February 8, 2022 Show with Joseph Jacowitz on “Why We Suffer”

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio and the Program’s Purpose

Live from the historic parsonage of the 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron. This is a radio platform in which pastors, Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

Proverbs 27, verse 17 tells us, Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another. Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to have a view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions. And now, here's your host, Chris Arnzen.

Good afternoon, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com. This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Tuesday on this 8th day of February, 2022.

Joe Jackowitz’s Ministry Update and Health Testimony

I'm thrilled to have back on the program not only a returning guest, but a dear friend and also a key brother in Christ behind the airing of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. This is Joe Jackowitz, founder of First Love Publications, First Love Radio, and First Love Missions, and one of two pastors at Christ Bible Church in Dublin, California.

Today we are going to be hearing a health update from Pastor Joe, a cancer survivor, and we're also going to be hearing Joe speak on the theme, Why We Suffer, and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, my dear friend, Pastor Joe Jackowitz.

Thank you so much, Chris. What a blessing it is to be with you again. It's been many months, but I haven't answered much prayer.

Amen.

Well, before we go into your health update and also your major theme on why we suffer, tell our listeners about First Love Publications, First Love Radio, and First Love Missions.

Well, the publications, radio, and missions are part of the overall ministry of First Love Ministries, and there are, on many different radio, Summary Voice and firstloveradio .org, short-term mission trips into different countries like Kenya, Nigeria, and Bible conference, you'd inform and train the gospel.

We do that. We've been, the last couple of years because of the pandemic, we haven't been doing as many conferences, but we've resumed it. Last November, we went to Nigeria with two of our team members, and we're back in the swing of things in terms of holding conferences.

We also have Nigeria that represents 1994. And then Grace Bible University is the newest ministry that offers a Bachelor of Theology degree.

Great, and you left something very important out of your description of these ministries. What about Iron Sharpens Iron Radio?

It crossed my mind, but I was trying to get to all of them. Of course, your program is our bedrock program. It's our anchor program of First Love Radio on from 1 to 3 p .m., West Coast, 4 to 6 p .m., Monday through Friday, and we're thrilled to have you on, and certainly probably our most well-known and popular program.

Well, I appreciate that very much. And so how long ago was it that you, in fact, if I'm not mistaken, I think I was the first person you told this news to. It could even have been before you told your wife, but it was in your car, I think, on your cell phone, when you told me you were diagnosed with cancer.

How long ago was that, and what type of cancer were you diagnosed with? And give us your health update on all that.

Well, it was in August of 2019 that my doctor in therapy for Lord Bless Me came back, and my doctor's next level of, and while recovering from the bone marrow transplant, embolism, blood clots over the last year, actually.

So my bone marrow, too, so months ago, and I've been cancer-free for the last probably five months.

Hallelujah.

I know, praise God, this donor is from Europe, and they have to take his or hers stem cells. I don't know who the person is, and they have to fly it over here within 36 hours and give it to me while it's still fresh and active.

So, you know, I've suffered a great deal of physical pain and emotional and spiritual trauma that's really difficult to describe. I feel as if my body, mind, and spirit has been torn down to their core and rebuilt from scratch.

It feels like I've been turned inside out and every part of my being has been intensely scrutinized by God, physically, spiritually.

Suffering as Discipline, Sanctification, and Shared Comfort

Well, let's hear about some of that. Was there ever any things that you care to discuss publicly that you were going through, such as a doubt of God's love for you, a doubt that you were truly regenerate?

Did you ever view yourself as being punished or even chastised? You know, tell us about some of that.

Oh, absolutely. I wouldn't be human if I didn't face those tears. I've learned many, many spiritual truths. I already knew him for years as a pastor for 38 years. Other truths have banded that I already knew, and some I learned that I didn't know before.

But I've come to the firm conviction that God's plan and purpose for the suffering of the saints is not as superficial or shallow that we realize. Suffering is not some gadfly that you can just swat away and it won't come back again.

