Audio Transcript

Happy Thanksgiving Day — a national holiday for us in the States. We’re very grateful that you listen to the podcast. And no matter where you live, we are praying that you have a day full of Christ-centered thankfulness for all the blessings we enjoy in this life.

Thanksgiving is an essential daily practice for us all. And it’s evidence of our soul’s well-being. As Spurgeon said, “Thanksgiving is one of the best ways to keep yourselves in spiritual health.” Amen. Thanksgiving is spiritual cardio. To lose gratitude is to lose spiritual vibrance. So, when it comes to this Thanksgiving Day, it’s no small holiday for the Christian. Pastor John, use this day to invest a few minutes to help us refocus on what the Bible says here by leading us in a Thanksgiving Day meditation.

Let’s take a moment and ponder what the experience of thankfulness actually is. I’m going to limit myself to Christian thankfulness, so I’m not talking about Hitler’s thankfulness that his liquidation techniques have become more efficient. That kind of thankfulness is wicked. There is wicked thankfulness. Nor am I talking about a kind of good thankfulness the way most people celebrate Thanksgiving — who don’t have any relationship with God at all but feel that they are the beneficiary of some kind of benevolence and usually attribute it to other people. I’m talking about Christian thankfulness, the kind that God is very pleased with.

Defining Christian Thankfulness

Now, what is it? It’s a feeling, an emotion and affection in the heart, that rises spontaneously in response to receiving something that will increase our enjoyment of Christ. That’s my definition of Christian thankfulness. A couple of comments about that definition.

A spontaneous emotion — so, I’m distinguishing thankfulness from saying the words “thank you.” You can teach a child to say “thank you” to his grandma for a gift he does not want. There’s no spontaneous thankfulness welling up in this child’s heart, because he didn’t want those black socks. So, no spontaneous emotion rose up in the child’s heart when he got this gift that he didn’t want. Saying “thank you” is not the same as being thankful. Being thankful is not a decision. Saying “thank you” is a decision. Being thankful is not a decision. It is a spontaneous heart response to the perception of someone giving you something that’s good for you.

“Christian thankfulness is an emotion that rises in response to receiving something that will increase our enjoyment of Christ.”

What makes the spontaneous response of the heart Christian is that it has the effect of increasing our enjoyment of Jesus. This is partly owing to the fact that we see Jesus as the source ultimately behind the gift, and we fully anticipate that the goodness of the gift will cause us to know him more and love him better. The gift may be an ice-cream cone and the gift may be the salvation of your soul by the power of the Holy Spirit. In either case, what makes the heart response of thankfulness Christian is that it comes from Christ and leads to the enjoyment of Christ. If ice-cream cones don’t make you know and love Christ better, they’re wasted on you.

All things are from him and through him and to him or for him (Romans 11:36; Colossians 1:16). Christians are Christians all the way down, from salvation to Dairy Queen Butterfinger Blizzards and all the blessings above and below, which also implies that thankfulness, while it may have its tears — it regularly has its tears — is a happy emotion. When it comes, we’re glad that it comes. It is a gratifying experience. In fact, the human soul — let this sink in — is deeply made for this experience and, therefore, when it comes, we feel like we have become human as we ought — humbly receptive and sweetly thankful.

Meditating on the Power of Thanksgiving

Now, to help us revel in this happy experience on Thanksgiving, think with me about these few observations.

1. Thankfulness is a sweetly humble experience. It is, in a sense, the very opposite of pride: “What do you have that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if [it were not a gift]?” (1 Corinthians 4:7). In other words, thankfulness, by its very nature, pushes boasting out of the human heart. You can’t, at the same time, be a brash, swaggering, boastful, cool, self-sufficient person and a thankful person. You can’t. Not in the same heart.

That’s really important in our day, it seems to me, because in video after video — for all I can tell by the advertisements that slip in while I’m watching some documentary or something else — brash, swaggering, boastful, arrogant, self-sufficient, sassy heroes and heroines are evidently quite popular. Well, they’re not popular with God because God delights in thankfulness. Picture some sassy, swaggering heroine or hero saying with humility to God or to a friend, “I am so thankful for your kindness to me.” No, it won’t work, because thankfulness necessarily implies humility and dependence and the finding of our happiness in receiving some good that another did for us that goes beyond what we deserve. It is the opposite of pride and swagger.

2. Consider that this is why thankfulness is purifying, especially to our mouths: “Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving” (Ephesians 5:4). It’s amazing that Paul would contrast crude joking with thankfulness. It’s because emotionally they just don’t go together. I mean, try to imagine it. Why do people with crude, foul mouths lace their talk with four-letter words? Why do they do that? One of Paul’s answers is that their hearts are not brimming with humble, happy thankfulness, especially to God. Nobody uses four-letter words or a crude phrase to express heartfelt, humble thankfulness.

3. Consider how everything that we have is a gift. If we know that we are sinners, then everything we have is an undeserved gift. Not just a few things here and there — everything. “[God] gives . . . life and breath and everything” (Acts 17:25). “What do you have,” Paul asks, “that you did not receive?” (1 Corinthians 4:7). And the answer is nothing.

Which means that thankfulness for the Christian who lives in the light of this truth is utterly pervasive in all of life. This is the beat of his emotional heart. This is the air we breathe. This is the flavor of every experience. God is sovereign. God is wise, God is good. God turns everything for the good of his children. Thankfulness, for the Christian, is part of every experience. That’s what 1 Thessalonians 5:18 says: “Give thanks in all circumstances.” Ephesians 5:20 takes it further: “[Give] thanks . . . for everything.” When we are walking in the light of the truth, no emotion is more common in the Christian heart than happy thankfulness.

4. Finally, consider the vastness of the benefits that Christians have. “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 8:32). All things! “My God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ” (Philippians 4:19). “All things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future — all are yours, and you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s” (1 Corinthians 3:21–23). It is only a matter of time, Christian, until you inherit the earth (Matthew 5:5). Be patient, be faithful, and be thankful in everything all the time. We were made for this happy emotion.

At the beginning of Romans 9–11, Paul tells us he is sad. Really sad. “I speak the truth in Christ — I am not lying, my conscience confirms it through the Holy Spirit — I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart . . . for the sake of my people . . . Israel” (Romans 9:1–4 NIV). Paul is so sad that he doesn’t finish his thought and tell us what’s wrong with Israel. For that, we have to wait an entire chapter.

We come to find out that many within Israel had rejected Jesus, their long-awaited Messiah, and as a result weren’t “saved” (Romans 10:1). This reality not only made Paul sad; it also raised difficult questions about God. Did Israel’s unbelief mean that God had rejected his people — or worse, failed to keep his promises (Romans 9:6; 11:1)? And if God could reject his people and default on his promises, wasn’t this awful news for everybody, not just Israel but Gentiles too?

His Secret

To answer these questions, Paul reveals a secret hidden in the Bible and revealed only once God sent Jesus. God would save Israel and keep his word, but he would do so in a surprising way.

First, he would begin by reducing believing Israel to a tiny remnant. True, believing Israel and all Israel had never completely overlapped, even from the start (Romans 9:6–13). But it was only later, during the Assyrian and Babylonian exiles near the end of the Old Testament, that God reduced believing Israel to a mere remnant (Romans 9:27–29). And, surprisingly, believing Israel’s remnant status did not change even when the Messiah, Israel’s Savior, came (Romans 9:30–33; 11:7–10). As the apostle John put it: the Messiah “came to . . . his own, but his own did not receive him” (John 1:11 NIV).

Second, God would use Israel’s unbelief to make space for Gentile salvation (Romans 11:28, 30). Surprising space. Everybody expected Gentiles to one day join with Israel, but nobody anticipated they would become Israel. Paul tells us, however, that Gentile salvation would fulfill Old Testament promises about the salvation of Gentiles (Romans 10:19–20; see also 4:17; 15:9–12) and the salvation of Israel (Romans 9:25–26). Paul never explicitly calls Gentiles Israel, and he preserves a place for “natural” or ethnic Israel (Romans 11:17–24). But when he applies Israel’s promises to Gentiles, he shows us that the line between the “wild” and “natural” branches in the church is harder to see than anyone would have guessed.

Third, God would use Gentile salvation to get Israel’s attention. The surprising salvation of Gentiles would provoke Israel to envy and then salvation (Romans 11:11–12, 15). This was one of the reasons Paul shared Jesus so tirelessly with Gentiles. He hoped his success as “apostle to the Gentiles” might lead to Israel’s salvation. Granted, Paul knew he couldn’t provoke all Israel, but he hoped and prayed that he could provoke some (Romans 11:13–14).

Finally, God would provoke all Israel to salvation only when Jesus returned (or “in connection with” Jesus’s return). This might just be the most surprising part of Paul’s secret. Careful readers of God’s promises in the Old Testament were right: Israel would be saved when the Messiah came. But nobody could have guessed that Israel’s salvation would be at the Messiah’s second coming. Two comings! Nobody saw that coming. Paul tells us that Israel would be saved when Jesus returned from heavenly Zion, a place Jesus opened with his death, burial, and resurrection (Romans 11:26–27). In this way, Israel’s conversion would mirror Paul’s own — transformed by a heavenly vision of the risen Lord.

