Audio Transcript

Welcome back to another week on the Ask Pastor John podcast. In our Bible reading this week, we’re in the thick of it, reading through Leviticus — a notorious book that ends a lot of well-intended Bible readers in the month of February — a book that includes hard texts like Leviticus 21:16–24, forcing Bible readers to ask, “Why did God shun the disabled in the Old Testament?” We looked at that question last time, on Thursday.

Today we talk about personal suffering and the meaning-full-ness of Christian suffering. So often suffering feels meaning-less, and we can get disheartened and feel like giving up, leading to today’s question from Samuel. “Hello, Pastor John. The apostle Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4:7–9 that he was ‘afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken.’ What does he mean that he was persecuted but not forsaken? When I imagine the sufferings of Paul hitting my life, I would be immediately tempted to think that such harsh persecution would make me feel completely crushed and abandoned by God. Much lesser pain in my life brings me to the brink of this already. So, how did Paul endure such pain without feeling totally defeated? And what has faith looked like in your life when your life was its hardest?”

Here’s the text that we’re being asked to get inside of: 2 Corinthians 4:7–9:

We have this treasure [namely, this treasure of vital faith in Christ, who is the image of God] in jars of clay [that is, fragile bodies and minds], to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed.

And Samuel is asking, “How did Paul endure this — this being afflicted, perplexed, persecuted, struck down? How did he endure this the way he did?” And he has in mind the magnitude and frequency of Paul’s sufferings.

I doubt that most of our listeners have an immediate consciousness of how terrible that was for Paul. So, I’m going to read it. This is one of the most surprising and staggering and appalling statements of Paul’s life in the Bible. He endured

far greater labors, far more imprisonments, with countless beatings, and often near death. Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I was adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. And, apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches. (2 Corinthians 11:23–28)

And we complain.

Samuel’s question is relevant because of how easily we grumble about our own circumstances when in fact none of us — I’m willing to say this to everybody listening to me — has endured what Paul did. So, Samuel asks, “How did Paul endure such pain without feeling totally defeated — indeed, abandoned by God?” That’s what he asks, and I think Paul would give three answers.

1. ‘I endured by God’s keeping.’

Number one, I think he would say, “I was miraculously kept faithful by the Lord Jesus. It was a gift; it was a miracle; it was a work of God to keep me. That’s why I didn’t give in.” His perseverance was a gift. Here’s what he says in 2 Timothy 4:16–17:

At my first defense no one came to stand by me, but all deserted me. May it not be charged against them! But the Lord stood by me and strengthened me, so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed and all the Gentiles might hear it. So I was rescued from the lion’s mouth.

That’s his basic answer to how he endured. The living, sovereign Lord Jesus Christ stood by Paul when nobody else did. He did not infer that because everybody abandoned him, God’s not real. Since Christians are all a bunch of fakes, Jesus isn’t real. He never went that direction, which so many people do today.

In 1 Corinthians 1:8–9, he said that Christ sustains us “to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful, by whom [we] were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.” So, Paul enjoyed fellowship with Jesus. That’s the key: fellowship with Jesus. And God held on to Paul and sustained him and preserved his faith through everything by giving him the enjoyment of fellowship with Jesus through it all.

God began the work in Paul on the Damascus road. And according to Philippians 1:6, he believes God will finish the work. So, God calls, God keeps, God establishes, God glorifies. This is God’s work. If any of us endures to the end as a believer through suffering, it’s God’s grace that we endure. It’s a gift. It’s a supernatural work. So, that’s Paul’s first answer.

2. ‘I endured by sound teaching.’

As a second answer, I think he would say, “God preserved me, Jesus saved me and kept me, by means of teaching me a true and robust theology of Christian suffering.” And in that theology of Christian suffering, which kept him, was the conviction of God’s absolute sovereignty over Paul’s suffering — and that God is not only sovereign, but he’s good and he’s wise. Nothing befalls Paul but what God sends for his good purposes. “If the Lord wills,” James says (and Paul agrees), “we will live and do this or that” (James 4:15). If he doesn’t, we won’t. We are immortal till God’s work for us is done. God is sovereign. That is basic to Paul’s and our endurance.

In the first days after his conversion, remember that even before his blindness was removed there in Damascus, Ananias was sent to Paul, and he was sent with this message: “I will show him,” Christ says, “how much he must suffer for the sake of my name” (Acts 9:16). In other words, from the beginning, God made it clear to Paul, “To serve me is to suffer.” Suffering’s not a detour. It’s part of the path, part of the calling.

God’s Loving Discipline

Paul knew that all of God’s wrath had been absorbed by Jesus when he died. So now, there’s no condemnation for Paul (or for us) in Christ. None of these horrible things that are happening to Paul is owing to God’s wrath. What a relief! They were all part of God’s fatherly, loving, disciplining, ministry-advancing purposes for Paul, for the church, for the world.

“If any of us endures to the end as a believer through suffering, it’s God’s grace that we endure.”

Some of his sufferings, he says, were the refining of his own faith. Second Corinthians 1:8–9 is amazing. He says, “We were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead.” That was God’s purpose: to help Paul trust utterly in God by knocking all the props out from under his life so that there was only one place to fall — on God who raises the dead. And he trusted God. He trusted this profound knowledge of the role of suffering in the life of the believer.

No Wasted Pain

Another part of his theology of suffering was that no pain here is wasted, because it’s producing a weight of glory beyond all comparison. “This light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison” (2 Corinthians 4:17). In other words, even in those last horrible days and weeks of suffering before death — they seem so meaningless — even in those hours, nothing is wasted because they actually are producing a greater weight of glory after death.

I’ll mention one more aspect of Paul’s theology of suffering that is like a ballast in his boat to keep it from being tipped over by the sufferings. He says that his sufferings for the body of Christ were the filling up of what was lacking in the afflictions of Christ. “I rejoice in my sufferings” — which is an amazing statement in itself —“for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church” (Colossians 1:24).

This was not because Christ’s afflictions were lacking in any atoning merit. That’s not the issue; that’s not the problem. It was because Christ’s afflictions were lacking in personal presentation to those for whom he suffered. Paul was saying, “In my sufferings for you, I am presenting to you Christ’s sufferings for you, so that you can see and feel his love for you in my suffering for you.” And I think that’s why many pastors are called to suffer the way they are.

3. ‘I endured by God’s promises.’

So, Paul’s first answer to how he endured these crushing hardships was that Christ kept him, stood by him. And the second answer is that he kept him by means of a true and robust theology of Christian suffering. And finally, the third answer that Paul would give is this: “I was kept by the precious and very great promises of God” — promises like these:

“I’ll be with you to the end” (Matthew 28:20).
“I’ll never leave you. I’ll never forsake you” (Hebrews 13:5).
“I will work everything together for your good” (Romans 8:28).
“I will strengthen you; I will help you; I will uphold you” (Isaiah 41:10).
“In the Lord, none of your work is in vain” (1 Corinthians 15:58).
“To live is Christ; to die is gain” (Philippians 1:21).
“To be away from the body is to be at home with the Lord” (2 Corinthians 5:8).

So, these three answers to how Paul endured are our answers. I think that’s our answer as well as Paul’s answer. Paul lived his life for our sake. That’s why he endured these things — so that we could see and learn.

The Lord kept him and will keep us.
We should have a robust, biblical theology of Christian suffering.
We should live through it all by the precious promises of God.

What do you do when you are genuinely uncertain about your faith?

Some people deny that doubt can ever be sincere since general revelation makes God’s existence plain (Psalm 19:1; Romans 1:19). But the Bible nowhere promises that God will be equally clear to every person at every moment.

Faith often involves moments of angst. Some coming into Christianity struggle deeply before finally breaking through. Many believers experience the “dark night of the soul” — moments or even seasons of anguish when the sense of God’s presence is removed. Think of the many psalms of lament (e.g., Psalm 22; Psalm 88) or C.S. Lewis’s A Grief Observed. In my YouTube ministry, I’ve discovered that many younger people feel this way right now.

The world is filled with uncertainty and gnawing anxiety. Many people are open to believing in God, maybe even desiring to believe — but they still feel stuck in uncertainty. So, what do you do when your confidence about God is above 50 percent, but under 100 percent? Or how do you help a friend in this circumstance? Let me first offer some encouragement, and then some counsel.

Uncertainty Doesn’t Mean You’re Fake

In the church, we often struggle to know how to help doubters. Sometimes we give the impression that a genuine believer won’t have any doubts. But this approach doesn’t seem to be biblical. Some of the apostles themselves doubted — even while seeing the risen Jesus (Matthew 28:17)! And Jude 22 commands us to “have mercy on those who doubt.”

“God uses our uncertainty to produce humility in us, and along with it, an awareness of our need of God.”

If you struggle with doubts, remember: Thomas was not Judas. Thomas doubted, but Judas betrayed. These are not identical.

I do not say this to minimize the significance of your doubts. Some doubt is sinful, and almost all doubt is painful. In my observation, however, some believers are afflicted with an exquisite sense of shame and self-reproach about having doubts. As a result, they might keep them secret, and they might wonder if they don’t have true faith at all.

