This devotion is a monthly ministry of the Pee Dee Baptist Association, comprised of 31 Southern Baptist churches in Dillon and Marlboro Counties. For more information call 774-8062.
Featured this month is Rev. Chris Alderman, co-pastor of Little Rock Baptist Church, Little Rock.
“Fiery Trials and the Joy of Christians”
A group of senior men were talking over breakfast. One old-timer said, “Well fellas, there’s one thing we don’t have to worry about any more … we ain’t gonna die young!” If you have made it to the age of 70 or beyond, you are indeed blessed of God. As a Christian, however, we don’t have to worry about dying – period. Worry is the enemy of the Christian’s joy. The biblical pattern for joy in the midst of suffering is in I Peter 4:12-19. There are six trials or sufferings the Christian will encounter. First, in verse 12, there is a fiery trial coming to try us. Peter was writing to the Christians scattered through Asia Minor (I Peter 1:1). This epistle was written around 65 A.D. from Rome during the reign of the emperor Nero. Nero ordered his wife killed, murdered his mother, beheaded Paul, crucified Peter upside down on a cross, and dipped Christians in hot wax and set them aflame to illuminate his gardens at night. As Peter writes this epistle from Rome, could this be the “fiery trial” to which he is referring as he sees the glow from the fire of the Christians being burned? Perhaps, but since he is addressing the saints scattered through Asia Minor, they would not have seen this. The fiery trials to which Peter refers are: being beaten (2:20), reviled (3:9), slandered (3:16), and maligned (4:4). Secondly, in verse 13, we are to be partakers of Christ’s sufferings. Jesus is our example. His sufferings stand before us as a summary of what we can expect down here. Why did He suffer? To save us. In God’s wisdom, he planned the sufferings of Christ to save us from the sufferings of eternal punishment, not the sufferings of purification. We are told in 1:6 that these trials are necessary (KJV – “need be”). The Greek word ‘dei’ literally means ‘what must happen, what is absolutely necessary.’ This same Greek word, dei, is used in Acts 14:22, “we must (dei) through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God.” These trials are necessary for our purification. To enter the kingdom of God we must needs go through these fiery trials and tribulations. It is a Divine ‘must’ that we partake of the sufferings of our Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ. Thirdly, in verse 14, we are reproached for His Name. That Greek word means ‘revile, upbraid, show one’s teeth.’ Perhaps this is most clearly seen and understood in Matthew 27:44, “the thieves also, which were crucified with Him, cast the same in His teeth.” IF we live for Him and stand faithfully upon His Word, we can expect to be mocked and insulted. Fourthly, in verse 16, we will suffer as a Christian. Suffering as a Christian may include being ostracized, labeled a right-winger, or a Bible-thumper. I’ve been called a ‘stump-jumper’. Fifthly, in verse 17, “For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God.” For the follower of Jesus, this does not refer to eternal judgment for “there is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus.” This judgment is along the lines of discipline that is done in love for our ultimate purification. This must be done if the Church is to remain faithful and pure to her Lord. Sixthly, in verse 19, it is a suffering “according to the will of God.” It’s not suffering done according to man’s will (as a murderer, thief, evildoer, or busybody in other men’s matters), but His holy will. Acts 13:22, “I have found David the son of Jesse, a man after Mine Own heart, which shall fulfill all my will.” Richard Wurmbrand (1909-2001), spent 14 years in a prison for his role as a pastor in Romania. He founded (along with his wife) ‘The Voice of the Martyrs’ which raises funds to aid persecuted Christians and their families around the world. During his imprisonment, a fellow believer was led away to a ‘punishment cell’ where the conditions were so awful that many died there. Wurmbrand had been to that same cell and knew of the anguish. Rather than expressing his hopes that his cellmate’s time in the punishment cell would be brief, he gave a much stronger word of encouragement. As the man walked by, the sturdy Romanian pastor said, “When you come back, tell us what you have learned.” Some of the greatest truths come to us through pain and suffering. May we embrace such trials with the same type of spiritual expectancy as those stalwarts from Romania and grow in our understanding of what it means to share in the sufferings of Christ. James says to count it all joy when we fall into various trials. Peter reminds us to think it not strange when these fiery trials come upon us. Paul says, “For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.” Above all, remember your Lord and Saviour, whom Hebrews tells us “Who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.” He endured it all because of His love for you and the joy of providing us with His salvation. You are His joy. Have you repented of your sin and confessed them to the Lord God and asked Jesus to come in to be your Lord and Saviour? Today, if you hear His voice, take up your cross and follow Him that your joy may be full!
