Randy Alcorn's Blog, page 132

Why We Don’t Need to Fear the Moment of Our Death

Years ago, I interviewed a young man from Burundi who told me something profound: “If I fear death as unbelievers do, I have nothing to offer unbelievers. Only when you are free from the fear of death are you really free.”

Though as believers we know that Heaven awaits us after death, many of us still wonder about or fear the moment of death. What will it be like? Will it be frightening to experience the soul’s departure from the body?

May we remember that Jesus came to deliver us, “that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery” (Hebrews 2:14-15). 

I love Charles Spurgeon’s perspective:

Depend upon it, your dying hour will be the best hour you have ever known! Your last moment will be your richest moment, better than the day of your birth will be the day of your death. It shall be the beginning of heaven, the rising of a sun that shall go no more down forever!

There’s evidence that at the moment of death, the believer will be ushered into Heaven by angels (Luke 16:22). Different angels are assigned to different people (Matthew 18:10), so perhaps our escorts into Heaven will be angels who have served us while we were on earth (Hebrews 1:14).

Most importantly, the Lord Himself will be with us during our deaths. He has promised to never leave or forsake us (Hebrews 13:5). Nothing, not even death, can separate us from His love (Romans 8:38-39). God promises that all who know Him will experience acceptance into His holy, loving, and gracious arms.

Erwin Lutzer describes death and God’s presence with us this way in his book One Minute After You Die:

Death is not the end of the road; it is only a bend in the road. The road winds only through those paths through which Christ Himself has gone. This Travel Agent does not expect us to discover the trail for ourselves. Often we say that Christ will meet us on the other side. That is true, of course, but misleading. Let us never forget that He walks with us on this side of the curtain and then guides us through the opening. We will meet Him there, because we have met Him here.

Psalm 23:4 says, “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me” (emphasis added). Nancy Guthrie writes in her One Year Book of Hope about this verse:

There is no doubt that a shadow is a dark place to be. But when the Lord is our shepherd, we no longer have to fear the dark places that death takes us. In the shadows we reach out to find him beside us, and the fear of the unknown fades. When he gently uses his rod of correction to prod us in the right direction and his staff of compassion to draw us close, we find comfort.

When we are in the fold of God, death is impotent to destroy us. It is depleted of its evil power. The valley where we encounter death is transformed into a place of peaceful comfort; it is in this valley that we are more aware of God’s presence than ever before.

For more answers to questions about eternity, see Randy's book Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Heaven as well as his comprehensive book Heaven.  

Speaking at Hobby Lobby Headquarters, and a Preview of the Museum of the Bible

Last week I traveled to Oklahoma City, where I had the opportunity to speak on truth and happiness to the staff at the Hobby Lobby and Mardel Bookstore headquarters.

My books 60 Days of Happiness (Tyndale House) and Truth (Harvest House) were given away to employees, courtesy of those two great publishers.

Years ago I spoke on the phone with David Green, the founder of Hobby Lobby. It was great to meet face to face this brother and his wife Barbara, such wonderful people. They are the founders and owners of Hobby Lobby, with its more than 750 retail stores, and they employ approximately 32,000 people.

On their Hobby Lobby webpage, the Green family says this:

We are committed to:

Honoring the Lord in all we do by operating the company in a manner consistent with Biblical principles.


Offering our customers exceptional selection and value.
Serving our employees and their families by establishing a work environment and company policies that build character, strengthen individuals, and nurture families.
Providing a return on the family’s investment, sharing the Lord’s blessings with our employees, and investing in our community.

In 2012-2013 the Greens did an historic service for Christian ministries, churches, and Christian business owners when they refused to follow the government’s mandate that they must provide abortion-inducing drugs for their employees as part of their health care. If they continued to refuse, the government fines would amount to $1.3 million every day, or $475 million each year.

