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How Does God Deliver Me from Pain by Pain? · Pastor John Piper's answers

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  Speaker 1: Good Monday morning, Welcome back to the podcast. We are
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  Speaker 1: starting this new week Deep in Job. If you're reading
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  Speaker 1: the Navigator's Bible Reading Plan with us. If so, you're
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  Speaker 1: in Job thirty six, verses one to fifteen today, which
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  Speaker 1: includes a line that raised two perplexing questions in the
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  Speaker 1: mind of Chloe, a listener. Pastor John, Hello and thank
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  Speaker 1: you for APJ. It is a wonderful resource, she writes,
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  Speaker 1: Thank you, Chloe. My question for you is about a
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  Speaker 1: verse in Job from the mouth of eloquent Elihu. I
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  Speaker 1: know you trust what Alai who says based on what
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  Speaker 1: I heard you say in Abja is fourteen eighty eight
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  Speaker 1: and eighteen sixty seven. Yes, and all insert here too
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  Speaker 1: what you just said last month, Pastor John in Abja
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  Speaker 1: twenty ninety nine as well. My questions for you are
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  Speaker 1: about Elai Who's claim in Job thirty six fifteen he
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  Speaker 1: God delivers the afflicted by their affliction and opens their
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  Speaker 1: ear by adversity. Two questions for you, First, how does
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  Speaker 1: God deliver us from our a flat through our affliction?
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  Speaker 1: And second what kinds of suffering would God use in
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  Speaker 1: our own lives to get our attention? Today? For the believer,
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  Speaker 1: will there be any missing it when it comes into
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  Speaker 1: our lives, when God is trying to open our ears
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  Speaker 1: by it, is it possible for us to miss it?
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  Speaker 2: Whenever I speak or write about affliction and suffering and pain,
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  Speaker 2: I know that I am treading very delicate ground, because
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  Speaker 2: what millions of people experience in their pain is worse
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  Speaker 2: than anything I've ever known. And I must be so
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  Speaker 2: careful not to be lighthearted or breezy, or facal or simplistic.
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  Speaker 2: I recall one time being in the hospital after a
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  Speaker 2: surgery of my own surgery, when the nurses told me, now,
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  Speaker 2: tell us when the pain becomes unmanageable, and we'll give
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  Speaker 2: you something to help you with it. So I decided
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  Speaker 2: late one night that I'm going to see how far
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  Speaker 2: this goes. I'm going to see how far I can
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  Speaker 2: take it before I ask for any painkiller. And I
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  Speaker 2: lay there for several hours just watching it mount. You know,
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  Speaker 2: they say, give me a one to ten, it's moving
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  Speaker 2: from three to five to six. And there came a
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  Speaker 2: point where I pushed a button and I asked the
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  Speaker 2: nurse for relief, and she gave me something, and within
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  Speaker 2: fifteen or twenty minutes it was over, and I'm just
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  Speaker 2: so aware millions and millions of people around the world
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  Speaker 2: don't have any button to push, and they live and
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  Speaker 2: they die without relief. So I hope that sufferers who
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  Speaker 2: are listening to me now will feel just a little
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  Speaker 2: bit of empathy and sympathy for what I know I
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  Speaker 2: cannot fully imagine. Chloe asks three questions about Eli Hughes's
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  Speaker 2: words in Joe thirty six fifteen. God delivers the afflicted
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  Speaker 2: by their affliction and opens their ear by adversity, And
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  Speaker 2: she asked, number one, how does God do this? Number
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  Speaker 2: two what kinds of suffering does he use to do it?
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  Speaker 2: And three do we ever fail to see what He's doing?
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  Speaker 2: Do we fail to understand this ear opening work of God?
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  Speaker 2: So first, how does God do this? It might be
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  Speaker 2: something as straightforward as a friend of mine who was
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  Speaker 2: in a car accident in her early twenties and broke
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  Speaker 2: her leg. That affliction as they set the bone enabled
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  Speaker 2: them to spot a cancer in her left calf. It
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  Speaker 2: was cut out deeply. She has the scar day. She's
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  Speaker 2: alive in her sixties and would be dead had she
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  Speaker 2: not broken her leg and they spotted the cancer. So
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  Speaker 2: the affliction of a broken leg saves your life. She
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  Speaker 2: was delivered from affliction by affliction. It could be that simple.
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  Speaker 2: A biblical example is First Samuel twenty nine, where Aikish,
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  Speaker 2: the king of the Philistines, remember, refused to let David
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  Speaker 2: go with him because his general didn't like the idea
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  Speaker 2: of David fighting with the Felistine army, because he's going
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  Speaker 2: to turn on them, and so the king won't let
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  Speaker 2: David and his men go he doesn't trust them. David
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  Speaker 2: is furious his men have shamed, but they return to Ziglag,
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  Speaker 2: their town, just in time to find that the whole
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  Speaker 2: town has been sacked by the Amalekites, and all of
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  Speaker 2: his possessions and all of his family have been taken away.
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  Speaker 2: And because they got there early, they were able to
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  Speaker 2: track them down, rescue all the goods, all the family,
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  Speaker 2: and save them. So there they are. The affliction of
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  Speaker 2: shaming saved his family. Now I think things like that
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  Speaker 2: are happening in our lives all the time. Here's three
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  Speaker 2: more examples of how the Bible describes deliverance of the
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  Speaker 2: afflicted through their affliction. So one nineteen verse sixty seven.
