Audio Transcript

Happy Memorial Day today for those of you here in the States. Last time, we looked at the sanctifying power of Christ on the cross. That was episode 2048. In our Bible reading together, we’ve been reading Mark 15 recently, about the death of Christ. It’s been a theme for us. And today we return to the cross by doing something different, Pastor John. I want you to respond to a viral video clip going around from a pretty well-known actor named Shia LaBeouf. He’s 37. He was converted to Roman Catholicism in recent years. He starred in the 2022 film Padre Pio, a movie named after a Catholic priest, mystic, and so-called venerated saint. Not long ago, in an interview, the actor was discussing the connection between Christ’s suffering and joy, and it generated some emails for you, all asking for your response.

Before we get to what he said, let me footnote a few caveats. It should be first said that the New Testament never speaks of individuals as saints. That’s a Catholic myth. Saints is a corporate title for all Christians. And I’m unsure if this actor understands the gospel, that Christ paid for the guilt of our sin by satisfying the wrath of God. He tends to speak of the cross as more of a moral model — Christ died mainly as an example for us. And he’s obviously very comfortable with images of Christ — crucifixes and paintings. Those are several factors I want to acknowledge at the front end of this episode and set aside for now. I don’t want to get into any of those.

As Shia spoke, my mind went to Hebrews 12:2 — a text you’ve brought up in 25 episodes on the podcast over the years, Pastor John, so I can see why listeners want you to weigh in and respond to what was said. I’ll read what he said and then ask you, on behalf of those listeners who emailed, What does this actor get right and what does he get wrong about the joy of Christ on the cross? Here’s what he said.

When I look at Christ on the cross, I think, hmm, is that a joyful man as he bleeds out and dies on a cross for humanity? Is that man joyful? And I think the answer is yes, that even in his suffering — that’s what Christ represents for me: meaningful suffering. The story of Christ is that God became man for our betterment. So, that means that he is the ultimate example, the supreme priest, the ultimate redeemer. If I look at Christ on the cross, I think, That’s very instructive. You don’t see a lot of smiley-face Christs on the cross. You don’t see Christ on the cross dying and laughing with aplomb — in joy, in ultimate joy. But I think they should make some Christs on the cross in ultimate serenity and ultimate joy. They always make this sad face. And that seems stupid. It seems like it’s not deep enough, like the artists who manufacture those crucifixes — it’s almost like they’re not seeing the full story. And the full story, I believe, is that Christ is in maximum joy in that moment. He is fully in his purpose. If you can tap into how you can use your suffering to help other people, that is maximum joy.

What strikes you?

What strikes me first is that I’m not sure what he means by joy and what he means by suffering even. It’s hard to respond with a clear yes or no to what he’s saying when he seems to switch categories on me. I’ll try to point out what I mean by this ambiguity by suggesting several positive responses. So, I’ll try to be positive before I’m negative.

Christ’s Purposeful Suffering

For example, he uses the phrase “meaningful suffering,” and I can’t escape the impression that he might mean that this phrase “meaningful suffering” is synonymous with “joyful suffering.” He says, “Is that man on the cross joyful? And I think the answer is yes, that even in his suffering — that’s what Christ represents for me: meaningful suffering.” So, he switches. He switches from joyful to meaningful, which is what throws me.

“What sustained Jesus was a confidently expected future experience of joy.”

Well, Christ’s suffering certainly was meaningful, right? Everybody would agree with that. Oh my goodness! His suffering carried more meaning in it than all the suffering of all the human beings in the world combined, because it carried in it the salvation of millions of people that nobody else’s suffering could do. So, that’s absolutely right: the suffering of Christ was not meaningless; it was infinitely meaningful. And if that’s what he means by joyful, it’s hard to disagree.

I see at least two other things that are positive. He says that Christ, at that moment of suffering, “is fully in his purpose.” That’s almost the same as saying that the suffering was meaningful — that is, it was fully purposeful. He was not being frustrated at that moment in his designs. He was accomplishing exactly what he came to do. Indeed, it is a satisfying thing to accomplish what you were designed to do. We all would agree with that. I’m doing what I was made to do. I’m doing what I came to do.

Then he applies that to us, and he says, “If you can tap into how you can use your suffering to help other people, that is maximum joy.” Well, the true part of that is that Jesus did say, “It is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35). Living to make others glad in God is certainly a glad way of living, even through suffering.

When Is Maximum Joy?

But the question I have at this point is whether the moment of suffering is the moment of maximum joy. That’s my question. One biblical obstacle to thinking that way is Hebrews 12:2, which says, “Jesus . . . for the joy that was set before him endured the cross.” Notice that it does not locate the pinnacle of Jesus’s joy at the point of the cross, but on the other side of the cross. At the cross, the joy “was set before him.”

To be sure, Hebrews 11:1 teaches that, by faith, the substance of things hoped for — the substance of that future joy — can be tasted now. Yes, it can and is, even in our suffering. But that does not change the fact that the text says that what sustained Jesus was a confidently expected future experience of joy, whatever partial measure of it he might have tasted on the cross.

Another biblical factor that we have to, I think, take into account is that there are different kinds of experiences of joy and different degrees of joy, and not just because of sin. I don’t think joy goes up and down only because sin enters in. For example, in Luke 15:7 we are told that there is more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine who don’t need repentance. So, there’s very great joy in heaven, and there’s great joy in heaven — more joy and less more. And it’s not because there’s sin in heaven. There is no sin in heaven; that’s not what causes the difference.

