Audio Transcript

If you’ve listened to the Ask Pastor John podcast for more than a few weeks, you know that we regularly explore life’s deepest sadnesses and most painful losses. This is a fitting place to hear Pastor John address hard situations, and those hard situations include couples who are unable to bear children of their own. On infertility, we have looked at amazing Bible texts with amazing promises, like Isaiah 56:4–5. That comes to mind. And you can see how important Isaiah 56:4–5 is pastorally, in the APJ book, on page 193. There, you’ll see that this same incredible promise can be applied to two sadnesses: infertility and lifelong singleness. It’s one of those essential texts you want in hand, when the time is right, in ministering to others — Isaiah 56:4–5.

Lifelong singleness is the topic again today in an email from a woman, a listener, who writes in anonymously. “Hello, Pastor John. I am 43 and a faithful Christian — have been all my life — but I have never been married. I’ve been visiting many congregations in my community and have yet to find a suitable mate. I am haunted by the story of Jephthah and his daughter at the end of Judges 11:34–40. I know the point of that story is to teach us not to make rash vows, especially to God. But when I see how his daughter wanted to spend the last two months of her life mourning that she will never be a wife or a mother, it terrifies me. It shows me that if I don’t get married, I am missing out.

“That fear is compounded when I consider Jesus’s words from Matthew 22:30. I know some teachers, including you, who use this verse to give hope for single people. But I don’t see what is hopeful about it. I resonate with Jephthah’s daughter. If people are ‘neither [married] nor are given in marriage’ in the resurrection, that means if one doesn’t get married in this life, they will never know the joys of marriage! They won’t know what it’s like to touch or be touched by someone of the opposite gender. They won’t know what it’s like to hold their own child in their arms. These blessings that such a single person may have wished for their entire lives will be unrealized for all eternity!

“Even if whatever God has in store for us is better, won’t they still wonder what they missed — what it seems everyone, Christian and non-Christian alike, seemed to enjoy? My question is, if I die unmarried, yet remained faithful to Christ and have kept myself pure, will I have the same grief in my heart that Jephthah’s daughter dealt with in those last two months of her life for everything that I will never experience as well?”

Before I saw this question yesterday and had time to think about it, I was sitting in my chair over my Bible, pondering how pervasive and inevitable deep disappointments are that will never be turned around in this life.

World of Sorrows

I thought of people who are blind, perhaps from birth. They will never see the sun or moon or the beauties of a flower or the face of a friend. All will be dark until death. That will be their life on earth. I thought of people who are deaf and live in total silence all their lives — no music, no voices from a family or friend, no sweet robin’s song, no blasting thunder. I thought of people who are paralyzed because they were born that way or had an accident and perhaps can’t feel anything below their neck — paraplegics, maybe, who can’t run or walk or play pickleball, all the way to the end of their life. It never changes — all of life paralyzed. That was what they were dealt.

I thought of people who grow up in very poor, desperate conditions where they never learned to read — no Shakespeare, no Milton, no Herbert, no novels, no poems, not even a note or a letter from a friend — confined to a small world of limited experience. No reading. I thought of people who are miserable in marriages. All their hopes for what marriage was supposed to be have crashed. The romance has gone. There’s no mutual affection shown anymore — both partners in frustration and disappointment that the other doesn’t meet their emotional needs. The children are broken. All the dreams seem dashed all the way to the end. “For better or worse” — and it turned out to be worse.

I thought of refugees and people whose entire lives are decimated by war. I see the pictures today, people who as a class are hated, driven from one place to the next with scarcely any peace, any security, any comforts at all. And then there are the countless diseases, sicknesses, disabilities that people live with and die with and never experience healing or freedom from debilitating suffering.

“As we find our richest contentment in God, this life of singleness or marriage need not be wasted but full of joy.”

Now, I mention these realities in this world not to minimize this woman’s sorrows at not being married or having children. Her longings are good and right. Human beings were designed by God to be married, to be hugged in a one-flesh union, to have sexual relations that bring forth exquisite pleasures and then the cutest little persons. We were made to be cherished and respected in a lifelong union of man and woman in marriage that is deeply right, deeply human, deeply good, deeply gracious of God, and not to have it can be profoundly disappointing and painful, and I feel no need to minimize that.