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  Speaker 2: Before I was afflicted, I went astray. But now I
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  Speaker 2: keep your word. So sometimes God us this affliction to
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  Speaker 2: cut us off from a destructive path and set us
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  Speaker 2: back on the way of obedience and life. Thousands of
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  Speaker 2: people have had a terrifying experience of hallucinogenic drugs that
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  Speaker 2: scared them so badly you could you could literally say,
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  Speaker 2: scared the hell, literally hell out of them. They stopped
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  Speaker 2: using drugs, they found a more hopeful way forward, and
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  Speaker 2: that affliction of terror saved their lives Psalm one, nineteen
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  Speaker 2: seventy one. It is good for me that I was afflicted,
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  Speaker 2: that I might learn your statutes. Now, Martin Luther loved
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  Speaker 2: this text and said that this was a key to
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  Speaker 2: Biblical interpretation that most books on Biblical interpretation don't include,
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  Speaker 2: namely suffering as a key. He said, they're two usual
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  Speaker 2: methods of Bible interpretation, one meditation to prayer, he called
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  Speaker 2: them in Latin meditatio and oratio. But he said there
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  Speaker 2: is a third key to rightly understanding the Bible, namely
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  Speaker 2: affliction or suffering ten tatio. It is good for me
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  Speaker 2: that I was afflicted, that I might learn your statutes.
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  Speaker 2: Suffering is a teacher of the Bible. God delivers us
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  Speaker 2: from erroneous superficial interpretations of scripture by affliction one more
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  Speaker 2: Second Corinthians one nine, Paul says that his affliction in
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  Speaker 2: Ephesus brought him to the point of death, and then
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  Speaker 2: he adds this that was to make us rely not
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  Speaker 2: on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead. So
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  Speaker 2: sometimes God delivers us from self reliance by knocking all
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  Speaker 2: the props out from under our life, so that there's
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  Speaker 2: only one reliance left, God and resurrection. Chloe's second question
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  Speaker 2: is what kinds of suffering does God use to deliver us?
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  Speaker 2: And the biblical answer literally is every kind short of
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  Speaker 2: final destruction. Paul uses that very phrase in tewod Corinthians
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  Speaker 2: four eight. We are afflicted in every way every way,
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  Speaker 2: but not crushed. That would include even death. Here's Isaiah
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  Speaker 2: fifty seven to one. The righteous man perishes, and no
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  Speaker 2: one lays it to heart, for the righteous man is
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  Speaker 2: taken away from calamity. So so by a calamity of death,
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  Speaker 2: a righteous man may be delivered from a calamity worse
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  Speaker 2: than death. Chloe's final question, third is do we ever
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  Speaker 2: fail to see and understand this ear opening work of
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  Speaker 2: God in our lives? Will she says, will there be
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  Speaker 2: any mistaking it when it comes into our lives? And
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  Speaker 2: the answer is yes, we do miss it, and yes
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  Speaker 2: there is a mistaking of it. Job missed it, missed it.
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  Speaker 2: That's one of the points of the book. He accused
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  Speaker 2: God of being his enemy. He said, God is acting
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  Speaker 2: like he hates me. He was wrong about that. This
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  Speaker 2: is one of the main points of the book Job
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  Speaker 2: forty two, verse five. I had heard of you by
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  Speaker 2: the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you.
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  Speaker 2: Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.
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  Speaker 2: What did he repent from. He regretted that he had
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  Speaker 2: not seen more clearly what God was doing. He failed
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  Speaker 2: to see, and he accused God of heartlessness, so yes,
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  Speaker 2: we can miss it, and failed to submit with trust.
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  Speaker 2: One of the main reasons Christians sometimes do not submit
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  Speaker 2: to what God is doing in their suffering is that
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  Speaker 2: they have never been taught a biblical understanding of God's sovereignty,
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  Speaker 2: his providence, and the place of suffering in the Christian life.
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  Speaker 2: They just don't know what the Bible says. They can
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  Speaker 2: scarcely imagine themselves saying with the Psalmist, it was good
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  Speaker 2: for me that I was afflicted that I might learn
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  Speaker 2: your statutes. That's just foreign language. They haven't been taught
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  Speaker 2: that that's in the Bible or how to think about it.
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  Speaker 2: So all of us, parents, friends, pastors, teachers, all of
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  Speaker 2: us need to teach these things. That's one of the
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  Speaker 2: reasons the Book of Job is in the blable.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. Amen, the book is important and needs to be
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  Speaker 1: well understood by all parents, friends, pastors, and teachers. But
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  Speaker 1: it's also a very hard book to understand. As we
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  Speaker 1: just saw about a month ago, what's true and what's
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  Speaker 1: false in Job. It's a legitimate question to resolve, and
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  Speaker 1: we did so in APJA episode twenty ninety nine. You
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  Speaker 1: can find episode twenty ninety nine at Askpastor John dot com.
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  Speaker 1: Don't miss that one. Christmas Fast approaches, as does twenty
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  Speaker 1: twenty five. A lot happening over the next couple of
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  Speaker 1: weeks will be here throughout Pastor John and myself. I'm
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  Speaker 1: Tony Ranky. We'll see you again on Thursday.