The Purpose of Suffering

[Editor's Note: The following is a speech delivered by layman Neill Faucett to the American Christian Academy in India. Though not officially a sermon, it serves as one in every way. The subject is one very important in the age in which we live. Mr. Faucett shares incredible, personal and moving stories from his life and that of his family in the following.]

The Purpose of Suffering

American Christian Academy, India

It is such a pleasure being here with you. I pray for all of you constantly and have looked forward for many months to getting to see you in person.

You know, one of the big questions in life that everyone faces is, why is there suffering in the world? Why does God allow it?

When I was 19 years old, in my second year of college at Auburn University in Alabama, I was living in a dormitory. It was 1965 at 2:00 a.m. on January 17, I remember the exact date - the pay phone in the hall rang. A friend finally answered it and called me to the phone. It was a neighbor from my hometown of Gadsden, Alabama, who had called to tell me there was a terrible automobile accident and my brother - who was my best friend - was in the car. But the neighbor wouldn't tell me whether my brother was still alive.

In the United States we have what we call the prosperity gospel. This gospel says that God will give you money, good health and make you happy all the time. Paul had these same people in the Corinthian church. They called themselves "super apostles" and they believed in this prosperity gospel. Paul's life by contrast was one of constant physical and emotional pain. The 10th through the 13th chapters of 2 Corinthians are the most emotionally charged chapters he ever wrote.

The super apostles turned the church against Paul. At this time of his life, he was in the deepest pain and suffering of his ministry. In Chapter 11, he speaks of the constant beatings, shipwrecks and stoning he endured, and his constant concern for the churches. He suffered more than any Christian other than Christ Himself. This is why, I think, God allowed Paul to go to heaven and back: to encourage him. When Paul said for me to die is gain, he knew personally what that meant because he had been to heaven.

In addition to going to heaven, Paul had four personal visits from Christ. You can certainly see why that might lead to pride. And Paul's pride leads us to 2 Corinthians 12:7-10:

"Because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, for this reason, to keep me from exalting myself, there was given me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me-to keep me from exalting myself! Concerning this I implored the Lord three times that it might leave me. And He has said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness. Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ's sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong."

I. Suffering Reveals Our True Spiritual Condition

These verses bring us to the first purpose of God in our suffering. It is to reveal our true spiritual condition. The first chapter of James reads, "Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance". The word for trials there means to test something to see if it is real. And God wants to know whether our faith is real.

I'll come back to that early morning phone call I got in the dormitory in the dead of winter, but earlier in that same year when I was 19 and in college at Auburn something else happened - I became very sick. I didn't know I was actually bleeding to death internally. At one point I finally just passed out.

My roommate brought me to the school infirmary. They didn't know what was wrong, so I bled all night. They finally realized I had a bleeding stomach ulcer but I had run out of blood and was too weak for an operation. Early the next morning, they rushed me to the hospital with a nurse in the ambulance with me. They did not expect me to live to make it to the hospital.

In the ambulance, my entire body shook and wouldn't stop. I was afraid of dying. My faith didn't seem to be real; it appeared that it had failed me at the most critical time in my life. I closed my eyes and cried out to God. I said John 3:16 three times and told the Lord that I believed that verse with all my heart. I asked Him to come to me, to be with me in my death. I prayed for a sign of His presence. I asked to Him to stop my hands from shaking when I opened my eyes. I'll never forget the moment I opened them and my hands were perfectly still. Peace overwhelmed me. I told God I was ready to go - I asked him to please take me to heaven now.

But I added, "If you want to leave me here, I will live for you the rest of my life." My faith was the strongest it had ever been. The suffering produced the desired result God wanted. After my prayer, God healed the ulcers but I still had to leave school for a while because of my weakness.

Romans 8:18 says, “For I consider the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us.”

II. Suffering Humbles Us

So what's the second purpose of God for suffering? To humble us, just as He wanted to humble Paul. Humility is the greatest virtue, and pride the greatest sin. Pride was the original sin of Satan that caused him to be cast out of heaven.

In Atlanta, I frequently mentor young businessmen. They all want three things; money, sex and power. The Bible calls these things the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye and the boastful pride of life; they can be seen as passion, possessions and position.

