No Escaping Affliction Part 3

Introduction and Review of Affliction's Purposes

0:06 This adult Sunday school class was held on March 13, 1983, at the Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey. Now let us once again bow before God in prayer, asking the special help of the Holy Spirit to give us light and understanding as once again we engage our minds with respect to very vital aspects of our life and experience as the people of God. Let us pray. Our Father, we do again lift up our hearts with praise to you for your goodness in bringing us to the light of this glorious Lord's Day.

0:50 We thank you that you have so ordered our lives that each of us sits here today in sanity of mind and soundness of body. We thank you for our civil liberties that allow us to come unmolested and unhindered to gather in this place in a public manner. And we are mindful that as the Lord's Day has dawned upon many nations, there are multitudes of your people denied this privilege and this liberty. And we would be mindful of them this morning, your people in China, in Russia, in other places where Islam and where the iron fist of godless and atheistic philosophies of government squelch the public gathering of your people. Our Father, you have commanded us to seek by your grace to be as bound with those who are in bonds. And we pray for largeness of heart that while we enjoy our blessed liberties, we may feel a sympathy of pain and concern with our suffering brethren. And now we pray that you would meet with us as again we take up this vital subject of your purposes in affliction.

2:09 Do give us light and understanding and a comprehensive insight to the teaching of the word of God, we ask through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Now for the benefit of those who are visiting with us, just a brief word of introduction and review as to what we are doing in this adult class. I trust will be helpful to you so that you will not feel totally lost in the first few minutes until you get a feeling that you are in the right place.

2:43 And I know you are not aware of what we are doing but that from the very outset you will be able to enter in with us. We are considering in our adult class and have been for a number of months, a subject that is very broad and I have entitled it Major Principles of Living the Christian Life. And we are concerned in this series of studies, not to answer the question, how does a sinful man or woman enter into life, but having entered into life to repentance, to repentance, to the Holy Spirit, to the Holy Spirit. And we are very concerned in this series of studies not to answer the question, how does a sinful man or woman enter into life, but having entered into life through repentance, to the Holy Spirit.

3:13 and faith in the Lord Jesus, how are we to live the life that he has given us in grace? And we have thus far articulated four major principles and are presently examining a fifth. And the fifth principle is this, that in living the Christian life, there is no escaping the varied pressures of afflictive circumstances throughout all of our days in this life. We then went to the scriptures for some general statements of this fact, and then we sought to consider the specific categories within which affliction comes to us. And we saw that there are some major categories set forth in the word of God, persecution from the ungodly, there is the discomfort of divine chastisement, there is the vexation from living in a godless society, and then there are what we call the afflictions of the ungodly. We put in a catch-all the tribulation of dark providences. And then we began last week to take up the very vital question, what are the purposes of God in these afflictions? If it is God who ultimately permits and orders these afflictions for his people, it is in his people's best interest to understand what God intends in these afflictions.

4:39 And last week we examined, if my notes are correct, six of these major purposes of God in affliction. And I'm sure we could ultimately pull them out of you by way of review, but in various orders. So let me, for the sake of economizing on time, simply remind you of the six purposes that you brought forth in our discussion together. First of all, they prune and cultivate our graces.

5:10 James 1, Romans 5, 1 Peter 1, 7, and John 15. Secondly, they constitute an identifying mark of our sonship. If we suffer with him, we shall reign with him, Romans 8 and verse 17. Then thirdly they lay up for us a store of rewards, Matthew 10, 5, 10-12, 2 Corinthians 4, 17, and several other passages, Then thirdly, we noted that they, I'm sorry, fourthly, that they intensify our longings for heaven, 2 Corinthians 5, Romans 8, 32 to 35.

5:54 And then we discovered from 2 Corinthians 1, 3 to 7, that our afflictions equip us to minister to others. God who comforts us in all our affliction in order that we may be able to comfort others by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God. And then finally, they fulfill the purpose of making our experience parallel to the experience of our Savior. What Christ experienced.

6:24 What Christ experienced in procuring our salvation, suffering and glory to follow, humiliation and then exaltation, becomes the pattern in the outworking of salvation in the lives of his people. Now our suffering has nothing to do with the procurement of our salvation. The procurement is wholly the work of Christ. But he procured it in a pattern of suffering and then exaltation.

