- Well, that is true in my sorrows,
that God comforts me in them,
but he has an ultimate reason for this,
and even though I can't peer behind the curtain
and know what all those reasons are,
I can rest in the knowledge there is a reason,
there is a purpose.
(upbeat music)
- Well, welcome again to the Straight Truth Podcast.
I'm your host, Josh Philpot, as always.
I'm joined by Pastor Richard Caldwell,
the pastor of Founder's Baptist Church,
and we would like to interact with you
about these discussions, so please leave a comment
right below this video, or interact with us on social media.
Then lastly, go to the iTunes Podcast section for us,
and please leave us a review.
Pastor, recently I was telling my kids
about the story of Jim Elliot, and Nate Saint,
and those missionaries who went down to South America
and were murdered for their faith,
essentially sharing the Gospel.
And Elizabeth Elliot has told that story eloquently,
and about the suffering that she and others endured
as a result of that.
And I was sort of tying that in with some of the suffering
that happens in our church sometimes,
thinking about maybe a mother who has a miscarriage,
or maybe another person in the church
who is going through cancer treatments,
and dealing with suffering in a real tangible way.
The question here is,
how do believers go through suffering well?
And maybe a bigger question, maybe on top of that,
is why does God allow believers to suffer?
Obviously we have the situation with Job,
and Job's suffering, and that whole very long book
about how he handled it, but what about that question?
How do you maybe counsel believers
who are going through suffering,
or counsel the church in dealing with suffering,
as Christian believers in the church?
- Well, first of all, I think we all have to let it
really sink into our minds and hearts
and really embrace the fact that we're living in a world
that's been affected by the fall,
so we're living in a world that's affected by sin,
and sin has brought with it sorrow, heartache, loss, death.
Death made its entrance into the world through sin,
and that sin was committed by one man,
so this is what the Bible says
about why we find the world like we find it,
with all of its heartache, and all the rest.
So in one sense, I just have to remind myself
that if I experience no suffering,
it would have to mean I'm living
in a world unaffected by sin,
because everybody experiences some level of suffering,
lost or saved, God's people or otherwise.
So, it's par for the course.
It's a part of living in this world as it is right now.
Thank God this is not the end of the story.
There's a new Heaven and a new Earth on the way,
and God's people will be living in paradise
for the rest of eternity, with a new body
that matches the new them, and all the rest,
but until that day, suffering's just a part of this world.
And then when I actually think about the word suffer,
when I look at the New Testament, it's interesting,
most of the references to suffering in the New Testament
are not to the common kinds of sorrows
that all people deal with.
Most of those references are to persecution
of one sort of another.
So, why does God allow that?
Well, it's actually considered
to be a privilege of sorts, in the New Testament,
that we would suffer along with Christ,
that we would suffer on behalf of our master,
that the world would see us, regard us, treat us,
in the way that they see Him and treat Him.
So I wanna process that in my mind as well.
It's a privilege, if I'm suffering not because I've sinned,
not because I've committed some sort of wickedness,
but because, for righteousness' sake.
That's a good thing, and I'm thankful for that.
So, there's a common kind of suffering,
you know, why would God allow it?
Well, everyone faces it, we live in a sin-stricken world.
If we think about a case like Job,
you raised Job's situation, that's something beyond that,
because this is a temptation on the part of Satan,
proving on the part of God.
There's a conversation in Heaven that precedes all of that.
So if we ask about that sort of thing,
we would have to say for the glory of God,
and for the formation of God's character in his people,
so Job emerges out of that learning
things he didn't really know before,
and demonstrating God's good work in his life,
and rewarded at the end, which doesn't in any way
dampen or take away the sorrow that he felt,
but there was a purpose for it.
So, I forget who wrote it, you can remind me this,
but, you know, Don't Waste Your Sorrows.
There was a book entitled by that.
That's a good word.
I mean, I'm gonna go through hard times.
Let me not waste those times, let me remain submitted to God
through the trial, under the trial, and learn
everything He wants to form in my life
through these difficult things.
Something I would remind believers of
is that we weep with those who weep,
we rejoice with those who are rejoicing,
so what I don't wanna do, in my own life,
or for someone else's life,
is process these truths in a way that's cold.
That's not how our God deals with us,
that's not how we should deal with each other.
God takes note of our sorrows, and he comforts us.
He's the God of all comfort, He teaches us
that we comfort each other out of that comfort
with which He comforts us, so God cares that we hurt,
and that we're sad, and that we're--
If a mother loses a child or whatever,
those things are real, but the encouragement is also real.
That's all I'm trying to say,
so we don't just let the sorrow register,
we let God's promises register in our minds and hearts.
We preach the truth to ourselves.
We remind ourselves of things.
So let me just give you one example.
In First Peter chapter five, in which we're taught
to humble ourselves by casting our anxieties onto God,
in the midst of that he talks about suffering,
and he says in verse nine of chapter five,
First Peter chapter five, "Resist him,"
talking about the devil, our enemy.
"Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing,"
so we reason through these issues.
"Knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being
"experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world."
These are common things everyone deals with.
We're not alone.
"And after you've suffered a little while,
"the God of all grace, who has called you
"to his eternal glory in Christ,
"will himself restore, confirm,
"strengthen, and establish you."
So what does he do?
He points us to what's true in the moment,
that is, it is suffering, but he calls it momentary.
It's just for a little while.
