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Sinclair Ferguson and W. Robert Godfrey: Trials and Suffering (Seminar) | Ligonier Ministries | YouTubeToText
YouTube Transcript: Sinclair Ferguson and W. Robert Godfrey: Trials and Suffering (Seminar)
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Core Theme
This discussion explores how Christians should understand and cope with suffering, emphasizing that trials are not a sign of God's absence but a part of His sovereign plan to conform believers to the image of Christ, leading to future glory and a deeper capacity for ministry.
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Thank you for joining us for this time
where we look at the topic of trials and
suffering. Grateful that Drs. Ferguson
and Godfrey uh can be here with us to
help us to think through this this
subject matter that uh really befalls
all of us at one time or another. And it
is um sometimes remarkable how we can be
surprised by suffering to use the book
title of Dr. Sproul, of course. Um, and
then sometimes, you know, as as I have
dear family members who deal with
chronic suffering, they're not surprised
by it. Um, and they're beset by it
constantly. And so, trial suffering
takes so many different shapes. And I
imagine that this discussion will be
relevant uh for all of us at various
times in our life and with those that we
know and love and care for deeply. So
maybe just thinking through the topic
initially from a just purely theological
standpoint, how should we think about
suffering particularly, how should
Christians think about suffering in
light of God's sovereignty and his goodness?
Well, I I knew that this session was
going to be held, so I actually did a
little bit of thinking about it. I don't
know if that's cheating to uh prepare.
Um but I was I was struck
um as many of of us have done preaching
from Romans 8 uh of
Paul's really a resting statement in um
Romans 8:17. We are children and heirs
of God provided we suffer with him. And um
um
there there's this contrast as children
and heirs of the almighty. Life should
go well. Everything should be perfect.
There should be no suffering and trials
if we're the children of the most high.
And that's precisely the point that Paul
is making. You can't make that kind of
worldly reasoning that from the fact
we're children of God, we have every
right never to suffer. uh
because God is conforming us to the
image of his son who suffered to be
child and heir or in being child and
heir and then I think it's so remarkable
how Paul in my reading of the text we
might you could number it differently
offers four reasons
why how we cope with the suffering um
that God has called us to endure and and
the first one of course is with the hope
of glory that uh uh suffering is never
the final word. Uh it doesn't make the
present suffering disappear. It doesn't
make the present suffering easy. But it
it reminds us that the present suffering
in the light of eternity is brief and
especially for people suffering
chronically it doesn't feel brief. But
that's one of the ways in which Paul
tries to prepare Christians
theologically for the suffering that
will surely come. And uh I can go on
with the other reasons, but I hate to
betters. That is such a great passage to
go to. It is a go-to passage, isn't it?
Um and one of those passages I think to
which all of us should go back so that
we get a right orientation because as
Bob is saying you know there is and this
is why the prosperity
gospel appeals to people that they like
the logic that if you come to know God
then you are carried to heaven on fl on
what is it flowery beds of ease and it's
actually embedded into the fact that we
trust in a suffering savior who has been
raised and exalted. That if we are going
to be conformed to his
image in all the different kinds of
suffering individuals go
through, God is going to use those
sufferings to make us more like Christ.
So I think often it's true. You know,
I've heard Christians say to people who
are going through the mill, well, God
works everything together for good for
those who love him, who are called
according to his purpose. So man up to
your suffering. And they don't pause to
say, "What is that good?" And that good
is what Paul explains in the next verse.
The good is that he has predestined us
to be conformed to the image of his son.
And I think it doesn't take a lot of
reflection for us to realize that if I
and maybe especially Bob Godfrey are
going to be changed in that way. There
there is a lot of work to be done more.
There's a lot of work to be done in in
both of us and that is a common factor
in every Christian. Now within that
context we know that there's a variety
of kinds of suffering and there are many
different degrees of suffering within
each variety of suffering and it is not
our position to choose the kind of
suffering that we will taste and
experience. But that these words of God
are applicable to every single one of
us. Um whether our suffering be physical
suffering, mental suffering, um we we
all during the course of our lives will
suffer the loss of people we love. Um
others of us will will have you know
we'll have the pains of getting older.
Um others of us will have suffering in
relationships, sufferings, persecution
where we work. I mean there's a huge
variety. But all of those as far as I
can see in the New Testament are all
placed under the one
category. And the disposition that's
given to us, whatever category and
whatever degree, is this recognition
that there isn't a good father who
doesn't child train his sons and
daughters as Hebrews 12 says. And this
is this is the difference between the
Christian's understanding of his or her
suffering and and people in this world
who do all kinds of things especially in
the face of
tragedy to make sense of
it or
to make it seem that it was worth it
somehow or another. And the Christian
has already given that principle right
from the beginning of the Christian life.