Paul tells us this secret then bursts into praise (Romans 11:33–36). Only an infinitely wise author could craft a plot where (nearly) every expectation created is fulfilled in an unexpected way. Surprising faithfulness. As paradoxical as that sounds, there’s really no other way to describe it. And there’s no other story like it.

His Grief

While Paul’s secret wonderfully dispels any doubts we might have about God’s faithfulness, I don’t think it diminished Paul’s grief. We may be surprised by what Paul writes in Romans 9–11, but Paul wasn’t. He wrote Romans 9:2 knowing full well what he would write in Romans 11:25–27. He wrote these chapters with a tear-stained face despite the secret he reveals.

After all, Israel wouldn’t be saved until Jesus returned, and Jesus wouldn’t return, Paul tells us, until God completed his work among the Gentiles (Romans 11:25). For Paul, this at least meant that Israel wouldn’t be saved until somebody pushed beyond Rome and evangelized the Gentiles on the edge of the map. So, Paul tells us how eager he is to get to Spain (Romans 15:14–33). Still, Paul knew that every delay, every setback, every change of plans, every pocket of unreached Gentiles meant more time would pass without Jesus’s return and, therefore, more death and judgment for so many — too many — within Israel.

Paul also knew that the timing of Israel’s salvation would mean that many within Israel would miss out on experiences he writes about in his letters and preached about everywhere he went. The Israel that would be saved at Jesus’s return would be an Israel that would miss out on life in the church during this present age. They would miss the goodness of working out their salvation (Philippians 2:12–13), struggling to walk by the Spirit (Galatians 5:16), and renewing their minds (Romans 12:2). Israel would miss out on the goodness of waiting for Jesus’s return and all the ways this experience prepares us for and enriches our experience in the world to come (see Matthew 25:21, 23).

His Example

Paul’s secret dispels our doubts about God’s character, but it doesn’t — it shouldn’t — diminish our grief. Not if we’re going to follow Paul’s example, which is precisely what the Bible calls us to do (1 Corinthians 11:1).

Paul’s example teaches us to celebrate every part of God’s story. In fact, it’s a sign of immaturity — or worse — if we can’t. Paul’s heart swells when he tells God’s story. That’s why he ends these chapters with a soaring doxology, reveling in God’s wisdom and knowledge. Our hearts fail to align with Paul’s if we’re unable to feel what he feels in Romans 11:33–36. We fail to follow Paul’s example if we can tell God’s story without wonder and praise.

At the same time, Paul teaches us that doxology can and should be accompanied by lament, by anguish. Paul’s heart breaks when he tells God’s story. That’s why he begins these chapters like he does and why he speaks of his tears elsewhere (Philippians 3:18). It is a sign of immaturity — or worse — if we can’t feel what Paul feels in Romans 9:2. In fact, here, as elsewhere, Paul was simply following the example of his Lord, who shed tears for precisely the same reason as Paul (Luke 19:41–44). Jesus’s tears, moreover, point us to an unfathomable mystery: God’s own “response” to his story (2 Peter 3:9).

Friends, rejoice in God’s story. Let it cause you to hallow his name. But in your rejoicing, don’t fail to weep. Don’t fail to cultivate a heart that is eager for others to share the good you have received from God and a heart that is grieved — even unceasingly grieved (Romans 9:2) — when they don’t. To the paradox of God’s surprising yet faithful story, let us add the paradox of our response to it: “sorrowful, yet always rejoicing” (2 Corinthians 6:10). In this way, we learn to follow Paul as he followed and waited for Christ.

In the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, the killed and wounded are approaching one million people. Israel is now fighting wars on two fronts with Hamas and Hezbollah. Earlier this week, China launched an intercontinental ballistic missile for the first time in decades. Boko Haram killed 26 Christians as they worshiped in Burkina Faso last week, and a hundred others. Over half of Sudan’s 46 million people suffer from acute hunger because of civil war. Civil wars rage in Ethiopia, Yemen, Syria, Afghanistan, Central African Republic, Haiti, and at least ten other nations. One hundred million people in the world have been forcibly displaced from their homes, including forty million refugees, 40 percent of which are under eighteen.

In the United States, since 2017 there have been half a million opioid-related deaths. Our mayor said last week of the encampments in our city that there is housing and help available, but “these encampments are in place because of fentanyl.”

Our Anxious Age

Those are some of the reasons we would call ours an anxious age. But I mention them for two other reasons. One is to draw attention to the fact that if every one of those crises were to go away tonight, the real-life, close-to-home reasons for anxiety would be just as great.

You are one heartbeat away from death every moment, and you have no control over God’s decision about how long you live (James 4:15). The pain in your chest might be a heart attack. The ache in your hip might be bone cancer. The email you are about to open might be your pink slip at age 55. The phone ringing might be the death of your parents — or worse, their divorce. The note you’re about to open might be that your twenty-year-old daughter has decided she is not a Christian and finds better community with her LGBTQ friends. Most of our anxieties do not come from world crises.

But the other reason I call attention to the global crises is that they describe the world in which the Great Commission is going to be finished. Most of the unreached peoples in our day live in cultures that are hostile to the gospel. They are not waiting with open arms. But that is the world in which the mission will be finished. Jesus said,

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 24:9–14)

The love of many will grow cold as they succumb to rampant anxiety, fall away from the faith, and betray fellow Christians. But the mission of King Jesus will be completed, because amid the fear and coldness there will be white-hot, joyful, fearless lovers of Jesus. Anxiety will not rule them. Joyful, risk-taking love will rule them.

Countless Dangers, Continual Joy

The title of my message is “Countless Dangers, Continual Joy — How Is This Possible?” You can open your Bibles to Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians. We will be moving around in this absolutely amazing letter. Forty years ago, Don Carson wrote a book on 2 Corinthians called A Model of Christian Maturity that began like this:

I love the apostle Paul. Some people cannot understand my love. They find Paul angular, merely intellectual, intimidating, even arrogant. My response, firmly stated, is they do not know him. . . . Arguably, the most intense chapters in all of his writings are found in 2 Corinthians.

I too love the apostle Paul. I love him. There is no one in the history of the world, besides Jesus, whose capacity for joy in affliction I desire more than Paul’s. So, what the title of this message really means is, “Paul’s Countless Dangers, Paul’s Continual Joy — How Did He Do That?” Of all Paul’s thirteen letters, 2 Corinthians deals with suffering and afflictions more than any of the others. And 2 Corinthians contains more language for joy and gladness and contentment than any of the others.

Litany of Paul’s Afflictions

So, first, let’s take a deep breath and try to get into Paul’s skin and feel some of his dangers and afflictions. I think that is a biblical thing to do because Hebrews 13:3 says, “Remember those who are in prison, as though in prison with them, and those who are mistreated, since you also are in the body.” Paul had a body. You have a body. So, remember him as if suffering with him. What we are illustrating now is the phrase from the title “Countless Dangers” — or you could say, “Countless Afflictions.”

Second Corinthians 1:5: “We share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings.” Abundantly!

Second Corinthians 1:8: “We do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself.”

Second Corinthians 2:4: “I wrote to you out of much affliction and anguish of heart and with many tears, not to cause you pain but to let you know the abundant love that I have for you.” If you love, you will weep. If you haven’t yet, you will.

Second Corinthians 4:8–10: “We are afflicted in every way . . . perplexed . . . persecuted . . . struck down . . . always carrying in the body the death of Jesus.” I omit the resilient words. We are focusing now on dangers and afflictions.

Second Corinthians 6:4–10 (again omitting his hopeful words, as we focus just on his afflictions):

We commend ourselves in every way: by great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger . . . through . . . dishonor, through slander. . . . We are treated as impostors . . . as unknown . . . as dying . . . as punished . . . as sorrowful . . . as poor . . . as having nothing.

Second Corinthians 7:5: “Our bodies had no rest, but we were afflicted at every turn — fighting without and fear within.”

Danger on Every Side

Second Corinthians 11:23–29 is the list to end all lists. He calls himself a madman (verse 23) for competing with his adversaries this way. He says,

. . . 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.

That’s 39 lashes with a whip. When it’s over, your back is flayed and bloody and takes — what? — a month to heal over. Then it happens again. Same back. And then again. Same back. Same skin. And then again. And then once more — 195 stripes. Was the scar tissue such that he could barely move in the morning?

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 [Minneapolis?], 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. Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is made to fall, and I am not indignant?

Don’t miss the modifiers: greater labors, more imprisonments, often near death, frequent journeys, many sleepless nights, daily pressures. There was no significant letup. No sabbatical. No retirement.

Replete with Weaknesses

One more passage, 2 Corinthians 12:7–10: “A thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me. . . . For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities.”

This description of countless dangers and relentless afflictions of every kind — not only persecutions but physical maladies like ours (it was a thorn in the flesh) — is breathtaking. It was a life of almost continual danger and unrelenting affliction of one kind or the other.

