10/4/85 Eph 124-127; 2/4/86 Eph 209; 3/13/85 Eph 237
A. Definition and Description.
1. Preventative suffering has two categories: punitive preventative suffering and providential preventative suffering.
2. Preventative suffering is defined as short-termed suffering from the sovereignty of God for the benefit of the believer.
3. Punitive preventative suffering is suffering related to sin in contrast to providential preventative suffering. Providential preventative suffering is that suffering which prevents, restrains, or insulates sin and evil, while challenging spiritual self-esteem to suffer for blessing and profit. But punitive preventative suffering is that category which administers punishment to the guilty, and warns the tempted believer to resist the temptation and avoid the sin or the flaw. 4. Often the purpose of providential preventative suffering is to learn obedience, self-discipline, and therefore enforced and genuine humility. No human can reach human maturity without enforced and genuine humility. This is basic orientation to life, orientation under the laws of divine establishment. All of us must go through some form of discipline and preventative suffering in order that we might reach the point of enforced humility and genuine humility.
B. Punitive Preventative Suffering.
1. Punitive preventative suffering is related to the believer in spiritual childhood, while providential preventative suffering is related to the believer in spiritual adulthood. Both are similar in what they do.
2. Punitive preventative suffering is for the believer out of fellowship; providential preventative suffering is for the believer in fellowship and in spiritual adulthood.
3. Punitive preventative suffering punishes a guilty believer and motivates his rebound. At the same time, it restrains a tempted believer. Therefore, punitive preventative suffering is synonymous with warning and intensive discipline.
4. Providential preventative suffering is the first category of suffering for blessing related to spiritual adulthood.
5. Punitive preventative suffering is designed by God as part of intensive and warning discipline to accomplish three things.
a. To punish sin.
b. To motivate rebound.
c. To restrain when tempted.
6. Punitive preventative suffering also effects the future restraint of the believer being punished. Therefore, it restrains future repetition of any sin or failure.
7. Punitive preventative suffering is analogous to children being disciplined by their parents. Parental discipline teaches the child self-restraint, respect for authority, how to live in a society under the Laws of Divine Establishment as a civilized person.
8. Hence, punitive preventative suffering restrains and motivates function in two categories: warning and intensive discipline.
9. Therefore, punitive preventative suffering, as part of warning and intensive discipline, limits and restrains the believer’s excursions into the cosmic system.
10. The results of punitive preventative suffering are found in Ps 119:67-72. “Before I was afflicted [administration of punitive preventative suffering] I went astray [self-induced misery and divine discipline], but now I keep Your Word. You were good and you do good [in the administration of preventative suffering]; teach me Your doctrines [punitive preventative suffering motivates positive volition to Bible doctrine]. The arrogant ones smear me with lies, but I observe Your doctrines with all my heart. Their right lobe is gross like fat [like cholesterol, blocks perception, metabolization and application of doctrine], but I delight in Your Word. It was good for me that I was afflicted [punitive preventative suffering], that as a result I learned doctrine. The doctrine from Your mouth is better to me than thousands of gold and silver coins.”
11. Punitive preventative suffering is related to self-repudiation in cosmic one, where the believer grieves the Holy Spirit, and self-alienation in cosmic two, where the believer quenches the Holy Spirit.
12. People who are observant of others should never gossip, but they should learn, by watching God deal with others, to be restrained from doing certain things, whether sin or bad judgment or uncommon sense.
13. Illustrations of punitive preventative suffering: World War II, AIDS, discipline and punishment of children by parents, military discipline saves lives in battle, beast barracks.
14. Illustration: Heb 12:6, 7, 15.
a. Verse 6 is the analogy between the Lord’s administration of preventative suffering to us, and the parents’ administration of preventative suffering to their children. Enforced and genuine humility are a part of preventative suffering.
b. Children are only spoiled by withholding discipline and training when they need it. Today there is no preventative suffering in the home, no respect for delegated authority in all areas of life. The only children who are mature when they leave home are those who have undergone preventative suffering, i.e., punitive preventative suffering.
c. The Lord administers discipline in love, just as a parent does. Heb 12:6-7a, “For those whom the Lord loves He disciplines, and He scourges every son whom He receives. Because of corrective discipline, Endure! For this is why God deals with us as sons.”