So, remember: genuine Christians in the Bible struggled with real doubt. And Thomas was not Judas. Don’t be harsher in evaluating your spiritual status than Scripture is. In fact, if we will continue to walk in the light to the best of our ability, God can actually use our uncertainty for good.

God Can Use Uncertainty for Good

There are many pieces of advice I give to those struggling with doubts. Having a friend to talk to is crucial, for example. So is keeping up spiritual disciplines (particularly prayer, Scripture reading, and corporate worship). Our spiritual life and our community powerfully shape and reinforce our beliefs. But here let me focus on one strategy that I believe is particularly neglected: we need to reflect theologically on our uncertainty. We need to develop a working framework for how to understand doubts and their role in our life.

When I was in college, I struggled with an acute sense of frustration at the uncertainty of life. I resonated with the emphasis in existential philosophy that we are hurled into existence, but simultaneously ill-equipped for existence. No one gives you an instruction manual when you are born!

One night in December 2005, I wrote this in my journal:

The only thing worse than the pain of life is its utter randomness. We are hurled into consciousness and struggle without any explanations or answers to accompany them. Life is like a test which we are forced to take, the answers to which are impossible for us to know. The blanks with which we fill in the questions of life are at best guesses, and usually merely unexamined prejudices. Life is like a battle which we are forced to fight, but the objective of which is unclear to us. We are hurled into the contest, but unsure of what is required of us. We sense that we must strive, but are unsure to what end we strive, or by what means. The great dilemma of life is not its failure or pain, but its uncertainty and chaos.

There was one thing, however, that never occurred to me: What if this very situation, and the struggle involved in it, has a purpose?

Pascal on the Hiddenness of God

A breakthrough came when I discovered that my struggle was not new. Some of the great Christian minds of the past had agonized over it. The great seventeenth-century thinker Blaise Pascal, for example, famously emphasized the hiddenness of God and the resulting anguish:

Nature has nothing to offer me that does not give rise to doubt and anxiety. If I saw no sign there of a Divinity I should decide on a negative solution: if I saw signs of a Creator everywhere I should peacefully settle down in the faith. But, seeing too much to deny and not enough to affirm, I am in a pitiful state. (Pensées 429, quoted in Christianity for Modern Pagans, 213)

But for Pascal, this very state of affairs exists for a reason. God uses our uncertainty to produce humility in us, and along with it, an awareness of our need of God: “It is not only right but useful for us that God should be partly concealed and partly revealed, since it is equally dangerous for man to know God without knowing his own wretchedness as to know his wretchedness without knowing God” (Pensées 446, 249).

According to this way of thinking, if God immediately answered our every doubt, this would not be productive for us. We might know God but relate to him in pride and complacency, which would not actually touch our area of need in relation to God — namely, our sin and resistance to him. As Pascal writes elsewhere, “God wishes to move the will rather than the mind. Perfect clarity would help the mind and harm the will” (Pensées 234, 247).

Light for Those Who Wish to See

I realize this idea can be frustrating for people to hear. But think about it: How do we know that certainty is what we really need? If we are brutally honest, we will probably realize that we often fail to act on what we do know. Perhaps the nature of God’s revelation — partially hidden, yet manifest through creation, conscience, and Christ — is actually best suited to our true condition.

After all, God is interested not only that we believe in him, but how we believe. If he overpowered our resistance with frequent overt miracles, this would probably result in a “thin theism”: we would begrudgingly admit his existence while wishing it were not so. Meanwhile, for those who seek God, God has not left himself without testimony. Pascal is helpful again:

If God had wished to overcome the obstinacy of the most hardened, he could have done so by revealing himself to them so plainly that they could not doubt the truth of his essence, as he will appear on the last day. . . . This is not the way he wished to appear when he came in mildness, because so many men had shown themselves unworthy of his clemency, that he wished to deprive them of the good they did not desire. There is enough light for those who desire only to see, and enough darkness for those of a contrary disposition. (Pensées 149, 69)

Walk in the Light You Have

In the meantime, what should we do? Pascal counsels us to make a choice. Make the best decision we can in light of what we do know. Make a wholehearted existential commitment to the truth as best as we can see it, walking in whatever light God has granted us, trusting that the remaining darkness will not last forever — that in fact God is at work through it.

So, Christian reader, when you struggle with uncertainty, do not lose heart. Keep pressing forward. God is at work in the midst of your struggle — and he will faithfully sustain you until the day you stand before him, face to face, with all uncertainty left behind forever.

This conference is built on the conviction that the word of God, the good news of salvation through Jesus Christ, cannot fail. Cannot. And that your life devoted to this cause cannot be wasted. Cannot.

As the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it. (Isaiah 55:10–11)

God’s word, God’s saving gospel, cannot fail. “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 24:14). It cannot fail because God cannot fail. He is infinitely powerful, infinitely wise, and infinitely good. He has no equal. He is, therefore, literally invincible. And the purpose of the word that he speaks is invincible. What he purposes comes to pass. That’s what it means to be God:

I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, “My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose.” (Isaiah 46:9–10)

Only One Life

Therefore, if your life is aligned with his word, it cannot be wasted. And it is certain that if your life is not aligned with his word, it will be wasted. Young people, may I testify that you do not want to be my age and look back over your life and say, “I wasted it.” To look back over your one life — your one, single, never-to-be-repeated life — and say, “That was a waste.” Oh, how thankful I am that from age 6 to 18 I walked into the kitchen every morning and saw this plaque:

Only one life, ’twill soon be past;only what’s done for Christ will last.

I don’t remember a time when my prayer to God was not, “O God, please don’t let me waste my life. I get one shot. Then eternity. Please, Father, make it count.” I believe that if you pray that prayer from your heart, he will do it. You will not waste your life. Your life will count for eternity.

This conference is built on the conviction that the global purposes of God, worked out through his word, cannot fail — and your life aligned with those purposes cannot be wasted.

All the messages, one way or the other, are designed to show that is true. And my assignment in this message is to take you to the book of Acts in the New Testament and show you the invincible progress of the word of God in the 35 years after Jesus had returned to heaven and taken his seat triumphantly at the Father’s right hand.

Unstoppable Spread

The book of Acts picks up where the four Gospels leave off and carries us from Jerusalem to Judea to Samaria, through Syria and Asia Minor into Greece, and then to Rome, with Spain on the horizon. So that Paul would say, as he made his way toward Rome, near the end of his life,

from Jerusalem and all the way around to Illyricum [northwest Greece stretching through the Balkans to northern Italy] I have fulfilled the ministry of the gospel of Christ. . . . I no longer have any room for work in these regions. (Romans 15:19, 23)

That was an outlandish thing for him to say since there were thousands of people in those regions who had not yet believed in Christ. We know this because Paul left Timothy behind and told him to “do the work of an evangelist” (2 Timothy 4:5). So, it was outlandish — unless that was not in Paul’s job. Paul was not a local-church evangelist. He was a missionary, a frontier missionary — meaning (as he said), “I am called to preach the gospel where Christ has not been named” (see Romans 15:20). Timothy was not a frontier, pioneer missionary — he was not called to preach where Christ had not been named. But Paul was.

So, at the end of Acts, Paul is heading for Rome, hoping against hope that he might be sent on his way to Spain and the rest of the Roman empire. And they killed him. Others would be raised up — like you at a Cross conference — to take the gospel to the remaining peoples and places where no church-base of evangelism has been planted.

Everything Aids the Advance

In the book of Acts, as the gospel spreads invincibly from Jerusalem to Rome, there are at least fifty points of opposition described. One of the purposes of this book is to show that none of that opposition succeeds in stopping the invincible word of God. But that’s not the only point, or the deepest point, that Luke wants to make in writing this book. He also wants to show that God makes human sin and satanic opposition serve the advancement of the gospel.

Human sin and satanic opposition to the gospel are ultimately planned and designed by God to accomplish his saving purposes. If you want to be aligned with the purposes of God, so that you don’t waste your life, you need to grasp this fundamental biblical reality. Both globally and personally in your life, God makes sin and satanic opposition serve his good purposes for you. Satan is not a free, autonomous, self-determining agent in this world. He’s on a leash. He does nothing apart from God’s infinitely wise purposes.

Do you remember Paul’s thorn in the flesh in 2 Corinthians 12? It’s called “a messenger of Satan” (2 Corinthians 12:7). Satan’s design was to make Paul miserable and ineffective with this thorn. But Jesus told Paul, No, God’s design is to protect you from pride, and to make you holy, and to show you that the grace of Christ is sufficient for you (2 Corinthians 12:7–9).

“The word of God, the good news of salvation through Jesus Christ, cannot fail — and your life devoted to this cause cannot be wasted.”

Young people, if you get ahold of this now, at this stage in your life, how powerfully it will serve you for decades to come, both personally and globally. All the losses of your life, all the sorrows, hardships, the tragedies of your life — the loss of your mother to cancer; the loss of your brother in a car accident; the loss of your friends at school who you thought were on your side, and now they’ve been talking about you behind your back; your disappointments with your looks and your abilities as you compare yourself with others — all these discouragements, which Satan aims to use to make you miserable and ineffective so that you waste your life, are ultimately God’s plan to make you strong.