And some of these things could be for a lifetime,
and we might wonder, how's this a little while?
Well, the answer is, compared to what?
Compared to eternity.
And that's what else he does in the passage,
he points us, our eyes, our minds, our hearts, to eternity.
"The God of all grace, who has called you
to his eternal glory in Christ."
He points us to our future.
God will restore us, confirm us, strengthen us,
establish us, but then he also points us to God's glory.
"To him be the dominion forever and ever, amen."
So we won't be able to process suffering rightly
until God's glory is our chief interest,
and we delight in existing for His glory,
and we believe all of His promises concerning our future,
and concerning even the heartaches and the struggles
that we deal with, so we have to
preach the truth to ourselves.
- I'm thinking also of Job, you know,
kind of in concert here with First Peter,
Job, when everything comes crashing down, he says,
"The Lord gives, the Lord takes away.
"Blessed be the name of the Lord."
And there's this phrase there where he says,
"And he fell on his face, and worshiped."
- Yes.
- Isn't it interesting that he worshiped
in the midst of his suffering?
Maybe even speak to that some.
I sometimes see when people are going through
difficult circumstances, maybe not just suffering,
but difficult circumstances, suffering of a kind,
they sometimes remove themselves from the church,
or maybe the worship of God in general.
How would you speak to that?
- Well, you know, going back
to First Peter five for a moment,
you can't even receive these words that Peter is giving,
unless you're in the life of the church
at this particular time.
'Cause this letter's being delivered to saints
who are fellowshipping with each other in the church.
This is where we receive the word of God.
This is where we're reminded of truth, and encouraged,
so you're exactly right, you can't--
To isolate oneself in the midst of pain is very unwise.
This is when we need the church.
But thinking specifically about Job's situation,
two thoughts come to my mind.
One is, how precious the truth of God's sovereignty is.
This is not some academic exercise,
when you talk about the sovereignty of God,
and believing what God reveals in His word,
about His absolute sovereignty.
Job says, "The Lord gave."
You know, "The Lord gives, the Lord takes away."
So when I receive something, from whom did it come?
It came from God.
If I lose something,
in whose sovereign plan is this explained?
It's in God's sovereign plan that this is explained,
so that even things that I know God is grieved by,
that He hurts with me, so to speak,
that He at least anthropomorphically,
as His care for me is described,
He loves me though it's still a part of His decrees,
His final plans for my life.
I heard R. C. Sproul once talk about God's sort of,
two different kinds of vision,
that God can grieve with us in the immediate
over something that in the ultimate He takes joy in,
because he knows where it's headed.
He's planned it.
Well, that's true in my sorrows,
that God comforts me in them,
but He has an ultimate reason for this,
and even though I can't peer behind the curtain
and know what all those reasons are,
I can rest in the knowledge there is a reason.
There is a purpose, and it's gonna be to His glory.
That's the second aspect of what I see in Job.
He trusts the sovereignty of God,
the Lord gives, the Lord takes away,
but that he also worships.
So ultimately, he understands what is most important
is that God be worshiped, that God be glorified.
I'm not at the center of the picture.
God is always at the center of the picture,
if I am looking at life through the right lens,
so we have to process our suffering that way.
- There's a place where Paul says that,
something to the effect that, for all who desire
to live Godly in Christ Jesus, they will suffer persecution.
Are you talking about Godliness, in suffering persecution,
those two things, it seems to be a given, Paul is saying,
that you're gonna suffer persecution,
not just the sort of suffering that, you know,
Job is experiencing from temptation,
and then the loss of his whole livelihood,
but also just living Godly in the world
will result in some sort of suffering.
- No doubt about it, and that's why I was mentioning earlier
that this is really the most prominent way
that suffering is talked about in the New Testament.
It's a kind of suffering we experience
because we're living Godly lives,
because we believe the truth,
because we're associated with Christ,
and the verse that you just mentioned reminds us,
this is something that I should be prepared for.
I shouldn't be surprised by it.
As Peter says, you know, not to be surprised by such things.
This is something I can count on and expect,
and when it comes,
I'm actually taught to rejoice in such things,
you know, not even just endure it,
but rejoice when trials come my way,
many of those trials in the form of persecution.
So it all gets down to your value system,
Josh, it really does.
What is chief on my set of values?
Is it that I take joy in the thought
that I exist to bring glory to the one
who not only gave me life, but gave me new life?
Who not only explains my existence,
but He's given me now everlasting life?
I exist for Him.
If that's true and not just words,
then even in my sorrows, I can rest and rejoice,
even while the pain is there.
It's a very strange thing to explain to people
who don't know Christ, but it's reality.
The day that my father died of a heart attack,
I'll never forget having to--
Our two homes existed literally a walk away,
you know, a few hundred yards away.
And I remember sitting on the porch
of the house we were living in,
and having to explain to my children,
who then were all, I have four children,
at that time all were under the age of 12,
explain to them that their grandfather was gone to Heaven,
and then making the walk over to my mom's house,
to spend some time with her and try to comfort her,
and that walk, I'll never forget looking up
in the sky and seeing the moon,
just being reminded of the vastness of creation,
and the sovereignty of our God,
and being full of joy at the very same time
that my heart had never been more sorrowful.
In the same instant, in the same heart,
in the same life, that's a reality
that only Christians can know.
We have to think in terms of truth.
- Thanks for joining us again
for the Straight Truth podcast.
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