Audio Transcript

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

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

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

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

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

World of Sorrows

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

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

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

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

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

Living with Realistic Hope

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

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

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

Looking to Our Reward

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

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

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

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

Sorrow Will Flee

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

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

When I’m crying out, “How long, O Lord?” my pain has already outlasted my patience. I want deliverance — now. Today. To me, “How long, O Lord?” means “Lord, this trial has outstayed its welcome. Please fix it and restore me right away.”

Maybe you’ve felt that way too.

Yet even when our suffering feels endless, God knows exactly how long it will really last. It has an end date, an exact day and time predetermined by God. My pain will not last forever; it is not random or indeterminate. God has fixed all the details of this trial and will give me everything I need to endure it.

No Longer Than Necessary

The truth that all my suffering has an end date buoyed me years ago, when my life was in turmoil. Every day, the weight of my problems seemed heavier; tears would well up without warning. I saw no way out, and I wondered how much longer the pain would continue — and whether I could hold out until then.

Then one day I heard a speaker on the radio quote Warren Wiersbe, who said, “When God puts his own people into the furnace, he keeps his eye on the clock and his hand on the thermostat. He knows how long and how much” (Bible Exposition Commentary, 3:51).

God knows how long and how much. Those words brought indescribable relief. He knew how intense the furnace was, and he knew when relief would come. The furnace wouldn’t be hotter or longer than was necessary.

Every Minute Is His

Throughout Scripture, we see God predetermine the length of his people’s suffering. Before Abraham had children, God told him that his offspring would be enslaved in a foreign land, “afflicted for four hundred years” (Genesis 15:13), after which we know God delivered the Israelites through Moses. God told Jeremiah that the Israelites would serve the king of Babylon for seventy years (Jeremiah 25:11), and then a remnant was brought back. Jesus told the church of Smyrna that they would have ten days of tribulation, but not to fear their suffering (Revelation 2:10). In each case, the adversity was both necessary and purposeful.

We often think of time so differently, certain that if God has promised to deliver us, it should happen right away. Perhaps people in the Bible felt that way too: Abraham waited 25 years for Isaac, Moses waited 40 years in the wilderness, David waited 15 years before becoming king. God’s timetable rarely coincides with ours.

Yet even when our deliverance seems slow, we can be certain that it is not delayed. Our rescue will not and cannot be too late, for every minute of our suffering has been appointed (Habakkuk 2:3).

In Pain on Purpose

Recognizing that our suffering is for a limited time, and that it is necessary, has radically shifted my perspective while in pain. Knowing there is a purpose, a purpose intended for my good (Romans 8:28), has helped me to endure the hardest of days. My faith will be purer, stronger, and more genuine after going through the fire, and that benefit will carry into heaven, resulting in praise, honor, and glory (1 Peter 1:6–7; 2 Corinthians 4:17; Romans 8:18). My suffering will not be wasted.

And every detail is known to God, who has predetermined how far each trial will go and every blessing I will gain as a result. As Charles Spurgeon said,

In all sickness, the Lord saith to the waves of pain, “Hitherto shall ye go, but no further.” His fixed purpose is not the destruction, but the instruction of his people.

The limit is encouragingly comprehensive. The God of providence has limited the time, manner, intensity, repetition, and effects of all our sicknesses; each throb is decreed, each sleepless hour predestinated, each relapse ordained, each depression of spirit foreknown, and each sanctifying result eternally purposed. Nothing great or small escapes the ordaining hand of him who numbers the hairs of our head.

This limit is wisely adjusted to our strength, to the end designed, and to the grace apportioned. . . . The limit is tenderly appointed. The knife of the heavenly Surgeon never cuts deeper than is absolutely necessary. (Morning and Evening, August 17)

In Christ, the waves of our pain have a limit, a boundary that God has set. And the pain itself is purposed for our gain, to teach us and to bless us. While suffering hardly feels anything like a blessing in the moment, knowing that every ounce of my pain has been predetermined and weighed, adjusted to my strength, tenderly appointed and absolutely necessary, has helped me withstand it. Though I do not and cannot know all the reasons that my suffering has been necessary, I can trust that every trial is working for my benefit.

