Suffering for the Sake of the Body - Lesson 4 — John Piper

The following message is by Pastor John Piper. More information from Desiring God is available at www .DesiringGod .org.

Christian Suffering in the Path of Obedience

Okay, we're moving now from necessity to the nature of Christian suffering. Is there a difference between plague and persecution, cancer and conflict? And I raise it because of this frequent question I'm asked about whether I can take texts that apply to persecution in the New Testament and use them for the kinds of comforts you might receive when you're sick.

Is that legitimate? Here's my thinking on this. In choosing to follow Christ in the way He directs, we choose all that this path includes under His sovereign providence. Thus, all suffering that comes in the path of obedience is suffering with Christ and for Christ, whether it is cancer or conflict.

Now, that's my thesis. If God has called you to be a computer programmer and work for some firm rather than, say, go to be a missionary in Sudan where you might endure privation physically and run risks that you don't experience here.

And yet, while you're obediently following God as a loving, faithful testimony in computer programming, you have an accident on the way to work and you're paralyzed from the waist down. Is that suffering with and for Christ?

And I'm arguing it is if you're walking in the path of obedience. If that's where He wanted you and He called you to work there and you should drive the work in obedience to Jesus and on the way to work,.

It costs you your legs.

In principle, it's the same thing. Now, that's just a thesis here. Let's see if there's some warrant for it. All experiences of suffering in the path of Christian obedience, whether from persecution or sickness or accident, have this in common.

They all threaten our faith in the goodness of God. And they all tempt us to leave the path of obedience. Therefore, every triumph of faith and all perseverance in obedience are testimonies to the goodness of God and the preciousness of Christ, whether the enemy is sickness, Satan, sin, or sabotage.

Now, that's my first argument. The common thing between having a car accident on the way to Medtronic and having somebody shoot you in Indonesia because you're a missionary, both of them resulting in paralysis from the waist down, the common element there is that Satan has a design for that and God has a design for that.

Satan's design is that you'll get mad at God and reject Him. And God's design is that you'll choose God as a superior value above walking and thus bear witness to His glorious self-sufficiency and all sufficiency in your life.

And since the point is the same in both and you've experienced both in the path of obedience, why should we say you can talk about one of them as having precious rewards and one of them as having precious assurances and the other one not?

I don't think so. I chose these four S's just to tip you off how I pray. That comes out of my prayer life for my family. When Noelle and I get on our knees at night beside the bed and pray regularly, I take on my lips my prayer for my sons that are not at home and the ones that are at home in Tallitha and then my dad who lives in South Carolina and I broaden it out.

And I pray, Lord, protect them from sin. Here's the order I take them in. I'm not sure why I did it in this order. Sin, Satan, sickness, and sabotage because I think that's the order of seriousness. Sin is the most serious threat to my children.

Satan is the second most serious threat to my children. Sickness is the next most serious threat, I think. And then sabotage, only because it's less often, is the fourth most serious sabotage or threat to my children's faith.

And I want them to believe. That's my main goal. I've told my boys, and I haven't told Tallitha, she doesn't understand yet, I said, I would rather have a believing dead son than an unbelieving live son any day.

It's the loss of faith that I fear more than anything. So I pray earnestly that they be protected from unbelief and sin, Satan's temptations to abandon the Lord, and then sickness and its temptations to give up on the Lord and then sabotage.

Suffering With Christ and for Christ

Therefore, next paragraph, all suffering of every kind that Christians endure in the path of our Christian calling is a suffering with Christ and for Christ. How so? With Him in the sense that the suffering comes to us as we are walking with Him by faith.

Dangerous missionary circumstances is not the only place where you walk with Jesus, nor the only dangerous place. And in the sense that it is endured in the strength that He supplies through His sympathizing high priestly ministry.

So we are with Him now, here, this morning, and on your way home you'll be with Jesus, walking with Jesus. And it is suffering for Him in this sense, that the suffering tests and proves our allegiance to His goodness and power, and in the sense that it reveals His worth as an all-sufficient compensation and prize when you have a loss in your life.

Sickness, Persecution, and the Purification of Faith

Now my second argument, as argument number one for why I think cancer and conflict, or plague and persecution can be thought of as overlapping realities that have the same spiritual dynamics in how we relate to God in them.

