Granted to Suffer With Him

“And not in any way terrified by your adversaries, which is to them a proof of perdition, but to you of salvation, and that from God. For to you it has been granted on behalf of Christ, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake . . . .” Phil. 1:28-29. Many people never come to wisdom because they do not consider that suffering with Him is something that has been granted to them. That is why there are so few, even among us, who develop in wisdom. They are not willing to enter into weakness and suffer with Him. Consequently, they are not glorified with Him either. Jesus came to the treasures of wis­dom and knowledge by suffering death according to the flesh and being made alive by the Spirit. In His humiliation, these treasures were hidden inside Him, but who could see them? That is why it is extremely dangerous to despise those who, for Jesus’ sake, go through humiliation and are mocked by people. If you despise these people, you are touching the apple of God’s eye, and you can’t do that without being pun­ished. When your brother is in a time of humiliation, don’t exalt yourself. Rather, pray for him; be good and merciful. Then you will come to wisdom in your own life and in your own circumstances.

Many with the gift of wisdom esteemed themselves even greater than Paul. They believed they were capable of judging Paul, and they despised him on account of the treatment God gave him—for example, when he was in prison. “Paul sure doesn’t have much wisdom. Look, now he’s in jail again. He should have had more wisdom, so that he wouldn’t get caught. It just brings shame on Jesus’ name.” No doubt they sat there in their nice houses and criticized him. But who among them understood why God did what He did? When Paul, in his wisdom, allowed himself to be led to say and do the things he did, the effects were, among other things, that he got time to write his letters—those letters that became such a guiding star and a powerful light of salvation that God ac­knowledged them as His own Word when He read what Paul wrote. The wisest and most glorious things that have ever been written were written by a man who was regarded by many as the off-scouring of the earth. You become very small and poor in your own eyes when you think about such a man’s life and work in faithfulness to his heavenly Bridegroom. In our time, we have also had brothers who were despised and rejected and considered to be on the outside. And yet, they will remain on the inside for all eternity! They have been faith­ful to the Word and allowed the Holy Spirit to lead them in great faithfulness. They are great men of God!

The ten thousand instructors in Corinth taught the Corinthians something they never should have taught them. They taught them to despise the fathers in Christ. Conse­quently, they also rejected the hidden wisdom that was in the fathers—the hidden wisdom of God. As a result, they were on the verge of ending up on the outside for all eternity. “Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away; and ev­ery branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit.” John 15:2. To oppose fathers in Christ is the same thing as to oppose God, and often the result is that the earth opens up and swallows those who have done that. Jesus expects us to bear fruit and to continue to develop. “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us; but they went out that they might be made manifest, that none of them were of us.” 1 John 2:19.

We must all come into situations where we experience God’s purging fire. If you draw back from the fire, you draw back from the possibilities for salvation and sanctification. “And you mourn at last when your flesh and your body are consumed, and say: ‘How could I have hated chastisement, and how has my heart been able to despise correction?’” Prov. 5:11-12 (Norw.). “Though you grind a fool in a mortar with a pestle along with crushed grain, yet his foolishness will not depart from him.” Prov. 27:22. People like this despise their calling and destroy their chances of eternal life. “Knowledge puffs up, but love edifies.” 1 Cor. 8:1. Ask yourself how much you are able to edify, and be humble in your thoughts about your own competence. Then God will exalt you in His time. Learn from Joseph and the other men and women of God who have gone the way of suffering to glory. They humbled them­selves in their circumstances, and God exalted them in His time. I don’t know anyone who has received something true and genuine from God without going the way of suffering.

Through the prophetic Word, we go through suffering and into glory in our day. Those who are with us and build the church appreciate this way. It is hidden from the natural man, but it is revealed to those who are God-fearing. “Of this salva­tion the prophets have inquired and searched carefully, who prophesied of the grace that would come to you, searching what, or what manner of time, the Spirit of Christ who was in them was indicating when He testified beforehand the suffer­ings of Christ and the glories that would follow.” 1 Pet. 1:10-11.

“From that time Jesus began to show to His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised the third day. Then Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him, saying, ‘Far be it from You, Lord; this shall not happen to You!’ But He turned and said to Peter, ‘Get behind Me, Satan! You are an offense to Me, for you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men.’” Matt. 16:21-23. Everything that men are mindful of, or esteem, goes against suffering. If Jesus had listened to Peter, the work of salvation would have failed. The Spirit of wisdom points to this way: through sufferings to glory. “Then He said to them, ‘O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into His glory?’” Luke 24:25-26.

Wisdom will rule in eternity. God’s wisdom encompasses so much; it is like a boundless ocean. Therefore, for mankind wisdom has been broken up into individual laws of the Spirit of life so that it can be understood. Wisdom demands total and complete purity from seeking your own. And then wisdom’s tremendous flexibility will appear through all of its more tender characteristics—mercy, goodness, gentleness, meekness—and it will build up the body of Christ.