The Creator of the universe, who holds everything in being, from all the galaxies to every grain of sand, and who governs everything that happens, from the fall of nations to the fall of every bird that dies — this God has decreed that he will accomplish his enemy-reconciling, worshiper-creating purposes among all the peoples of the world through your mouth.

Listen to the words of the apostle Paul: “We are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God” (2 Corinthians 5:20). Think of it: there’s God, with his appeal to the peoples of the world; there’s Christ, who provided the basis of the appeal by his death for sin and his triumph over death — and there’s you, with your mouth.

You take your Christ, your great Treasure, and his magnificent salvation, and you open your mouth, and wonder of wonders, God makes his appeal through you: “Be reconciled to God.” This is how we make disciples of all nations. This is how the Great Commission is completed. God makes his appeal through us: “On behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.” When you say that, it is the voice of God.

Christians, the Voice of His Excellencies

Don’t shrink back from this, as if it were meant only for apostles. Do you remember what Peter said about who you are? You are Christians: “You [you!] are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1 Peter 2:9). You are the voice of his excellencies. That’s not a missionary calling. That’s your Christian identity. It’s who you are — the mouthpiece of the excellencies of God.

So, my prayer for this message — indeed, for this day and this conference — has two layers.

Layer #1: I am praying that God would redirect the lives of hundreds of you from where you were heading when you came to this conference, or from the muddle your life was in, into a life totally devoted, vocationally, to opening your mouths among the least-reached peoples of the world — God making his appeal through you for the reconciling of his enemies and the creation of his worshipers.

Layer #2: I am praying that the rest of you would see this divine enterprise as so glorious that you would celebrate it and support it in every way possible.

What can I do in the rest of this message that God might use to make you an answer to one of those prayers? What I’m going to do is to try and show you from the Gospel of John how God will use your mouth to create worshipers of the true God among the nations. I think if you could see how God actually does it, you might feel called to join him in doing it.

Whom the Father Seeks, He Will Have

Let’s start with John 4:23. Jesus is talking to the Samaritan woman at the well of Jacob. She has just pointed out that Samaritans worship on Mount Gerizim while Jews, like Jesus, worship in Jerusalem (John 4:20). To this Jesus responds,

The hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for [or because] the Father is seeking such people to worship him. (John 4:23)

The reason there will be true worship on any mountain or in any valley or on any plain is because the Father is seeking worshipers. That’s why worship among the nations happens.

This is not a seeking as in an Easter egg hunt, as if God doesn’t know who they are or where they are. This is a seeking because they are his, and he means to have them and their wholehearted, happy worship for himself forever.

“The Father is seeking worshipers from all the nations because they are already his.”

As Jesus prayed to his Father in John 17:6, “I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word.” The Father is seeking worshipers from all the nations because they are already his. “Yours they were!” Jesus declares. “And you gave them to me.” God chose them “before the foundation of the world” (Ephesians 1:4–6). They are his. He is seeking them. He will have them.

How does he do that? How do we move from “yours they were” from all eternity to countless worshipers from every people, language, tribe, and nation at the consummation of history with you, and your mouth, in the middle?

To answer that question from the Gospel of John, we need to know, What’s the relationship between worshiping and believing in this Gospel? Because Jesus just said in John 4:23 that the Father is seeking worshipers. Yet this whole Gospel is written, according to John 20:31, to create believers: “These are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.”

What’s the relationship between believing and worshiping? Which should we seek? Is there a first and second? Are they the same? Do they overlap?

Belief as Soul-Satisfaction

Here’s my very condensed answer, which starts with a stunning fact: In this so-called “Gospel of Belief,” John never uses the noun belief or faith (Greek pistis) — never! — in all 21 chapters. But he uses the verb believe (pisteuō) 98 times. That can’t be an accident. What’s the point?

