Suffering and Dying - Our Supreme Weapon — Emanuel Esh

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Yes, Lord, You alone are our desire and we worship You. For they that worship You must worship in truth and in spirit. It's our desire, Father, and so we come to You through Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior.

Thank You for each soul who has come out this morning to come here to worship together, to fellowship one with another, to glorify God. Thank You, Lord, for those who are listening on the phone this morning.

May You touch them in the very same way that You desire to touch us, Lord. We ask You, Father, to minister to our hearts the words of life that we may walk in the path of God, the path that You have shown us, that we may follow in the steps of Jesus our Lord and Savior.

Bless the word of the Lord, bless Your words, Lord, to our hearts. Grant us open hearts to hear, and Father, would You minister life to us? This is our prayer and desire in Jesus' name. Amen. You may be seated.

I was imagining this morning that the church house would be half full or so this morning, but with the parting of the fellowship, the Joy Christian Fellowship, it's a blessing to see the house so well filled.

What a joy that is. I've been pondering recently the effects of suffering and dying, and I'd like to share a message on that this morning. Many years ago I heard someone mention in a sermon about the Christian religion that it's a very bloody religion.

They talk a lot about the blood. And amen for that, we have a wonderful thing to talk about, it's the blood of Jesus Christ which was shed for our sins and so on. In one sense you could say the religion, Christianity is a bloody religion, but I'd like to talk today about suffering and dying a little bit, and so some might think that's a negative subject, and in one sense it might be a negative subject and might be kind of a morbid subject, but I would like to say it's not that.

It's actually a subject of life, because in Christ Jesus, when you die, there will surely come life forward, and so let's not be afraid of dying or of death. I'd like to read a little excerpt in the beginning here, tell you a story about a man.

Laying Down Our Lives for Christ

I'd like to give you one verse first, and that is in Luke 14, it says, Except a man lay down his life, for my sake and the gospel, he cannot be my disciple. We're going to be talking about laying down our lives, and you might want to look at that and think of a life of self-denial, but we also want to talk about actually laying down our lives and dying for our faith.

Suffering is something we don't like to talk about, and most of us run from it like a deer runs from a lion, and we do almost anything to avoid it, but suffering is an inescapable part of the Christian life, and God does not even spare His most faithful servants from it.

And we are told to expect suffering in the Christian life. Yea, and all who live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution, whether that be an emotional persecution of pressure from your family or so forth, or whether it be actually physical persecution.

If you were to ask people who have gone through both, I think they would say that the emotional persecution is probably worse than the physical persecution. There's a story told of a man named Iosif Tsitsan, a Romanian pastor, in the days of communism in the 70s, 1970s.

This man was captured for his faith and taken to prison and was interrogated for about six months, up to ten hours a day, five days a week, simply because of his faith in Christ. The goal of his interrogators was to break him, cause him to fear and to make him their slave, and hopefully he would renounce his faith in Christ.

They wanted him to abandon his faith and to become their allies in destroying others who also believed the gospel. One of his interrogators shouted at him and said, you're going to be shot, but first I want to torture you so you will curse all that you hold sacred and holy.

And this is exactly what Satan wants to do to each one of us. When we encounter suffering, he wants us to give up on God and to distrust God in the midst of our darkest hours. Like Job's wife, she told her husband, curse God and die.

But Satan is defeated when we humbly trust God with our lives and resolutely determine that we will proclaim his glory no matter what it costs us. In the return for his cooperation, this pastor, Iosif, was promised safety and freedom.

He was faced with the choice to remain faithful to Christ or to do what his captors wanted and avoid suffering. What was his highest priority? Saving his life or glorifying God? Pastor Son responded to the promise of safety and freedom this way.

He said, what you offer me is spiritual suicide. I would much rather accept a physical death. To tell you the truth, I don't see any reason to save my own life. Just go ahead and shoot me. He then reported and said, I cannot fully describe to you that man's fury at that moment.

He suddenly realized that his whole plan to break me had failed. Why did I say that I did not need to save my life? Here is why. During an earlier interrogation, I had told another officer who threatened to kill me, Sir, let me explain to you how I see this issue.

