The doctrine of suffering

1. The general causes for suffering in life — believers and unbelievers.

a) Loss of health, wealth, property, money, loved ones, or anything that you value.

b) Suffering from people. This includes gossip, ostracism, persecution, violence, crime, warfare.

c) Privation — hunger, thirst, cold, heat, storm, earthquake and other natural disasters, accidents in any variety.

d) Suffering from the administration of law — mostly to criminals.

e) Mental suffering — from sins, pride, arrogance, jealousy, hatred, bitterness, guilt reaction, neurosis or psychosis, worry, anxiety, fear, etc.

f) Suffering from rejection of authority. This includes rejection of authority in love. When the woman rejects the authority of a man she suffers. Failure in adulthood because of rejection of authority in childhood. Being fired from a job because of rejection of authority.

g) Suffering from reversionism resulting in reaping what you sow.

2. Basic categories of suffering. a) In time; b) In eternity. For time, we now begin to break up into the categories of the human race. The human race is divided into two categories by John 3:36, believers in Jesus Christ and rejecters of Jesus Christ. The unbeliever suffers in time for rejection of the laws of divine establishment. He suffers through reversionism and other factors of self-induced misery. The believer also suffers in time. In eternity the unbeliever suffers forever the most intense of all sufferings, the lake of fire forever — Revelation 20:12-15. There will be no suffering for the believer in eternity — Revelation 21:4.

3. The premise for Christian suffering.

a) All suffering is designed for blessing — 1 Peter 1:7,8; 4:14.

b) The exception is divine discipline — Hebrews 12:6, for carnality and for reversionism.

c) The exception is removed — 1 Corinthians 11:31 — for carnality: rebound; for reversionism: recovery through the consistent function of GAP.

d) Cursing is therefore turned to blessing — Romans 8:28. So the premise: All suffering is designed for blessing. The exception is divine discipline. Exception removed: the result is cursing turned to blessing.

4. The categories of Christian suffering. There are two types of Christian suffering: a) Disciplinary suffering, called deserved; b) Suffering for blessing, called undeserved.

A. There are ten categories of deserved [disciplinary] suffering:

a) Suffering from divine discipline [deserved] — Hebrews 12:6. This is the only way God can express His love to the carnal or reversionistic believer. For carnality — Psalm 38; for reversionism — Ecclesiastes. Psalm 38 was written by David after operation Bathsheba. He was a supergrace believer and he stayed a supergrace believer. What he did with Bathsheba was carnality, not reversionism. So he suffered a lot of discipline. In Psalm 38 he got around to rebounding which is how he broke out of carnality. This is a perfect illustration of divine discipline to a supergrace believer for his carnality. Suffering for reversionism is under a different system. There is warning discipline, sharp pains to let you know that something is not right. “Behold, I stand at the door and knock.” If that doesn’t work there is intense discipline. Then if that doesn’t work there is dying discipline — a horrible death. The entire book of Ecclesiastes is a perfect illustration of this type of discipline.

b) Suffering by association. One has to be carnal, one has to be reversionistic, or both has to be reversionistic, or both have to be carnal. This is a principle found in 1 Corinthians 12:26; Romans 14:7, illustrated by 1 Samuel 21.

c) Suffering caused by having the wrong priorities — again two illustrations: Ecclesiastes and Song of Solomon.

d) Suffering from guilt complex. This is isolated from other mental attitude sins which also cause suffering because a guilt complex is compounded suffering that you bring on yourself by reacting to your own failures — 1 Timothy 1:5,6,19,20; 3:9; 4:1,2; Titus 1:15.

e) Suffering through national discipline. Five cycles — Leviticus 26. Illustrations — Isaiah 33, 59; book of Hosea.

f) Suffering from rejecting the principle of right man, right woman. This is the type of suffering that can continue for the rest of one’s life because he has married the wrong person. It can be suffering for blessing or suffering for cursing: doctrine or carnality and reversionism. Ezekiel 16,23; Jeremiah 12:7; 15:7-12, 17,18.

g) Suffering from failure to isolate sin [chain sinning] — Hebrews 12:15.

h) Suffering from temporary loss of grace norms [when you get into legalism] — Jeremiah 2:24,25.

i) Suffering from historical disaster, war and revolution are two illustrations.

j) Suffering from reversionism — Psalm 77.

B. There are ten categories of suffering for blessing [undeserved suffering].

a) We often suffer to glorify God in the angelic conflict. There are other types of suffering for blessing that are related to it. Job; Luke 15:20,21; 1 Peter 1:12; 3:17. This is a noble and honourable type of pressure. b) Suffering to learn self-discipline — Hebrews 5:8. Our Lord Jesus Christ put Himself under discipline — Philippians 2:8.

c) Suffering to demonstrate the sufficiency of grace —2 Corinthians 12:1-10.

d) Suffering to eliminate the occupational hazard of pride and arrogance, and to relate it to the sufficiency of grace. You can never become an arrogant person without suffering horribly. If the purpose of the suffering is to eliminate arrogance it is suffering for blessing — 2 Corinthians 11:24-33; 12:1-10.

e) Suffering to develop faith-rest technique — enough faith to function in the faith-rest technique. You must have pressure for any kind of development.