6:53 Humiliation. Glorification. And the scriptures make clear that we live the Christian life in that pattern. And this life is now the period of humiliation. The period of suffering. And then when our Lord returns, we shall in the language of scripture be glorified together with him.

7:16 And in concluding our review, I want to read a statement that I wrote down from Flavel many years ago. Oh, how many have been carried to hell in the chariots of earthly pleasures, while others have been whipped to heaven by the rod of affliction. How many have been carried to hell in the chariots of earthly pleasures, while others have been whipped to heaven by the rod of affliction. Well, I'd rather be whipped to heaven than carried to hell in chariots of ease.

Affliction as an Intensified Classroom for Deeper Truth

7:53 All right, now you had a homework assignment, and that assignment was to see if you could discover other explicitly revealed purposes of affliction in the life of a Christian. We've thus far considered six of them. All right, Dave, you did your homework, you have a seventh.

8:24 All right, well, you state it, and then we'll make a judgment on it, all right?

8:38 Yes.

8:49 Hebrews chapter 10, verses 36 to 39, verse 21. Yes, I would say, Dave, that you've rightly identified this purpose of affliction, or the category you've considered, really breaks down into two of those categories. One, pruning and cultivating the grace of endurance, Hebrews 10, the grace of faith, and then also it becomes an identifying mark.

10:15 Our endurance of affliction becomes an identifying mark, a distinguishing mark of the validity of our professed faith. So that I think it does indeed fit under both of those categories. All right, anyone else come up with another category? Yes, Luis.

10:52 All right, so how would we state that, then? A divine purpose in affliction is to become a...

11:02 Okay. All right, could we call it an intensified classroom to receive deeper insights to the Word of God? All right. An intensified classroom.

11:14 Thank you, I'm glad you approve of that. Okay. An intensified classroom to teach us lessons from the Word of God. Now, theoretically, if we have the tools of exegetical theology, those of you who were here a few weeks ago will know what we mean by that, we ought to be able to expound any passage of the Word of God.

11:36 But in reality, there are some passages that only affliction will exegete. You simply do not penetrate their meaning until you enter the crucible of affliction. Okay. And so affliction often becomes God's classroom in which He expounds to us dimensions of His truth which otherwise we would never learn.

11:57 All right, very good. And there are many passages that could be brought to bear upon that. All right, someone else have another category of affliction. All right, Elaine?

12:05 All right. All right, let's turn to the passage, Job chapter 42. I think this is the passage that Elaine is referring to, Job 42. You remember now?

12:35 Now, the circumstances in which Job pens these words or speaks these words, he has come through this tremendously intense, multi-sided baptism of affliction, and now in reflecting upon it, this is what he says, verse 4, Here I beseech thee, Job 42, 4, and I will speak, I will demand of thee, and declare thou unto me. I had heard of thee by the hearing of thee. But now my eye seeth thee, wherefore I abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes. Now, was this a bum who wrote those words? Was this some guy who had been living the life of a careless, backslidden believer? What did God say about this man in terms of his basic character? He was what?

13:35 Blameless? Righteous? Above all men upon the face of the earth? So this was not a case of a man who was openly and defiantly running roughshod over God's moral standards, and yet, as a result of all that God did to him and spoke to him in the midst of his affliction, he came to this deeper understanding of God himself and of himself.

14:02 In thy light we shall see light. And as we come to know God, we come truly to know ourselves. So perhaps we could put it under the category that Louisa said, in terms of one of the aspects of truth that only affliction exegetes. The aspect of truth pertaining to the majesty and the glory of the character of God and the depths of our own heart.

14:27 We can read in Scripture,

14:31 But then let God put us into a real cauldron of affliction, and we begin to find blasphemous thoughts rising up out of our hearts and then we begin to know how desperately wicked this heart really is and we begin to find hard thoughts of God and we begin with Job to curse the day of our birth and we say, is this in me? Yes, it is in you. You say, where did this come from? It's been there all the time and it took the pressure of affliction to make it pop to the surface.

14:59 So often then affliction becomes the situation in which we come to a deeper understanding of the testimony of Scripture concerning the true condition of our hearts. You may think you're very sweet and submissive to the Lord until He really begins to lay it on you and then you begin to find how sweet and submissive you are and you begin to find dispositions and attitudes of rebellion surfacing that you never knew were there and likewise you may have some very truncated views of God and of His ways with the sons of men and even with His children. You may have heard of Him by the hearing of the ear but then in affliction you come to discover dimensions of the glory of God's infinite character that you've never discovered before. So perhaps we could put that in a separate category. I rather think that that category that Luis has mentioned is perhaps a good one to put it under. Would you feel comfortable putting it there, Elaine? All right.

