SCRIPTURE assures us that it is better, if God should so will, for a Christian to suffer for well-doing than for evil-doing. The possibility of either kind of suffering is very easily understood. For it cannot be denied that there are those who bring suffering upon themselves and others, through acts of self-will, just as there are those who pass through tribulation in the pathway of obedience to God.
It is interesting and profitable to trace instances and teaching as to both these kinds of suffering in the Word of God. In Psalm 112:17, we read―
“Fools because of their transgression and because of their iniquities are afflicted. Their soul abhorreth all manner of meat; and they draw near unto the gates of death. Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble, and He saveth them out of their distresses.”
These words might be easily applied to a man who had never turned to God, or who was not a Christian, but at the same time they fitly describe the experience of believers who backslide and suffer in consequence. They may be taken to illustrate the experience, at one time in his life, of a man like Jonah, who was a true prophet of the Lord.
“Now the word of the Lord came unto Jonah, the son of Amittai, saying, Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it, for their wickedness is come up before Me. But Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord.”
The avowed reason which Jonah gives for this conduct (4:2) may not have been the only reason why the prophet fled from the Lord’s presence, as he did. The people to whom the Lord would send him were evidently offensive to him. He had no love for them. Possibly he thought of their difference of speech, of food, and habits of life. No doubt he would have been willing to be sent to one of the cities in his own country, but he did not relish being sent to Nineveh. But the servant of the Lord is not to be allowed to choose his own path. If he seek to do this, he will suffer, and the suffering will be through his own transgression and disobedience.
“The Lord sent out a great wind into the sea.”
It will not be denied that the wind was on Jonah’s account. Jonah was choosing a path away “from the presence of the Lord,” and the Lord would see to it that the path chosen in self-will should not be a smooth one. The floods of great waters evidently made the prophet afraid.
The storm which the disobedience of Jonah brought on himself filled the mariners with fear and involved the loss of valuable property, seeing that they
“cast forth the wares that were in the ship into the sea to lighten it of them.”
In chapter 2, the repentant prophet tells out his own experience. He “cried by reason of his affliction.” He was, as it were, in the belly of hell, and all God’s billows and waves passed over him. True, he cried unto the Lord in his trouble, and the Lord saved him out of his distress. But it cannot be denied that he brought the trouble on himself. He knew he was going contrary to the word of the Lord when he took the passage, and went on board the ship for Tarshish. Was he not in all this a “fool” like those described in the Psalm, who “because of their transgression, and because of their iniquities, are afflicted”? Are there not servants of the Lord today suffering through a similar disobedience? Some may have been called of God to go to China, or other heathen lands, and have evaded the call to their own loss. “Son, go work today in My vineyard,” is a word direct from God which is not always obeyed. In the parable in Matthew 21:3030And he came to the second, and said likewise. And he answered and said, I go, sir: and went not. (Matthew 21:30), one of the two said, “I go, sir, and went not.” It is one thing to talk about going, or even to promise to go, and something very different to go. But Jonah’s case shows how a servant of the Lord may disobey a call to his own loss; and suffer in consequence.
It is true that Jonah in his sufferings is a type of Christ, but with this difference between the type and the Anti-type, that whereas Jonah suffered for evil-doing, Christ suffered according to the will of God, and in perfect obedience to His commandment, His suffering in obedience is foretold in these words:
The disaster to the ship in Acts 27 is a further illustration of sufferings which ensue from departure from the word of the Lord. All Scripture readers may not have noticed that the sufferings of that terrible voyage might have been avoided, if the ears of those on board had been open to receive the mind of the Lord. For they were warned by no less a personage than the apostle Paul not to enter on the dangerous part of that journey.
We read in verse 21:
“But after long abstinence Paul stood forth in the midst of them, and said, Sirs, ye should have hearkened unto me, and not have set sail from Crete, and to have gained this harm and loss.”
