Matthew 5:11-12 “Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake. (12) Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”
The natural reaction to suffering is not one of rejoicing, and yet that is exactly what our Lord Jesus teaches us. For in the above-quoted passage of scripture our Lord says exactly that, for He says that we are to rejoice and be exceedingly glad when men revile and persecute us. In the same passage our Lord gives us the reason that we are meant to react in this way, because He has told us that great is our reward in heaven. Again it is as an act of faith that we rejoice when we suffer persecution, because we believe the words of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Acts 5:40-41 “And they agreed with him, and when they had called for the apostles and beaten them, they commanded that they should not speak in the name of Jesus and let them go. (41) So, they departed from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for His name.”
The above account in scripture is a clear example of what our Lord was speaking about when He was on the earth. For in this account the apostles had been beaten for preaching the gospel, and their reaction was one of pure joy, because they had been counted worthy to suffer shame for the name of Jesus. The apostles remembered what our Lord Jesus had taught them regarding suffering for the gospel, and it was because of our Lord’s teaching that they reacted in that manner. And so although in the natural there is nothing joyful about suffering, in the spirit it is completely different, because we have an eternal perspective on the suffering that we incur for Christ.
Hebrews 12:3 “For consider Him who endured such hostility from sinners against Himself, lest you become weary and discouraged in your souls.”
The scripture says that those who endure to the end shall be saved (Mark 13:13). And so in most cases suffering requires endurance on the part of the saint that is being subjected to whatever affliction has come upon them. In the above-quoted passage of scripture the Holy Spirit admonished the saints in Jerusalem not to become weary or discouraged. That particular church had been subjected to many years of persecution from the Jews and they had started to show signs of fatigue, which is why the Holy Spirit encouraged them in this area. And so it is normally when one is subjected to a lengthy period of suffering that one is tempted to become weary. Again the Holy Spirit puts forward our Lord Jesus as our example, for as we have already seen, Jesus suffered hostility of sinners against Himself His whole life. And so endurance will be needed when we encounter suffering in this life.
James 5:10-11 “My brethren, take the prophets, who spoke in the name of the Lord, as an example of suffering and patience. (11) Indeed, we count them blessed who endure. You have heard of the perseverance of Job and seen the end intended by the Lord--that the Lord is very compassionate and merciful.”
We have seen in an earlier section that very often, as believers that we go through seasons of suffering. There can be no doubt that suffering does require endurance, and the above-quoted passage of scripture confirms this truth to us. The example that the Holy Spirit puts forward to us in the passage is Job. As I have already stated, Job’s suffering lasted for a few months and then, as God intended all along, God restored him. Nevertheless Job proved faithful in his suffering, because at no time did he give in to the ultimate purpose of Satan’s temptation i.e. to curse God. Job’s wife on the other hand, did not endure the suffering that they went through and her counsel to her husband was exactly what Satan was hoping to achieve, for she counselled Job to curse God and die (Job 2:9). When Job encountered his trials he was already a very old man and his wife would have been of similar age (Job 32:6). However at the end of Job’s affliction, when God restored Job’s fortunes, God also blessed Job with seven sons and three daughters. The scripture specifically states that “in all the land were found no women as beautiful as the daughters of Job” (Job 42:15). When the scripture mentions his first three daughters that were killed, it mentions nothing about their beauty. So why is that? The answer to that question is that the daughters that were born to Job after his trials were from another wife. For Job’s first wife was far too old to bear the seven sons and three daughters that God blessed Job with after he proved faithful in his trials. Job’s first wife on the other hand, had not proved to be faithful during their trials. And so as Job did, we too must learn to endure suffering, for our God is faithful.
Michael E.B. Maher
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