Frank Barker
I bring greetings to you this morning, brethren, from Emmanuel Baptist Church in Coconut Creek, in Florida where my wife and I have been living for the past four or five years in retirement. (Pastor Piñero has brought me out of retirement this morning.)
Thank you for your warm welcome and for inviting Mary and me to your family conference. We have many happy memories of family conferences with North Bergen, and we’re delighted to be back among you again this morning and honored to be invited to minister the Word of God to you today and during the conference.
My subject has been given to me and here it is: marital love in the midst of suffering. I want to speak to you this morning in the Sunday School hour about suffering as married couples. I’m asking myself the question as I look upon you, how many of you have been married for ten or less years? Ten or less years? Only one—two, three, I’m sure there must be more than that. How many of you hope to be married soon? (Some honest men here, too.)
My wife and I were married fifty-seven years ago and, surprisingly, in God’s kind providence, today is our wedding anniversary. So, today we’ve been married fifty-seven years, and it’s a joy to be able to celebrate it in your presence and to acknowledge God’s goodness to us over these many years.
We emigrated to America twenty years after we were married (in England), and we had two daughters, Joy and Alison, who between them have blessed us with eight grandchildren; and now we are blessed with five great-grandchildren, but along with all these joyful events have come some trials and sufferings.
Usually young married couples don’t think about suffering. In fact, the honey-moon hopefully lasts for quite a few years before they wake up to the reality that life is not all about a picnic.
After fifty-seven years of marriage, I’ve come to realize that marriage is a kind of apprenticeship, a rich learning experience in which the trials of life play a significant part. In other words, marriage is a sanctifying blessing, a process in which we learn more and more about one another, but more especially about God’s dealings with us. In fact I’ve come to realize that life is all about a preparation for the life to come.
Sometimes therein I think that after all we’ve been through, all we’ve learned about life, we just might be ready to start all over again and do it right, but starting over is not an option, I’m afraid.
The truth is, you only get one shot at life and every minute counts, and so I hope this morning you will listen carefully as I take up the subject of marital love in the midst of suffering. I’ll be sharing with you some personal reflections by way of testimony along with some biblical perspectives on suffering.
Now, Christians understand that monogamous marriage between a man and a woman was ordained by God and instituted as a creation ordinance.
Read in your Bibles Genesis chapter 2 and verse 24, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and shall be joined to his wif,e and they shall become one flesh. These words come to us from the very beginning of creation when God made man and woman.”
He made them to be husband and wife and they became one flesh. This, of course, was long before Moses was given the Ten Commandments by God and the New Testament testimony given to us by the apostle Paul speaks of marriage as a picture of the relationship between Christ and the church. So, it’s appropriate that we consider conjugal or marital love in connection with trials, difficulties and especially suffering.
Now, why do I say that? Turn in your Bibles to Ephesians 5:28, “So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself,” and then, if you look up at verse twenty-five, “Husbands, love your wives just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for her.”
Suffering is all about giving yourself up.
These words that are spoken of concerning the Lord Jesus are very significant. Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her.
What does it mean to give yourself up for somebody? It means to suffer for them, to give your life for them. That’s just what Jesus did for His people, the church, and that is how husbands must understand their relationship to their wives, but notice that there’s suffering involved.
Jesus suffered giving Himself up, suffering upon a cross for sinners like us, and so, we must think of marriage as something in which we give ourselves up, yes, even to suffering if needs be.
Let me remind you of your wedding day, those of you here who are married. Let me speak to you wives, for example. Do you remember how the pastor asked you that all important question, will you love him, comfort him, honor him and keep him—and forsaking all others keep you only unto him so long as you both shall live, and you said?
I will.
It was a happy day, was it not? A day, a solemn day, but, a day for rejoicing as you made your vows to each other in the presence of Almighty God. You said words like this, “I take you to be my lawfully wedded wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, in sickness and in health, love and to cherish till death us do part.”
Probably the last thing a young couple thinks of when they’re getting married is suffering, sickness, and death, and yet you did promise to love him and her both in sickness and in health.