B. There are ten categories of suffering for blessing [undeserved suffering].

a) We often suffer to glorify God in the angelic conflict. There are other types of suffering for blessing that are related to it. Job; Luke 15:20,21; 1 Peter 1:12; 3:17. This is a noble and honourable type of pressure.

b) Suffering to learn self-discipline — Hebrews 5:8. Our Lord Jesus Christ put Himself under discipline — Philippians 2:8.

c) Suffering to demonstrate the sufficiency of grace —2 Corinthians 12:1-10.

d) Suffering to eliminate the occupational hazard of pride and arrogance, and to relate it to the sufficiency of grace. You can never become an arrogant person without suffering horribly. If the purpose of the suffering is to eliminate arrogance it is suffering for blessing — 2 Corinthians 11:24-33; 12:1-10.

e) Suffering to develop faith-rest technique — enough faith to function in the faith-rest technique. You must have pressure for any kind of development. The trigger mechanism by which you apply doctrine in your soul to experience is faith, faith-rest; and it has to be developed, it has to be strong — 1 Peter 1:7,8.

f) Suffering to accelerate the construction of the edification complex of the soul and to enter into the supergrace status — James 1:1-6.

g) Suffering as a means of witnessing for Christ — 2 Corinthians chapters 3 & 4.

h) Sometimes suffering is very specialised. You suffer a special type of suffering ahead of someone else, using doctrine all the way, in order to be able to help some weaker believer when they go through the same thing. This is a specialised type of suffering in which God uses some stronger believers to encourage weaker believers — 2 Corinthians 1:3-5.

i) Suffering to learn the value of Bible doctrine. This is for the silly person who won’t come to doctrine until he has tried everything else and then says nothing else works so he might as well try doctrine. Psalm 119:67,68,71.

j) Suffering for the advance and impact of doctrine — 2 Timothy 1:12-14.

5. The concept of family suffering.

a) Scripture for family suffering: Exodus 20:4-6; Deuteronomy 5:8-10.

b) The four-generation curse is specifically enumerated in two other passages — Exodus 34:3-7; Numbers 14:8 — where a curse in one generation goes down to the next, and the next, and the next.

c) There is an entire chapter on the mechanics of this curse — Proverbs 30:11-17.

d) The law of culpability — Proverbs 24:16. You are never included in the discipline of the next generation unless you become culpable under the same principle.

e) The problem of children. This includes two basic principles: 1. Fairness toward children — Deuteronomy 21:15-17; 2. If bona fide discipline in the home fails, and occasionally it does, then the Bible says that when those children step out of line as teenagers they should be executed — Deuteronomy 21:18-22.

f) Doctrine breaks the four-generation curse. This is a combination of four verses: Psalm 100:5; Deuteronomy 7:9; 6:6-13; 11:18-21, in that order.

g) The children’s gimmick — Jeremiah 31:15; Number 14:31. This is where the parents suffer because they use their children as an excuse. They used their children as an excuse not to enter the land even though God promised them to enter the land. People today use their children as an excuse not to come to Bible class. That means family suffering. Whenever you use your children as an excuse not to do something that is commanded by the Word you are going to produce suffering in your life.

i) The triumph of children with doctrine. It is possible that every category of suffering enumerated in the first six points can be eliminated by children moving to supergrace before they become adults. This was the case in Lamentations 3:21-31.

6. The concept of economic suffering. When there is freedom in the economy ad runs its normal course of supply and demand of free enterprise you are going to have periodic depression. The doctrine is that depression is an enema that eliminates the unfit people in a nation. A nation is weakened by not destroying what is weak from time to time. A house gets dirty if you don’t clean it; a nation gets weak if certain types of natural disaster, like economic depression, do not come along and eliminate the weak. It has nothing to do with race or any other factor, it has to do with the law that if you do not have a periodic depression then your nation will eventually be so weak that it will destroy itself. Welfare is a weakener of a nation.

a) Inflation is a part of the fourth cycle of discipline — Leviticus 26:26.

b) Since depression should be a periodic thing the importance of solvency in a depression is the subject of Genesis 41.

c) Depression also strengthens spiritually for it acts as a test for the faith-rest technique — Genesis 12:10; 1 Peter 1:7,8.

d) Doctrine resident in the soul is the answer to depression rather than money in the pocket — 2 Chronicles 20:9.

e) Divine viewpoint is necessary to survive economic disaster — Psalm 33:17-20.

f) Depression is a part of divine discipline both to the nation and the individual reversionist under the influence of evil — Psalm 105:16; Jeremiah 11:22.

g) False teaching in time of depression intensifies that depression — Jeremiah 14:13-16,18.

h) God protects the supergrace believer in depression — Job 5:20; Romans 8:35.

i) Bible doctrine resident in the soul is the solution to depression. Consequently, advance to supergrace restores the economy — Isaiah 37:30,31.

7. God can only demonstrate His love to the believers through suffering in time — 1 Peter 4:14,16. Whatever suffering is going to come to you it will only occur in phase two, time. Phase three, eternity, is minus suffering.

a) There is no suffering for believers in eternity — Revelation 21:4.

b) Furthermore, there is no suffering too great for the plan of God. The plan of God can meet any suffering in life.

c) Divine provision for suffering is greater than any pressure of life.

d) Supergrace is the status in which to experience this principle. You are fully prepared for suffering in supergrace; you are not prepared for suffering until supergrace.

e) The supergrace believer is qualified through doctrine resident in the soul to weather any storm of life.

8. The unique sufferings of the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross — Isaiah 53. Since Jesus Christ reached supergrace at a very early age obviously all of the suffering that he had was suffering for blessing. He was perfect, born minus the old sin nature, minus the imputation of Adam’s sin. He lived a life of perfection — doctrine of impeccability. All of the suffering that came to Him was undeserved, for blessing. But the intensification of suffering when He reached the cross was absolutely unique. Christ is unique; His sufferings are unique.