We ministered in several churches. We then went to a remote area in the mountains and spent a week discipling university students. On Saturday, we broke camp and headed toward a major university city where I was to preach Sunday morning on "The Joy of the Lord."

While traveling, Dave became ill with a high temperature. I knew I was about to enter a tremendous test of faith. Later in our hotel room, Tex woke me. Dave's fever was too high. He was dehydrating. In the middle of the night, we took him to the hospital.

The hospital looked more like an old run-down hotel than a medical facility. Dave's room was even worse. Several beds were pushed close together. The doctors wouldn't let me stay with Dave. Only Tex was allowed to stay.

I went back to the hotel at about 2:30 a.m., but I didn't sleep. I prayed through the night. I was away from friends, my church, any source of human help. I had to trust God. It was even more difficult for Tex. Dave was rushed to another hospital, but she couldn't understand the language and had little idea what was going on.

At 9 a.m., I left for the church. I was drained. I prayed, "God, I gave You my family. I trust You now with them." When I arrived, the place was packed. Everyone was crying. One by one, they stood to pray and weep.

I asked the interpreter what was happening. "Sammy, God is doing something very special. There hasn't been a tear shed in this church in three years. But they have been told about your son. They are weeping for him. They can't believe you would come from the West where life is so comfortable. And now your son is suffering. They have identified with his suffering. God is touching their hearts."

God knit the hearts of my family with the hearts of that church that day. After church, Dave was released from the hospital. The believers took care of him until he recovered. They asked me to come back the next year to preach an evangelistic campaign, something they hadn't had in many years. When we came back a year later, we saw one of the greatest movings of God's Spirit in our ministry. More than 1,000 made commitments to Christ.

The character of Christ is learned more in the school of suffering than in any university. God is more interested in building our characters than He is in building our ministries. A truly fruitful ministry grows only in the soil of a life like Jesus.

If we're to experience continuous revival, we must be willing to walk through the valley of the shadow of death. We'll taste suffering, pain and sorrow. God moved mightily in the early church. Thousands were converted to Christ. Jerusalem was ablaze with the Word of God. The fellowship of God's people with God and one another must have been sweet. But God never intended that the church should just have good fellowship. God intended that the church should win the world. They would have to break out of their comfortable, spiritual setting. God scattered the church by sending persecution.

Men and women who have been fruitful in the kingdom of God have always been willing to risk everything for the sake of the gospel. They risked health, wealth, comfort, and other earthly blessings to see souls saved. Charles Haddon Spurgeon was used of God mightily in his generation. He pastored the largest Baptist church in the world at the time.

Spurgeon shook London for the glory of God. When D.L. Moody was in Glasgow in 1873, Spurgeon invited him to come to London and preach in his tabernacle. But Moody responded in a letter: "I consider it a great honour to be invited; and, in fact, I should consider it an honour to black your boots; but to preach to your people would be out of the question. If they will not turn to God under your preaching, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead."

Spurgeon was mighty with God and mighty with man. Where did he find his spiritual power? One biographer wrote, "Spurgeon was in no respect ordinary. He was great as a man, great as a theologian, great as a preacher, great in private with God, and great in public with his fellow men. He was well versed in three things which, according to Luther make a minister: temptation, meditation and prayer. The school of suffering was one in which he was deeply taught."

This generation parades preachers and teachers promising health, wealth and wisdom to all who follow Jesus. The only place in the world where that kind of teaching could gain a foothold is in a capitalistic society. One friend in the West told me that if Christians in communist countries trusted God, they would be wealthier and healthier. Third World Christians laugh at such teaching. When they choose Jesus, they choose poverty because of lost job opportunities.

However, they find themselves wealthy in things of eternal value and, in many cases, much more healthy spiritually.

I taught a group of university students in East Germany on the doctrine of godly suffering. One of them told me, "You're the first American to come here and teach that it will cost something to follow Jesus." I was embarrassed and ashamed to hear that my fellow countrymen went to such a place with a message of health and wealth.

Now, there's nothing intrinsically wrong with health and wealth. There are many godly people in Scripture and throughout history who were wealthy. But their wealth and health weren't equated with their spirituality.

Also, they weren't the owners of their wealth. If God blesses a person with millions worth of possessions, he's not then a millionaire. Rather, he's a steward of God's millions. That throws an entirely different light on our material blessings. Our joy is no longer in our abundance, but in Jesus.

If I manage much for the King, I'm happy. If I manage little for the King, I'm happy. If I die on the battlefield for the King, I'm happy.

I'm happy simply because I'm a servant of the King.