At one point things looked very bleak for Christian organizations, which—if they acted on their biblically-informed consciences—would have been forced to shut down through the extreme punitive damages brought against them by the government. Hobby Lobby took the case all the way to the Supreme Court, and to the surprise of many, won a narrow 5-4 victory.

This means every church, ministry, and Christian-owned business in America is in the debt of the Green family. Had they not stood firm, taken their case to the Supreme Court, and won, the rest of us could have faced crippling fines for holding fast to our moral convictions.

While in Oklahoma, accompanied by my long-time friend Mike Petersen, I enjoyed spending time with David’s sons Mart (an old friend) and Steve (a more recent friend) and their families. Mart Green is the founder and CEO of Mardel Christian Stores and heads up the wonderful missions organization Every Tribe Every Nation. Steve Green serves as the president of Hobby Lobby and is now devoting most of his time to the new Museum of the Bible opening later this year.  

I was welcomed to Oklahoma City by Mart and his wife Diana, and had a wonderful time with some of their kids and grandkids.

After I spoke the first time to a few hundred Hobby Lobby employees, and before I spoke at a later gathering, they gave Mike and me a tour of the mammoth Hobby Lobby facility. This 51 seconds I filmed from a golf cart tour shows a tiny, tiny portion of the 9.1 million (not a typo!) square feet of their headquarters (this particular building was a half mile long). I was blown away at the sheer size of this place and ingenuity that has been put into it. God has given people created in His image the ability to create, and to manage His world. Amazing.

For the last several years, the Green family has been undertaking a new, massive project. Mike and I also got a close-up view of some of the 40,000 artifacts that are currently at the Hobby Lobby headquarters but will be part of the Museum of the Bible.

The 430,000 square foot museum will open in Washington, D.C. this November, and it will be incredible.

This Wikipedia article gives a good overview, and the video will give you a feel for the size of this project:

The historical building they bought and are renovating is close to the National Mall and within walking distance to the Smithsonian museums and the Capitol Building, so tourists will naturally take it in. They will have some high tech and interactive displays. However, they will simply let the Bible speak for itself! That means the Holy Spirit can do His convicting and regenerating work in countless lives, as they see and hear the actual words of Scripture, including the claims of Jesus. My prayer is that many unbelievers will see the Bible in a new light, and be motivated to go home and actually read and ponder it, perhaps for the first time.

If you’re planning a trip to D.C. in November or thereafter, I encourage you and your family to check out the Museum of the Bible!

“My word that goes out from my mouth…will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it” (Isaiah 55:11).

The Cumulative Effect of Our Little Choices

Have you ever seen a sink hole? Cars can be parked on a street day after day, and everything appears normal, then one day the asphalt caves in and cars disappear into a gigantic hole.

Everybody says, “That hole came out of nowhere.” But they’re wrong. The hole appears suddenly but the process that led to it has gone on for many years. The underground erosion was invisible, but it was there all along.

Likewise, sometimes when a man commits adultery and abandons his family, it appears to have come “out of the clear blue sky.” It hasn’t.

Sink holes remind us of two things: first, something can look good on the outside, when underneath major problems have been going on for years, and disaster’s about to happen. Second, our lives are affected by little choices, which have cumulative effects that can result in either moral strength or moral disaster.

A battering ram may hit a fortress gate a thousand times, and no one impact seems to have an effect, yet finally the gate caves in. Similarly, sinful actions don’t come out of nowhere—they’re the cumulative product of little moral compromises made over time, which ultimately result in ungodly behavior. On the other hand, it’s equally true that godly actions are the cumulative product of small, habitual, and Christ-honoring choices for righteousness.

Who Are You Becoming?

Every day we’re becoming someone—the question is, who? Author Jerry Bridges, hearing me address this, told me that Dawson Trotman, founder of The Navigators, used to say, “You are going to be what you are now becoming.”

Scripture speaks of this process of character development: “And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another” (2 Corinthians 3:18).

