Comfort for Our Souls

Dannah Gresh: The providence of God might sound like a “churchy” idea that isn’t relevant to your life. But Bob Lepine says it’s more than just a philosophical theory.

Bob Lepine: If you don’t believe in the providence of God, your soul is programmed for misery; but believing in the providence of God is the great comfort for our souls.

Dannah: This is the Revive Our Hearts podcast with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, coauthor of You Can Trust God to Write Your Story, for April 19, 2022. I’m Dannah Gresh.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: I don’t know what kind of difficulty you may be facing right now. Maybe it’s physical or emotional or relational or financial. Regardless, today’s program is for you. If possible (I don't think this is probably true of very many people.) But maybe your life is all daffodils and butterflies right now. Let me say, if that's true of you right now, today’s program is for you as well, because the truth is, hard times will come at some point. You've been through them before, and you'll be through them again. As one poet famously put it: 

Into each life some rain must fall,
Some days must be dark and dreary.
("The Rainy Day")

It's not just the poet who says it. The Word of God teaches us that as well.

Yesterday on Revive Our Hearts, Bob Lepine acknowledged the reality of suffering and pain in our lives. He took us to Psalm 103 to remind us of God’s providential care over all of the universe, including you and me. If you missed yesterday’s episode, you’ll find it on the Revive Our Hearts app, or at our website, ReviveOurHearts.com. 

Bob is no stranger to the world of Christian broadcasting. He's the one who introduced me to the world of Christian broadcasting. He spent more than two decades as the cohost of FamilyLife Today. Now he’s serving as the teaching pastor of Redeemer Community Church in Little Rock, Arkansas. God used Bob in a really significant way to help give birth to Revive Our Hearts back in 2001. He’s served as a member of the advisory board of Revive Our Hearts ever since the very beginning.

Last fall he spoke to a group of Revive Our Hearts ministry partners. His message was titled “When Providence Brings Pain.” That message was really timely when he gave it, and I believe it is even more timely for many of us today.

We heard the first portion of this message yesterday when Bob explained that there were two misguided options in response to the suffering and trials we face. “Option one,” he said, “is imagining there’s no God.” Most of us don't take that option, but a lot of people do. The second option people can default to is what Bob called the “deist option.” People admit there’s a God, but they assume He’s just not involved in the small details of their lives. Most of us wouldn't say we believe that, but can you see how sometimes we live as if God doesn't really care about the small details of our lives? We don't want to take option number one or two.

But in the second portion of Bob's message which we are going to hear today, Bob talks about how the Scripture points us to a third way: not the image option, not the deist option,  but the Psalm 103 option. As we read in verse 19, "The Lord has established his throne in the heavens, and his kingdom rules over all." Now, let's listen to the second part of this message from Bob Lepine.

Bob: But the Bible points us to a third way. Not the imagine option, not the deist option, but to the Psalm 103 option: The Lord is in heaven, and He rules over all. 

R.C. Sproul famously put it this way.

If there is a single molecule in the universe running around loose, totally free of God’s sovereignty, then we have no guarantee that a single promise of God will ever be fulfilled.

God is sovereign over all, and if there’s anything outside of His sovereignty, then there is something greater than God, something beyond God’s grasp. He said,

To believe that there is a sovereign God, you have to believe in sovereignty.

The Psalm 103 option is the idea that all of the events and circumstances in our world are being governed and overseen by a God who is in control of what’s happening in our world, both in good times and in hard times.

One of the historical documents of the Protestant Reformation is the Westminster Confession of Faith. Some of you are familiar with this. It helps us understand key themes from the Bible. In the Westminster Confession of Faith, it talks about God’s sovereignty. In fact, I’ll read this to you slowly, just so you get an idea here.

From all eternity and by the completely wise and holy purpose of His own will, God has freely and unchangeably ordained whatever happens. God, who created everything, also upholds everything. He directs, regulates, and governs every creature, action, and thing, from the greatest to the least, by His completely wise and holy providence. He does so in accordance with His infallible foreknowledge and the voluntary, unchangeable purpose of His own will, all to the praise of the glory of His wisdom, power, justice, goodness, and mercy.

Whatever God is doing is good and right and perfect, even when we can’t see it in the moment. 

