I like this.

I haven’t really been keeping up with podcasts lately, but was informed today that John Piper is speaking on Job and suffering at the DG 2008 Regional Conference, and whenever John Piper has something to say on suffering, I must make time for it. I have plenty of clothes to fold tonight anyway, and can try my best to get creative with when to listen to other messages in the series, so it just might work out.

Here are 10 reasons Piper is speaking on this text and topic:

1. Hundreds of you have suffered or are suffering and are looking for light in your darkness.

2. Suffering is coming. For sure. Basic discipleship means tribulations.

3. Persecution, disease, war, disability, disaster, freak accident, assault—all are alike in this: Satan aims to destroy your faith, but God aims to strengthen it.

4. Natural disasters put theodicy in the news: tsunami, Katrina, flooding, tornadoes, avalanches.

5. God is rejected by many because of the suffering in the world.

6. There are Christians who openly question the sovereignty of God over all suffering.

7. God’s wise, good, just, absolute sovereignty is pastorally precious beyond measure. Being able to say, “Satan meant it for evil, but God…” gives hope and strength. Nothing is wasted. Nothing surprises God.

8. Suffering is appointed as one way the Gospel is spread.

9. The supreme value and glory and admirableness of Christ is shown most clearly when Christians treasure Christ more than they treasure what they’re losing—health, wealth, family, or life.

10. Job is the main book in the Bible dealing with suffering. It can help us in all these ways.

(HT: DG)

John Piper’s foreword in Recovering Biblical Manhood & Womanhood is one of the best pieces on singleness that I think I’ve ever read. Here’s a quote:

It is no sign of weakness to want to be married. It is normal, and it is good. The courage comes when you sense God calling you to singleness (for this chapter of your life) and you accept the call with zeal and creative planning for His glory.

More thoughts on this later, the Lord willing.

Refer to my previous post, entitled Christian Biographies, before reading the quotes below. Go here for the location from which I derived the quotes.

In case you’re not already familiar with this-

After missionary Adoniram Judson fell in love with Ann Hasseltine, he wrote the following in a letter to her father, communicating his intentions-

I have now to ask, whether you can consent to part with your daughter early next spring, to see her no more in this world; whether you can consent to her departure, and her subjection to the hardships and sufferings of missionary life; whether you can consent to her exposure to the dangers of the ocean, to the fatal influence of the southern climate of India; to every kind of want and distress; to degradation, insult, persecution, and perhaps a violent death. Can you consent to all this, for the sake of him who left is heavenly home, and died for her and for you; for the sake of perishing, immortal souls; for the sake of Zion, and the glory of God? Can you consent to all this, in hope of soon meeting your daughter in the world of glory, with the crown of righteous, brightened with the acclamations of praise which shall redound to her Savior from heathens saved, through her means, from eternal woe and despair?

Her father turned the decision over to her. Ann wrote the following to a friend-

I feel willing, and expect, if nothing in Providence prevents, to spend my days in this world in heathen lands. Yes, Lydia, I have about, come to the determination to give up all my comforts and enjoyments here, sacrifice my affection to relatives and friends, and go where God, in his Providence, shall see fit to place me.

O how much we can learn from those who have gone before. My dear sisters, would we respond to such a call in such a way, not aiming to get by with the bare minimum of “sacrificial” service, but giving, joyfully and willingly, our time, comfort, leisure, convenience, our hands and feet and toil, yes, our very lives, for the unspeakable privilege of sharing and exulting in Christ glorified in all things for the joy of all peoples, in the end insisting, “I have made no sacrifice.” Whether at home or abroad, may our hearts yearn to love and sacrifice and to give of ourselves more, that Christ be honored and souls won.

2 Cor. 5:14-15 For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.

I love reading missionary biographies, or any Christian biography. I also love to listen to Piper’s biographical messages delivered each year at his pastor’s conference. Of the ones I’ve listened to thus far, Adoniram Judson’s and Charles Simeon’s are two of my favorites.

Certain parts of these messages I simply haven’t been able to get out of my mind. Even reading some of the statements these men (and also Judson’s wife, Ann) have written themselves- my jaw drops. Here’s one by Simeon-

Repentance is in every view so desirable, so necessary, so suited to honor God, that I seek that above all. The tender heart, the broken and contrite spirit, are to me far above all the joys that I could ever hope for in this vale of tears. I long to be in my proper place, my hand on my mouth, and my mouth in the dust. . . . I feel this to be safe ground. Here I cannot err. . . . I am sure that whatever God may despise . . . He will not despise the broken and contrite heart.

Wow. That last part especially struck me- I am sure whatever God may despise, He will not despise the broken and contrite heart.

And Judson wrote the following sentence-

“If I had not felt certain that every additional trial was ordered by infinite love and mercy, I could not have survived my accumulated sufferings.”

Piper says of this-

“this deep confidence in God’s overarching providence through all calamity and misery sustained him to the end.”

And just for a glimpse into the kind of woman Ann was… This is what she wrote after their second child died (all three of their children died)-

“Our hearts were bound up with this child; we felt he was our earthly all, our only source of innocent recreation in this heathen land. But God saw it was necessary to remind us of our error, and to strip us of our only little all. O, may it not be vain that he has done it. May we so improve it that he will stay his hand and say ‘It is enough.’”

Piper says of this-

“I preach to produce mothers like that”

If you desire to do so, listening to these messages will give a more balanced look at these men’s lives, and perhaps give you a different look at suffering, but more importantly, may they spur you on in the cause of Christ.

All I once held dear, built my life upon
All this world reveres, and wars to own
All I once thought gain, I have counted loss
Spent and worthless now, compared to this
Knowing You, Jesus, knowing You
(“Knowing You” lyrics)