15. Preventative suffering is the basis for the exhortation of Heb 12:15, “See to it [personal responsibility] that no one falls back from the grace of God, that not one root of bitterness sprouting up causes trouble and through this bitterness many become contaminated.”
C. Providential Preventative Suffering.
1. Providential preventative suffering is the first category of suffering for blessing. From the context of 2 Cor 12:7-8, it can be called thorn testing.
2. Providential preventative suffering performs numerous functions.
a. It insulates against the arrogance complex. This means you begin to eliminate jealous, self-pity, bitterness, vindictiveness, hatred, inordinate ambition, inordinate competition, and all the other mental attitude sins in the arrogance complex.
b. It is preliminary testing or warm-up testing. 2 Cor 12:10 lists four tests which match the four momentum tests. There is a warm-up for people testing, for system testing, for thought testing, and for disaster testing.
3. So providential preventative suffering not insulates you against arrogance, but it prepares you for momentum testing. For momentum testing is the major hurdle in reaching spiritual maturity.
4. Providential preventative suffering is the provision of the sovereignty of God in compatibility with His grace policy to provide the power for spiritual self-esteem to advance to spiritual maturity; i.e., the power to advance through the valley of momentum testing.
5. For when spiritual self-esteem combines with providential preventative suffering, it forms spiritual autonomy, which is spiritual self-esteem with muscle minus arrogance. Spiritual self-esteem cannot function apart from humility. Therefore, providential preventative suffering provides both muscle and humility.
6. Spiritual self-esteem can only function on humility and orientation to authority. To the extent that you reject any authority in life, to that extent your spiritual self-esteem is parlayed into a system of arrogance.
7. Spiritual self-esteem is vulnerable to arrogance without providential preventative suffering, which God graciously provides. The most vulnerable point in the believer’s advance is when he reaches spiritual self-esteem. Here he is extremely vulnerable to the temptations related to the arrogance complex.
8. Providential preventative suffering prevents, restrains, intercepts, insulates against sin and evil in the life while challenging your spiritual self-esteem to suffer for blessing and profit. 9. Illustration: a woman falls in love with a man who walks out on her just before the marriage. She is miserable temporarily, but this is better than a lifetime of misery with the wrong man.
10. Therefore, when spiritual self-esteem combines with providential preventative suffering, it forms spiritual autonomy. There are five results or signs of spiritual autonomy:
a. Impersonal love for all mankind is the first sign of spiritual autonomy. b. Authority orientation, or enforced humility.
c. Genuine humility, which insulates against arrogance during momentum testing. d. Self-discipline.
e. Obedience to the Word of God. (Also see the doctrine of Spiritual Autonomy for detailed characteristics.)
11. Prov 19:8, “He who gets wisdom loves his own soul [spiritual self-esteem]; he who cherishes understanding prospers [spiritual autonomy].”
D. Preventative Suffering Develops Problem Solving Devices.
1. Providential preventative suffering is a vehicle for the advance to spiritual maturity, because it is a system of problem solving.
2. 1 Pet 1:6-8, “In this [inheritance] you greatly rejoice, even though now for a little while, if necessary, you have distresses from various testings [providential preventative suffering]; that the proof of your doctrine [use of Bible doctrine from spiritual self-esteem], being more precious than gold which is losable, even though tested by fire [providential preventative suffering], may be found to result in praise, glory, and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”
a. “Tested by fire” is used, because when you put gold in fire, the gold melts. Fire changes the nature of the gold.
b. So also, providential preventative suffering changes the nature of the believer.
c. So the little bit of providential preventative suffering you have today may result in the praise, honor and glory at the Judgment Seat of Christ. Verse 8, “And though you have not seen Him, you love Him; and though you do not see Him now but believe in Him, you greatly rejoice with inexpressible happiness and full of glory [spiritual maturity].”
3. Phil 1:29, “For to you it has been given on behalf of Christ, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake.” This is important. You don’t suffer for His sake when you make your own problems, reaping what you have sowed from your own bad decisions and bad judgment. Suffering for His sake is when you finally reach spiritual self-esteem.