Who you become will be the cumulative result of the daily choices you make. “The path of the righteous is like the first light of dawn, which shines brighter and brighter until full day” (Proverbs 4:18). This is why Scripture continually warns us against wrong choices: “Do not enter the path of the wicked and do not walk in the way of the evil. Avoid it; do not go on it; turn away from it and pass on” (Proverbs 4:14–15).

You become like what you choose to behold. Behold Christ, you become Christlike. Gaze upon superficiality and immorality, and it’s equally predictable what you’ll become.

Choices for Godliness

"A long obedience in the same direction," to borrow a Eugene Peterson phrase, is sustained by the small choices we make each day. Most of us know the difference between eating cottage cheese and donuts, or the difference between a daily workout and spend­ing life on a couch. What I eat and whether I exercise will determine the state of my body. The same is true of our spiritual lives. Whether I read Scripture and great books, or spend my best hours watching TV and looking at my phone, will make me into the person I will be several years from now. I should discipline myself today, not for discipline’s sake, but for the purpose of godliness (1 Timothy 4:7, 8).

Psalm 1 says the one who continually meditates on God’s Word “is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season and its leaf does not wither.” Trees do not choose where to place themselves, but we do. We determine what our sources of nourishment will be.

Developing Godly Habits

Following Christ isn’t magic. It requires repeated actions on our part, which develop into habits and life disciplines. Our spirituality hinges on the development of these little habits, such as Bible reading and memorization and prayer. In putting one foot in front of the other day after day, we become the kind of person who grows in Christlikeness. Once we develop Christ-honoring habits and experience their rewards, we’ll instinctively turn our minds to what makes us happy in Christ.

A decade from now, would you like to look back at your life, knowing you’ve made consistently good decisions about eating right and exercising regularly? Sure. But there’s a huge gap between wishes and reality. The bridge over the gap is self-control, a fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22–23).

The key to self-control is discipline, which produces a long-term track record of small choices in which we yield to God’s Spirit, resulting in new habits and lifestyles. In fact, Spirit-control and self-control are interrelated in Scripture, because godly self-control is a yielding of self to the Holy Spirit.

It’s true we are creatures of habit—but it’s also true Christ can empower us to form new habits.

Your Choices Today

So how can you start to make the right small choices? Ephesians 5:15-16 tells us to “Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time.” Why not redeem two hours of your day that you would have spent on television, newspa­per, video games, phone, working overtime, or hobbies? Change your habits. Spend one hour meditating on and/or memorizing Scripture. Spend the other hour reading a great book. Share what you’re learn­ing with your spouse and children, or a friend.

Listen to Scripture and audio books and praise music while you fold clothes, pull weeds, or drive. Say no to talk radio or sports radio, not because they’re bad but because you have something better to do. Fast from television, the Internet, and social media for a week. Discover how much more time you have. Redeem that time by establishing new habits of cultivating your inner life and learning to abide in Christ. “I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5).

May we call upon Christ’s strength today to make choices that will honor Him, bring us great happiness, and help us become the kind of people we want to be ten years from now!

Looking for further resources to help you grow in your Christian walk? Randy has compiled a list of recommended books, blogs, websites, and software to help readers go deeper into God’s Word and draw closer to Jesus.

This article also appeared in EPM’s new issue of Eternal Perspectives, which you can read online. 

Photo: Unsplash

God's Plans for Our Days Are Far Better Than Ours

Perhaps you’ve heard the term “divine appointments.” Dennis Rainey describes them as “supernaturally scheduled meetings.” I agree, and am a firm believer that many of life’s inconveniences involve divine appointments with people the Lord brings into our lives—if only we open our eyes to see them.

God appoints the times and places we live, and is a Master of the exact timing that creates the beauty of divine appointments. Over the years I’ve had them in stores and restaurants and on streets and taxis and airplanes.

