I haven't seen any vocational schools that give a diploma in suffering. or a place where you can go and study. How to die? And yet, if I understand what Scripture is teaching about the nature of suffering and about the nature of death. There are times In a person's life, where the call of God upon that person.
is to suffer. Christians often talk about being called to a particular career or ministry. Maybe someone will say that they are called to the mission field of the pastorate. But does God call us to suffer? Uh That's the question we'll be exploring today on Renewing Your Mind.
and I'm glad that you're joining us to study God's Word. Today's message is from RC Scrolls' classic series Surprised by Suffering. You can receive the downloadable version of this series in the Ligonier app. and a digital study guide as well. Use the link in the show notes or call us at 800-435-4343 to make your donation and thank you for supporting this program.
Here's our C with today's message. There's a somewhat lesser-known work of Herman Melville, the author of Moby Dick. Billy Budd and a host of South Sea adventure stories. One of his lesser-known works, Melville makes this statement. He says, Until we learn.
That one grief Outweighs a thousand joys. We will never understand what Christianity is trying to make us.
Now, when Melville makes that statement, I don't think that he's simply being morbid. or pessimistic. But he is echoing a sentiment that we find in Scripture itself. For example, the wisdom literature of the Old Testament declares that it is better to go to the house of mourning. And to spend our time with fools.
It's just one more case in point where we see How closely related The God of Scripture is to the reality of suffering and of pain. And in the first segment together, I mentioned this word, vocation. And usually, when we use this word vocation, we're referring to our career or to our life's work. Whenever I meet someone the first time, I ask them what their name is and where they live, and then inevitably I'll say, What do you do? I'm inquiring about your vocation.
We have vocational tests, we have vocational schools.
So this word is a very important part of our vocabulary. But its root meaning, its classical meaning, is taken from the Latin word. that means to call. And the idea earlier on in our history, when we understood that God calls people into various tasks and various occupations, He doesn't just call people into the ordained ministry, to clergy and so on, but He calls people to be physicians, He calls people to be involved in jurisprudence, He calls people into productive enterprises of business and so on. That this idea of vocation has to do with the fact that we are confident that as the Lord of history and as the Lord of all of life, God places his call upon people to perform certain tasks.
But we don't usually think. of suffering or of dying As a vocation. I haven't seen any vocational schools that give a diploma in suffering. Or uh or a place where you can go and study. How to die.
And yet, if I understand what Scripture is teaching about the nature of suffering and about the nature of death. I think that it is safe for us to see that there are times In a person's life, where the call of God upon that person may not be to banking or to being a doctor or to being a minister or whatever, but the call of God on the person's life for that portion of their life. is to suffer. Perhaps even to die. As I said earlier, that mace hound.
Far out to you and radical.
So, what I'd like to do in the rest of this segment is to show you something of the history of God's activity with people. By looking again at persons. whom we know God called to suffer. Anytime we even talk about suffering, usually the first name that comes to mind from biblical history is the name. Of, and I know this is going to look funny up here underneath this word vocation.
It's the name Job. Not Job. Although there's a link between vocation and Jobs. I'm talking about vocation and Job. You know the story of Job, how there's a drama that is unfolding in heaven where Satan reports to the divine architect of heaven and earth, and he says he's been going to and fro over all of the earth and examining the creation.
He sort of comes back in gleeful delight at what he's discovered down here in this planet. And he's mocking God, saying, Hey, all these people down here are in my pocket, they're doing what I want them to do. Nobody's listening to you, nobody's paying any attention to your laws, and so on. And God said, Wait a minute. have you considered my servant?
Job. Satan says, Sure, I've considered Job, I've seen him. He obeys you. He's upright. He's righteous.
Stainless Job we call him. Yeah. He said, But why shouldn't he serve you? Does Job serve God for nothing? Look at what you've done.
You've prospered him, you've put a hedge around him, you've given everything that a man could ever want. He said, Let me, Adam, let me inflict pain on his life. And we'll see how long. He's faithful to you.