4. Providential preventative suffering is described as various testings producing steadfastness or spiritual autonomy. Jas 1:2-4, “Consider it all happiness, my brethren [royal family], when you encounter various testings [of many kinds in providential preventative suffering], knowing that the testing of your doctrine [spiritual self-esteem applies metabolized doctrine to providential preventative suffering to attain spiritual autonomy] produces steadfastness [spiritual autonomy]. And let steadfastness [spiritual autonomy] have its perfect result [spiritual autonomy plus momentum testing = spiritual maturity], that you may be mature and complete [spiritual maturity plus evidence testing = glorification of God to the maximum in the angelic conflict], lacking nothing [no escrow blessing lost from evidence testing].” This passage describes providential preventative suffering as the category that prevents sin and challenges spiritual self-esteem to suffer for blessing in the midst of trials.
5. Metabolized doctrine results in virtue-love as a problem solving device which includes spiritual self-esteem. Spiritual self-esteem meets the challenge of providential preventative suffering resulting in giving #1 priority to Bible doctrine.
6. Hence, providential preventative suffering is the means of establishing right priorities in the spiritual life of the believer.
E. Providential preventative suffering is the preliminary warm-up for momentum testing, 2 Cor 12:7-10.
1. Verse 7, “And for this reason [Paul in spiritual self- esteem], lest I should become arrogant because of the extraordinary quality of revelation [mystery doctrine], I was given for my blessing and benefit a thorn in the flesh [providential preventative suffering], an angel from Satan [thorn demon], that he might torment me lest I should become arrogant” [providential preventative suffering insulates against arrogance].
2. No one can attain spiritual self-esteem apart from gate #5, personal love for God. Until the believer has personal love for God from metabolized doctrine, he cannot have personal love for self as a legitimate, spiritual function in the first stage of spiritual adulthood. Without providential preventative suffering, spiritual self-esteem can easily slip into a state of arrogance. 3. Verse 8, “Concerning this [thorn in the flesh] I appealed to the Lord three times [three wrong, intensive prayers], that it [thorn demon] might depart from me.”
4. Providential preventative suffering, like all suffering for blessing, is not designed to be removed by prayer. It is administered by God, and what God does not remove He intends for us to bear. You do not pray for the removal of any suffering, whether for blessing or punitive. Such a prayer is blasphemous, for without suffering the believer cannot fulfill the protocol plan of God. See Point 6.
5. Verse 9, “Then He assured me [counsel from God], `My grace [divine capitalization of every Church Age believer] has been, and still is sufficient for you, for the power [three stages of spiritual adulthood] is achieved with weakness [inability to use human assets in the three categories of suffering for blessing]. Therefore, I will boast [esprit de corps, grace orientation to the provision of suffering for blessing] all the more gladly about my weaknesses, in order that the power of Christ [Lord’s attainment of spiritual maturity] may reside in me [mechanics of the divine dynasphere].”
6. Everything necessary to fulfill the protocol plan of God was provided in eternity past by way of assets in the Portfolio of Invisible Assets. Then God provides doctrine and suffering in time. What a marvelous combination!
7. Suffering does not bear its meaning in itself, but becomes a spotlight, focusing on God’s power and our concurrent weakness, weakness brought about by suffering for blessing. Suffering for blessing focuses on God’s grace, and turns boasting away from self-glorification into worship, love, and appreciation for God.
8. Paul is boasting because this is not punitive preventative suffering, but suffering for blessing through which God is glorified. Hence, this is boasting in a good sense, which looks away from Paul and toward the grace provision of God. It is not boasting to glorify self, but the dynamic mental attitude of spiritual self-esteem facing providential preventative suffering. 9. Verse 10, “For this reason I find contentment in weaknesses [providential preventative suffering], in slanders [preliminary people testing], in pressures [preliminary thought testing], in persecutions [preliminary system testing], in stresses [preliminary disaster testing] on behalf of Christ; for when I am weak, then I am strong.”
10. These four preliminary tests are the warm-ups for what may be expected in momentum testing. Spiritual self-esteem develops muscle from passing these four warm-up tests, and so attains spiritual autonomy.
11. Whenever we face suffering for blessing, human solutions cannot solve or help, only divine solutions can. Therefore, suffering for blessing causes the believer to be weak so that he has to depend on the divine provision for problem solving. Consequently, each stage of spiritual adulthood is a problem solving device designed to face and pass a suffering for blessing test.
