"35 Women received back their dead by resurrection. Some were tortured, refusing to accept release, so that they might rise again to a better life. 36 Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. 37 They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the sword. They went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated— 38 of whom the world was not worthy—wandering about in deserts and mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth."
Hebrews 11:35-38
These verses underline the sufferings of faith. It costs to have such a faith such as we have seen in this chapter, and we have seen, in figure after figure, how great a price these men paid to be what they were and accomplish what they did for God. We have only to think of the persecutions and sufferings in the history of the early Church to realise that spiritual advancement comes only through tribulation. But these are two things to remember. The first is that discipline is a means of sanctification. God is on the throne and He makes all things work together for good to them that love Him, and the things that happen to us are used for the furtherance of the gospel (Philippians 1:12). We need not shrink from the arduous disciplines and pressures of the life of faith, for these are the very things that will make men of us. The second thing to remember is that when we suffer for Christ's sake, we are bearing His reproach and 'filling up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ'. Calvary is 'reflected', so to speak, in the experience of the faithful, and such suffering and sorrow become somehow 'redemptive' and men are blessed and saved through our suffering testimony. Behind the lives that have ever told for God, in blessing to others, there has always been a continuing experience of sharing the sufferings of Christ. "I bear in my body", cried Paul, "the marks of the Lord Jesus", and all over Asia and Europe men were rising up to bless the day they heard this dear man, "in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling', preaching Christ and Him crucified. It is ever so. Suffering faith is fruitful faith. 'Christ crucified' can be preached effectually only by crucified men!