Scripture tells us that God is intimately involved in His children’s days:

“The heart of man plans his way, but the LORD establishes his steps” (Proverbs 16:9).
“The steps of a man are established by the LORD, when he delights in his way” (Psalm 37:23).
“Many plans are in a man's heart, But the counsel of the LORD will stand” (Proverbs 19:21).
“From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands” (Acts 17:26).

So don’t assume that when your plans get changed that your day is ruined. The unexpected encounter or conversation, sometimes appearing to very inconvenient, is exactly where God has called you, for purposes that may not be obvious at first, but later will be. (Sometimes much later, as in when we’re with the Lord.)

In this video, excerpted from the Q&A panel session at the 2007 Desiring God National Conference, I tell several stories of divine appointments.

Photo: Unsplash

Real Love Encourages Others to Do the Right, Most God-Glorifying Thing

To sin is to break relationship with God. Therefore, sin is the biggest enemy of happiness, and forgiveness its greatest friend. Confession reunites us with the God of happiness.

If we believe that sin is never in our best interests, it will clarify many otherwise hard decisions in which we imagine we must choose between helping people do right and helping them be happy. It will also help us understand what true, Christlike love looks like.

Responding to a post I shared, a woman wrote on my Facebook page about how she felt a real friend would help someone seeking an abortion: “Jesus would hold your hand as you walk through the angry, non-love-displaying mob; wait for you while you got the procedure; and drive you home to make sure you were safe/be a listening ear.”

I had a similar conversation with a young woman who believed that abortion takes the life of an innocent child, yet nonetheless told me that because she loved her friend, she was going to drive her to the clinic to get an abortion. She said, “That’s what you do when you love someone, even if you disagree.”

I asked, “If your friend wanted to kill her parents and had a shotgun in hand, would you drive her to her parents’ house?”

“Of course not.”

But other than legality, what’s the difference? It’s never in a mother’s best interest to kill her child—it will ultimately take from her far more happiness than it brings. Too often, in the name of love, we assist people in taking wrong actions which, because they are wrong, will rob them of happiness. We may congratulate ourselves for being “loving,” but what good does our love do them if it encourages their self-destruction?

Years ago, when she was in high school, one of my daughters had a friend who found herself pregnant and was determined to get an abortion. My daughter, along with an older friend, showed up outside the clinic at the time of the appointment and pleaded with her friend and her friend’s mom to save the life of her baby. She offered help and support, including free babysitting. But sadly, the friend went through with the abortion. (Though this was obviously difficult, later my daughter heard from someone else that her friend actually respected her for doing what she did.) So encouraging others to do the right thing doesn’t always mean they’ll do it, or that they will like you. But even then, real love doesn’t quit or give up; it will offer help and point to Jesus Christ as the only true source of healing and forgiveness.

Ephesians 4:15 tells us to speak the truth in love, not to withhold the truth in love. We should be full of grace and truth, as Jesus was and is (John 1:14). “Hate the sin, but love the sinner.” No one did either like Jesus.

Kevin DeYoung put it this way about real, Christlike love:

Christ is our substitute and our example. And with Christ as our example, our command is this: we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. This is why love is so much more difficult than the bumper stickers make it out to be. It requires so much more than a general sentiment of good will. It is so much deeper and better than unconditional affirmation.

What does unconditional affirmation require of you by way of sacrifice? Nothing. All it requires is a wave of the hand—“Whatever you do, I’m fine. However you live, that’s fine.” The problem with unconditional affirmation is not that it is too lavishly loving, but that it is not nearly loving enough. When God tells us to love our brothers he means more than saying, “I’m okay. You’re okay. Whatever you do is fine and I don’t judge.” To really love your brother is to lay down your life for him. It requires you to die to yourself, which may mean a sacrifice of your time, a sacrifice of your reputation, and a sacrifice of your comfort. Unconditional affirmation only asks that you sacrifice your principles.

