Episode 85: Are Suffering, Persecution & Death justified?

In the name of the glorious Trinity, Father and Son and Holy

Spirit forever. Amen.

Glory be to the. Everlasting mercies which?

Sent you to us, O Christ, the light of the world and the life

of all. Give us wisdom by your law and

enlighten our impulses by your knowledge.

Sanctify our souls by your truth, and grant that we may be

obedient to your words and may fulfill your commandments at

every hour. O you who?

Enlightens the rationale with the knowledge of your greatness.

Do enlight, O my Lord, our thoughts that we may meditate

upon your holy and divine scriptures at all times, O Lord

of all Father and Son and Holy Spirit.

Forever. Amen.

sometimes feel that when we speak about suffering,

persecutions and death, the message may come across somehow

a little confusing and maybe even non realistic.

Although sufferings, persecutions and death are to be

tolerated as an element of faith in our Lord God, Jesus Christ,

in this most wicked and twisted world, it is by no means

justified in its essence. We are not to entice suffering

and persecutions. We are not to provoke them.

Let's look at suffering and persecution.

I pose you to this question. Do you think that God had in his

plans, in His perfect kind, loving holy will and in His

perfect purpose the idea and prospect of pain and suffering

and persecution when he created all things visible and

invisible? Do you think Genesis chapter one

verse 31 doesn't indicate that we read and God created of

heaven and earth and all that we see and don't see, tangible and

non tangible. God saw everything that he had

made, everything that he had made, and behold it was good and

pleasing. Good according to the standards

standards of our perfect God and pleasing in the eyes of God.

Do you think in the goodness and pleasure of God there was an

element, an intention of suffering and persecutions?

For His creation? Wasn't God's act of creation an

act of love in the 1st place? That in His power and wisdom He

created the universe and all that is in there to share that

love with us and with His creation?

After all, in the first Epistle of St.

Paul to the. Corinthians, the Church.

In Corinth, chapter 6, verse 13, it is said that love rejoices

not in evil, and yet suffering and persecutions are evil.

So suffering and persecutions are not to be justified, though

tolerated, persevered, and accepted joyfully for Christ's

sake. Some people question that as

well. Why?

Why does Christ want me to suffer?

And why does Christ want me to be persecuted?

Well, it wasn't Christ that in the 1st place wanted you to

suffer and be persecuted. To answer your question, let me

give you this equation from where it all began.

Once Upon a real time there was man who was created by God,

disobeyed the God that created him, and this was sin against

the God that created him. And that sin brought curse in

the eyes of God that created him.

And from that point suffering and persecution were born.

So suffering and persecutions are a product of the fall, a

consequence of human disobedience, which is sin

against God the Creator. Suffering and persecutions are

not to be justified, as I said, though tolerated and accepted

and persevered joyfully for Christ's Christ's sakes.

Why? Because Christ suffered so that

our suffering will not be in vain.

So we dropped the ball in the 1st place.

Our race, our kind dropped the ball in the 1st place.

Through that suffering and persecutions and death that

we're talking about sufferings and persecutions, we'll cover

death. Soon we're.

Introduced, We're born. Christ, then, this is the glory,

the love, the grace and mercy of Jesus, our Lord God, which

you'll find in no other person living on the face of this

earth, no other religious leader living on the face of this

earth. Beloved, they did not suffer for

mankind, and even if they did, it was to no veil.

There was it was it was invalid. It didn't bring you and I any,

any grace, any mercy, any fruits.

Christ suffered so that our suffering will not be in vain.

That's why, excuse me, the suffering and persecutions that

we introduced in the world because of our disobedience we

need to tolerate and accept and persevere in joyfully is because

Christ through his suffering made our suffering not to be in

vain. In His first letter.

Saint Peter Simon the Rock writes chapter 3 verses 17 to

18. For it is profitable to you, not

for God, not for Jesus. Whether we suffer or not, Christ

is glorified, God is Almighty. Praise be to His name, for it is

profitable to you that you suffer evil while you do good

deeds, not suffering, because you provoke.

You entice, and you brought it upon yourself because of evil

and sin, no suffering while you do good deeds, if this should be

the pleasure of God. So if God allows you to suffer

and to be persecuted, not because it was in His plan, but

because of your free will, our free will, the free will of

mankind, suffering and persecutions entered, I have to

continue to reiterate, because we point the finger at God

pointed back to yourself, there's a three fingers pointing

at yourself. So now that suffering and

persecutions are in the world, and God through His pleasure

allows you to go through those sufferings and persecutions.