Here's a second observation. Not only that, the suffering of sickness and the suffering of persecution have this in common. They are both intended by Satan for the destruction of our faith, 1 Thessalonians 3, 4, we read that last night, and governed by God for the purifying of our faith.

We'll look at Hebrews 12 later, and 2 Corinthians 12, we already looked at. We can back up and take this as an underlining of something I said in regard to the fact that Christians die, and Christians have futility, and Christians struggle with sin, all of which were intended by God as judgments upon the world, and yet we say, Christ bore my judgment, and Christ bore my condemnation, and so why do I have to come into the experience of death, and the experience of suffering and futility, and in the experience of battling sin?

And the answer is that Satan has a design for those, which is the destruction of our faith, and God now, because we are in Christ, no longer designs these things as our condemnation, but as our sanctification, as our purification.

If I had quoted more of that passage from 1 Peter 4, 13 -17, we would have gotten to the verse where it says, suffering is coming, and it is necessary that it begin with the household of God. Begin with the household of God.

But it is experienced at the household of God as a refiner's fire. Remember that part from the Handel's Messiah? He will be a refiner's fire. And Handel has his great way of relating the very music to the trembling of walking through a refiner's fire.

Well, that's the same fire that will consume unbelievers as judgment. It's the same fire. Christians perished in Honduras just like unbelievers. Christians are suffering in Kosovo and Serbia now. There are Serbian Christians and Kosovar Christians, Yugoslav Christians.

There are Christians on both sides of every conflict all over the world. And they are dying, both of them. Unbelievers die, Christians die when bombs drop. But God's design is different, and Satan's design is the same.

Satan desires that they be destroyed in their faith, and God's design is to refine and purify one, namely his children, and to bring judgment deserved upon the other. Can you handle that? Does that make sense?

So, we are not delivered from the flood of judgment that is coming upon the world necessarily. Sometimes we are, and we pray, Oh God, deliver! And He often does. Here's my third observation. It relates plague and persecution, conflict and cancer, suffering from sickness and suffering from persecution.

Why Sickness and Persecution Can Be Indistinguishable

Suffering from persecution and sickness are often indistinguishable. Suppose that the Apostle Paul got pneumonia from all this work and exposure. Now, this came from a context in Desiring God where I had just listed where he said, We are in danger on the streets, danger from rivers, danger from enemies.

We were in the sea for a day and a half. I've been shipwrecked three times. So, he's listing that as part of his apostolic sufferings. That he's in danger. He's on a boat and it breaks up in a storm. Three times this happened to Paul.

He's thrown into the sea. He's grabbing on to wood because he's on his way to do missionary work. He gets rescued somehow, evidently. But he gets sick. Pneumonia. Now, is the pneumonia part of the suffering for Christ?

And I think Paul put it in the list along with persecutions because it is. Sleepless nights, he said. He put it right alongside. I was beaten with lashes five times. Thirty-nine lashes, five times in his life.

I was beaten with rods three times. And then he puts things like, thrown into the sea. Or take this picture of Paul's back after he's been beaten all these times. His back must have looked horrific. I think that's what he meant when he said, I bear in my body the marks of Jesus.

Surely, since they didn't know anything about antibiotics or had any back then. Surely, one of those times when they had lacerated his back and thrown him on the ground. And it was all covered with dust.

Surely, it got infected. And there was a fever. Is the fever part of the persecution? Can you distinguish these things? And suppose something happened in his back, so that characteristically now he has to walk with a slump.

And walking with a slump, he favors his left leg. And favoring his left leg, he gets arthritis. Is that part of his suffering for Christ? You can't distinguish these things. That's my argument here. So, one night you're faithful in visiting a friend, and you miss a night's sleep.

And you get sick. And it gets complicated. And something happens to your voice box. Life is not neatly dividable into persecution and sickness. You can't do it. It won't work. If you are a faithful, obedient servant of Christ, then, I argue, whatever suffering you endure in that path is the same, in principle, as if you had endured it through persecution.

Suppose that the Apostle Paul got pneumonia from all his work and exposure. Would that pneumonia have been persecution? Paul did not make a distinction between being beaten by rods and having a boating accident, or being cold while traveling between towns.

For him, any suffering that befell him while serving Christ was part of the cost of discipleship. When a missionary child gets diarrhea, we think of this as part of the price of faithfulness, because they happen to be way off there in Uzbekistan, where the medical care is so bad.