Sometimes, when I hear professing Christians who have just been diagnosed with a disease or suffered a terrible loss or experienced a calamity say, “Where is God? Why would a good God let this happen?” I ask myself, “What Bible do they read?” I usually hope that Christians who talk like that have only had a momentary lapse of faith. And I give them the benefit of the doubt. But it is troubling, because Paul suffered probably more than any of you in this room will ever suffer (and I’m not minimizing your pain), but he never responded like that.

How did he respond?

Miracle of Paul’s Joy

That brings us to the second part of the title of this message: “Continual Joy.” If Paul’s dangers are countless, and his afflictions are unrelenting, at least they are natural. We have categories for them. We understand what they are. We understand how they happen. We can imagine them happening to people today. They’re not mysterious. But when we consider Paul’s response to these afflictions — namely, his continual joy — we are, at first, simply at a loss. There is nothing natural about this. This appears, by all human reckoning, inexplicable. If the dangers and afflictions are breathtaking, the joy is incomprehensible, mysterious, unfathomable. It is beyond all ordinary human experience. If it is real — and it is — it is supernatural. It’s a miracle.

So, let’s take another deep breath and try to get into Paul’s skin again, to feel some of his continual joy — not his recurrent joy, not his intermittent joy, but his continual joy — just as unremitting as the afflictions. This will be harder, and perhaps impossible, for some of you.

Abounding Comfort

Second Corinthians 1:4: “God comforts us in all our affliction.” Not in some of it — all of it. Not after it — in it.

Second Corinthians 1:5: “As we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too.” The very Christ for whom he suffers gives him comfort in suffering.

Second Corinthians 4:16: “We do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away . . .” I’m sure the aging process for Paul was much quicker than it is for us. He had none of our medical advantages. And his adversaries cut him no slack because of his age. But he did not lose heart.

Second Corinthians 6:10: “As sorrowful, yet always rejoicing . . .” This is one of those paradoxical statements that is deeply embedded in the ethos of Bethlehem College and Seminary and Desiring God. Sorrow and joy are not only sequential for Paul — sorrow and then joy — but simultaneous: “sorrowful, yet always rejoicing.” It’s even in and during the sorrow.

And notice, he doesn’t say, “afflicted yet always rejoicing.” Affliction is something that happens to you. But sorrow is a response to affliction. It is a feeling. And we usually think of the feeling of sorrow as so contrary to rejoicing that they cannot happen simultaneously. But Paul says that for him they do: “sorrowful, yet always rejoicing.”

Second Corinthians 7:4: “I am filled with comfort. In all our affliction, I am overflowing with joy.” That is probably the most astonishing, counterintuitive verse in the whole book. “In [not after but in] all our affliction [not some but all], I am overflowing [not clinging by my fingernails but overflowing] with joy [hyperperisseuō].” Remember the breathtaking list of afflictions! How is this possible?

Second Corinthians 8:2 (a description of the Macedonian Christians, but a description of Paul’s own experience): “In a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part.” Severe affliction. Extreme poverty. Overflowing joy. It’s as if the poverty and joy were one spring of generosity.

Well-Pleased with Weakness

Here’s one more passage. In 2 Corinthians 12:8–10, Paul prayed three times for his painful thorn to be removed. You see the Lord’s response in 2 Corinthians 12:9, and then Paul’s response. The Lord says, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Then Paul responds,

Therefore I will boast all the more gladly [hēdista, from which we get the word “hedonism”] of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content [eudokō, “well-pleased”] with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Corinthians 12:9–10)

In summary:

Abundant comfort in all our affliction
Not losing heart while physically wasting away
Always rejoicing even while sorrowing
Overflowing with joy in all our affliction
Abundance of joy in affliction and poverty
Boasting gladly in weakness, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities

On any ordinary reckoning, this is inexplicable not only because we don’t know how it can happen with any natural explanation, but it is also because we are not sure what it is. What is joy if it can exist — indeed (as 2 Corinthians 7:4 says), overflow — simultaneously with sorrow? Do we even know what we are talking about?

I think it would be a colossal mistake to reinterpret the words “joy” and “gladness” and “rejoicing” in 2 Corinthians as though they were not feelings, not emotions. To try to make them something like committed or faithful or loyal or devoted — and so solve the paradox of “sorrowful yet always rejoicing” by saying “rejoicing” is really not an emotion, not a feeling — is to go against all ordinary usage. The Bible does not try to trick by using strong emotional language when it doesn’t refer to emotions and feelings. No. Joy, gladness, rejoicing (chara, euphrainō, chairein, hēdeōs) — they are all feelings, and they are a good feeling. Everybody wants them. Christian joy in affliction is a real, deep, glad, good feeling.

Pain in the Night, Joy in the Night

So, our last question is this: How can that be?

I’m going to try to answer that question by weaving together my experience with Paul’s many-layered answer in 2 Corinthians. I think if I can weave Paul’s answer into my experience, it may feel more emotionally compelling than if I simply point to the verses.

Many of you know that my mother was killed in a bus accident in Israel in 1974 (it will be fifty years in December). She was 56. I was 28, married, with one two-year-old son. It helps to know that I was probably a mama’s boy growing up. I was an only son with one older sister. My father was away from home two-thirds of every year — a traveling evangelist. So, my relationship with him was one of deep respect, great admiration, and a really happy connection. But it wasn’t like the emotional bond with my mother. She was there for every little crisis that seemed so big.

My parents were leading a tour in Israel. The phone rang on that December evening in 1974, and my brother-in-law said, “Johnny, I’ve got really bad news.” I said, “Okay.” He said, “Your parents were in a bus accident outside Bethlehem, and your mother didn’t make it. And your dad is seriously injured and in the hospital.” When I hung up, I told Noël what I knew, pulled Karsten off my leg, went to the bedroom, knelt down, and cried like I never had before or since, for a long time.

This was, by any measurement, sorrow. Great sorrow. Really sobbing sorrow. This is what Paul meant by the word “sorrowful” in 2 Corinthians 6:10, when he said, “sorrowful, yet always rejoicing.” And because of that experience, I know, and I testify to you, not only because of what the Bible says, but because of what God did that night, that it is possible to experience simultaneously great sorrow and great joy. It is true, as Psalm 30:5 says, that “weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning.” We can use the word “joy” that way. But it is also true — and this is the message of 2 Corinthians — that while weeping lasts for the night, joy too lasts for the night.

As I wept, my heart leaped with joyful thankfulness and hope — thankfulness and hope. I prayed, “O God, you have been so good to me to give me such a Bible-saturated mother for 28 years. Beyond all my deserving. She was so attentive, so patient, so caring, so diligent, so upright, so happy. What more could I have asked?” All the years of blessing poured out through glad thankfulness as I sobbed.

And then there was the hope. I thought, She’s home. She’s home. Second Corinthians 5:8 says, “away from the body and at home with the Lord.” She has not come into judgment because she was in Christ, a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17). Christ died for her: for her sake God made Christ to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him she might become the righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:21). And that mangled body (death certificate: “lacerated medulla oblongata”), that precious body that bore me and nursed me and hugged me, will be raised gloriously: he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise her also with Jesus and bring her with me into his presence (2 Corinthians 4:14).

This nobody was a queen of heaven, “as unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and behold, [she lives]; . . . as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, yet possessing everything” (2 Corinthians 6:9–10). All God’s promises find their Yes in Christ (2 Corinthians 1:20). And she was in Christ. God’s word to her, and to me, was not Yes and No. It is always Yes in him. Every promise will prove true for Ruth Piper. Not one shall fall to the ground. Not one.

I could say to my dad, “Hang on, Daddy; hang on. God has work for you to do. It is true for her, and it is true for you right now in your hospital bed, and it is true for me in my sobbing: ‘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).” I was, in that night, a sorrowing wreck, and a very happy son — “sorrowful, yet always rejoicing.”

Countless dangers, relentless afflictions, and continual joy is indeed possible because all the promises of God — all of them! — are Yes in Christ Jesus (2 Corinthians 1:20). And they will remain Yes forever, through all the global crises, through all the personal weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. So, you can say with Paul, “I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me” (2 Corinthians 12:9).

Few of us would willingly repeat our middle and high school years. For many, the span from age twelve to seventeen held insecurities, fears, disappointments, and maybe even intense suffering that we would not want to relive.

Part of our trouble came from the adolescent tendency to filter everything, even our deepest joys and triumphs, through peers. If you’re like me, you can instantly recall moments when people you thought were friends turned on you or when nothing you did seemed enough for those whose affection and friendship you desired most. In those years, the pressure of vying for the approval of others could burden even our happiest moments.

Several years ago, I read a pundit who pointed out that social media is a lot like high school. I think he’s right. As much as we might reassure ourselves that we aren’t the same clique-ambitious, relationally anxious people we were in our teens, isn’t it often true that we feel similar emotions and make decisions for similar reasons online?

C.S. Lewis famously observed that “the passion for the Inner Ring is most skillful in making a man who is not yet a very bad man do very bad things” (The Weight of Glory, 154). Lewis had a more traditional idea of an “inner ring” in mind: groups of embodied persons, enticing and excluding others in schools and offices and communities. But what if the inner rings that sway our loyalties are digital?

I submit that one of the biggest challenges to Christian faithfulness today is the way our technology has empowered us to create a near infinite network of inner rings.

