Eph 193-202, 1/12/86; Eph 237-238, 3/13-14/86; 11/4-6/75
A. Introduction.
1. Suffering acts as a guardian or parent in life.
a. Suffering plays an important role in the life of adult homo sapien whether he’s a believer or an unbeliever. What our parents did for us in childhood, suffering does for us as adults in the school of hard knocks. God has given us suffering as a parent for the rest of our lives. b. The disciplines and restraints of childhood imposed by our parents are now replaced by the disciplines and restraints of suffering, replacing the role of parents in our lives.
c. Suffering is a warning that we’re doing it wrong, or it is a means of greater blessing. Parents don’t always spank; they also give us things. They both discipline and give blessing. So also, God has provided for the entire human race the parent of suffering after we leave home. The only restraint some people have after they leave home is the suffering that results from their bad decisions.
d. Therefore, suffering is a guardian, a parent, a referee that always makes good calls. Suffering is not a blind umpire! Suffering is an authority designed to challenge the believer to grow in grace by the proper utilization of his portfolio of invisible assets in the fulfillment of the protocol plan of God.
e. While suffering is a restrainer in life, as in punitive preventative suffering, it plays a major role in accelerating our momentum to spiritual adulthood.
f. Suffering for blessing is another guarantee from God that the believer can and does fulfill the protocol plan of God by advancing to spiritual maturity.
g. Suffering for blessing becomes a major system for good and for the glorification of God.
h. As a guardian in our life, suffering is designed by God for our good because it does two things.
(1) It restrains us from sin, human good, and evil, just as our parents restrained us.
(2) It challenges us to advance in the plan of God, just as our parents challenged us to grow up when we were under their control.
2. Suffering is used as a measurement of life.
a. Suffering never leaves the Christian as it found him. As a result of suffering, we are either the better or the worse for it. When you suffer, you will never be the same again.
b. If, during suffering, the believer reacts through arrogance, bitterness, vindictiveness, self-pity, or implacability, he becomes a loser and starts to go backward. He is set back in his spiritual life and in his life in general. In other words, you cannot afford to react to suffering. Respond, don’t react! This requires doctrine.
c. If, during suffering, the believer responds through the application of metabolized doctrine and occupation with the person of Christ, he eventually advances to the point of becoming a winner. We forget what is behind (our failures) and convert our sufferings into blessings through rebound, the three stages of the faith-rest drill, hope 2 and hope 3, and spiritual self-esteem. Then we will be the better for it and will advance to maturity. We’ll be oriented to reality. The greatest converter of suffering into blessing is spiritual self-esteem.
d. No one stands still under pressure. You either move forward or retrogress. 3. Suffering for Blessing Rationale.
a. For the believer who is living inside the palace, his own operational divine dynasphere, under the enabling power of the Holy Spirit and with momentum from metabolized doctrine, all suffering is designed for blessing. In other words, if you’re in your palace functioning in its gates when the suffering hits, it is designed for your blessing. So while in fellowship in your palace, any suffering that comes to you is designed for your blessing, for your wisdom, for the function of your common sense, and for the correct application of doctrine to a situation.
b. Outside the divine dynasphere, all suffering is designed for blessing on a limited scale; i.e., to bring you back to reality, to bring you to the point of rebound, to bring you to the point of recovery, and to show you that your scale of values is wrong and you must change your priorities.
c. So whatever suffering comes into your life, it is designed for blessing. Whether blessing is accrued or not depends on certain factors in your life.
d. Punitive suffering originates from the believer’s negative volition toward doctrine and his accumulated bad decisions related to sin and evil. But punitive suffering is resolved by the rebound technique. All suffering left over after rebound is designed for blessing. This is why God adjusts the suffering for you after rebound. The suffering may be cut down since what you brought on yourself was more than you could handle. But God reduces the suffering so you can handle it, for God never puts on you more suffering than you can bear. Sometimes the suffering may be eliminated altogether.
e. There are two doctrinal applications from punitive suffering.
(1) The resistance of temptation; often the restraint of punishment from punitive preventative suffering.
(2) Rebound when the sin occurs.
(3) These are the two major motivations for blessing in either avoiding or recovering from sin under the principle that all suffering is designed for blessing.
f. Unchecked by rebound, self-induced misery from the law of volitional responsibility is parlayed into divine discipline under three categories: warning, intensive, and dying.
g. All suffering designed for blessing in spiritual adulthood falls into three categories to match the three stages of spiritual adulthood.
(1) Providential preventative suffering for the believer in spiritual self-esteem.
(2) Momentum testing for the believer in spiritual autonomy.
(3) Evidence testing for the believer in spiritual maturity.
h. Furthermore, all suffering for blessing is designed by God for the believer’s advance to spiritual maturity and the glorification of God. Suffering for blessing is always designed to advance you by putting muscle on your spiritual life.
i. God never gives the believer more suffering than he can bear. 1 Cor 10:13, “No testing has overtaken you but such as is common to mankind. Moreover, God is faithful, who will not permit you to be tested beyond what you are able [capable of handling], but with the testing, He will also provide a way out, so that you may be able to endure it.”
j. When your suffering is more than you can bear, the origin is your own volition, never the sovereignty of God.
k. The believer, through bad decisions from a position of weakness, piles on himself more suffering than he can bear. No one else can do this to us except ourselves.
l. God never gives us more suffering than we can handle. So what God does not remove He intends for us to bear, to endure, to handle, and to solve with doctrine.
m. This means that only the believer who resists, rejects, or reacts to doctrine puts himself through the law of volitional responsibility to the point where he cannot bear the suffering.
n. Since there is no suffering for the believer in the eternal state (Rev 21:4), God can only bless the believer through suffering now in time.
o. There is no suffering too great for the plan of God to resolve.
p. Therefore, all problems of suffering are resolved in the mechanics of the protocol plan of God with its problem solving devices and its solutions accumulated from Bible doctrine.
q. Cognition of divine provision in our portfolio of invisible assets plus the mechanics built into the protocol plan of God are far greater than any suffering, pressure, or disaster in life.
B. There are five categories of suffering in the spiritual life.
1. Punitive Suffering
a. The law of volitional responsibility.
b. Divine discipline. 2. Suffering for Blessing
a. Providential preventative suffering.
b. Momentum testing.
c. Evidence testing.
