J.
Sidlow Baxter's life verse was Philippians 3.10.
When he would autograph one of his books,
he would write Philippians 3.10 beside his
name.
In fact, I have one of his signed
books in my library with that verse in
there.
Philippians 3.10 reads, that I may know
him, and the power of his resurrection, and
the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable
unto his death.
I submit to you, friends, that you cannot
have the power of his resurrection without the
fellowship of his sufferings.
All the great saints of God were great
sufferers.
George Whitefield was once stoned by an angry
mob while preaching in Ireland, and it almost
killed him.
When Whitefield was in New England, he was
introduced to a Boston minister who said he
was from Ireland.
To this, Whitefield removed his beaver cap, and
leaning over, he pointed to a large scar
on his forehead and remarked, This wound, sir,
I received while preaching Christ in your country.
Sidlo Baxter's predecessor at Charlotte Baptist Chapel in
Edinburgh, Scotland, was W.
Graham Scroggie.
Scroggie had a member of his congregation approach
him one day.
It was Helen Rosevere, who would become a
missionary to Africa.
She informed Graham Scroggie about her call to
the mission field.
Scroggie took her Bible and inscribed on the
inside jacket the verse Philippians 3.10, and
he read it to her.
As he handed her Bible back to her,
he said, That I may know him.
You have done that.
It is my prayer that one day you
will have the privilege of knowing something of
the fellowship of his sufferings.
About twenty years later, in the mid-1960s,
the Belgian Congo was in riot and an
uproar, and this was the field of labor
where Helen Rosevere was.
She was captured by some rebels.
One man kicked her in the ribs.
Another man knocked out her teeth.
Another tormentor raped her.
As she was in the midst of her
agony and in great pain, Graham Scroggie's words
rang in her ear, It is my prayer
that one day you will have the privilege
of knowing something of the fellowship of his
sufferings.
Focusing on those words is what got her
through her ordeal.
We sometimes wonder why we have to suffer
so as we live on this crying planet
called Earth.
It is well to remember Philippians 3.10
and such trying times as they speak of
the one of whom it says in Hebrews,
Though he were a son, yet learned he
obedience by the things which he suffered.
Let us pray.