We have been looking at Psalm 119 about the Word of God and how the Word of God affects
various areas of our lives.
One of the most difficult areas in human existence is the problem of suffering.
Why is there evil?
Where did evil come from?
And why does God let bad things happen to good people and things like that?
And it is a huge topic.
I used to think that either that there are no answers or that the answers are easy to find.
Having studied scriptures a lot over the last 37 years, I was surprised to find out that the scriptures give
us eight different answers to the problem of suffering.
I will not go through all eight of them.
Not today, at least.
Maybe another day.
But I do want us to look at three issues in relationship to suffering and persecution.
We are going to be focusing on persecution.
Regrettably, I don't have just one passage to look at.
I am going to look at four different passages.
But I will warn you ahead of time.
And I really expect you to jot down those passages and think about them during this week.
Reflect on them.
Try to understand what scriptures are saying about this very difficult and ticklish issue.
So, we are going to look at this problem, the problem of suffering, but specifically within suffering, persecution.
Let's take a look at the first answer, the most common answer.
It is so obvious that I almost want to apologize for telling you about it.
We all know it.
So, here is the question.
Why am I paying a speeding ticket?
Well, the answer is obvious.
I was driving, this is only an illustration.
I was driving 85 miles in a 65-mile zone.
And the policeman decided to pull me to the side, slow me down, and give me a ticket.
If I didn't drive fast, he wouldn't have given me a ticket.
I drove fast.
I suffer the consequences of my actions.
A results in B.
If you plant bananas, you harvest bananas.
If you plant oranges, you harvest oranges.
If you plant speeding, you harvest tickets.
Why is this friend of mine paying a fine to the IRS?
Well, because he cheated on his income tax forms and didn't report some of the money that he had earned.
He tried to hide it.
Somehow or another, the IRS people caught him, and he is paying a fine.
Again, sowing and reaping.
What we sow, we harvest.
You know, why was Dahmer thrown in jail for life?
That's many years ago, if you remember that incident.
Well, because he killed people.
He was a serial killer.
And when you murder people like that, you pay the consequences of your actions.
To use the title of the great novel by Dostoevsky, it is Crime and Punishment.
You commit this crime, you pay this punishment.
Or to use the biblical terminology, sowing and reaping.
Or, if you want, the huge area in Deuteronomy, Deuteronomy 27, 28, blessings and curses.
If Israel, if God's people are faithful to him, he blesses them.
If God's people are not faithful to him, he punishes them and he rebukes them and deals with them sternly.
So, that is the first answer to why do we go through suffering.
Because we are paying the consequences of our actions.
Crime and punishment.
Now, I want us to move on to the second category.
And I want us to stay some time here.
It is this.
The answer is, I am going through suffering because I am doing the right thing.
In the first answer, I am doing the wrong thing and God has punished me.
In the second category, I am doing the right thing and I am evoking opposition or resistance from the ungodly.
It is not that God is punishing me because I have sinned.
It is the opposite.
I am faithful to God and therefore God approves of me.
But there is opposition in the world and I face the opposition of being faithful to God.
So, one is the result of sinning.
The second one is the result of the opposite.
Faithfulness.
Now, I want to explain something to help you understand our culture at the present.
Let me help you something.
In the West, in Western thought, we are going through a period of transition.
This period has been going on for a long time.
But it especially started to accelerate, historians tell us, around 1989.
1989 is the fall of the Berlin Wall.
It is also the time when it seems like we are abandoning a system of thought called modernism that we were in for about 200 years.
Between 1789, the French Revolution, the fall of the Bastille, and 1989, the fall of the Berlin Wall, modernism dominated Western thought.
We are now beyond modernism.
Most of our children have been born in the era of post-modernism.
Post-modernism tells us several things, many of which I disagree with.
Post-modernism tells us there are no absolutes.
There is no absolute truth.
There is relative truth.
Truth for you or truth for me.
But there is no absolute truth.
And that since all views are equally acceptable, we should learn to tolerate each other.
So the only thing that we disapprove of is intolerance.
Of course, I believe in tolerance.
I don't just want to tolerate those who disagree with me.
Jesus tells me to go beyond tolerance.
