeled as a lingerer,
lazy, or simply depressed, making this whole nightmare somehow your fault
and something you could fix if you simply had the will. Don’t forget the pain
of seeing your dreams for the future vanish like smoke, as year after year,
instead of growing stronger, your situation grows more desperate with each
passing day. Ponder well these things and you will have only a glimpse of
what Julie and Paul have been enduring.”
Continuing his
letter to friends, Julie’s dad writes: “As if all that weren’t enough, things
have intensified with Julie’s chemical sensitivities. She is now sensitized
to any kind of chemical (especially phenol and formaldehyde which seem to
be in almost everything.) She detects and reacts severely to odors that only
animals can smell at such distances. It is now at a point where she even reacts
to Paul if he has one of these chemicals on his person. Her condition and
required care is almost beyond belief. It is a wonder that she, Paul, and
my wife are in their right minds. If something doesn’t give soon, one of them
may go over the edge.” As I’ve told many of you, the burning and searing pain
in her veins and muscles that these reactions incur is out of this world.”
(B).
Julie and Paul
and her Mom and Dad are committed Christians. They take their God given faith
seriously, and they struggle real hard to honor the Lord by yielding their
will to His perfect one and patiently submitting to His infinite wisdom.
After reading the account of these two long time sufferers, I have to say
they continue to honor God magnificently in the manner in which each of them
are coping with their divinely ordained hardships. Both of them are an incredible
witness of the power of the grace of God working in and sustaining them. If
their witness isn’t honoring God and pleasing Him, then I don’t know what
is. Read this book and if you aren’t blessed, I’ll give the purchase price
back to you. At the moment though, I’m curious as to what you folks think
the following very comforting passages may mean to Christians such as Julie
and Paul. In fact, what do they mean to you?
1 Samuel 2:30 (ESV) 30 ... those who
honor me I will honor.
Psalms 91:15 (ESV) 15 When he
calls to me, I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble; I will rescue
him and honor him.
Can you imagine
how folks such as those I’ve been speaking about must feel, when their persistent
pleas for deliverance seem to fall on deaf ears? How can these followers of
Jesus help but wonder about the truthfulness of the Scriptures and God’s faithfulness
in keeping His promises? As I said a moment ago, Julie and Paul have been
patiently struggling very hard to honor Him in their various illnesses—for
twenty two years, and the end of their horrific ordeal still isn’t in sight.
What are they and you and me, and especially those of our other brothers and
sisters in Christ such as our friends Guy and Carroll to whom I’ve dedicated
this message; what are all those folks whose permanent dwelling place in this
world seems to be in that dreaded “furnace
of affliction; what are we and each of those sufferers to make of
the power of prayer apparently not being true in certain cases? What can folks
enduring such awful hardships expect from God?
There are
many other followers of Jesus who also struggle very, very hard to put Him
first before anyone or anything else in their lives. In other words, they
have been truly seeking His kingdom and His righteousness, just as Jesus
tells all His followers to do, (Matt. 6:33). And they still, as many of their
fellow suffering brothers and sisters in Christ do, remain trapped in that
horrible furnace which they would give almost anything to get out of.
Folks who have
heeded the command to add biblical knowledge to their God given faith know
they have been given the gift of righteousness through the one
Man Jesus Christ, (Romans 5:17) and that the righteous shall live by faith,
(Gal. 3:11). Each of those folks know that “the
prayer of a righteous man or woman or boy or girl is powerful and effective,”
(James 5:16). They are also keenly aware of the fact that “the eyes of the Lord are toward the righteous
and his ears toward their cry, (Psalm 34:15). They know what
the righteous can expect from God. For instance,
Psalms 34:17-19 (ESV) 17 When the
righteous cry for help, the Lord hears and delivers them out of all their
troubles. 18
The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.
19 Many are the afflictions of the righteous,
but the Lord delivers him out of them all.
