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Lee Grey
Aug 14, 2024

Pain, Problems, & Persecution: The True Nature of the Christian Call

IN HIS BOOK, The 10 Most Common Objections to Christianity, Alex McFarland states the following, “If we accept that the results of evil—pain, suffering and death—are not from God, yet He allows them, then we must assume that they play a part in His plan. And since we know that His plan is one of eternal redemption—that the world will be saved—then it’s safe to say that pain must play a role in our personal redemption. Pain indeed has a purpose.”

            Throughout the Bible, it is clear that there are consequences to our actions. Suffering is a natural bi-product of a fallen world. From the moment of our birth, our bodies begin to decay and die. We can slow the process down by working out, eating healthy foods, and having a positive attitude but we can never escape the reality that for every birth, there must come death—it is a one-to-one ratio. We should not only accept the reality of suffering but, as Christians, we should expect it and anticipate our response and ready our posture toward it.

            One area I believe we must reassess is the idea that “all” suffering is negative. Often times—and in my own experience—it’s in the moments of desperation, sadness, persecution, failure, hardship and pain that God can and does do, His greatest work on us. In, The Problem of Pain, C.S Lewis observed, “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pain” (emphasis added). Unfortunately, American Christianity has taken the fact of suffering and pain and flipped it on its head as sort of an indictment on the goodness and loving nature of God. David Platt states:

In direct contradiction to the American Dream, God actually delights in exalting our inability. He intentionally puts his people in situations where they come face to face with their need for him. In the process he powerfully demonstrates his ability to provide everything his people need in ways they could never have mustered up or imagined (David Platt, Radical, 47).

            Did you catch that? Platt states that God “delights in exalting our inability”. The purpose of God allowing suffering in our lives is, ultimately, rooted in His desire to see us grow and turn to Him in our most painful moments. In a sense, suffering is God’s way, or at least one of the ways, He holds us accountable on a personal level. When we let go of our efforts to control and dictate, only then will God take the reins. Our inability brings glory to Him by showcasing His omnipotent ability.

            David Jeremiah puts it this way, “The Bible tells us we must bow in humble recognition of who we are and who God is. And if we can’t do that, there’s no hope for us. In His presence, there is no proud and distinguished individual…So we can only kneel to acknowledge the truth of our condition. If we cannot see ourselves as heaven sees us, we cannot see ourselves” (Jeremiah, When Your World Falls Apart, 117).

            When we come to Christ, we are turning from the world and tuning into His providence. The mystery of the gospel is that by dying—we find life! One man, who paid that ultimate price and now rests in Christ’s promise and providence, is Dietrich Bonhoeffer. During one of the most dark and sinister periods of human history, Dietrich Bonhoeffer demonstrated what it means to rest in God’s sovereignty. His words serve as a dire warning on the nature of the Christian call. In his literary masterpiece, The Cost of Discipleship, Bonhoeffer explains what the nature of the Christian call is. He says,


When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.

Prepare Today | Prevail Tomorrow


Lee


Psalm 91


There is no such thing as a saint who has not suffered.

- Paul Billheimer, Don’t Waste Your Sorrows, 1977.


Sources:

The Complete Guide to Christian Quotations. Uhrichsville: Barbour Publishing, Inc., 2011.

Hanegraaff, Hank. The Complete Bible Answer Book: Collector’s Edition. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, Inc., 2008.

Hanegraaff, Hank. The Covering: God’s Plan to Protect You from Evil.Nashville: Thomas Nelson, Inc., 2002.

Hanegraaff, Hank. The Prayer of Jesus. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, Inc., 2001.

Jeremiah, David. God Loves You: He Always Has—He Always Will.New York: Faith Words, 2012.

Jeremiah, David. When Your World Falls Apart: Seeing Past the Pain of the Present. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, Inc., 2000.

Platt, David. Radical:  Colorado Springs: Multnomah, 2010.




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In Congress, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of

Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

 

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

​

       He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

       He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

       He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

       He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

       He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

       He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

       He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

       He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

       He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

       He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.

       He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

       He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

       He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

       For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

       For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

       For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

       For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

       For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

       For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences

       For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

       For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

       For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

       He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

       He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

       He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

       He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

       He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

 

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

 

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

 

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

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