No, I'm of the firm conviction now that suffering is central in God's plan for the growth and sanctification and education of the church. I've concluded that most Christians don't understand the deeper purpose of suffering.

That's why when severe trials and pain occur, so many Christians don't know how to handle it. They fall apart, let alone understand and benefit from it, which is God's intention. At 66 years old, Chris, I didn't expect to return to certain fundamentals of the faith, like pain and suffering.

Oh, yeah, I know all about that. Let's put that behind us. And when it comes, then let's try to hold on for dear life until it passes and then move on. But then learning in the school of Christ is a lifelong process.

And I've learned too much in this journey over the last two years, dealing with the bone marrow transplant and leukemia, to share with you in one message about suffering. But if you'll just indulge me, I'll share the biggest thing God taught me, spiritually, emotionally and otherwise, through suffering, which is a two-fold principle.

Most of the components of suffering are connected. But before I go on with this, Chris, on behalf of my wife, Sherry, and I, I really want to express my deepest heartfelt thanks and gratitude to you and to your listeners for your prayers and intercessions and letters and cards and emails and many expressions of love and support that all of you have shown me, whoever you may be.

Thank you so much. God bless you. And he's answered your prayers.

Amen. Amen. It's so, such a relief and such a reason for celebration to hear this news, brother.

Yes, well, I'm just, every morning, one thing I do is spend Thanksgiving just for the joy of life, like making it through the night. Let me just briefly summarize. Very broad subject, obviously, which has many components attached to it.

I don't want to oversimplify it because there are many paths we could travel down. In the Bible, if a Christian is shocked by suffering, a really hard time in getting over that shock or a really long time, then that Christian is probably weak in the faith.

Because every Christian suffers. If you don't suffer, I think you're not a Christian. As followers in this world, you will have trouble. You will have tribulation, but take heart, I have overcome the world.

Christians suffer for a variety of reasons, including many of the same reasons non-Christians suffer. Life on this broken planet can be difficult for some of the same reasons Jesus did. If the world hates you, you know that it hated me before it hated you, Jesus said.

So suffering, God's original creation, everything he created was very good, but sin corrupted the world because of Adam's disobedience. It has a rippling effect, it harms others, and their sin harms us, even when we've done nothing wrong in the ugliness in our world, nor does it protect us from the natural temporal consequences of sin.

So there's a lot of reasons for suffering. One of them is as a form of discipline. We all know that, you made reference to that, where Hebrews 12 talks about, My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord, nor be discouraged when you're rebuked by him for whom the Lord loves.

He chastens and scourges every son. God deals with you as with sons. Be part of financial stress. When you're under financial pressure, this may feel like suffering, but it could be intended to produce godly character in a person.

I don't know anything about that stress.

No, you wouldn't know anything about that. But some people, I'm not suggesting you are, but some people put so much importance on money, and God teaches them a lesson. Obviously, suffering, or joy, when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith, and let perseverance finish its work, that you may be mature and complete, that is, in your character, lacking nothing.

Suffering also enables Christians to identify with others who suffer, such as the God of all comfort, who comforts us in our troubles, so that we may comfort those that we receive from God. Closer to God.

We often seem to grow most when we go through difficult times. Some of our brethren, I'm sure, listening, have been crying out to God for many years, Lord, give me a closer walk with you, and may not realize that he's using suffering and long-term, ongoing crosses that they must carry, connected with pain and suffering, to deepen their consistent walk with God.

Also, suffering reminds us that this world is not our home. Christians who live in more affluent parts of the world, like the United States, may find it harder to long for heaven from their impoverished brothers and sisters.

Comfortable, Chris, eternity is only a glimmer far in the future. But when Christians suffer persecution, or privation, or poverty, eternity starts to become the brightest light in their lives. And God always uses pain and suffering for our good, and his glory.

As we read about in the Bible, all things work together for good to them that love God. And he says he does not afflict willingly, and that all of him, and through him, and by him, through the men. All God's purposes in suffering are constructive, formative, and positive.

