Jacob Tanner: Puritan Wisdom for Joyful Suffering DMW#233

Exploring theology, doctrine, and all of the fascinating subjects in between, broadcasting from an undisclosed location, Dead Men Walking starts now. I don't know what's going on there. Huh. What is going on with the camera today?

I mean, I'm getting a little bit of, you know, I'm looking at myself here, guys, as we record, obviously, audio and video. And I'm getting like a little bit of a sheen there. I don't know. Well, hopefully, we'll work it out in post.

It seems to be in autofocus. But guys, welcome back to another episode of Dead Men Walking podcast. I'm your host, Greg. You can find us at dmwpodcast .com, anywhere on social media. Twitter, X, is Real DMW Podcast.

And you can support the show there. Check out the merch. We appreciate it. So, yeah, another week, another podcast. But before we get into it, I want to talk about Apologetics Live podcast. Andrew Rappaport, love this brother in the Lord.

He does a live stream every single Thursday, just about every single Thursday, 8 to 10 p .m. Eastern Standard Time. And it's basically Ask Andrew Anything. And he's an apologist. And you can go on there and ask him all sorts of doctrinal questions, theology questions, eschatology.

I mean, you think it, he will listen and answer it. People go on there, try to stump him. I haven't seen it happen yet. But Andrew Rappaport at apologeticslive .com. You can click the link in the description below.

Go check him out. It's a live show. It's absolutely awesome. We love our boy, Andrew Rappaport, over there. So go check it out. He's part of the Christian podcast community as well, too. So you can check out that at Striving for Eternity and see all the podcasts that he runs and supports and all that good stuff.

So, yeah, guys, I don't want to stay too long on here. We're going to drop you into Jacob Tanner. He's the host of Eschatology Matters. He's a pastor. He has a new book out called Wait and Hope, Puritan Wisdom for Joyful Suffering.

If you've been listening to this podcast for any length of time over the last four and a half years, you know I've probably had guys on like Joel Beakey and some others that, where we talk about Puritans.

I just have a real heart for Puritans. I absolutely love their theology, what they stood for, their writings, their prayers. So it's always a soft spot for me when I see a book like this. I haven't got to read it yet, Jacob's book, but it's coming in the mail, so I'm going to get it.

We had him give us a little overview of what the book's about, talking about the difference between joy and happiness, talking about how the Puritans viewed suffering, talking about self-inflicted suffering, how God uses it, how it's not just the devil attacking you every time something bad happens in your life.

It was very good. There wasn't any disagreement between us. We agreed on everything. So it was just the conversation between two brothers talking about their life experiences. His father had just passed away.

Jacob's father passed away just this past fall of stage 4 cancer after battling it for years. He talks about what he learned from that in the book, and we talked about that on the podcast a little bit.

But yeah, Jacob Tanner, host of Eschatology Matters, and new book, Weight and Hope, Puritan Wisdom for Joyful Suffering. You can click on the link in the description. Go buy that. If you use the code, I believe it's E15.

I don't know. The code will be in there. It'll give you like 15 off, 10 -15 off the book at Heritage Reform Books. Go do that. Use the code. It's a super affordable book. And yeah, here we go. Jacob Tanner.

Let's see what he has to say. Yeah, so Jacob, the book, Weight and Hope, Puritan Wisdom for Joyful Suffering. I came across that, and it looks very interesting because this day and age with the prosperity gospel and all these different issues where, you know, you have preachers telling you, hey, look, you should never suffer.

You should never have any trials. The Lord loves you so much. He's just going to bless, bless, bless, bless you. And we look back through church history and even to the Puritans, and we kind of see a different story.

Can you explain a little bit about what your book is about? And then maybe we get into what the Puritans thought about it.

Yeah, sure. So I think a good place to begin here is to acknowledge that suffering is actually normative for the Christian experience. In fact, I can't really name a well-known Christian, you know, a genuine Christian who didn't go through some form of suffering at one point or another, even going all the way back to the church fathers.

I mean, when you read about their accounts and the things that they had to go through, think of a guy like Polycarp, you know, 80 years old, and here he is being dragged out into the Roman crowd, being told, deny your faith.

