INTRO: Last week I thought that I should maybe have changed subjects, but I was too late by the time I thought of it. And this week when we got the February issue of the Herald of His Coming, their subject matter was sorrows, trials, and the Holy Spirit as our Comforter and God’s great efforts to produce brokenness in us. I took this as a cue to speak on that which I thought I should have spoken on last Sunday. So I bring before us this morning, a subject of great importance, “Why must Christians suffer?”
In life, one of the great mysteries we will never fully understand, or likely appreciate, is the problem of the trials of life. Eliphaz the Temanite said in the book of Job, “…man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward” (5:7). I am not good at the Hebrew of the OT, but I understand that a literal reading for sparks is, ‘sons of the flame.’ Sparks are born out of the flame. As the flames bring forth sparks that fly upward, so man brings forth children that rise to trouble. |
