http://rss.desiringgod.org/link/10732/16361136/what-is-sexual-immorality
Luther Discovers the Book
When Martin Luther discovered the gospel in the Scriptures, everything changed for him and the future of the church. In this episode of Light + Truth, John Piper begins a 3-part series exploring Luther’s relationship with the Bible.
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How Can Satan Harm Christians?
Audio Transcript
We have talked on this podcast about Satan. Not a lot — we don’t fixate on him. But we do talk about him and his designs, usually to look at what Satan cannot do to us. There’s a lot he cannot do to us as Christians because Christ has disarmed him in two very important ways. We looked at this back in February, in APJ 1750. Pastor John, today we flip the question and ask, What can Satan do to Christians?
Peter warns believers that Satan seeks to devour us (1 Peter 5:8–9), which raises two questions. One is from Russ in Virginia Beach, Virginia. He writes, “Hello, Pastor John! My question for you is about 1 Peter 5:8–9. Is Peter saying that the devil seeks to devour us in and through our suffering? Or is he saying the constant attacks of Satan are our suffering?” And Steve in Rochester, New York, is asking about this same text. “Pastor John, hello! First Peter 5:8 says Satan is our enemy, and I believe it! But enemies are opposed to us in very specific ways, and I’m not clear about this with Satan. My question is how — how is Satan our enemy? Thank you.”
First, here’s what 1 Peter 5:8–9 says:
Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world.
So Russ asks, “Does the word sufferings refer to whatever Satan does to us, or does it refer to actual Christian pain or suffering, which Satan is behind?” Now, I think virtually all interpreters agree that the second is the right answer. Peter is referring to real sufferings of various kinds that Christians are experiencing throughout the world, and Satan is behind them, making every effort to use those sufferings to destroy the faith of Christians. That’s what “seeking to devour” means. He would succeed in devouring a Christian if he could use those sufferings to cause us to throw away our faith in the goodness and the wisdom and the care of God, and turn us against God.
Tried by Fire
Now, I think that’s the right interpretation about what sufferings refers to, first, because the other kinds of temptations that Satan throws at us — like temptations to lust, or covetousness, or pride — can indeed devour people, and he’s about them, but they’re not called sufferings. So not all of Satan’s attacks on us are called sufferings. In fact, Satan is very good at attacking us with pleasures as often as with sufferings. More people’s faith, I would venture, is devoured by being lured into sinful pleasure as is devoured by sufferings.
Another reason that I think that interpretation is right — namely, that Satan’s particular strategy referred to here in verse 9 is Christian suffering — is that Peter has already referred to this in 1 Peter 1:6–7. He says,
Now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith — more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire — may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
So he has already prepared us at the very beginning of his letter that our faith will be tested as with fire through these various trials — that is, sufferings. So in answering Russ’s question, I think we are already in the middle of answering Steve’s question, because Steve is asking, “Well, what are the specific ways that this satanic lion opposes us? How is he our enemy in this text?”
“Satan’s aim in causing suffering is to deceive us into believing that God is against us and not for us.”
Now, the main answer we’ve seen is that he’s our enemy by causing Christian suffering. His aim in causing that suffering is to deceive us into believing that God is against us and not for us — that God is helpless, perhaps, and can’t stop the suffering (poor God). In other words, by this suffering, Satan aims to undermine our faith in God’s goodness, or God’s power, or God’s wisdom, or God’s kindness. And if Satan can do that, we will be devoured, destroyed as Christians. We will make shipwreck of our faith, and he will have won a tactical victory.
Satanic Sickness
But we can be more specific now in how Satan does this, because that’s what Steve is asking. I’ll give four examples of how Satan opposes Christians through suffering.
First, Satan is behind much, though not all, sickness. For example, after Jesus heals the woman bent over for eighteen years, he defends his action to the rulers by saying, “Ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath day?” (Luke 13:16). In other words, Satan is behind this disease, this bent condition that this woman is in for eighteen years.
We see an example of this in the lives of Christians in 2 Corinthians 12:7, where Paul had been given those amazing visions. Paul explains how God designed, planned to keep him from getting conceited by these visions. Here’s 2 Corinthians 12:7: “So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited.” This is especially important, because here we have both the activity of God and the activity of Satan.
