Paul in one of his writings to the Romans asked “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine or nakedness or peril or sword? …Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present not things to come, nor height nor depth nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord”.
These are the words of a man, a believer who, not only knew that tribulation, distress, persecution, famine (poverty, lack), nakedness, peril, sword, principalities, powers and other troubles would come, but made up his mind that he would stand firm and fight and conquer them if and whenever, wherever and however they come.
That should be our stand too, as many of us as have made the decision to follow Jesus Christ to the end, as true believers. Tribulation and the likes should not take away the love of Christ from our hearts.
A true believer is the one that is content with whatever state he finds himself, good or bad. A true believer should not allow affluence or penury turn him away from Christ.
Many of us often wonder why God allows the true believer to suffer, even to the point of death in their pilgrimage. However, it is good to remind us here that some are appointed to die so, that is why there are many Christian Martyrs. If you will suffer the fate of a martyr, you don’t even know right now. But if along the line and in process of time, it comes the way of any of us, the Lord who has ordained it so, will give such the grace and courage of the martyr to face it gladly. And we will not deny our Lord no matter what.
Did you know that most of the first set of the disciples of Jesus Christ, who were also called apostles died as martyrs?
• Paul the Apostle was led out of the city and beheaded during the reign of Nero, the then Roman Emperor.
• Peter the Apostle was crucified upside down during the reign of the same Emperor Nero.
• Andrew, the brother of Peter was also crucified, but on a transverse cross at Edessa. A transverse cross is like the alphabet “X” in shape.
• The popular disciple, Thomas; he took the gospel to Parthia and India. But he was thrust through with a spear and killed, for the gospel.
• Matthias, the disciple who was used to replace Judas Iscariot, was stoned and then beheaded right there in Jerusalem, by the Jews.
• Jude, the brother of James, commonly called Thaddeus, was crucified at Edessa, just like Andrew.
• Luke, the Physician, who was always with Paul the Apostle in all his missionary journeys, and also the writer of the gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles, was hanged on an Olive Tree in Greece for the gospel.
• Simon, who was called Zelotes, who brought the gospel of Christ to as far as the West African country of Mauritania and Great Britain, was crucified in A.D. 74.
• James the Less was beaten and stoned and had his brain dashed out with a fuller’s club by the Jews. He was 94 years old then.
• Bartholomew, who translated the Gospel of Matthew into India, was martyred in Armenia.
• Philip the Evangelist, who converted the Ethiopian Eunuch, was crucified in A.D. 54 in Heliopolis, Phrygia.
• Mark, in whose name the Book of Mark in the Bible is called, was dragged to pieces by the people of Alexandria at the great solemnity of their God, Serapis.
• James the Great, was beheaded by Herod in Jerusalem.
• Stephen was cast out of the city and stoned to death, you know the story.
• Matthew, also called Levi; the writer of the Gospel of Matthew in the Bible, laboured in Parthia and Ethiopia. He was killed in the city of Nadabah in A.D. 60.
The only one among the first set of disciples of Jesus Christ who died a natural death was John the beloved, one of the two sons of Zebedee. And that was after passing through some horrifying and gruesome tortures, including being thrown into a cauldron (pot) of boiling oil and escaping without any hurt. He was thereafter banished to the Isle of Patmos. That was where he got the revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ and wrote the Book of Revelation in A.D. 96.
These disciples of Jesus Christ faced severe persecutions and tribulations during the satanic reign of the Roman Emperor, Nero.
This Roman Emperor Nero, was so wicked and devilish that he made them to cut his mother open and brought out her womb so that he could see the womb in which he was conceived and from which he had originated.
When Emperor Nero was born, his father who dedicated him to Satan from his mother’s womb, declared that another devil had been born. Of course, he turned out to be a devil indeed.
Let’s look at this word Tribulation again. What does it mean? Tribulation means misery, it means trouble, it means affliction, it means oppression. There is nothing good at all about tribulation. Tribulation brings misery. Misery means wretchedness. It means great disappointment. It means great unhappiness. It means great distress and poverty.
Can you see the meaning of or what tribulation stands for? It is not a pleasant experience and it is not for the faint hearted or “babes” in the gospel of truth, who cannot chew and swallow hard food; people who are still struggling with baby feeding bottles. No, it’s not for such; they need to grow and mature. They can’t bear it otherwise.
Those who can conquer tribulation are the ones who have made their face like a flint and have refused to be troubled by whatever comes their way, good or bad. They don’t see the trouble that confronts them as the end of their life. They believe that God will always make a way of escape for them. They are the ones who will never run ahead of God.
This Christian tribulation can manifest itself in a believer’s life in many forms. It can come as a sudden collapse of one’s business; the business just goes down all of a sudden without any warning and plunges the family into poverty. A family that was happy and had all things going well for them, only to suddenly become poor with no food to put on the table. This is tribulation.
