‘Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort,
who comforts us in all our troubles,
so that we can comfort those in any trouble
with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.’
2 Corinthians 1:3,4
Psalm 119. 65-88
Once there was a King who had a close friend with whom he grew up.
The friend had a habit
of looking at every situation that ever occurred in his life (positive or negative)
and remarking, "This is good!"
One day the king and his friend went hunting.
The friend would load and prepare the guns for the king
but he must have made a mistake
for when the king fired the gun his thumb was blown off.
Examining the situation the friend remarked as usual, "This is good!"
To which the king replied, "No, this is NOT good!" and sent his friend to jail.
About a year later, the king was hunting in a dangerous area.
Cannibals captured him and took him to their village.
They tied his hands, stacked some wood, set up a stake and bound him to it.
As they approached to set fire to the wood,
they noticed that the king was missing a thumb.
They had a superstition that they never ate anyone that was less than whole.
So they let the King go.
As he returned home, he was reminded of the event that had taken his thumb
and felt remorse for his treatment of his friend. He went immediately to the jail.
“You were right," he said, "it was good that my thumb was blown off."
"And I am very sorry for sending you to jail for so long.
It was bad for me to do this."
"No," his friend replied, "This is good!"
"What do you mean, 'This is good'?
How could it be good that I sent my friend to jail for a year?"
"If I had NOT been in jail, I would have been with you."
A sort of illustration of Psalm 119.71
71 ‘It was good for me to be afflicted so that I might learn your decrees.’
‘Good’ is a key word in this part of Psalm 119
65 ‘Do good to your servant according to your word, O LORD. ‘
68 You are good, and what you do is good; teach me your decrees.
‘Afflicted’ is another key word.
67 Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I obey your word.
And these two key words are linked:
71 It was good for me to be afflicted so that I might learn your decrees.
This is the first time in the psalm that we have the word ‘afflicted’
but it is clearly part of the writer’s experience as he walks with God.
He did not live on a continual spiritual high and neither can we.
82 My eyes fail, looking for your promise; I say, When will you comfort me?
And the next verse has a vivid picture of ‘a wineskin in the smoke‘.
The leather bags that held wine were stored
hanging from the roof above the fire.
If they were forgotten about, they dried out and cracked
and no doubt the wine would have a smoky flavour.
This man is crying out to God:
‘I don’t want to be a cracked smoky wineskin.
Why do I have to wait for you to help me?
Why are you hanging me out to dry?
Yet he says, it was good for me to be afflicted …
How often would you hear someone say that today?
When people are afflicted, when they suffer they make a fuss.
They demand compensation, remedies
they don’t say It was good for me to be afflicted.
It is not a very congenial thing to say in our time.
We don’t do affliction. People don’t want to suffer.
THERE ARE FEW QUICK FIXES FOR AFFLICTION
We like instant results, quick fixes, continual pleasure.
Please don’t tell me we have to wait.
Please don’t tell me I shall have to suffer.
Perhaps because there are so many pain killers for pain in our bodies
we think that there should be instant pain relief
for our minds and souls as well.
That approach affects Christianity also.
People would like and we would like Christianity to be a bit easier.
But it isn’t easy.
There can be times when God is wonderfully near and his love is sweet.
Times when prayer is answered as we hoped
and more wonderfully than we thought.
We should thank God for those good times of blessing
but we should remember that they are gifts to us, not ours by right.
But there are also times when faith is hard, when God seems far away
and we go through one difficulty after another.
The Bible says such times are also good.
When people come and talk to me about church membership
as well as discussing things about God and Jesus as you would expect
this is an area which increasingly I want to put before them:
how will they cope with suffering.
It’s important that they understand
that Christian commitment will not be roses all the way
that we need to learn not to quit but to keep going.
It’s important in our witness if nothing else.
Non Christians observe how we cope with difficulty.
Do we complain? They complain - have we a different reaction?
Do we give up? They give up, but they will be intrigued if we don’t.
Will we get bitter or better?
If we react just the same as anyone else,
they will not be intrigued and not be impressed
and conclude that Christianity is not worth looking into further
because it doesn’t seem to make any difference to our lives.
But if we can say in any sense that it was good for me to be afflicted …
TO BE TRUE TO Jesus WILL MAKE YOU LIABLE TO AFFLICTION
Let me give you an example of someone some you know.
Stephen was a chief’s son in an African country.
His father had gone back to the old tribal practices
but Stephen had committed to Jesus.
When his father died people expected that Stephen would follow the tradition
of seeking to father a child by several of the women of the tribe.
Happily married himself and committed to Jesus
he refused to follow this corrupt practice.
Result? A long period of affliction.
Rejection, threats, flight, seeking asylum in this country
a long depressing episode,
where I do not believe their case was always handled justly.
Thankfully they now have a settled, fulfilled future in this country.
The affliction which arose from loyalty to Jesus did end,
but not quickly, not easily.
To be true to Jesus will make you liable to affliction.