• The imagine option: there’s no God, the world is just spinning out of control.
• The deist option: there’s a God, but He’s not involved.
• The Psalm 103 option: God is in the heavens, ruling over the affairs of men. The Bible teaches that God is sovereign over the affairs of men; He’s providentially in control of all things.

Now, we should say, there’s a difference between sovereignty and providence. When we talk about God’s sovereignty, we’re saying that He has both the right and the power to rule and reign over His creation. He’s Creator. We belong to Him; everything belongs to Him. He’s sovereign over us. He has the right to control and direct whatever happens. We refer to kings as sovereigns. They have the right to rule over their realm. God is the sovereign over all creation.

Providence means that His sovereign power will be used to accomplish what is good and wise in our lives. 

We talk about His sovereignty, it’s His right to reign. His providence is the fact that we can depend on His sovereignty being wise and good in our lives. Providence means that everything we experience in life—everything—listen to this—everything you experience in life comes to you from the hand of a holy, wise, loving God who has filtered even the pain through His hands, for your good and for His glory.

Now, the word “providence” is not found in Scripture, but the idea of providence is all over Scripture. I’ll give you a handful of verses.

Psalm 135:5–6; the psalmist says, “For I know that the LORD is great, and that our LORD is above all gods. Whatever the LORD pleases he does, in heaven and on earth, in the seas and in all the deeps.”

Psalm 145:17, “The LORD is righteous in all his ways and kind in all his works.”

Psalm 33:10–11: “The LORD brings the counsel of the nations to nothing; he frustrates the plans of the people. The counsel of the LORD stands forever, the plans of his heart to all generations.”

In Daniel 4, where King Nebuchadnezzar, after God has chastised him for his pride and his arrogance, Nebuchadnezzar declares what is true about God. He says, “His dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom endures from generation to generation; all the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, he does according to his will amongst the hosts of the heavens and amongst the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay his hand or say to him, ‘What have You done?’” (vv. 34–35).

You see, He is sovereign, and He governs providentially. He’s in control; He can be trusted. John Calvin said, “Ignorance of the providence is the ultimate of all miseries. The highest blessedness lies in the knowledge of it.”

If you don’t believe in the providence of God, your soul is programmed for misery. But believing in the providence of God is the great comfort for our souls.

Again, what is happening right now, in your life, in our world, is coming from His hand. It’s under His control; it’s His doing.

The question we grapple with is, how can we look at suffering and even evil and say the Lord has allowed or the Lord has providentially ordained this? Well, of course, we know the answer is the Romans 8:28 answer, which you don’t want to toss out casually. When your friend comes to you and says, “I’m going through a hard time,” you don’t just smile and say, “Well, God works everything together for good for those who love the Lord,” right? You don’t just toss that out. But that doesn’t mean that promise is not true. “For we know that in all things God is working together for our good according to His purposes, for those who love Him, who are called according to His purposes.” 

He knows what He’s doing. He knows better than you what should be done, and the fact that His plan includes suffering does not make Him unwise or unloving or powerless, any more than when you took your two-year-old in for a measles shot and your two-year-old got the shot and that pain was inflicted in that moment, and that child looked up at you with this look of, “Mommy, why are you allowing this person to hurt me? I don’t understand!” They questioned your goodness in their little two-year-old brain. But you knew, “This is for your good. The pain will be for a moment, but there’s something bigger you don’t understand at age two that needs to happen for your protection, for your good.”

We are two-year-olds in the face of the providential pain we’re facing, saying, “Jesus, I don’t understand.”

And Jesus says, “Trust Me.” 

In fact, here’s the bottom line. Do you want to know the end of this whole message? How do we deal with the problem of pain? We believe God is loving and we trust Him even in the middle of it. That’s the only answer that is going to serve you or satisfy. It’s not always a satisfying answer, but it’s the answer the Bible gives us.

We could go through a whole host of verses, but you see it in the life of Joseph. You know the Joseph story, the last 15 chapters in Genesis, where his brothers are jealous, they beat him, and they throw him in the pit. He’s sold into slavery; he winds up in a prison in Egypt. He eventually becomes the prime minister and saves his family from famine in the providential care of God. We get to the end of the story of Joseph in Genesis, and there’s that famous verse where Joseph says,

“As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.” (Gen. 50:20)

“What you meant for evil, God meant for good.”

Did Joseph understand it when he was in the pit? Did he understand it when he was sold into slavery? Did he understand it when he was imprisoned? No. He got a chance, years later, to see God had a purpose in all of this.