And he's saying, no, Christ I've known for 80 years. He's done me no wrong. I'm not now going to deny him. So this is normative. Suffering is part of the Christian experience. And there's various reasons for that.

God uses it in different ways, sometimes to sanctify us. Sometimes, you know, he is the potter and we're the clay and he's molding, shaping, and making us into who he would have us to be in Christ. And that can be a painful process.

You know, when you think of clay being cut off or being carved into to make into the image, this is sometimes very difficult. So God can use suffering for sanctification. He can use it to teach us to rely on him.

But this is, again, normative. It's in scripture. It tells us that all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution. Jesus says, you're going to have trouble in the world. I had trouble and don't expect better than your master, but be of good cheer because I have overcome the world.

Or he says, don't be surprised the world hates you. It hated me first. And this is where I think the Puritans are so incredibly helpful. And that's why they're really the emphasis of weight and hope. Because they lived in basically the generation after the reformers, the Protestant Reformation.

And there was a lot of suffering going on. So you had your usual suffering that you would encounter in, you know, the late 1500s, 1600s, where you have people getting sick. You have people dying around you constantly.

Death is just something that stares you directly in the face. But then you've also got persecution. You have people who hate you for holding to reform theology. And then within their own church, the Church of England, they had people who hated them because they wanted to purge out sin.

And they wanted to live holy lives before the Lord. And they wanted to follow, you know, the regulative principle that we're only going to worship God in the ways that he has commanded in his word. And so for the Puritans, suffering was also normative.

It was a regular part of their experience. But what makes them so helpful, and this is kind of partially where the title of the book comes from, they learned that when you're going through suffering, the most important thing is to wait upon the Lord and to hope with an unshakable hope.

It's a certain hope. It's not like we're just grasping at fairy tales here. It's an unshakable, certain, and sure hope that God is not only going to bring us victory, but we are already experiencing the victory of Christ.

Yeah, no, that's so good. And, you know, I would make a distinction here too and say, I would even think some of those in the more, in the prosperity gospel camps and the liberal camps and things like that, they understand that they're suffering.

But what I realized coming out of a charismatic movement as well too, was we just chalked it up to the devil. Oh, the devil's doing this to you. And it was, looking back on it, it was a very dualistic view.

In my mind as a young Christian, I went, oh, it's all the white angels dressed in white versus all the demons dressed in black. And we're having this big cosmic war and sometimes God wins and sometimes Satan wins.

And then when I came to reform theology and the doctrines of grace and the actual true view of the sovereignty of God, in my mid-twenties, I realized, wow, what a much more beautiful painting of the sovereignty of God and who his character is.

And not only does he allow it, but he uses what you meant for evil, I meant for good. He tells them. So for me, sometimes people can accuse us reform folks of, you guys are so nitpicky on your theology and why do you care?

And can't we all just be Christians and believe that God is good? And it's like, well, yes, but I think theology also gives us the right view of God. And what you said about the Puritans also saying, to be patient, to wait in wisdom.

I learned that in my mid-twenties. When I used to get in a valley or a hardship or felt like something tough was going on, my very first response was, Lord, get me out of this. Why can't you take me out of this?

And it was a very immature view. And the Lord taught me through his grace and through his mercy, that when you're in that valley, much like the Puritans, it's, Lord, thank you. What are you trying to teach me?

What can I learn from this? And how can you be glorified in this? And I found in my life, even going through valleys recently, what a much more beneficial response to me. It blesses me to respond that way.

Even if the trial is longer or darker, deeper than I thought, is that kind of what you're saying the Puritans, and what we can learn from them too, is how we handle those situations in the suffering.

Oh, absolutely. So to back up just for a second, one of the things you said, because I grew up actually Roman Catholic, and then went into the Charismatic Church. So I was like all messed up. I was all over the place with my theology.

But I had this view, and I've heard other people explain it this way too, that basically God and the devil are in a boxing match. And sometimes the devil's getting the black eye, sometimes God's getting the black eye, and who's going to win?