We know that Satan did not aim at preventing Paul’s pride. He wants Paul to be conceited. He wants to destroy his faith with pride. Saving Paul from conceit was God’s purpose. God aimed to keep Paul humble and holy, and yet the instrument of God’s sanctifying work is called a “messenger of Satan.” That’s amazing. So what we learn is that even when Satan is bringing about some kind of thorn or suffering in the life of a Christian, he’s not sovereign; he’s not ultimate. He’s under God’s supervision. And while Satan’s design is the destruction of Paul’s faith, God’s design is the strengthening of Paul’s faith and the preservation of his holiness and his humility.
Thrown into Prison
But there’s another way that Satan brings about the suffering of Christians. He sometimes throws them into prison. Revelation 2:10 says,
Do not fear what you are about to suffer. Behold, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison, that you may be tested, and for ten days you will have tribulation. Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life.
And we ask, “Well, how might Satan do that? How does Satan do that? How does he throw Christians into prison?” And one answer is the same way he threw Jesus under arrest in the garden, the same way he threw Jesus on the cross. How did that happen? Here’s John 13:2: “During supper . . . the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, to betray him.” Then in John 13:27 it says, “After [Judas] had taken the morsel, Satan entered into him. Jesus said to him, ‘What you are going to do, do quickly.’” And he went out and betrayed Jesus — as it were, threw him in prison, only worse.
“Satan is not sovereign. God is. Wherever Satan is acting, he’s acting by permission.”
We can assume that sort of thing happens regularly to cause Christians much suffering. Satan puts it in the heart of people to betray Christians or to lie about Christians, and so bring them into suffering, whether prison or some other consequence.
Take Up the Sword
So I conclude that in 1 Peter 5:8–9, the lion’s roar — this roaring lion going about trying to devour people — is the roar of Satan’s effort to strike fear into Christians by the suffering he brings into their lives. He aims for that fear to destroy their faith. We know from 2 Corinthians 12, and from the story of Job 1, and from the fact that Jesus commands demons and they obey him, that Satan is not sovereign. God is. Wherever Satan is acting, he’s acting by permission, not because he has ultimate control.
Nevertheless, he’s real. Oh, he is real. He is strong. He’s evil. He’s on a long leash. Under God’s providence, he does terrible damage. Therefore, Peter does not say, “Ho-hum, God is sovereign.” He says, “Be sober. Be watchful. Resist, firm in your faith. Fight.” That is, take up the sword of the Spirit, the word of God, and stick Satan in the face with it. Believe God’s promise, and stand your ground, and do not be sucked into Satan’s temptation that God is evil or that God is weak. Let the fires of suffering purify and strengthen your faith, not destroy it.
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You Are Not Nothing: Five Ways to Pursue Real Humility
I recently had the incomparable joy of visiting the Grand Canyon. Though visit isn’t quite the right word, I suppose. You don’t just visit the Grand Canyon — you marvel at it, stand in awe of it, catch your breath before it, and find yourself transfixed and transformed by it. You come away “canyoned” by the juxtaposed emotions of feeling smaller and bigger at the same time. As a Christian, I reveled in knowing that the Creator of such beauty also happens to be the Savior of my soul.
I believe gospel-shaped humility can have similar effects. It makes us feel smaller and bigger at the same time. But only if we have a proper understanding of humility, carefully defined, delineated, displayed, and distinguished — that is, only if we move past some common confusions about humility.
Humility Confused
I’ve heard some Christians say things like, “I’m nothing. I’m just a worm.” Or, “I didn’t do a thing. I’m just an empty vessel.” I don’t think such statements reflect a healthy view of humility. The New Testament calls us saints and God’s children and goes out of its way to declare just how loved, redeemed, and blessed we are. Our new identity cannot square with “I’m nothing.”
It’s easy to get confused about humility. Consider how C.S. Lewis put these directions into the mouth of Screwtape, the senior demon in charge of training a new tempter:
Your patient has become humble; have you drawn his attention to the fact? . . . Catch him at the moment when he is really poor in spirit and smuggle into his mind the gratifying reflection, “By jove! I’m being humble,” and almost immediately pride — pride at his own humility — will appear. If he awakes to the danger and tries to smother this new form of pride, make him proud of his attempt — and so on, through as many stages as you please. But don’t try this too long, for fear you awake his sense of humor and proportion, in which case he will merely laugh at you and go to bed. (The Screwtape Letters, 69)
Humility Defined
Merriam-Webster defines humility as “freedom from pride or arrogance.” But that leaves us needing another definition — one for pride. And we need the Bible’s authority, not the dictionary’s, to help us most.
