Phil Gons

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Responding to Cancer

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Rod Decker

Professor and blogger Rod Decker posted on his blog this weekend about his cancer. It appears to be more widespread, more aggressive, and more serious than they originally thought. He’s begun treatment to control and reduce the cancer, and he’d appreciate your prayers—as we all would if we were in his shoes.

As I read his post, I was reminded of how often I hear about a friend’s or acquaintance’s getting or dying from cancer—especially with how connected the internet has made us all. I was also reminded that the chances are good that it will touch me or my family at some point.

While it’s not appropriate to worry about a “frowning providence” that God might have in store for us, it is good to equip ourselves with biblical thinking about sickness and death (Ec 7:2). To that end I’d encourage you to read Rod’s post, especially the third paragraph.

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Calvin on God’s Permissive Will

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Calvin: Institutes of the Christian Religion

After reading my post on Zac Smith’s cancer a while back, a friend of mine saw a link in the sidebar to a related post, “The Grace of Cancer,” and left a comment challenging my choice of words when I repeatedly said that God gave cancer to a man from our church to bring him to repentence.

I responded by encouraging him to read Calvin’s Institutes, I, xviii (esp. 1), where he discusses the “distinction [that] has been invented between doing and permitting,” and Piper’s “Don’t Waste Your Cancer.”

I spent some time rereading Calvin’s chapter on the issue of permission, “The Instrumentality of the Wicked Employed by God, While He Continues Free from Every Taint,” and I thought much of it was worth quoting here at length. I’ve bolded the most pertinent portions.

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The Story of Zac Smith

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I encourage you to invest four-and-a-half minutes of your day watching this powerful and moving video about Zac Smith’s cancer, faith, and God.

The Story of Zac Smith from NewSpring Media on Vimeo.

Here are his concluding comments: “This I do know. If God chooses to heal me, then God is God, and God is good. If God chooses not to heal me and allows me to die, God is still God, and God is still good. To God be the glory.”

The Grace of Cancer

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We heard a powerful testimony last night of how God has graciously given cancer to a man in our church who was in rebellion against God and estranged from his wife. With the news of his impending death, God also granted him a renewed heart of repentance. It was sweet to hear his present tenderness to the Lord set in contrast to his past hardness and impenitence. Of course hearing news like that brings mixed emotions: both joy and sorrow. But the joy far outweighs the sorrow. If God had left the man in his sin, but not given him cancer, he may have perished eternally. How gracious of God to give him cancer as a means of bringing him to repentance–even if it means his life may soon end. We pray that God would spare his physical life, but we especially rejoice that God has granted him spiritual life!