In I Kings 3 it says Solomon loved the Lord and was made the king of the strongest nation in the world and had alliances with the other nations. You could say Solomon was king of the world. God said to Solomon, "Ask what you wish Me to give you"? Solomon told God that He was His servant and wanted to serve His people. He said he was like a little child and did not know what to do, and he asked for wisdom and an understanding heart.

God responded that since Solomon had not asked for riches or a long life or the defeat of his enemies, He would grant his request. God also made Solomon the richest man who ever lived. His wealth in today’s dollars is estimated to be $38 trillion dollars. We measure gold by the ounce; Solomon measured it by the ton. The Bible says that part of Solomon’s income was 25 tons of gold. In his humility, Solomon had moved the heart of God and God gave him the wisdom he asked for plus vast wealth and honor which he did not ask for.

Have you ever prayed a prayer that moved God’s heart? Put yourself in God’s shoes - millions of prayers are coming in and you file them. Group one wants things - money, cars, etc. That's a very big file. Next come the prayers for health - cure me of this or that - basically, let me live forever on earth. That's another big file. Next is to kill my enemies or eliminate my competitors. But how many prayers say, "I am Your servant, give me the wisdom to serve Your people?"

Paul even called himself a ‘doulos’, a slave of Christ with no rights, bought and paid for by Jesus. The difference between a slave and a servant is that the servant is hired but the slave is owned. To be one’s slave is to be his possession, bound to obey His will without hesitation.

Later, at the end of his life, Solomon wrote Ecclesiastes, where he is looking back and giving advice. He points out that chasing money, sex and power is like chasing the wind; it will never satisfy you. Ecclesiastes 5:10 tells us, “Those who love money will never have enough."

Other great examples of humility in the Bible include Moses and Jesus. In Numbers 12:3, God called Moses the most humble man in the world. Philippians 2 says Christ humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Proverbs 16:5 says, “Everyone who is proud in heart is an abomination to the Lord; assuredly, he will not be unpunished.”

I have been married to my dear wife Billa for over 50 years. Five years ago, Billa was in perfect health. She was working out at the gym and very proud of her appearance. According to Billa, her accomplishments had become a source of pride for her. Instead of being thankful to God for her good health, her children, and grandchildren, she became more self-centered. God was being crowded out of her life.

Suddenly she was stricken with a series of health issues that over the last five years have resulted in a great deal of pain and suffering. More than six surgeries and multiple medical procedures brought Billa to the point that she cried out to God. The Lord brought Billa to the end of herself, broken and in pain. She realized He was with her in her suffering and had never forsaken her.

On one occasion, a prescription error resulted in Billa being near death at our apartment. A person at our office suddenly remembered a reason they needed to go there and, literally at the last possible moment, Billa's life was saved. Billa later reported that she had complete peace and felt the presence of Christ in that room. Today, Billa is closer to God than she has ever been. She no longer asks God to take away her suffering but instead asks Him to show her what He wants her to learn from her suffering. As John Piper says, “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.”

In 2 Corinthians 4, it says, “Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison.”

III. Suffering Brings Us Closer To God

So the third reason for suffering is to bring us closer to God. The Bible says Paul begged God three times to remove the thorn in his flesh. The intensity of his prayer life increased, and he was bought into intimacy with Christ.

We all have moments like the ones that I've described, moments that stand out in sharp contrast to our usual, day-to-day lives. Another one in mine was when Billa and I got a call late one evening from our son, Jonathan, who told us his 3 month old daughter, Keeling, was not breathing and was being rushed to the Children's Hospital in Atlanta. Billa and I begin praying harder than we have ever prayed in our lives, like Paul we were begging God to restart her breathing as we rushed to the hospital. At that moment nothing in the world meant anything to us except prayer to our Heavenly Father. He alone could help us.

When we arrived at the hospital, they took us into a room with our son and his wife, Rachel. They told us Keeling was dead, a victim of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, or SIDS. They insisted on bringing her little body into the room with us so we could say goodbye. Her body was still slightly warm. I did not believe such sadness was possible in this life.