“Humility is not thinking of yourself more highly than you ought but with sober judgment, according to what God says in his word.”
I suggest this definition adapted from Romans 12:3: humility is not thinking of yourself more highly than you ought but with sober judgment, according to what God says in his word. Thus, growing in humility is a lifelong venture as you increase in knowledge of God’s word and in appreciation for God’s work through Christ.
Humility Delineated
Clear thinking about humility is on display in Andrew Murray’s classic short book Humility: The Beauty of Holiness. He starts with this insight: “There are three great motives that urge us to humility. It becomes me as a creature, as a sinner, as a saint” (10).
First, we should be humbled by the fact that we did not create ourselves or have any say in the specifics of our birth. How is it that you weren’t born in the 1300s in an obscure, poverty-stricken, disease-ridden village? Can you provide breath at any given moment? Which talents came from your blueprint, and not God’s? Consider Paul’s insightful question, “What do you have that you did not receive?” (1 Corinthians 4:7).
Second, humility befits our fallenness. We’re sinners, rebels, transgressors, and worshipers of false gods. Reflect on Paul’s recounting of our before-salvation résumé: “We ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another” (Titus 3:3).
Third, we are saved by grace, “not because of works done by us in righteousness” (Titus 3:5) “so that no one may boast” (Ephesians 2:9).
Humility Displayed
Humility’s central text is Philippians 2:1–11, where Jesus is lifted up as the perfect example of humility. It’s easy to zoom in on verse 5, “Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus,” and think, “I should be humble like Jesus was humble.” He is indeed our supreme example.
But we can follow his example only because he was also our supreme sacrifice. Don’t race past the first phrase of this chapter: “If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ . . . .” It is your union with Christ that transforms you into a new creature who can “consider others better than yourself,” and “look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others” (Philippians 2:1–4 NIV).
Humility Distinguished
Humility, as the Bible puts forth, must be distinguished from vague ideas apart from the specifics of the gospel. Humility is not feeling bad about oneself. Humility is not comparing ourselves to others. And humility isn’t merely the absence of boasting. (What goes on inside our heads can be disgustingly self-exalting even while we keep our mouths shut.)
“Humility shaped by the gospel shows us just how bad we are and, at the same time, just how great God’s salvation is.”
Humility shaped by the gospel shows us just how bad we are and, at the same time, just how great God’s salvation is. It chastens while it emboldens. It puts us in our place, which, amazingly, is a place of both contrition and confidence. It is a proper and complete understanding of who we are — created, fallen, redeemed, and blessed. We live out our lives in humble boldness, knowing we deserve wrath instead of grace, judgment instead of justification, separation from God instead of the indwelling of his Spirit.
Humility Pursued
Note what immediately follows Philippians 2:1–11. Verse 12 begins with “therefore” and goes on to tell us to “work out [our] salvation with fear and trembling.” We do have a part to play in pursuing humility. Consider some practical suggestions.
Bodily Prayerfulness
The position of our bodies can make a difference in our prayer lives. Kneeling while interceding, raising our arms while praising, and opening our palms while giving thanks can intensify the blessings received through prayer. And it can help us grow in humility before God. It’s hard (although not impossible!) to feel self-empowered while kneeling.
Rigorous Confession
I’ll let C.S. Lewis present this case for me. He writes in The Weight of Glory,
I find that when I think I am asking God to forgive me I am often in reality (unless I watch myself very carefully) asking him to do something quite different. I am asking him not to forgive me but to excuse me. But there is all the difference in the world between forgiving and excusing.
Forgiveness says, “Yes, you have done this thing, but I accept your apology; I will never hold it against you and everything between us two will be exactly as it was before.” But excusing says, “I see that you couldn’t help it or didn’t mean it; you weren’t really to blame.” If one was not really to blame then there is nothing to forgive. In that sense forgiveness and excusing are almost opposites. (178–79)
Humility makes a regular practice of asking God, and others, to forgive us instead of excuse us.
Regular Periods of Fasting
Simply put, fasting makes us feel physically weak. That’s a good state for trusting entirely in God’s provision for everything. Fasting can take all sorts of forms and varieties. All of them can help in growth toward humility.