And I think in that regard uh the
passage you're referring to in Romans 8
can be cavalerely used. All things work
together for good. You know, be English
and stiff upper lip. Um, but what is
really being said there so marvelously
is that suffering is a calling to which
we're called. And we're called to suffer
so that in the suffering we'll be
conformed to the image of the sun.
And you know, part of the horror of
suffering is the fear that it's
pointless, that that it has no meaning,
that it's just bad and painful
and is accomplishing nothing, has no
purpose, and how marvelous it is for us
as Christians to be told, no, it's part
of the calling of this life, and it it's
grounded in eternity and the fornowledge
and predestination
of God and it culminates in the
perfections of our justification and
glorification. Um and in between God's
planning and his realization of the plan
is our calling to suffer with Christ.
And um yeah,
yeah,
we may wander from whatever questions
you want to ask, but what Bob's saying,
I had a I had a friend um who who I
remember my my first week in university
somebody pointed him out to me and said
see that fellow over there he's been
here for
years and he was he was a wonderfully
eccentric individual. Um but he had
brain tumors and and operations over the
years and we actually ended up in the
same year in in the theology
faculty and eventually his his uh
situation was inoperable and he went to
be with the Lord and his his
widow gave me access to his papers. Um,
and I
was as a friend I was in I guess I was
in the position of
thinking what was the point of all this
suffering that he went through and I
thought maybe I'll find he was doing a
PhD dissertation and I thought maybe
I'll find the answer in writing a a kind
of little biography and including some
of his writings in it. And I remember
working through his papers and
thinking none of this see none of this
seems to make sense in the sense it was
all fragmentaryary
pieces and I kept because I'd committed
myself to writing this little book um
which is I don't know that it's in print
and I'm not advertising it but it was I
called it undaunted spirit
uh from Bunan's song and pilgrims
progress. Um and at at the end my
conclusion was that the purpose of this
man's suffering was not that he produced
a great PhD dissertation that would
enable people to say he suffered so much
but look at the purpose of his life but
the the purpose of his life was actually
the way he endured
suffering and what he meant to
us and the impact of his life on us. Um,
and I I think in our churches, it's
really important for us um to encourage
people who suffer chronically.
chronically.
Um, to encourage them to understand how
much they mean to
us. Um, and not least people who when
they when they suffer feel I'm not able
to participate in the church in the same
way. I'm I'm I'm not much use any
longer just to reassure them that Christ
is far more interested in what he makes
of us than what we make of anything
else. Um and I I his life really I think
really enforced or maybe even taught me
the power of that lesson.
um that at the end of the day it it's
not the role you have in the life of the
church which may be very important but
it's it's what you become in Christ that
means so much to us that helps us to go
well you did say that you had four observations
observations
uh yeah I think Paul talks about suffering
suffering
uh first of all in terms of hope we hope
of glory. Then in terms of calling that
we're called to suffer uh actually
between that I I would say is uh praying
in the spirit that uh in the face of
suffering sometimes we don't even know
what to say but as we grown before God
uh the spirit takes our heart and our
prayers and our need to the father. So
hoping and praying and and and knowing
the calling to which we're called. And
then I think the great last section of
Romans 8 is really the call to
rejoicing. Rejoicing that God will never
let us go. He'll never forget. We'll
never be separated from him. So that
those are all the elements of at least a
part of the theology of suffering that we
we
that it's best if we try to learn before
we start
suffering. Um theology can sound
just hard and insensitive if we slap it
on people in the middle of their
suffering. But if we as Christians can
begin to learn God's will for us in
suffering before we suffer, um, it's
much better, it seems to me.