Rings of Belief

Human beings are not autonomous thought-machines. We are social creatures who (at least partly) decide what we think and how we will live in response to those around us. This is not an effect of the fall; it’s simply part of what it means to be a creature. In fact, the social element of belief can be a tremendous blessing, because the true faith of those around us can inspire and fortify our own. Paul instructs Timothy to “continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it” (2 Timothy 3:14). Paul appeals to Timothy’s trust in the people who brought him the gospel as an encouragement to keep believing in it.

“Faith does not grow in isolation from others. But neither does it grow for the sake of being seen by others.”

So, in our own battle to keep believing God’s promises, it’s good to consider the faith of those we know and trust. But this godly imitation is different from what often happens on social media. Online, our constant exposure to the beliefs of a particular inner ring, and seeing this ring accrue benefits for their beliefs and values through “Likes” and shares, can push our beliefs to change. In this case, what we really want is glory. We want the attention and the affirmation that we see coming to certain people, so we are tempted to mimic their beliefs in hopes we will obtain some of the glory they’re enjoying.

This tendency isn’t new. Jesus took it head-on. “How can you believe,” he asks the Pharisees, “when you receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God?” (John 5:44). Social glory is quicksand in the search for truth. And if this held true two thousand years ago, how much more relevant is it today, when the books we read, the opinions we have, even the people we love are “content” that we can publish for approval?

Faith does not grow in isolation from others. But neither does it grow for the sake of being seen by others. When Jesus taught his disciples to pray in secret, he was not forbidding public prayer; he was forbidding prayer for the sake of publicity (Matthew 6:1, 5–6). The challenge we face in the digital age is that social media has become integrated with so many aspects of life. It’s not easy to discern where “practicing righteousness” ends and “practicing righteousness in order to be seen by others” begins.

Inner and Outer Rings

Life’s migration to the Internet intensifies this temptation in particular ways. The more online we become, the more prone we are not just to develop a private inner ring — those accounts whose attention and approval we most long for — but also an outer ring. An outer ring represents the kind of people we dislike and distrust. Perhaps this is a group with a certain theological view we regard as so wrong that it makes everything else they believe suspect. Or, perhaps more likely, it’s a group with a certain political view that, in our eyes, disqualifies them from ever speaking wisely about anything.

Truth has boundaries. There is such a thing as damnable error (Galatians 1:8). And there are times and occasions for not even associating with those who teach or live by lies (2 John 10; 1 Corinthians 5:11). In these biblical situations, however, there is always an important element involved: the local church. The local church stands as an embodied community of Christians who hold the message of the gospel in good faith and enforce Jesus’s boundaries around it.

Our digital outer rings, however, are usually not shaped by the sober judgments of real churches but by our own opinions and preferences. What’s more, on the computer, we can easily mute or block anyone we don’t want to see. This practice trains our conscience to instinctively dismiss the people in real life who say or do things we disagree with. The more immersed we are in this digital liturgy, the more likely we are to draw our real-world outer rings in strange places, influenced more by second- and third-order issues (or maybe even plain old dislike) than by first-order ones. This is not what Jesus intends for his people.

The One Who Sees

In our hyper-transparent world, which invites us to publish everything we are and do, Jesus’s invitation to commune with him in secret serves as both a nonnegotiable command and a life-giving respite.

Constant performance is exhausting. Our digital inner rings cheer us on for a moment, but their praise is short-lived. After a while, we begin to get anxious until the next moment they reaffirm their approval. We grow weary of having to maintain our outer rings, hoping we’re never forced to look into the eyes of the people we’ve digitally shunned. Of all industries, buying and selling glory has the worst burnout rate.

Jesus has the antidote. Whether we’re helping to meet the physical needs of others or the spiritual needs of our own heart, Jesus draws our attention not to the cool kids watching but to the Father who “sees in secret” (Matthew 6:4). The digital inner ring draws us the most when we feel the eyes of God on our lives the least. For some of us, the digital inner ring feels like a way to make our own small and obscure lives seem bigger. Social media success can feel like the life we never got to live. But this is only because we’ve forgotten the One in whose presence we’ve lived every single day.

“The digital inner ring draws us the most when we feel the eyes of God on our lives the least.”

The paradox of our digital inner rings is that if they could see who we truly are, the parts of us that we refuse to publish online, they probably would put us in the outer ring. But God does see all of us. He has seen every evil thought, every cruel word, every impatient moment, every embarrassing act of selfishness. He sees in secret. And yet he still invites us to come into a small room, with just him, and to pour our glory-hungry hearts out to him. Instead of muting us, he offers himself as reward.

Friends, Not Followers

Lewis concluded his lecture on the inner ring by promising his young audience that if they resisted the temptation to use people to seek glory and instead enjoyed fellowship for its own sake, they would find something even better:

If in your spare time you consort simply with the people you like, you will again find that you have come unawares to a real inside, that you are indeed snug and safe at the centre of something which, seen from without, would look exactly like an Inner Ring. But the difference is that its secrecy is accidental, and its exclusiveness a by-product. . . . This is friendship. Aristotle placed it among the virtues. It causes perhaps half of all the happiness in the world, and no Inner Ringer can ever have it. (The Weight of Glory, 157)

In a world of digital inner rings, make real friends, not online followers. Allow yourself to be challenged and sharpened by the Christians in your church not like you, rather than curating your own private list of approved voices. And most of all, pursue friendship with the friend of sinners, who never casts out any who come to him.

Audio Transcript

Welcome back to the podcast with longtime author and pastor John Piper. There’s an atheistic tendency in every heart — my heart and even in your heart, Pastor John. You said so when we looked at this “powerful atheistic tendency in every human heart” about a year ago in APJ 1980, a sobering episode. So, it’s no surprise that we frequently get emails from listeners struggling with doubt and unbelief — like James, a listener who writes us this: “Dear John, I remember listening to your biography of William Cowper some years ago. It has stayed with me all these years later. There’s something about his dark struggle that, in my own way, I can relate to.

“For about ten years now, it looks as though I’ve lost my faith. But I haven’t been successful in completely shutting out the nagging questions and doubts. The struggle appears to be in believing there’s a true narrative of how things are while also believing that there’s no way of little old me figuring that all out, especially when the best of the best within various academic disciplines disagree on these matters. I find myself in this agnostic no-man’s-land. It feels like an intellectually honest position, just not an overly satisfying one. The questions and doubts remain. So, I’m a little stuck on how to make any progress and would love to listen to any advice you might have for me.”

Perhaps God will use a few prayerful observations that I make from Scripture to awaken some new perspective that may help James get unstuck. That’s my prayer as we begin.

Root of Unbelief

James, you say, “For about ten years now, it looks as though I’ve lost my faith.” To this let me respond with 2 Peter 3:17. It says, “Take care that you are not carried away with the error of lawless people and lose your own stability.” Now, here’s a warning to take care; that is, to guard against. Strikingly, the danger is lawlessness leading to deception, leading to loss of stability — that is, loss of faith. It goes back to lawlessness. What is that? A disposition of heart that chafes under authority and then comes up with authority-denying ideas that don’t fit reality. That is, they are deceptive.

James, you say that you struggle with believing that there’s a true narrative of how things are. That’s amazing. That is a classic manifestation of lawlessness — doubting that truth even exists. There is no true narrative. Nothing can be more lawless than carving out a place to live where there is no such thing as reality outside yourself that you have to deal with. You doubt, you say, that there is any true narrative of what is. In that world of lawlessness, the ego is totally untethered from reality. Peter calls this a great deception. And he says it’s the cause of losing our stability, our faith.

Indeed, what could be more unstable than a world where nothing is real? There’s no true narrative. So, consider, James, and be motivated to regain your stability.

How to Regain Your Stability

The writer to the Hebrews would say to you, “Here’s how you regain your stability in the fog of lawless deceptions.” He says this in Hebrews 12:3: “Consider him [Jesus] who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted.” It is so easy and dangerous to become intellectually and spiritually weary, just exhausted at trying to consider hundreds of ideas that blow like leaves around our ears and make us feel disoriented and hopeless ever to regain any stability or faith at all. And Hebrews pleads with us: Consider Jesus. Consider the sufferings of Jesus. Consider the hostilities against Jesus. Rivet your attention on this. This is where you can find stability. Jesus authenticates himself through his sufferings.

Then, James, you add this to your doubt that any true narrative exists: you say, “There’s no way of little old me figuring all that out, especially when the best of the best within the various academic disciplines disagree on these matters.” To this I would say, “Be careful that in the name of humility — ‘little old me’ — you don’t find yourself actually mocking God.” The whole Bible is predicated on the decision of God, the Creator of the universe, to make himself known to ordinary people to such a degree that he holds them accountable to be willing to die for him.

So, if we say we’re just too little, too insignificant, too confused, too humble to understand or believe what God has revealed about the true narrative of what is, we have decided that either God made a bad decision to communicate, or he pulled it off very poorly. He has not done what he said he would do — namely, communicate himself and his salvation compellingly to ordinary people. That’s a very dangerous thing to say. It is an understatement when James describes his position as not an overly satisfying one. No, indeed. There is unwitting mockery of God built into it.