Outward-Facing Intercession
Jesus told us to include “our daily bread” (the most basic unit of physical sustenance) as well as “your kingdom come” (the most expansive scope of church growth) in our prayers. Prayer guides like Operation World (both the book and the app), which inform us how to pray for gospel advance in every country, help us see our individual needs on a larger canvas and forge humility.
Others-Centered Conversation
Many so-called dialogues are really simultaneous monologues. A gospel-humbled conversationalist can allow the interchange to be unbalanced — in the direction of the other person. Asking questions to draw more out of the other person can display Philippians 2 humility in tangible, practical ways.
Bowing Low, Standing Tall
Some might say standing before the Grand Canyon should have made me feel like “nothing.” But that wasn’t my experience. To be sure, I had no doubt that the nearly two thousand square miles of a mile-deep chasm dwarfed my 5-foot, 9-inch frame. If I did not know the Creator of both the physical universe and my physical body, I would have felt like dust.
But standing before an even greater wonder — the cross, where we are “united with Christ . . . in the comfort from his love . . . with the fellowship of the Holy Spirit . . . with tenderness and compassion” (Philippians 2:1 NIV) — forges a gospel-humility that bows us low and stands us tall.
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Should We Despise the Vile — or Love Them?
Audio Transcript
Good Monday morning to you. Maybe you’re listening on your way to class or to work. Monday, for many of us, is a day to re-enter the complexities of life as God’s redeemed children, living out our faith in a world that is hostile to our heavenly Father. And that raises questions like this: Should the world like us, or should the world hate us? Which result shows us to be most faithful? It’s a huge question — one for another day. We’ll get to it in two Fridays.
Today’s question, Pastor John, is about the sinfully vile in this world. Should we despise them, or should we love them? Here’s the question: “My name is Parker. I’m 14. Psalm 15:4 says, speaking of a blameless man, that ‘in [their] eyes a vile person is despised.’ How can we both despise the vile, and yet also love our enemies?” And the same question came from a listener named Peter. “Hello to you, Pastor John. David says in Psalm 15:1–2, 4, ‘O Lord, who shall sojourn in your tent? Who shall dwell on your holy hill? He who walks blamelessly and does what is right . . . in whose eyes a vile person is despised.’ But Jesus says in Matthew 5:44, ‘Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.’ These categories of (1) vile people and (2) enemies and persecutors are not entirely overlapping, but I think it’s safe to say that there’s at least some overlap between them. I suspect David had his enemies in mind in Psalm 15 when he was talking about vile people. Do you agree? If you do, how are we to simultaneously despise and love the sinfully vile?”
“It is indeed possible to love someone you despise.”
The short answer is that it is indeed possible to love someone you despise. In fact, it is not just possible but necessary, because the psalm says that one of the marks of the person who dwells with God, who enjoys God’s fellowship, is that “in [his] eyes a vile person is despised.” That’s a mark of being welcomed into God favor. In fact, we don’t even need to jump from the psalm to Jesus in order to see what love requires toward a vile person.
Who Shall Dwell on Your Hill?
Let me read Psalm 15:1–5, because the whole thing is remarkable in this regard. I’ll just pause and mark the key parts as we go along. “O Lord, who shall sojourn in your tent?” That’s the question. Who gets to enjoy fellowship with God? “Who shall dwell on your holy hill?” (Psalm 15:1). In other words, what are the marks of a person who can enjoy the presence and the fellowship of God? And here comes the answer: “He who walks blamelessly and does what is right” (Psalm 15:2). So he’s not free. This person who qualifies to be with God is not free to call just anything right. He does what is right — namely, what God calls right.
Now, continuing, “And [he] speaks truth in his heart; who does not slander with his tongue and does no evil to his neighbor” (Psalm 15:2–3). Now that’s very crucial, because it comes just before the word about despising. Paul said in Romans 13:10, “Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.” So when the psalmist says, “[He] does no evil to his neighbor,” he is saying, “I must love my neighbor. I may not wrong him.”
And then the text continues, “. . . nor takes up a reproach against his friend; in whose eyes a vile person is despised, but who honors those who fear the Lord; who swears to his own hurt and does not change” (Psalm 15:3–4). That means he keeps his promises even when it hurts him. “Who does not put out his money at interest” — which means he doesn’t take advantage of anyone financially — “and does not take a bribe against the innocent” (Psalm 15:5). So he won’t let himself be lured by money to treat anyone unjustly. And then, “He who does these things shall never be moved.” End of psalm.