C. The Law of Volitional Responsibility.
1. Introduction
a. This is the most common and the first cause for human suffering in general, and it is a specific cause of suffering for believers. Our emphasis here is on believers only.
b. Every human being must take the responsibility for his own decisions and his own actions in life. You must understand that you can never blame others for your misery, your unhappiness, and your suffering. You take full responsibility yourself, based on your own wrong decisions related to your associations, activities, motives, and functions in life.
c. Human volition is the source of personal sins, human good, and evil. In God’s plan for your life, sin, human good, and evil are all verboten and absolutely rejected. But it is inevitable that throughout all our life as a Christian we will sin, perform human good, and fail in evil. Volition is the cause for sin even in insanity, neurosis, psychosis and sociopathic behavior.
d. Therefore, this category of suffering deals with the natural consequences of sin, human good, evil, and bad judgment in our lives.
e. At salvation all sins were judged at the cross. Yet all our sins have natural consequences in life, for which the individual who commits them must take full responsibility. We must always link consequences with bad decisions rather than blaming someone else. A short trip to unhappiness is to always blame others for your problems, not seeing them as a result of your bad decisions.
f. The innocent often suffer with the guilty, being associated with someone else who made a bad decision.
g. Gal 6:7 states the law of volitional responsibility: “Be not deceived; God cannot be mocked. Whatever a man sows, this he will also reap.”
h. Volition and decision are the source of both sins of ignorance and sins of cognizance. Therefore each person must be held responsible for his own decisions, whether he understands their category or their consequences.
i. The consequences are generally classified as self-induced misery, self-imposed misery, and self-indulged misery.
j Under the law of volitional responsibility, the believer inflicts on himself unbearable suffering from the following categories:
(1) Personal sins.
(2) Function of human good.
(3) Function of evil.
(4) Function of moral or immoral degeneracy.
(5) Living in cosmic one, “grieving the Spirit.”
(6) Living in cosmic two, “quenching the Spirit.”
(7) Lack of common sense and bad judgment.
(8) Subjective arrogance, the overestimation of your own abilities, or failing to see yourself in the light of reality.
k. Both believer and unbeliever function under the law of volitional responsibility not only from sin, but also from the violation of the laws of divine establishment, which are the operational laws for the entire human race within the framework of a national entity. There is intense suffering from violating the sacredness of life, property, and privacy in criminal acts. There is also suffering from rejection of responsibilities related to your nation; e.g., being a draft dodger.
l. A lot of suffering comes to Christians because they are confused, lack Bible doctrine, and are ignorant about many true principles in life. If you are suffering from your wrong decisions, no prayer in the world can help you. You must go to the solutions found in the Word of God.
m. Many wrong decisions come from arrogance. To protect us from this, God has provided parents, pastor-teachers, coaches, bosses, and all other forms of authority.
n. Many wrong decisions result in mental illnesses such as psychosis, neurosis, and sociopathic behavior among believers.
o. Man is naturally a fool since the Fall. This is proved by the tremendous amount of suffering experienced throughout all generations of human history. We’ve all born with genetic handicaps and flaws; we acquire environmental and volitional handicaps and flaws. This all adds up to the first cause for suffering.
p. Although genetical and environmental flaws are often blamed for mental illnesses, all too often the cause is locked-in arrogance which can cause a tremendous amount of self-induced misery and trouble.
q. Many wrong decisions from a position of weakness result in mental illness, which is acquired from arrogance, self-centeredness, selfishness, self-righteousness, and the practice of making thousands of wrong decisions.
r. Man manufactures his own problems and resultant suffering. God manufactures solutions and blessings in the midst of suffering. Only God has provided three systems to turn cursing into blessing.
2. Ways to Make Yourself Miserable under the Law of Volitional Responsibility.
a. The law of volitional responsibility applies to four categories of your life: thinking, motivation, decision, and action.
b. Negative or wrong thinking is self-imposed misery. Negative thinking includes all wrong mental attitudes, all forms of arrogance, everything by which you react to life in your thinking.
c. Negative or wrong motivation is also self-imposed misery. So by wrong thinking and wrong motivation, we enter into self-imposed misery long before we make any decisions that cause self-induced misery.
d. Negative or wrong decisions is self-induced misery.
e. Negative or wrong actions is classified in two ways.
(1) Deliberate wrong actions which bring self-induced misery.
(2) Impulsive wrong actions which is self-gratification or self-indulged misery.
f. Since deliberate wrong actions originate from wrong motives and wrong decisions, these cause self-induced misery. Whereas impulsive actions are spontaneous and impetuous; hence, they circumvent motives and decisions and generally fall back to thinking related to lust and self-gratification or related to a locked-in system of arrogance.
g. Self-imposed misery is suffering caused by bad thinking and wrong motivation. It is also suffering caused by ignorance of doctrine and resultant self-deception.
h. Hosea 8:7, “They who sow to the wind shall also reap the whirlwind.”
i. Col 3:25, “For he who does wrong will receive the consequences of that wrong which he has done, and there is no partiality [from God].”
j. Suffering originating from self obviously follows the policy of wrong thinking, wrong motives, wrong decisions, and wrong actions in life. Sometimes it’s a matter of lack of common sense, bad judgment, or not knowing your limitations.
k. Good decisions result in blessing from God; bad decisions result in suffering from self: self-imposed, self-induced, and self-indulged.
l. So there are four ways to make yourself miserable and to manufacture your own suffering:
(1) Negative or wrong thinking: self-imposed misery.
(2) Negative or wrong motivation: self-imposed misery.
(3) Negative or wrong decisions: self-induced misery.
(4) Negative or deliberately wrong actions: self-induced misery.
(5) Impulsive wrong actions: self-indulged misery.
m. There are at least seven categories of wrong decisions which produce self-induced misery under the law of volitional responsibility.
(1) Wrong decisions based on sin.
(2) Wrong decisions based on human good.
(3) Wrong decisions resulting in evil.
(4) Wrong decisions based on erroneous emotions. This is one of the worst reasons to make a decision. For emotions cannot think, cannot rationalize, and have no common sense.
(5) Wrong decisions based on bad judgment. This is a very common cause and is due to lack of common sense, total disorientation to life, and not knowing your limitations.
(6) Wrong decisions based on lust.
(7) Wrong decisions based on false teaching.
n. So you see, you can’t rebound all these categories. You can’t rebound bad judgment. Most who have bad judgment don’t even know it anyway.