We Can See the Sun

If the sun is shining brightly at midday, and you see it, and there is a debate going on around you as to whether the sun is shining — and these are very smart people compared to little old you — will you surrender your eyes and your joy to the debaters? Would you give them that kind of power over you? To which James might say to me, “I’m not sure that’s a fair analogy, to say that I’m looking at the sun when I’m considering the truth of Christianity.” In communicating his truth to ordinary people, God does hold them accountable, not to become philosophers, but he holds them accountable to see the sun. And if they don’t see it, his explanation is that they’re blind, and the solution he offers is precisely a sight of the sun.

Here’s what he says in 2 Corinthians 4:4: “The god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” I would dare anyone to claim that the light of the gospel of the glory of the Son of God is less compelling than the sun shining at midday. Then Paul adds, “God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:6). How bright is that? Here’s what the apostle John says: “His face was like the sun shining in full strength” (Revelation 1:16).

James, God is pursuing you. You would not have written to me if he were not. So, as you seek him in fresh ways now, consider one last exhortation from the Lord Jesus in John 7:17: “If anyone’s will is to do God’s will, he will know whether the teaching is from God.” In other words, he will see the sun.

What if we recorded talk in the pews one Sunday morning? The sermon ends, the preacher descends, we sing in response, the benediction is given, voices break out, and the recording begins. As people speak to one another, what does one overhear?

Men talk of recent house projects, that afternoon’s football game, the weather, global news, politics, a sore knee, irritations at work, retirement. Women discuss kids, homeschooling, upcoming events, anxieties.

Ask an impartial judge: Is this a group of Christians? It might be hard to tell. Are we overhearing talk from a food court, a bus stop, or a church? Did these people just meet with the God of heaven and earth? The almighty Creator has just spoken to us through his preached word. Yet what if it has little to no consequence on our conversations directly afterward?

The contrast may be obvious with how happily we discuss other interests — for example, our entertainments. When you see a great movie or show, do you not make a point to discuss the plot twist at the end, the heartbreak of that character’s death, or the glory of this character’s redemption? Isn’t the experience somehow incomplete until you express what you think and feel and how deeply this or that moved you? Well, what about the sermon?

I am not giving a rule but questioning a culture. The problem is not that we talk about lunch or the game or earthly concerns, but that we lack deliberate conversation about the best things we just heard. Do we redeem the time? Would the recording detect much edifying, thoughtful, beautiful conversations about the soul and the Lord Jesus, or something closer to saltless, unspiritual, and rather idle conversation?

Consider how John Owen describes our blessed duty:

Believers, in their ordinary daily discourse, ought to be continually mentioning the Lord in helpful, profitable conversation, and not waste opportunities with foolish, light, frothy words that are out of place [especially on a Sunday]. (Duties of Christian Fellowship, 54)

A culture of frothy conversations seems to me the result of a more foundational assumption: that we really gather to hear the preacher speak, and not to further the grace in each other’s lives by our own speaking.

That All Were Prophets

What if we prayerfully arrived ready to speak words that “give grace to those who [need to] hear,” words the Spirit has equipped us to speak (Ephesians 4:29)? What if the culture of our churches were more potluck than single dish from the head chef?

I believe Paul has this in mind when he teaches the church that God gave us evangelists, shepherds, and teachers “to equip the saints for the work of ministry.” Note what ministry: “for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” (Ephesians 4:12–13). Pastors equip the saints not just to make disciples from the world out there, but to make mature disciples of each other in here. We are equipped by sermons, classes, and pastoral care not just to arrive the next week to receive again, but to use what we hear to speak into each other’s lives.

Thus, Paul continues,

Speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love. (Ephesians 4:15–16)

How many members of the body are not working properly because they consider themselves mere consumers? While speaking is not the only way we build others up, it is the means Paul mentions here. The community that builds itself up in love is built not merely by the pastor with the microphone. Instead, that pastor equips us to take the truth of Christ and echo it into each other’s lives during the rest of Sunday and throughout the week.

Very practically, what should we say when the service ends?

1. Discuss the Sermon

As book clubs discuss books, saints should discuss sermons. Ask how God met them; be ready to share how God met you.

I remember being taught that when God’s word is faithfully preached, the responsibility to steward that word shifts from the preacher to the hearer. You now hold a duty to love, meditate upon, apply, share, and further speak the truth preached (including with those next to you).

Consider how we can influence each other — positively and negatively — by our worldward or Godward conversation.

God is convicting or uplifting or correcting a brother’s heart with the word — I interrupt to get his take on the Vikings game. Jesus teaches that Satan steals sermons from hearts; how often are we his unwitting accomplices? The seed was sinking into the soil; I blew it away. His spirit burned just now — I doused the flame. His heart was being pierced; I parried the blade.

“Just be a humble, simple lover of God and souls, and the good you can do is unspeakable.”

But imagine if I discerned his unspoken heaviness, asked the Lord if I should go speak to him, and, going over, said, “Brother, tell me how God met your soul this morning.” You can do so much good by joining the preacher in ministry, seeking to further impress the truth upon souls by simple conversations about Christ after the service. Here is an idea: take sermon notes for yourself first and then also for others. You don’t need to be another pastor. Just be a humble, simple lover of God and souls, and the good you can do is unspeakable.

2. Care for the Soul

Thomas Watson gave his assessment after listening in on Christian conversations:

It is the fault of Christians that they do not in company provoke themselves to good discourse. It is a sinful modesty; there is much visiting, but they do not give one another’s souls a visit. In worldly things their tongue is a ready writer, but in things of religion it is as if their tongue did cleave to the roof of their mouth. (Heaven Taken by Storm, 38)

Consider how we rewrite Hebrews 10:24–25 by our Sunday conduct: “Let the pastors alone consider how to stir us up to love and good works, and let us not neglect to meet together to receive their words, as is the habit of some, but be encouraged by the pastors, and all the more as the Day draws near.”

Now the actual passage: “Let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near” (Hebrews 10:24–25). We consider others, stir them up to love and good works. “Meeting together” is linked with “encouraging one another.”

So we ask questions about each other, we check in on each other’s souls, we stir each other up, and we “exhort one another every day, as long as it is called ‘today,’ that none of [us] may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin” (Hebrews 3:13). “Teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom,” we form each other’s souls (Colossians 3:16).

3. Pray for One Another

It is written, “My house shall be called a house of prayer.” (Matthew 21:13)

You may not possess many words of wisdom. You may not think well on your feet. You may get nervous and awkward and unsure of what to say in response to other’s questions. Here is one thing that eloquent and plain, wise and simple, young and old in Christ can do for one another: pray.

God’s house should be called a house of prayer. Intercession should fill the place before the service, during the service, and after. Ask others how they are doing. Ask how you can pray for them. And then bless yourself and them and the church by asking, “Can I pray for you right now?” “Right now” — two words that (when consistently added) can transform a stagnant culture.

Heaven’s Microphone

Some of the most shaping words spoken in the Christian assembly come not from the pulpit above but from the pew below. A church taught to make the most of the time together, to come to speak and not just to listen, to fill the building with holy conversation, experiences a foretaste of that country where we shall speak forever of all that God has done.

The pew is a powerful place. Marriages are saved there; sermons get engraved forever; souls pass from death to life. The pew or aisle or foyer is a grand place to “let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person” (Colossians 4:6).

The illustration I began with is not entirely hypothetical. Recording devices may never catch our conversations, but be sure that God does. He hears and remembers the holy speech of his people then and now:

Then those who feared the Lord spoke with one another. The Lord paid attention and heard them, and a book of remembrance was written before him of those who feared the Lord and esteemed his name. (Malachi 3:16)

When we who fear the Lord speak to one another this Sunday, what will the Lord overhear?

Bad mirrors disturb me. FaceTime clearly lies. That box in the corner reflects a fish-eye view of my bulbous nose. Surely I don’t look like this! The mirror in an airplane bathroom reveals scales and blotches I’ve never seen before. Is this reality? The disdain in the eyes of someone who opposes me reflects only my failures. My deficiencies are all he shows me. I walk away from these mirrors with a deflating lack of confidence. Surely no one could be drawn to this visage! I need a better mirror.

We have one in the Bible. The seventeenth-century pastor and poet George Herbert delighted in the word of God. He opens his poem “The Holy Scriptures (1)” with ardent affection: “Oh Book! infinite sweetnesse! . . . Precious for any grief in any part; . . . Thou art all health.” Herbert goes on to compare Scripture to a mirror that does more than reflect. True, we see ourselves clearly in the word; it reveals more flaws than we can imagine. But at the same time, Scripture changes us. This mirror makes us better the more we look. Herbert writes,

. . . look here; this is the thankfull glasse,

That mends the lookers’ eyes: this is the well     That washes what it shows.

The truth-telling mirror of Scripture exposes and composes us. Imagine a mirror that would make you as appealing as you could hope to be. Imagine a well of clear water that not only reflected but washed you clean of dirt and blemishes. When we read Scripture with open hearts and in reliance on the Spirit, that’s what happens.

Let’s look at three ways this encounter with Scripture becomes a transforming mirror.

