Editorial Comment
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E C Does God Have a Purpose for Our Suff ering? RICK WOOD, EDITOR, MISSION FRONTIERS uff ering: it’s awful. We hate it. of His kingdom. God has ordained when we encounter suff ering. He wants We run from it like a gazelle that it is through much pain and us to give up on serving God and distrust fl eeing from a hungry lion. We suff ering that God’s kingdom would be God in the midst of our darkest hours. Swill do almost anything to avoid it. But established and advanced among all the Job’s wife urged him to “curse God and suff ering is an inescapable part of living peoples of the earth. die.” Satan is defeated when we humbly in this world. God does not spare even trust God with our lives and resolutely " e real question is whether we will His most faithful servants from it. determine that we will proclaim His glory accept the assignment or resist it in a no matter what suff ering or persecution Since the original sin of Adam, this futile eff ort to avoid suff ering. What is He allows into our lives. world has lived under a curse, a curse most important to us—saving our own of suff ering and death that will remain lives, or being faithful and obedient In return for his cooperation, Josef Tson until Jesus Christ is revealed as the King to God’s call to spread His glory in was promised safety and freedom. He of Kings. Our bodies grow old and suff er all the earth? " e future of world was faced with the choice to remain numerous painful ailments. Exercising evangelization will depend on how faithful to Christ or to do what his their God-given free will, sinful human each of us answers that question. captors wanted and avoid suff ering. What was his highest priority: saving HE IS OUR PRINCE, THOUGHT CHRISTIAN, AND HE DID NOT MIND his own life or glorifying God? THE PAIN. I MUST NOT, EITHER, BECAUSE I AM THE KING’S SERVANT, Pastor Tson responded to the promise AND IT IS WRITTEN IN MY BOOK THAT THE KING’S SERVANTS ARE of safety and freedom: “What you o! er me is spiritual suicide. I TO BE LIKE THE PRINCE. would much rather accept a physical death. –From Little Pilgrim’s Progress, by Helen Taylor, p. 106 To tell you the truth, I don’t see any reason to save my own life. Go on, shoot me.” Tson reports, “I cannot fully describe that man’s beings continue to infl ict devastating What is the Highest Priority fury at that moment. He suddenly realized pain on one another. And the blood of of Our Lives? that the whole plan to break me had failed.” the martyrs has often been the seed of " e life of Josef Tson, a Romanian “Why did I say I did not need to save my life? the church. In the midst of it all, many pastor, illustrates the choices we all face Here is why. During an earlier interrogation are tempted to shake their fi st at God when suff ering or persecution comes to at Ploiesti I had told another o" cer who and say, “Why me?”, as if something us. Beginning in October 1974, Pastor threatened to kill me, ‘Sir, let me explain how strange were happening to them or as if Tson was interrogated for six months, I see this issue. Your supreme weapon is killing. they expect to somehow be exempt from up to 10 hours a day, fi ve days a week, My supreme weapon is dying. Here is how it the painful trials of this world. simply because of his faithfulness in works. You know that my sermons on tape We should expect suff ering in this proclaiming the gospel. " e goal of his have spread all over the country. If you kill me, life—Jesus promised it to us. We cannot interrogators was to “break” him, to those sermons will be sprinkled with my blood. expect God to spare us from all suff ering make him their slave. " ey wanted him Everyone will know I died for my preaching. when He did not spare His only Son to abandon his faith and become their And everyone who has a tape will pick it up from suff ering. But does God have an ally in destroying others who would and say, I’d better listen again to what this man ongoing purpose for our suff ering? dare to proclaim the gospel. preached, because he really meant it: he sealed it with his life. So, sir, my sermons will speak 10 One interrogator said to him, “You’re As Bob Sjogren points out in his times louder than before. I will actually rejoice going to be shot, but fi rst I want you article (pages 14-15), Jesus came on a in this supreme victory if you kill me.’” mission to suff er and die for the glory tortured so you will curse all that you 1 of God, and God has appointed us to hold sacred and holy.” " at is exactly In Josef Tson’s life he had learned to go and do likewise in the advancement what Satan would like each of us to do value Christ and his glory above his 4 January-February 2010 Mission Frontiers USCWM • 1605 E. Elizabeth St. • Pasadena, CA 91104 • 626-797-1111 own life, safety and freedom. For the things of this world, and this has to the degree that is required for God him the advance of the gospel was infected our churches. But when we to receive the glory He deserves. the highest priority, not saving his come to faith in Christ, we receive a No sane person seeks out suff ering. But own life. He knew that this life is not new master who has called us to be on we embrace suff ering when it comes, all there is and that a great reward mission with Him, and faithfulness to trusting in God’s sovereignty and is awaiting him for his faithfulness. that mission will involve suff ering. provision, in order to advance God’s ! e only way he could lose was by Jim Elliot so aptly said before earning a kingdom and His glory. We suff er abandoning his trust in Christ. martyr’s crown, “He is no fool who gives hardship in order to meet the needs of If we are to bring the gospel to every up what he cannot keep to gain what hurting people around the world so they tribe and tongue, we must value he cannot lose.” Like Elliot and his four can see a glorious God who loves them Christ and His kingdom above our companions who died with him in their and is worthy of their worship. We suff er own lives. Christ is worthy of all attempt to reach the Waorani people of willingly so that the whole world can see we have and all we are. We must Ecuador, we must be willing to embrace the all-surpassing value of Christ and choose to trust His sovereignty and suff ering and death, especially when His kingdom. Why should the peoples His purposes when suff ering does these come by way of our faithfulness to of the world believe anything we say if come. We must not shy away from the mission Christ has given to us. ! e we are not willing to suff er for Christ? proclaiming the gospel in order to only way to glorify God with our lives Why should we expect the peoples of protect ourselves, but rather boldly go is to trust Him with our suff ering, even the world to live for Christ if we are not to every unreached people. when it makes no sense and seems to willing to die for Him? Let us resolve to serve no purpose. respond to suff ering in our own lives and It is hard, especially for Americans, in the lives of others in such a way that to learn to die to self and the It‘s All About the Glory of God God receives the glory and His kingdom pleasures of this world. ! e Western, ! e purpose of all of life is to glorify is established in all the earth. f consumer-driven culture is designed God and to make His glory known to 1 The quotes from Josef Tson are excerpted from the around satisfying our every desire and every tribe and tongue. ! is is all part article, Thank You for the Beating by Josef Tson, avoiding suff ering. ! is is probably of God’s grand design for history—to which appeared in the Fall 2009 publication of To why some in the West have developed raise up worshippers to Himself from Every Tribe, available at www.toeverytribe.com. Josef a “health, wealth and prosperity” every tribe and tongue. As John Piper Tson has also written the book Su! ering, Martyrdom theology but not a theology of says, “Missions exists because worship and Rewards in Heaven. suff ering. 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