Fatal Assumption: Exposing The Myth That Godly People Don't Suffer Series

The South Pacific Islands called Vanuatu consists of four main islands with additional 80 islands surrounding these. Approximately 220,000 people live on the islands today. The islands are around 1,000 miles from Australia itself and were first explored by Captain James Cook. 450 miles long, the islands had no Christian influence prior to 1839. It was then that two missionaries came to what was then known as the New Hebrides, John Williams and James Harris, both from the London Missionary Society. Within minutes of going ashore, they were clubbed to death, cooked, and eaten in the face of the ship that was still offshore. Three years later, the London Missionary Society sent another team to the Islands in 1842, and these missionaries were driven off within seven months of arriving on the islands. John G. Paton sailed for the New Hebrides (via Australia) with his wife Mary on April 16, 1858, at the age of 33. In the next year after they arrived, both his wife and his newborn son died of the fever. He would suffer from the same fever fourteen times during his stay on the islands, each time fearing he would die, as did his wife and child. He served alone on the island for the next four years under incredible circumstances of constant danger until he was driven off the island in February, 1862. The natives were cannibals and occasionally ate the flesh of their defeated foes. They practiced infanticide and widow sacrifice, killing the widows of deceased men so that they could serve their husbands in the next world. He married again in 1864, and took his new wife, Margaret, back this time. The two labored together for 41years. So much of Paton’s life was based on finding courage in Christ in order to hope. Even before he left for the islands, he found the need for courage. When a Mr. Dickson discovered Paton was heading off to the islands, he exploded, “The cannibals! You will be eaten by cannibals!” The memory of Williams and Harris who had died only 19 years old was fresh in the minds of Mr. Dickson. But to this Paton responded: “Mr. Dickson, you are advanced in years now, and your own prospect is soon to be laid in the grave, there to be eaten by worms; I confess to you, that if I can but live and die serving and honoring the Lord Jesus, it will make no difference to me whether I am eaten by Cannibals or by worms; and in the Great Day my Resurrection body will rise as fair as yours in the likeness of our risen Redeemer.” Paton admitted that at times his heart wavered. But he took heart from the power of the Gospel. Yet, he learned the language and reduced it to writing, he built orphanages. They translated and printed and explained the Scriptures, ministered to the sick and dying . . . dispensed medicines every day . . . taught them the use of tools . . . They held worship services every Lord's Day and sent native teachers to all the villages to preach the gospel.

“For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit, in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison, because they formerly did not obey, when God's patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water. Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him” (1 Peter 3:18-22).

Today’s Big Idea: “Unjust suffering carried out with unwavering confidence in God produce unimaginable impact and blessing for you and others.”

This message and this Scripture this morning is aimed to encourage people who find trouble because they are Christians. Sometimes God has determined that Christians will suffer for being Christians. Peter is talking about suffering in this text: “For it is better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God's will, than for doing evil” (1 Peter 3:17). “Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same way of thinking…” (1 Peter 4:1). Between these two calls to suffer comes our text, verses 18–22. So the main point of these verses is to help us get ready to suffer with Jesus for doing what is right, not for doing what is wrong. There are some puzzling things in the verses ahead of us.