I think the point is this: John wants to emphasize that believing is an action, and one of the soul, not the body. The movements of the body are the effects of believing. What the soul does is believing. And what are the actions of believing in the soul? John answers at the very beginning of his Gospel in John 1:11–12: “[Jesus] came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.” Believing is the soul’s receiving of Christ.

Receiving as what? A ticket out of hell that you put in your back pocket and never think of? A wonder-worker to keep my wife alive and my children safe (and a failure if he doesn’t)? No. John and Jesus have a different kind of receiving in mind. It’s the receiving of Christ as soul-satisfying bread from heaven and as thirst-quenching living water: “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’” (John 6:35).

Believing, in John’s Gospel, is the soul’s eating and drinking of all that God is for us in Christ with the discovery that this is the end of my quest. (Believing is more, but it is not less, than this.) My soul-hunger and my soul-thirst are satisfied in believing. Christ is my food, my drink, my treasure, my satisfaction. That is the essence of believing as John presents it.

Worship as Soul-Satisfaction

And what is worship — the essence of worship, not the bodily acts that express it, but its essence? Jesus forced that distinction on us when he said in Matthew 15:8–9, “This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.” Actions of the lips and the hands and any other part of the body are “vain,” empty, when the heart is not acting its worship.

“Where God is not satisfying, our worship is not glorifying God. It is vain, empty. It is not worship.”

But how does that happen? What is it in the heart that turns the actions of the voice and the hands into worship? Jesus answers with a spatial image. He says, “Their heart is far from me.” What does this spatial image of moving far away from God mean for true and false worship? If you are moving away from God, it means God is becoming less desirable. You feel that he has become boring, or disappointing, or cruel, or unreal, or negligible, marginal, forgotten.

And as your heart moves away, God ceases to be your desire, your treasure, your food, your drink. You don’t say or feel anymore, “Taste and see that the Lord is good!” (Psalm 34:8). He does not taste good. He is not satisfying. And where God is not satisfying, our worship is not glorifying God. It is vain, empty. It is not worship.

In the end, then, when we have penetrated into the essence of believing and the essence of worshiping, we find the same thing: a human soul drinking and eating all that God is for us in Christ, and discovering that he is our deepest satisfaction and our greatest treasure. This is the essence of believing, and this is the essence of worshiping.

Therefore, what the Father is seeking (in John 4:23) and what John is writing for (in John 20:31) are essentially the same: the ingathering of people from all the nations of the earth who come alive to find their fullest satisfaction in all that God is for them in Jesus.

Because He Must

We return to a previous question: How does he do that? How do we move from “yours they were, Father,” from all eternity, to countless worshipers from all the peoples at the end of the age, with you and your mouth in the middle? The answer is found in the most important missionary text in the Gospel of John — namely, John 10:16.

I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.

This is the thunderclap of warning against every whiff of ethnocentrism or nationalism that exults in any earthly citizenship above our citizenship in heaven (Philippians 3:20).

Just when we think that we have settled in comfortably with “my people,” “my church,” “my denomination,” “my ethnicity,” “my nation,” Jesus lifts his voice: “I have other sheep that are not of your fold. Not your church fold. Not your denominational fold. Not your ethnic or national fold. Not even in your Christian fold — yet. They are scattered among all the peoples of the world. I have other sheep, and they will listen to my voice.” They will. They will listen, and they will come — if you go, if you let his voice be heard in your voice.

Is that going to happen? Will the voice of Christ be heard among the nations in the voice of his people? Yes, it will. We know it will because of one word in John 10:16, the word must: “I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also.” That is the must of a divine purpose, like, “Nicodemus, you must be born again” (see John 3:7), or “the Son of Man must be lifted up” (see John 3:14).

And here is the link back to the Samaritan woman at the well and the Father’s pursuit of worshipers. When John 4:4 says, “He had to pass through Samaria,” the Greek word for had to is the same Greek word for must in John 10:16: “I must bring the sheep that are not of this fold.”