1. Mirror of Conviction

The flaws revealed by those wretched airplane mirrors are nothing compared to what we see of ourselves in the Bible. It takes a lot of courage to peer into this looking glass of truth. Hebrews describes how Scripture works: “The word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Hebrews 4:12).

There’s a good reason we avoid reading the Bible when we know we’re not living according to our calling in Christ. The word fillets the soul. Full light shines on the ugly truth of my motives. I’m caught worshiping false gods. My double heart cannot be hidden under a Christian facade. Everything comes to light in Scripture’s truth.

For instance, this verse regularly nails me in traffic: “The anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God” (James 1:20). Or, amid the busyness of all I want to get done, these words of Jesus stop me in my tracks: “As you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me” (Matthew 25:45). The mirror of Scripture peels away pretense and shows us the truth about ourselves.

“Scripture changes us. This mirror makes us better the more we look.”

Hebrews goes on, “No creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account” (Hebrews 4:13). There’s no more realistic sight of the human condition than what we get in the looking glass of God’s word. We might well be tempted to keep this mirror draped with a sheet, or at least under a stack of magazines. But the mirror of Scripture also shows me in a light I desperately need.

2. Mirror of Redemption

The Spirit uses the sight of my reflection in Scripture to strip away my prideful self-sufficiency. When I see myself in the prodigal or the angry elder brother, in the faithless disciple or the judgmental Pharisee, I know that I cannot live a God-pleasing life on my own. The word peels away the illusion that I am in control and reveals my helplessness, all so that Christ can show me what I look like united to him.

If you’ve ever worked your way through the book of Romans, you know this movement from conviction to redemption. The first three chapters show me as a suppresser of reality, foolishly exchanging the truth of God for a lie (Romans 1:18, 25). In this mirror, we all look pretty much the same, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (3:23). I see myself truly in the word, an enemy of God and his purposes for humanity. But as I keep looking, I see Jesus reconciling me to God through his death: “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (5:8). There’s no cleaning up my image with a divine Zoom background. Rather, there is a costly, realistic atonement.

When I look in the mirror of Scripture, I get re-visioned. The image of me transfers from a lonely sinner, isolated by my own choices, to someone joyfully in communion with Christ in all his righteousness. I see myself incorporated into Jesus. I am a member of his body, connected to all the others who are also in him (12:4–5). This new sight of myself fills me “with all joy and peace in believing” (15:13).

3. Mirror of Transformation

The mirror of Scripture also propels us on the journey of being made more and more like Christ, our sanctification. We become like what we look at. For instance, I love being around joyful people. Their laughter and dancing eyes and constant hope make me view life that way. I smile more and love more when I see a face that reflects such love. So when I look at Jesus prayerfully through the word, I see what we were meant to be. He shows me more than I am in myself, but in such a way that I can participate in all that he is.

Here’s how John describes it:

See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. . . . Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. (1 John 3:1–2)

When I read these words, I see the image of a beloved child held by the Father. Scripture reflects back to me that I belong to God. It also shows me that more is coming. One day, I will see Jesus in all his glory — power and humility, meekness and majesty. “Now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face” (1 Corinthians 13:12). Gazing at him with clear sight, I will become like him. Similarly, Paul expresses elsewhere,

We all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit. . . . For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. (2 Corinthians 3:18; 4:6)

In Scripture, we look upon Jesus. As we look away from ourselves to all that Jesus is and does, we get changed from the inside out. Jesus is a mirror for what we are meant to be and all we will be in him.

Scripture’s Glass

We look in the glass of Scripture and see ourselves with terrifying accuracy. But if we keep gazing in faith, we see ourselves taken into Christ. He is mending us as we look at him in his word. We are being made into his likeness.

Herbert concludes his poem with one more metaphor. He says about Scripture, “Heav’n lies flat in thee.” The heights of Christ’s heavenly glory are contained in the flat pages of a Bible. We go up to Christ in Scripture only when we go down before him in humility. The mirror that mends is “subject to ev’ry mounters bended knee.” In repentance, I let the first reflection from the word move me to cry out for grace. Then I discover how my image gets cleansed and taken into the glory of the Savior’s face I see revealed in Scripture.

C.S. Lewis describes it as the cheerful hallmark of humility. Tim Keller calls it the doorway into freedom. John Piper names it as the best friend of deep wonder. And we know it as one of earth’s most elusive gifts: self-forgetfulness.

Joy, true joy, does not live in the land of mirrors. Peace of mind is not found in our inner wells, no matter how deep we lower the pail of introspection. No personality test can usher the soul into contentment. Yes, we must know something of ourselves to live well in this world. But the healthiest people hardly consider what psychological categories they belong to, hardly care how they compare to others. They mainly forget about themselves and live.

I write these words less like Joshua in the promised land and more like Moses on Mount Nebo. I can see this Canaan of self-forgetfulness, but I do not yet dwell there. I have tasted the joys of that country like manna from heaven, like honey from the rock, and I long to leave this wilderness and join the saints whose joys are many and whose thoughts of self are few.

God alone can give this gift; he alone can mend a soul curved in on itself. But as we pray for him to lift us upward and outward, we can do something. To use an acronym, we can remember to FORGET.

Fill your mind with Jesus.
Obey more than you analyze.
Repent and confess quickly.
Get lost in something good.
Embrace your God-given callings.
Thank God always and for everything.

If you find yourself too focused on yourself, consider with me these six modest steps toward joyful self-forgetfulness.

1. Fill your mind with Jesus.

If you have ever told yourself to forget yourself, to stop thinking about yourself, you have also discovered the powerlessness of such a command. Self-forgetfulness happens indirectly: we don’t so much forget ourselves as remember something better. To tweak a phrase from Thomas Chalmers, we need the expulsive power of a new attention. And nothing warrants our attention more than Jesus Christ.

The Father commands us to listen to him (Matthew 17:5). The Spirit is given to glorify him (John 16:14). The apostles bid us to behold him (2 Corinthians 3:18; Hebrews 12:2). The angels never cease to worship him (Revelation 5:6–14). His riches are unsearchable; his glories, incomparable; the joys of those who love him, inexpressible (Ephesians 3:8; Hebrews 3:3; 1 Peter 1:8).

How, then, shall we fill our minds with him? In any of a hundred ways. An unsearchable Christ invites creative exploration — and the more we seek, the more we’ll find. Perhaps make Gospel reading a regular habit; consider always keeping a bookmark in these blessed stories. Or find rich, doxological books about the person and work of Jesus. Or get to know the loveliness of Christ through the meditations of Christ-saturated saints. Or become the kind of friend or spouse who frequently turns the conversation toward the Savior. However you do it, seek to make him your morning sun and evening star, your afternoon oasis, the joy of every hour.

“I am sure,” writes Samuel Rutherford, “the saints at their best are but strangers to the weight and worth of the incomparable sweetness of Christ.” And so, with him, make it your happiness “to win new ground daily in Christ’s love” (The Loveliness of Christ, 22, 27), to catch a new sight of him, to enjoy a new glory in him.

2. Obey more than you analyze.

Consider some familiar scenarios for the introspective. You just finished leading a Bible study, and now, on the drive home with your roommate, your mind replays half a dozen comments you made. Or while singing in corporate worship, you keep gauging your own emotions and comparing your demeanor to those around you. Or during dinner with your family, you go over a work project you just turned in, wondering if you should have done it differently.

In moments like these (and many others), self-analysis can feel so right, even so responsible. We don’t want to miss our mistakes and sins; we don’t want to remain strangers to ourselves. At the same time, however, we would do well to consider how self-analysis can lead us into subtle disobedience.

“Peace of mind is not found in our inner wells, no matter how deep we lower the pail of introspection.”

As long as you replay moments from the Bible study, you fail to love the roommate in the car with you. As long as you consider your own heart in worship, you fail to behold the Lord of the song. And as long as you critique and mentally redo the work project, you fail to offer your family your undivided presence. Even in solitude, when self-analysis doesn’t keep us from loving our neighbors, it often still distracts us from other kinds of obedience: doing our work, saying our prayers, getting our sleep, or thinking of the honorable and excellent and lovely (Philippians 4:8).

There is a place for self-analysis — for paying attention to ourselves, watching ourselves, and confessing our sins (Luke 17:3; 21:34; 1 John 1:9). But that place is not the dinner table or our kids’ bedside or our work desks or any other sphere where God has made our duty plain. There, he calls us to “look . . . to the interests of others” (Philippians 2:4), speak a grace-filled word (Ephesians 4:29), work heartily as for him (Colossians 3:23).

So, when introspective thoughts intrude upon your mind, don’t assume that God expects you to heed them. Instead, ask, “Are these thoughts distracting me from more important obedience?” If so, tell your inner self, “I should perhaps think about that sometime soon, but right now I have a different job to do.” And then ask God for grace to do it.

3. Repent and confess quickly.

Imagine that you have spilled a bowl of cereal in your living room. But instead of cleaning it up right away, you go about your day with the milky mess on the floor. You keep catching glimpses of it; in the back of your head, you know it’s there. You have a vague sense that it might be damaging the floorboards, but still you carry on.