Well, you know the story. Of all of the afflictions that come Upon job. He loses his property. He experiences financial ruin. Then his family is taken from him one by one.
And then he is afflicted with incurable. Diseases That are excruciatingly painful. And in the midst of this experience. Job is tempted. To curse God.
In fact, in the middle of his suffering, even his wife comes and suggests that if he wants relief from his pain, what he ought to do is shake his fist into heaven and scream at God. And his wife says, curse God and die. How could anybody endure this much grief and this much pain and still refuse? To blasphemy. Job had a lot more than patience.
Job had an understanding. and a confidence of God even When he was shaken to the very foundation of his being, we know that the worst thing that happened to the man was that in the midst of his suffering, when he looked to his friends for comfort, his friends came to him. not with comfort. But with accusation. And so the friends all came to Job and they said, Job, there must be some unconfessed sin in your life.
Not a whole lot of comfort. Until finally Job turned to God. And he experienced the whole roller coaster of human emotions, even with God. He struggled with God. He screamed at God.
He was mad at God. He was afraid of God. He didn't know whether to repent or to rejoice or what to do in the midst of all this pain.
So I don't know what's happening. It's God, will you please? Explain to me why I'm enduring this suffering. And what happened? Did God come down and say, Well, listen, there's three reasons why you're suffering, Job.
It's because you yelled at your wife last week, or because you stole some tomatoes from somebody's garden. No, no, no, no. You know, God never answered his question. Instead, he started asking Job a lot of questions. He said, Job, you want me to answer your questions first?
You answer some of mine. He said, Job, tell me, where were you when I established the foundations of the world? I don't know. It's me. Come on, Joe, speak up.
I want you to answer these questions. I'll be happy to answer yours, but first you answer mine. Job. Do you send the lion after his prey in the jungle? Do you send the bird south in the winter?
Job, can you unbutton the belt of Orion? Can you set the limits of the Pleiades? Can you do these things? Can you set the tides in the heavens? And all this final examination that Job's getting, all Job can say to God is: nope, nope, nope, nope, nope.
But it's almost as if God's bullying him. As if God is saying, You can't do those things, Job, but I can.
Well, what was the answer that Job got? He didn't get an answer. What he got was a person. They got a person. God said, Look at me I'm not going to answer your question right now.
But I want you to understand that I control the universe. I control the Pleiades. I can pull the Leviathan out of the oceans with a five-pound test line. Job. Trust me.
And he did. Because it was his vocation. Because Job did not suffer because of his sin. Job suffered. For the glory of God.
In the New Testament, Some folks brought a man to Jesus and they wanted to stump Jesus with a difficult theological question. The man had been. blind from the day that he was born. He spent his whole life in darkness. And so they bring this man to Jesus and they say, Jesus, tell us, unravel this theological mystery for us.
Whose sin was it? Was it this man's sin or his parents' sin that made him? Be born blind.
Now, those of you who are students of philosophy maybe recognize in this question that is brought to Jesus what's called the fallacy of the false dilemma or the either or fallacy. It's a fallacious way of thinking. It's reducing something to two options when there may be three or four or five or six options. Saying that you have to have either peanut butter or cracker jacks. And I'll say, just the same, I'll have popcorn.
I don't want either pox on both of your houses here on this either or business. But these people came to Jesus and said, the man is blind, and there's got to be a reason for his blindness. Either it's because he's a sinner and God afflicts him with blindness, or his parents were sinful, and therefore. is born blah. That's the question brought to Jesus, and Jesus said.
May you curt. This man was born blind. That the work of God Might be made now. Do you hear what he's saying? He's saying this man was born blind.
So that the majesty of God would be made plain. But now we say, how in the world is the majesty of God made manifest through human suffering?
Well, we're talking about it right now. Do you think that man ever dreamed? The 2000 years After he met Jesus, Peter People would be gathered at MD Anderson Medical Center talking about his experience with blindness. and his experience in meeting one who touched his eyes and gave him his sight back. That the reason why he was born blind was that from all eternity, God purposed.