There Is Still Today

Though we know that the end is already determined, and each morning brings us one day closer to that end, there is still today, looming ahead with pain and suffering. How do we make it through today?

First, we can remember that God will prove himself far better than we fear; he will do far more in this trial than we can imagine. There will be blessings along the way — every single day, without exception — and God will give us comfort and signs of his love. We just need to look for them.

Then we can resolve to live one day at a time — to stop thinking about tomorrow and the difficulties it may bring, to stop anticipating tomorrow’s struggles, wondering how we will manage. Today’s troubles are enough. Tomorrow may bring incredible deliverance, a reversal of our pain and loss. Our fears and worries could be needless, as God may give us miraculous rescue.

“Even when our deliverance seems slow, we can be certain that it is not delayed.”

Or tomorrow may bring deeper suffering and, with it, deeper grace. Either could be true, as none of us knows what tomorrow will bring. What we have is today. God gives us grace for today. God provides for our needs today. God grants strength for today. And he will continue to give us the strength that we need, just as he has promised: “As your days, so shall your strength be” (Deuteronomy 33:25). Nothing we endure can outlast or outstrip the grace of God.

Hunt for Grace

After all, his grace surrounds us even now, even as we suffer. Philip B. Power, a pastor in the 1800s whose public ministry was cut short due to ill health, said,

God will not send trial without the intention of blessing; therefore, where the trial is great, we may be sure that the blessing intended is great also. If the trial were to be allowed to lengthen itself out beyond the possibility of fruit bearing, it would become simply an evil, an objectless infliction. Therefore, say to yourself, “This day’s trial could not be spared. God has still further blessing in store for me.” (A Book of Comfort for Those in Sickness, 80)

Look for the blessing. Look for God’s hand. Look for his comfort. They are all there. We can be certain that even when we’re overwhelmed and crying out for relief, God has something wonderful in store for us. He will not leave us desolate in our suffering — ever. He brings new mercies every morning (Lamentations 3:22–23). We may not know what the day will bring, but we do know that it will bring God’s comfort and presence. It cannot but be so.

So, if you are feeling overwhelmed by your suffering, crying out to God, “How long, O Lord?” be assured that he knows exactly how long. He will not let you suffer one minute beyond what is necessary and never delays his deliverance for you. God is never cruel.

And today, in your suffering, God’s grace will give you everything you need to endure it, as well as perfectly timed blessings in your endurance. You may not know when your pain will end, but you can be assured that the end has already been appointed, and the result will always be for your good.

Audio Transcript

And we are back. Good Monday morning. We enter this new week with a great topic on the table. I mentioned it on Friday. I love episodes where we just walk through several texts that have proved most helpful to you over the decades, Pastor John. We’re doing that today, prompted by this question from a listener named Greg: “Pastor John, hello to you! I’m so thankful for Desiring God and for you and for this podcast. Here’s my question: What are your favorite verses for when you fight the enemy hardest? What are your go-to verses? I love it when the verses are just there for us, but we also have to go look for them also at times.” Pastor John, what texts would you give Greg, and all of us?

Well, the first thing is, thank you very much. There’s nothing I’d rather do than go looking for my favorite verses, because I need rehearsal just like everybody else does. And so, just giving some thought to this was simply wonderful. It’s wonderful not only because I enjoy it so much, but also because I think this is just good for our listeners. I hope they tune in now for the next ten minutes or so and just soak in the glorious parts of Scripture that are so wonderfully tailor-made for living the Christian life through all of its ups and downs.

I don’t think God wants us to live our lives with a kind of vague sense of trust — like, God is good vaguely; I have trust vaguely; I enter my day vaguely. I think he wants us to have specific promises. Now, since there are hundreds of them in the Bible, you have to make choices about which one you’re going to use like a lozenge in your mouth today. I picture my heart as a mouth with a tongue, and I put a lozenge in it of some juicy promise, and I suck on it all day long. And that means I don’t suck on fifty others, because my brain, at least, will not hold fifty things in consciousness at one time.