Affliction as a Means of God's Providence and Deliverance

15:55 Now, someone else.

15:58 All right, yes, Joy.

16:16 All right.

16:32 All right, so often then in affliction it comes to us one believer God is accomplishing accomplishing many purposes in the deliverance of many of His people in other circumstances. All right, so you see there are wheels within wheels of God's providence and His dealings with His people and how ridiculous it is for us to think that we can make our minds and what we can see the measure of all reality in the midst of affliction. All right. Someone else.

Affliction Calls Back from Backsliding

17:01 And yes, Paul. All right.

17:22 All right. All right. Now, would you feel comfortable with the category I have and you've quoted two of the very verses I had under this category. They call us back from our backslidings.

17:57 Yeah. So affliction becomes the voice of God calling us back from our backsliding. Psalm 119 and verse 67. Very clear.

18:08 Before I was afflicted I went astray. Well, what brought him back from his strain? It was affliction. But now, at this present time, this side of affliction, I observe thy word.

18:23 And then the whole pattern of God's dealings with Israel, if you turn back to Psalm 107, you see this pattern repeated again and again in the psalm. God blesses His people with redeeming power and grace. And what do they do? They turn aside from Him.

18:43 And in the midst of their need, they cry to God. And then God comes and visits. And He blesses them with deliverance. Verse 11.

18:51 Because they rebelled against the words of God and contend the counsel of the Most High, He brought down their heart with labor. They fell down. There was none to help. He brought them under an intense and severe affliction.

19:05 And what did they do? Then they cried unto the Lord in their trouble and He saved them out of their distresses. And then we find again, verse 17, fools because of their transgression and because of their iniquities are afflicted. Their soul abhors all manner of food.

19:25 They draw near to the gates of death. Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble and He saves them out of their distresses. And so the afflictions come to be the voice of God to call His people back from their backslidings. They become many times something more than a mere voice of God.

19:45 They become a hook in their jaw in which God forcefully brings them back from their backslidings. And I also had in my notes Jonah's experience. It all seemed to be a marvelous providence when he decided that he could with a high hand disobey the voice of God. Arise, go to Nineveh.

20:05 And the verse says that Jonah rose up to flee from the presence of the Lord unto Tarshish. And there he found a ship all ready to go, favorable winds. They had a place for him. He had the money in his pocket.

20:18 If anyone could have proved from, quote, providence that it was the will of God for him to go in the opposite direction the word of God told him to go, Jonah could. So don't you determine the will of God by providence. An old Scottish preacher has a marvelous, marvelous section on the life of Jonah dealing with that. And it's as though he's talking to Jonah.

20:39 And he says, well, Jonah, everything looks nice, doesn't it? The ship is there and you have the passage money. And then he begins to describe what happens when the squall starts coming down upon that part of the world and when the ship begins to heave to and fro and when Jonah is thrown overboard. And then he says, now, Jonah, where is your favorable providence?

20:59 And he begins to talk with Jonah. And he powerfully lays out that very principle. And so with Jonah, it was this very intense and strange afflicted providence that became God's voice and God's hook to bring him back from his, his backslidings. And we see more of that in other portions of the 119th Psalm.

21:22 So that's one of the purposes of God in affliction. So don't think hard thoughts about God. Often affliction is the revelation of the largeness of his heart of love that he won't let you destroy yourself by your backslidings. And when the more gentle voice of his word has not gotten through to your ear, God gets your attention.

21:44 It's like a parent who's saying to a child, don't do that. And the child, the child suddenly has a problem of thickened eardrums. He doesn't hear. Son, don't do that.

21:53 He still goes to do it. Well, when this voice doesn't get through, you have another voice at the end of your fingers, at the end of your wooden spoon or paddle. And you get the message through to call that child back from a path of disobedience that is not in his own best interest. Well, this is what God does.

22:10 He doesn't afflict willingly. He doesn't do it because he's peaked or irritated. He does it because he's committed to make us a holy people and to have us an obedient people. All right, Sandra, you had another one?

Affliction Teaches Godly Obedience

22:24 All right, let's turn to Hebrews chapter 5.

