Dr. J. Vernon McGee :: Reaction to Suffering

Why Do God’s Children Suffer?

Reaction to Suffering

Now what is your reaction to the chastening of the Lord? How do you respond to it?

There are several ways you can react. You can despise it. That’s what the writer to the Hebrews says, “Despise not thou the chastening of the Lord.” Now, how can you despise it? You can despise it by ignoring it, that is, by not relating it to the fact that God is trying to get a message through to you, trying to tell you something. You can accept it just like a dumb animal or a brute beast accepts pain. And a great many people are doing this. They say, “Well, it’s just my luck.” My friend, if you are a child of God, you haven’t had hard luck. God is trying to tell you something. He says, “Despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him” (Hebrews 12:5).

Another way you can react to God’s discipline is to become a crybaby. You can say, “Why did God let this happen to me?” Have you ever heard a Christian say that? He says here, “Faint not when you’re rebuked of Him.” That suffering, that problem, or whatever it is that has come to you, is a challenge, and God intends for it to be that.

Then there are others who become super-pious saints. They are very passive about suffering. They develop sort of a martyr complex, and they say, “Well, this is my cross and I’ll bear it,” when all the time there is inner rebellion going on. But they take it like the fakir in India who lies down on a board filled with nails. Oh, my friend, that is not what God wants you to do.

Listen to Him:

Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous; nevertheless, afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them who are exercised by it. (Hebrews 12:11)

No suffering at the time seems to be pleasant. I scream at the top of my voice, if you want to know the truth, when it comes to me. Of course it is not joyous — but it’s just for a brief moment. It is like the deacon in a church in the South expressed it. The preacher had asked for verses of Scripture that were favorites. And this deacon got up and said, “My favorite verse is, ’And it came to pass.’ ”

Everyone looked puzzled. The preacher asked, “What do you mean your favorite verse is, ’And it came to pass’?”

“Well,” he said, “when trouble comes to me, I just turn to where it says, ’It came to pass,’ and I thank the Lord it came to pass and it didn’t come to stay.”

Now this may not be a correct interpretation of that Scripture, but I tell you, it’s a marvelous truth that God’s Word teaches. And that is what verse 11 is saying. “No chastening for the moment is joyous” — it’s terrible. Don’t say you are a martyr and you are going to bear it. Say, “I’m going to get out of this as quickly as I can.”

Mrs. Siewert, who was responsible for the Amplified Bible, carried on with me a running, friendly war as long as she was alive. I would correct her Bible; then she would correct my sermons at the Church of the Open Door. When I had surgery for cancer, I asked everybody to pray for me. She wrote to me and said, “Now, Dr. McGee, you are ready to go so I am going to pray that the Lord will take you home.” I wrote a reply to Mrs. Siewert in a hurry, “Don’t you pray that prayer. This is between the Lord and me, and you let Him handle it.” I wanted to be cured of cancer. I was prepared to learn the lesson God had for me, but I wanted to live. In my opinion, it is nonsense to be passive about it.

There is a fourth way we can react to suffering. We are told to endure chastening.

If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not? (Hebrews 12:7)

The thing that is important here is that we are to endure chastening. Let me be personal at this point. When I got cancer in 1965, I made the announcement of it on my radio program, and I asked folk to pray for me. God did hear and He did answer. I had periodic x-rays made, and they showed that my lungs were still clear of the seven cancer spots. I thanked God for healing. But I want to say this to you: I accepted cancer as punishment from God. I believe He was punishing me. And I’ll tell you the reason. I had been at the Church of the Open Door for fifteen years. I had come to the place that I didn’t need the Lord to bring the crowds. I was doing it myself — I thought I was. As a result, the Lord put me flat on my back to let me know that I was absolutely nothing. He said, “I can remove you from this scene, and I do not need you.” He punished. That was eight years ago.

Now this summer when I was stricken with an illness, I did not feel that it was punishment. I felt He was chastening me. It was discipline. I was confident that I was in God’s will. I went to Him and said, “Look, I think I’ve learned all the lessons I need to learn, and I’d appreciate it if You would make it possible for me to fulfill my obligations.” You see, I’d been going to the Northwest for twenty-five years for conferences, and I was scheduled to be up there six weeks during the summer. I didn’t know what they would do without me. So I begged the Lord, “Let me go.” Actually I rebelled against the chastening and against my doctor’s orders. I got up and attempted to make a move. And He slapped me down, oh, so hard! I never have suffered like I suffered at that time. I had to cancel twelve conferences in the summer and fall. God assured me, “It’s all right. They will get along without you. I want you to lie down and just get acquainted with Me. I want you to know that I love you and that you have a lot of lessons to learn yet.” I found out that the Lord had a lot of things to teach me. I had never been brought as close to the Lord as I was during that time. Never. How wonderful He was.

When the summer was over, I got a telephone call from the Northwest about coming up the next summer, and I asked them, “By the way, what kind of a summer did you have this year?” They said, “We had the best summer we have had in twenty-five years!” To the Lord I said, “They did get along without me, didn’t they!” He said, “Yes. I’d like you to get acquainted with Me.”