So, it’s fair to say, isn’t it, that the sinless Christ may have tasted a kind of joy and a degree of joy as he suffered on the cross, but that there was a much fuller joy of a different kind even yet to be experienced beyond the cross.

It seems to me that Shia LaBeouf may be saying too much when he writes that some crucifixes should depict “ultimate serenity and ultimate joy.” I think any ordinary use of the word serenity would simply not fit the hours of Jesus’s horrific suffering. I just don’t think serenity is what you would see, nor should you explain it with that word. I think that would diminish the reality of his agony. I think to use the word ultimate to describe his joy is probably a failure to take into account that there will be more joy on the other side of death and resurrection and ascension.

Maintaining Mystery

Another biblical problem I have is that I think there’s probably a greater mystery at the moment of propitiation on the cross than he realizes. When Jesus says, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” that is the cry of the damned (Matthew 27:46). He is at that moment experiencing the outpouring of the wrath of God upon the sin of all his people. And I say it is a mystery because I don’t think we can give a sufficient account for how he can experience that damnation and joy simultaneously — at least, I don’t feel competent to rise to that level of sufficient explanation of what happened in that moment in the heart and mind of our Lord Jesus.

I’m not saying it’s impossible; I’m saying we need to tread very carefully here so as to give full measure to Christ’s mental and spiritual agony under the Father’s displeasure, even as we try to give proper measure to the fact that in himself Jesus had a clear conscience, and he was doing the absolutely right thing. It was meaningful; it was purposeful; it was the loving thing to do.

Maybe I should say one more thing before we stop our reflections. The mystery of Christ’s experience — indeed, the Father’s experience as Christ died on the cross — is expressed, I think, in Ephesians 5:2 in another way. Paul says, “Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.” A fragrant offering? Fragrant? Sweet smelling? Pleasing smelling? I take that to mean that God the Father was able, in some mysterious way, to pour out wrath on his beloved Son and know at the same time with approval that this sacrifice was beautiful, fragrant, pleasing, righteous, glorious — achieving everything that the two of them had designed and intended.

So, in summary, what I’m pleading for is a careful expression of the reality of Jesus’s suffering, the reality of being damned and forsaken, the reality of knowing that more joy lay ahead — all of that to temper any effort to describe the Lord’s experience on the cross as “ultimate joy.”

Audio Transcript

Good Monday morning, everyone. We open this new week on the podcast addressing one of the many questions we have not addressed directly — embryo adoption. There are several versions of the question. I’ll put them all on the table, Pastor John.

A listener named Sveta writes in. “Hello, Pastor John. I have a follow-up question to APJ 1165. What do you think about so-called ‘snowflake adoptions,’ in which a frozen embryo, left over from another family’s IVF process, is implanted into a woman to give this child a chance at life?” Laura, a listener, wants to know if there’s “a moral difference between adopting the orphaned-born versus adopting the orphaned-unborn?” Likewise, Audrey asks if embryo adoption should be considered something that Christians value “as much as after-birth adoptions?”

In fact, several listeners have asked, in essence, Are frozen embryos as much orphans to concern the church as living, breathing orphans? And this is a very real question for one couple: “Hello, Pastor John. My name is Carien, from Australia. I recently read some articles about considering embryo adoption to help those babies live their God-given life with a loving family. My husband and I are considering this option. We lost our only child in 2019 and we feel ready to love a child again. But my husband is subfertile and the normal adoption process in Australia is long and expensive. But my question is, How could I be sure that adopting an embryo is what God intended for us? We want a child. But does embryo adoption allow us to ‘play God’ and choose parenthood? Maybe God made my husband subfertile for a reason. I guess I just want to make sure that this is God’s will and not our will here.

“Also, another concerning fact about embryo adoption is that the clinic transfers all the donor’s embryos to the recipient. What if the donor has three frozen embryos and we can only afford to grow one baby? Then it does not help the other two frozen babies left, as one will have to decide to keep them frozen or destroy them. Maybe we are overthinking this process, but we want to do what is right in God’s eyes.”

There are so many angles from which we could come at this question. I hope the angle that I take will prove helpful in the end, even though it’s somewhat indirect concerning the question of God’s will for this couple’s life. I assume what they are asking is not that I tell them whether to adopt a frozen child, but whether there is anything in God’s word, God’s revealed will, that would make such an adoption sinful.

Upstream and Downstream

Now, the angle I want to take is to make the observation that when we have a tragic situation, we who are Christians should feel a desire to take action to mitigate the tragedy in two ways. One way is that we should be thinking about how to get at the causes of the tragedy upstream, so to speak, from the actual tragedy, and do what we can to hinder the tragedy from becoming worse by dealing with those causes.

The other way we should be thinking is how to mitigate the tragedy, not just by looking upstream to its causes, but by looking at the tragedy as it is right now and downstream to its effects. We should be moved to take action so as to make the present situation and the future situation less destructive and heartbreaking than it is.

