Tag Archives: Suffering

10 Theses on Suffering

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  1. Suffering should be expected and embraced by Christians. 

Jesus promised believers they would be “hated by all” for his sake (Mt. 10:22), delivered up to courts, flogged (Mt. 10:17), betrayed by friends (Lk. 21:16-17), and thrown into prison (Rv. 2:10). Paul said we must enter into the kingdom of God “through many tribulations” (Ac. 14:22). 

Jesus warned Paul that he would suffer much (Ac. 9:16). “Do not be surprised,” John said, “that the world hates you” (1Jn. 3:13). “Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted” (2Tm. 3:1

2. Suffering began at the Fall and lands upon everyone. 

Death is the only way to avoid suffering. Adam and Eve were created posse non peccare (able not to sin) but were told that if they ate of the wrong tree, they would die (Gn. 2:17). They disobeyed, bringing immediate spiritual death. Their sin also brought other forms of suffering, like pain in childbirth to women (Gn. 3:16), difficulty in labor to men (Gn. 3:17-19), and eventual death to all people (Gn. 5:5; Rm. 5:12). 

Today, suffering is universal, as common as sparks that drift upwards (Job 5:7). Job, who lost all of his children, possessions, and health, said he was “few of days and full of trouble” (14:1). Jesus said: “In the world you will have tribulation” (Jn. 14:33). 

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Pray for Madagascar: How God is at Work Amidst Suffering

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— Tim Cantrell

The audio version of this article is available here: YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.

As if last October’s coup was not bad enough for impoverished Madagascar, now this month brings more disaster through two devastating cyclones.  In recent weeks, our church also enjoyed a special visit from a Malagasy pastor bringing good news of all that the Lord is doing there in His Church and through their suffering.  God has raised up Faly, his church (where he is an elder) and his ministry in the capital city, Antananarivo, to build a healthy church, to train up faithful pastors, and to plant and strengthen churches and serve believers across that island in a myriad of ways.  

Through Faly and others, God has given our church in Johannesburg a twenty-year close friendship with beloved Malagasy believers, and a burden for the Lord’s work there.  I have been there many times, and I always come away deeply encouraged.  Here are some ways you too can rejoice and pray more intelligently for the cause of Christ’s kingdom on that beautiful-but-beleaguered island.

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Who Makes People Deaf and Blind?

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Answering 439 Bible Contradictions 

Answer: God decrees all things that come to pass, including the sufferings of His creatures.

Problem: Mark 9:17 says a demon made a father’s son mute and deaf, but Exodus 4:11 says God makes man mute, deaf, and blind.

Explanation: The illustration of a billiard player will help answer this apparent contradiction—“apparent” since at first glance there seems to be real disagreements in the Bible but upon reflection there actually are none.

A billiard player takes his stick, strikes the cue ball, and pockets the eight-ball perfectly. This pictures God’s decrees. He stands behind everything that comes to pass. The Baptist Confession defines God’s decree thus: “God hath decreed in himself, from all eternity, by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely and unchangeably, all things, whatsoever comes to pass.” Continue reading →

The Greatest Missionary Biography

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The podcast edition of this article can be found here: Youtube – Spotify – Apple Podcasts

I believe Robert Dann’s Father of Faith Missions is the greatest missionary biography in print.

When it comes to missionary bios, the devotional warmth is superior in Hudson Taylor, the heights of adventure more spectacular in John Paton, the range of emotions broader in The Three Mrs. Judsons, and the team dynamic more pronounced in William Carey. The queue is long for great missionary biographies.

But when I add up all the factors that make a missionary biography great, the story of Groves stands alone on top.

You most likely have never heard of Anthony Norris Groves. Don’t let that deter you. In the early 19th century, Groves left his dental practice in England and travelled with his family 5,000 miles over mountains and deserts, a trip where horses and humans died, to set up shop in the heart of Islam–Baghdad, Iraq. He established the first Protestant mission to Arabic-speaking Muslims.

What are the ingredients of a great missionary biography and why should Christians today read about the life of this great man?

