Why Christians Suffer
(week 32/03)
Olubi Johnson
A question that many Christians have no doubt asked God is “Why do You let Satan attack and afflict so many of your children with sin, sickness, poverty and death”?
Why has God not put Satan and his cohorts away permanently yet?
The answer to these questions is found in the fact that God’s character is one of righteousness and justice.
Psalms 89:14(KJV): Justice and judgment are the habitation of thy throne: mercy and truth shall go before thy face.
When Satan and his cohorts trouble us with tribulation they give God a legal basis to punish them with everlasting confinement and punishment in the lake of fire.
II Thessalonians 1:4-9(KJV): So that we ourselves glory in you in the churches of God for your patience and faith in all your persecutions and tribulations that ye endure: Which is a manifest token of the righteous judgment of God, that ye may be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, for which ye also suffer: Seeing it is a righteous thing with God to recompense tribulation to them that trouble you; And to you who are troubled rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, In flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power;
So God allowing Satan to attack and afflict his saints is actually a legal trap by which God can eternally put away and punish Satan and his cohorts. Man is the bait of this trap and this is why God lets us suffer.
Men who endure and overcome this suffering, like Jesus did, are accounted worthy of the Kingdom for which they suffer.
Their sufferings provide the legal basis for the peace and blessings unborn generations will enjoy for eternity in the same way Jesus’ sufferings on the cross and in hell provided the legal basis for our salvation, healing, prosperity and blessings for eternity.
So always remember when you suffer that, in the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., “unjust sufferings are redemptive”.
Remember that, like Jesus, you are to overcome, by the Word and prayer, the attacks of the enemy, once God has allowed him to actually carry out his intent to kill you.
Remember that Satan’s carrying out of the action with intention to kill gives God the legal basis to punish Satan and his principalities and powers with eternal confinement and punishment.
This is why the scripture says “had the princes of this world known they would not have crucified the Lord of glory” (1 Corintians. 2.8).
Remember Jesus overcame every temptation Satan attacked him with and even when He was crucified it was with God’s permission and He arose from the dead!
So God does not want us to be defeated even when we suffer satanic attacks and afflictions, that is why the scripture says:
Romans 8:37(KJV): Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.
2 Corintians 2:14(KJV): Now thanks be unto God, which always causeth us to triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest the savour of his knowledge by us in every place.
To have the legal basis to eternally confine and punish all of Satan’s allies, both demonic and human, God must allow all of them to attack all his saints in this dispensation and in the millennial reign of Christ.
This why it is only after this dispensation Satan will be locked up for the millennial reign of Christ and then after the millennium released to make a final attack and then cast into the lake of fire:
Revelation 20:1-3, 7-10(KJV): And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years, And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season.
And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, And shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea. And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city: and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them. And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.
Furthermore it is only as the church grows into the fullness of Christ that higher cadres of principalities and powers are allowed to attack her, as God will not allow us to be tempted above what we are able to bear (1 Corintians. 10.13).
So if the church does not grow to the fullness of Christ some categories of wicked spirits will not be allowed to attack, depriving God from having a legal basis to punish them eternally.
This is why this dispensation will not end until the Church grows into the perfection and fullness of Christ (Ephesians. 4. 13), allowing God to allow all of Satan’s demons to attack her, giving God the legal basis to eternally punish all of them so creating a safe, secure eternity in which there will never be another rebellion against God.
