"He who is not ready to suffer is blown away like chaff"

We have all of us -- the whole Church and the whole community -- we've been thrown into the Tempter's sieve, and he is shaking and the wind is blowing, and it must now become manifest whether we are wheat or chaff!  Verily, a time of sifting has come upon us, and even the most indolent and peaceful person among us must see that the calm of a meditative Christianity is at an end....
It is now springtime for the hopeful and expectant Christian Church -- it is testing time, and God is giving Satan a free hand, so he may shake us up and so that it may be seen what manner of men we are!...
Satan swings his sieve and Christianity is thrown hither and thither; and he who is not ready to suffer, he who called himself a Christian only because he thereby hoped to gain something good for his race and his nation is blown away like chaff by the wind of time.
-- from Niemoller's message in 1934 declaring God's purpose for the trials facing the German church, quoted by Erwin W. Lutzer in When A Nation Forgets God: 7 Lessons We Must Learn From Nazi Germany.