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How Can One Rejoice While Suffering?
HC: Good evening. Welcome to Open Forum
CALLER: I have a question about suffering. What I would like to know is, how can you . . . It's very hard for me to understand the scripture where it says that we are supposed to count it joy, that no matter what we go through, we can still be excited and rejoice, because we have a reward, or whatever. Could you explain that to me?
HC: Our caller is saying that we are to count it joy when we suffer and we're to be all excited about this. Well, I don't know where that is in the Bible. If I suffer, I may weep and I may be very troubled in my heart and be very sorrowful. The only joy that we have (and it is a marvelous joy) is the knowledge that I'm a child of God, and that no matter what happens to me I'm always in His hand. He is the One who cares for me, and all things that happen to me will work out together for good, because I am called of God, I do belong to Him.
But as suffering comes upon me, it of course is going to bring sorrow into my life. Even as I share the Gospel (and the Bible itself talks about this), and there are those who refuse to hear the Gospel (the Bible speaks about sowing with weeping), there's no joy when you share the Gospel and people don't want to turn to the Gospel. They go their own way. They want to have their own will. And there's no joy in hearing this. The only real joy that comes when we share the Gospel is when we come to one or another and they say, "Oh, yes. That's what I want to hear. I want to be obedient to the Word of God." And so there's lots of sorrow in life.
CALLER: Yes, but it says in the Bible to rejoice and be exceedingly glad when you are persecuted and all manner of evil is spoken against you.
HC: Yes. You are referring now to Matthew 5. Let's look at that. In verse 10: "Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake. For theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. Blessed are ye when men shall revile you and persecute you and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely for My sake. Rejoice and be exceeding glad for great is your reward in Heaven. For so persecuted they the prophets which were before you."
Now you see, our joy is in the knowledge that we are children of God, that we are saved. And while this suffering that we will undergo as we are persecuted will be grievous for the moment, yet at the same time, because we know that we're a child of God, we know that there's an end to this and our hope and our security is in Heaven. And upon death we will leave this body and go to be with Christ in Heaven. And we know that Christ will never leave us nor forsake us.
And for that reason we are joyous. And of course there is another aspect, and that is that we can joy in the sense that we know that Christ suffered as He brought the Gospel, and we have the joy of walking in His shoes, as we suffer as we bring the Gospel. And in that sense there is a joy. But it is not a flippant, shallow, superficial joy of some kind. it is a deep-rooted joy that is rooted in Christ Himself, because it is tied altogether to the fact that we've become a child of God.
CALLER: Okay. You lost me somewhere. What I'm asking you is, how can you rejoice when all of these . . . If you listen to the radio and listen to a lot of the gospel programs, they say that the Bible says rejoice, even though you're suffering, you might have cancer, but rejoice anyway. I watch a lot of saints, and a lot of saints do not rejoice while they're going through it. So what I'm asking is, how can you rejoice while you are in it?
HC: First of all, the question here of Matthew 5 is when you are being persecuted, when you are standing for Christ and as a result of standing for Christ men come against you and speak evilly of you, and they persecute you, they reproach you, they revile you, they slander you. That is what's in view here in Matthew 5, that we rejoice that we ire children of God and therefore we are suffering as Christ has suffered. Now again, as I said, this is not a superficial joy. It's way down deep in our hearts.
However, when we are suffering because of illness, when we are suffering because our loved ones are not being saved, there's an immense amount of suffering in the world, you know, all around us, we're not going to rejoice in this. We're going to be sad, we're going to be sorrowful. Anyone who says we're to rejoice in every situation, unless they mean that it's just in the sense that we know that through this Christ is still our Savior and He'll never leave us nor forsake us, in that sense we would have joy, but insofar as rejoicing, "Oh, goody! I have cancer," "Oh, goody, I brought the Gospel to somebody and I love them with all my heart and they rejected it. They don't want anything to do with it, and I'm so happy," that's sheer nonsense, of course. There's no happiness in this at all. There is deep sorrow in this.
CALLER: They said it says in the Bible, "I will praise God continually." In Hebrews it says, "Let us therefore offer the praise to God, through sacrifice, by giving thanks to His Name." And David said, "I will praise the Lord at all times. His praise shall continually be in my mouth."
HC: Yes, but you see, praising God and just experiencing a lot of happiness are two different things, that is, happiness as the world looks at it. We praise God that as we are undergoing illness, or as we share the Gospel and it's not being listened to, or whatever, we praise God that He is on the throne, that He does all things well, and He knows the end from the beginning, and we're in His hand. And He has provided this wonderful salvation. And there are lots of other things that we can praise Him for. And in that sense we have joy.
But there are other aspects where there is deep sorrow.
CALLER: Now when David said, "I will praise God continually," that means that God wants us to praise Him with a heart that is full of praise. In other words, when God wants us to praise Him, He doesn't want us to just say, "Well, thank you, God, for another day." He wants us to praise Him with everything that we have. And what I'm saying is, if David said., "I will praise Him continually," and God wants us to praise Him with everything we have, there ought to be some joy in it. And if there is to be some joy in praising God continually, then how can you praise Him through the suffering? Do you see what I mean?
HC: You see, a lot of people think that praising God is simply saying, "Halleluia! Halleluia!" all the time, or "Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord!" all the time, and walking around with that great big smile on their lips, "Praise God!" That isn't really praising God. That could be nothing but lip service. That could be nothing but going through an act.
To really praise God means that we're going to live obedient before Him. It means that we have a real trust in Him. That's really to praise Him, where we are honoring Him as our Lord and our God, and we know that He is always in control and we've abandoned ourselves to Him. And so in the suffering that we're undergoing, we praise Him not with a lot of language that's flowing from our lips, but we praise Him because in our heart there is a trust in Him that He will make this come out well. And even through our tears and through the agony that we may be going through, we know, "Oh Lord, we're in Thy hand and all is under control, because You will never leave me nor forsake me." And that is a genuine praise of God.
Thank you so much for calling.