As we made our way home, Jon and Rachel stayed in our bedroom for two days with no food. They found a Billy Graham calendar in our bathroom. Printed on the calendar for the date Keeling died was Isaiah 40:11, "and He carries the little lambs in his arms and gently leads the nursing lambs." This verse brought them comfort; they wrote it out and put Keeling's name in the verse.... "and he carries Keeling in His arms."

Later the next day our pastor came by to see us ....he was overcome with the sadness of our situation but said that the night before, God had given him a verse for us - Isaiah 40:11 - the same verse. There are 32,000 verses in the Bible but God gave him the same verse. The odds that he would coincidentally give us the same verse are beyond any reasonable possibility.

But then later that day, my sister, Jean came to see us. As she prayed for us, she said Keeling's death was all about God and what brought Him glory, it was not about us. As Deuteronomy 29:29 says, "The secret things belong to the Lord our God”. Then she said she had prayed and God had given her a verse for us, Isaiah 40:11. This verse was confirmed by God three times. What an incredible God we serve!

At this point the grace of God was so overwhelming that I looked at Jon and Rachel and said....it is pretty clear that Jesus has Keeling in His arms and He wants you to know it. They never questioned the Lord after that. The Lord blessed them with 4 more children and they all love the Lord with all their hearts. Isaiah 40:11 is the verse on Keeling’s grave.

One week after Keeling died, my wife, Billa had a dream and saw my Mother, my two brothers, Jimmy and David and Keeling in heaven together.

In 2 Corinthians 5, it says, “For we know that if the earthly tent which is our house is torn down, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.“

The next year my daughter, Suzanne and her husband, Mike were expecting twins. She went in for a routine checkup in the 24th week of her pregnancy. The minimum is 28 weeks for the babies to have a chance to live. The doctor said she had already dilated and the babies would be born the next morning either dead or heavily handicapped.

We had a prayer meeting that night and the Lord directed us to 2 Chronicles 20:21 where King Jehoshaphat faced an overwhelming army seeking to destroy his nation. The entire nation of over 2 million fasted and prayed until the Lord agreed to fight the battle for them.

The Lord said, “Do not fear or be dismayed because of this great multitude, for the battle is not yours but God’s.” He instructed them to go into battle without weapons and singing “give thanks to the Lord for His faithful love endures forever.” The enemy army turned on themselves and destroyed each other without harming Israel.

We decided to pray and fast that night. We felt this battle was too great for us and God had to take over as He did for King Jehoshaphat. The next morning the doctor was amazed to see that Suzanne had reverse dilated which the doctor had never seen before.

We prayed that the babies would not come until the 28th week and they came on that exact date. Reese weighed 2 pounds 8 ounces and Jack weighed 2 pounds 6 ounces. You could hold them in the palm of your hand. Jack got an infection and died after 13 days. Reese lived and is a 15 year old ballerina and dancer today who loves Christ and looks forward to seeing her twin brother, Jack, in heaven.

We put on Jack’s grave 2 Chronicles 20:21 “Give thanks to the Lord for His faithful love endures forever.” We thought we would bring him home with Reese with that verse, instead the Lord took him to heaven with that verse.

Rachel was able to comfort Suzanne since she had lost Keeling. As 2 Corinthians 1:3 says, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction so that we will be able to comfort those who are in affliction.”

Suzanne and Mike took a major role in working with the Calvary Children’s Home at our farm called Elsberry and poured themselves into orphan children and all the other youth activities. Two years later, the Lord gave them another son, Cole, who is 12 years old today.

As Job said in Job 1:21, “

The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away,

Blessed be the name of the Lord.”

IV. Suffering Displays God’s Grace

And so this is the fourth reason for suffering: so God can display His grace. God's grace is His unmerited favor or mercy and is given as a free gift. It is His blessing: it is his Divine benefit and lovingkindness. God answered Paul's prayer not by removing the suffering but by increasing His grace which then increases our confidence in our salvation and in the presence and the goodness of God. We experience enduring grace that produces assurance.

When a Christian who walks with the Lord has a terminal illness, God pours on the grace as there is a certain joy and anticipation that overwhelms all sense of loss.

