HELEN SANDERS
3-24-2026
THE SUFFERING SIDE OF CHRISTIANITY

There was a lady I knew that believed that once she got saved that everything would be without rocks in the road. She believed that nothing bad would ever happen to her.

What a shock it was for her when she found out the opposite was true. She bought the lie that when you get saved that all would be well. It will be well for your eternal destination, but as for no rocks in the road, that is a deception of the greatest proportion.

If John the Apostle is an example of what a Christian’s life is to be like, we can expect to be boiled in oil, put on a remote island in confinement, and more than that.

If John the Baptist is an example, we can expect a very short haircut to the neck for preaching against adultery.

If the Apostle Paul is an example, we can expect to be shipwrecked, stoned, mocked, imprisoned, lied about, and thrown out of the city everywhere we go.

If Joseph is an example, then we can expect our family to turn against us when God gives us dreams. We can expect to be separated from loved family members for years and be put in prison falsely.

I am sure by now you will get my drift. The suffering is because we make a stand for Jesus Christ and His Word. If we are non-committal, we can expect that there won’t be great attacks, because we are lukewarm, yet lukewarm people will be spit out of the mouth of God.

Sufferings? Yes, and we can expect more as the return of the Lord gets closer. Romans 8:18 says, “For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.”

From scripture we learn that the end times will bring much persecution, hatred, death, and destruction of all we find dear to us. Psalm 34 18-19 reads, “The LORD is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit. Many are the afflictions of the righteous: but the LORD delivereth him out of them all.”

The one thing we can be sure of is that Jesus already knows these things will happen but will be with us through these trials.