22:34 We might consider obedience a grace of the Christian life, but it is so fundamental and pivotal to everything else. I listed this as a category that our afflictions teach us the principles of godly obedience. Afflictions teach us the principles of godly obedience. Hebrews chapter 5, speaking of our Lord, who, verse 7, in the days of his flesh, having offered up prayers and supplications with strong cryings and tears unto him that was able to save him from death, and having heard for his godly fear, though he was a son, yet learned obedience by the things which he suffered. And having been made perfect, he became unto all them that obey him, the author of eternal salvation, named of God a high priest after the order of Melchizedek. Though he was a son, yet learned obedience by the things which he suffered. Our Lord, as the incarnate word, the theanthropic person, the God-man, the two distinct natures in the one person forever, in the cultivation of his human soul, he had to learn

24:04 the principles of godly obedience. Now, does that shock you? Now, he didn't have to overcome an inherently evil nature that would pressure him in the direction of disobedience. That's what we have to wrestle with.

24:19 But even though he had no remaining sin or indwelling sin, with its positive affinity for rebellion and disobedience, his human soul had to learn the principles of godly obedience. And for our sinless Lord, what was the context in which he learned godly obedience? He learned it in the context of suffering. Now, what's involved in that?

24:48 Well, probably things that only eternity will expound to us in the presence of Christ. But surely this much. How do you know that you're obeying God on the principle that he is God, worthy of your obedience, no matter what the consequences of that obedience are to you? How do you know that you're walking by that principle if the path of obedience is always a pleasant path?

25:21 You see, the principle of godly obedience is that I regard God as a being worthy of obedience no matter what the consequences are to me. He is God, and I owe supreme allegiance to him, regardless of personal consequences. That's the principle of godly obedience. Now, how do I know I'm operating by that principle if all that God marks out for me is a path of pleasantness?

25:49 I may be simply walking that path because it's sweet to me, it's pleasant to me, it's satisfying to all of my mind, and it's the way that God is, senses, in all of my desires. But now when the path cuts through a deep valley of suffering, now we're put to the test. Am I walking on the principle of godly obedience, determined to obey God no matter what the negative consequences to me may be? That's Gethsemane. That's Gethsemane.

26:22 That's the epitome of this principle. For when our Lord comes into Gethsemane, and there faces in a new way, and again these are mysteries we can never penetrate, he knew from his conception, he knew from eternity as the second person of the Godhead, he knew throughout all his earthly ministry that he had come to die, that he would bear in himself the wrath of God against human sin, and yet in Gethsemane, what it would actually mean, what it would actually mean to go through the felt experience of that abandonment, the dereliction of what we heard last Sunday night of being utterly rejected and cast off and plunged into hell in the depths of his soul. He shrank from that. Oh my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done. He learned the

27:22 principle of God. He learned the principles of holy obedience in the classroom, in the crucible, in the context of suffering. Now if the Holy Son of God needed that classroom to learn the principles of holy obedience as to his human soul, who are you, who am I, to think that we'll be exempt from it? And so affliction is going to be our lot, because God is determined to teach his people the principle of holy obedience, for as this passage shows, the salvation he purchased by his obedience had this end in view, to have an obedient people.

28:02 Though he was a son, verse 8, yet learned the obedience by the things which he suffered, and having been made perfect, having been made a Savior perfectly suited to our needs, he became unto all them that obey him, the author of eternal salvation. So that the salvation which he procured and is received by faith is the salvation which secures the soul of God, and secures the obedience of all those to whom it comes, and we will learn the principles of Godly obedience the same way our Savior did. Now if you think you're above learning them the way he did, then you see what you're saying? You're saying you bring more equipment to learning obedience than the Son of God did. Now there's a word for anyone who would consciously say that, and that's called blasphemy. So stop itching for that wonderful situation around the corner. All God does is mark out a path for you that has nothing but rose petals and nice, soft, velvety carpet. There's going to be jagged, there will be jagged stones and cut glass

29:11 and thorns and prickers. Now don't go making your own. If right now, right now the path under your feet is just all rose petals and velvet, thank God for it, enjoy it. Because it won't be long before there's going to be some cut glass and some jagged stones.

29:29 All right? And if God knows that right now you need some rose petals and velvet, fine. Thank him for rose petals and velvet. But don't be surprised if the terrain changes a few more feet down the road.