To those young married couples here this morning, I must tell you, sooner or later your love will be tested by sickness and suffering.
I don’t want to be a party-pooper. I don’t want to put a downer on your happiness, but sooner or later you will experience some kind of suffering and you said, in sickness or in health, my promise stands.
Many of you will be familiar with William Shakespeare. He said some interesting words and I want to recite them to you.
“Love is not love,” he said, “which alters when it alteration finds, or bends with the remover to remove. Oh, no, it is an ever-fixed mark which looks on tempests and is never shaken.”
The apostle Paul put it even more simply. When he wrote his letter to the Corinthians, he said, “Love bears all things. Love endures all things. Love never fails.”
My wife and I made our vows to each other in August of 1958, possibly that was before some of you were even born. Thirty-nine years later, around the time of our fortieth wedding anniversary, she was diagnosed with cancer, Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, stage 2. We spent most of 1996 visiting hospitals for surgery, chemotherapy and radiation treatment. It was for us a very, very difficult year. Every three weeks she would visit the clinic for another infusion of the chemo, and this would send her to her bed in sickness and in physical distress. She lost all her hair and had to wear a wig. At times I was so emotionally disturbed as I saw her suffering and thinking, “Will I lose my wife? Will she die?”
I could hardly find words to pray, but I remember how one of the brethren, my good friend, came along side and asked me, “Brother, can I pray with you?” It meant so much to me, because I was finding it hard to pray.
That was our first whirlwind of suffering. It was a whirlwind of suffering which we shared together. It’s hard, you know, to handle cancer alone, but together and by the grace of God we were brought through the storm; and we are so thankful to God that this morning we can be together still. Mary has been in remission ever since, and you were praying for her at the time.
Three years ago, God brought another whirlwind of suffering into our lives. This time, it was my turn. A curious bone disease called Paget’s disease attacked my pelvis. At the same time, I sustained a fracture of the hip. By this time I was unable to walk and experiencing severe bodily pain due to the Paget’s disease, but the storm was not finished. The pain was so bad that I was unable even to get out of my bed. Mary was a wonderful help to me during this time, and once again we found the truth of God’s Word: two are better than one.
Sleepless nights and the horrible side-effects of pain medication only added to the storm, but through it all, God never left me and various verses of the Scriptures strengthened me in the midst of my trial. Mary was always by my side helping me to dress each day and to get in and out of my Lazy-boy adjustable chair which is where I ate and slept for many months.
Brethren from the church visited and prayed with me. By this time I could not even get into the car and go to church. At times I needed help even to stand up. I used a walking frame to get to the bathroom, and I watched the scales as I lost weight day by day. It was at this point that Mary began to wonder if she was soon to be a widow, and then the doctors discovered the other part of the storm. I had prostate cancer, stage four. It had metastasized throughout my bones. Was this to be the last straw that would end my life, I asked?
There was no cure, no chemotherapy, no radiation treatment necessary: stage four eliminated all of those. The pain in my bones was excruciating, but a merciful God was at work hearing and answering prayer. The doctor’s prescribed hormone-suppression therapy using a small tablet to be taken by mouth daily, and, brethren, amazingly, within days the pain eased and soon was completely gone, and the storm ceased.
God has been pleased to bless the prayers offered for me and the hormone suppression medication so that the cancer cells are no longer causing me bodily pain. I still have cancer. It’s still in stage four, but it is in check by the medication and by the grace of God.
So, I’m able to stand before you this morning, and you’re all saying, well, you look perfectly healthy to me, but the truth of the matter is the man standing before you has cancer, stage four; and I only have one day at a time to live for His glory. I’m so glad to be with my friends at North Bergen this morning, and I tell you all this, brethren, not to gain your sympathy or to promote myself in any way, but to speak of how God brings His people through various trials to sanctify them.
Suffering is part of life, and God’s purposes are to sanctify us through them, and He gives grace to bear the trials as He prepares us for heaven.
Now, having shared with you some personal reflections, I want to consider with you some biblical perspectives on the trials of life.
Job tells us that man is born of a woman, is few of days and full of trouble.