Tragedy of Frozen Children

Now, I think the existence of 750,000 frozen children in America, and 120,000 in Australia, is a tragedy. God’s revealed will in his word for the conception and pregnancy and birth and rearing of children is not that it be done in such a way that results in hundreds of thousands of eventually abandoned children. This means that, upstream from the tragedy mingled into whatever sorrowful situations may motivate in vitro fertilization — which results in so many extra conceived children outside the womb — there are sinful desires and practices. They’re mingled in.

“I think the existence of 750,000 frozen children in America, and 120,000 in Australia, is a tragedy.”

Nobody forced this tragedy on anyone. It’s not like the result of a hurricane or a pandemic that leaves orphans. These hundreds of thousands of orphans are not owing to the death of their parents. Choices are being made that result in this heartbreaking reality of hundreds of thousands of unwanted children. Some Christians should devote energy to looking upstream and trying to reverse the causes of this tragedy.

For example, Germany has a law that says only three embryos can be created in one in vitro fertilization cycle, and they must all be transferred into the mother’s womb. This, in effect, prevents the tragic situation of thousands of frozen children accumulating and eventually being unwanted. Some Christians should be looking upstream to work for those kinds of preventions.

I think Jennifer Lahl, the president of the Center for Bioethics and Culture Network, is a person like that. She relentlessly tries to draw our attention to the moral problems that multiply when we take the processes of conception and pregnancy into our own hands outside the womb. For all the joy that may come for some couples, we need to be aware of the legal tangles and the personal tragedies that also result.

Adopting with Eyes Wide Open

So, I think one of the first things that Carien and her husband need to come to terms with is that they are dealing with a tragic situation with some innocent and some sinful causes. It’s not a neutral situation. If they move forward with adoption of one of these frozen children — and frankly, I hope they do — I think it will spare them future pangs of conscience if they do it with eyes wide open.

Someone will accuse them of participating in a system that is shot through with processes and procedures and priorities that are unwise and sometimes sinful. Others will point out that children created in this way will face many difficult and troubling realities as they come to know and understand their conception stories. I think Carien and her husband need to be ready, just for their own conscience, to respond to such concerns with wisdom in patients.

That’s why I introduced the second way of approaching a tragedy like this — not just looking upstream for ways to prevent it, but looking at it for what it is and asking how we might mitigate, at least in a small way, the tragedy right in front of us. And one strategy of taking that approach is the strategy of adoption.

I know two couples who have embraced this way of life, and I admire them for it. They are not naive, and they are moved both by their principled opposition to the destruction of these frozen children and by their loving longing to have some of these children in their own family.

Risk Is Right

I wrote a little book one time called Risk is Right. I didn’t mean that anybody should jump off a cliff thinking an angel would catch them, but I did mean that for the sake of love, and for the glory of God, and for the peace of conscience, it is right to look all of the possible future heartache and pain in the face that may come with such an adoption, and then to act like Esther did.

For the sake of saving her Jewish kinsmen, she approached the king, which was illegal, and the only way she would survive this disobedience was if he graciously lifted his scepter. She asked her family and her friends to fast and pray for her, which is what we should do when we adopt children, and then she said, “If I perish, I perish” (Esther 4:16). That’s the kind of risk I think glorifies God.

“We embrace the ambiguities of this fallen, tragic world, and we do our best to act in love.”

She wasn’t trying to make a name for herself. She wasn’t trying to be a hero. She was trying to save people who were going to perish if she couldn’t change the king’s mind. And so it is with thousands of these frozen children. They’re going to be disposed of sooner or later if they’re not adopted.

It is a wonderful thing to be a Christian and to know that Christ died for our sins so that even if we are not completely sure about all our motives and all our tactical efforts to be loving, and even if we’re not sure that we have all the wisdom we need, we can be sure of this: the record of our debts is nailed to the cross. With that assurance, we embrace the ambiguities of this fallen, tragic world, and we do our best to act in love.

I do not doubt that God will guide Carien and her husband in the path of love and meet every need that they have for the next fifty years, according to his riches in glory, and according to his promise.

The following is a lightly edited transcript.

We, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another. Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, in proportion to our faith; if service, in our serving; the one who teaches, in his teaching; the one who exhorts, in his exhortation; the one who contributes, in generosity; the one who leads, with zeal; the one who does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness. (Romans 12:5–8)

I want to add to that list, “the one who reads with . . .” What would you put there? The reason I feel okay suggesting that Paul could continue that way is because those last several gifts are not gifts that are unique to any Christian. Every Christian is supposed to be merciful:

Be merciful, as your Father is merciful. (Luke 6:36)

That’s spoken to all Christians, and here in this passage it says, “those of you who show mercy as your gift, do it with cheerfulness.” Or what about giving? It says to do that with generosity. Every one of you men should be a giver, financially and in other ways. That’s not a unique gift. So if Paul can take contributing and say, “do that with generosity,” and to the one who shows mercy, “do that with cheerfulness,” then he can say something to the one who reads as well, because everybody’s supposed to be a reader, if you’ve been given the opportunity to learn how to read in this world. There are cultures that haven’t had that opportunity yet.

What would you fill in the blank with? The reason this feels so relevant to me, and the reason I’m starting this way, is because if there are merciful people (which all Christians are supposed to be), and Paul feels legitimate in calling out mercy as something you might be especially gifted at, that means that ordinary Christian duties and acts can be expressed in peculiarly, individually anointed ways, just like reading. So I paused and I thought about that for myself, thinking, “What about me?”