Nobody really knows. And that's actually not the case at all. Not biblical either, right? Not biblical at all. Because God is sovereign, right? He's all powerful. And so one of the lines I use in the book, that I hope helps people, is as an encouragement to those who are following Christ, and as a warning to those who are not, your arms are too short to box with God.

There's no such thing as God being in some sort of cosmic conflict, where he's actually getting his eyes blackened by those who are against him. Absolutely not. This sovereign God is so enthroned, he is so sovereign over everything, that there is never a single situation that moves him from his throne.

But he is sovereignly enthroned forever. And so never will you find God, you know, you bring your prayers before him, and suddenly he's scratching his head going, oh boy, I wonder what I'm going to do now, I wasn't expecting this.

He's never going to do that. He is sovereignly enthroned, and yes, he has ordained even suffering for our good, and for his glory. And that was the view of the Puritans, right? So the Puritans, I think it's okay to pray that God would end the suffering, that he would bring us through it, but the Puritans also realize, God's teaching me something here.

God's using this for something very, very important. And so this whole idea of waiting upon the Lord, it's not that we're not doing anything in the midst of the suffering, it's not that we're becoming lazy, lethargic, and unmoving.

It's simply that we are trusting in God, we're praying to God, and for that reason, as we're waiting upon him, and we're hoping for that future glory when the suffering will be brought to an end, we are also able to be active.

Because we know that Jesus Christ is enthroned right now at the right hand of the Father, all things being made a footstool beneath his feet, which means even this suffering that I experience, whatever it may be, that also has to be put, it has to be footstooled beneath Christ.

And it's going to happen, right? So this is really, I would argue, the period in hope. Not just the conquest of the earth, not just the victory of the gospel over everything, not just the Christianization of the nations, but that suffering itself, although used sovereignly by God now for our good, his glory, it too will be footstooled beneath the feet of Christ, and it will be defeated.

Yeah, which is such a good worldview to have when suffering, too, when you know that there's a sovereign God that rules and reigns over all. So let me ask you this, kind of two-part. You can pick either question here, but in the book, do you have any pragmatic examples, some real-world examples of how Puritans dealt with suffering?

It's good to say, hey, look at God's sovereign over all and trust him, but sometimes you really need some actual, real-world, how do I deal with this thing I'm going through? Practical application. Practical application, mental anguish, spiritual, soul draining.

I've been through those situations, man. We had a gentleman on here that I attend church with. It was a very, very popular episode, and he just got open and raw about depression and what that is and how you deal with that biblically and things like that.

So in the book, do you explore any of that, or can you tell us a little bit about how Puritans viewed the actual real-world application of suffering through trials for the glory of God?

Yeah, definitely. So here's one of the things that I love about the Puritans. They are doctrinal, absolutely. When it comes to Reformed theology, I think that they are some of the best in explaining what the Bible actually teaches or Covenant theology.

They're some of the best. But what they do in their preach, so I pastor, and this is one of the things that I am often thinking about, expository preaching is great when you're taking people verse-by-verse through the Bible.

The Puritans do that. But then they're also experiential. And what I mean by that term experiential is that they're applying these doctrines, they're applying these great texts of Scripture to our lives and showing us this is how you actually live out your faith, not just when things are hunky-dory, but when things actually are difficult, when the rubber hits the road, this is how you do it.

So each chapter, I use some examples from my own life of different trials that we've walked through. Even very recently in the past few years, my dad was battling stage four lung cancer for four years.

He passed away in October of 23. And I was actually acting as his pastor at that time. And what was so incredibly helpful for me is the Puritans encounter death basically on a daily basis. And so I was able to go to their writings.

And I don't include everything that I learned through that period in the book. But just as one example, John Owen, one of my absolute favorite Puritans. I would argue probably my favorite. Owen dealt with the loss of ten of his children.

Ten of his kids died very early on in their lives. That is not an easy thing to walk through. But what Owen does, and it's fantastic, is he talks about that spiritual depression that he had to walk through.

He talks not necessarily in depth about how he experienced it himself. But as you're reading it, you're like, this is a guy that knows what he's talking about. And he talks about confronting death, confronting it head on, knowing that it's not the end because we know a God who raises the dead.

