September 1931
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T h e
K i n g ’ s
B u s i n e s s
Sometimes we are perplexed in the midst of suffering, and we wonder whether the trials through which we are passing are the kind of trials that God would have us to endure. As one Christian put i t : “I should be glad to pass through any kind of suffering; but somehow it does not seem to me that the kind of sufferings I am pass ing through are the kind that will accomplish anything. Add I cannot1understand why . Gpd would desire me to suffer, when I am doing the very best I can to serve find to please Him.” But this is just the kind of suffering appointed for us of God: “For this is thankworthy, if a man for conscience toward God endure grief, suffering wrongfully. For what glory is it, if, when ye be buffeted for your faults, ye shall take it patiently ? but ig when ye do well, and suffer for it, ye take it patiently, this is acceptable with God. For even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps: Who did not sin, neither was guile found in his mouth: who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suf fered, he threatened not; but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously: who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed. For ye were as sheep going astray; but are now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls” (1 Pet. 2 :19-25).> And again: “Bteloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you: But rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ’s Sufferings; that, when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy. If ye be reproached for the name of Christ, happy are ye; for the spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you: on their part hq/is evil spoken of, but on your part he is glorified. But let none of you suffer as a murderer, or as a thief, or as an evildoer, or as a busybody in other men’s matters. Yet if any man suffer as a Christian, let him not be ashamed; but let him glorify God on this behalf” (1 Pet. 4:12-16). . Paul was plainly warned at the time of his conversion that the ministry of suffering awaited him: “For I will shew him how great things he must suffer for my name’s sake” (Acts 9:16). This was not the Lord’s vengeance against His servant, but rather, a necessary ministry of suffering in order that the church of God might be called out and completed. Again it will be seen by the passage in 1 Peter 4 that this suffering on the part of the Christian has to do with the building up of the church: “For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God? And if the righteous scarcely Be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear? Wherefore let them that suffer according to the will of God commit the keeping of their souls to him in well doing, as unto a faithful Creator” (1 Pet. 4:17-19). S uffering for th e S ake of O thers . We are all familiar with the effect of suffering in our own lives and in the lives of others, and we know that suffering is necessary for our own development in the Christian life. Tribulation worketh patience, and without tribulation, there could be no patience. What kind of a Christian life would that be in which there was no suf fering and no patience? It is only as we are willing to endure hardship as good soldiers of Jesus Christ that we learn how to carry on in the good fight of faith.
my reins. So foolish was I, and ignorant: I was as a beast before thee” (vs. 15-22). K nowledge of C om I ng E vents D emands F orbearance I heard of a woman, the godly wife of an ungodly husband, who surprised her husband and his friends, as well as her own friends, by her "patience and kindness to her husband and his partners in sin. It is said that her husband was in the habit of coming home at almost any time of the day or night with a crowd of his friends and ordering her to prepare them an elaborate meal. She always responded patiently and cheerfully without a word of coniplaint. Finally one of her friends asked her how she could do that. And she answered : “My husband is a lost man. He will not be here very many years, and after that, unless he is saved meanwhile, he will have an eter nity of woe with no one to minister to him. I am his wife, and I feel that I must make the time here for him as pleasant as possible, in view of the awful suffering which awaits him.” This came to the ears of her husband, and when he questioned her about it, she confirmed what he had heard, with the result that his heart was touched, and he was brought to God, and walked with God for several years before his death. This may let us into the secret of God’s dealings with the wicked. “The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us- ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance” (2 Pet. 3:9). W hy Do th e G odly S u f f e r ? But why do the godly suffer? As a Christian woman put it to me recently, “The Lord knows that I am not ques tioning His wisdom nor His love nor His power; but can you give me any light upon the mystery'concerning the sufferings of God’s own dear people?” “Yes,” I replied, “I think I can. For one of these suf ferers has written about it. His name is Paul. And he says: “I Paul . . . now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body’s sake, which is the church” (Col. 1 :23, 24). This does not mean that there is anything lacking in the atoning work of our Lord Jesus'on the cross of Cal vary. That was all-sufficient for the purpose, and every man who takes his place under the shelter of the shed blood of the Son of God, is saved and forever safe. But our suffering is “for his body’s sake, which is the church.” It appears that much suffering is necessary on the part of His people in order that the church may be completed and made ready for its presentation unto Him self, “a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish” (Eph. 5:27). ■Nothing is more clearly set forth in the Word of God than the necessity of this ministry of suffering on the part of God’s people. Yet we are assured that “the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us” (Rom. 8:18). “For which cause we faint no t; but though our out ward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory ; While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which áre seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen áre eternal” (2 Cor. 4 :16-18).
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