I’m going to tell you my story, because if you know me at all, you know me as a preacher and a writer. Maybe you know me as a family guy, for those of you who know me personally enough to be on the staff with me and so on for 33 years here. But you don’t know how I got to all those places and what limitations and giftings prescribed those paths. You’re all led by limits that you have — things you’re not good at — and a few things that you are more or less good at, and that’s why you do what you do.

So for me to fill in the blank, I would put it this way: In your mercy, be cheerful; in your contributing, be generous; and in your reading, be what? What’s your blank? You could fill in that phrase with “in your reading, be speedy,” or you could say, “in your reading, be really good at comprehension, memorization, and remembering,” or it could be “ in your reading, be especially adept at relating what you read to other Scriptures,” or, “in your reading, be especially adept at explaining to other people,” or, “in your reading, be especially adept at applying it to your friends.” The list could go on and on.

You may be more or less good at some aspects of reading and not so good at other aspects of reading. How would that affect your life? How would that affect your vocation or your fathering?

My Struggle to Speak

I grew up in a Christian home, and my dad was an evangelist. My mom and dad are both in heaven, I believe, right now. And I’ve always described my childhood as the happiest home I could have ever imagined. My mom and dad would sing. They’d sing in the front seat of the car while my sister and I sat in the back seat on the way to Daytona Beach, Florida, to do some deep sea fishing. Those are great memories of my life. And they would sing things like “Heavenly Sunlight.” That’s an old spiritual song from the 1950s.

I had a great home, but somewhere around the seventh grade something happened, and I discovered I could not speak in front of a group. It wasn’t funny. It wasn’t like when a person has butterflies, or their knees knock, or their hands tremble. I shut down. It was absolutely humiliating from seventh grade until I was about twenty. It was horrible. I would not want to live my teenage years over again. I do not look back on my teenage years as happy years. I had acne, and that was probably owing to how anxious I was.

I didn’t accept any office proposals in school, even though academically I did okay in high school. If they nominated me for vice president or president I would say, “No way; you have to give speeches. I can’t give any speeches.” I couldn’t do a report in a biology class for 30 seconds in order to say what I was supposed to be doing with my science project. I couldn’t do any of it. I took a C in Civics because I was supposed to give an oral book report. I said to Mr. Vermilion, “I can’t give an oral book report.” And he said, “Well, if you don’t give an oral book report, you’re going to get a C.” I said, “That’s fine, I’ll get a C. I just cannot do it.”

My Struggle to Read

Accompanying that, and maybe related to it, was the fact that I couldn’t read fast, and therefore I disliked any kind of test that involved reading. There were these horrible tests you had to take for standardized stuff to get into college, where you would read a paragraph and then they would ask you ten questions about it. I couldn’t remember what was there, and if I were to go back and reread it to find out what the answer was, it would keep me from finishing on time. Inside I would just be churning with anxiety about tests like that because I couldn’t read. To this day, I cannot read faster than I can talk.

Since then I’ve talked to some specialists and I’ve taken all kinds of courses. I’ve had examinations done. Andy Naselli’s wife told me the other day, “I think, Pastor John, you have dyslexia.” I said, “Well, I don’t transpose things too often. When I write down phone numbers, I do sometimes switch things around.” She said, “Oh no, that’s not the only mark of dyslexia. All kinds of things that are going on with your brain.”

That’s like one of my sons, so I passed some of this on to one of them. I can remember my son was ready to drop out of high school a week before he graduated from Roosevelt High, and I said, “Why?” He said, “I can’t do what she wants me to do.” And the teacher said, “If you don’t do this, you’re going to fail this class.” What she wanted him to do was listen to her in class and write down the main points and hand that in at the end of the class. That’s all he had to do to pass the class. But he said, “I can’t do that. I could tell her verbatim what she said when she’s done, but I cannot write and listen at the same time.” Those are the peculiar things that you can pass on to your kids.

So anyway, the point of all that was that I came to college as a very slow reader with a poor memory — the very two things that are necessary to be academically successful, at least in my mind. And I was also not able to speak.

Let the One Who Reads

I fell in love with reading in the 11th grade, but it didn’t change the speed of my reading. I just wanted to read fiction, so I became a literature major in college, which is crazy.

I avoided every single class on novels and took every class on poetry. Do you know why? Novels are long, and they wanted me to read six novels in a class, but I couldn’t read one novel in a class, let alone six. Whereas with poetry you take a poem that’s very short and analyze it and write a paper about it. I could do that. That’s why today I’m a preacher and not an academician. I tried teaching at Bethel for six years. I was a competent teacher, but as I looked around at my colleagues and what’s expected of an academician — namely to read everything, remember everything, and write books about everything — I said, “I’ll never be able to do that.”

Do you know what preachers do? In season and out of season they remember Bible verses. On Sunday they have a paragraph, and they understand it, love it, and tell people what they see in it. I thought, “I could do that!” And I did it for 33 years, and people thought I was good at it. I became a pastor in large measure because I can’t read fast, and I can’t remember much of what I read, but oh, can I analyze a paragraph. If you give me enough time, I can analyze a lot of them and write books like that. I mean, when you write a book it looks to people like, “Whoa, to write a book like that you must read everything!” No, the reason I write books like that is because I don’t read everything.