Living with Realistic Hope

I mention these things because we really do need to have a biblical, realistic assessment of the possibilities of this fallen age, which is ruined by sin. And by ruined, I mean virtually everything that was designed by God for human pleasure is corrupted and, in greater or lesser ways, wrecked. Here’s Paul’s most penetrating description of our world. He said,

The creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.

That’s Romans 8:20–23 — subjected to futility, bondage to corruption, groaning as Spirit-filled Christians, waiting for our bodies to be redeemed from their present wasting away and dying condition. What an amazing, painful, realistic, worldly-hope-dashing assessment of the world. History is a conveyor belt of diseased, broken, frustrated, disappointed, dying, gloriously human persons and bodies. We in the West have so many suffering-ameliorating amenities that we can scarcely begin to imagine how hopeless this life feels to billions of people who don’t have a fraction of our comforts.

Looking to Our Reward

This is why the New Testament — unlike the Old Testament, including the experience of Jephthah’s daughter — is so relentlessly focused on the hope of eternal life: spectacular hope, incredible inheritance, lavish happiness being swallowed up by life at the resurrection, where the Lamb will bring us to springs of living water, and “[God] will wipe away every tear from [our] eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away” (Revelation 21:4). Over and over again, the New Testament presents the Christian life as shot through with sorrow and pain and disappointment and affliction and rejection and persecution — all of it sustained with gladness by rejoicing in the “hope of the glory of God” (Romans 5:1–2).

Apart from Jesus, nobody in the New Testament suffered nearly as much as Paul did, and yet he embraced it, even his singleness, as part of his calling, even though he had a right to have more pleasures than he got. Listen to what he says:

Do we not have the right to eat and drink? Do we not have the right to take along a believing wife, as do the other apostles and the brothers of the Lord and Cephas? Or is it only Barnabas and I who have no right to refrain from working for a living? . . . But I have made no use of any of these rights. (1 Corinthians 9:4–6, 15)

The flag flying over Paul’s life of self-denial and sorrow was 2 Corinthians 6:10: “Sorrowful, yet always rejoicing.”

Sorrow Will Flee

I’m not asking our 43-year-old single friend not to be sorrowful. I’m not. If our arm is cut off, we are sorrowful. If we are not granted a legitimate lifelong desire to be one flesh with a person of the opposite sex, we are sorrowful. But we do not feel singled out. We do not feel picked on. We do not feel mistreated by God. And we do not feel hopeless, as if in the resurrection we will walk the barren hills with Jephthah’s daughter and bewail our virginity. No, we will not wail on any hill in the age to come. These are hand-clapping, dancing hills and will satisfy our deepest lungs.

Whatever we have sacrificed in this world “is [working] for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison [because] we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal” (2 Corinthians 4:17–18). And in the meantime, as we go deeper and deeper with God, finding our richest contentment in him, this life of singleness or marriage need not be wasted or meaningless but full of meaningful fruitfulness and joy as we pour ourselves out for the present and eternal good of others.

Lord of the harvest, I pray earnestly that, as obstacles are removed, you would send laborers from this gathering into the harvest that you are preparing among the unreached peoples of the world. (Matthew 9:38)

This morning Andrew Scott sought to overcome four obstacles to involvement in God’s global purpose of putting his glory on display for the salvation of the nations. Those obstacles were:

“I’m not worthy.” Christ has made you worthy.
“I’m not called.” You were made for this.
“I’m not able.” You have Spiritual gifts, Heart passions, Abilities, Personalities, and Experiences.
“It’s not on my job description.” Yes, it is.

I have three more obstacles I want to help you overcome, through positive incentives.

Obstacle 1: Many emphasize civic reform over against soul-saving.

The present emphasis in America is for many on culture warfare and nation-building as the most urgent form of neighbor love. So, missions can lose its urgency before the political spectacle of fighting for the outward forms of American civic virtue.

In 2012 Robert Woodberry published the astonishing fruit of a decade of research into the effect of missionaries on the health of nations. Titled “The Missionary Roots of Liberal Democracy,” Woodberry’s article in the American Political Science Review defends this thesis: “The work of missionaries . . . turns out to be the single largest factor in insuring the health of nations” (36). This was a discovery that he says landed on him like an “atomic bomb” (38).

