What Can We Say to Friends Facing Suffering?
00:00:00.000 | A heavy question today from a listener to the podcast, Joseph from Pleasanton, California.
00:00:08.320 | "Hello Pastor John, my friend has been suffering through extreme fibromyalgia for three years.
00:00:15.120 | He describes the experience as the feeling of knives stabbing, fire burning, and 30 people
00:00:20.680 | pounding and beating his body daily and constantly.
00:00:25.140 | Day and night this happens unabated.
00:00:28.920 | He and his family have been desperately praying for healing and seeking all avenues of treatment
00:00:33.620 | but with no results.
00:00:35.900 | Although they are a Jesus loving, Bible believing, missional family, their family is having a
00:00:40.020 | difficult time holding onto God's promises.
00:00:43.500 | Christ's own suffering ended after a few hours, but my friend has been suffering for years,
00:00:49.060 | with little hope of recovery for the rest of his life.
00:00:52.140 | I know there are many good books and videos that teach about knowing God's goodness in
00:00:55.420 | pain and suffering and hoping in the next life, but what is some practical biblical
00:00:59.740 | counsel for encouraging this family?"
00:01:04.700 | The first thing I would say is don't let their suffering drive you away.
00:01:12.100 | It is easy to become weary sharing in someone's suffering.
00:01:18.620 | And yet Paul tells us in Galatians 6 that the law of Christ is fulfilled precisely in
00:01:26.180 | this, that we bear one another's burdens.
00:01:31.260 | So consider it a beautiful ministry in the name of Jesus, for the glory of Jesus, by
00:01:39.140 | the power of Jesus, to be steadfast in your friendship and your personal presence.
00:01:47.860 | That's the first thing I would say.
00:01:49.700 | The second thing I would say, and I'm sure it's almost too obvious to need saying, is
00:01:57.220 | that you don't give the impression that you have been through this yourself and can empathize.
00:02:05.580 | Even if you have suffered much, all suffering is unique, absolutely unique.
00:02:12.440 | There are things about it that no one else has tasted in the very same way.
00:02:19.720 | Therefore the comfort we give should not include statements about our own suffering and our
00:02:26.300 | own capacity to empathize.
00:02:29.100 | I know what you're going through or something like that.
00:02:31.320 | We don't.
00:02:32.580 | It's almost worthless to ever say that.
00:02:35.460 | If you have a capacity to empathize, and it sounds like you do, it will be seen and known
00:02:42.740 | by your presence and your patience and your mercy.
00:02:46.500 | Third, I would say don't give up on praying patiently for relief and healing.
00:02:56.600 | Sometimes we just settle in with sickness and we've prayed so long that we've given
00:03:01.520 | up on hoping for healing, and unless you get a pretty clear word from the Lord about that,
00:03:09.640 | don't give up.
00:03:10.760 | In order to avoid vain repetitions, which sometimes we fear, like I've prayed for this
00:03:15.880 | so often it just sounds like an empty, vain repetition in my prayer.
00:03:20.160 | In order to avoid that, ask for specific kinds of relief from day to day.
00:03:27.720 | Maybe there's a special sore that just won't heal, and that sore you put your hand on gently
00:03:35.740 | and you pray, "God, heal this sore."
00:03:39.640 | Or maybe they just haven't been able to sleep for three nights, and that's what you focus
00:03:44.740 | on in prayer.
00:03:46.600 | Or maybe it's some relational burden, some child that's adding to the burden, or some
00:03:52.820 | dad or spouse.
00:03:54.880 | But don't ever stop praying.
00:03:56.860 | In the presence of those folks, to God for his merciful relief.
00:04:03.340 | There's always some measure of relief that they could use, even if the whole disease
00:04:10.500 | isn't taken away.
00:04:12.540 | Jesus said, "Do unto others as we would have them do unto us," and we all would hate to
00:04:18.920 | live in constant pain.
00:04:20.700 | So how can we not ask that there be some measure of respite?
00:04:27.020 | Here's the fourth thing I would say.
00:04:29.440 | This gets biblical and theological, but you discern the time when it's right for this.
00:04:34.940 | Remind your friend and his family that suffering, while owing to the universal sin of mankind,
00:04:41.220 | is not always owing to a specific sinfulness in the one who suffers.
00:04:47.200 | And therefore, this suffering need not be an indictment of some particular flaw in your
00:04:53.540 | friend.
00:04:54.840 | To me, one of the most amazing and encouraging and important passages about suffering is
00:05:01.460 | in Hebrews 11, where the author says that great triumphs over suffering are given through
00:05:07.860 | faith and great endurance of suffering is given through faith.
00:05:14.380 | Listen to this passage, and I'll point out where the transition occurs.
00:05:17.460 | It's really remarkable, because there's not even a heartbeat in between the two.
00:05:23.220 | Through faith, they conquered kingdoms, enforced justice, obtained promises, stopped the mouths
00:05:29.460 | of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, were made strong out
00:05:35.760 | of weakness, became mighty in war, put armies to flight, women received their dead by resurrection.
00:05:42.900 | Stop.
00:05:43.900 | No comments.
