SUFFERING
SUFFERING -2 Thessalonians-Divine Judgment Never Sleeps So that we ourselves glory in you in the churches of God for your patience and faith in all your persecutions and tribulations that ye endure: Which is a manifest token of the righteous judgment of God, that ye may be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, for which ye also suffer: Seeing it is a righteous thing with God to recompense tribulation to them that trouble you; {2 Thessalonians 1:4-6}
Why suffering for godly people? This question frequently surfaces in terms of a September 11, 2002 event, but it no less appears when an individual believer comes face to face with a catastrophic personal crisis. Sadly many who otherwise demonstrate reasonable faith crumble under pressure and use the event as an excuse for a major pity party.
Still other believers struggle a bit more with the problem. "God is testing me. What does he want me to learn?" Not a bad way to view your problem, but this reaction too falls short of Paul’s primary point in our passage. No doubt God intends to teach us through trials. While we would be quite content with the status quo, he intends to grow us stronger in our faith and in our fellowship with him. Is this the primary purpose for which God allows suffering in our lives, or is it a side benefit to a greater purpose?
It is amazing that we sometimes fall into the "God is testing me" syndrome on the premise that God wants to see how strong we are, how much we can endure. Out of our theological mindset we freely proclaim God’s omniscience, his all-knowingness. Then out of our experiential and sentimental mindset we say that God is testing us with the obvious implication that he actually doesn’t know for sure just how faithful or strong we are in our faith. So which is it? Does he know everything, or doesn’t he? If he is omniscient, he fully knows precisely how strong or weak we are in our faith. He has no need to put us to the test to know our standing. This dichotomy serves as a perfect example of the dangers of sentimental Christianity rather than Biblical Christianity. We freely criticize the New Age movement, and with good reason, but then we fall into the same error of relativistic sentimental religion on which the New Age ideas stand. One need only read briefly in Irenaeus’ Against Heresies, a classical second century work that refuted the contemporary gnostic claims to Christian roots. Irenaeus as a youth is reported to have learned his Christian foundations from Polycarp, himself a disciple of the apostle John. In many ways to read the gnostic errors that this giant of our faith confronted echoes much of the modern New Age philosophy’s foundations, further corrupted only by its incorporation of Hindu teachings. Irenaeus’ commentary regarding the exclusive source of Christian truth in the public writings of the apostles and a few men close to them, the canon of Scripture, not from a spurious secret verbal source or "revelation," stands out as a timeless appeal to Scripture alone as the believer’s source of spiritual knowledge and authority. So if God has no need to learn how faithful or strong in faith we’ll be in trial, and if his primary design in suffering is not to teach us greater depth in Biblical truth, why does he allow it in our lives? In2 Thessalonians 1:4Paul commends the Thessalonians for their patience and faith in their intense trials. We cannot overlook that first century Christians lived under almost constant threat against their lives and property due to their public faith. "I’m a Christian, but I don’t talk about it" would have shocked these giants in the faith, shocked them with shame that their pretended successors in the noble faith of their Lord Jesus Christ would live in timidity of faith or in ignorance of their Biblical obligation to serve as beacons of spiritual light in a dark world.
Let’s try something novel! Let’s grab Paul by the hand and allow him to lead us where he wants us to go with this nagging question. Which is a manifest token of the righteous judgment of God. What is it that serves as this token, this proof of God’s righteous judgment? And to whom does it serve as a "token" or proof of his righteous judgment? The text flows; it isn’t broken up into bite-size verses that, proverbs-like, stand alone and apart from their contextual setting.
It seems that the context of the passage leads us to consider that suffering Christians are not allowed to endure their trials to enable God to learn something he doesn’t already know. Rather he allows suffering to enable us to learn the power of his grace in our lives. Whether it be Abraham in the Old Testament or you and me today, God sends or allows trials and testing so as to instruct us in the weight of his incredible power.
Patience and faith aren’t the ordinary human response to suffering! They only appear when God is working in the trial and when we respond to him, not to the trial!
Pause and spend a few hours reading the book of Job and considering particularly the first few chapters where we listen in on a conversation between God and Satan, a conversation that Job never knew about. From the beginning God knew how Job would respond to trial. It was Satan, not God, who doubted his faith. Without a question God taught Job many things that he didn’t know before his suffering began. However, what is the point of Scripture with Job’s experience?James 5:11cuts through forty two chapters of the Old Testament narrative and gives us the divine perspective in one simple sentence! God intended the Job-experience to reveal to us his tender compassion upon his people. In our lesson it is not the mere presence of suffering that becomes a direct evidence of divine judgment and justice. It is rather the way faithful believers respond to that suffering that magnifies God and gives glory to him! Had the Thessalonians plunged into a sentimental pity-party, wallowing in self-pity and complaint, would their suffering still have applauded God’s righteous judgment? I think not.
What does this lesson teach us? When suffering or unpleasantness invades your life, and rest assured that it will, how will you react? Don’t wait till it happens and then react with shock and disillusionment. Prepare for it every day with intense time in Scripture and in absorbing meditation on its relevance to your life. Don’t merely use the Bible to put yourself to sleep at nights. Use it to wake yourself up in the morning as well! Don’t try to build your whole life outside the light of Scripture with the excuse that it is no longer relevant or sufficiently clear in its message to teach you anything about how to really deal with life. Get so close to it with your mind and your heart, with you intellect and your emotions, that spiritual osmosis will occur. It will work its way through the pores of your soul into the deepest fabric of your being. Allow its refreshing moisture to revive the dry bones of life lived only for self-gratification. {Psalms 32:1-11} The message in this passage startles and challenges us. Perhaps more than at any other time in our lives, when suffering and trials invade our life, we have a golden opportunity to demonstrate God’s grace and righteous judgment. Instead of complaining, "Why would God allow such a thing to happen to me?" respond to your suffering with patience and faith. When Christians face difficulty, the whole world watches! How will we react in the moment of test? Will we abandon every tenet of our faith and join the self-centered and the godless in their "It isn’t fair" complaint? Or will we react in patient faith so that onlookers will be amazed and refreshed by our faithful endurance?
Suffering will come in our life. Don’t doubt it. We can’t know when or what form it will take. We may live as if the Garden of Eden never occurred and react with amazement when trials surprise us. Or we may spend daily time absorbing the Biblical worldview that prepares us for suffering when it inevitably comes. So what is the major purpose in our suffering? While divine instruction no doubt should occur, God has a far greater design than our instruction. He intends to use our learning in suffering to proclaim his glory! Instead of responding to suffering so that weak Christians and unbelievers react with "How could a good God allow.?" we have the incredible opportunity to respond to it so that they will be amazed at God’s tender goodness. You see, we may face our suffering in our own weakness, or we may face it in God’s strength! One reaction will feed the fires of unbelief. The other will urge people to consider the incredible power and goodness of God. When your trial comes, how will you react? Don’t know? Well today is the best time to change. Build the habit of living so close to God that osmosis, the wondrous absorption of his power and vitality into your life, will transform you into a living demonstration of his power and of his righteous judgment. May He be praised in our suffering!