Three years ago, James and Joy Scott attended your mission conference. Their lives represented a great love story as they had been together since they were 16 years old. They loved all of you and were impressed by the ministry of ACA. They decided to build two ACA churches. When they returned to Atlanta, Joy got breast cancer. As Joy died in the hospital, the room was overwhelmed by the grace of God and the anticipation that she was going to heaven to be with Christ. James Scott's last words to Joy were, "I will see you in a little while." After Joy's death, ACA dedicated the church she built to her memory.

The Bible in 1 Corinthians 15 says, “Our body is sown a perishable body, it is raised an imperishable body; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power.” Joy Scott is experiencing the kingdom, the power and the glory of God.

V. Suffering Perfects God's Power

And so finally, the fifth reason God uses suffering is to perfect His power. We would all like to be powerful for the Lord. We would all like to think that our lives really mattered, that we were living lives of powerful influence. I guess it's a nagging painful realization for most people in the world that their lives do not matter at all.

It's wonderful for Christians to think that their lives matter eternally and that we are powerful for God. However, Paul points out that this is only possible when we become weak so the power of God can work through us.

As long as you keep trusting in your own ingenuity, your own cleverness, your money, your ideas, your strategies and your abilities, you are going to be weak. No one is too weak to be powerful but many are too strong to be powerful. You want to come to the end of yourself as God's power works through your weakness.

Now, back to that call I received in the middle of the night in the dormitory at Auburn University. I drove 3 hours from Auburn to Gadsden, begging God to let my brother, Jimmy be alive when I got home. I was devastated to learn Jimmy was killed instantly in the car wreck.

When the state police told Mother Jimmy had been killed, Mother screamed, "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?" And then she realized that those were the words of Christ on the cross.

Mother felt she had an agreement with God. Mother worked in a beauty shop in our home and made a very small amount of money. She worked hard 10 hours a day in her shop and then did her housework. She told God he would have to help protect her children while she worked.

My father was a rear gunner in WWII which was one of the most dangerous positions in the military. He came back with post-traumatic stress disorder and struggled with it for the rest of his life. He paid a high price for preserving the freedom of the world. This created another source of suffering that our family had to deal with.

When Jimmy was killed, Mother felt God had let her down and she was angry at God. When I arrived home exhausted and collapsed on the bed in the room Jimmy and I shared, mother came in and sat down.

Suddenly a very bright light came into the room and stayed there for a few minutes. Mother did not wake me up as she was afraid the light would go away. She knew the light was the presence of Christ to comfort her. In addition to ruling the universe, Christ had time to come to the little beautician and comfort her in her great loss.

2 Corinthians 4:18 says, “While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.”

But that was not enough for Mother, she had to know why God took Jimmy. Unlike the example of Job, God decided to tell mother.

My sister, Jean, who was not a Christian at the time, was randomly looking through the Bible. Suddenly she found Isaiah 57:1-2 which says,

"The righteous man perishes, and no man takes it to heart

And devout men are taken away, while no one understands.

For the righteous man is taken away from evil,

He enters into peace; they rest in their beds, each one who walked in his upright way."

Mother never questioned God again about why He took her son.

After Jimmy's death I went back to college. My roommate had pornography all over his side of our room. I did not condemn him but simply prayed for him that God would deliver him. After a week, he asked me, "Didn't you just lose your brother and best friend?” I said, “Yes, I did.” He replied, "Then how are you studying and not crying?” I told him that it was not me but Christ living in my body. I told him I had been crucified and it is no longer I who live but Christ lives in me. He answered, "Who is Christ?" After about a week of conversation, he accepted Christ and I believe he is a pastor today.

One by one the students in my dorm came to me and asked, "How can I get what you have?" A Bible study was formed and many came to Christ as a result of Jimmy's death. In some cases, Christians came to me and asked, "Why is Christ not as real to me as he is to you?" I said all of us sin every day but is there an area of your life that you have given over to Satan? Are there secret sins that you have held onto? If Christ is not Lord of all, He is not Lord at all.

I explained that one must repent and lay the idols of your life on the altar of Christ. Idols can be good things that you allow to come ahead of Christ. It can be people, pleasures, possessions or prestige. Adam and Eve ate the apple because they loved and wanted the apple more than they loved and wanted God. What is it in your life that you love and want more than God?