Geographically, he did not have to go through Samaria. Most Jews didn’t. John 4:9 says, “Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.” So, what kind of had to was it? What kind of must — he must go through Samaria? This is the cross-cultural missionary commitment of Christ in John 10:16: “I have other sheep that are not of this Jewish fold. I must — have to! — bring them. They will hear my voice. They will be reconciled. I laid down my life for them. They will believe. They will worship.”

Therefore We Must

But they must hear his voice, first in Jesus’s voice and then in our voice. God does not speak the gospel from heaven in the voice of thunder. He speaks it on earth in the voice of Christians. “God [is] making his appeal through us. . . . Be reconciled to God” (2 Corinthians 5:20). Believe God. Worship God. Be satisfied fully in God.

Do you remember what Jesus said to this five-times married woman living with lover number six? He said, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (John 4:13–14).

God is calling some of you to do what Jesus did: go through Samaria. They did not want him there. Jews were about as welcome in Samaria as Americans in Pakistan. But he went. He had to — because she was there. Chosen. A sheep not of this fold. Utterly oblivious that God was seeking, and would have, her worship. She would hear the voice, and come and drink and live.

“The salvation of one soul is worth your life.”

Someday, some of you will sit by a well in a very inhospitable country. And you will say to the one God points out, “Ma’am (or sir), I have water that, if you drink it, you will never be thirsty again.” And the sheep will hear the Shepherd’s voice in your voice, and say, “I would like to hear about that water.”

The salvation of one soul is worth your life.

Souls Await

Peter Cameron Scott was born in Scotland in 1867. He founded the African Inland Mission (AIM). He had tried to serve in Africa but had to come home with malaria. The second attempt was especially joyful because he was joined by his brother John.

The joy evaporated as John fell victim to the fever. Peter buried his brother all by himself and at the grave rededicated himself to preach the gospel. But again Peter’s health broke, and he had to return to England, utterly discouraged.

But in London, something wonderful happened. While recovering, he visited Westminster Abbey to see David Livingstone’s grave, hoping to find some encouragement. He knelt down and read the inscription:

“OTHER SHEEP I HAVE, WHICH ARE NOT OF THIS FOLD:THEM ALSO I MUST BRING.”

It was enough. Peter Cameron Scott did return to Africa. He founded AIM, which after 128 years has touched the lives of millions.

The Shepherd will have his believing sheep. The Father will have his worshipers. They will hear his voice in our voice. And they will come. There is a woman at a well. Waiting.

Audio Transcript

Holy works and filthy rags. It comes up time and time again, and it’s the topic of a question from Hanley in New Zealand. He’s onto the topic. And it’s a timely one as he reads Nehemiah 13 — and as many of us read Nehemiah 13 — to finish out the book in our Bible reading today. Here’s his email: “Hello, Pastor John! I’m a young believer from New Zealand and I thank God for his work through you. I am confused as to why the saints of the Old Testament regularly pray to God to regard them according to their own righteousness. Most notably for me right now are Nehemiah 13:14, 22, 30–31. Is this a practice for us today? Do we bring to God our righteous deeds and ask him not to forget them? I’ve never prayed that way. Never even considered it. I guess my default is to think of ‘all’ my ‘righteous deeds’ as ‘filthy rags’ (Isaiah 64:6). Do you remind God of your righteous deeds? Should we? And why do we need to?”

Okay, Hanley, let’s buckle up because I’m going to pack a lot into a very short space here — a kind of mini-theology of good works, how they relate to faith, how they relate to rewards, how they relate to prayer.

Filthy Rags or Holy Deeds?