Love is harder than we think. Of course we love our kids and grandkids and those who treat us well. We love nice people. But Jesus says even the pagans do this. That’s not hard. People love people who love them. But will we keep on loving when it means bearing burdens we would rather not be bothered with? Will we love when the people we love do not love us in return? Will we lay down our lives for those who are unlovely, undeserving, ungrateful?

Isn’t that what Christ did for us? When we were unlovely and undeserving and ungrateful, Christ died for us. He loved us not because we were holy, but so that we might be holy. His love was self-sacrificing, sin-atoning, and life-transforming.

He loves us with a love the world does not understand. And it is so much better than unconditional affirmation.

For more on speaking the truth in love, see Randy's book The Grace and Truth Paradox, as well as the devotionals Grace and Truth.

Photo: Unsplash

God’s Truth Is as Relevant and Vital as Ever

In a world of clashing claims and competing worldviews, where our own feelings and circumstances change from day to day, nothing is more important than God’s truth. Given some of the books and movies that countless Christians are reading and viewing, and the growing biblical illiteracy, churches are extremely vulnerable to false doctrine. God’s truth is needed to ground and guide us.

When we wonder what’s right, we’re to turn to God’s Word: “For the word of the Lord is right and true” (Psalm 33:4). As Psalm 119 depicts in every one of its 176 verses, God’s truth is at the heart of the spiritual life. It’s real, life-giving, and able to transform.

My new devotional book, Truth: A Bigger View of God's Word, offers 200 brief daily meditations, Scriptures, and inspirational quotes that will enable you to grasp more fully the TRUTH of God’s Word. It contains reflections not only on the general topic of truth, but also on many facets of truths found in Scripture, including eternity, purity, holiness, and happiness. Given the remarkable erosion of belief in God’s Word that is pervasive now even among many evangelical churches, the book is more timely than it would have been thirty years ago.

I’m pleased with how Truth turned out and hope you enjoy it as well. Below is a sample entry:

“Great and marvelous are your deeds, Lord God Almighty. Just and true are your ways, King of the nations” (Revelation 15:3).

The times we live in are in no danger of going down in history as “The Era of Deep Thought.” In our world, feelings overshadow thinking and sizzle triumphs over substance.

In this shallow culture, how can we keep from turning into trivial Christians? “Reflect on what I am saying,” Paul wrote, “for the Lord will give you insight into all this” (2 Timothy 2:7).

When we invest in understanding God’s truths, we become people of depth and substance. If you want depth, you have to behold God’s truth often, allowing it to make the crucial sixteen-inch journey from your head to your heart.

“The quality of a Christian’s experience depends on the quality of his faith, just as the quality of his faith depends in turn on the quality of his understanding of God’s truth.” —Os Guinness

(You can also download a longer excerpt to get more of the flavor of the book.)

Eternal Perspective Ministries is giving away 10 copies of Truth.

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10 Questions to Help Us Analyze Our Smartphone Habits

On his blog, Tony Reinke interviewed author and podcaster Alastair Roberts about smartphones and how they change us. Alastair shared ten helpful questions to help us think through whether our personal smartphone habits are healthy, or need adjustment. He writes:

Do our particular uses of our smartphones, and our use of a smartphone more generally, have the actual effect—not just hold the theoretical possibility—of making us better servants of God and of our neighbors? Are our smartphones tools that facilitate our commitment to the central purposes and values of our lives, or are they—and our habitual modes of using them—constantly distracting, diverting, or obstructing us from them?