29:42 Okay? Do you see the principle there? So here's one of the major purposes of God in affliction is to teach us the principles of Godly obedience. You see that in Psalm 119 and verse 81 for an Old Testament illustration of it. Psalm 119, verse 81.

29:58 Psalm 119, verse 81. And verse 81. Oh, I think I have the wrong, wrong verse. Hmm. I'm sorry. I have the 71.

Affliction Reveals Weakness and Dependence on God

30:18 We already looked at it. It's good for me that I've been afflicted that I might learn thy statutes. I can't recall what it was. I wrote down the wrong reference. But there are several of them in the 119th Psalm. All right? Other purposes in affliction. Yes. Grace Marie? 2 Corinthians 4, 7 to 10. To keep us mindful of our weakness and our dependence upon God. Now, here again, it's such a vital aspect. It might warrant being put into a separate category, or we might say here's another grace that is pruned by affliction, the grace of self-conscious dependence upon the Lord. We have the treasure in earthen vessels that the excellence, I'm sorry, 2 Corinthians 4, yes, 7 to 10. Yeah. We have this treasure in earthen vessels that the excellence of

31:15 society! If I could add it, Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So you see several strands here, that whole principle of the pattern of death and life as it will be true of our overall history. This is the period of suffering now and glory will follow. It's as though there are little mini capsulized versions of that in our experience. We're brought into situations where it seems we're as good as dead men and women and yet out of that death God brings life. The death and life principle that is seen throughout the entire New Testament with respect to the Christian life.

Affliction Restrains from Pride and Other Sins

32:22 Alright, other purposes. Yes, Doug. Alright, so what is the purpose of affliction according to that? Pardon?

32:50 Okay. So an affliction then can be used of God to keep us from...

33:01 And pride is... Okay, so can affliction just keep us from pride or can it keep us from other sins?

33:08 Yeah. Okay. So in 2 Corinthians 7, I mean 12-7, a very vital passage, you remember the setting. Whatever this thorn in the flesh was, Paul was convinced as he evaluated the demands of God upon him in what he knew to be the will of God.

33:31 This path represents the will of God for Paul and now in the providence of God, a messenger of Satan called a thorn in the flesh has been permitted. Now there's all kinds of conjecture upon what this...

33:49 about the precise identity of this and when all is said and done, it's just conjecture. But all we know is that what this thing did is brought Paul to the place where he felt as long as this remains, I can't do this. If this remains, I will be unable to fulfill the will of God for me. And so he said, for this cause, I sought the Lord thrice.

34:14 Apparently, he spent... He spent three intense seasons of specific, pointed, fervent prayer that God would remove this thorn in the flesh.

34:27 And he didn't do it because of personal convenience. All of his other letters make it evident personal convenience meant nothing to Paul.

34:37 He was stoned, he was kicked around as a common criminal, he was vilified and all of the rest. He said, none of these things move me. He says, you sum them all up, light affliction. So here was not a guy who just couldn't stand a little discomfort.

34:53 But the thing that disturbed him was it appeared that this thing would keep him from fulfilling the will of God. So he prays, Lord, take it out of the way so that I may do your will unimpeded by this thorn in the flesh. And then God revealed something to him and said, no, Paul, you can do my will with this thorn because in the midst of the weakness that it creates, my strength will be made perfect in the midst of your weakness. Notice, verse 9, and he said unto me, my grace is sufficient for thee, my power is made perfect in weakness.

35:33 So in the midst of conscious weakness that would seem to preclude his doing the will of God, God says, I'll make my strength glorious and manifested in you. You will be able to do my will and people will know that it's my grace, that worked in you. Paul, you can do my will as a weak man with a thorn in the flesh, but you can't do my will as a proud man.

36:00 And I know that if I don't allow this thorn in the flesh to come to you, you are going to be puffed up with pride. Lest I should be exalted over much because of the abundance of the revelations given unto me, there was sent a thorn in the flesh. God resists the proud. Pride goeth before destruction and a hearty spirit before a fall.

36:27 These six things doth the Lord hate. Yea, seven are an abomination unto him. A proud look. Oh, how God abominates pride.

36:36 And if Paul had come under the power of pride, he would not have been able to do the will of God. And so God sends an afflicted dispensation in order to cut the nerve of his pride, keeping him weak. God's strength. He's made perfect in the weakness.