12. The weakness produced from providential preventative suffering, when combined with spiritual self-esteem, produces spiritual autonomy. The weakness produced by momentum testing gives spiritual autonomy a chance to get stronger to reach spiritual maturity. In spiritual maturity, the ultimate in spiritual strength comes from passing evidence testing.
13. “On behalf of Christ” parallels Phil 1:29, “For to you it has been given on behalf of Christ, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake.”
F. Misuse of Prayer in Suffering.
1. Prayer is antithetical to the purpose for suffering for blessing.
a. We must understand the role and significance of spiritual self-esteem in order to appreciate Paul’s false application of doctrine in praying for the removal of the thorn in the flesh.
b. You do not pray for the removal of the very means of advancing to spiritual maturity.
c. You do not pray for the removal of suffering for blessing by which the protocol plan of God is fulfilled. What God does not remove by way of suffering, He intends for you to bear.
d. You do not pray for the removal of the mechanics of power by which spiritual self-esteem is parlayed into spiritual autonomy.
e. Prayer is not a problem solving device in your life! You can pray for others under suffering, and you should. You don’t judge why they’re suffering, but you do pray for those who suffer. This is a privilege of the royal priesthood. Prayer is a weapon of power in the hands of the royal priest.
f. But you never pray for the removal of suffering from yourself or from others. All suffering is a decision from the sovereignty of God.
g. The Christian does not pray for strength in time of suffering, because strength in suffering comes in other ways mechanically. Ignorant and negative believers use prayer for everything, having no doctrine, no application of doctrine, and no spiritual growth. God never puts on you more than you can bear; only YOU do that under the law of volitional responsibility. And before God gives suffering for blessing, He always provides the means of handling it. So strength in suffering comes from the application of metabolized doctrine in a stage of spiritual adulthood:
(1) Spiritual self-esteem, which combined with providential preventative suffering produces spiritual autonomy.
(2) Spiritual autonomy, which combined with momentum testing produces spiritual maturity.
(3) Spiritual maturity which combined with evidence testing produces maximum glorification of God.
2. Why we do not pray when suffering.
a. You can never pray for the removal of any suffering, regardless of the cause, even if it is punitive. If it’s self-induced misery from the law of volitional responsibility, just reverse your decision-making process. Why? What God does not remove He intends for you to bear.
b. Suffering in our lives has two sources:
(1) Our own volition, under the principle of self-induced misery. We constantly make bad decisions for which we suffer. All we can do is rebound. If the suffering stops, it’s because God stops it; not because we do. If the suffering goes on, this is the only category of suffering for blessing in spiritual childhood.
(2) The sovereignty of God, who always knows what is best for us, whether He is administering punitive preventative suffering to us under divine discipline, or suffering for blessing under the three categories administered to spiritual adults.
c. Suffering is designed by God to fulfill two purposes:
(1) If punitive suffering, it’s designed to bring the believer back to reality and from reality to rebound.
(2) If it’s suffering for blessing, it’s designed to challenge spiritual adulthood to advance to the next stage.
d. Whether God continues our suffering after rebound, which becomes suffering for blessing, or whether He pours on suffering for blessing to us as spiritual adults, it is His decision! Do you think a prayer will reverse that decision? Will you tell the sovereignty of God how to function? This is what you do when you pray for the removal of suffering!
e. We may start the suffering under the law of volitional responsibility with bad decisions or bad judgment, but we never pray for the removal of any suffering from ourselves.
f. Why? Because suffering always has a great divine purpose in our lives. And we have no right to even question the sovereignty of God, much less ask for the cancellation of divine wisdom.
g. In effect, prayer for the removal of suffering is tantamount to blasphemy, even though it’s usually from ignorance. We never know when we’ve had enough; God always knows!
h. If you just have to pray about your suffering, pray that you’ll see the benefit of your suffering before it’s removed. Of course, that prayer is no good unless you have a lot of doctrine
i. However, understanding the benefits of suffering is a matter of understanding pertinent Bible doctrine. It is not a matter of going to God in prayer. Doctrine gives us the mechanics of everything: for strength in suffering, for capacity, for how to pray and for what to pray.
j. Too often, we do not understand our suffering because we’ve neglected to be consistent in learning doctrine, or because we’ve resisted doctrine.