Not only that, but my wife and I sat for three months out on our patio that summer. I hate being idle. Although I did a lot of study, I wanted to make tapes and do other things. But instead I got acquainted with my wife. I was telling my doctor about it. He’s a wonderful Christian but he’s a little hard-boiled. He said, “Yes, and I bet you found out you have the most wonderful wife in the world.” I said, “That’s exactly what I found out.” It’s amazing what you can learn when you are flat on your back. You simply have to look up to the Lord and let Him speak to you.

How do you respond, friend, when suffering comes?

There are no accidents in a Christian’s life. Even when he has an “accident,” it’s not accidental. It did not happen by chance. Do you take an inventory of your life when trouble comes? Do you ever evaluate your suffering? Do you turn your stumbling blocks into stepping stones?

“Why did God let this happen to me?” is a good question. And there is a better answer to it. There’s a goal to be attained, a race to be won, a battle to be fought, and there is a benefit here and now.

Job discovered this truth. He says,

But he knoweth the way that I take; when he hath tested me, I shall come forth as gold. (Job 23:10)

God not only refined him, but He doubled everything he had lost. Someone counters, “But God didn’t double his children. He gave him the same number of children that he had lost.” No, He doubled them also. You see, when he lost the cattle, he lost them permanently — they were gone forever. But when he lost his children, he did not actually lose them — they just went on before him. So God doubled his children also.

Then there is Paul the apostle. I don’t read that Paul everreceived a reward down here. In fact, he became a martyr, but he could say at the end of his life:

I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith; henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day; and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing. (2 Timothy 4:7, 8)

Paul will get his reward afterward.

Whether now or later, there is always a reward for His faithful children. Someday God will wipe away all tears, and He will heal all the broken hearts. Then He will reveal the reasons for those puzzling experiences that you and I had down here.

Do you remember when the children of Israel went through the wilderness? They crossed the Red Sea in great victory, and they sang the song of Moses unto the Lord (Exodus 15). God delivered them. What a victory it was! Immediately, their first experience in the wilderness was that of running out of water. Then they came to Marah where there was water, but when they got down to drink it, the water was bitter. They began to complain — their first experience was a bitter experience. So God said to Moses, “There is a certain tree here. You get that and put it in the water, and it will be sweet.” (See Exodus 15:22-25.) Friend, you and I need to bring Jesus Christ and His death on the tree into the bitter experiences of our life to make them sweet. That is the only thing in the world that can make the experiences of suffering down here sweet.

We are to “run with patience the race that is set before us” (Hebrews 12:1). How?

Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher [architect] of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. (Hebrews 12:2)

The most important thing is to draw near to God. When we do, He promises to draw near to us. We need to keep very close to Him in these days.

Let me conclude with a very homely illustration. When I was a boy, I went to grade school in southern Oklahoma. On April Fool’s Day it was the custom among the bad boys to play hookey. Well, although I was a good boy (you could have asked my mother and she would have told you what a fine boy I was!), I went with a bad crowd. On April Fool’s Day I would play hookey with these boys. Well, one time we came to school on April the first, put our books in our desks, then about a dozen of us went down to the old Phillip’s Creek to go fishing. It wasn’t a good time to fish because it was the spring of the year and the water in the creek was at a high level. Fish just don’t bite when the creeks are up. But we fished nonetheless and had a good time running up and down the creek to the different holes we knew. None of us caught any fish, but we had a great day. When we started back home, the problems began to arise. We decided the best thing to do was to go by the school, get our books and take them home so our parents would not suspect what we had done. When we reached the schoolhouse, everybody had gone, so we walked into our room. And when we walked into the room, the principal, apparently knowing what we would do, walked in after us.

“Boys, did you have a good day?”

“Yes, sir.” It had been a good day up to that moment!

“Did you catch any fish?”

“No.”

“Well, follow me,” he instructed. And he began a parade down the hallway to his office. He sat us down and gave us a little talk. We knew what was coming. He said, “Now I keep my switches down the hallway locked up in a closet. I’ll go down and get them, and I’ll come back and punish each one of you.”

So while he was gone to get his switches, one of the boys, who had been in there more than any of the rest of us and knew his way around, gave the best advice that I ever received. He said, “Now when he hits you with that switch, the first lick will just burn you up because he starts off with you way out on the end of the switch. But as he whips you, take a step toward him. Keep moving toward him. The closer you get to him, the less it’ll hurt.”

That was the best advice I ever had. I remember the first lick he hit me — it really burned. But I began to edge toward him, and when he finished, I was somewhere pretty close to his hand and it wasn’t hurting me at all.

That was a great lesson. And since then, I have learned that God also disciplines His children. If you don’t want it to hurt, the thing to do is to get close to Him. The closer you are, the less it will hurt. You remember that the Lord Jesus said (as recorded in John 15) that He is the vine, we are the branches, and the Father prunes the branches. That hurts to be trimmed like that! But, as the old Scotch divine said, the Father is never so close to the branches as when He is trimming them. That is wonderful. We need to get close and stay close to Him.

The following lovely little poem was given to me when I had cancer surgery and again during my latest illness. I have deeply appreciated it, and I’d like to share it with you.