As he sends you into battle against sin and Satan and unbelief, wearing all the armor of God, he says, “Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might” (Ephesians 6:10). God is sovereign over Satan and sin. He is sovereign over suffering. If you trust him, he turns everything for your good and for the fruitfulness of your life.

If you get this, you will be an invincible Christian (perhaps an invincible missionary), just like the word of God was invincible in the book of Acts, because God makes human sin and satanic opposition serve the advancement of his saving purposes in the gospel, personally and globally. So, for the purposes of getting strong in our souls, and steel in our backbone, and fiber in our faith, and courage in our witness, and ballast in our boats, let’s watch God do this in the book of Acts.

Sin and Satan at the Cross

The most important event in the book of Acts where God makes human sin and satanic opposition serve the gospel is the crucifixion of Jesus Christ — the very creation of the gospel. When Jesus died, he paid the penalty for all the sins of God’s people for all time. Anybody and everybody, anywhere in the world, who believes in Jesus will be forgiven all their sins and will have eternal life with God. This moment, this event — the death of Jesus for our sins — is the foundation of all the good news throughout the book of Acts, throughout all history, all missions. How did it come about?

Satan enters into the heart of Judas in order to maximize the suffering of the Son of God and, if possible, divert him from his task (Luke 22:3). Then the mockery of Herod kicks in, and the expediency of Pilate kicks in, and the mob joins in with “Crucify him!” And the soldiers finish it with spikes and a spear. And all those actions — by Pilate and Herod and the mob and the soldiers — were sin, human sin. The worst sin. To murder the Son of God is the worst sin. And all of it was predestined and planned by God for the triumph of the gospel.

Listen carefully to Acts 4:27–28, where the Christians cry out to God:

Truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place.

Therefore, my young friends, let this be the ballast in your boat, your strength, your staying power, your invincibility: the sovereign God of the universe predestined and planned satanic opposition and human sin in the creation of the gospel — and henceforward in its invincible spread. Keeping this ballast in your boat will be the key to staying afloat and not wasting your lives.

Sent by Suffering

Now, let’s watch God act on this principle in the book of Acts — the sovereign God making satanic opposition and human sin serve the advancement of the gospel across the Roman empire.

At the end of chapter 7, Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit and faith and grace and power (Acts 6:5, 8), closed his long message before the council in Jerusalem with this indictment:

[Your fathers] killed those who announced beforehand the coming of the Righteous One, whom you have now betrayed and murdered. (Acts 7:52)

When they heard this, Luke tells us, “They . . . stopped their ears and rushed together at him. Then they cast him out of the city and stoned him” (Acts 7:57–58). His last words were, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them” (Acts 7:60). Stephen was the first Christian martyr after Jesus.

Then came one of those inevitable, humanly unintended consequences for being faithful to God’s word amid demonic opposition and human sin. It’s described in the first verse of chapter 8:

There arose on that day a great persecution against the church in Jerusalem, and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles.

Do you know how many people that is, who were driven out of their homes in Jerusalem because they were Christians? Acts 4:4 says, “Many of those who had heard the word believed, and the number of the men [males] came to about five thousand.” That’s five thousand men, not counting women and children. Conservatively, then, that’s at least ten thousand people on the run for their lives. There’s nothing romantic about this. It is terrifying; it is painful. To be a refugee, then and now, is heartbreaking.

“God has no equal. He is, therefore, literally invincible.”

So, here’s what happened. A Spirit-filled, Bible-saturated message is delivered by a godly man, Stephen. Then Satan fills the listeners with rage, and a mob kills him in a brutal act of stoning. And the effect of the stoning is to unleash on Jerusalem a deadly persecution that drives ten thousand Christians from their homes.

Persecution Leads to Preaching

Do you think God was wringing his hands in heaven, as if this satanic opposition would discourage the boldness of witness and the advance of the gospel? No, he was not. Here’s what God was doing. Acts 8:4 says, “Now those who were scattered went about preaching the word.”

The word for “preaching” here is euanggelizomnenoi, which always means “speak good news.” The thousands of persecuted refugees, in flight for their lives, were speaking the good news of Christ wherever they went. They were not saying, “What’s good about this news? It doesn’t even spare us from persecution. Where was God when Stephen was killed?” Instead, they were so thrilled that their sins were forgiven, and that they had the hope of eternal happiness with God, that they spoke of it everywhere they went — in the middle of homelessness and pain.

And what was the effect of that speaking? Acts 11:19–21 gives the answer:

Now those who were scattered because of the persecution that arose over Stephen [the homeless refugees] traveled as far as . . . Antioch, speaking the word to no one except Jews. But there were some of them . . . who on coming to Antioch spoke to the Hellenists also, preaching the Lord Jesus. And the hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number who believed turned to the Lord.

This was a historic missionary breakthrough. Up till now, as far as we know, no Christians were taking the gospel to the Gentiles (non-Jewish people), in spite of Jesus’s command to do so. So, the sovereign God said, “By the death of Stephen and the persecution of my precious people in Jerusalem, I will get my people moving to the nations.” Global missions was the result of persecution and displacement — forced emigration. In other words, God makes satanic opposition and human sin serve the advancement of the gospel.

Appointment in Prison

It happened again in northern Greece, where Paul was powerfully preaching the gospel in a city that had never been reached, Philippi. His ministry was so effective that it liberated a slave girl and caused her owners to be furious at Paul and Silas. They dragged them before the rulers, and Acts 16:23–24 says,

When they had inflicted many blows upon them, they threw them into prison, ordering the jailer to keep them safely. Having received this order, he put them into the inner prison and fastened their feet in the stocks.

And what was Paul’s response? “God, I thought you were sovereign. I have been serving you as faithfully as I can. And I get reviled, or beaten, or whipped, or imprisoned almost everywhere I go. We were making amazing progress in this city. And here I sit in a dungeon with welts on my back because of my faithfulness — to you.”

That was not Paul’s response. Ever. And it shouldn’t be yours. Here’s what Paul was doing in the dungeon. “About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them” (Acts 16:25). One of the purposes of this message is to turn you into that kind of person.

So, what is the sovereign God doing? Jesus had said, “I have other sheep that are not of this [Jewish] fold. I must bring them also” (John 10:16). The jailer in this prison was one of those sheep. And Jesus meant to save him. So, there was an earthquake. All the doors opened, and the bonds fell off. And that night, salvation came to the household of the jailer. So, why had the mob succeeded in beating and imprisoning Paul and Silas? Because there was a jailer to save (Acts 16:26–31). God makes satanic opposition and human sin serve the advancement of the gospel.

Waste Not

So, we end where we began: this conference is built on the conviction that the word of God, the good news of salvation through Jesus Christ, cannot fail — and that your life devoted to this cause cannot be wasted.

But what we have seen in the book of Acts is even deeper and more amazing than that. The sovereign God of the universe predestined and planned satanic opposition and human sin in the very creation of the gospel — the death of Jesus. And from that day forward, this same sovereignty has made the powers of hell and human sin serve the invincible spread of that gospel — to every people and tribe and tongue and nation.

Here is my closing plea: Align your life with God’s sovereign, saving, global purposes. Let this be the ballast in your boat. This is how you will stay afloat in the coming decades. This is how you will not waste your life.

Luckily for Jesus, the disciples were there that day to provide some public-relations help.

The sheep huddled together and devised a question: “Excuse me, Jesus . . . um, Rabbi . . . uh, Master . . . do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard your teaching?”

Jesus hadn’t thrown the first punch. The Pharisees, activists of “cleanliness is next to godliness,” had complained of the disciples’ unwashed hands. “Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat” (Matthew 15:2). Without flinching, Jesus counters with a right hook: “And why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition?” (Matthew 15:3).

You see, some Pharisees in that day ran a little religious hustle, giving his money “to God” instead of his parents, whom God commanded they support. Jesus unmasks them:

God commanded, “Honor your father and your mother,” and, “Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.” But you say, “If anyone tells his father or his mother, ‘What you would have gained from me is given to God,’ he need not honor his father.” So for the sake of your tradition you have made void the word of God. (Matthew 15:4–7)

He catches these Holy Handwashers with their arms down. As they stumble back, Jesus presses his opponents into the corner:

You hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, when he said:

“This people honors me with their lips,but their heart is far from me;in vain do they worship me,teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.” (Matthew 15:7–9)

Finally, he calls the people over to give the ten count:

He called the people to him and said to them, “Hear and understand: it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth; this defiles a person.” (Matthew 15:10–11)

As the Pharisees exit the ring enraged, the disciples, stunned at the first-round finish, ask Jesus, “Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this saying?” (Matthew 15:12).

Mannerly Messiah

Had we been there, I imagine most would have been tempted to wonder something like this: “Does he know he comes off a little strong?” “Was his manner of bluntness all that it could have been?” “Was that really the most persuasive manner for handling that theological disagreement?”