SOMETIMES WE DESERVE OUR AFFLICTION.
A sad story about a certain Presbyterian minister visiting Brazil.
He was taken to a pizza restaurant to sample the Brazilian approach to pizza.
Piece after piece of different flavours
and sometimes for variation a rich lasagna or spaghetti bolognese
And then the sweet pizzas, chocolate, banana, cinnamom.
Perhaps sample is not the right word for what he ate that evening.
Maybe you can guess how this story ends.
By the morning he was afflicted. And it was his own fault.
Though he felt very sorry for himself he only had himself to blame
and hopefully he has learned something from that affliction
- even a night running to the toilet and a day on bread and water can be good.
SOMETIMES WE ARE TESTED BY UNDESERVED AFFLICTION
We can think of many examples in this category.
I simply think of a friend in England who is to hear this week
whether he is able for another course of chemotherapy.
It wasn’t through over eating or a careless lifestyle or immoral behaviour -
that this dark shadow hangs over
a man devoted to Christian ministry and to his loving family.
What shall we say to such a family?
This is where the quick fix approach totally breaks down.
This where we need the Holy Spirit to give us wisdom and gentleness
so that we know what to say and what not to say
when to speak and when to keep quiet and maybe just touch and hug.
But in all these cases we want to come to a place where we say
it was good for me to be afflicted that I may learn your decrees
God’s WORD WILL HELP US IN OUR AFFLICTION
What helps the person suffering for being true to Jesus?
As well as prayer and encouragement
the sense from God’s word that they are on the side of truth
that this suffering is worth enduring for the blessing that is surely coming:
2 Corinthians 4.17-18 says that ‘our light and momentary troubles
are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.
So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen.
For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.’
What will help the person suffering by their own fault?
Nothing else but a relearning of simple gospel truths
that God wants us to live in certain ways
and it is not good for us to choose our own ways
and our suffering then works as warning signals
to bring us back to God who as his word says
will abundantly pardon.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn learned this in a Soviet labour camp.
‘In my most evil moments I was convinced that I was doing good,
and I was well supplied with systematic arguments.
It was only when I lay there on rotting prison straw
that I sensed within myself the first stirrings of good.
Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil
passes not through states, nor between classes,
nor between political parties either—
but right through every human heart—and through all human hearts.
. . . That is why I turn back to the years of my imprisonment and say,
sometimes to the astonishment of those about me:
“Bless you, prison!”
I ... have served enough time there. I nourished my soul there,
and I say without hesitation:
“Bless you, prison, for having been in my life!”
(The Gulag Archipelago: 1918-1956, 615-617)
What will help the person suffering but it wasn’t their fault?
As I said, we don’t want to fire out quick fix Bible verses
but we need to remind people perhaps especially when things are good
that there is so much in the Bible that speaks about when times are bad.
The stories of Joseph and Job for example or many of the Psalms.
Joseph at the end of the book of Genesis
may have brought some of his suffering on himself,
firing up the jealousy of his brothers
but so much of it was undeserved -
the false accusations of Potiphar’s wife
the forgetfulness of the baker leaving him to wait in prison
At the end what does he say to his brothers?
‘You intended to harm me but God intended it for good’ Genesis 50.20
Job, an innocent man who suffered devastating losses
and then had to endure the quick fixes and harsh judgements
of his so called ‘comforters‘.
He does not receive an answer to why he has suffered so much
but his story ends with a closer, deeper knowledge of God
one we can trust even when we don’t understand.
A man found a cocoon of a butterfly. One day a small opening appeared.
He sat and watched the butterfly for several hours
as it struggled to force its body through that little hole.
Then it seemed to stop making any progress.
It appeared as if it had gotten as far as it could, and it could go no further.
So to help the butterfly he took a pair of scissors
and snipped off the remaining bit of the cocoon.
The butterfly then emerged easily.
But it had a swollen body and small, shriveled wings.
The man continued to watch the butterfly
because he expected that, at any moment,
the wings would enlarge and expand to be able to support the body,
which would contract in time.
Neither happened!
In fact, the butterfly spent the rest of its life
crawling around with a swollen body and shriveled wings.
It never was able to fly.
What the man, in his kindness and haste,
did not understand was that the restricting cocoon
and the struggle required for the butterfly to get through the tiny opening
were God's way of forcing fluid from the body of the butterfly into its wings
so that it would be ready for flight
once it achieved its freedom from the cocoon.
Beware the quick fix!
The timetable of affliction can be good.
28 And we know that in all things God works for the good
of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.
Lord
We bring to you the times when we have suffered for Jesus’ name
and we pray for those who go through more than we do
May your joy and love sustain and be a strong witness to the oppressor.
We bring you those messes of our lives which are our own fault.
May your love and truth gently restore us as we turn to Jesus.
We bring you those experiences where we cannot see the reason
But again may we and those for whom we pray see Jesus.
Be joyful in hope, patient in suffering, faithful in prayer
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him
so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit
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