More specific diagnostic questions could include such as the following:

Is my smartphone making it difficult for me to give the activities and persons in my life the full and undivided attention and self-presence that they require and deserve?
Do I habitually use my smartphone as an easy escape and distraction from the difficult task of wrestling through the experience of lack of stimulation and boredom to the rewarding reality of true engagement?
Is my smartphone use squeezing out my inner life, encroaching upon time that would otherwise be given to private contemplation, reflection, and meditation? Do I use it as a way to distract myself from unsettling truths and realities that can slowly come into focus in moments of silence and solitude?
Am I using hyper-connectedness to substitute a self unthinkingly immersed in a shallow and amniotic communal consciousness and its emotions, for the difficult task of developing my own judgment, character, disciplines, resolve, and identity?
Are my uses of my smartphone arresting and hampering my processes of deliberation and reflection, encouraging reactive judgments and premature decisions?
Is my use of my smartphone mediating my relationship with and understanding of myself in unhealthy ways?
Is my smartphone a tool that I use, or has it fettered my attention and time to other persons and activities that are wasteful and overly demanding of them?
Are my uses of my smartphone preventing me from developing and maintaining healthy patterns and routines in my life, disrupting my sleeping patterns, interrupting my concentration upon my work, habituating me to the fragmentation of my time and attention?
Is my smartphone usage consuming time that I used to or could potentially devote to worthier activities? Do I use my smartphone to ‘kill time’ that I could otherwise fill with prayer, reading, writing, edifying conversation, face-to-face interactions, etc.?
Are my uses of my smartphone conducive to the faithfulness and freedom of others? Am I using my smartphone in ways that create unhealthy demands and pressures upon them?

By the way, Tony Reinke, one of my favorite authors, has a new book out titled 12 Ways Your Phone Is Changing You. Here’s more about it:

Drawing from the insights of numerous thinkers, published studies, and his own research, writer Tony Reinke identifies twelve potent ways our smartphones have changed us—for good and bad. Reinke calls us to cultivate wise thinking and healthy habits in the digital age, encouraging us to maximize the many blessings, avoid the various pitfalls, and wisely wield the most powerful gadget of human connection ever unleashed.

Check out the trailer for the book:

Photo: Unsplash

John Piper, George Mueller, and The Pleasures of God

Since reading John Piper’s book Desiring God the month it came out in 1986, I became interested in everything he writes. In 1991, the year after we started Eternal Perspective Ministries, he came out with The Pleasures of God, which was updated in 2000. This is a truly great book that I highly recommend. Here’s a portion I want to share with you.

Behold, I create new heavens and a new earth…I create Jerusalem a rejoicing, and her people a joy. (Isaiah 65:17-18, RSV).

I will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear me for ever, for their own good and the good of their children after them. 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 with all my soul. (Jeremiah 32:39-41).

On February 6, 1870, George Mueller’s wife, Mary, died of rheumatic fever. They had been married thirty-nine years and four months. He was sixty-four years old. Shortly after the funeral he was strong enough to preach a “funeral sermon” as he called it. What text would he choose when God had taken his best beloved? He chose Psalm 119:68, “You are good, and do good.” His three points were:

The Lord was good, and did good, in giving her to me.
The Lord was good, and did good, in so long leaving her to me.
The Lord was good, and did good, in taking her from me.

But the promise is greater yet. Not only does God promise not to turn away from doing good to us, he says, “I will rejoice in doing them good” (Jeremiah 32:41). “The Lord will again take delight in prospering you” (Deuteronomy 30:9). He does not bless us begrudgingly. This is a kind of eagerness about the beneficence of God. He seeks us out, because it is his pleasure to do us good. God is not waiting for us, he is pursuing us. That, in fact, is the literal translation of Psalm 23:6, “Surely goodness and mercy shall pursue me all the days of my life.”

…God is like a great Niagara—you look at it and think: surely this can’t keep going at this force for year after year after year. It seems like it would have to rest. Or it seems like some place up stream it would run dry. But, no, it just keeps surging and crashing and making honeymooners happy century after century. That’s the way God is about doing us good. He never grows weary of it. It never gets boring to him.

God has overcome every obstacle that would keep him from lavishing kindness on us forever.…Christ was bruised to bear the condemnation that stood like a dam between the desert valley of our lives and the trillion-ton, cool, clear, deep, fresh-water reservoir of God’s goodness.