We see providence in the life of Esther. Again, you know the story. This is not a famine, this is a pogrom, where a king is intending to wipe out all of the Jews. Esther is strategically placed in his court, and again, we know the verse where Mordecai says,

“If you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another place [God’s going to protect His people], but you and your father’s house will perish. And who knows whether you have not come into the kingdom for such a time as this?” (Est. 4:14)

“Esther, what you’re going through providentially, which is going to be hard and frightening, God has a purpose in this. Trust Him.”

We see it in the life of Job. Again, this is not genocide and famine, this is personal suffering that Job’s going through. It’s important for us to remember that the suffering comes to Job from Satan, but only with the permission of God. Satan had to go before God and get permission to sift Job, and God granted permission.

We think, Why did God do that? Because God has a purpose.

In Job 2, after he’s experienced his livestock being wiped out and his houses being burned and his children being killed, and he’s covered with sores from head to toe, and his wife says, “This is stupid; curse God and die.” Job says, “Shall we receive good from God and not receive evil?” (Job 2:10)

Think about that. We have no problem with God’s providence in the good days, do we? When what God gives is good, nobody says, “Why are You pouring out Your blessing like this on me, Lord?” Right? “Why did You make me stay at the Biltmore for three days?” (Laughter) Nobody said, “Why do I have to eat this dinner?” last night. No! We have no problem with the providence of God in goodness. It’s only when we start to feel the pain that we go, “God must not love me. He must not care about me.” We quickly forget God’s goodness.

The ultimate example of God’s providence, and wickedness being the purpose and plan of God, is Jesus on the cross. It was the most wicked act in all of history for the Son of God, the sinless Son of God, to be nailed to a cross and to be ridiculed and mocked in shame and to bear the pain and to ultimately have the Father turn His face away. Yet we read later, in Acts 2, where Peter in his sermon says,

Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. (Acts 2:23)

You did what you did on your own accord, but it was God’s providence, it was His plan. God had a purpose for this.

Later, in Acts 4,

“Truly, in this city there were gathered together against the holy servant Jesus, whom You anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, to do [God] whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place.” (v. 27)

God was in control of every act that took Jesus to the cross. It did not make any sense on Good Friday, when the disciples stood there and watched it happen and said, “How can this be?” But looking back, they could see the goodness of God.

When we get to the place where we are left wondering, How can God be good in the midst of this? we need to go where Paul goes at the end of Romans 11, when he says,

Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and how inscrutable His ways! "For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been His counselor? Or who has given a gift to him, that he might be repaid?" For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever and ever. Amen.” (vv. 33–36)

Remember at the end of the book of Job when Job asked God, “Can you explain why I just went through ______?” He starts off and says, “God, I think I’m owed an explanation!” There are a couple of chapters where Job is pouring out his, “God, why this and why that? This does not make any sense!” He’s just venting against God.

Then there comes a point (I think it’s chapter 37) where God says, “You done? Anything else you want to say? You done?”

Then He says, “Okay. Sit down. Who do you think you are? Who are you to question My wisdom? Did you make Leviathan?” These chapters of God, when He gets done, He dresses Job down by saying, “How can you question My goodness?”

To the point that Job, at the end of being dressed down, says,

“I know that you can do all things, and no purpose of yours can be thwarted. ‘Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?’ Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me which I did know.” (Job 42:2–3)

Job says, “I’m putting my hand over my mouth. I never should have brought a charge against the goodness of God, even in the midst of my suffering.” The secret things belong where? To the Lord.

We have to remember that there are going to be things that are going to happen in our lives that we’re not going to understand, that are going to be hard and painful. We may never know the purposes of it, but God calls us to believe that He loves us and to trust His goodness in the midst of that. That’s the Bible’s answer when trials come.

I’ve read on more than one occasion over the last couple of years that American Protestants do not have a very good theology of suffering. We’re not prepared for, we don’t think about why God may have accomplished His purposes through suffering. Most of us have become so accustomed to comfort and convenience and ease and plenty that we think that’s what we’re entitled to it.

Our brothers and sisters in other parts of the world understand suffering better than we do. There are people who are trusting and believing in Jesus today who, if you were living their lives, you would be crying out to God and saying, “Why is this terrible thing happening to me?” And they’re doing it with joy, because they know the goodness of God. They’ve experienced it in their lives.