As ridiculous as this scenario sounds, many of us respond to sin similarly. Sometime in the morning, say, we made a thoughtless comment, or we shirked a plain duty, or we welcomed a twisted thought. We sinned. But instead of cleaning up the mess right away, instead of confessing the sin quickly, we linger. We keep stepping around the sin. And so we walk through a haze of vague guilt, background accusation, stumbling self-consciousness.

“Oh, what peace we often forfeit; oh, what needless pain we bear; all because we do not carry everything to God in prayer!” Do we not have an advocate in heaven (1 John 2:1)? Do we not have a Father whose heart grows warm toward his returning children (Luke 15:20)? Do we not have a gospel big enough for every sin we could bring?

Harboring guilt has no atoning power. Nor does God tell us to confess only after feeling awful through the afternoon. No, everything in him, everything in the gospel, everything in his word bids us to come now, right away. Respond to the first pang of guilt by saying, “I will go to my Father.” You really can sit down, confess your sin outright, receive forgiveness in Christ, and move on.

God promises that he forgets the sins he forgives (Hebrews 8:12). Surely that means we can forget them too. And in forgetting our sins, we might just forget ourselves.

4. Get lost in something good.

When was the last time you were rapt? The word refers to one of the most self-forgetful, and most pleasurable, experiences God gives. Those who are rapt, writes Winifred Gallagher, are “completely absorbed, engrossed, fascinated, perhaps even ‘carried away’ . . . from the scholar’s study to the carpenter’s craft to the lover’s obsession” (The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction, 86). When we become rapt before some beauty, some hobby, some person, we lose ourselves — even if only for a few moments — and then find ourselves all the better for it.

Scripture gives us many examples of such holy fascination. Often, they come in the context of worship, as when David breathes after his “one thing” (Psalm 27:4) or Moses beholds the back of Glory (Exodus 33:21–23). Other times, however, the saints lose themselves in something God has made — from the four wonders of the wise man (Proverbs 30:18–19) to our Savior’s bird watching (Matthew 6:26) to the raucous song of Psalm 104.

When was the last time you were so engrossed, so blissfully lost? When was the last time you even found yourself in a context where you could be? Too many of us have gone far too long without a walk in the woods, without taking our seat at a true feast, without reading a book far more beautiful than it is “useful.” I know, as a father of three young boys, that life does not always allow much time for hobbies. But can we not embrace, at a minimum, the resolve of Clyde Kilby?

I shall open my eyes and ears. Once every day I shall simply stare at a tree, a flower, a cloud, or a person. I shall not then be concerned at all to ask what they are but simply be glad that they are. I shall joyfully allow them the mystery of what Lewis calls their “divine, magical, terrifying and ecstatic” existence.

However busy you may be, find a way — some way — to regularly get lost in something good. We cannot simply manufacture such experiences; they are gifts. But we can place ourselves before the goodness of God in his good world. We can open our eyes. We can walk on some path of pleasure long enough to get lost.

5. Embrace your God-given callings.

For as self-reflective as I can be, I used to spend much more time poring over my soul. Look through my journals from former days, and you would find page upon page of agonizing introspection. But then you would see the entries slowly taper off until page after page of blank. Why? For several reasons, but one of the more significant is simply that I got busy. I found more friends. I took more (and harder) classes. I started working more hours. Empty evenings and solitary days gave way to good, God-given callings — a blessed kind of busyness, a friend of self-forgetfulness.

When dark thoughts lure us inward, when we feel ourselves falling into the vortex of self, what a gift to have a spouse to love, an infant to console, friends to serve, dishes to wash, neighbors to help, churches to build, work projects to accomplish, and other needs to meet. Such callings give a glorious objectivity to our days. As one introspective man, a new father, told me recently, “When my daughter needs me, God doesn’t expect me to be doing anything else.”

“Seek to make Christ your morning sun and evening star, your afternoon oasis, the joy of every hour.”

By all means, avoid the kind of devilish hurry that leaves no room for quiet mornings before God, calm moments through the day, leisurely Sabbath-like rests. But by all means, get a few big callings in life — and then hear in them the voice of God saying, “Husband, love your wife” (Ephesians 5:25), “Mother, train up your toddler” (Proverbs 22:6), “Friend, stir up your brother” (Hebrews 10:24), “Christian, meet the needs of the saints” (Romans 12:13). In short, hear in them the voice of God calling you out of yourself.

6. Thank God always and for everything.

Finally, however self-conscious and inward you feel, resolve to thank God “in all circumstances” (1 Thessalonians 5:18), “always and for everything” (Ephesians 5:20).

Morbid introspection and Godward gratitude work against each other. The one takes us deep underground; the other lifts our eyes to a big and bright sky. The one curves us inward; the other bends us outward. The one sends us into a hall of mirrors, where we see ourselves and yet so often become deceived about ourselves; the other fills our thoughts with the Father of lights, our good and giving God (James 1:17).

Philippians 4:6–7 traces the way from anxious introspection to a mind and heart at peace:

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

We turn from inward anxiety not only by casting our cares on God, but by doing so “with thanksgiving.” For thanksgiving puts us in a place far broader than our burdens, where we see a past filled with God’s faithfulness and a future alive with his promises — the cross behind us and heaven before us. Thanksgiving snaps us back to reality, speaking a gospel louder than our inward thoughts.

Under the old covenant, the Levites “were to stand every morning, thanking and praising the Lord, and likewise at evening” (1 Chronicles 23:30). As children of the new covenant, can we not (at least) match this godly practice? What if we hailed the morning and crowned the evening with gratitude? What if, at least twice a day, we turned around to notice the many gifts God has given, the goodness and mercy chasing us home (Psalm 23:6)? We might find that thanksgiving can become a stairway out of our inward cellar, a remembrance of God that helps us forget ourselves.

So, seek to fill your mind with Jesus. Obey more than you analyze. Repent and confess quickly. Get lost in something good. Embrace your God-given callings. And however stuck you feel inside yourself, thank God always and for everything.

Audio Transcript

Welcome back to Job week on the podcast. On Monday, we read Job 16 together and had to parse out which of Job’s claims are true and which ones are false — one of the particular challenges of reading Job. Today we read Job 19 and this bold declaration from Job in Job 19:26–27: “After my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another. My heart faints within me!” After Job dies, he will be in his flesh — and in his flesh, he will see God. That’s his claim.

To that claim comes this related question from Eric, who listens to the podcast in Joliet, Illinois: “Pastor John, hello! First Timothy 6:16 says that no one can see God. Yet Matthew 5:8 tells us that the pure in heart will see God. Is there any sense in which we will be able to ‘see’ God physically in heaven? Or is this text alluding to the incarnate and glorified Christ? It’s a powerful promise, and I want to understand it better.”

Let’s put the texts — the ones that he refers to and a few others — in front of us, and then see if we can answer the question.

1 Timothy 6:15–16: “He who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see. To him be honor and eternal dominion.”
1 Timothy 1:17: “To the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory.”
1 John 4:12: “No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us.”
Exodus 33:20: “You cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live.”
Deuteronomy 4:12: “Then the Lord spoke to you out of the midst of the fire. You heard the sound of words, but saw no form; there was only a voice.”

That’s one side. You can’t see him. Now here’s the other side.

Matthew 5:8: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”
Genesis 32:30: “Jacob called the name of the place Peniel, saying, ‘For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life has been [spared].’”
Job 19:26–27: “And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another.”

There you have both sides of the issue. And the solution to this seeming inconsistency lies in the fact that the word see, as we all know, has several different uses. And if you look at all the texts, you see that there are two different senses in which his people can see God and two senses in which they cannot see God.

So, let me break these out and see if people can follow me — see if they can see.

How We Cannot See God

First, the ways we cannot see God.

1. We can’t see him with our physical eyes for the simple reason that he’s a spirit, and he doesn’t have a body. That’s probably at least part of what Paul means when he says that Christ “is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation” (Colossians 1:15).

2. We can’t see him even spiritually with unmediated directness. This is partly owing to our sinfulness and partly owing perhaps to our creaturely weakness. He’s too great, too bright, too glorious, and we could not live if we saw him with unmediated directness. We must always have Christ, our Mediator, as a go-between.

I think that’s what Jesus meant when he says in John 6:45–46, “It is written in the Prophets, ‘And they will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me — not that anyone has seen the Father except he who is from God; he has seen the Father.” Now, when it says, “except he who is from God; he has seen the Father,” he means not with physical eyes because Jesus, the Son of God, didn’t have physical eyes before the incarnation. And that’s what he’s contrasting our seeing with. Only the Son can see the Father with nonphysical, unmediated, direct seeing. We cannot see God spiritually the way the Son of God in unmediated directness can see him.

So, those are the two ways we can’t see God when we use the word see in different ways.

How We Can See God

And here are the two ways we can see God.

1. We use the word see to mean that we finally understand and discern the beauty and glory of God after being blind to it, like when we say, “Oh, now I see.” Our soul is tuned in to the glory so that the glory of God that shines through the gospel is seen as glorious, and we’re no longer spiritually blind to it. That’s the first way we see him.

2. The second way is that, in the narrative of the Bible, we see the glory of God — and, finally, we will see him face to face — through Christ, by seeing Christ. “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father. . . . No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known” (John 1:14, 18). So, we see God by seeing Jesus. “We know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2).