Let's press in just a little further
here just on this question of God's
sovereignty and his goodness because I
know that one of the temptations is to
doubt that he's sovereign or to doubt
I'll start, will I,
Bob? I think an important thing for us
here is and and maybe this has been very
true more in the last 50 years than
beforehand in the in the even in our
evangelical subculture, a tendency to
answer the question, how do I know that
God is good? by pointing to the good
things he's doing in my
life. And the problem with that narrow
perspective is when life goes belly up,
you're lost. And your only conclusion is
if good things happening in my life is
the evidence that God loves me, then bad
things happening in my life must be the
evidence of something less than that. or
perhaps the contradiction of that. And I
think it's so important for us to get
get ourselves anchored back into the
emphasis. And you get this actually in
Romans 8 to in Romans 8:32. Let me try
that sentence again. You also get this
in Romans 8 and it's in verse 32 that
the place that convinces us that God is
good is not our ability to interpret the
providences of God in our lives but that
he gave his son for us. And if he didn't
spare his own son but gave him up for us
all then Paul says we reason on that
basis that he will give us everything we
need and bring us to glory. And that's
something again that I think we need to
learn outside of the immediate context
of our suffering. Um I mean there are
some books on there are some great books
on suffering and I sometimes think the
last thing you should do is give this to
a person in the midst of their suffering
that this is equipment that we need to
have in the framework the lenses through
which we view life in general so that
we're actually we're equipped. We're not
surprised by the fiery trial when it
comes upon us as Peter says. Um, and I I
think that's really important to anchor
ourselves in this that the God who is
sovereign has actually most clearly
demonstrated his
sovereignty going back to Acts
2:23 in the worst thing that men did and
they did it to his son. But he was
absolutely sovereign in that. And if
that's true in the big picture of the
way he has accomplished redemption, I
can be sure it's going to be true in the
small picture of my own life. And there
he demonstrates both the absoluteness of
his sovereignty and also the perfection
of his goodness towards me. And as long
as I hold myself there and I'm anchored
to Christ that you know that the the
winds will blow, the billows will come
and I may get tossed about but but I
that. I I always think uh in that regard of
of
um one of the
sentences in Calvin's
uh introduction to his commentary on the
Psalms, Calvin was reformed, so he loved
the Psalms. Did you know that, Sinclair?
That's a really insightful comment,
isn't it, though? Terrific. Are you a
church historian? No. No.
Um, I wish I could have been. Um, but but
but
Calvin, the the Psalms clearly spoke to
Calvin's life and to his heart in a
profound way. And in this introduction,
uh, he's he's thinking of the emotional
character of the Psalms in many ways and
and the ups and downs of, um, feeling in
the Psalms. And then he says um what the
psalms particularly teach us about is
the providence of God. And when we come
to learn from the psalter and from the
scriptures generally about the
providence of God, what we can then
realize is even the worst
afflictions become
sweet because they proceed from the
father's hand. Sorry,
Sorry,
I'm getting old and weepy. I hate weepy preachers.
Um, but but think how tender that is.
Think how insightful that is. That the
worst afflictions come to the Christian
not from the devil, not from the world,
but from the father's hand. And if I can
really believe this has come to me from
my father's hand who loves me, even that
affliction can become sweet. And I think
that points um to the profoundity of
Calvin's understanding of the
scriptures. And it points to how a
vision of the sovereignty of God has
nothing cold to it to it to it. It's
it's the warmest doctrine there can be
of a father who cares and a father who
people. While while we're on while we're
um I think it was a letter to V, but
you'll remember his his little boy Jack
died. remember and
um I I remember what a comfort this this
sentence was to me at a certain time in
my life because Calvin
writes practicing what he wrote about in
in the in the commentary on the
Psalms. God is himself a father and he
knows what is best for his
children. And so the Calvin of our
imagination who lived in an ivory tower,
you know, had nerves of steel and was
actually nothing like that. Writing in
the midst of his own
affliction and his loss and saying, "I
can trust my heavenly father and I know
that he knows best even when it breaks
my heart." And I think, you know, riding
on top of what what Bob
says in that respect, the loss of the
knowledge of the
Psalms is one of the great tragedies of
the 21st century
church. Because the Psalms,
Psalms, the Psalms give us the language
we need when we have very few words of
our own to express our grief. The
Psalms gave Jesus the language through
which he expressed his emotion. And I
it's been true. I don't think we realize
what a minority we are in the Christian
church that we've jettisoned the Psalms.
There's only one reason for jettisoning
jettisoning anything the church used to
do and that is because we can do
better. But we have this tragic loss
that we don't know the psalms. So we
don't have our language for grief and
lament. And as
individuals, we don't know what to sing
in the presence of God when we're going
through suffering of various kinds.
But if I think it has been true in the
whole history of the church and and
certainly I'm sure it's been true in
your life, Bob, as mine, in those
hours, what instinctively
comes is a psalm that speaks of the
security the believer has in the midst
of the storms. Um, and we are able to
sing. And the great thing is we know
that we have a heavenly father who
embraces us when we're singing to him
about the aches there are in our hearts.
And that's that is a priceless treasure
that the Christian church has. and and
and you know, we don't want to bang on
about it, but we really need to take to
heart that God gave us that very long
book for a very special reason. And if
we don't use it for that reason, we're
going to be less able to trust him and
to speak to him in our times of need.