Let’s start with Isaiah 64:6. You are not alone in thinking that this verse teaches that all Christian good works are filthy rags in the sight of God. That is a profoundly mistaken reading of that verse. The verse just before, Isaiah 64:5, says, “You meet him who joyfully works righteousness, those who remember you in your ways.” This is a commendation of righteousness in the people of God. God does not despise the righteous deeds of his children done by faith. What verse 6 is referring to in calling righteous deeds “filthy rags” is the hypocritical works that flow from nothing. They have an outward show of righteousness, but inside, dead men’s bones rooted in pride, just as Jesus referred to it (Matthew 23:27).

That misunderstanding of Isaiah 64:6 has caused many Christians to believe that it is impossible for a Christian to please God. If their best works are filthy rags, there’s nothing they can do to please him. This is a profoundly unbiblical notion through and through.

For example, consider how Paul commends the Philippians: “I have received . . . from Epaphroditus the gifts you sent, a fragrant offering, a sacrifice acceptable and pleasing to God” (Philippians 4:18). Their generosity to Paul was pleasing to God. It was not filthy. Or Hebrews 13:16: “Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.” Hebrews 11:6 holds the key: “Without faith it is impossible to please [God].” But Christians have faith. We have faith. And that faith in God’s blood-bought grace, with all its fruits — the fruits of faith and grace — pleases God because it depends on God, not the self, for doing good.

Think what a horrible thing it would be to say that the fruit of the Holy Spirit in the Christian life is filthy rags. I can hardly stand to even think about it. They are not filthy rags. They are God’s precious gift and work in us.

Rewards for Faithful Labor

Let’s take it a step further. If God, in fact, in his grace and power enables us to do things that are good, he is going to reward them, not ignore them. He’s going to say, “Well done, good and faithful servant” (Matthew 25:21). Works of faith are going to be rewarded, not thrown away as filthy rags.

And God intends for us to hope for and expect these rewards. Second Corinthians 5:10: “We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.” Or consider Matthew 10:42: “Whoever gives one of these little ones even a cup of cold water because he is a disciple, truly, I say to you, he will by no means lose his reward.” Or Ephesians 6:8: “Whatever good anyone does, this he will receive back from the Lord.”

There’s no thought in these texts of anybody earning salvation or even earning rewards. The idea of earning is not present. In order to earn something, you supply some labor that someone needs so that they’re now in your debt to pay you wages. God has no needs, and he pays no wages among his people. He bought us by grace; he sustains us by grace; he enables us to do good works by grace. And we do the works trusting that grace. And in that way, we confirm (as Peter says) our “calling and election” (2 Peter 1:10).

Essence of Uprightness

Now we’re in a position to see what’s really going on in the Old Testament when, over and over again, God’s righteous servant pleads his own integrity, his own uprightness, to claim his help from God.

I think Psalm 25 is one of the best places to see what’s going on in the psalmist’s mind concerning his own integrity and his own righteousness, his own upright behavior. In Psalm 25:21, he says, “May integrity and uprightness preserve me, for I wait for you.” Now, clearly, he does not think that his integrity and uprightness are filthy rags, and he doesn’t think that they are performed in his own autonomous strength, because he says, “[because] I wait for you.” The essence and root of his integrity and his uprightness is that he’s looking away from himself to the mercy and the power of God.

“God does not despise the righteous deeds of his children done by faith.”

He’s not sinless though. Psalm 25:7: “Remember not the sins of my youth or my transgressions.” Psalm 25:11: “For your name’s sake, O Lord, pardon my guilt, for it is great.” Psalm 25:18: “Consider my affliction and my trouble, and forgive all my sins.” And after confessing his sins three times at least (I think there’s one more verse), Psalm 25:21 says, “May integrity and uprightness preserve me, for I wait for you.”

He’s just confessed his sin three times. He called his transgressions great. There is real sin left in the lives of the saints — in all of us. There is also real contrition and real confession and real forgiveness and real lives of integrity and uprightness. And David prays and asks that his integrity and his uprightness would preserve him.