Jesus tells me not necessarily to tolerate their views, but to love them as my neighbor.
But I reject the view that there are no absolutes and that there is truth for me and truth for you.
And maybe they overlap.
But in any case, we live in our own realms of truth.
Let me just give you a silly example and then some serious examples.
Here is a silly example.
Suppose I am driving and I am approaching a stop sign.
And I notice in my peripheral vision that there is a policeman parking there.
But it is a stop sign.
What should I do then?
Should I just go through the stop sign and say,
Truth is relative.
It is truth for you.
But it is not truth for me.
Am I going to do that?
On a more serious note, there are things that are absolutely wrong.
Absolutely wrong.
Not just absolutely wrong for Americans or absolutely wrong for Germans.
The issue came up at the Nuremberg trial.
What should we do with the fact that six million Jews were killed?
What if German law said it's okay to kill Jews?
If that is legal in Germany, does it make it right?
And the answer is no.
That there are crimes against humanity.
And it doesn't matter what the U.S. law says.
And it doesn't matter what German law says.
And it doesn't matter what Japanese law says.
These are crimes against humanity.
These are absolutes.
Certain things are wrong regardless of who holds that view.
It is always wrong.
It's wrong for everybody.
It's universally.
Not relatively, but absolutely universally.
Some of those is killing people.
And of course, the worst example is Nazi Germany with six million Jews
who were sent to concentration camps like Auschwitz and Dachau.
But even before that, worse than Nazi Germany, believe it or not, is Stalin.
Nobody knows.
Nobody knows how many were killed.
Some numbers go as high as 30 million.
Others go as high as 50 million.
You may be familiar with Auschwitz and Dachau.
But there are other massacres.
Babi Yar, if you're familiar with it.
Shostakovich, the Russian composer, composed a symphony
to mourn the horrible massacres in Russia,
the Babi Yar massacre.
Sex trafficking is wrong.
It's not just it's wrong in America.
It's wrong.
Kidnapping children and forcing them to fight in an army in tribal wars is wrong.
Hijacking a plane and blowing up in midair is wrong.
Slavery is wrong.
Whether we pass laws against slavery or whether we don't pass laws against slavery,
there are certain things that are wrong.
I remember a debate at UCLA between a philosopher who was a postmodern philosopher
who was saying, there are no absolutes.
Truth is true for me and truth for you is for you.
But there are no absolutes.
And a Christian educator from the education department.
And the philosophy professor kept saying, there are no absolutes.
There are no absolutes.
It's just relative.
And then the Christian professor put him on the spot.
He really had him squirming.
He said to him, if there are no absolutes,
if what is right or wrong depends on me,
if it's right for me,
is it okay if I rape your wife and molest your daughter?
That was a public debate.
Is it okay?
If truth is relative and according to my set of values,
is it okay if I rape your wife and molest your daughter?
If the philosopher said, yes, it's okay,
I'd love to hear the conversation home between him and his wife in the car.
If he said, it's okay to molest women,
you can imagine what the woman student body at UCLA would have done.
They would have him fired the next day.
Because here's a professor who's saying, it's okay to molest women.
So there are absolutes.
The point is, suppose I recognize there are absolutes,
what should I do about it?
Knowing what is right and what's wrong
puts me in a difficult point where I have to make a decision.
What should I do about this?
There's a wonderful movie called Schindler's List about Spielberg.
About concentration camps and the killing of Jews.
The movie is in black and white.
It's completely black and white.
This is rather odd because we've had colored movies ever since,
you know, the early 30s.
But this movie is in black and white.
Spielberg decided to make it black and white.
Except for one scene,
there is a girl who is wearing a red coat.
And so in a movie that's totally black and white,
you see this little girl wearing a red coat.
That's the only time he uses color.
And so when critics asked,
movie critics asked Spielberg,
why did you allow,
why did you shoot that scene like that?
He said,
because there were so many Germans who said,
we didn't know,
we didn't see,
we weren't aware of it.
We didn't realize that that was going on.
And Spielberg says,
how can you say that you were living in that culture
and you didn't know what was going on?
How could you see my movie and not notice the red girl?
So it was his way of saying,
if we know that there is something wrong,
we cannot turn our face in the other direction
and pretend it doesn't exist.