And we're not going to have the language
that helps others to understand that
they can trust him, too.
Well, and I think
before. Maybe I'm not doing it publicly
now. Um four years ago, our daughter
died very suddenly.
suddenly.
And I'd heard a lot about books on grief
and um realized none of them were least
bit helpful to me. I'm not saying they
weren't helpful to others. can't be
helpful to others. They weren't helpful
to me. I found there was no v vocabulary
for grief that was
very helpful. But people came to me and
said, "Are you angry?" "No, I'm not
angry at God." "Uh, are you doubting?"
No, I was not doubting God. What was I?
I was
lost. And one of the few things I think
I learned in that was to find a word
from God to hang on
to to keep coming back to was of huge
help to me. And I I say this because
maybe it'll help someone out there. Um
and the psalm that came to me was just a
phrase from one verse. Psalm 63:5, "The
steadfast love of the Lord is better than
than
that? I'd rather you sing it than clap.
Um, but think about that. The steadfast
love of the Lord never
fails. The steadfast love of the Lord
will preserve us always. The steadfast
love of the Lord is better than life.
And it's a good thing because we're all
going to
die. And what a what a comfort it was.
What a help it was in the worst moments
to go back and say, "The steadfast love
of the Lord is better than life." And my
How can believers distinguish between
God's discipline, spiritual warfare, and
the ordinary trials that beset us in a
Can you say that again?
The question is just along the lines of
how can believers distinguish between
God's discipline, spiritual warfare, and
world. I'd really like to understand the
question because if I did, I would know
the answer to it. I suppose you could
even say is it necessary to distinguish
my instinct would be to say in scripture
first of all for the Christian there are just
just
sufferings you know they all belong to a
category they are caused by different
situations and circumstances I may be
living in a country that's at war and
I've contributed nothing to the country
being at war um but I share in the
sufferings of all the people in the
country, but I respond to those
sufferings by God's grace in a in a
different way. I I share the agony and
this I think takes us back to the
Psalms. I share the agony but as title
of one of Thomas Brook's uh books he
speaks about the mute Christian under
the rod and the Christian's response to
that kind of suffering is going to be
it's not going to be easily different
but it is going to be different from the
response of the
non-Christian I think in terms of um the
suffering that's involved in spiritual warfare
warfare
Um, at least the approach I would
instinctively take to it would be, okay,
where do I go in scripture to think
about spiritual warfare? Well, I can
think of Paul saying to the Corinthians,
we are not ignorant of Satan's
devices. So, I want to know what are
Satan's devices that he uses? What are
the strategies he
uses in seeking to destroy the church to
which I belong? Seeking to destroy my
Christian life. And one of the most
helpful ways that I think Christians in
the past have done that is simply by
working through the pieces of the
Christian armor in Ephesians
6:10-20 and thinking, well, if there is
if there is a helmet of salvation that
covers the head, then they would think
that must be related to the way in which
Satan seeks to attack my thinking.
And what would that be? Well, that would
usually involve me thinking poor
thoughts of God or wrong thoughts of
Christ. And when I see those things
happening and there you know Derek
should be here because there's a
tremendous amount of this in Pilgrim's
Progress which is so helpful in this
area of recognizing the way in which
Satan has these
strategies not only to divert us from
Christ but to to make us think false
thoughts of Christ. Um, and those false
thoughts then affect our affections and
distort them and our affections then
distort our wills. So, just as a kind of general
general
approach to thinking what is spiritual
warfare really all about, I think these
two statements that Paul makes are
really very helpful. And if you're
looking for a book uh that's fairly
comprehensive, I'd recommend um Thomas
Brook's Precious Remedies Against
Satan's Devices where he he is this
endless list of the different ways in
which Satan seeks to attack the
believer. Calvin has a statement in the
institutes about Job where he says,
"Satan seeks to drive the saint out of his
his
mind by
despair." And so when we find ourselves,
and some of us are by nature more
exposed, I think, to this attack of
Satan, when we find ourselves beginning
to sink into
despair, we we must ask the question in
terms of the words of the of the of
Jesus parable, is it possible that an
enemy has done
this? And similarly, I think in the way
Satan attacks the church, we do have a
tendency to ask questions about who is
responsible for this
horizontally. And while it is unhelpful
to be seeing the devil under every bed
and round every corner, I think it is
really important for us to see that
we're not in the church. We're not
wrestling against flesh and blood, but
against principalities and powers. and
to have that uh fuller spiritual vision.