But if any parent is walking in the path of obedience to God's calling, it is the same price, is it not? What turns sufferings into sufferings with and for Christ is not how intentional our enemies are, but how faithful we are.

If we are Christ's, then what befalls us is for His glory and for our good, whether it is caused by enzymes or enemies. I watch how we pray for our missionaries. And we often pray for our missionaries.

Little Greta, almost lost her, right? Almost lost her in Guinea, unconscious for several days with this mental or spinal malaria, or whatever they call it. And the prayers here were always in terms of, God, Satan is waging war against this missionary family.

Fight for your cause. Fight for your name. And sustain Greta. Give her life. Show your glory. Show your power. Well, same thing is true if you have a little child who gets sick here. Same issues. You lose a child here.

I remember walking into the hospital over at United in St. Paul, and there was Patty Larson, who is now with Jesus, because she died of cancer last year. And there she was, holding Eric, one year old, and ivory colored because he was dead.

Sudden infant crib death. Had that happened on the mission field, we would have all thought of it in terms of, what a price to pay to go overseas where there is not good medical care. There's no difference.

This is an obedient, loving, godly, biblical, Bible-saturated family, and their child died. Conclusion. When we speak of the purposes of suffering in the following section, we mean both persecution and accidents and sickness that befall us in any path of faith.

Wisdom in Taking Risks for Christ

Question about that? I hear you. The question is, where do you find wisdom to know what kinds of risks to take, both at the level of heading into a hostile city where all likelihood is you're going to be persecuted and maybe killed, whether to go or not.

And Paul said, why are you crying and breaking my heart? I'm ready not only to testify to the name of Christ, but to die for His name. So that's Paul's gutsy answer to their concern. A very in-your-face kind of example.

Or, how late do you stay up to help a friend when you know you're on the brink of strep? And you characteristically get terrible sore throats if you don't get six or seven hours of sleep a night. Where do you get it?

And I don't have an answer. I mean, I know where to get it, but I don't have any answer for a formula to know when you've got it. You pray. You seek the mind of the Lord. You saturate yourself with biblical principles.

You look at your limits. You try to assess wisdom of your long-term usefulness versus your short-term usefulness. And sometimes you'll make decisions that look prudent. And sometimes you'll make decisions that look absolutely ridiculous.

Paul did both. Paul escaped in a basket from Damascus. And Paul refused to escape from other places and was stoned. So sometimes he ran and sometimes he stayed. And all I know to say is, try to discern the mind of the Lord.

Sometimes you speak and sometimes you don't. Sometimes you take the risk and sometimes you don't. That doesn't help very much, does it? Sorry. But now you're cast upon prayer and the Bible and not me.

I don't have a formula for you. I don't know. But seek it from the Lord.

Suffering Caused by Sinful Decisions

There's another hand somewhere. Go ahead. Is there a difference between the kind of suffering and troubles we experience when we walk? Trusting God and your sinning and your financial sinning and all of that.

That's right.

Yes, there is a difference. But probably in the end, the solution is the same. The question was, is there a difference between the kind of suffering you may experience when you're walking in obedience and faith and the suffering you bring upon yourself because you walk outside temporarily the path of obedience and faith?

And you take on excessive loans, say, and get yourself in big financial trouble. I just got an email from Jonathan Reisner in Japan, for example, where he said that the pastor has resigned at the church where he's serving because he took out too many loans to keep their kindergarten afloat and he's way in over his head and it's now gotten him and the church into big financial trouble and he feels unworthy.

And now the elders have to decide whether or not to let him go or keep him, whether to say this is not serious enough. And he brought that upon himself. And all of us do that from time to time. Many of our sufferings are owing to stupid and bad and sinful decisions that we make.

And that was what happened in Psalm 107. So let me use Psalm 107 to answer that. If you want to take your Bible and turn to Psalm 107, maybe the Lord had me in this for my devotions this morning because this question was going to come up here.

Psalm 107 has a refrain over and over again that his people got into straits and they cried to the Lord and He heard them and answered them. Look at verse 6. They were hungry and thirsty. They cried to the Lord in their trouble and He delivered them from their distress.

Then look at verse 13. They cried to the Lord in their trouble and He delivered them from their distress. Now look at verse 17. Some were sick or foolish. Another version. Through their sinful ways. Ah, now He's not going to deliver them, right?

And because of their iniquities, suffered affliction. They loathed any kind of food and they drew near to the gates of death. Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble and He delivered them from their distress.