But most believers don't see it that way, or even understand this. I've counseled so many people who I had to start from scratch in explaining to them and correct their misunderstanding about what suffering is and the purpose of suffering as taught in the Bible.

Have you ever noticed, Chris, the response of some believers when they suffer? For many, the first thing they say as a knee-jerk reaction, without pausing or even thinking about it, is, Why? Lord, why is this happening to me?

Now that response speaks a lot to our perspective. But setting aside the emotional reaction to the pain that we experience becomes a huge statement on our understanding of suffering. There's an enormous lack of sound teaching on suffering today in the churches.

And it's causing confusion and frustration, and even some believers blaming God and impugning His motives and questioning His love for His people. So my question would be for your listeners, What is your perspective on suffering?

How do you respond to pain, deprivation, and unexpected changes that cause pain when they happen? Or your plans when they are ruffled or overturned? Do you blame God as if He did something wrong by allowing pain and inconvenience and tragedy in your life?

You see, our response to suffering is a barometer on our perspective on suffering.

Now let me ask you a question briefly, if you don't mind me interrupting you. When you said that very often, if not most often, you see the first response of brothers and sisters in Christ who are going through a trial involving suffering.

Their first response is, Why? Now isn't that a good thing unless somebody is saying, Why me? Like they are so righteous they would never deserve anything like this. That would be a wrong kind of why. But isn't wondering why a good thing?

Because as you said before, although we as Reformed Christians and even better yet as Biblical Christians, we abhor and reject as satanic heresy the lies of the Word of Faith movement that says whenever anybody is sick or going through a financial trial or any kind of a trial, it is rooted in their weak faith.

That they don't have a strong enough faith which would always result in non-stop pristine health and wealth and prosperity. We reject that. But at the same time, as you mentioned earlier, God does chasten those whom he loves.

And isn't it good for us to use this as a time of reflection? What am I perhaps doing that the Lord is getting my attention through this illness? Or have I been deceiving myself to think that a certain kind of behavior, activity, thought process is really benign or acceptable when it really isn't?

We have to see and examine ourselves to see if we are deceiving ourselves. And on and on I could go. Isn't it a healthy question why?

Yeah.

Well, why me when trials, it's a bad response if we never get over it and we don't adjust our perspective and trust in God and cast our care upon him. But it's a bad response if we become bitter and resentful in days and physically suffering that we're going through.

We could become morbidly introspective, as they say.

Yes, we could be so morbidly introspective that we're looking for comfort and consolation in other sources than in the peace and joy and contentment that the Holy Spirit has the means of being able to bear the trial because some trials and suffering will be permanent in nature.

So what do you do then? Hosea, the Lord tells Israel to bring forth their strong... There's a Lord in another, I think it's in Isaiah, Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. The Lord says to him, Take away all iniquity.

Receive us graciously. So God wants us to wrestle with him when we experience painful trials, but not be disrespectful, not blame God, not for interrupting our plans and bringing pain into our life. Nothing happens randomly in our lives.

God is sovereign, and he even uses Satan as a source of chastisement without being connected to any kind of sin or bad motives. And so there's a deep, deep mystery connected with suffering. It's not an overly simplistic thought or teaching in the Bible, and we need to be acquainted with the various aspects of suffering before we go off half-cocked blaming God or becoming embittered.

But eventually, as soon as possible, we need to make a huge adjustment in our perspective and understand that suffering is a normal part of life. There's a reason and purpose for it that actually God brought into our life.

This pain and suffering finds us where we're at, where we're living, interrupts our life, so it's forth an education process and a teaching moment that trains us on a spiritual level that we have not been listening to or aware of for a very long time.

God’s Sovereignty, Job, and the Hidden Wisdom of God

Now let me also clarify a couple of other things. You rightly say we shouldn't blame God when we are suffering, but isn't there an enormous difference, a chasm of difference, between blaming God and acknowledging that our suffering is divinely ordained by him?