Your supreme weapon is killing. My supreme weapon is dying. Here is how it works. You know that my sermons on tape have spread all over the country. If you kill me, those sermons will be sprinkled with my blood.

Everyone will know I died for my preaching, and everyone who has a tape will pick it up again and say, I better listen again to what this man preached because he really meant it. He sealed it with his life.

So, Sir, my sermons will speak ten times louder than before. I will actually rejoice in this supreme victory if you kill me. Your supreme weapon is killing. My supreme weapon is dying. Why does God allow suffering?

Suffering as a Christian Calling

Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. Hereby I perceive we the love of God because he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for our brethren.

And in 2 Corinthians 4, let's turn to there for a scripture. What does God want us to do? I've pondered some of the recent devastations in Haiti. The masses who are suffering and have died and are still dying there as it's difficult to get aid into that country.

I wonder what God is wanting to do. I have some thoughts about that, but let's read these scriptures here. Chapter 4 in 2 Corinthians, verse 7. We have this treasure in earthen vessels. Yes, they're just simply vessels of clay.

Why do we think so highly of them? That the excellency of the power may be of God and not of us. We're troubled on every side, yet not distressed. We're perplexed, but not in despair. Persecuted, but not forsaken.

Cast down, but not destroyed. Look at verse 10 and 11. Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body. Verse 11. For we which live, we which are alive in Christ, are always delivered unto death for Jesus' sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh.

I believe, brothers and sisters, this is a secret. That if we will bear about in our mortal bodies the dying of the Lord Jesus Christ, then the glory of God will be resting upon us, according to 1 Peter chapter 4, and then they will see the glory of God, and by that they will come to believe in Christ.

By that they at least have an opportunity to see the glory of God in someone's life. Verse 12. So then, death worketh in us, but life in you. Death worketh in us, but life in you. When I think of this principle, I believe this seems to be a universal principle of laying down a life for something else.

Even it says that Christ, the Lamb of God, was slain from the foundation of the world. And I believe, according to that, that this is a universal principle. That of one thing must die for another. Just think about the food chain with me.

In Genesis chapter 1 verse 29, God gave directions and instructions to Adam and Eve what they should eat. They were to eat of the herbs of the field and the fruits of the trees. Later on, after the flood, God gave them new instructions and told them that every living thing that is on the face of the earth shall be for their food, shall be for their meat.

In other words, up to the time of the flood, the people before the flood were given instructions to eat of the fruits of the trees and the herbs of the field. The animals, they ate the grass and so forth.

The animals were created to also eat the grass and so forth. In the beginning, the animals were not created to eat one another. Evidently not. Because there was no death in the beginning. And I don't know when the animals started eating one another.

But if you think about the food chain today, we know that in order for one thing to live, something else must die. This is the universal principle. From the beginning it was that way. Think of the grass that grows out there in your lawn.

Think of the grass that grows out there in the meadow. The cows come along and they eat that grass and that grass dies and it becomes food for them. And most of the things that we eat, we eat it because something else dies.

I looked in the pot last night while my wife was cooking. I saw some meat floating there and I said, Oh, something has died. Amen? You ever think about that? Just think about the cycle of life. I've seen this in a dictionary or a world book or something, how in the sea you have the very little minute things that grow in the water, like plankton and so forth, and something else comes along and eats that, and it's a little bit bigger, and then other fish come along and begin to eat that, and other fish eat those fish.

It's just a cycle of life. And so God has somehow ordained that life be given through death. Amen? That's the cycle. That's the Word of God. I've wondered already why the heathen are so caught up with sacrificing.

Why is it that the heathen almost all over the world are caught up with sacrificing animals or whatever it may be? I think there's a universal law deep in the heart of man that says, life comes out of death.

Life comes from death. The sailors on board the ship that Jonah had taken, when the storm came up, they found out the cause of the trouble was Jonah. So, what did Jonah say? He said, Throw me out of the ship and it will be calm for you.