“I don’t think God wants us to live with a kind of vague sense of trust. I think he wants us to have specific promises.”

So, here are some of my most common go-to lozenges or passages that I find help in through all kinds of situations. I’m going to just pose a question about a situation that I face and then give you the go-to promises. I think I might hit eleven of these, so I’ll try to go quick.

Lust

I’ll start with lust, the sin of lust. So here I am searching Google, or I’m on some news site, and there’s this sexually titillating link — not to pornography (that’s really not a big temptation for me; I’ve never been to a pornographic site), but just this sexually titillating picture over here where you can go and see more of what that might be about. Will you click through?

And here are my three go-to passages that persuade me, “Don’t do that. That’s not going to be good for you.” One is a warning (which is a negative promise), one is a positive promise, and one is a provision. So first, the warning, “If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell” (Matthew 5:29). I’ll tell you, that’s a very powerful disincentive from clicking through to sexually titillating stuff.

And then there’s this positive promise — and this is even more powerful: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Matthew 5:8). I want to see God. And I know if I linger over some presumably innocent sexual stimulation, the defilement of my mind will obscure the sight of the living God. I know it will.

And then the third thing is the provision: “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness” (1 Peter 2:24). And I say to myself, “Christ suffered horribly on the cross so that I would not click on sexually stimulating material, and I don’t want to hammer another nail into his hand.”

Affliction

I am facing some affliction. It’s sickness, maybe — maybe small, maybe big — or some loss. And oh, how precious has Psalm 34:19 been to me: “Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all.” Now, the reason that’s especially encouraging is because it says that the righteous are in affliction. In other words, it’s not necessarily owing to my sin that I’m in this affliction. And it says I’m coming out in God’s good time.

Injustice

Now — revenge, anger at the way I’ve been mistreated by somebody. Somebody said something false about me. How can I have peace while injustice against me has been done? Answer: the promise that God will be the avenger. “John Piper, love your enemies. You do not need to get the last word here. God will settle things in due time.” So, here’s Romans 12:19–20:

Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” To the contrary, if your enemy is hungry, feed him.

“John Piper, leave the repayment to God.” Oh, how many times I have been set free from bitterness that way.

Weakness

I feel weak. I feel inadequate. I’m facing a situation and I’m just not up to it. Isaiah 64:4: “From of old no one has heard or perceived by the ear, no eye has seen a God besides you” — well, what’s so unique about him? Here’s what it says: “. . . who works for those who wait for him.” That’s absolutely amazing. Glorious. The glorious uniqueness of our God is that he works for us instead of recruiting slave labor to work for him. Amazing.

“The glorious uniqueness of our God is that he works for us instead of recruiting slave labor to work for him.”

And listen to how 2 Chronicles 16:9 says it: “The eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to give strong support to those whose heart is [whole] toward him.” God is looking for people for whom, with omnipotence, he can work today. “Can I work for you today?” I’ll sign up God to work for me today. “So, I want to be strong for you today. Will you trust me?” I’ll tell you, that’s amazing.

Need

What about when I don’t have what I think I need — enough money, enough time, enough help? What if I lead a ministry, and they look to me for hope? Now there are two go-to verses I’ve used hundreds of times. Philippians 4:19: “My God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.” That’s mind-blowing. Both the promise and the resources are mind-blowing. The “riches of glory” is how much he has with which he can help me.

Every need will be met. How many times did I say to our leaders at Bethlehem, while I was a pastor, coming to the end of a year with finances almost always falling short — and I say to them, “Guys, God will give us everything we need. He will. It says so. Period. Let’s go home and sleep.”

And then there’s Hebrews 13:5–6: “Keep your life free from the love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, ‘I will never leave you nor forsake you.’ So we can confidently say, ‘The Lord is my helper; I will not fear; what can man do to me?’” That’s as sweet as it gets.