To be more specific, Woodberry’s research supported this sweeping claim:

Areas where Protestant missionaries had a significant presence in the past are on average more economically developed today, with comparatively better health, lower infant mortality, lower corruption, greater literacy, higher educational attainment (especially for women), and more robust membership in nongovernmental associations. (39)

There is one important nuance (or bombshell) to all this: “The positive effect of missionaries on democracy applies only to ‘conversionary protestants.’ Protestant clergy financed by the state, as well as Catholic missionaries prior to the 1960s, had no comparable effect in areas where they worked” (40). And “conversionary Protestant” missionaries are those who believe that to be saved from sin and judgment one must convert from false religions to faith in Jesus Christ.

Thus Woodberry points out that, even though missionaries have often opposed unjust and destructive practices like opium addiction, and slavery, and land confiscation, nevertheless “most missionaries didn’t set out to be political activists . . . [but] came to colonial reform through the back door.” That is, “all these positive outcomes were somewhat unintended” (41).

The implication is that the way to achieve the greatest social and cultural transformation through missions is not to focus on social and cultural transformation, but on the “conversion” of individuals from false religions to faith in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins and the hope of eternal life. Or to put it another way: missionaries (and pastors and churches) will lose their culturally transforming power if they make cultural transformation their energizing focus.

For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person — though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die — but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. (Romans 5:6–9)

Incentive: This means that the missionaries that will do the most good for eternity and for time — for eternal salvation and temporal transformation — are the missionaries who focus on converting the nations to faith in Christ, forming healthy, faith-maturing churches, and then from that root, teaching them to bear the fruit of all that Jesus commanded us (Matthew 28:20).

Obstacle 2: Missions seem hopeless as countless hearts grow cold.

The end of the age is near when the love of many will grow cold and lawlessness is multiplied and wars and natural disasters will increase, so there is little hope for missions to advance with any significant triumphs.

And Jesus answered them, “See that no one leads you astray. For many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and they will lead many astray. And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are but the beginning of the birth pains.

“Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and put you to death, and you will be hated by all nations for my name’s sake. And then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another. And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end will be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.” (Matthew 24:4–14)

“It is not ‘cold’ Christians who will take the gospel to all the nations in the last and darkest days.”

It is not “cold” Christians who will take the gospel to all the nations in the last and darkest days. It will be white-hot lovers of Jesus who are ready to be killed for the name. Where will they come from? Your churches. Do not surrender to the notion that the love of many growing cold means your love or your church must grow cold.

Incentive: We have biblical assurances that in the darkest final hours, Christ will lead his faithful, martyr-like witnesses to triumph in finishing the Great Commission.

Obstacle 3: Leaving comfort for hardship appears foolish.

If I leave all that is familiar, giving my whole life to an unreached people, I will lose so many enjoyments of secure, healthy, comfortable life in America, and meet so many hardships, that I’m not sure it will be worth it.

“Whatever is lost for the sake of Christ and his gospel will come back to you a hundredfold.”

Incentive: That is not true. Consider these nine biblical responses.

First, whatever is lost for the sake of Christ and his gospel will come back to you a hundredfold. No matter what — or how much — you sacrifice, you cannot wind up with less.

Peter began to say to him, “See, we have left everything and followed you.” Jesus said, “Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life.” (Mark 10:28–30)

Whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. (Matthew 10:39)

Second, this life of earthly enjoyments is as short as a mist breathed out on a winter morning, but pleasures at God’s right hand are forevermore.

What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. (James 4:14)

Moses chose to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. (Hebrews 11:25)

Let the lowly brother boast in his exaltation, and the rich in his humiliation, because like a flower of the grass he will pass away.” (James 1:9–10)

All flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass. (1 Peter 1:24–25)

You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore. (Psalm 16:11)

Night will be no more. [The servants of the Lamb] will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and will reign forever and ever. (Revelation 22:5)

Third, though all forget you or even turn against you, if God is for you, what can man do to you? He who did not spare his Son will give you everything you need.

If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? (Romans 8:31–32)

Fourth, if you lose your audience, and there is no one to rejoice with you over small successes, know that millions of angels are rejoicing in the presence of God.

I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents. (Luke 15:10)

Fifth, if you feel alone, with no one even aware of you (let alone praising all the good that you do), remember your Father sees and will reward you.

Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. . . . But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. (Matthew 6:1–4)

Whatever good anyone does, this he will receive back from the Lord. (Ephesians 6:8)

Sixth, if you feel that what you accomplish is small and that you are wasting your life, remember that absolutely nothing done “in the Lord” is wasted.

My beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain. (1 Corinthians 15:58)

Let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. (Galatians 6:9)

Seventh, if you feel that it is simply too hard to keep on giving and giving while you get so little return in this life, while people back home are recognized and blessed for the good that they do, remember: you will be repaid at the resurrection.

But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just. (Luke 14:13–14)

Eighth, if you think, “Yes, I get rewards in the life to come, but the folks back home get rewards in the life to come and get pleasures in this life that I miss out on, and I’d like both,” remember: there is greater reward for greater sacrifice.

This light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal. (2 Corinthians 4:17–18)

“A life devoted to rescuing people from the wrath of God through faith in Christ is precious in eternity.”

Ninth, when the thought of loneliness threatens to overwhelm you, go deep through the promise of Jesus and experience this reality: “I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:18–20)

Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” So we can confidently say, “The Lord is my helper; I will not fear; what can man do to me?” (Hebrews 13:4–6)

Overcome Obstacles with Incentives

A life devoted to rescuing people from the wrath of God through faith in Christ, and building their faith through healthy churches, is precious in eternity and powerful in time.
In the darkest last days, Christ will have a white-hot people for himself and will lead them in triumph to finish the Great Commission, even at the cost of their lives.
Whatever you lose by leaving the familiarity and security and comforts of your own people for the sake of Christ, it will be worth it, and in the eternal day you will never regret it.

Several months into a new executive administration, how might we describe the state of affairs when it comes to abortion in America?

Grievous would not be too strong a word. Distressing and outrageous also describe my response to the renewed efforts to enshrine abortion as health care, turn it into a super-spreader event worldwide, and purge dissenters working within the U.S. government who think it’s wrong to intentionally kill an innocent human being. But though God can, without sin, “let loose . . . his burning anger, wrath, indignation, and distress” (Psalm 78:49), I cannot. So, what follows is a brief state of the union for abortion that should fuel our first and best response: prayer.

For thirty years, from Boston to Beijing, I’ve done my best to respond to the shedding of innocent blood with prayerful actions. I’ve now worked in seventeen countries where abortion is most concentrated, prayerfully training pastors in pro-life ethics and their churches in pregnancy crisis intervention. But I also set aside time every week to pray with others for the end of abortion.

Why? Because some evils are so profoundly demonic in their power structure that they will not be cast out without prayer. Child-killing is one of those evils. It’s not merely a failure to maintain the human rights of the defenseless (Psalm 82:3–4). Nor is it simply an exercise in personal autonomy. It’s unrealized demonic servitude. The psalmist says, “They sacrificed their sons and their daughters to the demons; they poured out innocent blood, the blood of their sons and daughters . . . and the land was polluted with blood” (Psalm 106:37–38). Certainly we must do more than pray. But let us not delude ourselves about what we are truly up against.

Affordable ‘Health Care’

According to the White House Fact Sheet of June 30, 2021, “The Biden Administration is committed to advancing sexual and reproductive health and rights in the U.S. and around the world. Everyone should have access to quality, affordable health care.”

“Affordable health care” is government-speak for “easy abortion.” Through executive memorandums and policy directives, Biden is removing the restrictions on U.S. and globalist organizations promoting abortion worldwide.

Biden has committed to “remove, as part of the President’s first budget, the Hyde Amendment restriction from government spending bills, reflecting the President’s support for expanding access to health care, including reproductive health care, through Medicaid and other federally-funded programs.”

The Hyde Amendment, implemented in 1980, has for forty years been the one point of conciliation between abortion advocates and pro-life taxpayers — that which is justified as a private choice, let’s agree, ought not to be paid for with public dollars.

Ending the Hyde Amendment forces all of us to pay for anyone’s abortion. It will not only lead to more abortion; it will further delegitimize dissent, religious liberty, and conscience clauses, along with emboldening the de-platforming and de-monetizing of those who dare to disagree.

Abortion by Mail

Besides removing abortion restrictions, this administration is increasing abortion funding. Domestically, its budget calls for a massive infusion of tax dollars into the Title X family planning, providing $340 million for Planned Parenthood and the abortion industry. Internationally, he proposes a 72 percent increase in funding, or $583.7 million for the United Nations Population Fund.

“‘Affordable health care’ is government-speak for ‘easy abortion.’”