3. Prayer is not a problem solving device.
a. Prayer is not designed to remove:
(1) Providential preventative suffering, because it is designed to parlay spiritual self-esteem into spiritual autonomy.
(2) Momentum testing, because it is designed to parlay spiritual autonomy into spiritual maturity.
(3) Evidence testing, because it is designed to parlay spiritual maturity into glorification of God in the historical extension of the angelic conflict.
b. Paul had two failures in this context (2 Cor 12:8)
. (1) He made the wrong application of the doctrine of Suffering.
(2) He used the wrong problem solving device in suffering for blessing. If the apostle Paul failed here, you and I are even more vulnerable.
c. Prayer is the wrong problem solving device. You do not pray for strength in suffering, and you do not pray for the removal of suffering. You get the strength mechanically in other ways, and the time when your suffering is removed is a decision from the Sovereignty of God. God knows how much we can bear.
d. What God does not remove, He intends for us to bear, and He has provided the problem solving devices to convert suffering into blessing. Only you put on you more than you can bear, under the law of volitional responsibility.
e. Paul’s prayer for the removal of providential preventative suffering was both a false solution and an erroneous application (the two great problem solving devices of believers with only a little doctrine).
G. The Two Schools of Learning.
1. Only in the University of Bible doctrine (as opposed to the School of Hard Knocks) does the believer’s suffering have significance in the fulfillment of the protocol plan of God.
2. In the school of hard knocks, the believer learns only from punitive preventative suffering; obviously not to your advantage. But in the university of Bible doctrine, you learn through suffering for blessing.
3. In the school of hard knocks, bad decisions from a position of weakness include such things as reaction, resistance, and rejection of Bible doctrine. Only when punitive preventative suffering is intense does the believer rebound and finally come back to doctrine, usually only for a short time. For as soon as he stops hurting, he usually falls back into the same old pattern of negative volition.
4. In this school of hard knocks, the learning efficiency level is anywhere from 0% to 30%. That is not even enough to get you half-way out of spiritual childhood. With a pattern like the this, the believer in the school of hard knocks cannot reach spiritual adulthood.
5. Therefore in the school of hard knocks, all suffering is punitive: self-induced from law of volitional responsibility, three categories of divine discipline (punitive preventative suffering). 6. The only suffering for blessing is what is left over from rebound. That is simply a backlash to encourage.
7. The believer in the school of hard knocks is a loser and always will be unless he goes to the university of Bible doctrine.
8. The university of Bible doctrine is the school of perception, metabolization, and application of doctrine in gate #4 of the divine dynasphere. To accomplish this, the believer is consistent in his residence, function, and momentum inside his palace, the operational divine dynasphere.
9. In the university of Bible doctrine, #1 priority is always assigned to the Word of God or to doctrine. In this school, the believer not only advances to spiritual maturity, but he fulfills the Plan of God.
10. As a freshman, he continues his momentum from salvation through gates 1-4, and finally his momentum carries him to gate 5. As a sophomore, he has attained spiritual self-esteem between gates 5 & 6. As a junior he attains spiritual autonomy at gate #6. After passing the momentum testings at gate 7 and reaching gate 8 of spiritual maturity, you become a senior. Taking evidence testing is graduate school.
11. In the university of Bible doctrine, the perceptive pattern is anywhere from 0% to 100%. Consistent residence in the divine dynasphere, under the enabling power of the Spirit and momentum from metabolized doctrine results in the attainment of spiritual self-esteem.
12. Only in the university of Bible doctrine can the believer experience the three categories of suffering for blessing necessary for the fulfillment of the protocol plan of God.
13. The believer in the school of hard knocks piles on himself more suffering than he can bear, and remains in spiritual childhood all his spiritual life. Being a loser does not imply loss of salvation, but the loss of greater blessings deposited in escrow for both time and eternity.
