One of the hardest lessons we have to learn as Christians is how to be joyful in the midst of suffering and pain. Today, R.C. Sproul reminds us where to anchor our hope in a groaning world. Request R.C. Sproul’s devotional The Advent of Glory, his book Can I Have Joy in My Life?, and lifetime digital access to his teaching series Joy—all for your donation of any amount: https://gift.renewingyourmind.org/3710/joy Travel with Ligonier on the 2025 Caribbean Study Cruise: Join us in Dallas for a free event, Renewing Your Mind Live: Meet Today’s Teacher: R.C. Sproul (1939–2017) was known for his ability to winsomely and clearly communicate deep, practical truths from God’s Word. He was founder of Ligonier Ministries, first minister of preaching and teaching at Saint Andrew’s Chapel, first president of Reformation Bible College, and executive editor of Tabletalk magazine. Meet the Host: Nathan W. Bingham is vice president of ministry engagement for Ligonier Ministries, executive producer and host of Renewing Your Mind, host of the Ask Ligonier podcast, and a graduate of Presbyterian Theological College in Melbourne, Australia. Nathan joined Ligonier in 2012 and lives in Central Florida with his wife and four children. Renewing Your Mind is a donor-supported outreach of Ligonier Ministries. Explore all of our podcasts: https://www.ligonier.org/podcasts
Hi, Nathan W. Bingham here. Before we get to today's episode, I wanted to make you aware of an upcoming travel opportunity with other listeners of Renewing Your Mind and friends of Ligonier, a Caribbean study cruise that sets sail next February. I'll be there, and Dr. Derek Thomas and Pastor Ken Jones will be our teachers as they lead us through the rich theological truths of Galatians 3.
Enjoy eight days of teaching, refreshment, and fellowship when you travel with us on this Caribbean study cruise. You can learn more and register at ligoniertours.com. I hope to see you there. Now on to today's episode.
There is a time limit that God has established on our pain and on our sorrow and on our grief and our afflictions, after which we will enter into a condition where pain will be no more, no more tears, no more pain, no more anxiety, no more sorrow, no more adversity.
Although there are many moments in life that are filled with great joy, there are also moments, even seasons perhaps, that can be filled with grief, sorrow, and pain. So how do we count it all joy and have this fruit of the Spirit in those seasons? Hi, I'm Nathan W. Bingham, and welcome to the Tuesday edition of Renewing Your Mind.
The world pursues pleasure, whereas the Christian is a person of joy, even in the midst of what could seem like unbearable or hopeless circumstances. How is that possible, and how can we cultivate that joy? Well, here's Dr. Sproul to remind us that we are to count it all joy.
One of the hardest lessons that we have to learn as Christians is how to be joyful in the midst of pain and in the midst of suffering. Remember, James tells us, count it all joy when you enter into sufferings and trials and tribulations. When I hear James say that, I pick up on the word that he gives at the beginning when he says, count it all joy.
Now, what does he mean when he says, count it all joy? It's one thing to have joy and be in a state of joy and to be rejoicing, and it's another thing to count it as such. The word or the concept here is the idea of reckoning or of considering or of deeming something.
That is, even when we're not feeling joyful about the sufferings we're enduring, we are called upon to count it, that is, consider it. as a matter of joy.
Not because the thing itself we are enduring is something that is pleasurable, but rather the reason we are to count it joy is because, as James tells us, as Peter tells us, as the whole New Testament tells us, that tribulation and pain and suffering work patience within us. so that there is at least something good happening to us even in the midst of pain and suffering and affliction.
And the idea of considering it is what we're called to do is to think about it, to think about our circumstances. As difficult as they may be to bear, they are not an exercise in futility. that God has a purpose for the afflictions we are called upon to bear. And that purpose is always good.
When we talked much earlier about the providence of God, I made a distinction borrowed from Dr. John Gerstner about different kinds of bad and different kinds of good. And Dr. Gerstner makes a distinction between bad-bad and good-bad. And what he means by good-bad is bad things that if considered in and of themselves are destructive and bad, nevertheless, they can be the occasion for good.
How else can God say to us that He works all things together for our good? to those who believe in Him and love Him and are called according to His purpose. So that what James is saying to us here when he says, count it all joy, when it's not all joy because it isn't all joy to be involved in pain and suffering, but we are to consider it as an occasion for rejoicing, knowing.
But God is working in that situation for our sanctification and for our glorification and for our eternal felicity. In a sense, in order to be able to count these earthly sorrows and afflictions as matters of joy, we have to cultivate the ability of thinking in terms of the future. Sometimes the Christian's hope of heaven is ridiculed and mocked in our day as being hung up with pie in the sky.
Paul says it's not worthy to compare the temporal moments of anguish and suffering that we go through with the joy that has been laid up for us in heaven. But in the moment, it's hard, it's hard to keep your eye on the future.