Well, they did not want to be guilty for that man's blood, yet at the last they decided they would because they were so near to drowning. They finally took Jonah up and cast him out of the ship, and the storm stopped and they were fine.

And then they made sacrifice to God. Even Jonah, by dying in a sense, by laying down his own life, enabled them to believe in God. So, there's principles there. I don't know if you've ever pondered the passage in 2 Kings 3, verses 26 and 27, where it says that the king of the Moabites, when the Israelites came against him there, Israel and Judah were fighting against the Moabites.

The Moabites had been tribute to them, and the Moabite king rebelled against them, and they would not pay their taxes anymore, which was like 100 ,000 sheep or something like that a year. And so, they went after the Moabites to punish them.

And there were some miracles happening there. They were dying of thirst, and Elijah came and said, there's going to be water in the morning, and in the morning there was water flowing down through there, and the enemies, the Moabites saw the sun coming up, and they saw the reflection on the water, and it was red, and they said, oh, it's blood, they're all dying, they all killed one another, and they went in to take the spoil, and the Israelites rose up, and they took them by surprise, and they went into the Moabite land, and overtook the land, threw stones in their fields, stopped up the wells, they did all those kind of things, and they came to the chief city there, where the king lived, and they were coming in around that city, and they were about to destroy that city, and then that Moabitish king did an unusual thing.

He took his firstborn and oldest son, maybe his only son, which was supposed to be king in his stead, and up there on the wall in front of everybody, he sacrificed his son. And the Bible says that indignation broke out against Israel, and they turned back and went home.

I don't know what all that means, but there's something happens when there is a very unique sacrifice made. And I think of also when Samuel, when the Philistines came, it says Samuel took a sucking lamb and offered that lamb as a sacrifice.

It says a sucking lamb. It was a special sacrifice that he took, and he offered that to the Lord, and by that the Lord came against the enemies and just drove away with a storm or hill stones, whatever it was.

So this issue of sacrificing is a universal law. And of course we know that Jesus Christ is the supreme example of sacrifice. God gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever would believe in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.

And God sent His Son to the earth, to the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. And it was by Him willingly laying down His own life on the cross and suffering and dying there.

It is by that suffering and death that life was given to whosoever will. Amen? So we have that example there. So to willingly lay down your life for others is the greatest sacrifice that you can make.

And many have offered themselves at the altar of God and to live a sacrificial life. For one to live in this manner, whether he die while on active duty in the field, whether he be a missionary, whatever he be, one who lives a sacrificial life, I believe that if he die, it will glorify God.

While he lives he will glorify God and in his death he will be able to glorify God likewise. And when he dies, many will be encouraged by the life that he lives in the hearts of those who knew him and they will be encouraged by his life and by his death.

The world knows this likewise. Oh, I can't think of some of those rock music stars. Elvis Presley. He has become very, very famous since the day he died. He has become a legend. While he lived, they found lots of fault with him and he was a very popular man but when he died, he became king of rock music basically.

The world knows this principle it seems also. Suffering and death. Let me see it this way. There is still Satan's supreme weapon to those who are lost. To the unsaved. But to the Christian, through faith, through faith, suffering and death can become our supreme weapon.

And I think of it this way. I think of the story of not world war but maybe there are two, but especially civil war. The north and south armies would fight against each other and one of their main objections was to try to capture the enemy's artillery.

If they were advancing brigade coming up against the enemy, the enemy had a cannon that was shooting cannonballs out and destroying. Their main objective was to try to overtake that gun and if they could somehow overtake that big gun that they were using against them, then they could take that gun and turn it around and begin to shoot at them, at their enemies.

They would use the enemy's guns against them. And in a sense this is exactly what I see the opportunities that we as Christians have by faith. We can take this big gun that Satan has had for many years.

He has held it over people all these years. It is that gun called death. And by Christ on the cross, Christ playing right in the hands of the devil and laying down his life willingly, sacrificing it, dying for the whole world.

Now we have opportunity to use that same gun against the enemy. In two ways specifically. The one way is that through Christ's death we also become, have this glorious opportunity to become dead to sin.