So as I finish my phrase here — “let the one who reads . . .” — I do not say, “let the one who reads be a speed reader, or, “let the one who reads be one who remembers everything he reads.” I don’t and I can’t. But I will say, “let the one who reads read slowly and deeply, and with tears, and with longing to live it and speak it as he sees it. Then I talk.

“Let the one who reads read slowly and deeply, and with tears, and with longing to live it and speak it as he sees it.”

And I would just say to you brothers, as you finish that sentence, you fill it in for yourself. God made you the way you are. If you have a great memory, memorize books of the Bible. I work like crazy to memorize Scripture. I wake up every morning and before I get out of bed, I recite a chapter in Philippians until I’ve got the whole book, and I also quote a chapter in 1 Peter until I get the whole book. I know those two books by heart. I could recite both those books by heart right now. Do you know what that cost me over the last eight years? It was constant work. Those things would go out of my mind within a week if I wasn’t doing a chapter a day on Philippians and 1 Peter. So the fact that I have a lousy memory is no excuse for not memorizing Scripture.

The Place of the Bible in Daily Life

Here’s what I want to do the rest of the time. Given my limitations that I can’t read fast and can’t remember much of what I read without an enormous amount of labor to memorize, how do I read my Bible daily? How does the Bible function for me in my life daily? That’s what I want to talk about for the rest of our minutes together. I have it boiled down to something like the following categories: Reading and my life, reading and God, reading and the devil, reading and witness, reading and crisis, and reading and family. I have a little story to go with each of those regarding how reading relates to those things in my life.

Reading and My Life

The gist of it is this: I read my Bible every morning and pray for about an hour. I’ve done this as long as I can remember, and I say, brothers, it is my life. So I’m going to start with my life. When I say reading and life, this is what I mean. Here’s 1 Peter 1:23:

Since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God; for “All flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord remains forever.” And this word is the good news that was preached to you.

Understand that. The statement “you have been born again” means you have been made alive from spiritual death by the living and abiding word of God. If any of you men are alive in Christ, you owe it to the word of God. That was 1 Peter, now here’s what James does with a similar thought. First he says:

Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth. . . . (James 1:18)

That means you were born again, brought to spiritual life, and made a believer by the word of truth. Then he continues:

Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls. (James 1:21)

What a strange phrase. He says, “receive the implanted word.” It’s already implanted in you. That’s what happened when you were born again; God planted his seed in you. His word has taken root in you. That’s why you’re a Christian. But now James says, “Receive it. That will be your life. Your life is given and your life is sustained by the power of the word at the beginning and the receiving of the word.” That’s been every morning for me for about 60 years, because I started when I was about 15. I have a Bible that my parents gave me when I was 15. I look at it and how it’s marked up in red. I have memories of lying in my single bed with the trolley cars on the wallpaper on the wall above me, reading my Bible late at night, desperate because I couldn’t speak.

That was a great gift to me by the way, that God shut me down socially and cut me off from all fast tracks, all party tracks, and all cool-guy tracks. I was just shut down into my little world of going hard after God when I was 15. So I’ve been reading my Bible every day since I was 15, and it has been my life.

That’s my first point — the Bible and life, or reading and life. It doesn’t matter whether you feel like it, though you want to feel like it. The idea is to enjoy it with all your heart, but you’re like farmers. Farmers cultivate the field because the crops won’t come. It doesn’t matter whether they’re weeping. You go forth weeping, sowing your seed, and you will come forth rejoicing. So weep on, reader; that’s not the criterion of whether you should read or not. Life comes through this word.

If you want to know how I do it, by the way, I use a Bible plan that’s called the Discipleship Journal Bible Reading Plan. It’s a plan where you read the whole Bible in a year with four chapters a day, roughly, and you’re in four different places of the Bible at the same time. You get five days off without reading at the end of every month. That’s the genius of the program because everybody gets behind and the reason people give up on reading the Bible in a year is because they’re behind by February and they feel like there’s no point to continuing. It helps if you start drifting. The devil is an expert at using drifters to do nothing. So what a wonderful thing this is. I’ve been using it for 30 years. It’s just gold. I can never find anything better.

Reading and God

Reading is not an end in itself; we want to know God and we want to trust Christ. We want to be filled and led by the Holy Spirit. The word is the key to all of those. So let me just say a word about God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit, and how reading relates. I just cannot overstate to you, men, what a precious thing it is to know with a few clear sentences, why you are alive and what you’re doing every morning and every night. In other words, why do you exist and why do you read your Bible?

God the Father

With regard to God the Father, it is for his glory:

So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. (1 Corinthians 10:31)

Now, wouldn’t that include reading your Bible? So I know the goal of my reading the Bible. I know it beyond a shadow of doubt. God is to be made to look glorious in my life because I read the Bible. That’s clear as daylight to me as I look at the whole range of Scripture. So every text I read, I know I’m reading it to the glory of God. I want God to look great because I’m reading this book. I want to know him as great, see him as great, savor him as great, and show him as great. That’s number one. I read the Bible for the glory of God the Father.

God the Son

What about the God the Son? I think of Romans 8:32, which is probably the most important verse in my theology:

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?