36:53 He does the will of God. And how many of us, and only God knows, have been spared from things that would have utterly ruined us. We thought they were keeping us from doing the will of God. God sent them to the very end that we might do His will.

37:11 Some of those things are physical, financial, social afflictions, any number of afflictions, and how foolish we are with our nearsightedness to be telling God, how to run His business with us, and how thankful we should be He doesn't answer all of our prayers. All right? Yes, Pastor Nichols?

Affliction as a Display Case of God's Grace and Omnipotence

37:47 Yes.

37:54 Born blind.

38:42 Yes, I put the category this way. They form the display case of grace.

38:49 Yes. All right? The display case of grace and omnipotence or gracious omnipotence. Omnipotence.

38:56 Those graces. Pardon? What did you say?

39:01 Omnipotent grace. All right? Whatever we're going to call it, I think we all have got the idea. And we see these many passages.

39:07 And wasn't this part of the rationale for Job's whole experience? Why does Job serve God? Well, look at the way God treats him. Anybody would serve a God who treats you like that.

39:18 He's wealthy. He's got a sweet wife. He's got a bunch of kids. Lots of camels.

39:23 And he's got a maid. He doesn't serve a God like that. God says, Look, I can be served and loved for who I am. Not just for what I give to my people.

39:34 Oh, yeah? Who says so? I say so. Go ahead and touch him.

39:39 So his wife turns against him. His kids are killed. All his wealth is consumed. His physical health goes.

39:47 And he says, Though he slay me, yet will I trust him. Job's afflictions become the display case of the grace of God that causes people to love him and serve him for who he is. Not just for what he gives them. Now, if God had some Job's before, he's going to have some Job's now.

40:06 Not everybody reads his Bible. And you may be working next to someone who says, Oh, yeah, you know, he's religious and he's one of those Jesus people and the rest. But look at that. He's got a sweet wife.

40:16 He's got three nice kids. No afflictions. Everything's fine. All the rest.

40:20 Who wouldn't serve a God like that? And you wonder why God may have allowed many of those things to be radically changed. It may be that God is, seeking to display to that unconverted work associate for whom you're praying that he's a God who's loved for who he is. Who's served for who he is.

40:40 Not just what he gives and for his gifts. And so afflictions then constitute the display case of his grace, of his omnipotence, of his power. And under that I put the very passage that Grace Marie mentioned, 2 Corinthians 4, 7-12 and then also 2 Corinthians 12, 7-4. Following.

41:01 Alright? So they teach us the principle of godly obedience. They call us back from backslidings. They form the display case of grace.

Affliction Prunes Trust and Submission, and Equips for Ministry

41:10 They act as a restraint from sin. Any other purposes of affliction? Alright, Jan?

41:46 Alright, so it brings us back to that major category of pruning the grace of trust, the grace of godly submission, the grace of faith in the promises of God. I think we could put it under that general category of how God prunes our graces. And so I don't forget it's reminding me again. I do want highly to recommend an excellent book by a Margaret Clarkson.

42:19 The same one as the author of the little book many of us have used in teaching our children the birds and the bees called Susie's Babies published by Erdman's. Margaret Clarkson was a Christian school teacher, a very godly woman who herself knew and knows the unusual discipline of intense physical suffering and affliction. And she's written the book So You're Single, another excellent book. But this one taken, the title taken from the words of Rutherford, Grace Grows Best in Winter.

42:53 Excellent book. The subtitle, Help for Those Who Must Suffer. And I was going back through sections that my wife marked in this one. Most of my books are marked with my markings and when she reads them she's down teaching Sunday school so I'm not embarrassing her by saying this.

43:11 Somehow she likes to read a clean copy of a book. Well this one was given to her so when she got it she really marked it up and made sure that I'd get a dose of my medicine by the time I got to it.

43:23 But it's a very excellent book on the various graces that God prunes in a believer in the midst of intense and long suffering. Grace Grows Best in Winter by Margaret Clarkson and it's a book that's going to be published by Zondervan. So I imagine you'll get some orders, Jeff. All right?

43:42 Any other categories of affliction? Yes. All right, Brian?

44:30 Mm-hmm. All right, so that affliction then gives us an opportunity to be able to explain to people what makes us tick. Particularly the affliction of unjust opposition and persecution when we do not respond tit for tat, kind for kind. All right?

44:50 Yes, Frank? I have a question about the path because I don't know how to categorize it. All right. I don't think it fits under ministering.