King David was
no stranger to suffering and knew where to turn in his anguish, and so should
you and I and every other Christian. David said:
Psalms
121:1-8 (ESV) 1”... I lift up
my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? 2 My help comes from
the Lord, who made heaven and earth. 3 He will not let your foot be moved; he who keeps you will
not slumber. 4 Behold,
he who keeps
Those of His
suffering children who have saturated themselves with His Word will have their
memory jogged by the Spirit living within them. The Spirit will bring to their
remembrance passages such as those we just read as well as the following ones:
Hebrews 13:6 (ESV) 6 …"The Lord is
my helper; I will not fear; what can man do to me?" I certainly don’t
hesitate to cry out to Him whenever I’m in trouble and I know you folks don’t
either. I do it expecting an answer. In other words, I expect Him to keep
His promises. Listen as He speaks through me these other comforting ones the
He has made to His hurting children:
Psalms 50:15 (ESV) 15 “... call upon
me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me."
Psalms 91:15 (ESV) 15 When he calls to me, I will answer him; I will be with
him in trouble; I will rescue him and honor him.
Some
of my most memorable moments of experiencing intense joy and serenity occurred
while I was enduring great distress. So much so, that I literally cried out
to the Lord in my anguish, and He immediately blessed me with a keen awareness
of His presence. During those times He inclined me to think about His eternal
love for me. He also inclined me to realize He was aware of the fact that
above everyone and everything else; I had at long last been sincerely seeking
His kingdom and His righteousness, and had been struggling very hard to honor
Him in my every thought, word and deed. I constantly marvel at His eternal
love for me and His faithfulness in keeping the promise He made through His
brother James who reminds all of us to, “Draw
near to God and He will draw near to you, (James 4:8 ESV). He constantly
makes His presence known to me, and I have good reason to believe He also
does to many of you folks as well. I’m aware of His presence many, many times
during the day. Even when I get up during the night, I know He’s right there
with me. The Bible tells us on what conditions we can expect Him to grant
our prayer requests.
John 15:7 (ESV) 7 If you abide
in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done
for you.
1 John 5:15 (ESV) 15 And if we
know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests
that we have asked of him.
1 John 3:21-22 (ESV) 21 Beloved,
if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God; 22 and whatever we
ask we receive from him, because we keep his commandments and do what pleases
him.
So what are we to make of all these divine promises?
How do you and I connect all the scriptural dots I have sprinkled throughout
this message? Recently I’ve been thinking a lot about the fact that all the
prayers you and I, of our own free will have already made, or ever will make
before we leave this world. Every single one of them without exception was
heard by God before He spoke it into existence. Let that thought sink in.
Think about it and continue worshiping Him with your mind by meditating on
it throughout this Lord’s Day. On the other side of eternity, and in accordance
with His perfect plan, (Ephesians I: 11) He who is infinite in wisdom and
who possesses a love so awesome that no human being can even begin to comprehend
the magnitude of it; He took each of our prayers into consideration and anticipated
them being spoken by us as well as what His response would be. Each of our
prayers and His response, have been factored into His perfect eternally conceived
unchangeable plan. Bottom line—they, and everything else that occurs in the
course of time have been foreordained before Creation and therefore were predestined
to occur at a precise moment in human history.
But how about Julie and her husband Paul? And
what are we to make of the incredible suffering their parents are enduring,
and why won’t God let them out of His painful furnace in the first place?
Why has God put them in that very horrible thing? Have they somehow done it
to themselves? In other words, did they made some very poor choices in their
past so that they triggered the onset of great suffering, and which is now
the normal result of “what goes around
comes around?” In other words, are they reaping what they have sown? One
thing you can be absolutely certain of is the fact that Satan will persuade
ignorant black and white insensitive professed Christians to make this cruel
heartless accusation, adding fuel to the flames in the furnace and intensifying
the sufferer’s pain, just as Job’s friends did to him thousands of years previously.
