Suffering: A Case Study (Audio)

Speaker, R.C. Sproul

From Ligonier Ministries – Renew your mind.

Suffering tends to catch us by surprise, and we’re sometimes tempted to question God’s character amid our confusion. This week on Renewing Your Mind, R.C. Sproul addresses one of the most difficult struggles of human experience: the problem of pain. Dr. Sproul shows that God is intimately at work in our suffering, He helps us to stand in times of trial, and He has promised a future for His people when there will be no more sorrow, pain, or death.

A Personal Observation

by Ken Pullen

I love R.C. Sproul. I love the assurance that as the man of God he was that he is with the Lord right now. I have been blessed richly in having the Lord direct me to finding R. C. Sproul’s work.

I have lived with chronic physical pain for a wee bit over 20 years. The pain is always there. Debilitating pain. The only changes are varying levels and which place in my body is experiencing the highest intensity at any given moment. When this began in my life, altering my life more than I would come to know, I was not a man transformed by the Supernatural power of the Holy Spirit, born anew, to become a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ.

My personal experience is this. This is all I know. If you’ve already listened to the poignant talk from R. C. Sproul found above I will repeat and verify what R. C. said — there is always a purpose in any pain, in any suffering. God is not absent from our suffering. There is always a purpose to all pain, all suffering.

It can either lead to a much deeper and greater understanding, an appreciation that becomes awareness, at least in part, of God’s purpose for allowing such in our life. Or, it leads to bitterness, anger, cursing the very God most refuse to believe in, or blaming Him for it lacking any and all understanding of what the purpose of the pain and suffering might be. As most see no beneficial thing coming from pain or suffering. There are either people who place their trust in God and believe and allow themselves to submit, listen, obey and grow coming to know pain and suffering can be the best thing to happen to them — or those who remain forever bitter, angry, nasty and self-absorbed wallowing and wailing refusing to ever attempt to see the purpose from God.

All I know, in my truly feeble and limited thinking, compared to the mind and the whole purpose of God is this — as the pain lingered, the surgeries multiplied, my life was further altered as a result I was not despondent, I was not at the “bottom of the barrel,” or, I had not “hit rock bottom,” but I was blessed to be spiritually, physically, mindfully, mentally moved to reach for the Bible. I hadn’t held a Bible in my hands in about 25 years or so, except to pack the ones we had into cardboard boxes as we moved a few times. I hadn’t prayed to God in about the same amount of time.

I was aware, as I received the news of the first surgery, and the second, and the third, and so on, for each one I was aware for moments within my mind and heart, I was placing faith in God to see me through it all. Through each one. Of course, after the recovery, the weeks of wearing various apparatus custom formed to my torso or a neck and shoulder brace I could not remove even to attempt to sleep — I was only allowed to take it off to shower, having had cervical fusion after disc removal. After going through weeks of physical therapy those fleeting thoughts of faith vanished from within me like the low hanging vapor over lush plants on a cold morning as the sun rose and its heat made the visible vapor invisible.

I came to realize, and I realize this every single day of my life the Good Lord, and oh we have such a GOOD LORD! blesses me with that the purpose, at least in part — and the greatest and most important part — was to pause me. To make me being so aimless, so selfish, so caught up in all the things I thought mattered and were vitally important. When I was ignoring that which is most vital for every single person born on this earth — their awareness, their belief, their taking the steps, moving towards rather than away from the Lord Jesus Christ, God the Father, and the Holy Spirit that make salvation and eternal life possible. For without Them there is no salvation. No life. Only perpetual darkness going from being among the walking dead in sin giving the appearance of life to physically dying and being eternally held within the second death. Kept apart from God. Kept apart from Jesus. Kept apart from the Holy Spirit.

And I have come to realize and KNOW what that means and why it is so important to turn to the Lord and away from self, pity, anger, blaming God [even for those who profess they don’t believe in Him — now isn’t that strange and totally irrational?]

This may be difficult to believe or accept — but there is great purpose behind all pain and suffering. When we are able to remove ourselves from the self-pity, the blaming, the woe is me, the why is this happening to me, from the misinformation that if you’re a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ you will always be happy, feeling wonderful, no problems, no pain, no troubles in your life and we HUMBLE OURSELVES and stop dwelling on the pain and suffering we come to realize the trials, the troubles, the tribulations, the times of suffering no matter how great, of pain no matter how persistent, consistent and resistant to any attempt to keep it at bay and know faithfully God has a purpose in all these things? In all things? He is a Sovereign God? And we also keep in our minds PERSPECTIVE regarding this temporal life compared to eternity? How can anyone then bemoan, gripe, complain, continue to be angry, bitter, focus on self or blame God?

This is here tonight, as Good Friday ends and Easter weekend continues, also with purpose. It can be known, unlike the Lord Jesus Christ’s birth, the time of His being nailed on the cross of shame to die, to suffer, to become the Sacrificial Lamb of God, to fulfill all of Old Testament prophecy regarding Him. We can know this just as we can know when the Lord died on that day, and when he arose from the dead three days later — and no matter what ANY PERSON has to endure? Live through? Suffer? Bear? It cannot compare to the suffering that Jesus endured. Can’t come close. Can’t come close to what the Lord Jesus Christ had to endure!

And Jesus did this not just to fulfill prophecy, or because it makes a good story. No! Jesus did this to make it possible for any and every whining, self-centered, complaining, stuck in the world thinking, selfish, sinner who turns about and looks to the cross, looks to the empty tomb, looks to Jesus, fully truly God, fully truly man and confesses their sin, repents, submits and believes? To have salvation, the forgiveness of their sin, and to receive the gift of eternal life!

Nothing we can possibly bear here can be more important, worth dwelling on more, worth talking or writing about more.

Pain and suffering can be the best things to ever happen to you. As illogical as that may sound.

The Holy Spirit, the Word of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, and God the Father can make all pain and suffering logical if and when we place our faith in the Triune God when we spend more time in prayer and meditation within God’s Word and less time dwelling on, focusing on ourselves, our pain, our troubles, our travails.

You may come to find, if you’re willing to turn to God in these matters, that whatever suffering, trials, pain, or troubles you’re experiencing that those things considered awful by the flesh, by the world are in truth the greatest things to ever happen to you — other than God out of His love giving His only begotten Son to die on the cross, to be buried, to be resurrected on the third day and then any and all who come to believe? To obey? To make Jesus Lord of their lives? Will be saved. For eternity.

And any earthly suffering or pain is nothing in comparison now, is it?

God is always at work.

God is Sovereign.

It’s all about God.

It’s all about the Lord Jesus Christ.

It’s all about the Holy Spirit.

It’s all about the Word of God.

It’s all about what each individual does about the above seven brief sentences in their life.