But that man Be there at that place on that day when his son would come by and give him his sight back. To demonstrate to the whole world the power. and the magnificence of Christ. Do you think the dead man today? can rejoice in his blindness.
He'd be happy to come right back to this planet and spend 40, 50, 60 more years in darkness if he could be used of God to show the world the magnificence of Christ. But he didn't know that when he was blind. And most of us don't see the reason for our suffering. in this world. But the message of Scripture is That God stands over and above all human suffering.
And that it is A divine vocation.
Now we've talked about Job. And we've talked about the man-born blind. But there was one man who was born. Who had one purpose in his whole life, one vocation. The whole reason why he was born in the first place wasn't to be blind, wasn't to suffer boils or the loss of family or cattle as Job was, but the whole purpose for this man's suffering, his vocation, was to do one thing, and that was to die.
And his name was Jesus. I'd like to read. passage that you're all familiar with. From the New Testament. From the twenty-sixth chapter of Matthew's Gospel, Beginning at verse thirty six.
Where we read this. Then Jesus went with his disciples. To a place called Gethsemane. And he said to them, Sit here while I go over there and pray. And he took Peter and two sons of Zebedee along with him.
I'll listen to this. And he began to be sorrowful. And troubled. And then he said to them, My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here.
And keep watch with me. In theology we like to use Latin phrases and Latin expressions, and one that I've always found particularly meaningful are the words pasio mana. which means The great Suffering. We speak of the grand passion of Christ. That it was Christ's vocation from the very moment that he was born.
that he was called of God to suffer and to die. Do you remember his mother Mary? When Jesus was just a baby, Mary and Joseph took Jesus into the temple. for circumcision, for purification. And they met this old prophetess there, and this old prophet that God had said that he wouldn't die until he had seen the Lord's Messiah.
His name was Simeon. And Simeon sang the Nukdomenus, the song. He said, Now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen the glory of Israel. And then he broke out in the prophecy and talked about how this baby of this woman was going to be established for the rising and falling of many in Israel and would be assigned to the nations and so on. And then at that very beginning of Jesus' life, This ancient prophet said.
But Mary A sword. is going to pierce your soul. The announcement to the Mother of Christ. In the first two weeks of his life, was that this child was destined For death. And for suffering.
We don't know at what point in Jesus' developing consciousness he became totally aware of his vocation. We know when he was 12 years old and he went to Jerusalem and he was astounding the doctors in the temple and his parents were missing him and they were frantic. They thought they had lost him and they came rushing back and they found Jesus talking to the theologians in the temple and amazing them all with his knowledge. And they rebuked their son and said, You know, what are you doing? We've been looking all over the place for you.
You've caused us no small amount of consternation. And he said to his parents, Don't you know? that I must be about my father's business. He had a sense of vocation. But what was that business?
Wasn't until he was about thirty years old that he began his public ministry and he sort of kept a low profile of what the theologians call the messianic secret. Jesus didn't go around and display his power all at once to everybody. At one occasion he drew aside with his disciples and he sort of gathered them around uh Peter, James and John and he said, Tell me now, he said, you're out and about with the populace here. What's the scuttlebutt? What are people saying about me?
Who do men say that I am? And the disciples began to respond, and they said, Well, some of them say that you're. You know, an incredible prophet.
Some say you're Elijah, some say you're John the Baptist. They're confusing you with him and so on. And they're giving all these answers as to what public opinion polls were saying about Jesus. And finally, Jesus said, Well, that's fine, that's interesting. Know what they're saying.
Who do you think that I am? You remember Simon Peter? Caesarea Philippi looked at Jesus and he said. Thou art the Christ. The Son of the Living God.
You're the Messiah. And Jesus looked at Simon and he said, Blessed art thou, Simon Bar Jonah. Flesh and blood has not revealed that to you. This isn't something that you penetrated through your unaided speculation here. Flesh and blood hasn't revealed this to you, but my Father has revealed that to you.
