When Saints Suffer — E.A. Johnston

I was sitting in the sanctuary of Bellevue Baptist Church about 25 years ago, and Adrian Rogers was up in the pulpit, and he said something I'll never forget. He said, if you are here today, and you are a Christian, and if you have never gone through a severe trial, just wait, it's right around the corner.

And at that time in my life, everything was sunshine and flowers. I was in the prime of my life. I had a beautiful wife and plenty of money. And then life came along and changed all that. I lost my wife, I lost my youth, and I lost my money.

Holding to Jesus in Suffering

Whether it's a tragedy or trial, when suffering comes into a believer's life, all you can do is hang on to Jesus and stand on the Word of God. My message today, friends, is entitled, When Saints Suffer, and I hope that this message will bring some comfort to someone going through a difficult time right now.

As a preacher, I am called more to afflict the comfortable because God has given me a revival ministry aimed at rousing the sleep in church, but today my message is to comfort the afflicted. I believe that incarnational preaching is most effective when it comes from a preacher going through the things he's preaching about from a personal life experience.

I've never been able to take a man seriously who's preaching on how to be a better parent when that man has never had children himself, or for a man to preach on how to have a happy marriage and he himself has never been married.

That kind of teaching doesn't hold much water for me. But when a preacher has gone through some of the very things he's preaching about, then I will listen to that man a little more closely because he has an intimate knowledge of which he speaks.

The Church's Ministry to Those Who Suffer

When tragedy strikes a family, those suffering individuals need prayer and kindness and a helping hand. They don't need advice or lectures at that time. They need love and compassion, prayer and support.

When saints suffer, it's a time for the body of Christ to be in full exercise of all its powers to bring consolation and help to the ones going through that suffering. I don't have any pat answers as to why saints suffer.

Every person's situation is unique to itself. We may not receive an answer here on earth as to why some tragedies and trials come into our lives like sudden thunderstorms leaving a trail of woe and grief in their wake.

But I know for certain, friends, that when we get to glory and stand before the Lord of glory, all will be well with our souls with the explanation at that time. But although I don't have perfect answers as to why tragedy and trial come into my own life, I can look to my Bible and see what it has to say on the subject of when saints suffer.

And that's what I want to do today, friends. Let's take a look at what God's word has to say on the subject and we can draw our conclusions from that, perhaps not fully, but with some better understanding of why saints suffer so in this world of ours.

Suffering in a Sin-Cursed World

First of all, it's a crying planet. Tears are shed every hour by someone on this crying planet. The earth itself is under a curse because of sin and man comes into this world with a poison in his blood because of Adam's fall.

That tragic event in itself is a sad story of man's condition in this sin-cursed world. Life itself is full of conflict and trial. That in itself is necessary to build character in the individual. The mother eagle thinks nothing of pushing her young out of the nest into a free fall so they can learn to fly and if they fail to open their wings and as they're crashing towards the ground, she then flies quickly beneath them with her strong wings to catch them and protect them until they are stronger next time.

So too, God works with each of us in a training school of character. At times our trials and adversity build character into us so we can withstand a time of awful and sudden tragedy if it were to hit us like a ton of bricks almost crushing us beneath its weight.

Trials That Produce Obedience and Christlikeness

God will often let a child of his go through certain storms and adversities to build their faith and to make them more Christ-like. Sometimes God will take us through a trial to make us more obedient to him, to purge us and prune us for more Christ-likeness to appear.

This is seen in Hebrews 5, 7 through 9, which states, Who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him, that was able to save him from death and was heard in that he feared, though he were a son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered.

And being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all that obey him. Notice this passage speaks of Christ's sufferings in the plural, the things which he suffered. Notice also, friends, that obedience was the fruit of that suffering, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered.

Now notice how this passage ends with a description of a true follower of Christ. The text does not say he became the author of eternal salvation unto all that accepted him as their personal savior. It doesn't say that.

It does state how God views a servant of his. He became the author of eternal salvation unto all that obey him. Obedience is the fruit of a true convert, and at times God will take a child of his through a tremendous trial so that individual will emerge from it a more obedient servant to the king.

Faith That Endures Terrible Tragedy

And at other times, God will bring adversity into our lives to strengthen and build our faith. Go read Hebrews chapter 11, and you'll read about the hall of faith of those suffering saints who were known for their faith and their perseverance to the end.

Let me say this, friends, and I say this from personal experience, a terrible tragedy doesn't occur to build your faith. It's your already existing faith that gets you through a terrible tragedy. When my wife died, it was not a time for my faith to be built.

It was a time to lean on my savior and to stand on my faith. My faith got me through as God granted me grace to get through that terrible ordeal of grief and suffering. But there have been other times in my life where adversity has come from a providential hand to make me more Christ-like, to put me through a fiery furnace, and to purge what impurities of sin needed to be dealt with and done away with.

Divine Pruning and Dependence on the Holy Spirit

Often, when God has placed me into a time of trial and adversity, it's a pruning time where the operations of his divine pruning knife are strategically cutting away branches of the self-life which need to be cut away in order for the spiritual sap to flow in a more unobstructed manner, in order that a richer cluster of fruit may grow next time.