3. Scriptural Illustrations from Proverbs.
a. The Book of Proverbs is a composition of good and bad thoughts, motives, decisions, and actions in life. Proverbs teaches the believer how to live without learning the hard way, i.e., from mistakes and from suffering which is self-induced, self-imposed, and self-indulged.
b. Most wrong decisions reflect indifference or negative volition toward Bible doctrine, as mentioned in many verses in Prov 1 and 8.
c. Self-induced misery and divine discipline is illustrated by Prov 22:8, “He who sows wickedness reaps trouble, and the rod of His punishment will surely come.” Gal 6:7 says the same thing.
d. Proverbs 2:10-17 teaches good decisions always result from metabolized doctrine, called CHAKMAH or wisdom (the equivalent of the Greek word EPIGNOSIS in the New Testament).
e. Bad decisions that cause self-induced misery are related to sin; the seven worst sins are stated in Proverbs 6:16-19.
f. Prov 11:22, “As a golden ring in a pig’s snout, so is a beautiful woman who lacks discretion.” A woman can get so carried away with her beauty that she makes a lot of bad decisions in her mental attitude, and so brings on herself self-imposed misery. An ugly woman can do the same thing, but this illustration is more obvious.
g. Prov 12:13, “In the transgression of the lips [the sins of your big mouth] is an evil snare [triple-compound discipline], but the righteous will escape this trouble [misery].” Every time you judge, malign, gossip, or run down someone, you have manufactured misery for yourself. The righteous here isn’t someone who is perfect, but someone who does not gossip, malign, or judge others.
h. Prov 13:20, “He who walks with the wise men will be wise, but the companion of fools will suffer misery.” We make good and bad decisions with regard to the people with whom we associate. If you associate with the wrong crowd, you’re making a decision that will cause you a tremendous amount of unhappiness!
i. Prov 15:17, “Better is a dish of cabbage where love is than a chateau-brian and hatred with it.” In other words, you not only choose your food, but you choose your associations.
j. Prov 15:33, “Occupation with the Lord [gate #5] is the instruction for wisdom, and before honor comes humility.” Good decisions based on humility will eventually lead to honor, to include virtue-love as a problem solving device.
k. Prov 16:18, 17:1, 13, 20, 19:8, 15, 16, 19, 23, 25, 20:19, 21:9, 19, 21, 22:8, 23:9, 27-30, 24:17-18, 25:16, 29:1.
D. Suffering from Divine Discipline. See the Doctrine of Divine Discipline. Also see the Doctrine of Preventative Suffering, Point B, Punitive Preventative Suffering.
1. If the believer, through the function of his own negative volition, persists in the three categories of the law of volitional responsibility, it is obvious that God will add to it in the three categories of discipline: warning, intensive, and the sin unto death.
2. God in His grace provides divine discipline. His divine discipline is motivated by love. When we, through our wrong decisions, put ourselves into a jam, there is no grace or love involved. We hate ourselves whether we know it or not.
3. The principle of both warning and intensive discipline is found in Heb 12:6, “Whom the Lord loves He disciplines [warning discipline], and He skins alive with a whip every son whom He receives [intensive discipline].” Job 5:17-18, “Behold, happy is the man whom the Lord reproves [warning discipline], and does not despise the discipline [intensive discipline] from EL SHADDAI. He inflicts pain [warning discipline]. He bandages the wound [rebound]. He wounds [intensive discipline], and His hands heal.”
4. Warning discipline is taught in Rev 3:20. The purpose of warning discipline is to remember 1 Jn 1:9 and use rebound. Warning discipline motivates rebound.
5. Punitive preventative suffering is the same as warning discipline and intensive discipline in restraining sin and motivating rebound.
6. Intensive discipline is found in Rev 3:19, “Those who I love I reprimand [warning discipline] and I punish [intensive discipline]. Therefore be zealous [motivation from warning discipline or intensive discipline to rebound] and rebound.” Also see Ps 38:1-14.
7. The third category is dying discipline, the sin unto death. This is when God has no more use for you on earth. 1 Jn 5:16. Ps 118:17-18, “The Lord has disciplined me severely [intensive discipline], but He has not given me over to death [sin unto death].” Cf Phil 3:19, “Whose end of life is ruin [dying discipline], whose god is his emotions.” Rev 3:16, “Therefore, because you are lukewarm [in the cosmic system], neither cold or hot, I am about to vomit you out of My mouth.”
8. All three categories of divine discipline are found in 1 Cor 11:30-31, “For this cause many are weak [warning discipline], and sick [intensive discipline], and many sleep [sin unto death]. But if we would judge ourselves [rebound], we should not be judged.”
E. National Suffering and the Four Generation Curse. See the Doctrine of the Four Generation Curse.
F. The Prerequisite Grace Principle.
1. God never gives the believer more suffering than he can bear, 1 Cor 10:13.
2. Only the believer making wrong decisions from a position of weakness piles on himself more suffering than he can bear. We are all self-destructive in this sense. This is how the law of volitional responsibility works in the life. Most believers out of fellowship manufacture self-induced misery apart from instant rebound.
3. Any suffering left over after rebound is designed for your blessing. Therefore, God must often reduce that suffering to what you can bear.
4. What God does not remove in suffering He intends for us to bear under the principle that all suffering is designed for blessing.
5. Therefore, the believer chooses the educational institution from which he will learn in life. In the school of hard knocks, the believer learns only from punitive suffering and very little doctrine. His learning efficiency is at best 30%. In the university of Bible doctrine, the believer inside the divine dynasphere under perception, metabolization, and application of doctrine, can advance to spiritual maturity, using up to 100% doctrine.
6. The prerequisite principle is that no believer can pass a specific category of suffering for blessing until he has first of all attained the prerequisite stage of spiritual adulthood. That means that all three stages of spiritual adulthood are prerequisite to something else. Each stage must function as the prerequisite to passing its matching category of suffering for blessing.
7. Suffering for blessing from God is not arbitrary. He doesn’t administer it to us in an arbitrary manner. We must have the prerequisite first.
8. No believer can pass the prerequisite test of providential preventative suffering until he has attained spiritual self-esteem. No believer can pass momentum testing until he has attained spiritual autonomy. No believer can pass evidence testing until he has attained spiritual maturity. Only spiritual self-esteem is qualified for providential preventative suffering. Only spiritual autonomy is qualified for momentum testing. Only spiritual maturity is qualified for evidence testing.
G. Suffering and Spiritual Self-Esteem.
1. Spiritual self-esteem is the assertion of metabolized doctrine in the right lobe and the use of it by living in your own mind. For you cannot reach the point of consistent suffering for blessing until you reach the point where you live by your own mind from your metabolized doctrine, making application of that doctrine under three categories of suffering for blessing: providential preventative suffering, momentum testing, and evidence testing as an extension of the angelic conflict in history.
2. Spiritual self-esteem leads to spiritual autonomy. Spiritual autonomy must be tested through suffering for blessing. Suffering for blessing is designed by God under three categories:
a. Suffering for blessing which gives power and strength to spiritual self-esteem. Spiritual self-esteem without this power is vulnerable to arrogant self-confidence. This is where many believers lose out. This is called providential preventative suffering.
b. Suffering for blessing which provides momentum testing for spiritual autonomy under the privacy of the believer’s royal priesthood. No one can handle momentum testing without spiritual autonomy. Therefore, God does not give us the four momentum tests until we have attained spiritual autonomy. Spiritual autonomy is based upon spiritual self-esteem plus providential preventative suffering.
c. Suffering for blessing which provides evidence testing for spiritual maturity. Once we reach spiritual maturity, we’ll receive unexplained suffering in our lives. This third category is suffering for blessing which only comes to mature believers as the extension of the angelic conflict. Here is where we are entered as evidence for the Prosecution in the rebuttal phase of Satan’s appeal trial. So this category is called evidence testing. The cause of the suffering is unknown, as in the case of Job, but the power to deal with the suffering has been provided through preventative suffering plus momentum testing. This is suffering for mature believers only.
3. Suffering for blessing does not occur on a regular basis until the believer has attained spiritual self-esteem.
4. Every category of suffering for blessing means an advance in your spiritual life, and means you are one step nearer to fulfilling the protocol plan of God for the Church Age. Each category of suffering for blessing is provided by the sovereignty of God under His grace policy so that the Church Age believer, as royal family, can fulfill the protocol plan of God.
5. With the exception of suffering left over after rebound, there is no suffering for blessing until the believer attains spiritual self-esteem through residence, function, and momentum inside the divine dynasphere. There is a limited suffering for blessing in whatever is left over for you to bear after rebound. But this is of short duration and has no great significance.
6. Therefore, spiritual self-esteem is the dividing line between punitive suffering and suffering for blessing.
7. Application: No believer should ever pray for the removal of any suffering for blessing which is the means of fulfilling the protocol plan of God.
8. See the Doctrine of Spiritual Self-Esteem.
H. Providential Preventative Suffering.
1. Introduction.
a. Preventative suffering is a single category having two subcategories: punitive preventative suffering and providential preventative suffering.
b. Punitive preventative suffering is related to the believer’s spiritual childhood, while providential preventative suffering is related to the believer in spiritual adulthood. But actually they both do something of the same thing. Punitive preventative suffering does one thing for the believer out of fellowship, while providential preventative suffering does something else for the believer in fellowship as a spiritual adult.
c. Punitive preventative suffering punishes a guilty believer and motivates his rebound, and at the same time it restrains a tempted believer. Therefore punitive preventative suffering is synonymous with warning and intensive discipline, while providential preventative suffering is the first category of suffering for blessing related to spiritual adulthood.
d. Punitive preventative suffering is designed by God as part of warning and intensive discipline to accomplish three things: to punish sin, to motivate rebound, and to restrain when tempted.
e. Punitive preventative suffering also effects the future restraint of the believer being punished. Therefore it restrains future repetition of any sin or failure.
f. Punitive preventative suffering then is analogous to children being disciplined by their parents. Parental discipline teaches the child self-restraint, respect for authority, and how to live in a society under the laws of divine establishment as a civilized person.
g. Hence, punitive preventative suffering restrains and motivates function in two categories: warning and intensive discipline. Punitive preventative suffering punishes the guilty and motivates his rebound. It restrains the tempted believer, and motivates his self-restraint in the face of temptation.
h. Therefore, punitive preventative suffering, as part of warning and intensive discipline, limits and restrains the believer’s excursions into the cosmic system.
i. The results of punitive preventative suffering are found in Ps 119:67-72. Punitive preventative suffering motivates positive volition to doctrine.
j. There are three stages of spiritual adulthood and three categories of suffering for blessing, and each stage of spiritual adulthood has a comparable category of suffering for blessing.
Spiritual Adulthood Suffering for Blessing Spiritual Self Esteem Providential Preventative Suffering Spiritual Autonomy Momentum Testing Spiritual Maturity Evidence Testing
k. Spiritual self-esteem plus providential preventative suffering equals spiritual autonomy plus momentum testing equals spiritual maturity plus evidence testing equals glorification of God. Spiritual self-esteem is the prerequisite to handling providential preventative suffering, just as spiritual autonomy is the prerequisite to handling momentum testing. God will never give you more than you can bear.
l. 2 Cor 12:9, “Then He assured me, `My grace has been and still is sufficient for you. For the power [spiritual adulthood] is achieved with weakness. When I am weak, then I am strong.’”
m. Phil 4:11-13, “Not that I speak with reference to want, for I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am. In fact I have come to know how to be humble, and I have come to know how to live in prosperity. And in every circumstance I have been initiated in both how to be filled and how to be hungry, both how to be prosperous and how to suffer need. I have the power to attain all things through Him who makes me strong.”
2. What is providential preventative suffering?
a. 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.
b. Providential preventative suffering performs numerous functions.
(1) 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.
(2) 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.
c. So providential preventative suffering not only insulates you against arrogance, but it prepares you for momentum testing. For momentum testing is the major hurdle in reaching spiritual maturity.
d. 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.
e. 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.
f. 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.
g. 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.
h. Providential preventative suffering prevents, restrains, intercepts, and insulates against sin and evil in the life while challenging your spiritual self-esteem to suffer for blessing and profit.
i. 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.
j. Therefore, when spiritual self-esteem combines with providential preventative suffering, it forms spiritual autonomy. There are five results or signs of spiritual autonomy.
(1) Impersonal love for all mankind is the first sign of spiritual autonomy.
(2) Authority orientation or enforced humility.
(3) Genuine humility insulates against arrogance during momentum testing.
(4) Self-discipline.
(5) Obedience to the Word of God.
k. Prov 19:8, “He who gets wisdom loves his own soul [spiritual self-esteem]; he who cherishes understanding prospers [spiritual autonomy].”
3. Preventative suffering develops problem solving devices.
a. Providential preventative suffering is a vehicle for the advance to spiritual maturity because it is a system of problem solving.
b. 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.”
(1) “Tested by fire” is used because when you put gold in fire, the gold melts. Fire changes the nature of the gold. So also, providential preventative suffering changes the nature of the believer. 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.
(2) 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].”
c. 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.
d. 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 equals spiritual maturity], that you may be mature [spiritual maturity] and complete [spiritual maturity plus evidence testing equals 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.
e. 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.
f. Hence, providential preventative suffering is the means of establishing right priorities in the spiritual life of the believer.
4. Providential preventative suffering is the preliminary warm-up for momentum testing, 2 Cor 12:7-10.
a. 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].”
b. 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.
c. 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.”
d. 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.
e. Prayer is antithetical to the purpose for suffering for blessing.
(1) 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.
(2) You do not pray for the removal of the very means of advancing you to spiritual maturity.
(3) 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.
(4) You do not pray for the removal of the mechanics of power by which spiritual self-esteem is parlayed into spiritual autonomy.
(5) 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.
(6) But you never pray for the removal of suffering from yourself or from others. All suffering is a decision from the sovereignty of God.
(7) 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.
(8) 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 one of the three stages of spiritual adulthood.
(a) Spiritual self-esteem combined with providential preventative suffering produces spiritual autonomy.
(b) Spiritual autonomy combined with momentum testing produces spiritual maturity.
© Spiritual maturity combined with evidence testing produces maximum glorification of God.
f. 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 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].”
g. 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!
h. 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.
i. 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.
j. 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.”
k. 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.
l. 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.
m. 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.
n. “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.”
5. The Two Schools of Learning.
a. 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.
b. In the school of hard knocks, the believer learns only from punitive preventative suffering, which is obviously not to his advantage. But in the university of Bible doctrine, he learns through suffering for blessing.
c. 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.
d. In the 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.
e. Therefore in the school of hard knocks, all suffering is punitive; it is self-induced from law of volitional responsibility and the three categories of divine discipline (punitive preventative suffering).
f. The only suffering for blessing is what is left over from rebound. That is simply a backlash designed to encourage.
g. The believer in the school of hard knocks is a loser and always will be unless he goes to the university of Bible doctrine.
h. 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.
i. 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.
j. As a freshman, he continues his momentum from salvation through gates 1, 2, 3, and 4, and finally his momentum carries him to gate 5. As a sophomore, he has attained spiritual self-esteem between gates 5 and 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, he become a senior. Taking evidence testing is graduate school.
k. 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.
l. 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.
m. 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.
I. Momentum Testing.
1. The Principle of Momentum Testing.
a. Momentum Testing is designed with two things in mind:
(1) The opportunity for the application of doctrine learned at gate #4. You apply different doctrines to different situations, and some doctrines have a quite different application in our unseen worship with God.
(2) To accelerate your momentum.
b. No believer attains maturity apart from momentum testing.
c. Spiritual growth results from perception of Bible doctrine. But spiritual growth is accelerated from the application of Bible doctrine to the categories of testing.
d. No believer can fulfill the plan of God and glorify the Lord apart from momentum testing.
e. Therefore, some of the testing in the divine dynasphere is suffering, and some of it is prosperity. There are eight general categories of testing, four of which are for the purpose of application and acceleration of spiritual growth for the believer in spiritual autonomy.
f. All categories of testing in the divine dynasphere are designed for blessing. Therefore, whether adversity or prosperity, the divine dynasphere is for your good.
g. Human volition plays an important part in testing. For the believer must make the right decision based on his application of Bible doctrine, and his residence in the divine dynasphere.
2. The Categories of Testing.
a. The following three tests listed are not specifically categorized as momentum testings as given to the believer in spiritual autonomy advancing to spiritual maturity. These are general categories of testing which occur in all stages of spiritual growth.
(1) The old sin nature test.
(2) Cosmic one test.
(3) Cosmic two test.
b. The next five tests are those to be faced by the believer who reaches spiritual autonomy, a direct contribution to his attainment of the goal of spiritual maturity. 3. Disaster testing.
a. Before the believer reaches maturity there are one or two major disasters in the life. How the believer handles these determines whether he accelerates his spiritual growth or retreats and goes backward.
b. There are two categories of disaster testing:
(1) Personal disaster testing, which is designed as suffering for blessing for acceleration of momentum or for warning of cosmic involvement, in which case divine discipline becomes involved.
(2) Historical disaster, collective disaster, or national disaster testing related to the bad decisions of others in which you are involved by association. For example, a lot of people suffer unfairly when the president decides to go to war.
c. There are at least six characteristics of disaster testing:
(1) Physical pain or mental pain and anguish.
(2) Crime where you are the victim.
(3) Persecution (not paranoia).
(4) Privation, meaning hunger, thirst, exposure, fatigue.
(5) Loss of loved ones, property, success, money, etc.
(6) Disease and handicaps.
d. There are four characteristics of national disaster:
(1) Violence, crime, terrorism, dope, murder.
(2) Warfare.
(3) Weather includes heat, cold, storm, blizzards, hurricanes, tornadoes.
(4) Cycles of discipline.
e. Disaster testing always tests our emotions. In emotionalism you may seek to sue someone who is negligent. This is only revenge, and you become a loser. The principle is that you can lose by gaining, and gain by losing.
f. The only wealth worth having is the wealth that God provides in escrow blessing. In this momentum testing there is always the temptation to take the easy route of money, security, fame, and lose forever the conveyance of escrow blessing. There is always the disaster that will make you prosperous. This is a test. You could lose the chance of receiving your escrow blessing.
g. Historical downtrend is a maximum number of people in a given area living in the cosmic system.
h. There must be maximum faith, maximum spiritual self-esteem, and maximum spiritual maturity if you are going to have your escrow blessing and pass the disaster test.
i. For illustration, see the doctrine of Economic Depression.
4. People testing
a. People testing comes in two categories.
(1) In personal love or admiration, the object of your love often controls your life or provides for you unhappiness, unless you have attained spiritual self-esteem, spiritual autonomy, or spiritual maturity. In wanting to please the object of your personal love, you find yourself being a different person and not following your normal function.
(2) In personal hatred or animosity, the object of your antagonism or irritation often has control of your life or happiness, unless you have advanced to spiritual adulthood.
b. Under the protocol plan of God, God designed His plan so that your happiness will always reside in you, and so that you do not depend on people or things for your happiness. As a function of your royal priesthood it all comes from within. You are supposed to have personal control of your life, a personal sense of destiny, self-confidence from metabolized doctrine, and therefore poise and command of self. Therefore, you bring your happiness to others, but you do not lean on others or circumstances for your happiness.
c. People are easily led away from the protocol plan of God and doctrine by their friendships, love life, and even hatred.
d. So unless you attain spiritual adulthood, every time you fall in love or acquire a friend, the object controls your life and your happiness.
e. Without impersonal love from spiritual autonomy, you become a slave to people. When you fall in love, look how you act, how you change your modus operandi, and how you begin to think in different terms relating everything you do to that person.
f. So when you make a friend or fall in love, when you become jealous, possessive, or hate anyone who has it over you; you’ve immediately become a slave. You’ve manufactured for yourself many problems, and they’re not all the fault of the object.
g. The solution to people testing is found in the combination of personal love for God and impersonal love for all mankind. The function of spiritual autonomy is the use of virtue-love. Spiritual autonomy is the prerequisite for solving all problems of human relationship, i.e., of people testing which is also accompanied by system and thought testing. This combination only exists in the three stages of spiritual adulthood.
h. Virtue-love as a problem solving device belongs primarily to the spiritual adult. Without it, you are constantly surrendering the control of your life to others. When you become jealous, angry, bitter, vindictive, or implacable; when you are dissatisfied, antagonistic toward someone else, friend or stranger, lover or enemy, you surrender the control of your life to that person. You become a slave to the object of your antagonism or love. At the same time, you have no control over your life, cancelling all the characteristics of spiritual self- esteem and spiritual autonomy.
i. When someone else has control of your life through hatred or love, you enter into the law of volitional responsibility with its self-induced misery.
j. Virtue-love as a problem solving device is the secret of your relationship with God, mankind, and in human personal love relationships. There is no built-in virtue in personal love, which only requires that another person meet your standards of beauty, attractiveness, and rapport. Therefore, to make a personal love relationship work, the believer must use a virtue-base totally outside himself! Otherwise, people will make him miserable all his life.
5. System testing.
a. A system is an organization composed of people under the command of other people functioning under a policy which is designed to fulfill a specific objective.
b. The characteristics of a system are three-fold:
(1) Authority.
(2) Policy.
(3) Objective.
c. The personnel under the authority can face system testing. The policy of management can also cause system testing. The objective of the organization can cause system testing as well.
d. There are seven general categories of different systems.
(1) Business organization, large or small.
(2) Military services.
(3) Professional organizations, such as medical organizations, law firms, engineering companies, law enforcement.
(4) Ecclesiastical organizations, such as local churches, denominations, cults, theological seminaries, Christian service organizations.
(5) Athletic organizations, such as professional, college, high school teams.
(6) divine institutions, like marriage and family.
(7) Government: national, state, or local.
e. There are good and bad organizations, systems, leadership, policies, and objectives. Your system testing may be from either category, good or bad.
f. Therefore, there are many areas of system testing related to the people, policy, and purpose of any organization.
g. Because no one is perfect and because everyone has an old sin nature, personality, policy, and purpose conflicts will inevitably exist.
h. Generally, there are three areas of system testing.
(1) In the field of authority: unfair and unjust treatment from management, the boss, supervisor, senior officer, coach, professor, government bureaucrat, husband, parents, etc. Favoritism on the part of management can inevitably lead to personality conflict in an office.
(2) The policy may be unreasonable, or it may conflict with normal living or with your own personal norms and standards, or it may be a stupid though still enforceable policy.
(3) The objectives may be unreasonable or even impossible because of lack of ability in the personnel trying to fulfill them. Or there may be a conflict between your personal life and the objectives.
i. The greatest enemy to any organization is arrogance in its personnel. Arrogance is the great enemy wherever there are people. A second enemy is incapability; a third is laziness. Other enemies include distraction from wrong priorities and ignorance.
j. Passages regarding system testing.
(1) Prov 24:10, “If you falter in times of trouble, how small is your strength.”
(2) Col 3:12-4:1,12.
(a) Verse 12, “Therefore, as the elected ones of God, sanctified and having been loved, clothe yourself with [acquire] compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience [attributes of spiritual autonomy].
(b) Verse 13, “Bear with [tolerate] one another, and forgive each other; if anyone has a complaint against someone else, even as the Lord forgave you, so also you should forgive.”
© Verse 14, “And over all these virtues put on virtue-love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.”
(d) Verse 15, “And let the peace of Christ [spiritual autonomy] act as an umpire in your right lobes, into which also you were elected into one body; furthermore keep on becoming thankful.”
(e) Verse 16, “Let the doctrine of Christ indwell you richly with all wisdom [metabolized doctrine], teaching and warning yourselves by psalms, hymns and spiritual songs, singing by means of grace in your right lobes to God.”
(f) Verse 17, “Whatever you do, in word or in deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to Him through God the Father.”
(g) Verse 18, “Wives, submit to the authority of your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord.”
(h) Verse 19, “Husbands, love your wives, and stop being bitter against them.”
(i) Verse 20, “Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord.”
(j) Verse 21, “Parents, do not be embittered with your children, or they will become discouraged.”
(j) Verse 22, “Labor, obey management in everything, not with eye service as men-pleasers, but with virtue of right lobe, respecting the Lord.”
(k) Verse 23, “Whatever you do, keep functioning from your own soul as to the Lord and not to man;”
(l) Verse 24, “since you know that you will receive the reward of your inheritance [escrow blessings]. You serve the Lord Christ!”
(m) Verse 25, “Anyone who does wrong will receive the consequences of his wrong, and there is no partiality.”
(n) Chapter 4, verse 1, “Management, provide for your employees what is right and fair, because you too have an authority in heaven.”
k. The principle is that God will promote the person who passes system testing. 6. Thought testing.
a. Thought testing occurs at all stages of Christian experience, but its direct application as a part of suffering for blessing in momentum testing is the subject here. Thought testing occurs in all three stages of spiritual adulthood. In spiritual self-esteem, providential preventative suffering provides some preliminary thought testing, as noted in 2 Cor 12:10. In spiritual autonomy, momentum testing includes thought testing. In spiritual maturity, evidence testing provides some definite thought testing.
b. To pass thought testing at any stage of the Christian life, the believer must have the following.
(1) Pertinent metabolized doctrine to meet thought testing at a given stage.
(2) The filling of the Spirit at the time of the thought testing to make the correct application of metabolized doctrine.
(3) This means the ability not to be distracted by false issues or to be misled by wrong priorities. These are a continual distraction in the Christian life. Actually, they accumulate a tremendous amount of self-induced misery under the law of volitional responsibility.
c. Mental attitude in the Christian life is the function of your thinking and the pressure of thought conflict in your soul. You will always have a lot of questions. If you’re patient, you’ll eventually receive the answers.
d. What you really are at any given time is what you think. All of us are constantly changing in our thinking. This can mean instability in life. You are not always what you appear to be on the surface, for mankind can hide his thoughts and become adept at the practice of hypocrisy.
e. Therefore, the real you is the thought content of your soul. Prov 23:7, “As he thinks within himself, so he is. He says to you, `Eat and drink,’ but in his right lobe [thinking] he is not with you.” This verse uses hypocrisy as an illustration of the fact that we are what we think, not what we do and not necessarily what we say.
f. A thought can make or break you, depending on the nature of the thought. It’s either thinking derived from metabolized doctrine in your right lobe or thinking derived from the propaganda of Satan. One will improve you; one will break you apart.
g. Mental attitude is the function of thought in your own soul, not what someone else thinks. So as a person, your ability to cope with life, your happiness in life, and your attractiveness in life is based upon what you think. Many people lose the ability to think. In other words, you have to live your own life. You can’t borrow the thoughts of others; you have to do your own thinking, make your own decisions, and handle your own problems.
h. Since thinking is such a crucial issue, there are mandates throughout the Bible with regard to thought testing.
(1) Rom 12:2, “Stop being conformed to this world [age], but be transformed by the renovation of your thought, that you may prove what the will of God is, namely, the good [spiritual self-esteem], the well-pleasing [spiritual autonomy], the complete [spiritual maturity].” To be able to think, you must not only develop a vocabulary for life, but you must come to understand the technical vocabulary of the Word of God for the “renovation of your thought.” You can never prove to yourself what the “will of God” for your life is without renovation of thought.
(2) Rom 12:3, “For I say through the grace which has been given to me to everyone who is among you: stop thinking of self in terms of arrogance beyond what you ought to think, but think in terms of sanity for the purpose of being rational without illusion as God has assigned to each one of us a standard of thinking from doctrine.” You choose to be sane or insane.
(3) The conflict of thought in the soul is brought out in Isa 55:6-9. Verse 6, “Seek the Lord [positive volition toward Bible doctrine] while He may be found. Call on Him while He is near.” Verse 7, “Let the evil believer forsake his way, and the unrighteous believer his thoughts. Consequently, let him return to the Lord, and He will have compassion on him; and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon.” Verse 8, “`My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are My ways your ways,’” says the Lord. Verse 9, “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts higher than your thoughts.”
i. There are pseudo-solutions to life’s problems based on human viewpoint. Five are prominent today.
(1) Rationalization is a pseudo-system for problem solving in thinking. It’s the function of the mentality of the soul in self-justification. This false solution blames everyone else for your failures and your sufferings.
(2) The direct attack is the anger solution to the problems and frustrations of life. This is solving problems by temper tantrums and being in the total state of irresponsibility by refusing to take the responsibility for your own bad decisions. A direct attack has three objectives.
(a) The satisfaction of approbation lust by focusing attention on self.
(b) The satisfaction of power lust by controlling the people in your vicinity.
© The gratification of inferior feelings by getting even under revenge modus operandi.
(3) Defense mechanism is a system of mental attitude designed to divorce the believer from reality and protect the mind against pressures which are too great for him to bear. This is the basis for sociopathic function, drug addiction, lasciviousness, etc.
(4) Denial is the human viewpoint thinking of ignoring the problem in hopes that it will go away. This is the pseudo-miracle syndrome. This is illustrated by the classical attitude of the combat soldier who thinks there’s only one bullet with his name on it; therefore, all other bullets are not dangerous. Instead, the soldier should use Job 5:20-21.
(5) Sublimation is the human viewpoint of finding a new outlet, a hobby, a new system of entertainment, a new drive for frustration. This is for the bored believer who seeks his happiness only in social life, sexual life, and pleasure. This believer has no capacity for life, love, or happiness, and therefore he sublimates by becoming a slave to some detail or details in life. These include such things as money, success, pleasure, social life, marriage; things not necessarily wrong, but distracting. Distracting things become wrong things when they take precedence over doctrine. This category can also include the system of trying to build your happiness on the envy of others; having and wanting things so that others will envy you. While most of the areas of sublimation are normal and moral in themselves, it is the mental attitude and priorities which cause the distraction to the protocol plan of God.
j. There’s a Biblical answer to pseudo-solutions related to thinking. 2 Cor 10:4-6, “For the equipment and the weapons of our warfare [spiritual] are not human attributes, but attributes of power [divine dynasphere] by means of God [Father], against the destruction of fortifications [cosmic thinking], assaulting and demolishing [with Bible doctrine] speculations [cosmic thinking, human viewpoint] and every obstacle of arrogance against the knowledge of God; even making a prisoner of every thought [contrary to the Word of God] to the obedience of Christ; holding in readiness [metabolized doctrine as an instant reaction force] to punish all deviation when your obedience has been fulfilled.”
7. Prosperity testing.
a. There are two categories of prosperity testing.
(1) Individual prosperity testing, in which some form of success challenges the top priority of doctrine.
(2) Collective prosperity testing, in which a city, state, nation, or group becomes very prosperous. The believer sharing in that prosperity can become distracted from doctrine, lured away from the protocol plan of God.
(3) Collective prosperity testing often results from combining the three categories of manifest destiny: landed aristocracy, industrial complex, and the undeveloped frontier. When these three have been fulfilled, the entire society usually becomes very hedonistic, making pleasure the chief function in life. Hedonism is self-indulgence; the pursuit of pleasure to the exclusion of truth and doctrine. It contends that moral duty is fulfilled in the gratification of pleasure-seeking. The pursuit of pleasure excludes the priorities of integrity both in establishment and in the Christian life. Collective prosperity testing challenges the entire society to choose between truth and hedonism.
b. Every believer must pass the prosperity test before he can achieve spiritual maturity.
c. Prosperity cannot bring happiness apart from the believer’s residence function and momentum inside the divine dynasphere.
d. Prosperity is the most subtle distraction to life in the divine dynasphere.
e. Our capacity must always precede our prosperity.
f. The only protection you have to pass this test is spiritual self-esteem. Prosperity cannot be accompanied by happiness unless the believer has spiritual self-esteem.
g. The cosmic system can offer you success, sex, fame, wealth, promotion, social and professional prosperity, but all these are without happiness and you make your own misery.
h. The prosperity test is vitally necessary before reaching spiritual maturity.
i. Passing this test consolidates the believer’s scale of values, making them consistent with the protocol plan of God, resulting in stabilizing the right priorities of life, and giving capacity to enjoy prosperity.
j. Passing this test means that the mature believer receives God’s greatest prosperity, the greater blessings of time and eternity.
k. If you are unhappy in the midst of prosperity, it means that you have flunked one of these tests.
l. When you have the same happiness in adversity as well as prosperity, it means you have passed the test.
8. If you flunk any of these tests, you go backwards. If you pass any of these tests, you accelerate your spiritual growth.