And I imagine how we might expect a godly leader to answer our concerns: “You know, you’re right. I did not need to embarrass them like that. I did not have to draw the crowd to myself or brand them with Isaiah’s confounding prophecy or apply the fifth commandment so nakedly. I did not have to oppose their traditions with such combativeness. I could have reasoned more and corrected less, and done so less publicly.”

But Jesus answers distinctly. He knows his speech offended the Pharisees, and he does not mind. He doubles down, as we say. And he does so proverbially: “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be rooted up. Let them alone; they are blind guides. And if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit” (Matthew 15:13–14). What does he mean?

Uprooting Sensibility

Jesus leans on divine sovereignty in this tense situation of his own making. If they are not of his Father — saved by the Father, chosen by the Father — they will be uprooted. His bluntness, his directness, his risking offense — these were not the issue. The issue was not what he said (for it was perfect), but how they responded. The wind was not to blame but the plant’s roots. Jesus entrusted not only himself, but his teaching, to his Father’s care.

The same word that caused them to stumble could have caused them to repent. The same flame that burns the chaff refines the gold; the same wind that tests the oak uproots the weeds. The Gentile woman of the very next scene seeks healing for her demon-possessed daughter and ends up astounding Jesus as her roots withstand the gust of being called a “dog” (Matthew 15:21–28). Yet the Pharisees blow away. “Leave them alone,” Jesus says. The blind lead the blind into pits. They would repent or they would be offended, but he would speak as his Father taught him without losing sleep at their anger.

“Jesus, if on earth today, would uproot much of our sense and sensibilities.”

Am I wrong to think we need such Christlike men willing to speak plainly and risk offense? Jesus, if on earth today, would uproot much of our sense and sensibilities. His words would be quoted with scorn online. Many frail plants would be uprooted; a politically correct cross would be raised. He came as a stone of offense and a rock of stumbling, and so he remains (Isaiah 8:13; 1 Peter 2:7–8).

Deputy Politeness

What’s the point?

Many Christians today, including pastors, need to be more comfortable giving plain statements that displease, true assessments without the sugary coating. And, like Jesus, remain unmoved when they are received unfavorably. My aim here is category-creation, not precise application. The categories Jesus creates confront the spirit of our age by teaching:

If men are offended, it is no sure proof that sin has been committed.
Such offense is no proof you lack Christlikeness.
At times (even if at seldom times), risking offense is not just permissible but righteous.

A broad space exists between the Citadel of Comfort and the Wilderness of Sin — a tristate area of Rebuke, Admonishment, and Correction. Many prophets, apostles, pastors, and saints have lodged there to the benefit of their hearers, and often at great cost to themselves.

But the enemy of souls would not have any men of God dwell there. He sends deputies called Politeness and Niceness to apprehend and evict. At the sound of lawful reproofs, especially of a creative variety, even the meekest men need to be arrested for that plainness of speech that brings weight to correction. Now, lords Smooth-Tongue and Tickle-Ear enshrine euphemisms, allowing sin to escape while cuffing plainspoken confronters. But Richard Baxter captures the courageous response:

When reproofs themselves prove so ineffectual, that they are more offended at the reproof than at the sin, and had rather that we should cease reproving than that themselves should cease sinning, I think it is time to sharpen the remedy. For what else should we do? To give up our brethren as incurable were cruelty, as long as there are further means to be used. (The Reformed Pastor, 4)

Let’s reclaim this timeless remedy. I hear a description of pastors we need today when Merry speaks of the now heightened Gandalf the White: “He has grown, or something. He can be both kinder and more alarming, merrier and more solemn than before, I think” (Two Towers, 590).

Going Viral

Good men can be more influenced by this embargo than they know. Some grow offended (often on another’s behalf) and quote the apostle with perfect accuracy: “speaking the truth in love” (Ephesians 4:15), and “correcting his opponents with gentleness” (2 Timothy 2:25). These texts mean something and instruct the Christian. Many of us are agreed that we want our speech to adorn and not hinder the advance of the gospel and the salvation of souls.

But the application of these texts must follow the dictates of holiness, not likeability or our untethered sense of things. Did Paul mean to cast shadows upon the credibility of those fiery arrows shot by the likes of Moses, David, Nathan, Elijah, Ezekiel, Jeremiah, John the Baptist, Jude, James, Peter, and Jesus himself? Or take Paul himself as an example. To those insisting on circumcision for right-standing with God (and so undermining the gospel and ruining eternal souls), he is not content simply to charge them with error or challenge them to a carefully moderated debate. In at least one place, he fires stronger ammo: “I wish those who unsettle you would emasculate themselves!” (Galatians 5:11–12).

Graphic. Personal. Direct. Offensive. Inspired. The cross has its offense (Galatians 5:11). Wishing that false teachers would castrate themselves contains another (Galatians 5:12).

Burning Speech

I am simply trying to move the border further from any assumption that truly godly talk is always smooth, polished, palatable, somewhat predictable. No thorns. No sharpness. No use of the two-edged sword. Only Nerf weapons. For years, what I considered godly speech was calibrated more by a trivial and sin-loving world than by a jealous and sin-hating Spirit. I did not yet appreciate, as John Piper writes,

Sometimes spiritual sleepers need to be shocked. If you want them to hear what you have to say, you might even need to scandalize them. Jesus is especially good at this. (Desiring God, 77)

Giving offense is not an aim of our ministries. But holiness is. God’s glory is. Eternal happiness for immortal souls is. Jesus cared about the crowds and would not have them deceived. Jesus cared about his disciples and would not have them enslaved to man’s tradition or the Pharisees’ umbrage. Jesus cared also about the Pharisees and would not let them perish in silence. He cared too about his Father’s commands and, in speaking, sought the glory that comes from God, not man.

Are we like that? A flesh-indulging mannerliness moves softly through many churches. A spirit of Eliab chides godly zeal as impertinence: “I know your presumption and the evil of your heart, for you have come down to see the battle.” And some earnest men sigh with David, “What have I done now? Was it not but a word?” (1 Samuel 17:28–29).

Have you ever felt like David, surrounded by Eliabs? In sermons, in small groups, they seem to know the evil and presumption of our hearts if we raise our voices, make people uncomfortable, transgress iron laws of likeability. Yet pressures come from without and from within. Baxter identifies the Eliab of our own pride as accomplice to filing off the roughness:

When God chargeth us to deal with men as for their lives, and to beseech them with all the earnestness that we are able, this cursed sin [pride] controlleth all, and condemneth the most holy commands of God, and saith to us, “What! will you make people think you are mad? Will you make them say you rage or rave? Cannot you speak soberly and moderately?” (The Reformed Pastor, 125)

I know that inner voice well, the one that concerns itself not with bringing to bear what God thinks of some sin, but what they will think of me. When pride governs our counseling or ailing accountability, sin is to be nodded at respectfully, thoughtfully, and then asked questions — endless questions — but not confronted directly. Yet I know that when I am deeply concerned with souls (which is too seldom), I wonder at the deceit of sin, the subtlety of Satan, the horror of falling away from Christ. How can I be silent? The closed mouth becomes a shut vent, fuming (Psalm 39:2–3). The mind kindles flame. But what of God? What of eternity? What of your soul?

Redrawing the Boundaries

Let me venture a few applications. To those who hear offense at nearly every uncomfortable word spoken, inhale and remember the line of godly men who spoke in ways and with tones that would provoke equal, if not greater, dismay. Pray for Scripture to govern your sensibilities. As Spurgeon requests from this text,

Do not . . . be needlessly alarmed about our ministry. Just give us plenty of elbow-room to strike right and left. Let not our friends encumber us. Whether they be friends or foes, when we have to strike for God and his truth, we cannot spare whoever may stand in our way. To our own Master we stand or fall, but to no one else in heaven or on earth. (The Weeding of the Garden)

To those frontiersmen always pressing at the boundaries, ensure that prayerfully profitable and not technically permissible is still the aim. To our own Master we stand or fall, and Christ will judge every careless word (Matthew 12:36).

And to all of us, may God give us grace to hate sin more than rebukes for sin, grace to love the Lord Jesus Christ and the souls of men more than the hellish treaty of nominal politeness. “Better is open rebuke than hidden love. Faithful are the wounds of a friend; profuse are the kisses of an enemy” (Proverbs 27:5–6).

I grew up on grass and turf. What did kindergarten-me want to be? A professional soccer player. Where did I spend most evenings as a teen? My club’s soccer complex. How did I choose a college? Division I soccer or bust.

Eventually, my left knee would be the one to bust (twice), but not until I’d devoted nearly twenty years to the game. Looking back on the cotton-tee rec leagues, the pricey club seasons, the long-awaited college career, the coveted national team camps — I see, sharp as a whistle, how God used soccer to increase my wonder of him. But what I also recognize (more painfully than two ACL tears) is how little I guarded myself against sins common to sport.

For every chance to worship God through exercise and competition, there is just as great a risk that we will “love the world or the things in the world” (1 John 2:15). Surely, sports can inspire worship. But often even more so, they can divert our hearts from heaven, casting them instead onto the fleeting rewards of fitness or fame.