Julie and Paul have been patiently enduring a living nightmare. I have only
shared a very small portion of their unrelenting suffering--of more than twenty-two
long hard years. Many other brothers and sisters in Christ have been tormented
in the furnace for longer, much longer periods of time, and they and the folks
who love and care about them cry out to the Lord, sometimes day and night,
pleading with and begging God to let them out--and He doesn’t; not because
He can’t--but because He won’t.
The great Apostle Paul provides us with a key
with which each of us and all of God’s suffering children can unlock the gate
through which they can gain a partial understanding of some of the dynamics
of what we have been considering this morning. You could say Paul experienced
a little bit of hell on earth, and you wouldn’t be exaggerating. For instance,
the One who is infinite in wisdom and perfect in love, back in eternity past,
and for His own glory and Paul’s ultimate good, planned, ordained and predestined
that Paul would suffer incredible persecution, hardships, calamities, beatings,
imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights and hunger, (2Cor. 6:45). But
by the grace of God and only by His grace, Paul didn’t let them cause him
to do a number on himself and become bitterly angry and discouraged, because
he knew what God was accomplishing through his afflictions. Please accept
this key and use it for God’s glory in your own life today, and each of your
tomorrows.
2 Corinthians 4:16-18 (ESV) 16 So we do not lose heart. Though our outer
nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day. 17 For this slight momentary affliction is
preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, 18 as we look not to
the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things
that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.
Viewed
from an eternal perspective; in comparison to the pain and anguish the Christian
suffers through what Paul refers to as being a “slight and momentary affliction’s,”
which each of us must endure with patience, have all been designed by our
Creator for our ultimate good and are preparing us and making us capable of
receiving and enjoying “an eternal weight of glory” which is so wonderful
it is beyond our comprehension and wildest imagination. For instance, commenting
on these verses, Jonathan Edwards, famed American theologian and philosopher
of the 18th century explains [in the interest of clarity, I have
taken the liberty of modernizing his language].
“There
are different degrees of happiness and glory in heaven…The glory of the saints
above in heaven will be in some proportion to their growth in holiness and
good works here on earth [i.e. trusting God by struggling to be patient in
our afflictions]. Christ will reward everyone according to their works. He
that gained ten pounds was made ruler over ten cities, and he that gained
five pounds over five cities (Luke 19:17-19). “He that soweth sparingly, shall
reap sparingly; and he that soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully”
(2 Cor. 9:6). And the apostle Paul tells us that, [just] as one star differs
from another star in glory, so also shall it be in the resurrection of the
dead (1 Cor. 15:41). Christ tells us that he who gives a cup of cold water
to a disciple in the name of a disciple, shall in no way loose his reward.
But this couldn’t be true, if a person wouldn’t have a greater reward for
doing many good works than if he did just a few.”
Julie’s
pastor dad offers additional insight. “...we
live in a purposeful world with a linear movement to a grand climax. Thousands
of sub-plots unfold enroute to the grand finale. Behind your life is an unseen and unfathomed blueprint
where every experience is purposeful. Within this divine plan we are not robots,
but responsible moral agents. We make choices and we are responsible for those
choices. But God, in a way that you and I will never fathom, integrates into
his plan our choices long before they are ever made.” (D) And I might add,
it would be impossible for these most precious children of His to be able
to enjoy such inconceivable happiness and glory in fellowshipping with Christ
in heaven, if God didn’t bless and bestow upon him or her while they made
their way through this dark sin infested world with what I would describe
as being, “the gift of suffering.
We
don’t have enough time this morning to deal with all the unanswered questions
and thoughts I hope are racing through everyone’s mind. But, Lord willing,
next week...
(A)
POLISHING GOD’S MONUMENTS, © 2007 BY James Andrews, Shepherd Press, Wapwallopen,
Pa 18660, pp. 54.
(B)
Ibid, pp. 55-56
(C)
The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Volume Two, The Banner of Truth Trust, PO
Box 621 Carlisle, Pa. 17013, pp 902.
(D)
POLISHING GOD’S MONUMENTS, pp. 198.
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