I mentioned before a dear Christian friend of mine, an old lady who died of cancer, and she was marked by such a buoyant spirit, so ebullient in her personality, and was a delight to be around. And I visit her in the hospital when she was undergoing chemotherapy at the time. And she was a little bit down. She wasn't her normal, buoyant, cheerful self. And I said, Dora, how are you doing?
And she looked at me, and a tear was in her eye, and she said, R.C., it's hard to be a Christian with your head in the toilet. Right. And then she laughed, and her joy came and the spark came right back in her eyes and so on. But boy, could I relate to that.
And I've thought of that phrase that she said to me, when you're sick and you just feel wretched and you ache and you hurt, it's hard to feel a whole lot of joy. And Paul understands that, and he says we have to go through those periods and we have to endure them, but remembering all the while
that there is a time limit that God has established on our pain and on our sorrow and on our grief and our afflictions, after which we will enter into a condition where pain will be no more, no more tears, no more pain, no more anxiety, no more sorrow, no more adversity. That does sound like pie in the sky. But I'm afraid we've lost our taste for that pie.
That's at the very heart of the Christian faith, that this world is not our home, that we are simply passing through. We haven't reached our final destination. And if we think that life will always be pain and sorrow, then we are of all people the most miserable, because we would be without hope. And hope is called the anchor of the soul in the New Testament.
You know, again, the New Testament says that if you are without Christ, you are ultimately without hope. And I've often said, when I struggle with life as a Christian, how do people who aren't Christians make it? How do they endure without the hope that is ours of the joy that has been stored up for us in heaven?
So what we have to do is, again, in the midst of our pain and affliction, focus our attention on the promise of God and look to the future that He has guaranteed for His people. Now, one of the characters who displays this, I think, more poignantly and graphically than anybody else in all of the Old Testament is the prophet Habakkuk. Remember Habakkuk, he was in a dour mood.
He was very unhappy and was not particularly joyful when he saw his whole nation being ravaged by a foreign power. And this created all kinds of theological difficulties for him. And in a real sense, Habakkuk suffered a crisis of faith. And so what did he say? I'm going to go up into my watchtower, and I'm going to start putting my fist in God's face, and I'm going to say, why God?
How can you allow these things to happen? He said, how can you let all this evil and all this suffering go on in this world? Aren't you too holy as to even behold iniquity? And so he goes into his watchtower and he demands an explanation from God for all this pain and suffering in the world. Then in the third chapter of the book of Habakkuk, we hear the response of Habakkuk to the presence of God.
God comes to his mournful prophet, and God presents himself to Habakkuk in a way that was quite similar to the way God came to Job when Job was in the midst of his agony. Now, when God speaks to Habakkuk, I want you to consider for a moment Habakkuk's response. He said, When I heard...
My body trembled, my lips quivered at the voice, and rottenness entered my bones, and I trembled in myself, that I might rest in the day of trouble. When He comes up to the people, He will invade them with His troops." Now here he talks about being overcome by the message of God to the point that his body is shaking, it's trembling. His lip is quivering.
Have you ever seen a baby or an infant, a young child, when you see that lip start to quiver and you know what's going to come next? You know they're trying not to cry, but the quivering lip is the dead giveaway. You know they're not going to make it. Then in just any second, the tears are going to start to flow. And this is how he describes himself. Rottenness entering into his bones.
But that's not where the story ends. Let me, before I go to the next portion of the text, remind you that there is a text, a short phrase in the book of the prophet Habakkuk that is quoted three times in the New Testament. And one of those three times, it is used as a thematic statement by the Apostle Paul in his greatest theological work, the Epistle to the Romans.
And if you don't remember it, let me remind you of it. It is the statement that the just shall live by faith. The just shall live by faith. Let me just put a little spin, different spin on that. That could be translated this way. The righteous shall live by trust. And what does it mean to live by faith? other than to trust in God.
It's not just a question of believing in God or believing that God exists, that is the life of faith, but the life of faith is characterized by believing God, trusting God. I have this conversation with myself every time I'm afraid and every time I'm grieving or fearful. I say, R.C., do you really trust God?
Not do you believe in Him, but do you believe Him when He promises you that this is for good and this is for your ultimate salvation? Only if we can believe God can we maintain joy in the midst of hardship. Now, having said that, Let's look at the response of Habakkuk in chapter 3 at verse 17.
He makes this statement, "'Though the fig tree may not blossom, nor fruit beyond the vines, though the labor of the olive may fail, and the fields yield no food,' Though the flock may be cut off from the fold, and there be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord. I will joy in the God of my salvation.
Now that may seem a little strange to our ears and foreign to our thinking because Habakkuk lived so long ago and in such a different cultural environment from ours. We don't lose sleep at night worrying about the blossoming of figs. We don't worry about whether the oil crop will fail, do we? But consider that this man was a Jew. And the basic economy of Israel was agricultural.