It needs a very attentive ear sometimes to catch the indications which God gives of His mind. Sometimes the manifestation of His will is so apparent that it cannot well be missed. But at other times it is not so plain, perhaps through a parent or a godly brother, and unless we “hearken diligently” we miss it. Selfishness may have prevented the passengers on the ship, or rather perhaps those who had the management of it, from acting on the apostle’s advice. The place was not good enough for them. We read, “Because the haven was not commodious to winter in, the more part advised to put to sea from thence” (ver. 12). The advice of the greater number in this case was wrong. What seems a commodious place or a commodious post to one person does not always seem commodious to another. As in this case, many “go further and fare worse.”
Israel of old had “the cloud of the Lord” to lead them by day and by night. This cloud is a type of the divine guidance which is given to Christians now. But in the case we are considering, the guidance which God was evidently ready to give from the lips of His apostle was not accepted, and so the “harm and loss” were incurred in consequence. Is not this a warning to us all to take heed to our ways?
But we have seen that our blessed Lord always obeyed, yet the pathway of obedience, for Him, was one of suffering. He received the commandment of His Father to lay down His life for the sheep. He and He alone suffered as a sacrifice for sin. He was forsaken of God on account of our sins. No Christian is called to suffer in this way. Yet the apostle speaks of his sufferings for the saints, and of filling up that which is lacking of the afflictions of Christ in his flesh for the sake of the body of Christ, which is the Church (see Col. 1:2424Who 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: (Colossians 1:24)). He bore in his body the marks of Jesus. This kind of suffering is fellowship of Christ’s sufferings. It is the experience of those who take up their cross and follow Christ. None trusted in the death of Christ alone as Paul did for salvation, yet none suffered as this apostle did in fellowship with Christ. Some find it difficult to take Christ both as a substitute and as a pattern. Many are in danger of pressing the one truth at the expense of the other. And “who is sufficient for these things”? Yet both these truths which in themselves contain the substance of individual Christian life, were fully taught and exemplified by the apostle Paul.
Thank God that if there are Christians who, “because of their transgression and because of their iniquity,” have been afflicted, those have never been wanting who were ready to suffer according to the will of God. This kind of suffering has not been limited to Christ and His apostles. Not a few of God’s devoted servants, in obedience to His will, met their deaths, and are sleeping, until He come, in the dust of tropical Africa and of the empires of the East. And who shall limit the number of those who have suffered according to the will of God (in some cases sufferings worse than death) in all countries, and throughout the Christian centuries, not because of their transgressions, but because of their faith in Christ, and their steadfast service for Him in the confession of His name?
David had his mighty men. Three of them were with him in the cave of Adullam. They heard him express the longings of his heart:
“Oh, that one would give me drink of the water of the well of Bethlehem.”
David did not ask them personally to go. But
“the three brake through the host of the Philistines and drew water out of the well... and brought it to David” (1 Chron. 11:17, 1817And David longed, and said, Oh that one would give me drink of the water of the well of Bethlehem, that is at the gate! 18And the three brake through the host of the Philistines, and drew water out of the well of Bethlehem, that was by the gate, and took it, and brought it to David: but David would not drink of it, but poured it out to the Lord, (1 Chronicles 11:17‑18)).
The water appeared to David as “the blood of these men.” It was to him too valuable to drink, and he poured it out to the Lord. Some of Christ’s servants are equally, and even more, devoted than David’s mighty men were. They discern the longing of the heart of Christ for souls in far-off lands, which is a far deeper longing than that of David for water from the well of Bethlehem. They hazard their lives in His service. It is for His sake they go forth. It is written of them, and the words ought to be applicable to all Christians abroad and at home.
Is it not better to suffer for Christ’s sake than to suffer because of our own disobedience. If we are true Christians we may count more or less on the one or the other. Happy the Christian who in all his tribulation is able to maintain a good conscience, and able to say―
“All this is come upon us; yet have we not forgotten Thee” (Ps. 44:17).
Such was the apostle Paul, and may we have grace to follow him as he followed Christ.
T. H.