Learning from Suffering
By the late Rosco BrongGod's Own Son Learned From Experience And So Must All His Followers
"Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered" Hebrews 5:8.
To seek to avoid suffering is a natural desire, and yet many of the most valuable lessons of life can be learned only from unpleasant experiences. Specifically, members of a fallen race would like to escape the unpleasant consequences of sin even while they continue in that rebellion against God which is leading them to eternal misery and destruction. And sinners saved by the grace of God are prone to think in their carnal minds that God is obligated to deliver them immediately from the sufferings common to humanity.
May we learn from our present text that Christ Himself did not claim immunity from unpleasant experiences. On the contrary, as our perfect High Priest, "He learned obedience by the things which he suffered." Scripture and Christian experiences agree that in some measure His followers also must learn obedience in the same harsh school of suffering.
LEARNING FROM POVERTY Jesus did not war against poverty by means of taxation, inflation and proration. "For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich." (II Corinthians 8:9.)
Creator and rightful owner of all wealth, Jesus voluntarily became a pauper that as a man He might learn and by example teach us to trust in the provision of our Father in heaven. Luke tells us of certain women "which ministered unto him of their substance" (Luke 8:3), but they did so directly and for the love of God, not through welfare agencies under legal computation.
"Foxes have holes," said Jesus, "and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head." (Luke 9:58) He came that His people "might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly" (John 10:10); but He warned, "Take heed, and beware of covetousness: for a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth." (Luke 12:15)
To a rich young man who worshiped his money rather than God, Jesus said: "If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me." No doubt that was the only way that young ruler could have learned the real values of life, but "he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions." (Matthew 19:20-22.)
LEARNING FROM TEMPTATION "We have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin." (Hebrews 4:15) So Jesus learned from His own experience the infirmities of human flesh, and provided for us a perfect example of living without sin by ovrcoming temptation.
If we have not committed certain sins only because we were never tempted to those particular sins, we have nothing to brag about. Only God knows what we would do if we were tempted. And if we have learned to overcome certain temptations, we still have nothing to brag about of ourselves. We can boast only of God (Psalm 44:8), Who alone provided the way of escape (I Corinthians 10:13.)
LEARNING FROM REPROACHES "Even Christ pleased not himself; but, as it is written, The reproaches of them that reproached thee fell on me." (Romans 15:3.) Sinners who revile and insult God will revile and insult His servants. As the perfect Servant, therefore, Jesus bore the reproaches aimed at God.
Unless a person is excessively contrary, it is easy to obey commands that coincide with our personal desires, or commands that involve no loss of popularity in the world. But we need to learn to obey God even against our own fleshly pleasure, and even at the cost of the friendship of this world.
"Consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds." "Let us go forth therefore unto him without the camp, bearing his reproach." (Hebrews 12:3; 13:13.)
LEARNING FROM HATE "The world cannot hate you," said Jesus to His unbelieving brothers, "but me it hateth, because I testify of it, that the works thereof are evil." (John 7:7.) The professing Christian who has not earned the hatred of the world is not much of a follower of Christ.
"If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you. If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you." (John 15:18-19.)
Modern so-called Christianity, seeking the favor and friendship of this world, is not the Christianity of the Bible. Only from the hatred of the world can we learn really to appreciate the lovingkindness and forbearance of God.
LEARNING FROM UNFAITHFULNESS But Jesus endured not only personal poverty and temptation and the reproaches and hatred of the world: He suffered failing faith also on the part of His own disciples. Read for one example among many the account of disciple-failure in Matthew 17:14-20:
"I brought him to thy disciples," said the distressed father, "and they could not cure him." Then Jesus answered and said, "O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I suffer you? bring him hither to me." After Jesus had rebuked and cast out the demon that was afflicting the boy, His disciples asked, "Why could not we cast him out?" Hear his answer: "Because of your unbelief." (Matthew 17:14-20.)
Again, it is comparatively easy to obey God when we are in the company of others who are faithful to Him; but we must learn to obey Him, as Jesus did, in situations where "the faithful fail from among the children of men." (Psalm 12:1.)
LEARNING FROM TREACHERY Unfaithful friends would seem bad enough, but Jesus suffered not only unfaithfulness but treachery and betrayal in the inner circle of His disciples. So perfect a hypocrite was Judas Ascariot that the other apostles showed not the least suspicion of his true character until the time of the actual betrayal. Only Jesus in that company "knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who shold betray Him." (John 6:64.) It was the Spirit of Christ in David Who had prophecied the tragedy:
"It was not an enemy that reproached me; then I could have borne it: neither was it he that hated me that did magnify himself against me; then I would have hid myself from him: But it was thou, a man mine equal, my guide, and mine acquaintance. We took sweet counsel together, and walked unto the house of God in company." (Psalm 55:12-14)
To obey God, to be faithful to Him, while supposed friends are plootting our destruction - to repay treachery with lovingkindness - this is the lesson which Jesus learned from bitter experience and which we need to learn from His example.
LEARNING FROM DEATH As God's perfect man, Jesus learned the conclusive lesson that the way to the throne and the crown is the way of the cross and the grave. It was "for the joy that was set before him" that He "endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God." (Hebrews 12:2.)
"Being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him a name which is above every name: That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth: And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." (Philippians 2:8-11.)
OUR PERFECT EXAMPLE The experience of Jesus in learning from suffering provides God's example for us: "It is a faithful saying: For if we be dead with him, we shall also live with him: If we suffer, we shall also reign with him: if we deny him, he also will deny us: If we believe not, yet he abideth faithful: he cannot deny himself." (II Timothy 2:11-13.)
As surely as we are true followers of Christ and partakers of His Spirit, may we take to heart and fulfill in our lives the admonition of the inspired spostle in Romans 8:16-18:
"The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together. For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us."
============================ [From Ashland Avenue Baptist paper, May 17, 1974, pp. 1& 3. Transcribed and formatted by Jim Duvall.]
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