Think of those words for a moment: man who is born of woman is of few days and full of trouble. Job was a wise man, and we would be wise to heed his words. Moses could say, our lives are like the grass of the field, soon cut down (in Psalm 90). There’s a theme in the Bible, brethren, that I want you to notice, a theme that is so common and frequent that it almost defines the Christian life.
Now, hear me well: there is in the Bible a theme that is so common that it almost defines the Christian life and it’s the theme of suffering.
Think of Joseph: how he suffered at the hands of his brothers, and then at the hands of Potiphar his master, thrown into prison, suffering the loneliness of being falsely accused and imprisoned.
Think of Job: suffering sickness and loss of property.
Think of Stephen: suffering as he was stoned to death for his testimony to Jesus.
Think of Paul: near beaten to death with rods five times, he received thirty-nine lashes of the whips. Three times he was shipwrecked, toil, hardships, hunger, sleepless nights—as you list them all, you realize, this man suffered—and of course, of course, our blessed Lord Himself suffered more than any man.
Isaiah speaks of Him as the suffering servant, the Man of Sorrows who was wounded for our transgressions. No one suffered like our Lord.
The theme of suffering, I say, is found everywhere in the Bible. Doubtless, I have no doubt that sitting here this morning there are not a few of you who can say, yes, Pastor, I am one of them, I am presently suffering.
I want to suggest two things to you about suffering that I believe are biblical truths.
Firstly, suffering is the result of sin, however—stay with me—however, when we suffer it is not that we are especially more sinful than our neighbor. Jesus was very clear on that point, turn with me to John chapter 9.
John, chapter 9 and verse 1, “As Jesus passed by He saw a man who was blind from birth, and His disciples asked Him, saying, ‘Who sinned, this man or his parents that he was born blind?’ Jesus answered, ‘Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but that the works of God should be revealed in him.'”
We suffer because we are sinners living in a fallen world. Christians are not exempt from the trouble referred to by Job. It comes in many forms, pain and sorrow, suffering and death are real and personal and common. They are the experience of all men. They have a common origin: it’s due to our fallen nature.
When Adam and Eve disobeyed God, they were cast out of the Garden of Eden, and sorrow, pain, suffering and death came upon every man, and so, to quote Job, we are all of full days and full of trouble, and sometimes the trouble comes like a whirlwind of suffering which can take many forms. For example, millions today in Africa suffer from hunger. Many in Nepal suffer from the loss of all their possessions due to the recent earthquakes. War creates suffering as the millions of refugees from Syria and Iraq know only too well. We could go on listing the trouble spots of the world where suffering is the lot of many, many people. Here at home we may be called upon to face severe, providential trials over which we have no control like cancer, diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease or Down-Syndrome. We may be severely injured in a road accident, and it’s certain that we will all one day die. These severe providential trials bring with them physical and emotional suffering which all result from our sinful fallen nature, but are not necessarily due to any actual sinful actions on our part. Jesus told His disciples that the man born blind was blind, not because of any particular sins of the man or his parents, but that God might be glorified through his ultimate healing.
Here then, is the profound purpose of God in all of our sufferings: that God may be glorified. So, suffering is to be expected because we live in a fallen, sinful world and all suffering is part of God’s sovereign purpose in our lives and has His glory as its ultimate end. So whatever suffering you may be enduring this morning, or may endure in the future, remember, God has purposes in it for His glory and our good.
Secondly, suffering is intended by God for our sanctification, and marital love in the midst of suffering even more so, but equally, suffering helps to promote in us a very valuable grace, and it is the grace of God-centeredness and a longing for heaven.
Our personal struggles with pain and with suffering should be considered in the light of Jesus’ suffering and death. When we think of our sufferings, we should think of His sufferings, but then, His resurrection from the dead and His ultimate glory. We need to keep in mind that we are pilgrims passing through this world on our way to heaven. If we’re Christians, our home is not here but there. What happens here is only temporary and fleeting.