Praying Like Nehemiah

So, when Nehemiah — finally got to your text — prays four times something very similar about his obedience to God’s commands, he’s doing something similar to what David is doing. He says, “Remember this also in my favor, O my God, and spare me according to the greatness of your steadfast love” (Nehemiah 13:22). He’s not doing anything essentially different from what David does in the Psalms or doing anything different from the way the New Testament treats our good deeds as Christians. He’s saying, “I’m not perfect, but I have trusted you, and I wait for your steadfast love, and I have acted in my integrity, and I have sought to be obedient to your commandments. May this be remembered before you at the day of salvation.”

Should we pray that way? Should we call to mind regularly our integrity, our uprightness before God? And here’s a guideline that I would say, because I don’t do that very often either, just like you. I think a safe guideline for when we should pray this way is that this kind of praying comes to the fore in times when we are embattled and accused of things that we did not do. So, we pray, “O Lord, you know my heart. You know I am being accused unjustly. I pray that you will remember my integrity and my truthfulness, and vindicate me before my enemies. And if not in this life, O God, vindicate me and reward me according to your mercy in the last day when you remember how I walked in my integrity.”

So, I think that’s the way we should pray from time to time when we are embattled the way the psalmists were and the way Nehemiah was.

Audio Transcript

Welcome back to the podcast. Normally on Wednesdays, we feature a sermon clip from John Piper’s preaching archive. Not today. Today we have a full message — a short one, a recent one, one Pastor John preached at a gathering of our friends at Crossway. The gathering met at the most recent Evangelical Theological Society in Fort Worth, Texas. That was the occasion for a celebration of the life and work of Lane and Ebeth Dennis — on the occasion of Lane and Ebeth stepping down from their positions at Crossway, which they started back in 1978. If you own an ESV Bible or a book published by Crossway, you have Lane and Ebeth Dennis to thank for that. But they are now in transition. In the transition, Josh Dennis, their son, will take over for his dad, Lane, and will now lead Crossway as its CEO and president. Lane will continue to serve as the chairman of the board and as executive consultant. Ebeth will continue as an associate consultant. They’re not retiring.

Pastor John, you’re normally not with us on Wednesdays, but here you are. You’re making an exception for this couple. We’re about to play your message in a moment. But introduce us to this couple. A lot of listeners don’t know them. Who are they? What do they mean to you? Why are they so precious and important to us at Desiring God? And tell us, what did you hope to accomplish in this brief message we’re about to hear?

Thanks, Tony. I love the thought of talking about Lane and Ebeth Dennis. Just a little more background before I point to my friendship. In 1938, the parents of Lane Dennis started a small tract-publishing ministry, and within five years they were distributing five million tracts a year. And that Good News Publishing, as it’s still called, grew into a nonprofit ministry spreading Christian literature around the world. And in 1978, as you said, Crossway Books became the book publishing arm of this nonprofit ministry. So Crossway is one of the unusual major book publishing companies that is a nonprofit today. Lane and Ebeth Dennis have led that ministry for decades until the recent handoff to their son, Josh.

Crossway has published, I think, 1,500 titles and is today really quite an influential Christian publisher of biblically faithful books. And I can’t really distinguish between my personal friendship with Lane and Ebeth and my relationship with Crossway Books as the primary publisher of the things that I’ve written. So, let me give you three examples of that intersection between my life and their life and Crossway Books.

Intersecting Ministries

In 1987, I got a phone call from Lane Dennis. It was my first acquaintance. I didn’t know who he was, and he wanted to explore with me the idea of a major book on the nature of manhood and womanhood and the biblical teaching concerning the roles of men and women. And the outcome of that phone call was the publishing of Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, affectionately known as “the big blue book” that Wayne Grudem and I edited and Crossway published in 1991. That was the beginning of a 35-year friendship and publishing partnership.