Whether you’re young and yet to blow out a knee, a backward-looking athlete like me, or the person who simply loves sports, let’s wonder together at the God enthroned above every beautiful game. And let’s beware together the dangers lurking behind all the practices and tournaments, the social media feeds and TV screens.

Embracing Frailty

We live in an era of “easy everywhere,” as Andy Crouch puts it in The Tech-Wise Family. At the flex of a foot, we can travel from Connecticut to California by car. Our thumbs wiggle, and a friend in the Netherlands instantly knows how we are. Press a button, turn a knob, and lights flicker, water spouts, food warms, pictures snap, books play, music stops, presidents speak, gifts and ambulances and flowers and repairmen arrive. Everywhere we look, life is easy.

Because we can accomplish much while moving little, we tend to see ourselves as masters over matter, rather than creatures under a Creator. The ease with which so many exist can obscure our need to receive “life and breath and everything” from the God who first made and now upholds us (Acts 17:25).

But there is something about dripping sweat and feeling faint, leg muscles refusing to move much faster than a brisk jog, that pushes us to acknowledge our dependence on something outside ourselves. Whether it’s water or electrolytes, a quick banana or half a pizza, fifteen minutes of ice or ten hours of sleep, a teammate or a surgeon, sports make us feel the kind of needy we always are.

Mindful Christians can turn the likes of wind sprints and long recoveries into opportunities for spiritual humility, as we remember that we are weak because we are creaturely — and created to submit our bodies, hearts, and lives to our Creator.

Searching for Fool’s Gold

Unfortunately, sports often rush us headlong in the opposite direction, tempting us to worship “the creature rather than the Creator” (Romans 1:25). When we watch LeBron James dunk, we may be more likely to exclaim, “He’s a basketball god!” than “How awesome is the God who made such an athlete!”

“Christian athletes fight an uphill battle to satisfy themselves in God alone, to pursue his glory alone.”

And that’s just the way the sports world would have it. College programs, ESPN, betting apps — what is “the glory of the immortal God” to them (Romans 1:23)? Usually, nothing more than a detour from the track on which they run: the worship of “mortal man.” As we engage with sports, we would be naive to think that they won’t make unending grabs for our gaze, our hearts, even our very persons, as “followers of [select one of a million players, teams, or leagues].”

The danger isn’t confined to leagues we stream on TV. Sports tempt us to worship ourselves alongside the games and elite athletes who play them. Because of the fall, anywhere we set foot, our sinful flesh starts digging for the fool’s gold of human glory. The rec center’s basketball court is no exception. Sports, whatever the scale, can stoke our millennia-old longing to sparkle in others’ eyes.

In my experience, athletes crave all kinds of self-exalting glitter. There’s physical dominance, which men tend toward, and then there’s physical perfection, more of a female problem. As we mold our bodies into one ideal appearance or another, we simultaneously wield them for other worldly ends, like winning for winning’s sake and success for man’s approval.

Immersed in an arena that not only values but requires physical fitness, Christians can be tempted to care more for the body than the heart — a mistake so common that God would issue a warning as early as three thousand years ago (1 Samuel 16:7). Centuries later, he would remind us again through Paul, “While bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come” (1 Timothy 4:8).

Along with the body, sports culture obsesses over here-and-now victory and applause. Christian athletes fight an uphill battle to satisfy themselves in God alone, to pursue his glory alone, to seek his kingdom alone, and to believe his word above every other: “Whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave” (Matthew 20:26–27).

Grasping the Unseen

While sports can distract us from spiritual realities, they can also expose them. Throughout his letters, Paul uses athletic imagery to illuminate unseen, eternal truths (2 Corinthians 4:18).

For example, in 1 Corinthians 9:24 Paul asks, “Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it [that is, eternal life].” When I read passages like this, I thank God for athletic competition. In the golden age of participation certificates and star-shaped stickers, we hear time and again that there’s no such thing as not reaching our potential. There are no losers, only people doing their best to be themselves (which, of course, they’ll succeed at being, what with no external standard to reach).

But as Paul reminds us, the Christian life is not the free 5k we like to know about but never run. No, the Christian life is the Pikes Peak Ascent, the Boston Marathon, the Summer Olympics. Meaning: to finish, we must run. And not only run but train, disciplining ourselves “that by any means possible [we] may attain the resurrection from the dead” (Philippians 3:11). As J.C. Ryle puts it,

It would not be difficult to point out at least twenty-five or thirty distinct passages in the epistles where believers are plainly taught to use active personal exertion, and are addressed as responsible for doing energetically what Christ would have them do, and are not told to “yield themselves” up as passive agents and sit still, but to arise and work. A holy violence, a conflict, a warfare, a fight, a soldier’s life, a wrestling, are spoken of as characteristic of the true Christian. (Holiness, xxiii–xxiv)

To say with Paul, “I press on to make [eternal life] my own” (Philippians 3:12) doesn’t mean that eternal life is earned. This life is graciously given. Even still, that does not make it a given. Like the most serious of runners, Christians race heavenward — Bibles in our hands, prayer on our lips, church by our side — because we know that fervent, frequent Godward movement confirms that he has already obtained us: “I press on to make [eternal life] my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own.”

How remarkable that we might perceive grace and faith more clearly, simply because Paul reminds us “that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize” (1 Corinthians 9:24). Some unseen things shimmer better when we sweat.

Competing Ends

Yes, we do well to look and move heavenward through our beloved tracks and fields. But as we do, we should again remember that athletics may actively hinder our ability to live like Christians. The players we watch aren’t pastors. Many coaches we play for don’t pray. By and large, sports culture is thoroughly, proudly, and profitably secular.

Which means it operates under its own moral code: win, usually at any cost. As believers who play or follow sports, we can struggle to resist the pressure to prioritize first place above honoring God and his word.

Imagine it’s the last five minutes of a tie game. Whether playing or watching, most unbelieving coaches, teammates, and fans want you to do or say whatever you can to get the win — even if it means disobeying God. We know he not only commands slowness to anger and self-control, but he also commends them as more rewarding than strength and success (Proverbs 16:32). Still, there’s a game on the line. So, from overly aggressive fouls to jeering at refs, as long as the behavior helps to take the win by might, your team and fans will likely applaud. After all, you’re just being competitive.

Oh, what Christians might communicate instead. What if we walked away without retaliating, faced defeat with calm and even contentment, and experienced sports as a gift meant to reveal the Giver? In doing so, we would express how incomparably pleasing it is to belong to God, not the game.

At their best, sports are an exercise in worship and witness. We have only to believe that Jesus is worthy in every loss and worth more than every victory (Philippians 3:8), and then train and play and watch and cheer like it.

Audio Transcript

Welcome back! In the next two episodes, we’re talking about personal suffering. Suffering so often feels meaningless; suffering feels pointless — “feels” being the key word. But no matter how our suffering feels to us, it’s not meaningless. Not for the Christian. That’s our topic next time, on Monday.

But today, if you’re reading your Bible along with us using the Navigators Bible Reading Plan, for the second half of February we’re in the thick of it, reading through Leviticus. It’s a hard book — a notorious book that ends a lot of well-meaning Bible readers at this point in the year. But stick with it. It’s worth it. And as you stick with it, in our reading tomorrow, we read Leviticus 21:16–24, a difficult text that makes any Bible reader scratch his head and wonder, Why did God shun the disabled in the Old Testament? One such Bible reader is a listener named Gina.

“Hello, Pastor John. I’m reading through Leviticus in my Bible reading plan. One thing that has confused me is why God would not allow people with physical defects to approach the altar in Leviticus 21:16–21. The tone changes drastically in the Gospels. There Jesus, the true Temple, welcomes the blind, the lame, and the diseased right into his very presence. So, why would God in the Old Testament not allow them near the altar? It seems sad to me, and it compounds their suffering. Those people would have felt worse for it, and likely experienced heightened social alienation, too. I’m thankful for the New Testament because there are so many of us with physical defects. But why this discontinuity? To what purpose?”

Good, good, good, good question. Leviticus 21:16–24 deals with whether priests — it’s about priests, but her question is still really valid — who have physical disabilities or deformities can enter the Holy Place to do the work of a priest. I think Gina is probably right that, in reality, when priests with facial defects or crushed genitals or injured feet or a hunched back or scabby skin were forbidden from parts of the priestly service — not all of them, but some of them — probably they would have felt sad and discouraged at times, and maybe even resentful. That would be a normal human response, at least in our culture. We sure feel that. And my guess is that’s pretty basic to human nature.

“God has provided a way, by Jesus Christ, to have the very perfection that we must have to approach him.”

Gina asks, “Why does God in the Old Testament apply such external restrictions for the priesthood, and in the New Testament we don’t have that same kind of restriction? They don’t assume the same excluding effect.” Let me try to give an answer that I think honors the intention of both the Old Testament and the New Testament, because I think both are the inspired word of God, and what God did when he did it was right to do when he did it, and he had reasons for doing it, and it may not be right for us to do it today because such profound things have changed. But let’s look at the key passage. There’s a ground clause that helps us crystallize the issues.

Perfect God, Unblemished Sanctuary

Here’s Leviticus 21:16–24 with just a few verses left out. I’ll collapse it down so you can see the clause.