Two-hundred years ago on the island of Hispaniola, the African slaves suffered greatly as they worked in the sugar plantations. They were not sufficiently educated to be able to read the Bible, but they could sing Bible stories called Negro-spirituals. These songs contained the great events and truths of redemptive history, and they contained stories of the Bible as they sang their songs. They sang of their personal troubles, “Nobody knows the trouble I seen.” They sang about Jesus. “Steal away to Jesus,” they sang. They sang about heaven, “Swing low sweet chariot, comin’ for to carry me home.” Their sufferings were simply a reminder of heaven where there is no more pain and in many ways, their theology of suffering was more biblical than ours. They were suffering but anticipating the day when all the suffering would be over. They saw a connection between Jesus’ suffering and theirs. They understood that Jesus endured the cross, triumphed over death and the grave and was received up into glory, the glory of heaven.
They understood that the secret of saving faith was simply trusting in Jesus. They understood that for the disciple of Jesus, suffering and death is followed by glory, just as it was for Jesus.
So, suffering and pain are used to sanctify the believer and to draw him closer to Jesus as he anticipates heaven and glory. It gives him God-centered thinking, and, brethren, as I stand before you this morning, I urge you, especially the younger ones here, keep God in your thinking. See your circumstances in the context of God ordering your affairs. What for? His glory, and your ultimate glory as you join Him in the heavens.
My own experience as I went through months of pain and weakness was to call upon my Savior, and I found Him very near to me.
I’d find myself unable to sleep at night because of the pain and, as I prayed, the Lord brought to my mind verses from the Bible to comfort my soul, verses like, “Lo, I am with you always, I will never leave you.” “Let not your heart be troubled, you believe in God, believe you also in Me,” Jesus said. As I meditated on these themes, I would often fall asleep for a brief hour, and upon waking, those verses would still be with me, lifting my soul up to God and comforting me in my trials. God has purposes of good for us in our sufferings, to keep us thinking about Him and His Holy Word and His dear Son who died for us.
My dear brethren, I have a simple question for you this morning as I draw my thoughts to a close, and here’s the question: does the prospect of you suffering as a Christian surprise you? Have I shocked you at all this morning into thinking that you, too, might have to face suffering? It shouldn’t surprise you, if you know your Bible. The Old Testament patriarchs experienced suffering, the Psalmists sang about suffering, the prophets prophesied it, our blessed Lord endured it, and the apostles all experienced it. All followed the same path, suffering before entering the glories of the kingdom of God. If you are seeking first the kingdom of God, remember, you may have to pass through suffering before you reach that kingdom. It’s vital that we see this thread that is part of the tapestry of redemptive history for all of God’s people.
It’s sometime been said, I think, accurately, no cross, no glory.
In Philippians chapter 3 and verse 8, the apostle spoke of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus, and then in the same breath he says, for whose sake he had suffered the loss of all things. This is the apostle speaking. He says, “When I consider the surpassing value of knowing Christ, I gladly give up everything.” I would suffer the loss of all things. Suffering the loss of all things is to share in the Lord’s sufferings and become like Him in His death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead. That will be glory.
It’s like—for us, it’s like being one step behind Jesus who is now exalted to the glory of heaven. He has suffered humiliation, affliction, even death upon the cross, for us. He suffered for us in that way while He was here upon the earth. Notice carefully that Jesus’s suffering and humiliation was followed by His ascension to glory where He now sits glorified in heaven and one day returning in great glory for His church. Like Him—we must expect to share in His sufferings now, here upon the earth as we await our exaltation together with Him at His second coming in great glory. So, for the Christian, here’s the agenda: suffering now, glory later. How’s that suit you? Suffering now, glory later.
Please turn with me to the second book of Corinthians chapter 4. Second Corinthians chapter 4, verse 16, “Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal.”
Keep your place, but turn back to Romans 8 and verse 18. Paul writing to the Roman church could say, “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.”
There it is. Paul can say, “I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed.”
So, for the Christian, this slight momentary affliction—that is to say, the sufferings of this present time which are but for a moment, are preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison. In these verses, we find the great apostle making a comparison between the sufferings of this life and the future glory in the world to come. He contrasts our few days of pain with our eternal happiness in the world to come. It’s like balances in the store, compare on the one side your sufferings and your pain now with, on the other side of the scales, eternal weight of glory to be revealed.