Posture of the Heart
So, what do we make of this? Here’s David (a psalm of David), the man after God’s own heart (1 Samuel 13:14). And he says that the person who can dwell with God and enjoy God’s fellowship (1) does what is right, (2) does not slander anyone, (3) does no evil to his neighbor, (4) doesn’t charge interest to gouge anyone, and (5) doesn’t let bribery pervert justice in his hands.
In other words, this is not a careless moment for David, in which he’s on some kind of hate tirade against evildoers. This is a thoughtful listing of beautiful traits of the person God delights to have near him. And right after saying, “[He] does no evil to his neighbor,” one phrase later, he says that in this godly man’s eyes a vile person is despised and one who fears the Lord is honored (Psalm 15:3–4).
So, we take Paul’s definition of love from Romans 13:10 (“Love does no wrong to a neighbor”), and then David who is saying, “The man whom God welcomes loves his neighbor and despises him if he’s vile.” Notice the two halves of Psalm 15:4. We call this kind of poetic parallelism “antithetical.” That means the two halves express opposites. Here’s what he says in verse 4: “In whose eyes a vile person is despised, but who honors [which is the opposite of despised] those who fear the Lord [which is the opposite of vile].” What David is drawing attention to in the godly person’s heart is not how they act, not how they treat people. That’s not the point of verse 4. That’s the point of verse 3: you do no wrong to a neighbor. But the point of verse 4 is what they feel about the character of a person — what they admire in their hearts or don’t admire, what they praise, glorify, honor.
The godly person does not glorify the vile person. He glorifies the one who fears the Lord. The godly person does not admire, or venerate, or want to be like the vile person. He admires, he wants to be near and be like the person who fears the Lord. In other words, to despise in Psalm 15 does not mean you desire to destroy a person, or to see a person come to ruin. To despise means you regard the person’s character — not their body — as ugly, dishonorable, shameful, disgraceful, unworthy of praise. There are people like that, and it would be ungodly not to despise them.
And David is saying, “If you have the kind of heart that enjoys being around vile people who don’t fear God, if you admire and esteem vile people, you’re not fit for the presence of God.” That’s what he’s saying.
Despise the Vile
What David meant and what Jesus meant by loving our neighbor is not that we should admire their wickedness. We should despise their wickedness. And I know there’s someone who’s saying, “But you shouldn’t say it like that.” If you think I should be saying here, “Despise the sin and not the sinner” (that’s what some of you are thinking), that would be true if despising meant feeling desires for their ruin, but the problem with that traditional way of expressing love — love for the sinner, not the sin — is that it is precisely the person who is vile. That’s what it says.
And there are vile people. The vileness is not an alien intruder into a good person. Sin is not the only thing that’s vile; people are vile. People produce sins; sins don’t produce people. “Evil comes from the heart,” Jesus said (see Matthew 15:18). It doesn’t come from outside and contaminate the innocent heart. It’s people who will be judged for being vile, not just their vileness. Vileness doesn’t go to hell; people go to hell.
Love Your Enemies
So let me say it again. What David meant and what Jesus meant by loving our neighbor is not that we admire their wickedness. We should despise their wickedness. And that includes despising the kind of person that loves and does wickedness. And we should love them and be willing to lay down our lives for them. Jesus prayed on the cross, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34). He was praying for people whom just days before he had said were fools, whitewashed tombs, full of wickedness and greed (Matthew 23:27), and who on Pentecost, fifty days later, would be saved. His prayer would be answered. Three thousand came to Jesus, including many priests (see Acts 2:41; 6:7).
“It is a godly trait to feel that vileness is repulsive and despicable. To admire it would be sin.”
Now besides Jesus himself, the clearest example in the New Testament of loving someone we despise is the parable of the Good Samaritan. Jews and Samaritans are chosen in this parable because they despised each other. (Look at John 4:9, and numerous other texts.) And so Jesus illustrated what neighbor love involves by portraying a Samaritan stopping to help a wounded Jew. There’s not a word in this parable about his liking him or admiring him as a Jew — only that he had compassion on him in his misery and took practical steps to relieve his suffering.
So my answer to Parker and Peter’s question is that it is a godly trait to feel that vileness is repulsive and despicable. To admire it would be sin. Admiration belongs to the fear of the Lord; despising belongs to despicable vileness. But the radical call on our lives as Christians is to love even those we despise and join Jesus in saying, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34).