This family tries all it could to come back to the glory days to no avail. Instead, things get worse. Then the mother of the home runs away with another man. All other family members leave the good man of the house and abandon him. All friends and relations distance themselves from him, leaving him to die in poverty or look for other alternative means outside Christ to solve his problem.
Some have crawled to this level and slipped and returned into oblivion because they lost courage and could not bear the hardship; the poverty, the misery, the shame and the starvation.
The Lord Jesus Christ said that the one that received the seed into Stony places, the same is he that heareth the word and anon with joy receiveth it; yet hath he not root in himself but endureth for a while for when tribulation and persecution ariseth because of the word, by and by he is offended.
Being offended means that this believer becomes discouraged to the extent of turning back from the Lord and going back to the world. So, discouragement is an offshoot of tribulation.
By God’s standards, a believer is not supposed to drop the baton or throw in the towel because of tribulation; because of suffering. What a believer is expected to do in time of discouragement is to give the journey a little more push. A little more grit and determination. A little more perseverance. A little more manifestation of faith in God. A little more peep into the Bible for words of encouragement and comfort. A little more peep towards the end of the tunnel. A little more self-assurance that there is still hope, if there is life. A little more drawing closer to God and declaring his unalloyed faith in His faithfulness and ability to turn his situation around. A little more drawing of inspiration from the history of those who had gone through such experiences in the past and survived.
Tribulation is not intended to kill us. It is not supposed to make us turn away from our God. It is not meant to make us become rebellious against God. Rather, tribulation is meant to make us stronger, purer, more refined and mature believers. Above all, if we remain cleaved to our Saviour and Master Jesus Christ, God will be pleased with us.
Before I round off, let me point out this fact to us. Did you know that sometimes, the Devil cannot bring tribulation to God’s children without God permitting him? Yes, the Devil cannot bring tribulation to us without God giving him the express permission.
When God allows Satan to get at His children, it is called trial. God uses trial to test your loyalty; your true position with Him. He wants to check you out. But the truth is that God will never leave you to die in trial. He will strengthen you and give you the grace to go through it.
Any time tribulation comes, remember that it is not the end of your life. Again, at such a time, remember too that you are not the first person to face such, and certainly not going to be the last.
Did you know that even King David, a man after God’s own heart, passed through terrible tribulations during his life time? If you read his history in the books of Samuel, Kings and Chronicles, even the book of Psalms, you will discover most of the troubles that that great man of God passed through, even as a reigning king.
David did not find life easy during his days, though God loved him and he loved God too and served Him faithfully. For instance, in Psalm 31, we see the cry of the man David.
In that chapter, David prayed a grievous prayer to God and called on God to come to his rescue. He listed his problems as: • trap set for him by his enemies. They planted a net secretly to catch him. • he suffered adversities. • his eyes, soul and belly were consumed with grief – great sadness and heart pains. • he suffered reproach, a state of shame, blame and resentful criticisms. • he was forgotten as a dead man out of mind. No one cared or remembered him in his suffering; he was abandoned by all. • slander, people slandered him. •. conspiracy and evil plan to kill him. His adversaries plotted to kill him.
He suffered all these things but never one day spoke any evil against his God. Rather, he encouraged himself always in the Lord his God. He did not give up on God and never lost hope that God would see him through.
The reason why I have decided to do this piece is to lay bar to the believer reading what it actually takes to be a strong, tough and uncompromising believer. It takes all the challenges listed here and even more.
Every believer is tried by God according to his ability. However, the choice to endure and overcome, by mustering whatever power that lies within you, is completely yours.
A former president of the USA said, “There is no man living, who isn’t capable of doing more than he thinks he can do”. So believe you can overcome your challenges and you will.
And, Mihalys Czikszentmilaly (Ph.D), said “Of all virtues we can learn, no trait is more useful, more essential for survival, and more likely to improve the quality of life, than the ability to transform adversity into an enjoyable challenge”. While Charles Swindoll said, “The test of courage are much quieter. They are the inner tests like remaining faithful when nobody is looking, like enduring pain when the room is empty, like standing alone when you’re misunderstood”.
From the quotes by these great men; Henry Ford of USA, Mihalys Czikszentmilaly, (Ph.D), and Charles Swindoll, we can deduce that each of them did taste some measures of adversities and challenges in their days and might have spoken from their individual personal experiences.
They were all great men and obviously, none of them allowed their unpleasant or ugly experiences to deter them from pursuing their goals and ambitions and achieving them ultimately.
If they could make it and became what God ordained them to be, why can’t you and I do the same in our battles against our common enemy – Satan? Of course, we can and must because there is no alternative any way.
Thank you for staying till the end. Kindly like, share, subscribe and drop your comments. Thank you.
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