More On Suffering

Key Scripture

Isaiah 52 verses 13-15, the suffering servant, ‘Behold, My Servant shall deal prudently; He shall be exalted and extolled and be very high.  ¹⁴ Just as many were astonished at you,  So His visage was marred more than any man, And His form more than the sons of men;  ¹⁵ So shall He sprinkle many nations. Kings shall shut their mouths at Him; For what had not been told them they shall see, And what they had not heard they shall consider.

Isaiah 53 verses 1-12, ‘Who has believed our report?  And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?  ² For He shall grow up before Him as a tender plant, And as a root out of dry ground.  He has no form or comeliness;  And when we see Him, There is no beauty that we should desire Him. ³ He is despised and rejected by men, A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.  And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him;
He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.⁴ Surely He has borne   our griefs  And carried our sorrows;  Yet we esteemed Him stricken,
Smitten by God, and afflicted. ⁵ But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, And by His stripes we are healed. ⁶ All we like sheep have gone astray; We have turned, every one, to his own way; And the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. ⁷ He was oppressed and He was afflicted, Yet He opened not His mouth; He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, And as a sheep before its shearers is silent, So He opened not His mouth. ⁸ He was taken from prison and from judgment, And who will declare His generation? For He was cut off from the land of the living;
For the transgressions of My people He was stricken. ⁹ And they made His grave with the wicked— But with the rich at His death, Because He had done no violence, Nor was any deceit in His mouth.  ¹⁰ Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief. When You make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days, And the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hand.  ¹¹ He shall see the labor of His soul, and be satisfied.  By His knowledge My righteous Servant shall justify many, For He shall bear their iniquities.  ¹² Therefore I will divide Him a portion with the great, And He shall divide the spoil with the strong,
Because He poured out His soul unto death, And He was numbered with the transgressors, And He bore the sin of many, And made intercession for the transgressors.

Luke 23 verses 33-49, ‘³³ And when they had come to the place called Calvary, there they crucified Him, and the criminals, one on the right hand and the other on the left. ³⁴ Then Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do.”  And they divided His garments and cast lots. ³⁵ And the people stood looking on. But even the rulers with them sneered, saying, “He saved others; let Him save Himself if He is the Christ, the chosen of God.”  ³⁶ The soldiers also mocked Him, coming and offering Him sour wine, ³⁷ and saying, “If You are the King of the Jews, save Yourself.”  ³⁸ And an inscription also was written over Him in letters of Greek, Latin, and Hebrew:  ³⁹ Then one of the criminals who were hanged blasphemed Him, saying,  “If You are the Christ, save Yourself and us.”  ⁴⁰ But the other, answering, rebuked him, saying, “Do you not even fear God, seeing you are under the same condemnation? ⁴¹ And we indeed justly, for we receive the due reward of our deeds; but this Man has done nothing wrong.” ⁴² Then he said to Jesus, “Lord, remember me when You come into Your kingdom. ⁴³ And Jesus said to him, “Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise.”  ⁴⁴ Now it was about the sixth hour, and there was darkness over all the earth until the ninth hour. ⁴⁵ Then the sun was darkened, and the veil of the temple was torn in two. ⁴⁶ And when Jesus had cried out with a loud voice, He said, “Father, ‘into Your hands I commit My spirit.’ ” Having said this, He breathed His last.  ⁴⁷ So when the centurion saw what had happened, he glorified God, saying, “Certainly this was a righteous Man!”  ⁴⁸ And the whole crowd who came together to that sight, seeing what had been done, beat their breasts and returned. ⁴⁹ But all His acquaintances, and the women who followed Him from Galilee, stood at a distance, watching these things.

Jesus in Isaiah is known as the suffering servant, the Lamb of God slain before the foundation of the world. He is our prime example of suffering that we can refer to: because although we may shudder at the immense pain he endured on the cross, he also suffered spiritually by becoming and being separated from God the father by taking upon himself the sins of the world past, present and future. He died for my sin, who is writing this now, to all of you who are reading this now and soaked up the wrath of God for all of us ever born.