The logic is that if God didn’t spare Christ, but handed him over to torture and shame for sinners like me, would he then withhold any omnipotent effort to give me everything I need for his purposes? No, the logic would break down if he did. Christ would have died in vain if he did. Therefore, every good thing that you get from the Bible is blood bought. And that’s how Jesus relates to every text you read. Second Corinthians 1:20 says:

All the promises of God find their Yes in him.

So if you have him, if you are in him, if his blood is covering your sins, every page of this book is yours. The whole promise, the whole inheritance, and everything good that you could possibly get out of this book that’s really there is yours because of Jesus and God not sparing his own Son. If he didn’t spare his own Son, will he not with him freely give you all things that are in this book for your good and for your eternal welfare? Yes, he will. So the goal of all of all things is the glory of God, and the foundation of all things is the blood of Jesus, the Son of God.

God the Spirit

Third, let’s speak about the Holy Spirit. We have texts like, “be led by the Spirit” (Galatians 5:18), or, “bear the fruit of the Spirit” (Galatians 5:22–23), or, “walk by the Spirit” (Galatians 5:16), or, “put to death the deeds of the body by the Spirit” (Romans 8:13). Everything we do is to be done in the power of the Holy Spirit, by relying on him. That’s true for the Bible.

The book you’ve got in your hand there, Reading the Bible Supernaturally, is my lifetime of effort to describe what’s that like — what is it like to read the Bible in reliance upon the Holy Spirit. There are 300 pages about that. And by the way, don’t feel intimidated, thinking, “Oh my goodness, he gave me this book. Now I have to read it.” You do not have to read it.

Here’s my suggestion. Most of you probably do not read 300-page books, but you read short things. A book like this doesn’t have to be read straight through. You can just flip through the table contents, and if you see a chapter that sticks out, just go there. It might help. So regarding God the Father, read to his glory. Regarding God the Son, every benefit that is promised in the Bible is yours on the basis of his blood. Regarding the Holy Spirit, he’s the one who illumines. He’s the one who opens the eyes of the heart. He’s the one who gives a spirit of wisdom and of revelation. Read in reliance upon his help.

Reading and the Devil

The devil is real brothers. I think the devil is on a leash, and God holds the leash. The devil may be the immediate cause of all kinds of horrors in the world, but God holding the leash could have jerked it at any time. Therefore, behind everything is God with his infinitely wise purposes.

When I think of the devil today, I think of the way we treat each other on the internet. I think of the kind of tensions that are seething in the church right now between maskers and non-maskers and between Trumpers and non-Trumpers. The kind of stuff that we’re feeling in our hearts towards each other is demonic. It really is demonic. And therefore, I hate the devil and I want the devil to be defeated. I want you men to be good warriors against the devil. I want to read a verse to you and then tell you a story. This is 1 John 2:14. It says:

I write to you, fathers, because you know him who is from the beginning. I write to you, young men, because you are strong, and the word of God abides in you, and you have overcome the evil one.

“There’s a connection between the word of God abiding in you and you overcoming the evil one.”

There’s a connection between the word of God abiding in you and you overcoming the evil one. Jesus was perfect, and when he was tempted by the devil, what did he do? He quoted the Bible, of all things. He’s the one who wrote the Bible; he didn’t need to quote the Bible. All he needed to do was say what he said later — “Get out of here. Go to the pigs. Go to hell. You’re done. I’m God, and you don’t own anything. You don’t rule anything. I’m Jesus, the Son of God.” Instead of that, he quoted Scripture and dispensed the devil in that way. You can do that too, and that’s what they were doing in 1 John 2:14.

The Sword of the Spirit

My first year here in Minneapolis was 1980, and I was living over at 1604 Elliot with Tom Stellar. He was my associate for 33 years. Tom just switched from being a pastor at Bethlehem to be a missionary. That’s a glorious way to live. I love it. Tom and I were living together, and he was the associate here for students and I was a brand new pastor in 1980. We got a call from some college students at Bethel at about 10:00 p.m. at night, saying, “There’s a woman in this apartment that’s demon-possessed, and we want you to come and cast a demon out.” That’s in the Bible; it’s just not in my experience.

What would you guys do if somebody called you up and said, “There’s a demon-possessed woman in the apartment here. We’re not letting her out. You come. We’ll keep her here”? I called Tom, because you’re supposed to go out two by two. We got in the car and headed for that apartment and were praying, “God we’ve never ever been asked to do anything like this in our life. This is a frontline missionary story. This is not normal for pastors in Minneapolis.” We got there and went in, and then there was this girl named Midge, which I came to find out later, and she looked like a maniac. She had a pen knife, one of these little things that have a short blade, and she was going around pointing it at people, but she didn’t stick anybody. I kept my winter coat on thinking, “Okay, it won’t go all the way in if I keep my coat on.”

Now, what would you do in that situation? You quote the Bible. You start telling Bible stories. You recite Romans eight. You call up anything God gives you. You need Christ and you need the Holy Spirit at that moment, and you say, “God, help me. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to say. I know what I’m saying right now that the word of God gave Jesus power over the devil. So may you grant us your word now to speak in a prophetic way that would deliver her, because they say she’s even possessed. I don’t know. Maybe that’s the way she always is. She just looks horrible. She sounds horrible.” So that’s what we did.