For example, pornography is rampant today. The internet has allowed it to explode throughout the world. Many pastors are addicted to it. Probably people in this room are addicted to it. If you want the joy of your salvation, you must repent and run into the arms of Christ.

Jimmy's death devastated our family, church and city. It was the largest funeral in the history of our town as he was so good and loved by all. In our loss, we were crushed and broken and that allowed the power of God to flow. A revival occurred at Auburn. My father came to Christ as did my brothers David and Johnny and sister, Jean.

I named my first son after Jimmy, James Thomas Faucett. I asked God to allow me to have a Christian retreat in Jimmy's honor. Years later, God provided a farm called Elsberry that I mentioned earlier. It is about an hour outside of Atlanta and is used by the Calvary Children's Home all summer; youth organizations like Young Life and the scouts; churches; missionaries on furlough; families - many have come to Christ there.

Romans 8:28 says, “God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.”

The devil meant Jimmy's death for evil, but God used it for good through His mighty power. By the way, Reese and Jack were born on the exact date of Jimmy’s death, 38 years later.

My brother David Faucett was Joy George’s best friend for many years. He introduced me to Joy. In 1999, David died suddenly of a heart attack. We asked that money be sent to ACA instead of flowers and some of the buildings here were built with some of those funds.

In the deaths of Jimmy, David, Jack and Keeling and later my mother and father and Billa’s mother and father, our family has God’s glorious assurance of a day of reunion described in the book of Revelation, where it says, “God Himself will be among them, and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away.” And we will reign with Him forever.

David’s greatest gift to me was Joy George. We became very close friends. When Joy comes to Atlanta, we pray together and ask for guidance from the Lord. On one occasion we began to talk about starting churches with some of ACA’s graduates, but ACA did not have the money. We concluded that ACA would need $60,000 to start such a program. The next day two individuals pledged $30,000 to start the program but would only give the money if other donors matched it within 30 days. We felt the match was impossible because of our small donor base but we wrote an email to them anyway. Money slowly started coming in and on the 30th day the final funds arrived adding up to exactly $30,000. Joy has always felt that the Lord confirms His direction for ACA by sending the necessary funds. ACA has never borrowed funds but depends on the power of God for funding. Having just seen the supernatural provision of God, we thanked and worshipped God and asked him to forgive our lack of faith.

In conclusion, Paul says in verse 9, he is happy to boast about his weakness so that the power of Christ can dwell in him. In verse 10, he says he is well pleased with his weakness. Paul is saying “I get it, Lord, I get it. It’s about proving your faith is real. It’s about humility. It’s about intimacy. It’s about grace. It’s about power. I embrace the suffering. I embrace the spear rammed through my otherwise proud flesh. I embrace the pain. This is the heart and soul of the Christian life.”

And it’s in the midst of trials that you will find God’s power and then you can say with Paul, “I am well pleased with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong.” As Peter said, “After you have suffered for a little while, the Lord will make you perfect”.

Conclusion

In closing, I would like to read the lyrics of the song, “Refiner’s Fire:"

There burns a fire with sacred heat, white hot with holy flame.

And all who dare pass through its flames will not emerge the same.

Some as bronze and some as silver, some as gold, then with great skill

All are hammered by their sufferings on the anvil of His will.

I’m learning now to trust His touch, to crave the fire’s embrace.

For though my past with sin was etched, His mercies did erase.

Each time His purging cleanses deeper, I’m not sure that I’ll survive.

Yet the strength in growing weaker keeps my hungry soul alive.

And the chorus:

The refiner’s fire has now become my soul desire,

Purged and cleansed and purified

That the Lord be glorified,

He is consuming my soul,

Refining me, making me whole.

Not matter what I lose, I choose the refiner’s fire.

CONCLUDING PRAYER:

"Father, it is with a great amount of joy and gratitude that we have looked into this passage, how instructive it is for our lives. How blessed it is to know that You have a purpose in our pain and our difficulty that could never be achieved any other way, and thus we can agree with James who said, “Count it all joy when you fall into various trials.” We should joyfully embrace the suffering because it has such great spiritual impact, it puts Your true saving work on display. It breaks our pride. It drives us into Your presence. What great benedictions those are. And we pray now that You’ll confirm these great truths to our heart and may we live them out to Your glory. We pray in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord."