The Happen Stance

How to Make Things Happen In Your Christian Life

K. Neill Foster

OUR SUNDAY SCHOOL CLASS had just decided to forego its own study to listen to the cassette tape being played in a nearby classroom.

I was disgusted.

 Inwardly I complained, "I came here to get something out of the Word of God and this is what they do!" But these initial thoughts I soon recognized for what they were - carnal murmurings. So I conducted a short revival service and repented, all of this within my own mind.

Then I began to read my Bible and there, to my amazement, I discovered something in the Word which I had read before but had never really seen. Immediately I realized that it was a chapter for this book and another gentle signal from the Lord that the time had come to write.

The discovery was "suffer power."

"Forasmuch, then, as Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves likewise with the same mind; for he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin" (1 Pet. 4:1, italics mine).

Arm yourselves. The thoughts began to tumble around. Suffering for the warfare? Suffering has offensive capabilities in the Christian life? Suffering makes things happen? There were also some honest fears. It was true that Jesus' greatest power was released through His suffering, but must we all suffer? All of us want to know more about the power of His resurrection. But not so many want to know "the fellowship of his sufferings." For Paul the two things were part of the same package; his ardent desire was "that I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings . . ." (Phil. 3:10).

Right from his conversion Paul knew the meaning of suffering. When Ananias prayed for him, he referred to the great things Paul was to suffer (Acts 9:16). In his many journeys, the Holy Spirit's message to him was that "bonds and afflictions" awaited him (Acts 20:23).

How many of us can get excited about the great things we are to suffer? How many of us want to know about the "bonds and afflictions" which await us? And this is a related question - how many of us have a Christian experience which exudes spiritual power like Paul's did?

Suffering, so far as Paul was concerned, was part of the gospel. Suffering with Christ was a necessary antecedent to being glorified together with Him (Rom. 8:17). Live a godly life and you will suffer persecution, Paul taught (2 Tim. 3:12). He also knew he was "fill[ing] up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ is my flesh for His body's sake, which is the church" (Col. 1:24).

Now if I can understand Paul at all, he is saying that Christians will suffer and that the result will be beneficial for Christ's body, the church. So far as the apostle was concerned, the more his sufferings mounted up, the more the consolations were adding up too (2 Cor. 1:4-6). Suffering produced encouragement for the church.

As I consider this concept of suffer power, I have only to look around me to realize that suffering does have a positive and powerful result.

SURGING NEW POWER

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We have friends who are accomplished gospel musicians. They have always had an excellent ministry - so much so that we have had them back twice to our conventions.

Last summer, however, their son-in-law was killed just weeks before their first grandchild was to be born. Their daughter was left a young widow about to give birth. Our friends had deeply loved the young man who died. The agony of their bereavement was intense.

Later they came to sing in yet another convention. The instant they began to sing, we were all aware of surging new power in their singing. It was a tremendously moving experience to listen.

And what did we hear? We heard suffer power.

A woman who sings at our summer conventions has suffered a great deal. She has suffered a broken home and a broken heart. But the results of these sufferings have brought about a radiance in her life that is unusual.

And her music? She has not as yet released a record. But her music exudes spiritual power. Suffer power. I know it.

Even the world sometimes senses what suffering can do. A beautiful girl, so the story goes, once had a marvelous singing voice. But something was lacking. So her singing teacher deliberately caused her to fall in love with him. Then, just as deliberately, he broke her heart. The result: superb and overwhelmingly powerful music.

ATMOSPHERE OF POWER

I have a friend who is an effective and gifted evangelist. If there is one word to describe the atmosphere when he ministers to people, and when he prays for the sick, it is power.

Recently we had occasion to publish his autobiography.¹² He spent nine years on a sickbed. He was slowly dying of tuberculosis. He suffered for years. Then he was miraculously healed and sent around the world to tell his story.

While his manuscript was in preparation and this chapter was surging in my heart, I realized something I had never noticed before. The key to the soul-winning evangelism that God has given him and the key to his sympathetic ministry to the sick is his former suffering. It is a ministry of suffer power.

Many of us crave Christian experiences which exude the power of God. We know God is powerful and we want Him to show His power in us. What we are less willing to do is to pass through the suffering. And one of the reasons why the sick are not always immediately healed when prayer is offered is that the time has not arrived. God may want to develop some suffer power for the consolation of His church.

THE ALABASTER BOX

I sense, too, that there is a close relationship between suffering and brokenness. The alabaster box has to suffer, it has to be broken, before the whole house can be filled with fragrance (Mark 14:3-9). The corn of wheat has to suffer death before it can bring forth fruit (John 12:24). Real fruitfulness is often delayed because we have not been willing to suffer, because we have not been broken.

On one occasion a pastor friend had lunch with me. While we waited for the food to arrive, he took a wafer from the basket. He broke it carefully. Then he put the pieces back together. They fit perfectly.

"Is it still the same?" he asked.

"No," I said, "it is broken."

Then he said to me, "Neill, have you ever been broken?"

I had no answer. At least not then. I needed time to think.

But yes, there had been times of brokenness and suffering. In Bible college days there was a girl for whom I cared very deeply. But the feeling was not reciprocated. It broke my heart. And, yes, I suffered. But then my heart opened for the first time to the fullness of the Holy Spirit. My Christian life was radically and permanently changed. There was power which had not been there before. I know it was the power Jesus had promised (Acts 1:8). But it was something else, too - suffer power.

BOARD DECISION

Later, as a young pastor, a church board and a senior pastor made a decision which I found very difficult to accept. I admit there were tears. I was a brokenhearted young preacher. But God spoke to me in that hour, "Never mind. I am going to bless you anyway." And He did. In my preaching for nearly eight months afterward, until we resigned the pastorate to enter evangelism, there was a consistent and regular response Sunday after Sunday to the preaching of the Word. Conversions. Restorations. People filled with the Holy Spirit. Healings. The brokenness had unleashed power in preaching and in the ministry. Now I can see it was suffer power. I cannot help but thank God for the decision of that church board!

SOME EMBARRASSMENTS

In one of my evangelistic campaigns, everything seemed to go wrong. The pastor's wife was against me and her husband sided with her. The young man who was my associate chose that campaign to tell me about a few things that were wrong with me. There were other embarrassments. (We really did have a good campaign though!) But I will honestly admit I wondered why all the buffeting was my portion.

I was not long in finding out. In the next series of meetings, a very important series, in a strategic church with a regular exposure to college students, I found more brokenness and power, more suffer power in my ministry, than I had ever known. I think the key was what I had gone through immediately before.

RAW GOSPEL POWER

Perhaps no concept has ever gripped me more than that of God's love. While I was writing Revolution of Love (Bethany Fellowship, 1972) I was held to the message of love. I could preach on nothing else. But the day the final manuscript was in the mail, I was free to preach on other subjects. But the love theme retains special affection in my heart. It is beyond doubt the most powerful thing I have ever preached. I have seen more tears, more brokenness, and more raw gospel power manifested through the love message than any other. Thank God for His love.

And will you be surprised if I tell you that coincidental with the development of that message there were satanic onslaughts and suffering? There was anxiety. Spiritual warfare on a scale I had rarely known. Satanic attacks against my ministry and my family. Attacks which were nearly ruinous.

But now I can look back. "Thank You, Lord, for the love message, and the suffering through which You worked it out."

ALARMING TURN

Now this message takes an alarming turn. If suffer power is what I am saying it is, then everyone should seek the suffering which will perfect him. Right?

Not so. That was the error of those in the history of the church who believed they had to make themselves suffer in order to achieve holiness. Long vigils of fasting - even self-inflicted wounds - were part of that mentality.

Peter, I notice, interjects an if into the context of suffering. "But and if ye suffer for righteousness' sake, happy are ye" (1 Pet. 3:14). And he adds, "Let them. . . suffer according to the will of God" (1 Pet. 4:19, italics mine).

Perhaps we may conclude that when Peter urged the Hebrew Christians, "Forasmuch then as Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves likewise with the same mind. . ." (1 Pet. 4:1), he was saying, "Be ready to suffer. Be willing to suffer. If it happens, you know what to expect."

HELL SHALL NOT PREVAIL

Surely the most foolish thing Satan ever does to a church is to tear and persecute it. A tormented, suffering, bleeding church simply exudes power. Suffer power, which has perhaps lain dormant within that church for generations, suddenly springs to life. Apart from this principle the church of Jesus Christ would have perished long ago.

But it lives. The gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And its Savior shall return one day to rule because on another day long ago He suffered.

Chapter 15