What do you see on your scales? Do you see that the eternal weight of glory is so vast and so great, it’s not to be compared with the trifles of suffering in this life which are transitory and short-lived? We should remember that our light afflictions are, first of all, but for a moment. My pain, your pain is not going to last forever. It’s, our pain is slight. They are light afflictions. They are transitory. They are passing away. They are short-lived; they last but for a moment. Our sufferings, as we consider them, are not to be compared with the greatness of the glory of heaven. Keep that in mind as you pass through sufferings.
We are to realize that our sufferings are preparing us for something: they are preparing us for heaven. They are working God’s purposes out in us for an eternal—an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.
Our sufferings, my brethren, have purpose.
They are preparing us for glory. Do you ever think of your trials in that way? As we have seen, there is a definite connection between future glory and present sufferings. Our sufferings are preparing us, or working for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.
We need to have some more heavenly-mindedness about us. We need to be thinking about the wonder and glories of heaven and that these present trials are slight and passing away. Paul is saying that our present trials influence the future glory, so in all our afflictions, Paul would have us look not at the things which are seen but at the things which are unseen, for the things that are seen, he says, are temporal: your house, your car, your fine furnishings, they’re temporal. The things that are unseen, your soul, glory of heaven, are eternal.
So, as I summarize things for you this morning, brethren, from my own experience, let’s learn that afflictions are sent by God to benefit us. You know, there’s a common phrase that I hear all too often: well, if you’ve got your health, you’ve got everything.
Brethren, nothing could be so untrue as that.
Afflictions are brought to us, even in our sicknesses, to strengthen the new man. Afflictions are intended to benefit the new man, not the flesh. The flesh is not so important as the new man is, and God is concerned to transform the inner man into Christ-likeness. It is our sanctification that Christ is concerned for. That’s the goal that God has in mind throughout all our trials: to make us more like Jesus and prepare us for the glory of heaven.
Afflictions help prepare us for the world to come and the heavenly city above. Afflictions help to draw our hearts away from the love of the world to long for heaven, for that time when we shall be taken from this earthly scene of sin and sorrow, pain and sickness, into the glories of heaven.
Afflictions humble us. Afflictions crush our pride.
Afflictions awake in us a longing for heaven, seeking the things that are above where Christ is.
So, this morning, my dear brethren of North Bergen, whom I love dearly, let’s put our present or future sufferings on one side of the weighing scales and on the other side put the eternal weight of glory. What do you see on your scales? Your sufferings are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is promised to all God’s people. The one vastly outweighs the other. One second spent in the glories of heaven will outweigh a lifetime of suffering.
What are years of toil, sickness and poverty and persecution—even the martyr’s death—when weighed against the pleasures at God’s right hand for all eternity, forevermore? I would rather have one breath of heaven than lose my soul, and one breath of heaven will dispel the winds of sorrow and trial and suffering. One day in the Father’s house will be more than balancing out the years spent in this sin-cursed world.
May God grant us the faith to anticipate and lay hold of the future and live in the present enjoyment of glory.
Set your mind on things above, brethren, where Christ our Savior is. Keep the balances clear in your thinking. The trials of this life are not to be compared with the glory that’s to be revealed.
Let’s pray.
Our heavenly Father, we give you thanks for reminding us this morning that You are a sovereign God who orders all things well. We thank You that we can say we know that all things do work together for good to them that love God and are called according to His purposes. We pray that You would give us a God-centered way of thinking about our lives and help us to know and to believe that you are ordering all, even all our trials and sufferings to the end that You would be glorified, and so we pray for grace, the grace of saving, believing faith to trust you even when we cannot see. Help us to remember that faith is the substance of things hoped for, and concerns things unseen. Keep our eyes on the things that are above and not on the things that are below. Above all, keep us looking unto Jesus the Author and Finisher of Our Faith. We ask Your blessing upon us in His precious Name. Amen.