H. The Importance of Preventative Suffering in our Lives.
1. People are born with inherent flaws under spiritual death.
a. Some people are born with a tendency toward bitterness, and it only takes environment or experience to bring it out. Some people acquire bitterness as an environmental flaw. Others seem to have it from the start as an inherent flaw. Bitterness is one of the strongest forms of arrogance.
b. Some people are born with a tendency toward jealousy, and it only takes environmental pressure to bring it out.
2. People under spiritual death at birth are born with flaws, and these flaws become manifest through various circumstances and pressures in life. Under spiritual death at birth some are born with a tendency toward self-righteousness, which under the environment of legalism becomes an arrogant flaw.
3. Environmental handicaps or pressure become (bring out) the manifestation of inherent flaws. Therefore, environmental handicaps are neither a cause nor a result, but the manifestation of these flaws.
4. Preventative suffering restrains and controls inherent flaws of spiritual death. Therefore, preventative suffering is a manufacturer of integrity, honor, character; plus a restrainer of arrogant manifestations such as bitterness, jealousy, self-righteousness.
5. So preventative suffering is a restrainer of sin, a builder of integrity, of honor, of character.
6. In the protocol plan of God, providential preventative suffering is the means of combining with doctrine to build, strengthen, empower spiritual self-esteem. It takes a certain amount of providential preventative suffering to put muscle into spiritual self-esteem for the advance to maturity via momentum testing. (See the doctrine of Flaws.)
I. The Implications of Preventative Suffering.
1. Preventative suffering is a reminder that the believer in Christ must learn how to live. Once the believer learns how to live, he will also learn how to die. Being alive as a Christian does not imply we know how to live. The very fact that we are born with inherent flaws means we do not know how to live. We never get on top of this thing until we develop spiritual self-esteem. From Bible doctrine and preventative suffering we learn how to live. preventative suffering teaches you that Bible doctrine is more important than anything in your life.
2. We must learn how to live from two categories of doctrine:
a. The invisible assets and capitalization of grace prepared for you by God the Father in eternity past.
b. The protocol plan of God for the royal family of God during the Church Age. 3. As noted in 2 Cor 12:7-10, providential preventative suffering plus spiritual self-esteem motivates and contributes to learning how to live. Until one has taken the giant step to spiritual self-esteem, he really does not know how to live.
4. There are two ways to arrive at learning how to live. One is to, from the start, be positive to doctrine and give it #1 priority. The other is to go through a system of preventative suffering: punitive preventative suffering to get you to spiritual self-esteem, and providential preventative suffering to get you through the valley of momentum testing.
5. Preventative suffering and spiritual self-esteem are marvelous at the end of our life when it’s time to die. For if we have learned the lessons of preventative suffering, we will die magnificently; as Paul said in Phil 1:20-21, “According to my intense concentration and resultant hope, that in nothing shall I be disgraced, but with all integrity, even now as always, Christ shall be exalted in my body whether by life or by death. For me, living is Christ; dying is profit.” “Christ exalted in my body” means that the inherent flaws are totally overcome just as are environmental and volitional flaws and handicaps. One of the great things that happens to us with the advance to maturity is the removal of all genetic, environmental and volitional flaws.
6. Under the principle of inherent sin and spiritual death at birth, all members of the human race are born physically alive with inherent flaws. There is a tremendous difference in the way our personalities develop, and the way our personalities use inherent and acquired flaws in that development. So tendencies may vary, but the flaws from spiritual death become manifest through various types of pressures, sufferings and disaster.
7. This means environment becomes the area of the manifestation of inherent as well as acquired flaws, that is they become a cause in that environment and not a result of that environment.
8. Preventative suffering then is God’s grace provision for restraining and controlling inherent flaws and handicaps.
9. In 2 Cor 12:7-10, it is obvious that Paul’s inherent flaw was arrogance. And why not, since he was the greatest genius who ever lived. But the preventative suffering of the thorn in the flesh, coupled with his own spiritual self-esteem not only restrains this arrogance, but replaces it with the principle of suffering for blessing, with spiritual self-esteem. Verse 10, “when I am weak, then I am strong.” This doesn’t mean weakness from any flaws, but this weakness comes from preventative suffering combined with spiritual self-esteem. Therefore, weakness becomes strength because there is no arrogance.