Anxiety

Does he care? You come into moments where you say, “Yeah, I know all the big promises: he’s powerful; he’s wise. But does he care?” Does he care about me personally? I’m such a little teeny-weeny human being, and the universe as big. How could God possibly care for me?

First Peter 5:6–7: “Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God” — yes, yes, of course we know that; that’s our theology — “so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.” I’ve said that little phrase walking into situations so many times. “He cares for you. He cares for you. He’s God, and he cares for you.”

There is a mighty hand, and there is a caring heart. So he says, don’t shrink back from humility, thinking that you’re going to be too vulnerable if you’re humble. But rather, remind yourself, “No, every single anxiety goes onto his broad shoulders because he cares.” He cares for you.

Insecurity

How much does he care? Is this a mild care? Is this kind of a begrudging care? “Yeah, God’s a God of love, and therefore Jesus died. So he has to care for me.” Oh my goodness, how horrible can our minds talk to us? How much does he care?

Luke 12:32: “Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” It’s his good pleasure. He loves to care for you. Or better than this is Jeremiah 32:41 (this is God talking): “I will rejoice in doing them good, and I will plant them in this land in faithfulness, with all my heart and all my soul.” What more can God say than that he loves, he rejoices, to do good to us with all his heart and all his soul? There isn’t anything conceivably bigger than all of God’s heart and all of God’s soul. And that’s what he says is behind his doing good for us.

Fear

Will he help me in this crisis that I am feeling very afraid of right now? This is probably the verse that I have gone to, Tony, more than any other verse in all my 76 years of life. And I’ll bet lots of people who’ve listened over the years would already know what verse it is. It’s Isaiah 41:10: “Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.” The reason that verse is number one for the struggle with fear, which is almost every day — something fearful happens every day (little fears, big fears) — is because it’s not general. It’s the voice of God himself speaking with a direct, “I will, I will, I will.”

Spurgeon said, “I love the ‘I wills’ and ‘I shalls’ of God.” Me too. The “he wills” (“He will help”) — those are good. But “I will” — when I step into the pulpit anxious that God act in spite of my inadequacies, and I hear him say (because I’m preaching it to myself by his authority from his word), “I will help you,” that’s just glorious, because you actually hear God by his word say it to you.

Depression

What about depression? What about melancholy? Times of deep, deep discouragement? Countless times. We used to have a sign on the side of the building because I quoted this so often — back in the days when people thought, “This is the ‘Hope in God’ church,” because of the sign. “There it is on the side of the wall. Why did they put that up there?” They put it up there because they have a depressed pastor who needs encouragement as he walks to church.

And here’s what I go to: “Why are you cast down, O my soul?” So you’re preaching to yourself, right? John Piper’s preaching to himself. “Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God” (Psalm 42:11). Oh my goodness. I have preached that to myself in low times, hundreds and hundreds of times.

Death

We’re almost done; just two more quick ones. Death. Okay, I’m old, right? Age 76 is old. I think I just read somebody died yesterday at 76. Every time I read that, or 74, or 63, or 42, I think, “Wow, I’m living on borrowed time.” It could be any night, right?

So, what do you say to yourself when that fact overwhelms you? For months I have recited this to myself before I go to sleep every night (maybe one or two exceptions). First Thessalonians 5:9–10: “God has not destined you [John Piper] for wrath, but to obtain salvation through [your] Lord Jesus Christ, who died for [you] so that whether [you] are awake or asleep [you] might live with him.” Tony, that’s going onto my gravestone, unless I change my mind.

Promise of Promises

Now, the last one. And this I’ve saved for last because it’s all-encompassing. In other words, it provides foundation for all the promises, and it is the Vesuvius of all the promises. And you probably know what it is. Romans 8:32: “He who did not spare his own Son [think of it] but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” In other words, because Christ died for us, God will give his children everything — absolutely everything — we need to be supremely holy and happy forever.

So, thank you, Greg, for the question. May the Lord grant to all of us the faith to live joyfully, boldly, lovingly by these amazing treasures.