The United Nations Population Fund euphemistically calls itself a “sexual and reproductive health agency.” What they are is a missions organization. Within their worldview, population is the sin problem. Poor countries like Uganda, Ghana, El Salvador, and Guatemala, which still legally protect their unborn children, are the mission field. Abortion, contraception, and sterilization is the plan of salvation.

Relaxing enforcement of safety protocols is the opposite of “health care for women.” Yet this spring, the Food and Drug Administration officially suspended enforcement of the in-person requirement for chemical abortion pills. Abortion by mail is now permitted. Multiple studies, including that of Dr. Donna Harrison, covering a twenty-year-long period, report that complications are four times more frequent in chemical abortions compared to surgical abortions. Adverse events include hemorrhage, infections, and trauma from a woman’s seeing her own unborn child expelled.

In April, the National Institutes of Health removed the restrictions imposed on research using fetal stem cells under the previous administration. In May, the International Society for Stem Cell Research ended its long-standing rule that limited experimentation on human embryos to the first fourteen days of creation. This makes human embryos akin to lab rats. As the Lozier Institute writes, “The removal of the 14-day limit shows their real goal: unlimited human experimentation, making human embryos into disposable laboratory supplies.” In June, Democratic lawmakers introduced the “Women’s Health Protection Act,” which, if passed and signed by the president, would nullify all state abortion regulations.

Some Light in the Darkness

At the same time, American citizens at the state level are rushing to the defense of the unborn. In the first five months of 2021, 48 U.S. state legislatures advanced approximately 489 pro-life bills. As of the end of May, 89 new pro-life bills from 26 states had been enacted. Some, like the Arkansas bill signed this spring, ban almost all abortions. Other states have banned abortion after twelve weeks gestation, sex-selective abortion, and abortion due to prenatal disability diagnosis.

At the local level, Lubbock, Texas, is now one of 36 cities that have outlawed abortion within their city limits and declared themselves a Sanctuary City for the Unborn. Their local Planned Parenthood was forced to stop aborting babies on June 1 when this local law went into effect.

Hanging over all of this, the Supreme Court (SCOTUS) agreed this spring to take up the biggest abortion case in thirty years. In Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the Court will answer “whether all pre-viability prohibitions on elective abortions are unconstitutional.”

Judicial analyst Bruce Hausknecht writes,

The 1973 Roe decision, written by Justice Harry Blackmun, created artificial “trimester” rules for regulating abortion based on the concept of “viability,” the time at which a preborn baby was generally thought to be able to survive, with medical help, outside the womb. . . . Advances in medical technology have lowered the age of viability. By the time of the 1992 Supreme Court decision in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, for example, the age of viability had decreased from 28 weeks to around 23 to 24 weeks. Recently, a Wisconsin child celebrated his first birthday after a premature birth at 21 weeks, 2 days gestation.

What Can We Do?

How then should we respond to the new administration unleashing its power to promote mass child-killing at home and abroad? We pray that God would grant our president a spirit of repentance, as he did to us. And we pray God would restrain him and frustrate his plans.

“Some evils are so profoundly demonic in their power structure that they will not be cast out without prayer.”

I pray for our nation as a grieving patriot. I don’t put much stock in SCOTUS having the moral courage to follow the Constitution as written. As Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch wrote to the Court last month, “Nothing in constitutional text, structure, history, or tradition supports a right to abortion.” The stronghold of abortion is not in the text. It’s in the human heart and in the fear of man. That’s what drives me to pray.

In 1896, SCOTUS ruled in Plessy v. Ferguson that racial discrimination laws were constitutional. It was a cowardly decision that played to the powerful forces within the culture of the time, not to the text of the constitution. It took 58 years for SCOTUS to find the courage in Brown v. Board of Education to say, “No more! The 14th amendment calls for equal protection of all persons.” I pray we can witness such a declaration in our time.

As the church, we must not be afraid to suffer the hostility that would come if we lived out our faith like the midwives of Egypt. To those dear sisters, suffering many injustices themselves, child-killing was the hill to die on. They “feared God” (Exodus 1:17) and so protected their babies from slaughter. When pressured by Pharoah himself, they still refused to conform (Exodus 1:18–19).

In return, God favored them (Exodus 1:20). Why? For rescuing the babies from slaughter? Not exactly. Rather, “because the midwives feared God, he gave them families” (Exodus 1:21). In other words, God rewarded their faith in him, which was expressed in their bold, pro-life actions.