The Power of Suffering - Introduction

The book I'm currently reading is entitled "The Power of Suffering," by John MacArthur.  For my next several posts I thought I'd give you some of the highlights and nuggets I am gleaning.  For all of us, these are things we probably already know and have heard before, but it is good to be reminded from time to time.  Here are a couple that I liked from the introduction:  

• In God's sovereignty all kinds of difficulties and hardships are real and should be expected in the lives of genuine Christians.  One primary reason many believers today have a hard time accepting the role of suffering in their lives or in the lives of friends and loved ones is that they have failed to understand and accept the reality of divine sovereignty.  Many also fail to see adversity from God's perspective.  In so doing, they completely overlook the positive, strengthening, perfecting effect that trials are designed to have on believer's faith. 

• The conclusion of any scriptural study of believers and suffering is this:  it is possible, and actually God's desire, that we do more than merely survive or barely tolerate a season of testing or suffering.  The Lord wants the experience, though perhaps difficult as we pass through it, to be a positive one in the end-one that strengthens and refines our faith.  

Job 23:10 - "But He knows the way I take; when He has tried me, I shall come forth as gold." 

Here's an interesting statistic that John cited in the introduction:  "According to David Barrett, editor of World Christian Encyclopedia, 300,000 Christians are martyred each year-833 per day.  Barrett concludes that the world-wide chance of being a martyr as a Christian is 1 in 200.  If you are a missionary, 1 in 50.  If you are a native evangelist, 1 in 20."  (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982.)  The book itself was published in 1995, fifteen years ago.  John then says, "Certainly with the increase in godless secularism and as we near the return of Christ, we could expect that such hostility and persecution might grow."

I know it will grow based on Christ's instruction in Matthew 24.  Viewing persecution from God's perspective will prepare us for it should we be in that generation to enter into Daniel's 70th Week.