We must do what is right
within whatever our powers is.
And the third part of it is that
when we do,
when we try to do what is right,
we will face opposition.
Sometimes the majority will not automatically agree
with the minority
and say you're right
and will champion your cause.
Sometimes the majority opposes the minority.
And if you want a wonderful but morbid,
at the same time,
book,
read Fox's Book of Martyrs.
A record of one martyr after the other
who stood up for what is right
and got himself killed.
James was beheaded.
Peter was thrown in jail.
Paul was chained and thrown in jail.
Many times later on,
Peter was crucified upside down.
Paul was beheaded in Rome.
If you stand for the truth,
sometimes you face problems.
Wilberforce is known for fighting slavery
and causing slavery to be abolished in England.
But he didn't do it in one day.
He fought against it for 30 years.
And many think that
when William Pitt,
his best friend,
ceased to be the prime minister of England,
many thought that Wilberforce
would become the next prime minister of England.
But he had developed so many enemies in parliament
for standing against slavery
when many didn't want slavery,
that they wouldn't accept him as prime minister.
So he lost the opportunity to be prime minister
for the sake of championing the slavery cause.
But he didn't regret it for a minute.
He didn't regret it.
It was doing the right thing.
So,
you have to accept the fact
that
we will face opposition.
I told you what my favorite passage in scriptures is.
Cursed be the day that I was born.
If you don't think I'm weird,
I'll tell you what my favorite promise in the Bible.
My students ask me,
are you standing on the promises of God?
And I say,
of course I'm standing on the promises of God.
What's your favorite promise?
You don't want to know.
Yes,
tell us.
Maybe it'll be my favorite promise as well.
You know what's my favorite promise in the scriptures?
In the world,
you will have tribulations.
So,
I'm expecting tribulations.
Sometimes I receive it,
sometimes more often I dish it out.
But in the world,
you will have tribulations.
Look at this wonderful passage.
Please turn with me to Romans chapter 8.
Romans chapter 8 has got to be one of my most favorite passages
because it was the passage that impacted my life deeply.
It's the passage that starts,
who can separate us from the love of God?
And concludes with,
nothing can separate us from the love of God.
Those of us who like to be loved,
that's a great passage,
especially to be loved by God.
Look at verse 35.
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?
Shall trouble,
or hardship,
or persecution,
or famine,
or nakedness,
or danger,
or sword?
As it is written,
verse 36,
please pay attention to verse 36.
For your sake,
we face death all day long.
We are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.
Why do we face death?
Why do we face sword?
Why do we face hunger?
Why do we face all these things that he lists?
Notice the answer.
For your sake.
Because of my commitment to Christ,
I am experiencing these things.
For your sake.
Jot down this verse.
Take it and reflect on it.
Romans 8, 35 and 36.
For your sake,
we face death all day long.
I want to take this idea
and take it to a higher level.
And I want to share with you
something that you may or may not have thought about,
but it is really important to think about
in the light of suffering and persecution.
Turn to Philippians 3, 10.
It's a familiar verse.
Philippians 3, 10.
Paul expresses his desires
about his relationship with Christ.
And then in verse 10 he says,
I want to know him.
I want to know Christ
and the power of his resurrection.
The power of his resurrection would be fun.
I mean, I'd like to experience that.
It would be fun to walk on water.
I wonder what the people on the beach would think,
you know,
walking on water.
I'd like to go through this wall without,
you know,
dematerializing and materializing
or whatever happens when you go through the wall.
That would be fun.
I'd like to feed 5,000 with nothing.
That's part of his resurrection.
But he doesn't stop there.
I want you to read the rest of this verse.
Philippians 3, 10.
I want to know Christ
and the power of his resurrection.
And now comes the bad news.
The fellowship of sharing in his suffering.
I want to share in the fellowship of his suffering.
Suffering.
This may sound too abstract.
Let me give you three examples from the Old Testament
that will help you understand that.
We're going to look at Moses, Abraham, and Hosea.
Three examples about participating
in the fellowship of God's suffering.
I want to begin with Moses.
What I'm going to say is so interesting
that I want you to see it yourself.
Take a look at Hebrews chapter 11,
which is saying something about Moses.
Please turn to Hebrews 11, verse 24.
Hebrews 11, 24.
By faith, Moses, when he had grown up,
refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh's daughter.
He chose to be mistreated along with the people of God
rather than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a short while.
Moses is making the most important decision of his life.
Who am I?
Where do I want to belong?
Am I part of Egyptian culture?
Or am I part of Jewish culture?
If I choose to be in Egypt, I can be prince.
I am the son of Pharaoh's daughter.
And who knows?
If my brother dies, maybe I'll become the next Pharaoh.
So he's got potential.
He's got power.
He has position.
He has wealth.
He has armies.
He has everything.
On the other hand,
if he chooses to be a Jew,
he will suffer.
And facing these two decisions,
great wealth or great suffering,
to my great surprise,
he chooses suffering over wealth.
Who in his right mind would do that?
If one of my students said that to me,
I'd yell at him.
But why?
Why on earth did he choose that?
Looking at 11, 24 again.
By faith,
Moses, when he had grown up,
refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh's daughter.
He chose to be mistreated along with the people of God
rather than to enjoy the pleasure of sin for a short while.
Look at verse 26.
If that's not a fabulous verse,
I don't know what a fabulous verse looks like.
He regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ
as of greater value
than the treasures of Egypt.
Why am I going to choose this?
For the disgrace of Christ.
How much he knew about Christ?
How much he knew about the disgrace of Christ?
I'll have to ask him in heaven.
But he knew enough
to make the most important decision
based on the disgrace of Christ.
Think about that.
Keeping that in mind,
I want you to turn to Exodus chapter 32.
A passage that you may or may not know.
But it is a wonderful passage.
One of the finest passages
about understanding,
having fellowship
with suffering.
The power of his resurrection
and the fellowship of his suffering.
Exodus chapter 32.
This is after the episode
of the golden calf.
God had told them
in the Ten Commandments,
you shall have no other gods before me.
Don't make an image.
Don't worship it.
They ignored all three commandments.
And they decided to worship
this image that they made.
And of course,
it was a terrible thing.
And Moses decides
to try to plead on their behalf.
To try to talk to God
and ask God
if God would consider forgiving them.
And so in chapter 32,
verse 30,
look at this.
32, 30.
The next day,
Exodus 32, 30.
Please turn to it.
The next day,
Moses said to the people,
you have committed a great sin,
but now I will go to the Lord.
Perhaps I can make atonement
for your sin.
The word there is very important.
Perhaps I can make atonement
for your sin.
So Moses went back to the Lord
and said,
oh, what a great sin
these people have committed.
They have made themselves
God of gold.
But now,
please forgive them.
Please forgive their sins.
But if not,
if you're not willing
to forgive their sins,
then blot me out
of the book
you have written.
Blot me out
from the book
that you have written.
Moses did not
worship the golden calf.
Moses was not involved
in the golden calf.
Moses did not participate
with the golden calf.
Moses was against
the golden calf.
But he is asking God
to forgive them.
And if God says,
no,
this sin is too terrible,
I can't forgive them.
Moses says,
can I give you
another option?
Blot me
out of the book
of life.
Why is he saying that?
What did he want to do?
Make atonement.
So think now with me
just for a second.
We have an innocent man
who loves his people
and they have sinned
and alienated from God.
So he wants to make
atonement for them.
And in the process
of making atonement,
he offers his own life.
Where else
will we see that?
At that moment,
what is Moses
participating in?
And I don't know
how much he knows about it.
But he did make
the most important decision
based on the suffering
of Christ.
Moses,
in many ways,
is like Jesus.
As Jesus goes
to the cross
in a very much
smaller way,
Moses is willing
to make atonement.
Moses
is experiencing
something
that Jesus
will experience
on a much
grander scale.
Let's look
at Abraham.
Genesis 22.
Sometime later,
Genesis 22.
This is the sacrifice
of Isaac.
Sometime later,
God tested Abraham.
He said to him,
Abraham,
here I am.
He replied,
then God said,
take your son,
your only son,
Isaac,
whom you love,
and go to the
region of Moriah
and sacrifice him
there as a burnt
offering.
Take your son,
your only son,
the one that you love,
and offer him
as a sacrifice.