Jesus is the one who tells us, “Expect suffering. Expect persecution.” Why should the slave be greater than his master? Why should the servant be greater? Everyone who lives a godly life will suffer, we’re told.

The question is, what do we do? How do we maintain hope and peace and love for others when trials come? Most of us, when trials come, our natural impulse is, “I want to display the fruit of the Spirit here.” No, our natural impulse—right? In the midst of pain and suffering, our impulse is grumble, murmur, cry out, shake our fists, “Woe is me.” Not, “How can I in the midst of this demonstrate love and joy and peace and patience and kindness and goodness and gentleness?”

Do you know the name William Cowper? William Cowper was a poet and a hymn writer in England in the 1700s, a good friend of John Newton. In fact, Newton pastored Cowper, who was troubled throughout his life with severe depression. He was at one point declared insane and put in an insane asylum. Three times Cowper tried to take his own life. He was a troubled soul.

We know him best today because he wrote,

There is a fountain filled with blood
Drawn from Emmanuel’s veins,
And sinners plunged beneath that flood
Lose all their guilty stains.

But a lesser-known hymn, the final hymn Cowper wrote, in 1773, was titled “Light Shining Out of Darkness.” We know it by the first line of the hymn, “God Moves in a Mysterious Way.” I’m going to read to you the verses of this, because this is Cowper, a man who was oppressed with depression and weight and heaviness, who tried to take his own life throughout his life. This is him processing the goodness of God in the midst of the suffering he went through throughout his life.

God moves in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform.
He plants His footsteps in the sea
And rides upon the storm.

Deep in unfathomable mines
Of never-failing skill
He treasures up His bright designs
And works His sovereign will.

Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take;
The clouds ye so much dread
Are big with mercy and shall break
In blessings on your head.

Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,
But trust Him for His grace;
Behind a frowning providence
He hides a smiling face.

His purposes will ripen fast,
Unfolding ev'ry hour.
The bud may have a bitter taste,
But sweet will be the flow'r.

Blind unbelief is sure to err
And scan his work in vain.
God is his own interpreter,
And he will make it plain.

I was thinking about that hymn. I started thinking about a song from forty years ago that Twila Paris wrote, called “Do I Trust You?” She says in that,

Sometimes my little heart can’t understand
What’s in Your will, what’s in Your plan.
So many times I’m tempted to ask You why,
But I can never forget it for long:
Lord, what You do could not be wrong.

So I believe, even when I must cry.
Do I trust You, Lord? Do the rivers flow?
Do I trust You, Lord? Does the north wind blow?
You can see my heart, You can read my mind,
And You’ve got to know I would rather die
Than to lose my faith in the one I love.
Do I trust You, Lord?

She ends it by saying, 

I will trust You, Lord, when I don’t know why;
I will trust You, Lord, till the day I die.
I will trust You, Lord, when I’m blind with pain;
You were God before, and You’ll never change.
I will trust You, Lord; I will trust You.

I can’t promise you a trial-free, pain-free life. In fact, I can promise you that there will be pain and hardship in your life. I can’t promise that in the face of pain and hardship you will understand God’s purposes. Here’s what I can promise you, because it’s what God has promised you from Isaiah.

“When you pass through the waters, I will be with you, and through the rivers; they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flames shall not consume you. For I am the LORD your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. . . . Fear not, I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.” (Isa. 43:2–3; 41:10)

There is no answer in this lifetime for the problem of pain and for us to understand everything that God’s doing, even when suffering is a part of it. The only answer is, do we believe He loves us? The Bible pledges—in fact, the word hesed, the Hebrew word for His steadfast love, is the most often-referred-to attribute of God in the Old Testament.

The Jews were not amazed that God was powerful or mighty or that He was full of justice or wrath, but they were amazed that He was a God of steadfast love. That’s His most-often-referred-to attribute. That’s what’s true about Him; His steadfast love endures forever. And our job is to trust Him even in the midst of the hardship and the pain.

Song: Twilla Paris

I will trust You, Lord, when I don’t know why;
I will trust You, Lord, till the day I die.
I will trust You, Lord, when I’m blind with pain;
You were God before, and You’ll never change.
I will trust You, Lord; I will trust You.¹

Dannah: A classic reminder from Twila Paris— really it’s a prayer, “I will trust you, Lord!” 