It comes from his hand. It has been predestined. It has been something that God didn't one day think. I'm going to send some suffering Joe Jackowitz's way. I didn't think of this before, but I'm going to send suffering this year into his life.

This isn't something, a new thought to God. God is immutable. He never changes. This is something that he even knew he was going to bring into your life before the foundations of the world. So isn't there a difference between blaming God and acknowledging that all things come from his hand?

Yes, there's a big difference in one's attitude. If you're blaming God, you tend to get or grow in bitterness and begin to rail against God, but to acknowledge he's sovereign in a humble and substantive way is altogether.

And a good case study of that is Job in the book of Job. The book of Job was written for many different reasons. One of those reasons, the deeper theology of suffering and to look under the rug and examine the real heart and core of the purpose of suffering.

As you know, Chris, Job went through many aspects of suffering. Health was taken from him. His body was filled with boils so that he rested eventually on an ash heap. He put on sackcloth and ashes. His ten children were killed and taken from him.

And all of his possessions were stolen. And he had nothing left. God told him, make his life. His life was the only thing he had left. But emotionally, spiritually, and physically, he was barely alive.

But if you go to the end of the book of Job, towards chapters 38 to 41, there's a long soliloquy in which Job just pours out his heartache and his frustration. And it says, in all of this, that is, in all of Job's suffering,.

And he did not sin in his response to this.

In his response to his suffering.

Yes. In fact, there was, when I worked for a major Christian radio station for 15 years, there was a married couple that were husband and wife pastor team of a heretical Word of Faith movement church.

Clinton and Sarah Utterbach. And as my friend, now in heaven, Nigel Stone from England, used to call them the Utter Rots. Utter R-O-T-S. But they were horribly heretical. And they actually accused Job of sinning when he proclaimed, the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.

And even though the scriptures, the God-breathed scriptures say that he did not, in all this, he did not sin. They still said he was sinning. Because that doesn't jive with their Word of Faith heresy that if you have a strong enough faith, these things wouldn't ever happen to you.

That's right. The theology of the doctrine of suffering is so clear throughout the Bible. And so deep. On a level of expansiveness and depth, health, wealth and prosperity for everybody, is very shallow.

It cannot reach square one in terms of benefiting and profiting from the spiritual growth and lessons God wants to teach you. If you don't embrace suffering in a positive way, and you see God as a faithful, loving Father, using pain and suffering to bring you to a place of greater faith and love for God and peace with God, through that suffering.

You don't reach those places of growth and maturity if you don't see suffering in a biblical light and in a formative, positive way as a tool and instrument in God's hand to help you grow.

In fact, we have to go to our first break right now. If anybody would like to join us on the air with a question for Pastor Joe Jakowitz, on suffering especially, but since he is a pastor, we will allow other questions of a pastoral nature, theological nature, etc.

Our email address is chrizarnsen at gmail .com C-H-R-I-S-A-R-N-Z-E-N at gmail .com. As always, give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence, if you live outside of the USA.

Don't go away. We'll be right back with Pastor Joe Jakowitz on why we suffer right after these messages from our sponsors.

Sponsor Messages and Program Appeals

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And we hope as many of you who can make it attend this event. I look forward to meeting you. If you just tuned us in, our guest today is Pastor Joe Jackowitz, founder of First Love Radio, First Love Publications, First Love Missions, and First Love Ministries.

And he's also one of the pastors at Christ Bible Church of Dublin, California. We are addressing why we suffer. And our email address, if you have a question for Pastor Jackowitz, is chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

Chrisarnsen at gmail .com. Give us your first name at least, city and state, and country of residence. Pastor Joe, we were just speaking about the correct reason to approach God in the midst of suffering and say why.

Not the why me, as if we are so righteous that we don't deserve any harsh thing from God's hand. But a why just so we may be guided by the word of God and by his revealing to us throughout the activities in our lives and our thought processes what we may be doing that warrants chastisement, if indeed that's the case.