No man of the offspring of Aaron the priest who has a blemish shall come near to offer the Lord’s food offerings; since he has a blemish, he shall not come near to offer the bread of his God. . . . He shall not go through the veil or approach the altar, because [and our ears should perk up] he has a blemish, [in order] that he may not profane my sanctuaries, for I am [Yahweh] the Lord who sanctifies them.

In other words, God says, “I am the one who sets priests apart for my service; I sanctify them. I have ordained — I have decreed or instituted or decided — that a blemished priest will not blemish or profane my sanctuary.” In other words, God wants to make the perfections of the sanctuary so symbolically and visibly clear that he establishes a correlation between the deforming of the physical body and the deforming of the sanctuary. Or, to say it another way, he insists that there be a correlation between the perfections of those who approach the sanctuary and the perfection of the sanctuary itself, which is a reflection of his own perfection.

It’s entirely possible that the most godly and the most humble, deformed priests would not be offended by this divine order of things, but would gladly acknowledge that it is fitting for those who approach a perfect God to be free from outward and inward imperfections. So, I don’t think there’s anything intrinsically wrong with God’s Old Testament ordinances in this regard.

Utter Holiness, Overflowing Grace

The question is, What’s the ultimate meaning of it, especially in relation to New Testament changes? My answer goes like this.

In the Bible as a whole, there are two dimensions to God’s nature that shape the way he deals with mankind. One is unapproachable holiness. That’s one massive truth throughout the Bible. God is holy. Sinners can’t approach him. Nothing imperfect can approach him. Nothing evil can approach God without being destroyed. And so, it’s fitting that, in the presence of God, there can only be perfection — both moral and spiritual and physical — which of course means no one qualifies. It’s not like some of these priests were perfect. The other dimension of his nature is his overflowing mercy and grace.

So, those are the two: unapproachable holiness and overflowing mercy and grace, which reaches out to the physically, morally, spiritually imperfect, and finds a way in Jesus Christ to declare them to be perfect. But the resolution of these two dimensions of God’s nature is not that the first one is replaced by the second one, like holiness is kind of blunted and decreased in its importance because mercy is going to be the main thing now. That’s not what happens — as though the doctrine of justification by faith alone would be sufficient to create the new heavens and the new earth, where God is present among justified sinners without his holiness being compromised. That’s not going to happen.

No, God also undertakes, by sanctification and then by the re-creation of everything that’s broken — physical dimensions of the world and moral dimensions of the world — to make everything in his presence perfect forever. Not just justified sinners are going to be in God’s presence, but no sin is going to be in God’s presence. There won’t be any people who sin in God’s presence. There will be no defects morally, there will be no defects physically in the presence of God in the age to come.

Made Perfect Forever

So, I think God highlighted the demands for perfection in the Old Testament in an outward way so as to make really clear that no form of imperfection would ever stand in God’s presence permanently. That’s how holy he is.

He would one day not only justify the ungodly and be willing to touch lepers — reach out and actually touch lepers, God himself touching lepers in the flesh — but he would also utterly transform the ungodly into sinless, godly people, and take away every leprosy and every disease and every disability and every deformity. So, the Old Testament and the New Testament make both of these dimensions of God’s character plain (it seems to me) by putting the emphasis in different places.

“We need the Old Testament to sober us about how holy God is, and we need the New Testament lest we despair.”

The Old Testament is, as it were, standing on tiptoes, looking over the horizon of the future, waiting and wondering how God could ever create a people, all of whom could come boldly into his presence. And God had put such amazing limits in the Old Testament. So, the Old Testament rightly makes this seem extremely difficult. I think that was the point. He wanted it to look like this can never happen. You can never have anybody with an imperfection walking in here. It’s just not going to happen. God has put such amazing restrictions on it.

And then, in the New Testament, the glorious reality dawns that God has provided a way, by Jesus Christ, to have the very perfection that we must have to approach him now. And he has provided by his Spirit the sanctification and resurrection and perfection of bodily and spiritual newness in the age to come so that we can be in his presence forever.

So, my bottom-line conclusion is this: we need the Old Testament to sober us about how holy God is, and we need the New Testament lest we despair of any hope that we could survive in the presence of such a holy God, let alone enjoy him forever.

Today, some Christians seem embarrassed by the doctrine of hell. As such, they either omit discussing it, or they reinvent the doctrine and rob it of any real horror. Our Lord, however, was not afraid to talk about hell. Jesus speaks of “the hell of fire” (Matthew 5:22); the danger of the “whole body” being “thrown into hell” (Matthew 5:29); “the unquenchable fire” (Mark 9:43); the place where the impenitent are “thrown” (Mark 9:45), “where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched” (Mark 9:48).

Many Christians struggle to believe that Jesus plays an active role in the destruction of the godless. However, the Scriptures leave us in no doubt about the reality: Our Lord will, with his angels, gather all “law-breakers” and “throw them into the fiery furnace,” where there will be “weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matthew 13:41–42). Christ calls this a place of “outer darkness” (Matthew 25:30). If people doubt that Christ spoke of the judgment to come, often using vivid language, they have not read the Gospels carefully (see, for example, Matthew 3:12; 7:22–23; 10:28; 11:23; 13:30, 41–42, 49–50; 23:16, 33; 25:10, 31–33; 26:24; Mark 8:36; 9:43–48; 16:16; Luke 9:25; 12:9–10, 46; John 5:28–29).

At the same time, the doctrine of hell is not merely a New Testament doctrine. Indeed, some of the language used for hell in the New Testament comes from the Old. For example, Isaiah warns the godless of “the consuming fire” and the “everlasting burnings” (Isaiah 33:14). In the last chapter, he speaks of God coming in fire “to render his anger in fury, and his rebuke with flames of fire. For by fire will the Lord enter into judgment, and by his sword, with all flesh; and those slain by the Lord shall be many” (Isaiah 66:15–16). Isaiah prophesies that the righteous “shall go out and look on the dead bodies of the men who have rebelled against [God]. For their worm shall not die, their fire shall not be quenched, and they shall be an abhorrence to all flesh” (Isaiah 66:24; see Christ’s use of these words in Mark 9:48).

Daniel, along with others, also refers to the final judgment: “Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt” (Daniel 12:2).

Endless Punishment

There is no shortage of professing Christians who affirm a coming judgment of the wicked. Some, however, tend to think that this judgment will not be everlasting. As finite beings, we struggle to wrap our minds around the concept of eternity. But if God intended to either annihilate the wicked at death, with no future judgment, or put an end to suffering after an indefinite period of time, then he did a poor job of communicating that to us.

Scripture shows us that hell is a place of “everlasting punishment” (Matthew 25:46 KJV). Hell is an “everlasting fire” (Matthew 18:8 KJV) that can never be quenched (Mark 9:45), where their worm never dies (Mark 9:48). Sodom and Gomorrah were punished for their sins by “undergoing a punishment of eternal fire” (Jude 7). False teachers have a place reserved in hell where the “gloom of utter darkness has been reserved forever” (Jude 13). We read of the suffering of the wicked, “The smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever, and they have no rest, day or night” (Revelation 14:11; see also Revelation 19:3, Revelation 20:10, “forever and ever”). William Shedd rightly notes, “Had Christ intended to teach that future punishment is remedial and temporary, he would have compared it to a dying worm, and not to an undying worm; to a fire that is quenched, and not to an unquenchable fire.”

Shedd adds that other words and metaphors could have been used to describe a long, but not endless, punishment. Indeed, if hell is not endless, the New Testament writers “were morally bound to have avoided conveying the impression they actually have conveyed by the kind of figures they have selected” (Dogmatic Theology, 892). The word used to describe “everlasting life” is also used to describe “everlasting punishment.” For example, in Revelation 22:14–15, the existence of the righteous in heaven is coterminous with the existence of the wicked “outside” of heaven (that is, in hell).

Separation from God?

Another way people try to make the doctrine of hell more palatable is to say that hell is merely separation from God. But while hell does separate the wicked from the blessed life of God in Christ, hell is still punishment. Those who hate God in this life will continue to hate him in eternity, and they will continue to face God’s wrath.

Hell is a location, a place; it is not simply a metaphor that describes inner thought processes. Acts 1:25 tells us Judas went “to his own place.” Just as there is a place for the righteous after death, so there is a place for the wicked after death. The word Gehenna refers to the Valley of Hinnom outside Jerusalem. The horrible history of this place involved, at one time, the Israelites and kings of Israel burning their children as sacrifices to the false god Molech (2 Chronicles 28:3; 33:6). Gehenna may not be a reference to a burning trash dump (as some have claimed), but it is far worse: a place where the greatest horrors take place, such as the willful sacrifice of children. Hell is a place of pure evil, destitute of all hope.

Rather than being mere “separation from God,” hell is, as the Puritan Thomas Goodwin said, a place where “God himself, by his own hands, that is, the power of his wrath, is the immediate inflicter of that punishment of men’s souls” (Works of Thomas Goodwin, 10:491). God’s power will be “exercised” as his wrath toward those who are cast away from the presence of God’s blessedness. Those in hell will receive the opposite of those in glory, but they will still be in God’s presence. Those in heaven have a mediator, but those in hell have nothing between them and an avenging God.