Just as the tilting of a diamond brings swarms of refracted light, reading Groves’s biography gives the reader a kaleidoscope of major themes in missions. Here are ten of them.

  1. Missions and Family

The lessons this book teaches about home life, marriage and children are legion.

Groves was patient with his wife, Mary, who originally resisted tooth-and-nail a move to missions on the other side of the world. Only death awaited her. She knew it and she was right. He didn’t force her. He wooed and persuaded her until she wanted to go for Jesus’ sake.

After Mary died, Groves endured years of sorrow and depression. Upon remarriage, he allowed his second wife to teach daily because that’s where she was gifted, though she left the organizing of the home to their lifelong nanny, a decision which would bear sour fruit in the future. Continue reading →

The Blessings of Sickness

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screen-shot-2016-10-15-at-9-45-13-pmWhile waiting in the doctor’s office last week, I sat next to a full-blown Prosperity campaigner. If Joseph Prince or Kenneth Copeland were Don Quixote, this man would have been Sancho Panza. “It’s never God’s will for Christians to be sick, “ he said, only to follow with the saddest line of all. “That’s why I just can’t understand why my wife is here.” A few minutes later, they rolled her out in a wheel chair.

There are many answers to the question of why. Why do Christians suffer? On several occasions we’ve taught our people in the village 30 reasons-it-is-good-for-christians-to-suffer. Most of these come from St. Paul, himself no stranger to affliction but just as anxious to share in Jesus’ suffering (Phil. 3:10).

A good place to start is the story of Jesus healing the nobleman’s son (Jn. 4:46-54). This man and his whole household came to Christ because of the boy’s sickness. The implication is that had the boy not been sick, the father would never have had a reason to believe. This should rectify our qualms with affliction, as so much good comes from it.

Suffering is the oft-used tonic in God’s medical bag. Indeed, strength and vitality bring special blessings, but broken bodies are even better if they draw us to Christ. As David said, “It is good for me that I was afflicted” (Ps. 119:71).

Suffering Helps Us Perceive God

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Screen Shot 2013-09-18 at 1.59.31 PMThomas Case:

Prosperity is the nurse of atheism. When we are prosperous the sense of God is little by little defaced. In affliction the soul is freed from the attractive power of worldly allurements and our thoughts are more serious, clear and capable of divine illumination. The clearer the glass is, the more fully it receives the beams of light.

Thomas Case, A Treatise of Afflictions, 57

Suffering Helps Us See the Vileness of Satan

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William Gurnall:

God also allows Satan to trounce some of his saints by temptation in order to train them to help fellow-brethren in like conditions. He allows them to train under Satan’s lash, to get experience in the ways of Satan’s and of their own hearts. All the plots of hell have not so much as shaken God’s hand to spoil one letter or line he has been drawing. The mysteriousness of his providence hangs a curtain over this work that we cannot see what he is doing.

William Gurnall, The Christian in Complete Armor, I:100-101

Suffering Helps Us See God as its Author

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Thomas Brooks:

[We must] acknowledge him as the author in all our afflictions: ‘The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away” (Job 1:21). If Job had not seen God in his affliction, he would have cried out, ‘O these wretched Chaldeans, they have plundered and spoiled me!’ Those who see the hand of God in their afflictions, will, with David, lay their hands upon their mouths (2 Sam. 16:11-12). When afflictions arrest us, we shall murmur and grumble and struggle until we see that it is God that strikes.

– Thomas Brooks, Works, I: 294-300.

Suffering helps us make better use of our time

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Screen Shot 2013-09-18 at 1.59.31 PMThomas Case:

In affliction God teaches us to redeem the time. When life is tranquil, how many golden hours we throw down the stream that we shall never see again. But O, when trouble and danger come, when the sword is threatening the body, the pistol is at the breast, the knife is at the throat, and death is at the door, how precious would one of those despised hours be! Evil days cry out, “Redeem the time!”

— Thomas Case, Selected Works, A Treatise of Afflictions, 71-72.