God allows hard things to happen, and we must acknowledge our limitations in understanding. “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Isa 55:8-9). I don’t know why God allows these things to happen. But I know God. I know that he is good (Psalm 16:2). I know that he is faithful and just (Psalm 111:7).

Why did God let Christian get captured by the giant “Despair”?

This question from my 4-year old came out of nowhere as he was talking with my wife recently. About 6 months ago we read through Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress together as a family. If you’re not familiar with the story, the main character, Christian, leaves his home in the City of Destruction to escape the coming wrath of God. He goes through the wicket gate and sets out on the narrow path to the Celestial City. Bunyan allegorizes the Christian life and what it looks like to travel on the narrow path to salvation. (This book is amazing. If you haven’t read it, read it. If you have read it, let’s talk about it. This is my favorite book of all time. Did I say that I love this book? I love this book.)
But something interesting happens during Christian’s journey to the Celestial City. He, and his friend Hopeful, leave the path for a moment and are captured by the giant “Despair” and are locked in “Doubting Castle”. The giant beats them mercilessly, and it isn’t until Christian finds the master key that they are ever able to escape. In writing this, Bunyan acknowledges that even Christians on the narrow path can experience seasons of despair and doubt. Bunyan’s honesty about the Christian life is why I love this book so much. He doesn’t reserve despair and doubt for the weak, but as an experience of even faithful Christians. And then my son’s question: “Why did God let Christian get captured by the giant ‘Despair’?”
What struck me about his question was this: My 4-year old understood that God had allowed Christian to be captured. He understood that behind the scenes of that terrible event, God was in control. And now he was wrestling with the implications. Why would God allow that? And I’m certain that everyone at some point has had a similar question: In light of evil and sickness and despair and doubting, why is God allowing this to happen? And without question, our God is Sovereign over all things. The Psalmist writes, “Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases” (Psalm 115:3).
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Whatever mistakes we make in reading and preaching the parables, let us not make the mistake of not making much of Jesus. He is the sower of the good seed of the gospel, the heaven-sent Son, the bridegroom of his church, the king upon his glorious throne, the final judge of all people everywhere, and so much more!

Suggestions for Preaching Parables
Every parable has a connection to the gospel. So, when you preach, don’t moralize (e.g., the point of the parable of the talents is that God rewards hard work; so, work hard!).1 Moreover, because the parables describe various parts of the gospel of the kingdom—the rule of Christ inaugurated in the incarnation and consummated in the second coming—set your sermons within the context of the whole gospel story (death and resurrection of Christ) and response (repentance, faith, and obedience). The parables feature what the whole of the New Testament covers: gospel need, gospel proclamation, gospel response, and gospel ethics. In your preaching, follow Jesus’s pattern.
Below are eight suggestions to help your homiletics soar. Or, at least get off the ground.
First, share what is truly important. If you are clearly given the main point of a parable in the text, or you have painstakingly discerned it in your study, share it with God’s people from the start and throughout. For example, Luke tells us in Luke 18:1 that Jesus taught the parable of the persistent widow “to the effect that they [his disciples] ought always to pray and not lose heart.” You need to unpack the symbolic relationship between the unrighteous judge and God and the widow and God’s elect, but not at the expense of sharing the point of those two characters’ actions. The sermon should be dominated by what is truly important, not by all the possible interpretations or twenty minutes of unraveling the symbolic details.
Second, take time to explain. You need to get to the point (see above), but not at the expense of making sure that all the important details in the parable are explicated. In most settings, we are up against two obstacles: (1) people who don’t use or hear parables on a regular basis, or at all, and (2) most biblical parables are “notoriously puzzling” and their “meaning is rarely transparent.”2 Be patient. Explain slowly and clearly. Illustrate.
Third, contemporize. One way to explain and illustrate is to retell a parable, or part of a parable, as a paraphrase and/or with a relevant and accessible story from today. As Blomberg advocates, “it will be both easy and helpful to include some modern equivalent to the biblical story in an introduction, in one or more illustrations interspersed within the body, or in a conclusion to the message. These contemporizations should work to recreate the original dynamic, force, or effect of Jesus’ original story. It is not true that narratives cannot (or should not) be paraphrased propositionally; it is true that good exposition should not do just that.”3
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Justice demanded that David’s sin be punished, and it was punished in the sacrificial crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Jesus bore David’s sin and condemnation so that David could be forgiven. The wickedness of all who confess their sins and believe in Jesus Christ is forgiven. “His blood makes the foulest clean.”

The author of a large part of the Bible did some desperately wicked things.
I’m talking about David, Israel’s greatest general and king, and author of at least seventy-three of the Psalms.
God’s justice demands that sin be punished.
It is about 1000 BC, and David has been king for some time. His realm is expansive, his rule is secure, and his armies are off campaigning.
We find him strolling on his rooftop (2 Sam. 11). The sun sets over Jerusalem. The scent of smoke and evening meals fills the air.
David sees a woman bathing on her rooftop, a very beautiful woman. He makes inquiries.
She is Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah, one of David’s greatest soldiers—a friend and brother-in-arms. Uriah is away with the army.
David orders Bathsheba to be brought to his chambers…
Weeks later she sends him a note: “I am pregnant.”
David attempts a coverup. He calls Uriah back to Jerusalem for “news from the frontline.” He then sends him home to his wife Bathsheba with a gift.
But there’s no way that Uriah will enjoy an evening with his wife while the Ark of the Covenant and his brothers-in-arms are out in the field. Uriah sleeps outside.
Frustrated, David tries again. This time he gets Uriah drunk before sending him home to his wife.
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