And it was a wonderful moment. This was Peter's greatest moment. And Jesus renamed him right there. He said, and thou shalt be called Tatros. Peter, meaning rock, and on this rock.
I'm going to build my church. You can just see Peter beginning to swell in pride, you know, and that compliment from Jesus. Five minutes later, if you remember the story. Jesus looked at Peter, whom he had complimented, and said, Get thee behind me, Satan. Remember that?
He wasn't talking to the devil. He was talking to Peter. And he looked at Peter and he called Peter the devil. He said, Get thee behind me, Satan. Why did he do it?
Because in that five minutes, something. Very significant took place in the conversation. After Peter said, Okay, you're the Messiah, Jesus said, Okay, I'm the Messiah. Blessed are you for understanding. But there's something you must learn.
And that is as the Messiah. I have to suffer many things. Peter said, God forbid. You know what his words were? In the text, there we read this: that Peter looked at Jesus and he said, Far be it from you, Lord.
That you should suffer. Imagine that. I mean, if anybody should have understood. That God majors in suffering, and that God can make this vocation to call a person to suffer. It should have been a Jew of the first century.
But even at that point, Peter was saying, this is unthinkable. Our Messiah is a Messiah who will come and he certainly won't suffer. Jesus said, You've got to understand. that the only way I can be the Messiah. It's by walking the Via dolarosa.
I have to suffer. And I have to die. Because that's the call of God. on mile ice. You see, Peter wanted Christ.
To remove himself. From Saturday. To be the Savior, some other way. That's why I say at the very heart. Of the Judeo-Christian faith.
Is the reality of suffering and of death. That would be nice to say that when the moment came for Jesus to fulfill his destiny, he smiled. He saluted the Father and said, Okay, I'm ready now. Let's get on with it. Uh-uh.
We read here in this text that when Christ went into the Garden of Gethsemane, it said, This was the beginning of his sorrow, and he entered into great distress. And he said, My soul is exceedingly sorrowful. He said, God, if there's any other way. Let this cup pass from it. I certainly don't want to volunteer for drinking a cup like that, and I don't want to volunteer for getting.
Some terrible disease. And those of you who suffer from very difficult diseases, I'm sure, didn't volunteer for them. And you've cried out many, many times, even as Christ did. Please let this go. Yeah.
Nevertheless, not my will. But yours be done. And God said now. The father said, Drink the cup. That's your vocation.
Is it okay? If that's what you want. Then I'll drink it. He didn't go. laughing and dancing to the cross.
He went screaming to the cross. But the only way He could endure what he endured. was to understand. That it wasn't the devil that put him there. And it wasn't chance that put him there.
And it wasn't the hostility of people that put him there. All of those things. Maybe could be mixed up in the nature of things, but ultimately, what put in there. was a vocation. He was sent.
By the Father. But what we're going to see before we're done. It's that when God gives a human being a vocation to suffer, And to die. He never, ever, ever, ever. Ends it there.
Christian Faith. Didn't begin on Good Friday. If you're in Christ. Your suffering is not your ultimate destination. It's not your end.
the suffering of our Saviour resulted in victory, in triumph, in resurrection. And whatever cross our Father has given us to bear, we can persevere, knowing that Christ bore the heavier burden. And that our suffering will also one day. result in triumph. This has been the Tuesday edition of Renewing Your Mind.
Today's message was from Dr. Sproll's classic series, Surprised by Suffering. a series that has helped so many people understand their suffering from a biblical perspective. Making teaching like this available to people around the world is really only made possible by the faithful support of our ministry partners, who doctor Sprohl referred to as the backbone of Ligonier Ministries. And if you happen to be one of those partners, I want to thank you for standing with us and invite you to call and leave us a message at 800-733-0853.
That's 800-733-0853. We'd love to hear your story about why you became a ministry partner and how God has used Lignier Ministries in your life. We look forward to hearing from you. Christians are called to trust the Lord at all times, to live in faithful dependence upon His promises in every moment. including our final moment in this life.
Join us tomorrow as Dr. Sprohl helps us consider how to die well here. on Renewing Your Mind.
