THE PRODUCT OF SUFFERING
A. C. Craig
One has been carrying the thought in the week since the occasion of the Supper of how
‘The bride, with Thee in nearness,
Adds lustre to the scene’. (Hymn 352)
God is sufficient in Himself, needing no addition, but immediately you admit the incarnation you allow for the great matter of addition. I wish to say a word about how the great matter of suffering will influence and modify the rule in the world to come. I trust what I have to say will not be altogether out of accord with the tenor of these meetings. I thought I got a bit of confirmation yesterday when the pearl was referred to. All sorts of precious stones are in the foundation of the wall of the heavenly city, but when you come to the gates you come to the pearl. A pearl is something worked out to a result by a living creature in circumstances
of irritation and suffering. You could not say that about other precious stones. It may be that the pearl gives the idea of lustre more than any of the other precious stones. It is a wonderful suggestion, the lustre of it. You think, beloved brethren, what kind of rule it will be, so beneficent as the great Ruler and His consort are there.
So I just offer a few words on the great matter of suffering that will contribute to the kind of rule in that day. For, after all, she is the Lamb’s wife as well as the bride, and it is principally the Lamb’s wife that I wish to bring forward. In that wonderful scene of perfection of light she is a great vessel of light; but you think of everything coming through those gates, each gate respectively of one pearl. It is pronounced; the idea of one pearl pervades throughout the city; it is bound to influence the kind of rule. There is a good deal of suffering, beloved brethren, sufferings of many kinds. You could not conceive that these sufferings will not work out to some result in the whole matter of the pearl. Where is the family, where is the household, where is the person that is not going through sufferings that maybe few know about? I even venture to think as to what comes on us maybe as the result of our own doing that even from that, if in self-judgment we get before the Lord, there will be that which will contribute to this great matter of the Lamb’s wife. I could not think of the Lord, loving us so much, not bringing something out of whatever may come upon us in the way of suffering.
So 2 Corinthians 4 stands out—“Our momentary and light affliction works for us in surpassing measure an eternal weight of glory”. There are two lines which run through Scripture. In our brother’s reference to Jacob you see these two lines in one man, Jacob and Israel, Jacob representing the moral
line, the line of experience with God, Israel the princely line, the side of the anointing. The one line has its part in the testimony, the other shines more in the service of God, the one bearing on the other no doubt. I think these two lines run through Scripture, seen in the brass and the gold. Brass is the moral side of things, where things are worked out in experience with God, and it is this line that I wish to speak about. It goes right through. Smyrna, along with Philadelphia, is the church against which the Lord has nothing, but Smyrna brings up the side of brass, the moral line running into the Lamb’s wife. The other line runs down through the gold into Philadelphia, into the bride. These are the two lines that God is working out, and He works everything out to a complete result; in both lines He has His perfect accomplishment.
2 Corinthians 4 brings up the great matter of suffering. Beloved brethren, may we be comforted, as Paul says in another place, “For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the coming glory to be revealed to us”, Romans 8: 18.
May we be comforted by these things that, whatever the suffering, there is something to be wrought out. And in this wonderful chapter, with all the pressure of things, twice over you get “we faint not”; it is mercy being poured in, you might say, while He is working out His great thoughts in regard of this vessel, the vessel He is producing in view of the world to come. Let us not be circumscribed in our thoughts but let us take the long view; I think faith does that, faith looks on ahead, it looks on to the coming glory. May we be comforted therefore in the face of whatever the sufferings may be. You think of the mental anguish, the mortification too, that is with you sometimes; the awful breakdown in the
testimony, the shambles that you may have made of things; families disrupted, and then too the physical suffering that the saints endure—the quota from each of these sufferings will go into the Lamb’s wife. You can be sure about that.
I want to refer to a type. Solomon made the vessels of gold himself it would seem; that is what the Lord does by a heavenly ministry; Ephesians 4 is the scripture for that, what the Lord brings about by way of formation by a heavenly ministry. But the vessels of brass for the temple were made by Hiram; he was an expert in the working of brass and it says he made all those vessels, he cast them in the clay-ground near the Jordan (see 1 Kings 7: 46).
That is very significant. The Lord brings His people into the area of death, right within the region of death—maybe specially in physical sufferings—but, beloved brethren, He works out His thoughts, they are cast in the clay-ground. 2 Corinthians 4 brings up the clay-ground, our mortal flesh, the outward man; that is all in the area of the clay-ground; but He is working out His thoughts.
The molten metal was cast into these moulds, and in moulding you dare not touch the cast until it is set. You wonder sometimes; you are called to go through a set of sufferings and there is no let-up; there does not seem to be any way out. Hiram would tell you, ‘I dare not touch the cast until it is set; the whole thing would be spoiled if I interfered with the cast until it is really set’. In 2 Corinthians 4 where you get this kind of thing in teaching, as I said, the Lord all the time is supplying mercy for us. He gives His present supply of mercy to support us and to sustain us that we might not faint under His hand. Well, He is working out something in view of His own service that is bound to come into evidence, as I said, to
influence and modify the rule in the day to come. May we be comforted by these thoughts.
Words in meeting for ministry, Birmingham
25 March 1978