No one can compare their sufferings with the sufferings of Christ and because of this he can truly understand and identify with all who suffer or who all who have suffered throughout time. Let me make this bold statement right now. All Christians are called to suffer to a greater or lesser degree because to follow Christ is to take up the cross of Christ and encounter suffering as part of the journey of faith. This has been my experience and many other godly men and women I have known and know today. They must endure hardship as soldiers of Christ not expecting our reward until Christ himself returns according to his word!

There is heresy rife within many church streams today: and it is that Christ will heal everyone who prays in the name in His Name and this is a mess perpetuated by many leaders, teachers, pastors and theologians to gain followers and believers: it is not a biblical perspective, in fact many Christians are called to fill up on the sufferings of Jesus Christ!

In many churches I have seen damaged Christians condemned and judged by their fellow Christian brothers and sisters for they have been prayed for and are not healed! How many Christians through the ages have been written off as had not having faith or having hidden sin in their lives when they are not healed! Healing is God's choice not ours, as we have free will so he has sovereign free will! Job was afflicted and suffered through no fault or choice of his own and of course we have Jesus as our prime example, but for me Saul who became Paul the apostle is who I want to focus on in this study.

Paul who was Saul, a persecutor of the disciples and followers of Jesus, encounters the risen Lord on the road to Damascus. He is led, blinded by the light of God's glory into the city of Damascus and their waits for three days. A messenger is sent to him from God and Ananias lays hands on him that he might receive his sight. The message Ananias is given is found in Acts 9 verses 15 and 16, ‘¹⁵ But the Lord said to him, “Go, for he is a chosen vessel of Mine to bear My name before Gentiles, kings, and the children of Israel. ¹⁶ For I will show him how many things he must suffer for My name’s sake.”

There is not time or space that I have to point out all the sufferings of Paul injured on his ministry and service to and for Christ, but it has been said that if Paul were alive today he would be disbarred from most churches because of his obvious sense and lack of faith in the healings of Christ. There's a saying that is circulating the church today that Satan only attacks the effective Christian disciples, not the unaffected Christian: because the ineffective Christian is no threat to him. We see this reflected in job's life and Pauls as well!

2 Corinthians 11 verses 22 to 31 perfectly illustrates this point, ‘²² Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they the seed of Abraham? So am I. 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 frequently, in deaths often. ²⁴ From the Jews five times I received forty stripes minus one. ²⁵ Three times I was beaten with rods; once I was stoned; three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I have been in the deep; ²⁶ in journeys often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils of my own countrymen, in perils of the Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; ²⁷ in weariness and toil, in sleeplessness often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness— ²⁸ besides the other things, what comes upon me daily: my deep concern for all the churches. ²⁹ Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is made to stumble, and I do not burn with indignation?  ³⁰ If I must boast, I will boast in the things which concern my infirmity. ³¹ The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is blessed forever, knows that I am not lying.’

Philippians 1 verse 29 says this, ‘²⁹ For to you it has been granted on behalf of Christ, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake,’

1 Peter 2 verses 20 to 21 says this, ‘ 20 For what credit is it if, when you are beaten for your faults, you take it patiently? But when you do good and suffer, if you take it patiently, this is commendable before God. ²¹ For to this you were called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that you should follow His steps:’

But let us look at the supreme example of Jesus who calls us to follow him wherever he may lead. Hebrews 2 verses 9 to 11 says this, ‘ ⁹ But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, for the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor, that He, by the grace of God, might taste death for everyone.  ¹⁰ For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings. ¹¹ For both He who sanctifies and those who are being sanctified are all of one, for which reason He is not ashamed to call them brethren,’

Through two millennia thousands of Christians, no hundreds of thousands of Christians have suffered and been martyred for the sake of the gospel and their allegiance to the Lord Jesus Christ. Today I count many of my Christian brothers, sisters and friends within this number. No one chooses to suffer but as Christians if we are called to supper for suffer for Christ's sake, let us do so willingly even joyfully knowing that as we do so we bring honour and glory to our Lord and king. At the end we will be motion conquers, overcomers and will inherit the Kingdom where there will be no suffering, pain or death. Amen.