It's because it will not be in vain, because Christ suffered

for us when we do good. That is by the way, and not

while you do evil deeds. For the Messiah also once died

for our sins, the righteous for sinners that he might bring you

to God and he died in body but lived in spirit.

So our sufferings and persecutions caused by our free

will to disobey God are fruitful for you and I beloved.

That's why we need to tolerate and persevere but not justify

and say it's OK God gave us suffering.

You know we say in Assyrian this is the 4th time I'm mentioning

this. I've mentioned it in a in a

funeral sermon and what have you.

We say Allah, Allah. God has given us illness and

sicknesses and he also has given us the remedies.

God did not give illness and sicknesses.

No, we did. We brought it upon ourselves.

But God was there to grant us the remedies, beloved.

It was because of our disobedience.

So let's not be LAX and complacent when it comes to

suffering and persecutions. In actual fact, we need to do

one thing that is, learn from it a very important lesson, and

that is the severity, the danger and destruction of sin, that is

disobedience to God. Our God is not the cause, nor

did he bring to effect, nor was he the playwriter of sickness,

diseases, and sufferings and persecutions in general, but

rather the provider of remedies. Praise be to his name.

So as we don't wish sufferings and persecutions and pain upon

others, so too we don't pray for suffering and pain and

persecutions for ourselves. We pray.

And the Lord taught us to pray. Deliver us from evil.

Not please, allow us to go through persecutions.

Oh please. I want to provoke and entice

persecution upon myself so that it is profitable, so that it is

not. No, no, we don't ask for that.

Jesus has taught us to deliver us from sin.

You see, let me give you an example.

I have a dog, Thor. I call him Torah, which is.

Equivalent to. The Assyrian Thor.

Now when he goes out in the in the backyard when he's LED

outside, he has this territorial issue.

I think he, he, he, he. The message he gives is when I'm

outside no other neighbors are to come out in the backyards

because he'll start barking and barking.

That's what dogs do, right? But he goes on, I don't like

that. So that's his nature.

Now someone said oh he's being protective because he wants to

protect you bro. As they say, I'm not outside,

I'm in the house. I'm even protected by my house.

He just likes barking. OK, that's his nature, that dogs

bark. I've never heard of a dog meow.

I've never heard of a dog chirp. But there are times when I

approach Larissa, my daughter, pretending that I want to strike

her. He'll bark and then I say my

wife will say, well, you provoked him to do it.

Don't do that. You know, she doesn't say.

She says it in love. You know that he barks.

So what are you doing that? So it's the same.

Let's not provoke, entice and wish suffering and persecution

about it upon ourselves. No, but when they do come in

this wicked world, they are bound to come.

We must tolerate and accept and receive them.

It's like considering and saying, well, it's my fault,

It's my racist fault. Now As for death, God didn't

create us and breathed the breath of life in our nostrils

so that he would one day put us to death.

That would be first degree murder wouldn't it?

Premeditated right? Or God didn't do that?

Praise his name in Romans chapter 5, verse 12.

Romans 5:12

As by means of one man, sin which was an extension of

disobedience to God, sin entered into the world, and by means of

sin, death, we brought death into the world.

And so death passed upon all the sons of men, inasmuch as they

all have sinned. We don't wish death upon

ourselves. Yes, we we confidently and you

know, being encouraged of the resurrection, we say, oh, I wish

I could go now and be with my Lord.

But just by saying that, beloved, we are not saying that

death is justified. No, it was not an act of God.

It was the misuse of the free will of man that brought sin and

sin brought death into the world.

But we tolerated, we accepted, we persevered.

And we'll talk about that. Why?

So who then is the murderer? Beloved, Now the crime is sin.

But who enticed the sin and became an accessory?

It was Satan. So it's the doing of Satan and

also the dropping of the ball. They're letting down the guard

of mankind that sin entered through sin, sufferings,

persecutions and death. Jesus says to the Jews in John

John 8:44

chapter 8, verse 44, You are of your father, the liar and the

lust of your father You are disposed to do he was from the

beginning and Manslayer A Manslayer A manslaughterer, an

abode, Not in the truth, for the truth is not in him.