Think about that one. Think about that one. What if you couldn't be dead to sin? You would continually be plagued with sin just coming and working and driving at you. But you know, the Bible makes it very clear that we are to be dead to sin.

Hallelujah! I get to use that same gun against the enemy and I can say I am dead to sin. And sin has no more dominion over me. Isn't that a pretty big gun for you? Amen? I think so. The second one is that we can use this same principle of death that Jesus used against the enemy to wrestle the souls from the hand of the enemy.

Jesus did. He just laid his life down and by shedding his blood he gave life to whosoever will. Now, in one sense we also can do that similar thing. We know that through sin death passed upon all men.

But then we read in Corinthians where it says, O death, where is thy sting? What a blessing! We can face death right in the face and say, You know what? I'm not afraid of you anymore. You have no more sting for me.

I'm just simply not afraid. And if we can walk in that, then we have conquered death. It must be done by faith. By faith we can say that. The fear of death has been removed. Has it? Has it? Has the fear of death been removed from me?

Or am I still afraid of dying? Am I afraid of suffering? We all kind of shudder. We don't even like to talk about that. But I think you are well aware.

That most Christians suffer.

Most Christians know what suffering really is. Dying can now become my supreme weapon. By living a sacrificial life, a self-denying life, and especially by dying a sacrificial death, life works in others.

Christian Martyrs and the Witness of Sacrifice

Laying down your life for others. Now we also can do this. Let me give you some examples. I think of our early Anabaptist forefathers, Felix Mons, when they drowned him in public in the river there in Switzerland.

They had a public drowning as a warning to everybody around there. People came by the droves, they lined the riverbanks, they lined up on that bridge to watch this public drowning. But do you know what happened?

This man went to his death with joy, speaking words of encouragement to his mother or to his wife and so forth. And the people who were around there were listening and they were confounded. They did not understand.

How could this man be so joyful in death? And that was the seed that was sown in their hearts which brought them life in Christ in due time. Peter says, that if you suffer persecution with joy, then the glory of God will rest upon you.

Many others were burned at the stake. And they would go up to the stake singing with joy and great gladness and the glory of God rested upon them. And the people saw it. In the Roman amphitheaters, as the thousands sat in the stands all around watching, they would send Christians in there, they would put these captured Christians in there.

They sent one man, Ignatius, in there. He stood there alone, all alone in this big arena with all the crowds standing around him. He stood there alone. He prayed to God until a lion came out and ate him.

And the glory of God rested upon him. Others, they would take groups of Christians out there. They would take ten or twelve of them, put them out there and they would get down on their knees and they would begin to pray and they would begin to sing and the sound of the singing just rose up all around and all the people could hear them singing.

And the glory of God rested upon them. I think of those five men in Ecuador. Jim Elliot and his four friends. Forty years ago, forty-five years ago, they had such a burden to win this one tribe to Christ, the Guaroni Indians.

And they spent days laboring in prayer and fasting and begging God to save those people. And God did save them. That tribe came to Christ. How? They laid their lives down for them. They had guns on them when they landed there on that sandy bar along that river.

They had guns along. They could have protected themselves, but they allowed these men coming out of the woods with their spears to just spear them to death. Every single one of them, those five men. And they died.

And they shed their blood. Did God hear their prayers? Yes, He did. They laid down their lives that others might live. And those men, those men with those spears, they saw the glory of God. The testimony that they gave later on was that they saw something, some kind of apparition in the heavens.

They saw something in the heavens as they killed those men. They saw the glory of God. The universal principle. This principle was not only being used by the Christians. In fact, Christians seem to not understand it very well.

At least in America. The Communists, they understood it. They were willing to die for their belief in Communism. Said one young Communist soldier when given a difficult situation where he knew he would die.

These were his words. I am willing to lay down my life so that Communism may be advanced one more step. That's what he said. The Muslims, they know this principle. They are taught that to die for their cause is the only sure ticket to heaven.

And they're exercising it. They're not afraid to give their lives. They're not afraid to die. They're not afraid to strap on those explosive belts and walk into a supermarket and blow everyone else up.