If the foregoing is true, we should be careful not to say (as some have) that hell is giving people what they want. In a highly limited sense, this is true. They do not want to enjoy God in this life, so they will not enjoy him in the life to come. However, given the torments of hell, no one can possibly desire to suffer at the hands of the omnipotent God, especially for all eternity. Who could possibly desire for their despair to increase as well? As the creatures in hell realize more and more that they are suffering forever, the despair of eternal judgment can only increase. Those in hell have no promises, and thus no hope, but only increasing despair.

Escape Through the Cross

Goodwin makes the solemn point that the “wretched soul in hell . . . finds that it shall not outlive that misery, nor yet can it find one space or moment of time of freedom and intermission, having forever to do with him who is the living God” (Works, 10:548). The wicked will despair because there is no end to the righteous wrath of the living God. Thus, the concept of ever-increasing despair for all eternity, whereby the creature damned to hell can do nothing else but blaspheme a living, eternal God, gives us all the reason in the world to persuade sinners to put their faith in the one who experienced hellish despair on the cross.

Our Lord shrieked with cries so that we might sing with praise; he was parched with thirst that we might drink freely from the fountain; he was abandoned in the darkness that we might have fellowship in the light; he was crushed that we might be restored; he was publicly shamed that we might be publicly exalted; he was mocked by evildoers that we might be praised by angels; he gave up his spirit that we might have our spirits saved. As real as his sufferings were, our joys will be no less real. The hellish experience of the cross is the greatest testimony to the unspeakable joys of eternal life with God.

I have one, and only one, experience with sailing.

In my senior of college, one of my friends invited a number of us to his family’s lake house near the coast of North Carolina for one last weekend together before graduation. The house sat on a cove tucked just off the ocean shore. Down by the water sat the family’s beautiful (and expensive) two-person sailboat, tied firmly to a post.

The more experienced went out first. Several of my classmates had grown up close to the ocean, and knew how to handle a sail. They raced up and down the cove, making it look easy. When they were done, another first-timer and I stepped up to take the ropes. Once we pushed ourselves away from shore, we swung and tugged, leaned and lunged, stood and sat — and barely moved. The others, of course, took even more joy in our floundering than they had in their sailing. After a while, our titanic struggle left us tired and hungry, so we pulled the boat ashore and went in for dinner.

Early the next morning, a couple of aspiring sailors woke us, asking where we left the boat. “Down by the shore, of course. Where else would we leave it?” “Did you pull it into the grass?” “Umm, no.” “Did you tie it up?” “Umm, no.” “Well, the boat is gone.” Any experienced sailor (or just a man of common sense) knows what I learned that day: the tide rises at night, so you have to anchor your boat or it will drift away. I immediately started counting every dollar I owned. (It didn’t take long.)

A couple of us went out in the motorboat, driving up and down the shore, desperately looking for any sign of the sailboat. Surely it had been damaged, maybe even destroyed, after all these hours. After another hour or two, we’d come up empty. We saw nothing. And no one we saw had seen anything. I still remember the long ride back. I was sick to my stomach.

That boat came to mind again recently when I read Tim Keller describe a tool he used over the years to help him discern the health of a soul (and particularly the health of a person’s prayer life).

Which Boat Describes You?

Keller paints the nautical picture this way: “Imagine that your soul is a boat, a boat with both oars and a sail” (Prayer, 258). Into that scene, he asks four pointed questions: Are you sailing? Are you rowing? Are you drifting? Or are you sinking? In terms of my story, does your spiritual life resemble my master-sailor friends gliding up and down the cove, or the two first-timers working hard and going nowhere, or the empty sailboat drifting aimlessly away?

The tool’s helpful in two directions. First, it helps us assess and maintain our own boats. How often have we assumed that we’re rowing when we’re actually drifting, or that we’re drifting when we’re actually sinking? Second, the tool gives us a window into the boats of others. It’s a simple, vivid question that cuts through shallow places (where we often prefer to swim in our relationships) to the heart of a person, to how he is really doing.

Keller doesn’t attach particular texts to the four different boats, but the Psalms came to mind as potential examples because they model, with unusual vulnerability and emotion, the highs and lows of the human soul. So I’ve attempted to identify at least a few lines that give voice to each of these four spiritual conditions.

1. Are You Sailing?

When you think about your spiritual life right now, do you feel the wind at your back? Does prayer feel easier and more enjoyable than normal? Does daily Bible reading sparkle like a treasure in the field? Do you find yourself on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday actually looking forward to Sunday morning and the opportunity to sing and serve with your local church? Do you find spiritual conversation natural and gratifying?

If you’re currently in the sweet thrill of sailing, you might pray like King David does in Psalm 16:6–9:

The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;     indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance.I bless the Lord who gives me counsel;     in the night also my heart instructs me.I have set the Lord always before me;     because he is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken.Therefore my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices;     my flesh also dwells secure.

As we’ll see, David didn’t always feel this kind of spiritual high. He often struggled and had to fight hard for faith. At times, he fell into valleys of despair. In these verses, however, we can almost feel the wind lifting and driving his sails. Anyone who’s riding a spiritual breeze can identify with what he’s describing, and anyone who isn’t would want what he’s experiencing.

2. Are You Rowing?

If you’re rowing, you’re still making progress, but it’s a slower, hard-fought progress. You’re moving forward, but you’re really earning each passing wave. “Rowing,” Keller writes, “means you are finding prayer and Bible reading to be more a duty than a delight” (259). They’re chores you keep doing, but they honestly feel like chores. You keep attending worship, and discipline yourself to listen, engage, and even sing, but you often walk out distracted and tired. You want your heart to be in a different place, and you put effort into feeling differently, but you haven’t felt a strong wind in a while.

If you’re currently in the wearying work of rowing, you might pray like David does in Psalm 63:1:

O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you;     my soul thirsts for you;my flesh faints for you,     as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.

“The vast majority of drifters and sinkers drift and sink alone.”

In these verses, he’s not praying from the pleasant places of Psalm 16. Now he’s kneeling in the wilderness — “in a dry and weary land where there is no water.” But as the spiritual winds died down and the ground under him dried up, he didn’t give up and lie down in the boat. No, he kept his eyes on God and started rowing: “Earnestly I seek you.”

3. Are You Drifting?

From a distance, drifting may look and feel like rowing, but swim up closer to the two boats and you’ll notice one massive difference: effort. The drifter stops trying. You stop praying earnestly. You stop reading the Bible regularly. You stop paying attention during church gatherings (or stop attending altogether). Tired and discouraged and maybe even disillusioned, you set your oar aside and passively wait for some gust of wind to come along to save you.

This condition is probably the hardest to pair with a psalm, mostly because the psalms themselves are prayers. So even at their darkest, they model what it looks like to row in the dark — to keep praying, keep gathering, keep seeking. But in Psalm 42, dangerous circumstances have prevented the psalmist from attending the temple (“When shall I come and appear before God?” verse 2), so though he’s still able to pray, he’s cut off from other vital means of grace.

When shall I come and appear before God? . . .These things I remember,     as I pour out my soul:how I would go with the throng     and lead them in procession to the house of Godwith glad shouts and songs of praise,     a multitude keeping festival.Why are you cast down, O my soul,     and why are you in turmoil within me? (Psalm 42:2, 4–5)

The drifter has desires for more, and he can remember times when he experienced spiritual health and community, but he’s lost the will to keep fighting. His soul is cast down, and so his boat wanders aimlessly, from app to app, from show to show, from task to task, from meal to meal, from week to week. He wakes up farther and farther from where he wants to be spiritually, and yet with less and less resolve to change course.

4. Are You Sinking?

Is the boat within you quietly taking on water? You drifted for a time, but then you hit something hard — a job loss, a breakup, an illness, a death — and water started trickling in. Now, weeks or months later, your faith is gasping for air. You’re not longing for former days of stronger, more satisfying faith. You’re questioning whether it was ever real. You’re not thinking about restarting your prayer life, or looking for a Bible-reading plan, or joining a small group. You’re looking elsewhere for answers (or you’re avoiding the questions altogether).

Again, even psalmists dealt with sinking moments in the soul. Listen to the heartache and despair in Asaph’s voice when he thinks back on a dark night in his own soul:

All in vain have I kept my heart clean     and washed my hands in innocence. . . .But when I thought how to understand this,     it seemed to me a wearisome task. . . .When my soul was embittered,     when I was pricked in heart,I was brutish and ignorant;     I was like a beast toward you. (Psalm 73:13, 16, 21–22)

He remembers a time when he was living in spiritual peril. Do you feel your heart slowly growing embittered to God? Has your pain crystallized into self-pity? Has confusion mutated into bitterness and resentment? Have your doubts ripened into apathy? Is your boat filling with water?

Obviously, any boat that’s sinking needs some serious attention. One of the blessings of a tool like this is simply putting a sinking boat on someone else’s radar. How many souls sink without anyone ever knowing, at least until it’s too late?