Before that, we heard from Revive Our Hearts advisory board member Bob Lepine, with a timely message for all of us, helping us make sense of the suffering and difficulties we encounter in life.

Nancy: What a great encouragement that message was to me the first time I heard it at the Revive Our Hearts partner gathering. I knew then that this was a message I wanted to share with our Revive Our Hearts listeners.

Bob is joining us again today in our virtual studio. Bob, thank you so much for that message shared with us out of the Scripture and out of the crucible of your own walk with the Lord.

Bob: I think all of us have seasons that we walk through where we need friends to come along and remind us of what is true and to put our hope in what's true instead of trying to rest on the shifting sand of the circumstances we find ourselves in.

Our prayer is that God might have used this message in that way in many hearts of listeners all across the country and around the world.

Nancy: I know He has done that.

When we talk about God's providence and pain, it really comes back to two words we use around here a lot: Heaven rules.

Some people would think that is a threatening thing. I guess if you don't trust God or you don't look to Him as your Lord, then you should be threatened by that. But for those who know and love Christ and know that He loves them, that's a comforting thought, that Heaven rules.

Bob: I know that's something you've been meditating on a lot. You've been writing a book on this subject that comes out this fall. I'm looking forward to having a chance to read what you've written from the book of Daniel on the subject that Heaven rules

As we were talking several months ago about the upcoming True Woman event in Indianapolis, September 22–24 and deciding what our theme should be for that event, those two words just reasonated with all of us—looking at the events in our world, what's going on in our country, what's going on internationally. It is easy to become fearful. It is easy to become anxious Unless we have the foundation in our hearts that God is in control, that ordains whatever comes to pass, that we can trust Him with whatever we are facing, we will find ourselves faltering.

So, I find that I am looking forward to the True Woman event September 22–24 in Indianapolis. The main sessions, both of you, Nancy and Dannah, are going to be speaking along with Mary Kassian. We'll have a message by Joni Eareckson Tada. We'll hear from Kay Arthur who will be joining us for the event. We'll hear from Keith and Kristyn Getty. There are breakouts that are happening with dozens of breakout subjects that i think are very practical and applicable for everyone who is coming.

This year for the first time there is a preconference happening on Thursday before the conference begins. We'll spend three hours looking at gender and sexuality and how we find clarity in a culture that is very confused on those subjects.

I think this is an important three-day gathering that is taking place in Indianapolis. I would hope that all of our listeners would look at their calendar and say, "How can I be there? And how can I get other women to join me to have our hearts refreshed and to call out to God in the midst of the turmoil we are experiencing?"

Nancy: In the providence of God, we had to cancel True woman '20. It's the first conference we've cancelled since we started in 2008. That wasn't our plan, but that was God's plan. Now I believe in God's providence, He is making it possible, Lord willing, for us to meet together, thousands of women live in Indianapolis and also by livestream around the world in multiple languages, women coming together the affirm that we really believe that heaven does rule.

Then to go from that place being women of hope, women who share the gospel with the world that desperately need it—women who pray, women who trust God to bring about His kingdom in this world, and His will to be done on this earth as it is in heaven.

I'm convinced that this is a really important weekend. Now is the time, Dannah, to get in on that registration because we have a special deal going on the price.

Dannah: The deadline for the reduced registration rate is just around the corner, April 30. I hope you'll register for True Woman 22: Heaven Rules, and visit us in Indianapolis. Visit ReviveOurHearts.com for all the details, or call us at 1-800-569-5959. 

Thanks again, Bob Lepine, for that beautiful message that strengthened my own heart.

Bob: Thank you both, and may God continue to keep His hand on bless the ministry of Revive Our Hearts.

Nancy: Thank you, Bob. We're so grateful for you.

It doesn’t matter how beautiful a structure looks from the outside. If the foundation isn’t solid, that building won’t stand. Years ago, just before the first True Woman conference in 2008, Revive Our Hearts put together a document called “The True Woman Manifesto.” In that document, we started with the foundation. We’ll examine that tomorrow. Please be back for Revive Our Hearts.

Even (or especially!) when providence brings pain, Revive Our Hearts with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth wants you to have freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.

All Scripture is taken from the ESV.

¹Twila Paris. “Do I Trust You.” The Warrior Is a Child, Released 1984 ℗ 1996 Provident Label Group, LLC. 

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