He carried our griefs and bore our sorrows and triumphed over death “so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:7). The Watergates of the dam are opening wider and wider—up to our ability to bear the blessing of God’s glory.

His exuberance in delighting in the welfare of his servant is the measure of the immensity of his resources: “My God will supply all your needs according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:19). For the Lord takes pleasure in his people; he adorns the humble with victory (Psalm 149:4).

God says his joy over his people is like a bridegroom over a bride. He is talking about honeymoon intensity and honeymoon pleasures and honeymoon energy and excitement and enthusiasm and enjoyment. He is trying to get into our hearts what he means when he says he rejoices over us with all his heart.

And add to this, that with God, the honeymoon never ends. He is infinite in power and wisdom and creativity and love. And so he has no trouble sustaining a honeymoon level of intensity; he can foresee all the future quirks of our personality and has decided he will keep what’s good for us and change what isn’t; and he is infinitely creative to think of new things to do together so that there will be no boredom for the next trillion ages of millenniums.

The Lord, your God, is in your midst, a warrior who gives victory; he will rejoice over you with gladness, he will be quiet in his love; he will exult over you with loud singing. (Zephaniah 3:17).

I say this is almost too good to believe—that when the father calls the minstrels to sing at the banquet, it is he himself that leads the singing, and the song has to do with how glad he is that we are there. In fact, it is too good for some people to believe, and they, tragically, cannot believe it. But Zephaniah labors under the wonderful inspiration of God to overcome every obstacle that would keep a person from believing—really feeling and enjoying—the unspeakable news that God exults over us with singing.

I ask “Can you feel the wonder of this today—that God is rejoicing over you with loud singing?”

“No,” you say, “I can’t, because I am too guilty. I am unworthy. My sin is too great, and the judgments against me are too many. God could never rejoice over me.”

But I say, “Consider Zephaniah 3:15. God foresees your hesitancy. He understands. So his prophet says, ‘The Lord has taken away the judgments against you!’ Can you not feel the wonder that the Lord exults over you with loud singing today, even though you have sinned? Can you not feel that the condemnation has been lifted because he bruised his own Son in your place, if you will only believe?”

“No,” you say, “I can’t, because I am surrounded by enemies. Obstacles press me in on every side. There are people at work who would make my life miserable if God were my treasure. There are people in my family who would ostracize me. I have friends who would do everything to drag me down. I could never go on believing. I would have too many enemies. The oppression would be too much to bear, I could never do it.”

But I say, “Consider Zephaniah 3:17, ‘The Lord is a warrior who gives victory’; and verse 19, ‘Behold, at that time I will deal with your oppressors [says the Lord]’; and verse 15, ‘He has cast out your enemies.’ Can you feel the wonder that God is doing everything that needs to be done for you to enjoy his own enjoyment of you? Can you see that the enemies and the oppressors are not too strong for God? Can you feel the wonder of it now? Can you believe that he rejoices over you?”

“No,” you say, “still I can’t, because he is a great and holy God and I feel like he is far away from me. I am a nobody. The world is a huge place with many important people. There are major movements and institutions that he is concerned with and happy about. I am too small. God is like the president. He is far away in Washington, busy with big things.”

But I say, “Consider Zephaniah 3:15, ‘The king of Israel, the Lord, is in your midst’; and verse 17: ‘The Lord, your God, is in your midst.’ He is not far from you. Yes, I admit that this staggers the imagination and stretches credibility almost to the breaking point—that God can be present personally to everyone who comes to him and believes on him. But say to yourself, again and again, He is God! He is God! What shall stop God from being close to me if he wants to be close to me? He is God! He is God! The very greatness that makes him seem too far to be near, is the greatness that enables him to do whatever he pleases, including being near to me. Has he not said, for this very reason, ‘I dwell in a high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and humble spirit’ (Isaiah 57:15)? Can you not then feel the marvel that God makes merry over you—even with loud singing—when you come to him and believe him?”