Because, as we said earlier, we both abhor the vile and satanic teaching of the word of faith movement that says anybody who is sick or anybody who is going through a financial struggle, it's all because they don't have an appropriate level of faith.

That is a lie from the pit of hell. But at the same time, sometimes even believers, even the most seasoned believers, require chastisement. And it is not always because of that either. Isn't it true that the sicknesses and the suffering that we often go through in life as Christians may have nothing at all to do with chastisement?

Absolutely correct. They've been blind. They've been oblivious to the whole area of sin that they are completely unaware of. Sometimes God would be trying to get to them or there could be something to teach them and they just keep missing the point because they're basing their response on an assumption that pain and suffering is to be resisted and rejected as much as possible, as fast as possible.

Now, nobody likes pain and suffering. I don't. Nobody does. But we have to look underneath at the dynamic that God is creating and driving in our lives to draw our attention and to ask the questions that we would not normally ask and to go very, very deep, into places of our spiritual man that we would normally not go to in terms of self-examination in our daily lives.

In fact, I think that you love the 19th century Reformed Anglican Bishop J .C. Ryle. You love him as much as I do. And a profound statement, he said, amongst many profound statements he makes in the excellent booklet Sickness by J .C. Ryle, which you can get at chapellibrary .org chapellibrary .org at a very inexpensive cost.

And other publishers have brought that back into print, too. But J .C. Ryle, in that booklet, the thing that is etched in my memory about that booklet is when Ryle says, Jesus was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.

None have such an opportunity of learning the mind of a suffering Savior as suffering disciples. I just love that quote by Ryle.

Well, he's right, and I love what Spurgeon says. Quote, I think that health is the greatest blessing that God ever sends us. Sent by Ryle, and I would someone or self-value a dynamic at work that we're not aware of.

And we don't see, we don't perceive this dynamic most of the time. That's the case in a point with much of my counseling, because any pastor who counsels will eventually be confronted with the reasons for suffering and the purpose for it in their lives.

It's natural for humans to want to be pain-free. So what could possibly benefit a person to be in constant pain and suffering, people think? The Bible has a lot to say about the subject of suffering and provides the answers.

And so there's a two-fold purpose of suffering. The first purpose, guisement or persecution or any form of pain physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually, and the results of pain. And many just grin and bear it and bear the pain without learning anything spiritually from the process.

This is where most believers live. And many of these dear folks, in seeking to understand why they suffer, look in all the wrong places for answers. The billion-dollar Christian publishing and media industry peddles its reasons and remedies for suffering, while themselves being one of their biggest selling themes on radio, in broadcasting, in print media, on social media, is the topic of suffering because everybody suffers and people want answers, but so few understand the purpose of it and have a biblical perspective on it in terms of the key, two-fold purpose of suffering.

But most people are not getting answers, though, when they seek answers by reading these how-to books on suffering. And billions of dollars are spent on their books and their teachings, their CDs, their media.

But they should rather look to the Scripture and the wisdom of God. These other sources mostly, not all, but mostly offer psychology in how-to books. Meanwhile, the poor Christian is left on the ash heap of confusion and pain with no answers.

People need spiritual learning. They're locked in to the one signal, the one frequency, and it is that of pain. And when the pain goes away, they move on without benefiting because they weren't listening, looking for any spiritual discovery.

I call it inward discovery because it's not a truth learned by pain or any other outward process of learning, such as intellectual, mental, or a cognitive process of learning and comprehension. This is the first type of purpose of suffering, to cause pain, to get the believer's attention.

Now, when I say inward, it's because it is that is taught to the inner man, the heart. I say discovery because you can discover it. It's something you discover. It's nothing you can learn in a classroom.

It's something that you didn't know before, something you were oblivious to, something that was hidden to you.

It really is.

A spiritual epiphany revealed to your spiritual man by the Spirit of God. Now, Chris, before you ask the question, I'm not talking about a second level of grace or a super-Christian or a second work of sanctification where you're receiving direct revelation from God.