Then, in the late nineties, both Wayne Grudem and I felt the need for a new Bible translation that would lean in a little more in the direction of formal equivalence than only dynamic equivalence, and that would be in the tradition of the King James, American Standard Version, Revised Standard Version. Wayne and I both spent decades reading and memorizing the Revised Standard Version in spite of its flaws, and it went out of print. And so we couldn’t give it to anybody. We couldn’t ask people to use it in church because they couldn’t get ahold of it.

And we thought, “What a great idea if Crossway could get the rights from the National Council of Churches and produce an improved version of the Revised Standard Version while keeping it in the same linguistic tradition.” We urged Lane Dennis to make that fateful phone call to the National Council of Churches, and to everyone’s amazement, it happened: the ESV was published in 2001, and today the ESV is one of the most widely used English versions of the Bible in the world.

The third thing I would mention that has knit us together is that since those days of partnership in Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood and the Bible translation, almost all of my books have been published through Crossway. I made that decision to publish with Crossway knowing that Crossway is not the biggest Christian publisher in America — it doesn’t have the most dollars. More important than that, it seemed to me — I feel this way today — was a theological and philosophical oneness of mind between author and publisher, which I am very happy to say in this case meant a rich friendship and oneness of mind between Lane and Ebeth Dennis and me. I think that in this message that you’re about to hear, you will hear some of my affection for them, and I hope it comes through loud and clear.

It does. And with that, here is Pastor John’s message, simply titled “God’s Providence in the Ministry of Crossway Books and in the Life of Lane and Ebeth Dennis.” Have a listen.

God’s Providence at Crossway

Lane and Ebeth Dennis are two of the most gracious people that I know. And I say that not because of reputation, though that is true and easy to verify, but because of over 35 years of knowing each other and them showing me personally unremitting kindness, even through circumstances that could have been relationally destructive and were not, because Lane and Ebeth love like they have been loved by their Savior.

So, I count it an enormous privilege to speak for a few minutes at this juncture in your professional and personal lives. I’m going to spend the next few minutes exulting with you, all of you, in the preciousness and the greatness and the beauty of God’s providence as it relates to you and Crossway. I define providence as God’s purposeful sovereignty. It is the all-embracing, all-pervasive, all-wise governance by God of all things for the demonstration of his glory in the Christ-exalting gladness of his people in God.

“Our hope rests finally on the freedom and wisdom and mercy of God’s providence.”

As each of us here lifts our hands in thankfulness to God for his merciful providence that you were not in your house when it burned down, we know that the very providence that rescued your life could have prevented the fire. Which means that our peace, our joy, our hope does not rest on being rescued from the disaster, the loss, the sorrow. Our hope rests finally on the freedom and wisdom and mercy of God’s providence to govern all fires, all calamities, all rescues, all non-rescues, so that all things work finally to magnify the fullness of the glory of God and all that he is for us in Jesus.

So, let us exult together in seven manifestations of God’s providence in the history of Crossway Books and your lives in particular.

1. Providence and Deity

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

So the most fundamental thing that God is making clear in the mouth of Isaiah in Isaiah 46 is that his sovereignty in accomplishing his purposes is what it means to be God. “I am God; my counsel will stand.” “I am God; I accomplish my purposes.” Only God depends on no one but God, no one but himself, informing his purposes and accomplishing them. That’s the ultimate foundation of Good News Publishers, Crossway Books. And what makes this morning so happy is that you know that and you are glad to have it so.

2. Providence and Purpose

The God of all-embracing providence has not left us in the dark at all about his ultimate purpose in redemption and creation. It’s not hidden. It runs like a golden thread from Genesis to Revelation. “Bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the end of the earth, everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory” (Isaiah 43:6–7). It’s not unclear why you’re in existence. It’s just gloriously clear. We were “predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory” (Ephesians 1:11–12). That’s why we be. We exist for the praise of his glory — the meaning of the universe.