And some of the most important products then and now, but particularly then, were the products that came from the fruit of the fig tree and particularly from the olive tree from which the Jews derived their oil, which had all kinds of commercial uses in the land.
And in addition to that, they lived not only by growing figs and olive trees from which they harvested the oil, but also the agricultural production of grapes was crucial for the Jewish people. All their wine came from grapes. You go out to the Napa Valley in California, and you can see how grape vines can be extremely important to a region's economy.
If those grapevines are attacked, if they are poisoned, or if they are destroyed by some kind of natural calamity, the whole region suffers from the economic loss of it. And if people weren't involved in vineyards and so on, they were maintaining flocks. If you go over to Palestine today, you will see the Bedouins out in the desert taking care of their flocks. Their livestock was crucial.
And he's saying, look, no blossoms on the fig tree, no fruit on the vines, the labor of the olive fails, and the fields yield no food, the flock is cut off from the fold, and there's no herd in the stalls. Translate that into modern terms.
Though the farming industry collapses, though the stock market crashes, though the automobile industry goes belly up, though the technological industries of computers and so on explode, though all of these things happen, nevertheless, I will rejoice in the God of my salvation. I will joy in Him. And then he goes on to say why in verse 19. The Lord God is my strength.
He will make my feet like hinds feet and make me to walk in high places. Now what's that mean? He will make my feet like hind's feet. You mean my front feet will become like back feet? No. He's speaking in the archaic language there of the feet of the deer.
that is so sure-footed that can move like the mountain goat on high and dangerous places where the ground is filled with loose gravel and where they have to cross narrow ridges without falling off into destruction. God will make my feet like the feet of a deer or the feet of a mountain goat. and cause me to walk in high places." I love that imagery. Even though all of these calamities befall us,
though the nation is ravaged, we're defeated in war, pestilence, disease, crime affects everything. Nevertheless, I'm not going to be cast down into the valley, but rather God will make my feet like the feet of a deer, sure-footed, swift, able to ascend into the high and to the holy places. That's what Habakkuk means when he says, the just shall live by faith.
That's the basis for the joy that we have as Christians. Sometimes we use the expression that we have two left feet. Well, a deer has two left feet, and so does a mountain goat have two left feet, unless they've lost one of their legs. They also have two right feet. And it really wouldn't be a disadvantage to have two left feet if we also had two right feet so that we could be more stable.
as we progress through the dangerous and rocky places of life. But that's what Habakkuk is saying to us today. He will give us that kind of stability, even in the midst of calamity, if we will turn our attention to Him and place our trust upon Him. In whom does the deer trust? And in whom does the mountain goat trust?
When he goes up mountains that we would only ascend with ropes and axes and that kind of equipment, and we see these animals so sure-footed walking in such dangerous places, Not that they're trusting consciously in God, but by instinct they're trusting their Creator, and they venture into dangerous places because of what God has given to them. And so we are called.
not to be afraid to go to the valley of the shadow of death or into dangerous rocky places, as long as we trust in Him who promises to make our feet as the feet of deer.
and His promises are trustworthy. This is the Tuesday edition of Renewing Your Mind, and that was R.C. Sproul from his series, Joy. R.C. Sproul said today that when he was afraid or fearful, he would have a conversation with himself to remind himself of the truths he taught us today.
So this series is one I expect you may want to return to again and again to be reminded of the promises of God and the duty to have joy in the midst of sorrow. You can unlock digital access to this series. Plus, we'll send you his title, Can I Have Joy in My Life? and his Christmas devotional, The Advent of Glory, when you give a donation of any amount in support of Renewing Your Mind.
Simply call us at 800-435-4343, visit renewingyourmind.org, or use the link in the podcast show notes. Respond early to get the devotional in time for Christmas and know that your support makes Renewing Your Mind possible. Give today at renewingyourmind.org. Thank you. Before we go, I'd like to invite you to a free event on Thursday night. It's in Dallas, Texas on November 14.
It's called Renewing Your Mind Live, and it's an opportunity for us to thank you for listening. and to give thanks to God for 30 years of broadcasting truth through Renewing Your Mind. Stephen Nichols and Derek Thomas will be joining us to teach on Romans 12.2, the verse where we get the name of this program.
We'll have a Q&A session so you can ask your biblical and theological questions or questions about Renewing Your Mind. Mrs. Sproul is planning to attend, and you'll have the opportunity to meet other listeners. Meet me, plus there'll be giveaways. This is a free event, but due to limited capacity, registration is required. You can learn more and register at renewingyourmind.org slash Dallas.
And I hope to see you on Thursday night or in other cities across the United States throughout 2025. We'll be sure to let you know when future dates are announced. And again, thank you for listening to Renewing Your Mind as we celebrate 30 years of broadcasting truth. Next time, R.C. Sproul will ask a simple question that has a profound answer. How do you spell joy?
See you tomorrow here on Renewing Your Mind.