They're not afraid to do that. What has happened since they blew up the towers or brought the towers down? What has happened? Islam is spreading across the U .S. like never before. Islam is spreading across the world in ways like it never did before that.

Islam is recognized by every nation these days. Hadn't been before that. This is a universal principle. Brothers and sisters, I believe it is. It's so hard for us American Christians. We would rather run away from suffering and death.

The Western consumer-driven culture is designed around satisfying our every desire and avoid suffering. Generally, we have a health and wealth and prosperity theology, but not a theology of suffering.

We've been taught to live for the things of this world and it has infected our lives and our churches. I think I also need to have my theology straightened out a bit. Don't you? Many, if not most, Christians in other parts of the world have suffered and are suffering from their persecution.

No, we don't seek the suffering, but we should embrace it when it comes. Knowing that we have been there unto call, Jesus said, follow me, and I'll say, yes, Lord, I'll follow you. But in suffering, physical suffering, emotional suffering, normal Christian life.

Yes, we suffer hardship in order to meet the needs of the hurting people around us so that they can see the glory of God and find salvation for their souls. Why should the people of this world believe anything if we say...

Why should they believe anything we say if we're not willing to suffer for Christ? Why should we expect the people of the world to live for Christ if you and I are not willing to die for Him? Christ's suffering was for our propitiation.

Our suffering is for propagation. Are you with me? Our suffering is not for propitiation. Propitiation has been done. It's been finished. It's been complete. He suffered once for all, it says. And our suffering is not to redeem.

It's not to shed our blood that others may be redeemed by our blood. No, but our suffering is for the propagation of the gospel. And when we're not willing to suffer, the gospel really doesn't go forward.

These sufferings are, however, a factor in overcoming the spiritual powers that blind the people from the gospel. What happens? We tell our missionaries that we send out that if they ever get taken for hostage, we plan to not rescue them.

We plan to not pay a ransom for them. Missionaries in general do not pay ransom for their people. Why not? One of the reasons is because they don't want the people out there to learn that missionaries have money.

So, missions in general do not take ransom, do not pay ransom. The other issue I see there is that missionaries who are true in the spirit of Christ, their desire is to lay down their lives for others, to live for others.

That's what it's all about. I just heard yesterday, someone told me it was on the news. Maybe you heard it too. I only heard bits and pieces. This Baptist pastor from the U .S. gathered a group of his church people together and went to Haiti to help the poor, the needy, the suffering down there, landing in DR and going over there.

But the reason that it hit the news was because they all took their handguns along to protect themselves. You've got to have mercy on us. What do we do when our missionaries get caught or when someone suffers in a foreign country?

Let me give you a quote taken from one of these missions, a missions periodical. Rescuing brothers and sisters from persecution, on one hand, and planting churches, on the other hand, may not be compatible.

Rescuing brothers and sisters from persecution and trying to plant churches is not compatible. May not be compatible. Let me say it that way. Many well-meaning Western-based organizations have an agenda for the persecuted Christians in other countries.

They want to stop the persecution, they want to punish the persecutors, or they'll raise funds that will aid in rescuing the believers from persecution. Whereas the Scripture teaches us to expect persecution and to rejoice when it comes.

Yes, pray for those who are persecuted, but how do I pray? How do I pray when I pray for them? Lord, stop the persecution? No, pray for endurance. Pray for strength to stand and pray that God would be glorified and souls saved through it.

When an ambassador of Christ speaks the truth in love and meets death with joy, then eyes are opened to the Gospel. And Christ's own death had this same effect on one of His persecutors, one of His executors, which was the centurion.

When he saw all of that, he said, truly this is the Son of God. And when martyrs meet their death without fear, they demonstrate to all the principalities and powers in the heavenly places that Satan's ability to control by fear is broken.

In other words, when a martyr dies without fear, he demonstrates to everybody around and to all the heavenlies that the power of Satan is broken and that fear has no power over him. Paul echoes this purpose when he says that he was a spectacle unto the world and both to angels and to men.