So in other words, when we see death, we don't have to cower in fear from it. Does it make us sad? Does it make us angry? Absolutely, because it's not supposed to be. This is part of the curse. But Jesus Christ reverses the curse.

So we can go to death. We can actually die ourselves one day with, again, but also with joy, knowing that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. And then we're not always going to be absent from the body, but there's going to be a future resurrection.

So what Owen does in his writings is he helps us to embrace death as not something to fear, but instead something to enter courageously. And so he shows us the practical application of courage in the face of sickness, in the face of death, when you're losing loved ones.

One of my favorite examples in the book, because this is something that I also had to walk through in a very personal way, is Jonathan Edwards. A lot of people know Edwards as, I think the dictionary still refers to him as the greatest American philosopher, which is an amazing title for him to have.

And a lot of people will approach Edwards' writings and they'll be like, he's so in-depth, he's way beyond my understanding. I don't think that's the case. I think he's actually much easier to read than what people first think.

You just got to kind of get into the rhythm and groove of how he writes. But anyway, Edwards was actually kicked out of his church that he pastored for 20 years. Big story around it, but basically it came down to communion, who the rightful people are to be accepted into the Lord's table.

And he took a stand on what he believed the Bible taught, which is that basically you are to fence the table to those who have made a public profession of faith and have been baptized into the church.

So Edwards takes that stand and the church, which his grandfather had pastored as well, says, yeah, we don't like that. We want to open it up to everybody. You're out of here. So what does Edwards do?

Well, Edwards shows us, both in his own writings but also in the application that he delivers to us through his doctrinal writings, he shows us that here's the most important thing. When you're being persecuted for the word of God, for declaring the truth, for standing for Christ and standing upon Christ, embrace it.

Walk through it. And embrace it joyfully. So one of the things that Edwards shows us is that our main concern is not to be liked by people. Don't be a jerk. Don't aim to be disliked. But aim most importantly to glorify God in all things.

And if you glorify God in all things, what you're going to find is that there's a real joy in doing this. I might sound like Piper for a second and that's because Piper really stole a lot from Edwards.

So glorify God. Glorify God in all things. As you do this, you'll find there's joy. And when people begin to attack you or they slander you or they persecute you or they stab and then twist that knife into your back, you can actually laugh with joy in your heart not because it's fun to go through the suffering but because you know that God is ultimately victorious and he's being glorified through this.

And it's one of those things where I don't know if Edwards would have specifically looked at this while it was happening and thought, you know, this is great that it's happening. But actually, I'm very glad for that story from Edwards because, you know, looking at my own life there came a situation more than one actually where I had to leave two different churches due to doctrinal issues.

One of them was related to women in ministry where the church wanted to actually embrace women elders and I said no. And if we do that, I'm walking. And the church said to me, is that a threat? And I said, no.

That's an objective statement of truth. I will walk if we're going to ordain women. And so I walked out of that church. That was a difficult situation. A lot of slander that happened. And then there was also another situation where I was teaching on the book of Revelation as an associate pastor at a rather large church in rural Pennsylvania and the question of the rapture came up which is a divisive question, admittedly.

I personally am post-millennial and so the question came up. The church knew this. The church board knew this. I was asked, when do you think the rapture will happen? And I said, well, if you're talking about a secret rapture, I don't believe in that.

And at that point, somebody in the church stood up, one of our board members and the wife as well began to yell and shout and scream and carry on in the middle of a church service, mind you, while I'm teaching, that they wanted me removed from the church right then and there.

Physically removed. They wanted me fired. Because not only did I not hold to dispensationalism but they also then said I was a Calvinist and they would never have a Calvinist in the pulpit of the church.

One thing led to another and the church came back to me two months later after they had a secret private meeting without me present where they had determined I could stay so long as I would never read from the book of Revelation again.

I would never read from Ephesians chapter 1 Romans chapters 8 through 11 and a couple of other passages too. I just couldn't read those texts. Now, they weren't saying I couldn't preach those texts. They were saying I couldn't read from those texts while I was at the church because they mentioned election, predestination.