10. So it becomes obvious that preventative suffering is a charactermaker, a producer of integrity, a restrainer of inherent and environmental flaws and volitional handicaps, such as sins. Preventative suffering puts enough muscle on spiritual self- esteem so that we advance to maturity.
J. The Primary Purpose of Preventative Suffering, 1 Cor 12:9-10.
1. Preventative suffering is not only a reminder that the believer in Christ must learn how to live, but at the same time, it is designed for grace orientation. Preventative suffering is a manifestation of the grace of God. God only gives preventative suffering in grace. Grace orientation from preventative suffering is a reminder of our flaws, our weaknesses, our total helplessness to execute the Christian life in the energy of the flesh. Anything man can do by his own ability is not the Christian way of life.
2. Grace orientation means understanding the doctrine of Grace Capitalization in eternity past, Eph 1:3-14, for the utilization of the grace assets in our portfolio to fulfill the protocol plan of God in the Church Age.
3. Before we can learn and utilize our capital assets provided by God the Father in eternity past, we face the problems of distractions, which are three-fold:
a. We are born with inherent, genetic weaknesses.
b. We acquire environmental flaws.
c. We deliberately go out of our way, under lust and temptation from the old sin nature, to use our free will to commit sins.
4. All these distractions add up to the attack of arrogance, which hinders any advance. So in order to obstruct and hinder the attacks of our various handicaps, God in his grace provides preventative suffering. preventative suffering intercepts and restrains these three categories of flaws, and thereby provides preventative suffering which restrains these flaws and thereby provides grace orientation to continue momentum inside the divine dynasphere.
5. Once the believer has taken the giant step to spiritual self-esteem, then preventative suffering is always providential preventative suffering to give muscle to spiritual self-esteem to go through momentum testing.
6. Providential preventative suffering insulates against genetic and environmental weaknesses so that the believer continues to utilize the grace assets in his portfolio of invisible assets.
7. Spiritual self-esteem only functions under humility, enforced and genuine. The great attack on spiritual self-esteem is to distort it into a system of arrogance. Therefore, spiritual self-esteem must constantly function under humility and grace orientation.
8. In the divine dynasphere, gate #1: the filling of the Holy Spirit is the area of humility; gate #3, enforced humility & genuine humility, are absolutely necessary for teachability in church.
K. The Dynamics of providential preventative suffering combined with spiritual self-esteem in the life of our Lord.
1. This doctrine is illustrated by the life and the death of our Lord Jesus Christ in His Hypostatic Union. Before He could be qualified to go to the Cross and become our substitute and be the only Savior, the humanity of our Lord Jesus Christ had to endure a certain amount of providential preventative suffering which contributed to His impeccability and qualified Him as the sin offering. Heb 5:8, “Although He was the Son [God-man], He learned obedience from the things which He suffered.” Learning obedience and orientation to authority, enforced and genuine humility are a part of providential preventative suffering. Our Lord learned obedience to the Father’s Plan from the things He suffered.
2. Providential preventative suffering was combined with our Lord’s spiritual self-esteem to result in impersonal love or spiritual autonomy. This is what caused Him to take up His cross prior to the crucifixion, as mentioned in Matt 10:38,39, Lk 14:27 Matt 16:24, Mark 8:34.
3. Because of providential preventative suffering combined with spiritual self-esteem in the prototype divine dynasphere, our Lord was willing to become a sacrifice for our sins. Mt 26:39 says He picked up His Cross. He was willing to go to the Cross and be judged for all of those people who maligned and judged Him. So the command for you to pick up your cross is the command to advance inside your divine dynasphere to spiritual self-esteem, where God has waiting for you two categories of suffering for blessing to carry you to the point of spiritual maturity.
4. As a result of spiritual self-esteem plus providential preventative suffering, our Lord had spiritual autonomy, with which He advanced to spiritual maturity. The result is stated in Phil 2:8, “And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even the death of the Cross.” This shows how important are spiritual self-esteem, spiritual autonomy, and spiritual maturity. The evidence testing endured by our Lord was of a higher nature than we could ever understand.
5. In the case of our Lord, He converted His providential preventative suffering into our blessing. “He who knew no sin was made sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.” By a simple act of faith in Jesus Christ, that’s exactly what happens.
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© 1996, by R. B. Thieme, Jr. All rights reserved.
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