He sent forth His Word and healed them and delivered them from destruction. So this psalm has people in trouble sometimes because of external choices that they didn't make and sometimes they're in trouble and sickness because of their own rebellion and because of their own iniquities and sinful ways.

And in both cases, the prescription is the same. You cry out, oh God help me. Because my guess is most of us, even when we have gotten into trouble because of somebody else's sin rather than our own, we know that we're not perfect.

We know that we haven't lived the life we might have lived and so we're going to be repenting anyway. And so we cry out and we doubly repent and say, oh God, I have made such a fool. I've made such a wreck of my life.

I've made such awful mistakes. Have mercy upon me. And we have such strong assurances that if we will confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive our sins. And then He will begin to deal with us as His children, as He always does.

And He'll begin to reclaim us and help you find a way out of debt. If you really are resolved and are going to walk in the way of life, He'll show you a path to steadfastly get yourself out of that. Or He'll deal with you and your sickness, either healing it or giving you grace to glorify Him in it or whatever it is.

Donna. Same question.

The Purposes of Christian Suffering

Good. Is the potential gain for spiritual value of that, is that correlated with the response that we have in facing that trial? Because we're made of clay feet and sometimes we get a victory right away and sometimes it's a loss?

Yeah, I think so.

In fact, let me move ahead into the purposes of suffering, and I think that very thing will come out. We have 45 minutes. And I think this is probably the most important unit here. I don't know. Different ones of you will, I hope, find help in different places.

But the purposes of Christian suffering, why does God permit and order the sufferings of His people? These are the kinds of questions you get in the church. Why? Why? Why? When things happen to God's people.

So, I'm going to lead you through six answers to the question why. Number one. To promote deeper faith and hope and holiness of life. All right. A text to put under this purpose. Deeper faith and hope and holiness.

2 Corinthians 1, 8 and 9. We do not want you to be unaware, Paul says, brethren, of our affliction, which came to us in Asia, and we were burdened excessively, so think of some time when this was true of you, beyond our strength, so that we despaired even of life.

Indeed, we had the sentence of death. So, whatever it was, it brought Paul right up to the brink of thinking, it's over, I'm dead, I'm history within ourselves. And then, notice this purpose clause. So that...

Now, this is not... Whose purpose is this? This isn't the devil's design. The devil may have been doing this, but it wasn't the devil's design. It was somebody else's design. So that we would not trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead.

So, clearly, God had a purpose or a design in this affliction which brought him right up to the brink of death, so that if you're on the brink of death, and you're going to maintain hope, there's only one possible ground of hope.

And it isn't, I'll get through this and have a vacation. Or I'll get through this and have a happy marriage. Or I'll get through this and be healthy the rest of my life. You're not going to get through this.

The next thing is death. Will you hope? And the answer is, yes. Well, in what? Answer, the God who raises the dead. So, Christians should have hope right up to the brink of where the world says, there's no hope left.

No more vacations for you. No more playing with your children on the floor for you. No more beautiful walks around Lake of the Isles for you. You're going into blackness, fella. And Christians say, I am not going into darkness.

I'm going into the arms of a God who will raise me from the dead. And God wants us to believe that. That's the kind of faith He wants us to have, so He will even ordain the death of Lazarus. Or you walking right up to the brink of your grave.

Or even through it. Another text in this regard. Hebrews 12, 3 to 11. Consider him who has endured such hostility by sinners against himself, Jesus namely, so that you will not grow weary. Don't grow weary and lose heart.

You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood. So the situation here is persecution of some kind. In your striving against sin. And you have forgotten the exhortation which is addressed to you as sons.

My son... Now notice, this is persecution, but this still applies. God says, My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, so we can even conceive of the ugly words spoken to us by a mean-spirited colleague at work as the discipline of our loving Heavenly Father.

That's why I began with the sovereignty of God. If you don't have a concept of the sovereignty of God over mean-spirited, sin-filled, brutal, persecuting people, you can't make any sense out of this passage.

Because this passage says, you are now resisting, and you might have to resist to the point of shedding blood. You haven't gotten there yet, but it's coming. But don't forget this. God says, My son, don't regard lightly the discipline of the Lord.

That's what it is. The shedding of blood is the discipline of the Lord. Nor faint when you are reproved by Him. For those whom the Lord loves, loves, loves, He disciplines like that. Shedding of blood.