45:01 Preparation. It's a declaration to minister but it deals with ministering itself.

45:06 Colossians 1.24.

45:10 Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake and in my flesh I do share on my behalf of this body which is the church in filling up that which is lacking in Christ's affliction. It seems to me that he's not only implying that here is a category for himself but for others. He says I share, I do my share on behalf so there is not only something unique to Paul but that which others do as well.

45:39 Yes. Well,

45:42 I think what we can say at least on the surface of things is that it's a principle established from that passage and taught throughout Scripture particularly in the New Testament that the salvation procured by suffering only advances in the context of the suffering of those who are concerned to propagate it. A suffering Savior will have suffering heralds of His grace. Just as we'll see in the message this morning, just as sacrifice is tonight, God willing, as sacrifice is foundational to our salvation in its procurement, the spirit of sacrifice, it permeates salvation in its application and in its extension. A suffering Savior will not have non-suffering saints speaking about Him as a suffering Savior. And that's one of the great principles here when He says I fill up that which is lacking of the afflictions of Christ. Well, He can't mean redemptive afflictions.

46:47 He said it is finished. But He does say there are afflictions that need to be filled up and it is those afflictions that will be filled up that will come in the course of propagating the gospel. And it is inevitable that they will come. So that in preaching of a suffering Savior, the sufferings of His people cause them to enter in sympathetically into identification with their Lord.

Affliction as God's Door to His Presence

47:10 And that brings us right back under the whole larger category of what union and communion with Christ entails. Now, our time is just about gone. May I give just one last category of affliction in terms of God's purpose? And it is one so obvious that we could forget it and miss it.

47:30 And I do want to round out our study today and move on in our next study, God willing, to another principle. And that is affliction is often the door into God's presence. In other words, affliction of one kind or another is the means by which God takes us home. The scripture tells us in 2 Kings 13, 14, now, Asia was sick, affliction, of the sickness, affliction, wherewith he died.

48:04 And so the afflictions that come to us physically will in some cases be God's door through which we shall enter into his presence. And may I suggest that you try to think of serious illness in that way. That this may be God constructing a door by which he'll usher me into his presence. And it will help take away some of the carnal dread and terror of deadly disease and deadly and fatal illnesses.

48:40 By some door, God's going to take you into his presence. If it's not the return of his Christ, the return of his son, and if it's not a car crash or an airplane crash or some other kind of sudden, tragic death of that nature, it's going to be by the illness that becomes fatal. Whether a general degenerative process in which ultimately your heart just finally gives out, or whether it's going to be by some dread disease, cancer, or something else, we ought as believers to think of whatever affliction becomes the instrument of my death as God's sovereignly constructed door by which to usher me out of this life and into his presence. And hopefully Wednesday night we'll read a letter from Mrs. Denning and many of us involved in the life of the church here know how precious the Dennings have been to us and we were concerned the last letter we received several months ago that her husband had been discovered as having inoperable cancer and we just received another letter from her indicating that he's not long for this world but the preciousness of that letter amidst all of the agony and pain of seeing her dear husband of 47 years waste away it's evident that she views this affliction as God's door to take her husband

50:09 into a better place and it's the most precious thing to see it and though you feel the pain and the agony with her you feel the rejoicing and the triumphant note that is there and we need to be sure that we do not think as worldlings who regard any affliction that may be the harbinger of death as the worst thing in the world that could ever approach us Elisha was sick of the sickness whereof he died that sickness was God's door to say come up higher come to a place that is better and it may be so with us as well well our time is gone yes Doug not next week because you'd have to shout them quite loud I'll be up in Centerville, New Brunswick but the next the next class Doug alright good alright we'll have a chance then to interact by way of questions that grow out of this good alright let's pray together our father we thank you again for the richness of the teaching of your holy word we thank you for the joy and the delight that has been ours

51:32 this morning to look into the scriptures and allow the scriptures to interpret the reality of affliction and our father we see how impoverished the world is it looks like it looks upon affliction as unmixed evil to be resisted and to be rid of at any cost and we pray that you would take that worldly spirit from us and that we may learn by your grace in dependence upon the holy spirit to view all of our afflictions in the light of the manifold purpose of those afflictions as we have looked at some of those purposes in these past two lord's day mornings bless the truth of your word to our hearts and give us increased understanding in the knowledge of that word we pray in Jesus name amen