I. Evidence Testing. See the Doctrine of Evidence Testing.
J. Suffering Has Solutions.
1. There are two negative solutions that stand out in the post-Canon period of the Church Age.
a. Miracles are out now. Miracles are easy, involving only the sovereignty of God. It is easy for the sovereignty of God to utilize His omnipotence to perform a miracle. Nothing is easier, since it requires only His own sovereignty. No other volition is required. Miracles do not require positive volition or any function of man’s free will; only the sovereignty of God.
b. But to provide solutions and answers and blessings that involve our volition is much more difficult for the sovereignty of God, for all these require our perception of doctrine. They require both our understanding of doctrine and the compliance of our volition with His plan. For God to bless us requires our fulfillment of certain mechanical functions in the protocol plan of God, all of which depend upon our perception of doctrine.
c. Prayer is not a problem solving device for you in suffering. It is a weapon for the strong to use on behalf of others who are suffering. As a royal priest, you intercede for others. The believer does not pray for strength in time of suffering. In other words, intercessory prayer is a problem solving device. Petitionary prayer is not.
d. The believer in spiritual childhood derives strength from the combination of suffering with the faith-rest drill. The spiritual adult derives strength from providential preventative suffering combined with spiritual self-esteem. The only exception is the use of rebound in prayer.
e. It is a wrong solution to pray for the removal of suffering, especially when the suffering is designed for blessing, as in providential preventative suffering. It is also a wrong application of doctrine to pray for strength in suffering, since that comes mechanically under the protocol plan of God.
2. There are positive solutions.
a. For suffering caused by sin, there is rebound.
b. For suffering during spiritual childhood, there is the combination of metabolized doctrine with the faith-rest drill.
c. For suffering during spiritual adulthood, there is:
(1) Spiritual self-esteem plus providential preventative suffering equals spiritual autonomy.
(2) Spiritual autonomy plus momentum testing equals spiritual maturity.
(3) Spiritual maturity plus evidence testing equals glorification of God.
d. For failure after reaching spiritual self-esteem, there is a challenge in Phil 3:12-17. “Forgetting those things which are behind, I press on.”
K. Applications of Suffering for Blessing to Living and Dying.
1. There is suffering for blessing on a limited scale for those believers who use rebound regularly, and when someone maligns you or gossips against you.
2. Nothing is greater than suffering for blessing, because it determines your greatness in life. God’s plan is for you to use the grace systems of problem solving and to have blessing and tranquility in the greatest problems and difficulties in life.
3. Ps 23:4, “Even when I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I cannot fear evil, for You are with me [occupation with Christ].” Dying is considered to be the ultimate in suffering. Once you understand that the protocol plan of God teaches you how to die, you can learn how to live. If you know how to die, you know how to live. Do you have the ability to know how to die well? Dying is an index of how well you lived.
4. So there’s no fear of death, because death is not your problem, but simply a matter of how the sovereignty of God has decided you will die. God gives every believer enough time in life to learn how to die.
5. Just as your life can be full of tranquility and happiness, so can your death be. There is just as much happiness in dying as in living. There’s pain in both, so the issue is not pain. The issue is your spiritual growth from Bible doctrine.
6. David calls death a shadow because he wasn’t actually dying at that moment; it was something coming in the future. David knew how to live, for he was a believer with spiritual class, spiritual self-esteem, spiritual autonomy, and spiritual maturity. Even when suffering from the Absalom Revolution as his fourth installment of discipline, David recognized his banishment to be suffering for blessing.
7. David also had true courage, for he “could not” fear anything. It wasn’t a matter of choosing to not fear and bolstering up his courage. He couldn’t fear! You can’t have that much doctrine in your soul and be frightened because of a sudden change of circumstances, and David’s change of circumstances was sudden!
8. The believer who doesn’t know how to die doesn’t know how to live. He doesn’t have the faith-rest drill, hope 2, hope 3, or any doctrinal rationales. Since dying is the ultimate in suffering, if you have tranquility and happiness at the thought of dying, you will have tranquility and happiness in living. If dying can’t get to you, living can’t get to you. Suffering for blessing is designed to teach you from the protocol plan of God how to live and how to die. When you put the two together, it’s an unbeatable combination.
9. There is one category of unbeliever who knows how to die: the one with courage, which is rare. “The coward dies many times; the brave man dies but once.” (Julius Caesar, Shakespeare) Caesar was an unbeliever with true courage. True courage never has to prove courage. Macho people, those who feel they must prove how tough they are, are cowards and afraid of others.
10. Phil 1:20-21, “According to my intense concentration and resultant hope [hope 2] that in nothing shall I be disgraced, but with all integrity [virtue-love as problem solving device] even now, as always, Christ shall be glorified in my body [experience in life] whether by life or by death. For me, living is Christ [gate #5]; dying is profit [gain, advantage, blessing from spiritual self-esteem, spiritual autonomy, and spiritual maturity].”
11. Paul was at this time speaking from spiritual autonomy, close to spiritual maturity. Paul begins by telling us how to live: by concentrating on doctrine. A thought can make or break you! By making doctrine his #1 priority, he advanced to spiritual self-esteem, spiritual autonomy and spiritual maturity.
12. There comes a point in your spiritual adulthood when you understand that even though you sin and fail and make mistakes, you will not be disgraced at the Judgment Seat of Christ. “Even now as always” means when you learn how to live, there’s continuity in your life based on learning doctrine daily.
13. What do Ps 23:4 and Phil 1:20-21 have in common? While we live in a world of people, some whom we love, and some whom we do not, yet there are many things in life which we must do for ourselves. The most basic of these is that no one can live our life for us and no one can die for us! In both living and dying, we have to go it alone.
14. There are certain aspects of living we must do alone, like suffering, feeling pain, making your own decisions, thinking your own thoughts, establishing your own priorities, and eventually doing your own dying.
15. No one can die for you; you must do your own dying. No one can bear your pain; you must bear your own pain. No one can make your decisions for you; you must make your own decisions. You have to live by your own standards. You cannot look to someone else and copy and emulate. All this requires spiritual adulthood.
16. In learning how to live and how to die, you will have the key to happiness. You can have tranquility, great happiness and blessing in suffering as well as in prosperity. The only way to be on top of life in both adversity and prosperity is to be a spiritual adult.
17. Being alive and a Christian does not imply that you have the slightest idea as to how to live and how to die. This requires understanding your portfolio of invisible assets, the mechanics of the protocol plan of God; i.e., everything God has provided for you to have a fascinating and wonderful life, “exceedingly abundantly above all we could ever ask or think.”
18. Prov 19:8, “He who gets wisdom loves his own soul.” Here is spiritual self-esteem. “He who keeps understanding will prosper.” So you not only have to learn the doctrine, but you have to keep or guard it. You guard doctrine by hearing doctrine every day. This verse helps us to understand spiritual self- esteem, which is the point at which suffering for blessing begins. No one ever has consistent suffering for blessing until he has attained spiritual self-esteem.
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© 1989, by R. B. Thieme, Jr. All rights reserved.
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