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.