I couldn't read them anymore and I basically had to sign off on a document that I would agree with them. Yeah, so this was, I like to call it my here I stand moment because I was younger and I think I literally did do the whole here I stand speech where I was like you know what my conscience is bound to scripture.

Here I stand I can do no other so help me God if you want me to leave I'll leave but I'm not agreeing to any of that and so I left.

Yeah, hard to stay joyful in those situations. Oh yeah, when you're going through it awful. It's absolutely.

Awful but God taught me through it and he didn't just teach me by the way through the writings of Jonathan Edwards though Edwards was a huge comfort and help during that time. What God taught me is really the objective reality of Psalm 23.

Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, God's with me. He's not going to leave me. He's not going to forsake me. I might be surrounded by enemies on every side and I wish I could say like at this point that's changed but our current church that we planted we still get one star Google reviews that just say cult just one word.

Yeah. Or Calvinism is a cult. Sometimes it's three words and it's annoying when it happens but you almost have to laugh at it because what God is doing according to Psalm 23. And the Puritan saw this too.

He's preparing a table for us. Yes, but where is it?

It's in the midst of our enemies presence of enemies. Yeah, and that.

That's also the great thing of Nehemiah. Nehemiah shows us this too as he's building the wall and all of the enemies are surrounding him. You eventually get the chapter 8 verse 10 where you got all of these problems going on and the elders of the of the Jews say to them.

Well, here's what you're going to do. You're going to eat the fat. You're going to drink the sweet and you're going to remember the joy of the Lord is your strength. So yeah, we're surrounded by enemies on every side.

There's trouble there's suffering trial tribulation all around. Eat the fat drink the sweet. The joy of the Lord is your strength.

Yeah, you know you mentioned prepares a table for me in the presence of my enemies. I've always loved that picture that was painted because you being attacked you being mocked you being lied about and slandered about that's part of the process of the Lord preparing the table in front of your enemies.

If you were in a battle and you're in the Lord's preparing a victory table for you and the enemies around they're not just standing there watching their scowling their mocking their yelling. They can't believe their incense.

Look at look at the Lord taking care of this man when I'm out here on the outer rings. There's envy. There's jealousy. There's hatred. There's mocking and I've always took that as in any time I was mocked or made fun of for Christ.

I go prepare on the table. I mean, what do you expect from a God hating people when the Lord prepares a table of feast in front of your enemies that they are going to be envious and jealous and mocking and all those things.

So I like that picture that the psalmist paints because it's in the wrong place. You would think the Lord would be preparing you a table, you know in his in his great kingdom hall in his, you know what I mean?

And it's no in the presence of your enemies because it's going to take place in the battlefield. So as we wind this down a little bit, I've asked a couple people this. We had Joel Beaky on a few months ago who I'm absolutely loving.

I believe your book, Wait and Hope Puritan Wisdom for Joyful Suffering is with Heritage Books, which I think he has some connection with, doesn't he?

He's got a lot of connection. In fact, I'm pretty sure that he is the one who pushed for it to be published. So I do.

There you go. And he's a book guy. And I think you can see here we both have the Beaky collection here on our shelves if you're watching. But I always ask people, what is the difference between joy and happiness?

The biblical joy, secular happiness. Because even in the title, Wisdom for Joyful Suffering, does that mean you're supposed to be happy and put on a smiley face and everything's fine? That meme, it's fine.

It's fine. We're all fine. I'm fine. Everything's burning down to the ground.

What is joy? So here's the primary difference. Happiness, I guess even the secular understanding of it would be happiness is a feeling. You feel happy. You smile. You laugh. Happiness is a feeling, but it comes and goes.

It's often in waves. And especially when you're going through something like spiritual depression, there really isn't much happiness to feel. And I've personally been there. I have a chapter in the book on battling for assurance when you feel like you're in a period of unbelief.

In a period of spiritual depression or the dark night of the soul, not much happiness, but joyful suffering. We're not saying happy suffering, not like ha ha ha, they're stabbing me in the back again.

This is so much fun. No, joyful suffering is saying this is awful. I hate that I'm going through this, but I have a genuine joy in Christ that cannot be stripped away. You know, just like I can't be plucked from the hand of God, just like there's nothing that can separate me from the love of God in Christ Jesus my Lord, so too there's nothing that can actually take away the joy that I have in knowing Christ and being known by him.