She collapsed on the floor and the students, there were about six of them, men and women, began to sing over her choruses of hallelujah, and then — I would call this prophetic — they put words besides hallelujah too, like, “Jesus is powerful.” I forget what words they used, but just words that came to mind about Jesus, they sang over her. We sang over her. She went absolutely berserk, screamed at the top of her lungs for Satan not to leave her, and then, bang, just went as unconscious as she could be as far as I could tell. And I thought, “Oh my goodness, she’s dead or something.” I didn’t know what was going on. We stopped and waited, and she came around and, brothers, her face was totally different. When she opened her mouth, it was a different voice. And I said, “Midge…” and I handed her my Bible, which she had knocked out of my hand two or three times before, and I said, “I want you to read Romans 8 to us.” And she did.

She was in church the next Sunday on the second row, which scared me to death. I thought she was going to stand up and do something horrible in church. I remember visiting her in the hospital because she broke her leg playing soccer, and she told me horrible stories while I was visiting in the hospital about Satanic worship she was involved in when she lived in Arizona. Brothers, I don’t know what your challenge might be. Sometimes the devil is subtle and sometimes the devil is blatant. Right now you’re all dealing with the subtleties of Satan. That’s what he specializes in within the Western world. He thinks all of us scientific people don’t believe he exists, so he’ll keep that cover and not show his hand too much with exorcism or demonic possession like he does in so many other places.

But it’s here, and witchcraft is here, and all kinds of demonic involvement are here in the Twin Cities, and you guys are going to hit it. It will be there either in subtle ways or in manifest ways. I just tell you, the word of God is powerful. It is powerful. You do not have to be an expert at this, but you do need to be in the word. You do not want to walk out without your sword any morning.

Reading and Witness

On November 5th, Noël had a car wreck. I loved our yellow Toyota; everybody loves our yellow Toyota. People would say, “There comes the pastor in his yellow Toyota,” and she totaled it. Now, it wasn’t her fault at all. The other guy ran the red light, and she’s fine. State Farm gave us $6,000 for that Toyota. We had to have another car because we only have one car. We’ve always only had one car because we live so close. I even walked over this morning.

David Livingston said to me, “Go to Oleg down in Farmington. He rebuilds wrecked cars. Jason Meyer is driving one of his cars, Chuck Steddom is driving one of his cars, and I’m driving one of his cars. So go get a car from Oleg.” So I called Oleg and said, “Hey, Pastor John here.” He thought I was joking and said, “Yeah right, blah, blah, blah.” Then he said, “You mean the Pastor John?” And I said, “Yes, yes, Oleg. Come on. I need a car. I really drive cars. I don’t fly.”

So we drove down there, and what does Oleg do? He was a half an hour late. I said, “We’ll meet you at 12:30 p.m.,” and he was a half an hour late. When he showed up, he said, “I had to go get Andy because Andy called me this morning right after you called and said he wanted to talk about Jesus. He doesn’t know Jesus, and I’ve tried to witness to him. I told him there’s a Jesus guy coming to buy a car, so I’m going to come get you and you’re going to talk to him.” So I was there to buy a car, and he introduced me to Andy Standal — I’m saying the name so you can pray for him — and he took us up to the lunchroom nook in his shop and sat us down and walked away and said, “Tell him about Jesus, Pastor John.” Would you be ready for that? Would you be ready?

You will be if you read your Bible every morning and come away from your Bible with one sentence that you love. Now, that’s getting at my point about the fact that I don’t remember much. There is no way I can remember the four chapters that I read in the morning. I read them and sometimes a half an hour later, I can’t remember even where I was reading. I have to work to make sure something lodges in my mind, so I take a sentence and I chew on it, savor it, love it, and I trust it. Sometimes I write it on a piece of paper and stick it in my pocket if I think I’m not going to be able to remember it, and I eat it all day long. I eat that one sentence all day long, because I can remember a sentence. I can’t remember a chapter, let alone four.

So what did I do with Andy? I just took the lozenge out of my mouth, and the lozenge that morning was John 6:35, as I recall, and it says:

Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.

I talked to Andy for 20 minutes about what it means to be hungry for Jesus and to drink the water of Jesus. God brought words to my mind. He just brought words. Andy was spellbound. I mean, he just sat there. He’s just a mechanic and he helps Oleg, so he probably doesn’t have a college education and is just a real ordinary, normal guy. Here I am with a PhD, and that doesn’t mean anything there. Only one thing does me any good there: Will the Holy Spirit show up, reach in my brain and pull out a verse or two, and help me to say, “This is beautiful, Andy. This is my life, Andy. This is free and you can have this living water.”

He didn’t make any decision there. In fact, I didn’t push for any decision. I hardly ever do that because I want them to know it comes down to them and God in reality, not me putting artificial words in their mouths. And I said, “Now, do you have a Bible?” And he said, “Oh, I’ve got an old King James.” I said, “Okay, you need a newer Bible. I’ll send you one.” So I sent him one. I paid 34 bucks on Amazon and mailed him an ESV Study Bible. He’s probably never seen one of those in his life. It’s huge, and he probably just felt totally intimidated by it. I also sent him a copy of Don’t Waste Your Life and a copy of my Seeing and Savoring Jesus Christ. Those are my two go-to books for unbelievers that I would give to people. So pray for Andy Standal.