Did not our master say, in every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit? Oftentimes, our fruit production for God is directly related to our times of trial and adversity, which knock out from beneath us all our self-reliance and pride, which needs to go to the knife in the hand of the divine husbandman, so we can be utterly reliant upon the Holy Spirit in all we say and do.

I believe, friends, that the main curse of the modern church and our generation has been the awful neglect of the Holy Spirit. He's been replaced by many churches with money and manpower. I believe one of the most detestable things in the sight of God in heaven is a self-reliant Christian or a self-reliant church.

Jesus said, as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself except it abide in the vine, no more can ye except ye abide in me. But a self-reliant person won't do much abiding in Christ. God had to deal with me in this very manner, for I was a very self-reliant person, but God has had to get out his pruning knife on me when self-reliance rears its ugly head.

Suffering and Sharing in Christ's Cross

And at other seasons in our lives, suffering must occur so we can know the cross better in our lives. We will be brought low into utter weakness so that God can work more fully through us. Is this not what the apostle Paul spoke of when he said in 1 Corinthians 2 and verses 2 through 4, for I determine not to know anything among you save Jesus Christ and him crucified, and I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling, and my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power.

I can say this, friends, that the times when my preaching has been used to God most effectively is when I am out of the way. When I am weak, he is strong. I have preached with a broken wrist, I have preached with a broken rib, and I have preached as a broken man, and it is through that brokenness and helplessness that my reliance upon the Spirit of God is strongest, so the rivers of living waters can flow most freely.

God may be doing that in your life now, friend, to make you a more effectual weapon in his hand. I believe another answer to the suffering of saints can be found in Paul's second letter to the Corinthians in chapter 1 and verses 3 through 7, and I believe this passage speaks of how a saint will pass through a time of intense suffering and who personally will experience under that affliction the comfort of God so as to become a means of consolation to others who are suffering.

Comfort Received and Given

Verse 3 begins, Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort, who comfort us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God.

For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also aboundeth by Christ. So we see the divine purpose behind that affliction, so the body of Christ may be comforted both by being on the receiving end and the giving end, does not our Bible declare?

And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are of the called according to his purpose. Often when we read that verse of scripture, we mainly focus on the man-centered aspect of all things work together for good to them that love God.

And we fail to notice the central theme of that verse, which is the God-centeredness of it and his purpose being brought to fruition through the various trials and adversities and griefs and tragedies which the saints encounter.

Paul's Suffering for Christ's Name

This makes me think the apostle Paul, more than anything else, friends, where in the book of Acts we find the conversion of Saul, who's left trembling and astonished after his encounter with the risen Christ, how Saul is led by the hand to Damascus where he was three days without sight and neither did he eat nor drink.

But I'll make this statement, friends, Paul saw more in those three days than he'd ever seen all his life. He'd seen a revealed Christ and Christ had become precious to him. But our focus will fall on those words of the Lord as they were spoken to Ananias concerning the apostle Paul, go thy way for he is a chosen vessel unto me to bear my name before the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel for I will show him how great things he must suffer for my name's sake.

That's the key statement, friends, of the life of the apostle Paul. The great things he suffered for Christ Jesus in the spread of the gospel of the son of God. Listen, dear friend, when you're a follower of Christ Jesus, all hell will come against you.

Your enemy, Satan, is a terrible foe far superior to any human Goliath you may face. And if you are engaged in spreading the gospel of the son of God to this generation, I can promise you one thing, friend, you will suffer for his name's sake.

That's a guarantee. Yes, saints suffer. Some suffer more intensely and more frequently than others for greater usefulness to God. More fruit, more pruning. Some suffer for various reasons under the providential hand of a sovereign God for his purpose and for his glory.

God's Sovereign Purpose in Adversity

But in all our suffering, we must know that God is a tender father who has our very best interest at heart. In Jeremiah, God declares, for I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil to give you an expected end.

I like what the Puritan William Bridge wrote in his wonderful book, Lifting Up for the Downcast. William Bridge commented, sometimes God permits this cloud to rise upon the peace and comforts of his people that he may train them up to more perfection.

Comfort is the children's milk. And those words bring us again to Romans 838 and the purpose of God and the adversities of his saints. I'll never forget my late homiletical mentor, Stephen Offord, preaching the most powerful sermon on Romans 828 ever witnessed in my life.

There was Dr. Offord up there in the pulpit sounding forth on the purpose of God and a believer's life through trial and affliction. And he told the story of a relation of his in England who owned a pharmacy.

This man was a chemist. And one day Stephen Offord dropped by his pharmacy shop to find this man in the back standing at a table with various bowls and containers before him. And this chemist took a little of this colored liquid and a little of that colored liquid and threw in a little powder and then mixed it all up in a big mixing bowl.

And Dr. Offord commented, and that, my dear friends, is exactly what the divine alchemist does. He takes a little of this and a little of that of each trial and grief in our life and mixes it all together for our good and his purpose.

And I think that's a fitting ending to our study today, friends, on when saints suffer. For whatever trial we go through or whatever affliction we are bowed under, we know that the divine alchemist is mixing it all together for our ultimate good and for his purpose.

Let us pray.