Do you realize, brother and sister, that you are a spectacle in the world, to the world, to angels and to men? And I suppose that means both good and bad angels. They're watching. In 1936, the Herbert Grings family, missionaries to African Congo.

This is Darrell and Louise's parents. And recently a little book came out that I got this out of. Their life story of their traveling through the interior of the Congo and going from village to village preaching and teaching.

And his wife, Ruth, was the white woman. She taught the Bible to many, many young people and to children. Taken by the Blackwater fever, a mosquito-borne disease, ended wasting her life away and dying there in the middle of that village.

The natives were petrified as they watched the process of the burial of the first white woman's death they'd ever seen. They had no way of dealing with death themselves. And many Africans are still at the same place.

When someone dies, there is a loud, loud wailing, screaming, crying, throwing themselves on the floor. They absolutely have... Their greatest fear is death and death has come again. And they're just petrified.

They're just... It just... It takes everything out of them because they fear death. That's their greatest fear is death. And here they observed this white woman and this family. They watched the family when this woman had died.

And they saw the father dig that grave, lay his dear wife in that box and watched... They all gathered around to watch to see how this family handles death. And as that father and the children put their mother in the grave and buried her, singing praises to God, they watched and were terrified.

They had never seen anyone die like that before. A couple of days later, five young men who she had been teaching the Bible, they came and they said, Missionary, we want to become Christians. And he said, Why did you wait so long?

Why did you wait so long? They said, What you preached all these years, we knew it was good for living. But now we know it's good for dying. Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Rejoice and be exceedingly glad for great is your reward in heaven for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you. But before all these they shall lay hands on you and persecute you delivering you up to the synagogues and in the prisons, being brought before kings and rulers for my name's sake.

And Jesus said in John 15, 20, He said, Remember the word that I said unto you. The servant is not greater than his Lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they have kept my sayings, they will keep yours also.

Paul's Example of Sacrificial Ministry

Let's look further in 2 Corinthians 4. In chapter 6. Let's go to chapter 6. Oh, may we be like Paul. Chapter 6. Verse 3. Giving no offense in anything that the ministry be not blamed. Verse 4. For in all things, all things, what are the all things approving ourselves as the ministers of God?

What are the all things that approve us as ministers of God? In much patience, in afflictions, in necessities, in distresses, in stripes. That means whippings, in imprisonment, in tumults, in labors, in watchings, in fastings.

By pureness, by knowledge, by long-suffering, by kindness, by the Holy Ghost, by love unfeigned, by the word of truth, by the power of God, by the armor of righteousness on the right hand, on the left, by honor and dishonor, by evil report and good report, as deceivers and yet true, as unknown, yet well-known, as dying, and behold, we live, as chastened and not killed, as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing, as poor, yet making many rich, as having nothing, yet possessing all things.

Paul is saying, in all things, approving ourselves as the ministers of the gospel. Is anyone called to preach the word? Is anyone called, specifically called, to preach the word of God? Here you are. This is your assignment.

In one sense, we're all called to that very same thing. Chapter 11 of 2 Corinthians, verse 23, Are they ministers of Christ? I speak as a fool. I am more. In labors, more abundant. In stripes, above measure.

In prisons, more frequent. In deaths, often. Of the Jews, five times received I forty stripes, save one. Thrice was I beaten with rods. Once was I stoned. Thrice I suffered shipwreck. A night and a day have I been in the deep.

In journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by my own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren.

In weariness, painfulness, watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, cold and nakedness. Besides those things that are without, that which comes upon me, the care of all the churches. And then in chapter 12, he talks about his visions and glory in them.

And he says, he was taught not the glory in those things, but rather, verse 10, he says, verse 9, when he asked the Lord three times about the thorn in the flesh, he said, God said to him, my grace is sufficient for thee, for my strength is made perfect in weakness.

Oh, that we would grasp the power of a sacrificial suffering and death, a life in Christ. Most gladly, therefore, will I rather glory in my infirmities that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore, I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake, for when I am weak, then am I strong.

So many times, I do believe that this American culture has programmed us, has affected us.