Do you remember
what the voice
said at Jesus'
baptism?
baptism,
this is my
beloved son
in whom I am
pleased.
And the voice
at the
baptism,
I'm sorry,
this is my beloved
son in whom I am
pleased.
And then at
John 3.16,
God so loved
the world
that he gave
his only
begotten son,
his only begotten
son,
the one he loves.
where is that
quoting from?
It's quoting
from Genesis
22.
Abraham
loves the
son,
but he is
going to
offer him,
the only one,
the one that he
loves,
he is going to
offer him as a
sacrifice.
And guess what
the father is
going to do on
the cross?
Offer his
son,
his only son,
the one that
he loves,
and going to
offer him as a
sacrifice.
I don't know
how much
Abraham understood
that his
actions will
in many ways
mirror or
echo or
anticipate or
are forerunners,
a preview of
the cross.
And then let's
take a look at
Hosea.
God tells him,
take a woman
of adultery,
the Hebrew is
very difficult,
it's hard to
know how to
translate it.
It means
either that
she was a
prostitute when
he married her
or immediately
became a
prostitute after
he married her.
But he
marries this
woman and
she betrays
him,
she cheats
on him,
she runs
after other
men,
she chases
her lovers,
she is not
faithful to
him,
and he is
having a
very horrible
married life.
But God
asked Hosea
that in
order to
help him,
if you look
the first
three chapters
in Hosea,
because as
he experiences
this unfaithful
wife,
this adultery,
this betrayal,
this lack of
faithfulness,
he realizes that
God too is
married to
Israel,
and God
is going
through the
same thing.
Israel doesn't
love him,
Israel is
unfaithful,
Israel is
betraying him,
Israel is
chasing other
gods,
Israel is
not following
her husband.
So Hosea
is experiencing
what God
is experiencing,
Abraham is
experiencing
what the
father will
do at the
cross,
Moses is
experiencing
what Jesus
will do.
So when he
says that I
may know him
and the power
of his
resurrection
and the
fellowship
of his
suffering,
it means
on rare
occasions,
rare,
on rare
occasions,
God will
open his
private
emotional life,
he will
open a
window and
let us
look in.
God will
allow us
to see
what he
is going
through.
so God
wants us
to be
his
friends,
part of
friendship
is not
just to
show what
is good,
but also
the other
side.
The power
of the
resurrection,
the fellowship
of his
suffering.
So as I
suffer for
Christ,
I don't
say, oh
how terrible,
I say
hallelujah,
praise God,
the Lord
thinks I
should
experience
persecution
for the
sake of
Christ.
When they
came to
arrest
Polycarp,
who was
about 95,
Polycarp
was John's
disciple,
he was
about 95
years old,
and they
didn't want
to arrest
him,
I mean,
he was
known for
being so
godly and
wonderful,
and they
said,
please,
deny,
deny Jesus,
even if you
don't mean
it,
just say
it,
so we
can let
you go.
And
Polycarp
says,
I've
served
him for
all these
years,
faithfully,
and now
you do
want me to
deny him
in one
sentence?
And then
he said,
it's an
honor to
die like
Jesus.
It's an
honor.
It's an
honor.
So why
do we go
through
hardships?
Sometimes
because we
bring it
on ourselves.
We commit
crimes,
we suffer
the consequences.
Why do
we go
through
hardships?
Because we
stand for
what is
right and
are willing
to face
opposition from
those who
disagree with
us while
loving them,
not while
hating them,
loving them,
loving them.
And thirdly,
we go through
suffering because
God on
occasion says,
I want to
have a deeper
relationship with
you.
I want
you to
see my
private
life.
And that,
I think,
is just a
wonderful
honor.
Let me
pray for
you.
Lord
Father,
thank you
for this
congregation.
Thank you
for my
brothers and
sisters.
Thank you
for how
you're working
in all of
our lives.
I pray
that we
would love
you and
love our
neighbors.
help us
to be
faithful to
you,
whether it's
easy or
difficult,
whether we
are blessed
or persecuted.
Help us
to be
faithful to
you and
to appreciate
you.
I ask
these things
both for
myself and
the congregation.
In Jesus'
name,
amen.