And when he speaks a lie, he speaks from himself, for he is a

liar and the father of it. He's talking about Satan.

How can God, beloved, who does not desire the death of a

Sinner, but that he would return from his evil way and he will

live? According to Ezekiel chapter 18

Ezekiel 18:23

verse 23 be blamed for murder and wants us to justify death.

That's what we imply ignorantly when we state that God caused

death, suffering and persecution henceforth.

That's why we have to prey it upon us and and provoke it so

that it can't may come on upon us.

For example, suffering. You can't go to a place.

You go somewhere with the intention that I'm going to go

there so that I can suffer, so that I can I can experience

suffering. No, you cannot put yourself into

situations where you will be persecuted.

It's my will that I go to this place to be persecuted.

No, you cannot take on your life, your own life.

Suicide. You can't do that because, oh,

death is great. I'm going to go to God.

No, but we accept those. We tolerate them, and we

persevere in them. Beloved, beloved, Death is a

thief, an enemy. According to One Corinthians

chapter 15, verse 26, Actually the last enemy which will be

abolished. Can we at any time justify a

thief pronounced he or she? We may be affected, we may

suffer, we may be inconvenienced by his or her theft.

However, we cannot justify his or her deeds, can we?

We're affected by it because theft is destructive.

But as with a thief, and This is why we need to tolerate as with

a thief and his or her theft, we are protected by one thing, our

insurance policy right to be compensated or have our property

reinstated. So too.

Beloved with suffering and persecutions, we are assured

this is our insurance policy. From Christ himself we are

assured comfort and healing by Christ's promises and the

Scripture relief and Christ's suffering itself.

In Matthew Chapter 11 verse 28, Jesus invites Jesus is inviting

Matthew 11:28

you. Stop cooking.

Stop vacuuming. Give or get off the the

keyboard. Pull to one side and listen to

this. Please listen to this.

Don't just shake your head and maybe even praise God.

Listen to this. This is an invitation.

Come on to me, all of you who labor and are forced to bear

burdens and I shall give you rest.

Where did labor and burdens come from?

It was the produce of the disobedience of man, our

disobedience. And yet God is extending this

invitation. Come to me in the Second Epistle

of Saint Paul to Timothy, chapter 2, verse 12, we read And

if we suffer, we shall also reign with him.

But if we renounce him, we will also he will also renounce us.

That's why we tolerate, we accept, and we, Sir, persevere

because the suffering that we brought upon ourselves and

Christ pay the debt, that suffering that we are permitted

to go through. Now look at what it ends up in

reigning with Jesus Christ. Praise be to his name.

Now As for death, we have the insurance, the assurance, the

promise of the resurrection from the dead.

We have the participation in the resurrection of Christ.

We are candidates of the resurrection of Christ from the

time of our rebirth in the waters of baptism.

That's why we tolerate, but we do not provoke and entice

suffering and persecution and death upon ourselves.

But we tolerate according to God's perfect plan, perfect

will, when He allows us to go through that in Romans chapter

Romans 6 · chapter mention

6, verses four and five, worried.

For we are buried with him in baptism unto death, that as

Jesus the Messiah, arose from the dead into the glory of his

Father, so also we to walk in a new life.

For if we have been planted together with Him into the

likeness of his death, so shall we also into his resurrection be

in John chapter 6, verse 40, when Jesus is talking about

John 6:40

himself being the bread of life. That bread we celebrate Christ

with every time we break it at the altar.

Yes, the Korabana Kadisha, the Holy Eucharist.

Look at what Jesus is saying, for this is the will of my

Father. Everyone who sees the Son and

trust in him shall have eternal life.

And I shall raise him in the last day, Resurrection.

This is a promise of resurrection.

So you see, beloved, we are not called to justify, to provoke,

to entice, and OK suffering and persecution and death, which

were not good and pleasing to God when creating the world.

But because of the fallen and corrupted state of man, we are

now tolerant, accepting, and persevering.

Why? Because of the remedies and

promises of the Christ. Yes, the Christ, the Son of the

one true God. To him be glory, honor,

Thanksgiving, and worship, now and at all times and forever.

Amen. We hope you enjoyed this week's

message. Please don't forget to rate and

review this podcast and share with your friends and family.

For any future topics, suggestions, or to give us

detailed feedback, please visit our link in the show notes

linktr dot EE forward slash Double edged Sword Until next

time. God bless you all.