Now, praise is not a sad affair, especially when the last vestige of evil is wiped from the new earth. Therefore, the final goal of all providence is the glorification of God in the gladness of the blood-bought people of God in God. And when we search, as I did online, all the documents available for Good News Publishers and Crossway Books back to 1938, the refrain is as clear there as it is in the Bible that you exist for the glory of God. It’s clear in every mission statement that has been written that I could find. “Glad news for the lost” (from your parents), “and glory to God, through Jesus Christ” (from you).

3. Providence and Gospel

Truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place. (Acts 4:27–28)

So, at the moment in history when the greatest evil was perpetrated against the greatest good, the all-governing hand of God was most lovingly active and sovereign. Herod scoffed. Pilate prevaricated. The mobs cried, “Crucify!” The soldiers drove the nails. And in it all, God was doing his plan and his purpose to save sinners. If God’s providence did not extend to the greatest evil ever done, there would be no good news, and there’d be no Good News Publishers, and there would be no Crossway Books. For 83 years, Good News Publishers and Crossway Books has flooded the world with the good news that it was God who bruised his son to save millions of sinners.

4. Providence and Conversion

When Jesus said to the departing rich young ruler, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God,” his disciples were dismayed and said, “Well, who then can be saved?” — to which Jesus answered, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible” (Matthew 19:24–26).

Good News Publishers has cast upon the waters of this world billions of gospel tracts, and more recently, millions of gospel-laden books. And surely, it is no exaggeration to say that thousands upon thousands of persons have miraculously passed from death to life reading that good news — every one of them a miracle. Because with man, it is impossible, but not with God.

5. Providence and Loss

Every godly life, every fruitful ministry, advances through loss. “Through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom” (Acts 14:22). And through many tribulations we must advance in godliness and fruitfulness. When the final word of loss came to Job that his ten children were dead, “Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head and fell on the ground and worshiped. And he said, ‘Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return. The Lord gave, the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord’” (Job 1:20–21).

So, whether by flood or fire or relational heartache or physical challenges, Crossway and you, Lane and Ebeth, have known loss on your way to godliness and fruitfulness. And we today join you in saying, “Blessed be the name of the Lord.”

6. Providence and Humility

God intended and designed his meticulous providence in order to shut the mouth of all self-reliant pride and to awaken in us God-dependent humility.

Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit” — yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist. . . . Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” (James 4:13–15)

As it is, you are arrogant in saying, “I will get on the plane this afternoon and go to Minneapolis,” if you do not also say, “If the meticulous providence of God orders it so.”

“Meticulous providence is designed to remove boasting from human beings and to instill humility.”

If God wills, we will do this or that. That’s why I use the term “all-embracing, all-pervasive” providence. But the existential reality is this: that meticulous providence is designed to remove boasting from human beings and to instill humility. And I just want to bear public witness, happy witness, with all of you that God has wrought this in you, Lane and Ebeth. He has wrought this in you. We need examples today of your kind of strong backbone and conviction mingled with humble contrition and dependence. We need it very badly.

7. Providence and Perseverance

You and I, and all of us I am sure, hope to say with the apostle Paul, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith” (2 Timothy 4:7). And to those of us who love you and love this ministry, we say that we will pray that, indeed, both of you will say that cheerfully and confidently in the hour of your death. And we have good hope that you will — and it isn’t in you or me. It’s in the keeping providence of God. The Lord says,

I will make with them an everlasting covenant, that I will not turn away from doing good to them. And I will put the fear of me in their hearts, that they may not turn from me. 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. (Jeremiah 32:40–41)

That’s your only hope to say in the hour of your death, “I have finished the race.” This is our only hope. If you have another hope, you’re building on sand. “He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it” (1 Thessalonians 5:24).

Greatly Loved

So, I say it on God’s behalf, and I say it to Lane and Ebeth on all of our behalf: you are greatly loved. And I join with you and the rest of us here in ascribing your keeping to the all-embracing, all-pervasive, all-wise, merciful providence that God has shown to us.

Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen. (Jude 24–25)