God Delivers from the Suffering He Ordains

Audio Transcript

Fantastic Monday morning. We’ve been conversing about God’s sovereignty just lately. Does his sovereignty in salvation make him unfair? That was APJ 2028. And then should really his all-sovereignty make us much less prayerful, because we can just resign all points to him? That was APJ 2029. And nowadays we converse about God’s sovereignty around our struggling. That’s since, Pastor John, right now in the Navigators Bible Reading through Approach we examine Psalm 71 alongside one another. And listeners who have previously concluded their looking at this morning will have already appear across the verse that Bridget wants to prevent and replicate on more deeply. Here’s her e mail.

“Pastor John, howdy to you from New Zealand. For many many years I have believed — like I consider quite a few Christians do — that God would stop pain from receiving into the lives of his youngsters if he could. But he cannot definitely halt it all. Or he simply just allows some of it to move. Possibly for the reason that he is helpless or passive, we undergo. So, we question for his deliverance, and he will sooner or later assist us out.

“But when I read a verse like Psalm 71:20, I am struck that it appears to say that the very same God who prompted that suffering is the same God the psalmist has self-confidence to pray to for deliverance from that suffering. Here’s the total verse: ‘You who have designed me see lots of troubles and calamities will revive me all over again from the depths of the earth you will carry me up all over again.’

“Can you clarify this verse, and how essential it is for us to see God’s sovereignty about our suffering as the floor for our assurance that he is strong more than enough to supply us, too? This looks profoundly vital, and so counterintuitive to how I and several other Christians the natural way converse of suffering. But I see it there in the Bible. Thank you!”

Of course, it is profoundly important. As I have go through my Bible above the yrs, and as I have dealt with suffering folks, the summary that I come to has been the exact same in both equally cases — namely, that the sovereignty of God more than suffering is greater news than possibly his supposed incapacity to eliminate it or his intended cruelty in not removing it. In other words and phrases, what I have uncovered is that not only does the Bible educate that God governs all points, including our sufferings, but also that all those who belief his goodness and his knowledge in that sovereignty obtain the finest toughness and even pleasure as a result of the toughest seasons of existence.

So, let me say a phrase from Scripture about the sovereignty of God about our sufferings, and then consider to make that relationship with why that is encouraging, why that is great news, to those who have confidence in his goodness and wisdom via their sorrows.

All-Pervasive Sovereignty

God declares in Isaiah 46:9–10, “I am God, and there is no other I am God, and there is none like me . . . stating, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will attain all my purpose.’” So, none of his needs is thwarted. He’s God. Paul set it like this: “[God] operates all factors in accordance to the counsel of his will” (Ephesians 1:11). “Not a sparrow,” Jesus explained, “not a solitary small bird anywhere in the entire world falls to the floor apart from our Father’s will” (see Matthew 10:29). The dice are thrown on the table — Proverbs states, “The good deal is forged into the lap” just translate it — and “its each and every final decision is from the Lord” (Proverbs 16:33). Each time my wife and I get to our hand into the bag of letters actively playing Scrabble, God appoints which letters we pull out. That’s how comprehensive his sovereignty is, in accordance to the Bible.

“The very ability and wisdom and really like that governs our sorrows now is the very same electric power that will produce us.”

Lamentations 3:37–38 asks, “Who has spoken and it came to move, except the Lord has commanded it? Is it not from the mouth of the Most Higher that excellent and undesirable arrive?” That is, prosperity and calamity — they’re all from God. James suggests, “Don’t boast as if you know tomorrow” (see James 4:13–14). “Instead you ought to say, ‘If the Lord wills, we will stay and do this or that’” (James 4:15). Staying alive, executing this or that, will be in the long run made the decision by the Lord, not us and not Satan.

Hebrews 12:6, 11 states, “The Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises each son whom he receives. . . . For the minute all self-discipline would seem painful instead than nice, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.” Or Psalm 60:3: “You have created your folks see tough points you have given us wine to drink that built us stagger.” Or Psalm 66:10–11: “You, O God, have analyzed us you have tried out us as silver is tried using. . . . You laid a crushing stress on our backs.” And it was God who gave Paul his thorn in the flesh to protect him from getting very pleased (2 Corinthians 12:7).

There’s a motive why my e book on Providence has 7 hundred webpages. That is how very long it takes to even arrive near to laying out the vastness of the biblical basis of the all-pervasive, all-governing, all-smart, by no means-meaningless, by no means-whimsical, never ever-random, never-unjust, always-purposeful, normally-superior sovereignty of God.

‘You Will Convey Me Up’

And here’s the excellent truth that Bridget is drawing out of Psalm 71 (rightly): specifically, that the extremely sovereignty that brings our sufferings is the exact same sovereignty that permits us to be confident that God can save us — in them, from them, according to his smart and loving functions. The psalm suggests, “You who have produced me see quite a few problems and calamities will revive me all over again from the depths of the earth you will bring me up again” (Psalm 71:20).

In other phrases, considering that it was not in the end me or purely natural forces or satanic opposition or the evils of human adversaries that made me see many sore difficulties and calamities, but relatively it was you, O God, my Father — my all-wise, all-loving, all-strong Father — consequently, I have just about every cause to be self-confident that the similar electric power and enjoy and wisdom will bring me up out of those difficulties in accordance to your guarantee.

So, I imagine we should imagine this way: If God does not have the ability or the wisdom or the correct or the appreciate to restrain lethal organic forces or hostile human forces or harmful satanic forces — if he does not have the wherewithal to restrain them from hurting you — on what basis are you heading to depend on him to give you endurance in sufferings, or to give you reduction from the suffering in this life, or to give you closing happiness in the age to arrive? If you are hoping for a pain-absolutely free eternity with God (which I am), then at some place you are hoping that God will enjoy the sovereignty card and say to purely natural forces and human forces and satanic forces, “No more! No a lot more!”

What the Bible teaches is that sovereignty is not a card that he performs at the close. It is not a card at all. It is a ideal and authority and electric power that belongs to his really God-ness and is often there, generally lively.

This is why thousands of persons have identified that the sovereignty of God around their suffering is a valuable actuality, because it indicates none of our suffering is meaningless, none of it is owing to the weak spot of God or the folly of God or the cruelty of God, but all of it is owing to sensible and loving and holy needs of God for people who have faith in in his goodness in the midst of it. And the incredibly electrical power and wisdom and adore that governs our sorrows now is the identical power that will produce us in God’s all-smart timing.

Enable me near with Lamentations 3:31–32 (I really like the way Jeremiah places it): “The Lord will not solid off for good, but, however he induce grief, he will have compassion according to the abundance of his steadfast love.” So, it is the exact same sovereignty in resulting in grief and in exhibiting compassion.