My point here is that today, before this day is over right now, God’s going to give you something like that. He’s going to put right in your path, something wonderful. My first reaction to Oleg was, “I came to buy a car. What are you doing? You can talk to this guy about Jesus. Why are you treating me like some kind of priest?” And that after that self-defensive, fearful attitude got crucified, I was thrilled to be able to do that. It was a gift. I came to the end of the day saying, “Jesus, what a gift you gave me to be able to talk to that guy.”

Reading and Crisis

I just have one quick story for this. Does anybody here remember the name Roland Erickson? You’re all too young. Roland was the main man at Bethlehem when I came in 1980. He was just a statesman of a Christian, and loved Jesus with all of his heart.

In my first year here I was as green as you could be. I had never done a funeral. I had never visited the hospital. I was so unbelievably green at age 34. I had just done academia for all those years, and I got a phone call that Roland’s wife had a heart attack. She was at North Memorial Hospital, and I was thinking, “Oh boy, I’m going to get there before the ambulance does. I’m going to be a good pastor.” So I jumped in my car and headed to North Memorial. And when I got out there, she was in surgery and the family, probably a dozen of them, was in the waiting room. I walked in and Roland gave me a big hug, and do you know what he said? He said, “Give us a word, pastor. Give us a word.”

I couldn’t think of anything. This was before I had formed some of my crisp habits of getting a sentence every morning from the four chapters I read. I used to think just reading it was good enough to let it have its general impact. I think I said something to him like, “Let me pray for you,” and I prayed something and he was very gracious. I went home as a humiliated, defeated young pastor, not knowing what I needed to do. So I got down on my knees and said to the Lord, “That will never happen again. I’m sorry.” And then I memorized Psalm 46, which says:

God is our refuge and strength,      a very present help in trouble.Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way,     though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea,though its waters roar and foam,     though the mountains tremble at its swelling.

There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,     the holy habitation of the Most High.God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved;     God will help her when morning dawns.The nations rage, the kingdoms totter;     he utters his voice, the earth melts.The Lord of hosts is with us;     the God of Jacob is our fortress.

Come, behold the works of the Lord,     how he has brought desolations on the earth.He makes wars cease to the end of the earth;     he breaks the bow and shatters the spear;     he burns the chariots with fire.“Be still, and know that I am God.     I will be exalted among the nations,     I will be exalted in the earth!”The Lord of hosts is with us;     the God of Jacob is our fortress.

I just memorized it cold. That was in 1982, and I’ve never stopped using it. It’s always there. I will never be caught flat footed again like that in your cause, Lord Jesus, if somebody looks at me and says, “Give us a word,” in the midst of crisis. Psalm 46 is coming out if nothing’s there from the front burner in the morning. But let me tell you what this morning was, because you might want to know, “Do you still do that?” Absolutely I do. This morning was a little crowded just because I’m fitting in a three-mile run before this, I’m eating breakfast, I’m having devotions, and I’m trying to get ready to talk to you guys. So I read Daniel 1–2. That’s all I had time for this morning. Do you know what I’m taking away, sucking on as a lozenge all day long?

And God gave Daniel favor and compassion in the sight of the chief of the eunuchs . . . (Daniel 1:9)

Do you have any meetings today? Are you going to meet one of your kids today? Are you going to talk to your wife today? Are you going to talk to a friend today, a colleague, and you wonder if you will find favor? Will they look upon this conversation with some sympathy? God gives favor. God gives compassion to his people when they need it. They might kill you or they might look upon you with favor. Who controls that? It’s God. The king’s heart is like a river in the hand of the Lord; he turns it wherever he wills (Proverbs 21:1). So I’m taking this away from Daniel 1:9 this morning: God gives favor and God gives compassion. He controls the heart of the people I talk to. That’s gold right there in Daniel 1:9. So that’s what I’ve got in my head all day long today, and we’ll see what the Lord brings me later this afternoon.

Reading and Family

This is the last one and we’ll be done. This is Deuteronomy 6:6, which I’m sure is really familiar:

And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart.

“Fathers, immerse your families in the word. Just immerse them in the word.”

That’s why I take a sentence and try to press it in on my heart, asking, “What does this mean, Lord? Why is this sweet? Why would this be precious today? How could I commend this to anyone today?” If I talk to my neighbor, Steve, about my life today, while I’m raking leaves in the backyard and Steve says, “How are you doing?” and I say, “Steve, I read this morning an amazing thing in the prophet Daniel,” wouldn’t that be cool? And then I could talk to him about the goodness of God and giving people favor when they need it and see where it goes. Canned evangelism has never worked for me. I think you ought to always have a simple gospel message in your head — something like God, sin, Christ, and faith. That’s a great outline for all gospel messages — God, sin, Christ, faith — but way better is for you to just tell people what’s precious to you today. What’s precious to you today about Jesus. Deuteronomy 6:6–9 continues on to say:

And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

Now the point of that would be this: Fathers, immerse your families in the word. Just immerse them in the word. While you’re driving the car, be connected to the word; while you’re doing playtime in the evening, be connected to the word; while you’re dealing with a crisis in the kids’ lives, be connected to the word; at supper time, be connected to the word; while you watch a movie, be connected to the word. Just immerse your life in the word, and that’s only possible if you are reading the word.