Now, there's a category that needs to be created. There's a category that needs to be created in our moral framework of world view. My pain and blood shedding in this excruciating moment is love. Love.

Love. And of course, there are going to be moments when you're going to scream out, This doesn't feel like love. I don't love my children this way. Which is why intuitions are bad guides for theology building.

The thought process for me is first a very firm renunciation in the face of the lie and the devil. Just right in his face. No. Out of my head and out of my life. And then, just as important is the turning of the mind away from the negation to the affirmation of truth.

If you don't have a Bible nearby, you plumb the depths of your memory and you call up from this seminar or from your Bible reading, truths about God's love for you. Through many afflictions we must enter the kingdom.

Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers Him out of them all. I count the sufferings of this age not worthy to be compared to the glory that is to be revealed. And you fix your mind on the glory.

This is the use of the sword. That's what it means when it says, Take the sword of the Spirit. That's what it means when it says in Romans 8 .13, Those who live according to the flesh will die, but those who by the Spirit put to death the deeds of the body, they will live.

And so, Satan is tempting you and saying, Just cave in. Just give up. Just reject God. Go off and medicate your pain with alcohol or drugs or a pack of vanilla wafers. And you need to get in his face with the sword of the Spirit and say, No.

I put you to death by truth. The truth will make you free. Which is why I'm teaching these texts. You need to just pack these texts into your mind. Or, I carried for years and years a little print out.

I found font number 8 on my computer and I printed out Romans 8 in a little, about that much. I folded it up and tucked it in my wallet here and carried it. And every stoplight and every doctor's waiting line and every place where I was delayed, I got out and meditated and I memorized Romans 8 over those years.

I recited it to the church here one Christmas as a Christmas gift ages ago, probably 17 years ago. I quoted Romans 8. So, that's my strategy. A negation, an in-your-face renunciation of Satan and his lies, and more importantly, an affirmation and a focus upon biblical truth with fixing your mind on things that are above.

I do that most often with sexual temptation. Because that's the most common temptation. That and money, I suppose, and pride and fame. Those are the three biggies, I think I would say, in our lives, at least in my life.

And so, in-your-face with every lewd thought that comes in your mind. And you don't give it more than about three seconds before you're on the offensive with this kind of thing that comes into your mind.

You give it five seconds, you might be a goner that afternoon. But if you attack immediately and then put in its place positive, glorious, beautiful truth, you can experience this. So, let's see what the Father is up to here.

He scourges every son whom He receives. Verse 7, it is for discipline that you endure. God deals with you as sons for what son is there whom His Father does not discipline. But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children, not sons.

Furthermore, we have had earthly fathers. They disciplined us to discipline us, and we respected them. We should have, anyway. Shall we not much more rather be subject to the Father of spirits and live?

For they disciplined us for a short time, as seemed best to them. And many of them blew it. Some of you now have memories of fathers who did it all wrong. Maybe no discipline at all. Maybe he just vanished out of your life.

Or maybe he was brutal and cruel and abusive. Maybe he just dissed you all the time in his language. Maybe there was no affirmation, no hugging and no playing on the floor. No balanced spankings, but only ugly, mean hittings.

And so, you don't have any of this. Which means this text should be so precious for you. We had an elder one time in this church. He's not at the church anymore. But his father was like that. And he told me how he was converted at university.

And how he began to rebuild his categories of fatherhood through the Bible. And the fatherhood of God became very precious to him. Do not use your father's sin as an excuse for the inability to know God as your Father.

That's just an excuse. You can rebuild the categories of fatherhood by the Bible. And this is one of the most precious. In fact, it's the point of it here. The point is, they did it as they seemed best.

And that could be terrible. But God disciplines us for our good. Relearn fatherhood. Relearn discipline. So that we may share His holiness. There's the purpose. All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful.

That's an understatement. But sorrowful. Yet to those who have been trained by it. Now there's a challenge for us. If you're embittered by it. Afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.

So that's a very classic text on why Christians suffer. Here's some more texts on that same point. I think I'll pass over them because if I belabor this first point too long we won't get to the others.

But you see them there and they're on your sheet. Let's go to number two. When Christians suffer, it increases the joy of our experience of our reward in heaven. It increases our reward and the experience of it in heaven.

Suffering Produces an Eternal Weight of Glory

Here's the text I began with today. Therefore, we do not lose heart, though our outer man is decaying. So here's a word especially for the older among us. Pretty soon you can't read anymore. And then you can't hear anymore.