00:05:44.900 | Just, if you stopped right there, you'd say, "Whoa, the Christian life is triumph, triumph,
00:05:51.860 | triumph, triumph."
00:05:52.860 | And without any explanation, the next thing out of his mouth is, "Some were tortured,
00:05:58.460 | refusing to accept release so that they might have a better life.
00:06:02.620 | Others suffered mocking and flogging and even chains and imprisonment.
00:06:06.860 | They were stoned.
00:06:07.900 | They were sawn in two.
00:06:10.260 | They were killed with the sword.
00:06:12.220 | They went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated."
00:06:19.820 | And all of this is said to be by faith.
00:06:24.480 | By faith they did those things.
00:06:27.780 | Those who lead their lives in utter misery were champions of faith, just as those who
00:06:34.260 | experienced miracles of deliverance were champions of faith.
00:06:38.280 | So my point here for the encouragement of the family is that you find regular ways to
00:06:45.080 | remind them that there is a whole stream of Scripture about the suffering of the righteous,
00:06:51.420 | not just the suffering of those who need chastisement.
00:06:54.340 | And that'll change the way the battle is fought.
00:06:56.840 | Maybe the best example that everybody would think of for righteous suffering is Job, because
00:07:03.260 | Job is considered the most righteous man in the East.
00:07:06.860 | That's what the Bible says he was.
00:07:09.200 | And yet God permitted Satan to afflict him with horrific boils, fibromyalgia perhaps,
00:07:14.620 | without even knowing it.
00:07:18.180 | We don't know how long these boils lasted, but Job was brought to the brink of unbelief
00:07:24.540 | by them.
00:07:25.540 | And God showed up just in the nick of time in those latter chapters to keep Job back
00:07:31.220 | from despair.
00:07:32.580 | The book of Job forces us to do two things.
00:07:35.660 | It forces us to come to terms with the fact of God's absolute sovereignty over our suffering,
00:07:40.980 | even though Satan had a hand in it.
00:07:43.320 | At the end of the book, in chapter 42, verse 11, the inspired writer says this, "Then they
00:07:50.540 | came to him, all his brothers and sisters, and all who had known him before, ate bread
00:07:56.000 | with him in his house.
00:07:57.640 | They showed sympathy to him, comforted him for all the evil that the Lord had brought
00:08:04.140 | upon him."
00:08:05.700 | So even though Satan was the immediate cause of Job's horrible sickness, and it's right
00:08:11.740 | and good to resist the devil always and to pray for relief from his attacks always, nevertheless,
00:08:19.780 | we always submit to the fact that God is sovereign over Satan, and what God permits, he permits
00:08:26.700 | wisely and with good purposes.
00:08:29.700 | And that's the second thing to see from Job, namely that by God's grace, we can actually
00:08:36.100 | come to see God's purposes as compassionate and good, because that's exactly the way James
00:08:42.980 | in chapter 5, verse 10, talks about Job.
00:08:46.500 | He says, "As an example of suffering and patience, brothers, take the prophets who spoke in the
00:08:52.780 | name of the Lord.
00:08:53.780 | Behold, we consider those blessed who remain steadfast.
00:08:57.240 | You have heard of the steadfastness of Job, and you have seen the purpose of the Lord,
00:09:05.360 | how the Lord is compassionate and merciful."
00:09:10.220 | And so the last thing I would say is that you be in earnest prayer for two miracles
00:09:15.640 | always, the miracle of healing and physical relief on the one hand, and the miracle of
00:09:21.280 | actually seeing and feeling the hand of God as compassionate and merciful.
00:09:26.900 | It's a miracle of equal standing with healing.
00:09:31.020 | Christ suffered unspeakably so that your friend's sins might be forgiven and all his sufferings
00:09:37.420 | might be repaid with endless ages of happiness in the presence of God.
00:09:41.640 | So pray that he believe that and rest in that.
00:09:45.740 | Yeah.
00:09:46.740 | Thank you, Pastor John, for the answer, and thank you, Joseph, for sending in the question.
00:09:51.940 | We are now going to break for the weekend, and you can, of course, subscribe to our podcast.
00:09:56.620 | You can find our audio feeds, and you can search our episode archive and reach us by
00:10:00.660 | email with a difficult question that you might be facing, like this one from Joseph.
00:10:05.660 | You can do all these things through our online home at DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn.
00:10:11.900 | Well we talk a lot about principles for Bible interpretation because we want you to have
00:10:16.380 | the tools that you need to make discoveries for yourself in scripture.
00:10:20.520 | And on Monday, we're going to hear from a woman who wants a basic description of what
00:10:23.660 | it means to arc a Bible passage and how to do it.
00:10:27.720 | This is one of the fundamental tools of Bible interpretation, and you won't want to miss
00:10:32.420 | it.
00:10:33.420 | That's on Monday.
00:10:34.420 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke.
00:10:35.420 | Thanks for listening to the Ask Pastor John podcast, and have a great weekend.
00:10:38.660 | We'll see you on Monday.
00:10:39.420 | [BLANK_AUDIO]
00:10:48.180 | [ Silence ]