So I think in these ways um we get some
help to be able
to fight the Christian warfare and to
distinguish between what we might call
the sufferings that we share with
humanity in general and also the
sufferings of satanic attack that that
that have in view the destruction of the
church and the destruction of our testimony.
Uh, one of the things that has struck
me, I'm I'm doing a series in our Sunday
school class on
Ephesians, which is a grand kayazm. Um,
I'll I'll help you understand that. Um,
excuse my friend's sense of humor.
It's a private joke, which is a bad
thing to do publicly.
Um uh but but one of the things that has
so struck me in in studying Ephesians is that
that
repeatedly Paul is coming back to these
people whom he knew and served for three
years. um with his eagerness that they
they should know what God has revealed,
that they should know what Christ has
done, that they should know the
inheritance that is laid up for them in
heaven. It it's a great appeal to
Christians to know and I think in that
context at least one of the principal
methods of the evil one is to come with
lies. U and that's why the the first
part of the armor is the belt of truth.
Uh it's truth that will carry us
through. You know the notion that
there's a cold dead orthodoxy that is
irre is is u irrelevant. It's just
another the devil's lies. Uh nothing is
important more important than the truth.
How do we avoid despair? By knowing the
truth about that in which we hope. Um h
how do we uh avoid temptations into
various kinds of sin? It's to know that
the devil is lying about that sin and
its value and its traction and how it
will satisfy us. It's all a lie. And so
truth isn't all that the Bible's about.
But the truth is so foundational, so
important for us to be able to withstand
every kind of attack, every direction of
attack from the evil one. And uh that's
why it's so important that we keep
coming back to the scriptures and
knowing the scriptures and hiding the
scripture in our hearts. Maybe just a
last word revisiting the theme of hope.
Uh can the hope of resurrection and
sufferings? Want me to start?
Um yeah, I I I think what I'm about to
say applies to the here and now as well
as to there there and then. Everything
we suffer as believers is also an
investment in our
lives for either future service or future
future
glory. for future service in the sense
that remember how Paul says to the
Corinthians, I want to comfort
you with the comfort by which we
ourselves were comforted by God. And in
a fallen world where there is suffering,
um there is a ministry that God gives to
his people as
individuals that you cannot have without
the experience of suffering. You may
know the right words to say. You may be
able to interpret the situation, but you
cannot embrace another person with this
with the comfort of Christ unless you
have first yourself received that
comfort. And you get that comfort only
in the context in which you need that
comfort. You don't get it um you know,
you can't pre- buy that comfort. It
comes in the moment. And I think we
would we would both want to say that
there have been situations in our lives
that without whatever kind of suffering
we had had we would not have been able
to minister to people in the same
way. And then there's a bigger picture
that I think especially but not only Paul
Paul
paints and and that is that in glory we
are not just going to be clones.
So, so the three of us will be will be
recognizable as the same people who sat
here on the 11th of April in
2025. But if I can put it this
way, what we have experienced
internally in terms of the sufferings
that we may have gone
through and experienced emotionally that
by and large has been hidden from
people. It seems to me that some of the
pointers Paul gives us suggest all of
that will be turned, we will be turned inside
inside
out. So that when I see Bob, as I trust
I will, my first words to him will
be. You're looking much more like
yourself than you ever were in this
world. That that that I will thinner
thinner is what I'm hoping for. You
know, I will I will see then what Christ
was doing throughout the whole course of
his life.
So the hope of glory enables me to make
sense of present
suffering and also the experience of
future glory will be like the
crowning the the
manifestation of all that Christ if I
can use Bob again of all that Christ did in
in
Bob of which I saw a glimpse but not the
And if you can if you think about that
being multiplied with all of God's
people in all the countries of the world
through the whole time of history of
believers, then um then I think you can
understand just at least a little
understand how incredibly glorious glory
must be and that sustains us now. and it
um it helps us cope with each other in
the in the present age as well.
I do
think one other
aspect of hope that we ought to talk
about is the fact that many Christians,
maybe most Christians have loved ones
believers. And that intensifies
the the problem of hope. you know, how
how do we find comfort and hope where
there are those who are
lost? And I think there again, Calvin
would help us to say where we cannot
have hope in eternal life, where we
cannot have assurance of reunion in
eternal life, we can have confidence
that our heavenly father does all things
well. And we have to be
willing in faith to trust him with that
as well and to to rest in his good
pleasure to do all things well, however
hard that is. Um, and I I you know, I
think that's important because it's part
of the suffering that a lot of
Christians go through. Um,
so thank you my brothers for this
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