Now, can my happiness dissipate? Yeah, absolutely. You can be joyful and not be happy. And I think probably the easiest way to explain this is that joy as one of the fruit of the spirit, joy is something that comes only through knowing Jesus.

There is not a single person that is not saved in Christ who has joy. They might be happy on occasion, but joy is utterly impossible for the one who has not had their sins washed away by the blood of Christ.

Joy is only befitting for the Christian, the one who is in Jesus. And so this joy is a gift that God gives to us that although it does bring us to points of happiness, you know, if you're truly joyful, I would expect to see some happiness, some smile, some laughing here and there, but joy can also be had in the midst of the greatest trials and suffering.

Here's probably the best example I can think of. When my dad passed away, there was genuine joy. Were we happy that he passed away? No. There was weeping, there was tears, you know, there was anger over, you know, he battled cancer for four years, all of the suffering that he walked through.

There was anger over the death itself, but there was a joy in knowing that he knew the Lord, he was now with Christ, the suffering was brought to an end, and there will come a day when we will see him again.

That joy is unshakable. It goes along perfectly with hope. It's an unshakable hope, an unshakable anchor, right, as the writer of Hebrews would say. So, Jesus is our joy, Jesus is our hope, Jesus is our treasure, he can't be taken away.

Happiness? That can come and go, but happiness being directly tied to our joy will also be an experience of the Christian. Not all the time, not all the time. There will be periods of great happiness, but joy?

It's always there.

Yeah, just to piggyback on that, I've always found that the Christian characteristics or values always, versus the secular ones, you know, happiness is an emotion, joy is an act of the will. I always see Christian characters and virtues being attached to movement, to action, you know, assurance, hope, joy, those propel you towards acting and living a certain way to where just an emotion doesn't necessarily do that.

It's more of a feeling. Now, I'm not saying happiness can't propel you to a certain act, but I'm saying more than not, those Christian values really come to fruition in action, which I absolutely love, and when I look at those, happiness and joy too, I see those two differences.

So, wait and hope, Puritan wisdom for joyful suffering, where can they find the book? Obviously, you're the host of Eschatology Now, a widely popular podcast, and I'm the same network, I believe, with Fight, Laugh, Feast, along with us.

Absolutely enjoy it. Where can people find you on social media? Where can they find the book? And we'll make sure we link this all up in the description below, guys, too, so you can just click through.

Sounds.

Good. So, yeah, Eschatology Matters is where they can watch me say things that get me in trouble. They can also go to Twitter if they want to see me, or X, they can see me get in trouble on there. I think my handle, it's probably going to change at some point in the future.

Jacob Tanner 1689, I think is what it currently is. So, I made it two years ago, never used it, and I was convinced to get back on it, and I think it was already a mistake, because I'm already getting into arguing with people with the things I say.

And then, I mean, they could have me on Facebook, too, if they wanted to, but the place to get the book, probably the best place is still Reformation Heritage Books. They have the best price on the book.

I think they even have a digital copy, but why would you get a digital copy, right?

Don't do it, man. Get the physical. I tried to start a digital copy collection, I don't know, 12, 13 years ago. No. I got three books in. I'm like, what am I doing? I need the books, man. This is one of 12 bookcases there.

So, that's the best place. You can get it basically anywhere. I think I saw that they even have it on Christian books. I don't know why you would order it from there, but you can. Reformation Heritage Books, though.

Best place. If I can, I'll throw this out there, too. Use code EMATTERS for 10 off, 15 off. 10 or 15 off your purchase. I don't know. Buy a bunch of things.

While you're there. Special little deal for the Deadman Walking listeners. We'll make sure we link that up and put it in there. Jacob, thanks for stopping by, sharing this with us. We're going to have to have you back on in the future for sure.

Anytime you want to come back on. Thanks for being here. Guys, thanks so much for listening to another episode of Deadman Walking Podcast. As always, you can find out more at dmwpodcast .com. Check out our Snarky merch.

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Guys, remember, the chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever. God bless.