Sermon Archives (August 19, 2001):

Why Should Christians Suffer

  Good afternoon Church.  Why should Christians suffer?   We see a lot of suffering among Christian believers.   I am sure there is a lot of suffering among you who are with us today, and many if not all are believers in Jesus Christ.   So why then should Christians suffer?    I’ve heard it quite a bit, “Well, God’s trying to teach me something.  He knows how much I can bear.   I just have to take it, work through it, and hold on to God’s hand while I am in this misery.”   Is that how you feel?    Is the nature of God such that it is His will that we suffer?   Christ, his very own son was allowed to suffer.  Why not then us?   Is it God’s plan that Christians suffer?

Today’s message will focus on (John 10:10) Jesus is speaking in this verse and he says,  “The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.”    Beloved let us bow or heads.   Father, let every believer hear this message today and the world as well.   Let us know Your nature.   Help us to understand why Christians suffer.   Is this Your plan or another’s?  Teach us Father.  And all God’s people said, “Amen”.

Why do Christians suffer?   Many minds, even religious minds, have considered this question.   So if we are going to get an answer, let us find out what is the prevailing teaching within Christianity today, among theologies, among Christian denominations.   But then, let us ask what does God say on this issue?   What does God’s Word say as to why Christians suffer?

If we were to do a comparative study of Christian teachings on this issue, this is what many denominations, Christian ministers, pastors, teachers, and evangelists teach today:   “Nothing can touch the child of God without God’s permission.  So we accept that each hurt, each problem, each difficulty as from His hand.   Seeking to learn from it, all that He would teach us, using all the resources of God at our disposal, and asking Him to make it turn out for our good and His glory.”   God knows what you can bear.   Just hold on to God’s unchanging hand.  Sounds reasonable.  It could be true.  But would somebody please tell me what that means to just “hold on to God’s unchanging hand”?   Maybe we should try and hold on to God’s hand right now.  How do you do that?  [Speaker gestures waving in the air trying to catch the invisible.]   But the theologians say, ”Just hold on to God’s unchanging hand.   God has a purpose in it all.  Everything works to good.   And from all of this pain and suffering, you will learn something from this.”   This is what much of Christianity teaches today.

Christians like to tell how they came to the Lord. Have you ever heard on Christian TV or radio, a testimony like this?  “I spent seventeen years in prison, and it was while I was in prison that I got saved.   It was while I was in prison that I came face to face with Jesus.   It was while I was in prison that I got filled with the Holy Spirit.”    Well, thank God you got saved. But did you have to go to prison?  Did you have to get on drugs, come down with AIDs, become an alcoholic or possibly a prostitute, loose your family just to come to Christ?  Are we to conclude that poor old God is so slipshod in His plan of salvation for mankind that the appropriate way one is brought to Christ is to be sent to jail?  If that is so, maybe we should turn all our churches into jails, but bars on the doors, barbed wire and gun turrets around them with guard dogs to snap at the heals of all those who attend.  Thank God you got saved, but you didn’t have to go to jail to do it.

“Well it was while I was on my sick bed.   The doctors said that I had 6 hours to live.   And I had an encounter with Jesus Christ, and I got saved.”   Thank God, but you didn’t have to get sick to get saved.   That’s just when your fat behind couldn’t move.  You couldn’t shake it any more at the disco.   While you couldn’t club it out anymore, strapped to that bed, with an IV in your hand, and a machine breathing air into you, then you had no choice.   You finally got quiet enough, so you could hear the voice of God that had been talking to you all the time.  But before you were to busy to hear His voice.   It was not God’s plan that you get sick to be saved.

Our God is a god of law and order.   Say “law and order.”   [Audience repeats]  “Law and order.”    Everything God does, has done, is doing, and will do in the future, He does based upon law and order.   God does not violate law, nor does he violate you.  So when Jesus, our kinsman redeemer, came as the substitute for our sin, he came to act on our behalf.   He took our sin, took our sicknesses, took our diseases, took our guilt, took our punishment, all out of love so that we wouldn’t have to.  

Not only that but he defeated and bound the ”thief” on our behalf.  However, it is for us to act on that victory.  Jesus said, (Mark 16:17) “These signs will follow them that believe.”   He didn’t say, “these signs will follow me.”   No, he said “these signs will follow” you “that believe.”   What are these signs?    “In My name they will cast out demons;”   God has given you the power to cast out the Devil.     Throw him out on his butt.

The Apostle Paul writes, (Ephesians 4:27)  “neither give place to the Devil.”   You see beloved, you have power and protection.  You just have to know how to use it.    We are told, don’t “give place to the Devil.”   What that says is that the “thief”, Satan the Devil can’t have a place in your life or my life, unless we give it to him.  If that’s not true, then it would be false for the Bible to say, “don’t give him a place.”    The ball is in our court.   We have to make the decisions.   That’s why God has to let things happen.   God didn’t create man as a robot; rather He gave man free will.   We decided whether or not to “give place to the Devil”.   Most people, most religions don’t know that, for as it is written (Hosea 4:6) “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.”  

No, instead of taking responsibility for our own actions, the world turns it around, “Well the Lord has a purpose in it.  God is teaching through the circumstances.”   No, dumb-dumb:  The Devil is trying to kill you!  “You know Pastor Burt, experience is the best teacher.”   Not so.   Circumstance is a teacher but not the best teacher.   I don’t have to get stoned cold drunk, run into a brick wall, have my body sail through the windshield of my car and break my neck to learn that drinking and driving don’t mix.  I learned that from watching your dumb self.   I and the rest of you don’t have to learn that way.  

God allows things to happen, because He has given us free will.   Then He gave us instructions to protect us from these screw-ups.   He wants you to learn by his Word, not by experience.   But if we are too lazy, too cool, too sophisticated, or too scholarly, then we get our backside kicked - not by God – but by the Devil.    God tells us, “neither give place to the Devil.”   Then in (James 4:7) God’s word instructs us,  “Therefore submit to God. Resist the Devil and he will flee from you.”   He never tells us to fight the Devil, because Jesus has already defeated the Devil.   Don’t let the Devil take what is yours.   Fight for your rights.   Stand up for what is yours, in the name of Jesus.  The Devil just doesn’t want us to know that.    So the Bible tells us what to do:  Cast him out.   Don’t give him a place, and resist him.   No fighting, just resist him, because “the thief doesn’t come but to steal, kill, and destroy.”  

But then in contrast Jesus tells us what is his purpose, and thereby what is God’s purpose for man.  (John 10:10) continuing…   “I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.”  Abundance, beloved!  This is what God wants for you.