And then you can't walk anymore. And then you can't see anymore. Then you cry out, take me. Please take me. I'm ready. Please take me. And sometimes he does wonderful deliverances. And other times the greatest saints linger through the hardest closing years.

And I have no explanation for how God divvies up this. But we have this word that in the wasting away, this momentary light affliction. Now don't think Paul's naive there. When he said light and momentary, he did not mean that it only happened in a moment of his life and that it was light compared to other people's.

It was heavy compared to other people's. And it was long. He means a lifetime of heavy affliction is light and momentary. A lifetime of heavy affliction is light and momentary. That's what he means. And it's light in comparison to the weight of glory.

And it's short in relation to the length of eternity. Momentary light affliction producing for us an eternal weight. You see the contrast of the two words? Eternal momentary weight light. An eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison.

While we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are temporal but the things that are unseen. Now I can tell by looking at the clock over there that I'm probably not going to get to the unit.

Or at least very far in it. How shall we joyfully endure? So I'm going to teach this lesson while I'm teaching this lesson. Because all I have on this sheet is this lesson right here. The way to endure joyfully is to do what Paul did here.

Look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. So while you are healthy and while you have life and while your eyes are good and your ears are good, discipline yourself to set your mind and your affection on things that are unseen.

Because someday that's all you'll have to think about. There'll be no time left. There'll be nothing left to see. No fingers left to feel. You will have outlived all your children. Some of you. And your spouse or never had a spouse.

And all your friends. And you'll be over there on the fourth floor of Augustana home. And either bitter or peaceful as to whether or not you have set a trajectory in your life of doing this. Romans 8.

We've been here. Let's not read that again except to say our experience of our reward is enlarged and intensified as we contemplate them and lean on them for our support in suffering. I consider that the sufferings of this present time are worthy to be compared to the glory that is to be revealed.

Or here's the way it functions for Jesus as He warned us about persecutions coming. Blessed are you when people insult you. Matthew 5 .11. Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.

Rejoice. That's an odd response. Rejoice and be glad for your reward is great in heaven. So you must think about that. I mean, isn't that implied here? That the joy as you come home from work and at work they scorned you today.

They ignored you. They walked by you. They clucked their tongues at you. They curled up their lip at you. They said, they twittered over in the corner as they were talking about Christianity. They slurred churches today.

It was a heavy day. Can you rejoice on your way home? Only if you're thinking about the reward. That's the way Jesus did it. Rejoice for your reward in heaven is great. I would argue this. Even though it's not explicit in this text, I think it is in this one.

That experience that you just walked through enlarges your joy in heaven. I think that's found in this word producing. In 2 Corinthians 4 .17. This light affliction is producing. It's not just preceding.

It's producing a weight of glory. Here's the third reason we suffer as Christians. Or purpose of God in it. To awaken others out of indifference and make them more radical and bold for Christ. Philippians 1 .12.

Suffering Awakens Boldness for the Gospel

Now, I want you to know, brethren, that my circumstances have turned out for the greater progress of the gospel. He's in prison in Rome. My circumstances have turned out for the greater progress of the gospel.

Oh, how many stories. If you go to the section in Let the Nations Be Glad. I tell, I don't know how many stories to illustrate this. I tell the story of the five missionaries killed among the Alca. I tell the story of Chet Bitterman.

When Chet Bitterman was killed, shot through the chest as a Wycliffe missionary, young man. The next year, the Wycliffe applicants doubled. That's what I mean by, that's what Paul means by, my circumstances have turned out.

Is not Elizabeth Elliot's loss of her husband the means by which millions of people have been fired for missions and radical obedience through her writings? High price. She would have never chosen it.

But I believe she would teach that. She's going to be over at North Heights Lutheran. Omnipotent love. It's a women's conference. Go there. All of you women should go there. She is one of the greatest women alive, I believe.

How you can have an opportunity to hear Elizabeth Elliot and not take it is beyond me. I think we should get her here someday. And I think she'd be willing to come. Fourth. Oh, I didn't finish reading that text.

We can get to the most important verse. So that my imprisonment in the cause of Christ has become well known throughout the whole praetorian guard and to everyone else. And that most of the brethren trusting the Lord because of my imprisonment have far more courage, far more courage to speak the word of God without fear.