So, the implication is this: pursue purity of heart, purity of faith, purity of life so that our heart, your heart, is able to see God’s beauty as what it really is in the Scripture, and so that when he comes or when he calls us in death, we will see him face to face and be glorified with him.

On the morning of Sunday, June 5, 1864, Charles Spurgeon ascended the pulpit to deliver a sermon that he expected would cost him dearly. Friends might turn away; his influence might take a severe blow; his sermons might no longer be printed. Should he preach it? Should he publish it?

Spurgeon later recounted,

It was delivered with the full expectation that the sale of the sermons would receive very serious injury; in fact, I mentioned to one of the publishers that I was about to destroy it at a single blow, but that the blow must be struck, cost what it might, for the burden of the Lord lay heavy upon me, and I must deliver my soul. I deliberately counted the cost, and reckoned upon the loss of many an ardent friend and helper, and I expected the assaults of clever and angry foes.1

The text of the sermon was Mark 16:15–16: “And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.”2 The topic of this sermon was baptismal regeneration.

Spurgeon’s Challenge

That morning, Spurgeon challenged the Church of England’s teaching of baptismal regeneration, a teaching that yokes the act of baptism with spiritual regeneration. His protest was not against paedobaptism as such. Spurgeon entertained warm and affectionate respect for many paedobaptists, including men such as the Congregationalist George Rogers, whom he appointed the first principal of the Pastor’s College. Anglican evangelicals confused him, but he loved them in Christ.

Spurgeon is unmistakably clear about his views of baptism, including his opposition to infant sprinkling. Countless sermons provide explicit and incidental arguments for the baptism of believers only.3 The point in this sermon on baptismal regeneration is less about the ordinance of baptism and more about baptismal regeneration and doctrinal and practical integrity. Spurgeon’s challenge was against baptismal regeneration, formalism, and sacramentalism in the Church of England, part of which was drifting back toward Roman Catholicism through the Tractarian movement.4 Spurgeon was a true Nonconformist (or Dissenter), an Independent churchman, and a Baptist. He shared the British Dissenter’s horror of and opposition to Roman Catholicism. By conviction as well as situation, he existed outside the pale of the Anglican communion and was ready to challenge their formalism and national churchmanship.

Spurgeon preached the sermon that morning feeling that “I have been loath enough to undertake the work, but I am forced to it by an awful and overwhelming sense of solemn duty.”5 He contended that the Anglican rubric for infant baptism offered an explicit declaration that baptism saves, especially by promising that through baptism “this Child is regenerate and grafted into the body of Christ’s Church,” and — addressing God — that “it hath pleased thee to regenerate this infant with thy Holy Spirit, to receive him for thine own child by adoption, and to incorporate him into thy holy Church.”

“Where errors have the capacity to be dangerously wrong, damningly wrong, we must speak.”

This belief, he asserted, was not something that any true evangelical could or did maintain. “Why then,” he asked, “do they belong to a Church which teaches that doctrine in the plainest terms?”6 He could honor the integrity of a bold heretic, but he was troubled by the dishonesty of good men attaching themselves to known falsehood. For men “to swear or say that they give their solemn assent and consent to what they do not believe is one of the grossest pieces of immorality perpetrated,” breeding an atmosphere of lies.7

Against Damning Error

The religion of Scripture is a religion of faith: “I cannot see any connection which can exist between sprinkling, or immersion, and regeneration, so that the one shall necessarily be tied to the other in the absence of faith.”8 Baptismal regeneration encourages hypocrisy of the worst sort and leads to damnation by assuring that all who get religiously damp are saved, though they should live godlessly. It was the side door by which popery strolled back into the Anglican communion. Spurgeon was equally merciless in his condemnation of Dissenting superstition — venerating places, people, or rituals. Christ and Christ alone must be the object of our faith:

Lay hold on Jesus Christ. This is the foundation: build on it. This is the rock of refuge: fly to it. I pray you fly to it now. Life is short: time speeds with eagle’s-wing. Swift as the dove pursued by the hawk, fly, fly poor sinner, to God’s dear Son; now touch the hem of his garment; now look into that dear face, once marred with sorrows for you; look into those eyes, once shedding tears for you. Trust him, and if you find him false, then you must perish; but false you never will find him while this word standeth true, “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.” God give us this vital, essential faith, without which there is no salvation. Baptized, re-baptized, circumcised, confirmed, fed upon sacraments, and buried in consecrated ground — ye shall all perish except ye believe in him.9

For Spurgeon, baptism — the baptism of his Scripture text — must follow after faith in the Jesus of the Bible:

Baptism is the avowal of faith; the man was Christ’s soldier, but now in baptism he puts on his regimentals. The man believed in Christ, but his faith remained between God and his own soul. In baptism he says to the baptizer, “I believe in Jesus Christ;” he says to the Church, “I unite with you as a believer in the common truths of Christianity;” he saith to the onlooker, “Whatever you may do, as for me, I will serve the Lord.” It is the avowal of his faith.10

The falsehood of baptismal regeneration introduces a fatal frailty into any church: “Out of any system which teaches salvation by baptism must spring infidelity, an infidelity which the false Church already seems willing to nourish and foster beneath her wing.”11 The sermon is not bitter in tone, but it potently manifests the spirit of a man who is deeply persuaded of the danger of the lie he exposes, and desperate that sinners should realize that only faith alone in Christ alone can save. He wants the people of God to know what they believe and to speak and live accordingly.

Gospel Issues

For all its preening pomposity, our age often lacks the kind of straightforwardness that Spurgeon championed and displayed. Sniping from cover is more the order of the day. Corresponding to that posture is a vindictiveness toward those with whom we disagree or who disagree with us. It is hard for us today (and was not easy in Spurgeon’s day) to reconcile strong opposition with affection and respect for some who hold to what we oppose. I can, and do, appreciate and respect men whom I am persuaded are wrong, sometimes badly wrong, on certain issues. I am grateful for what I perceive to be the happy inconsistencies that keep my brothers from wandering too far from the right road. I suspect that they entertain the same thoughts of me; if not, they need to sharpen up!

For Spurgeon, every scriptural truth was important. If God has spoken, men should listen and obey. Spurgeon was not suggesting that salvation hinges upon the embrace of every truth that God has revealed. He entertained warm and affectionate relationships with men who did not see eye to eye with him on every matter. Nevertheless, he was concerned that men should take God at his word and not pretend that anything God has spoken is insignificant. Spurgeon was not prepared to treat any point of revelation as if it were unimportant.

Alongside of that, Spurgeon recognized that not all issues were gospel issues — hinges upon which spiritual life and death hung. A matter like baptismal regeneration, however, was (and still is) a gospel issue. It offered what it could not deliver in the sphere of salvation, and — for the glory of God and the good of men — it must be withstood and exposed. It was not enough to disagree with it; it must be addressed: “I might be silent here, but, loving England, I cannot and dare not; and having soon to render an account before my God, whose servant I hope I am, I must free myself from this evil as well as from every other, or else on my head may be the doom of souls.”12 Where errors have the capacity to be dangerously wrong, damningly wrong, we must speak.

Cost of Conviction

Do we, with Spurgeon, believe what we say and say what we believe, appropriately and clearly and humbly, following the word of God where it takes us? We need not attack everyone and everything with which we disagree, and we can entertain genuine affection for some with whom we have genuine difference of conviction. However, we must be clear where the glory of God in the salvation of souls is at stake, and we cannot condone — either by speech or silence — those errors that rob us of the gospel. Do we have the discernment, honesty, and integrity to love those with whom we might disagree in some things, but to come away from those who maintain and declare damning error?

Such conviction requires sacrifice. As we saw earlier, Spurgeon expected this address, when published, to cost him financially and reputationally. But, he asserted,

No truth is more sure than this, that the path of duty is to be followed thoroughly if peace of mind is to be enjoyed. Results are not to be looked at, we are to keep our conscience clear, come what may, and all considerations of influence and public estimation are to be light as feathers in the scale. In minor matters as well as more important concerns I have spoken my mind fearlessly, and brought down objurgations and anathemas innumerable, but I in nowise regret it, and shall not swerve from the use of outspoken speech in the future any more than in the past. I would scorn to retain a single adherent by such silence as would leave him under misapprehension. After all, men love plain speech.13

You do not know what the Lord will do with your honesty. Both this sermon and its controversial successors were runaway bestsellers, even as they called forth real vitriol from opponents. Far from destroying Spurgeon’s reputation, though, they enhanced it among those who valued “plain speech,” even when they disagreed with its content. Remember that Spurgeon did not know what the results would be when he first wrote and spoke, but he wrote and spoke nonetheless.

The man of conviction is going to be criticized. The man who speaks his mind, even with humility and love, is likely to be assaulted. However, we must be concerned first to honor God by faithfulness to all his revealed truth, in its proper place, perspective, and proportion, and to serve men by speaking that truth in love — a love more concerned for their souls than for our reputations. We need not suggest that Spurgeon gets everything right here or all the time. Nevertheless, we find in this an example of conviction and courage that we would do well to follow.