Drifting and Sinking Alone

Later that long day, when we had nearly given up hope finding my friend’s sailboat, a neighbor from down the cove phoned. It had landed on their shore. Amazingly, no damage. The boat had drifted more than a mile.

For all our failures aboard that extraordinarily expensive piece of fiberglass, my first-timer friend and I did one thing right that day: we went out together. When it comes to our spiritual health and joy, the vast majority of drifters and sinkers drift and sink alone. And the vast majority of rowers and sailors row and sail with others.

Keller ends his book on this note:

Those who enjoy sailing might find these nautical images helpful. However, a metaphor used more often in the Bible to describe fellowship with God is that of a feast. . . . Eating together is one of the most common metaphors for friendship and fellowship in the Bible, and so this vision is a powerful prediction of unimaginably close and intimate fellowship with the living God. It evokes the sensory joys of exquisite food in the presence of loving friends. The “wine” of full communion with God and our loved ones will be endless and infinite delight. (260–61)

The image of the feast gets at the satisfying fullness of sailing. It also gets at the togetherness, though. Somebody might eat alone, but nobody ever feasts alone. And, spiritually speaking, nobody sails alone either. Richer communion with God requires richer communion with other souls, in the church.

So, if we feel ourselves drifting or worse in our walk with God, our first step to righting the ship will be to steer our boat into more crowded waters, where the sailors and rowers live.

Part 6 Episode 226 Why must we understand who Jesus is and what he’s done for us on the Bible’s terms? In this episode of Light + Truth, John Piper looks to Hebrews 4:14–5:3 for the categories Scripture provides for knowing Christ.

The Japanese, the beloved people among whom I live and serve, are the world’s second-largest unreached people group.

The category of “unreached people group” describes peoples where less than 2 percent of the population is evangelical. Unreached peoples are those who need missionary ministry the most. However, while the category is helpful for diagnosing missional need, it never tells the full story of God’s redemptive work among a people. “Unreached” does not necessarily mean there is zero Christian presence, and unreached peoples may indeed have small but faithful churches with their own remarkable histories of God’s sovereign work of salvation. Japan provides an excellent example of an unsung history of redemption that deserves to be remembered.

Psalm 105:1–6 teaches us that making the greatness of God known among the peoples (verse 1) is deeply connected to remembering his wondrous works (verses 2, 5) and responding in thanksgiving (verse 1). As we recall how God has worked mightily in places known for having hard soil, we can be filled with worshipful thanksgiving, which then propels us forward in mission with fresh energy and insight for how to extend the gospel where it seems impossible.

Initial Stirrings

The first Protestant missionaries arrived in Japan in 1859. Japan’s borders had been closed to the West — especially to Christianity — since 1603, when an influential Roman Catholic mission was expelled through extreme persecution. A prohibition against Christianity remained in place when the missionaries arrived in 1859, and it was difficult to even gain a hearing for the gospel. Merely mentioning the name of Jesus could cause Japanese people to slide a finger across their throats to illustrate the danger of the topic. Missionaries nevertheless went to work learning the language and finding creative ways to serve, including through education and medicine.

At the beginning of 1872, missionaries and Christian expatriates hosted a week of prayer in Yokohama, which several non-Christian Japanese students decided to join. Each day, those gathered would read a passage from Acts and pray together. As they prayed, the Spirit began to move in power. The group decided to continue meeting after the week was over. By the end of the second week, the Japanese students, many of them from proud samurai families, were on their knees crying out to God in tears for the Holy Spirit to fall on Japan just as he had done for the early church.

Nine of the students soon professed faith in Christ and were baptized on March 10, 1872, as members of the first Protestant church in Japan. Though two of the nine turned out to be Buddhist spies who quickly fell away, the remaining seven were joined by another wave of newly converted students to form the Yokohama Band, the first of several small movements of Japanese Christians who would help extend the gospel throughout Japan.

Bands of Brothers

Similar stirrings occurred throughout the remainder of the 1870s, most notably in Kumamoto and Sapporo. In Kumamoto, Captain L.L. Janes, a Civil War veteran, was recruited to launch a school for Western learning. Janes did not go with strong missionary intentions. However, after a few years of instruction and bonding with the boys in his school, he began to lead a Bible study, which all the students felt compelled to join. Though Janes preached a gospel mixed with aspirations for Japan’s Westernization, his message still impacted the boys significantly. Several converted to Christianity, and Janes added weekly worship and prayer.

“God has worked in Japan powerfully in the past, and nothing can stop him from doing so again.”

Soon the believing Japanese students were evangelizing their non-Christian classmates, and on January 30, 1876, over thirty of the students gathered on Mount Hanaoka. Together they sang “Jesus Loves Me” — the first hymn translated into Japanese — and made a covenant to proclaim the Christian faith for the enlightenment of the Japanese Empire. They came down from the mountain as the Kumamoto Band, and many went on to become influential politicians, business leaders, and pastors.

Another Civil War veteran, Colonel William S. Clark, helped establish the Sapporo Agricultural College in Hokkaido in 1876. Like Janes, Clark also did not go as a missionary, but during his eight months in Japan, he led students in regular Bible study and experienced personal renewal in his own faith. Many of his students became Christians, and Clark crafted a covenant for all the students to sign that stated their intention to follow Jesus. The students all signed the covenant, some out of zeal for their new faith and others under pressure from fellow students. Unsurprisingly, half of these turned away soon after Clark left. However, the other half were baptized and formed the Sapporo Band, which included notable Japanese Christian thinkers Uchimura Kanzō and Nitobe Inazō.

The formation of these Christian bands was the firstfruits of a larger movement still to come.

‘A Marvelous Work in our Midst’

In 1883, missionaries from across Japan gathered in Osaka with some Japanese Christians for a large missionary conference. This conference emphasized the power of Christian unity and dependent prayer, which inspired some Japanese Christian leaders to host their own conference in Osaka — which then led to similar gatherings in Kyoto and Tokyo. Each of these conferences spawned numerous prayer meetings in their cities that often lasted for weeks at a time and initiated revival. Japanese Christians cried out like the first converts in Yokohama for the Holy Spirit to fall, and God answered their prayers. Numerous revivals began to spring up throughout Japan, leading to repentance and renewal among Japanese Christians and the mission community.

Charles F. Warren of the Church Missionary Society (CMS) described “showers of blessing which God has graciously granted this year in different parts of the country” and a revival leading to greater unity and love in the Japanese church (A History of Protestant Missions in Japan, 108). Robert Maclay, who oversaw the American Methodist Episcopal Mission, offered another account: “A spirit of religious revival, bringing seasons of refreshing through the presence of the Lord, is spreading in Japan, both in the community of foreigners and among Japanese Christians. . . . I am sure we are about to become witnesses of visible, divine manifestations of grace in the conversion of souls” (109).

C.S. Long of the CMS likewise described “a glorious work in Nagasaki” — where an atomic bomb would be dropped a little over sixty years later — in which “multitudes are genuinely converted and testify to the truthfulness and power of the new religion. . . . The Lord is certainly doing a marvelous work in our midst. The news is spreading throughout the city, and hundreds are flocking to the church. . . . It is indeed marvelous. I have never seen anything more striking at home” (109).

Japanese Harvest

Japanese pastors shared similar testimonies. Kozaki Hiromichi, who came from the Kumamoto Band and was a major leader in the Kumi-ai (Congregationalist) Church, shared how a great revival began in Yokohama following a week of prayer. Joseph Neesima, founder of Dōshisha University, described a revival that started in the small town of Annaka in Niigata. It began with a congregation in repentance and tears until they became overwhelmed by joy and love.

Reports of revival came from across Japan, including Sendai, Fukushima, Kobe, and Okayama. Missionaries and Japanese evangelists began renting out theatres to host preaching and teaching events for hundreds at a time. In May of 1883, preaching services were held in the Hisamatsu Theatre in Tokyo for several days, with a total attendance of four thousand. Revivals also sprang up in several Christian schools throughout Japan, including Dōshisha University, where two hundred students were baptized during a single prayer meeting in March 1884.

As a result of the revivals of the 1880s, the average church membership in Japan doubled, churches were planted in new regions, local funding for ministry increased, and Japanese Christians began to take the reins of leadership for the church. The season was so fruitful that some missionaries pronounced expectations for Japan to become a Christian nation within the century.

From Memory to Missions

It is sobering to realize that such expectations were never met, and while God has brought other seasons of growth, the number of Japanese Christians remains small. It is also amazing to see how God has worked in the past, and there are several lessons missionary senders and goers can learn from this history.

First, even though Japan may seem persistently cold to the gospel, God has worked here powerfully in the past, and nothing can stop him from doing so again.

Second, like the early church in Acts, the Japanese church was born more out of prayer than any evangelistic method or charismatic leadership. We have reason to hope that God would hear and respond to such fervent prayers again.

Third and finally, these movements all swept over the missionary community as well as the Japanese community. Missionaries cannot create revival in the Japanese church, but we can prayerfully seek it with Japanese brothers and sisters as we together remember how God has worked marvelously in the past.