Excerpts from John Piper, The Pleasures of God: Meditations on God’s Delight in Being God (Sisters, OR: Multnomah Publishers, 2000).

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Will There Be No More Sunrises or Sunsets on the New Earth?

Some people wonder, “If the New Earth will be full of the light of God, does that mean we won’t see any more sunrises and sunsets?” Do you love sunrises and sunsets? Are you disappointed to think you might not see any again? Our sun is one of countless billions of suns. I think we’ll see many more sunrises and sunsets, on many worlds. And when we’re watching one of those spectacular sunrises, I don’t think we’ll wonder, What am I missing?

Revelation 22:5 says, “There will be no more night.” Some people believe this is figurative, speaking of the moral perfection of the New Earth. Darkness is associated with crime, evil done under cover of night. Darkness is synonymous with distressed travelers unable to find their way. Prostitution, drunkenness, and idol worship often happened at night. In the modern era of electric lights, it’s difficult to understand the utter dread of traveling in the dark and the threat of being locked out of the city gates that would close at night to prevent robbers, bands of marauders, or enemy soldiers from invading a city. To be outside the city at night was to be exceedingly vulnerable. This will no longer be.

Yet darkness isn’t evil—God created it before the Fall (Genesis 1:5). Night is also associated with positive things: time with family after a hard day’s work, opportunity to talk, rest, have dinner with loved ones, read Scripture, and pray.

Because God created the first celestial heavens to display His glory (Psalm 19:1), when He makes the new celestial heavens, they will perform this mission even better. That means we’ll have to be able to see them. If that requires darkness, as it does now, then darkness we will have, if not on Earth, then somewhere from which we can behold God’s glory in the new heavens.

I’m speculating, but I don’t believe these passages demand constant and unvarying brightness, certainly not outside the New Jerusalem. There may be diffused light or twilight, without total darkness. Light may be constant in the Holy City but not necessarily in the cities and countries outside the city gates.

To view the new heavens, we might travel to the far side of the moon and other places where stargazing is unhindered by light and atmospheric distortion. Imagine the quality of telescopes that redeemed minds will design and build. We may be able to visit innumerable planets from which the wonders of the night sky can be viewed to the praise and glory of God.

How will our eyes be able to tolerate the bright light of the New Jerusalem? Our new bodies will be stronger than our present ones. We’ll be designed for our highest purpose, to see God’s face—brighter than the sun—without being blinded. Rather than turn away from that Light, we’ll be drawn to it.

For more answers to questions about eternity, see Randy's book Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Heaven as well as his comprehensive book Heaven.  

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Why I Love to Read

This Sunday, April 23 is World Book Day, a global celebration of reading, authors, and books, recognized in over 100 countries worldwide.

Books and bookstores have had an enormous influence on my own life. My first youth pastor did me a huge favor—he gave me a key to his office, so I could go in any time and read his books, hundreds of them. I read everything I could get my hands on. There was an elderly couple in our church who had a Christian bookstore in their house in Gresham, Oregon, my hometown. I would go there several days a week, for hours at a time. They would point out books for me to read. They introduced me to Lewis, Schaeffer, and Tozer, and books such as Tortured Wonders, God's Smuggler, Through Gates of Splendor, and The Cross and the Switchblade.

Over the years I've bought and read portions or all of thousands of books. Ultimately, loving to read has helped me become a better writer. Our worldviews permeate our writing, and if all we soak in is popular culture, a few hours a week at church won’t be sufficient to give us depth and durability. We need to read quality books by great Christian thinkers. I cannot divorce God’s works of grace in my life from good books! (In this excerpt from my book Heaven, I talk about books the Bible says are now in Heaven, and I give arguments for believing other books will be written and read on the New Earth.)

And of course, no book is more important than the Bible, God’s own words. Richard Baxter advised, “Make careful choice of the books which you read: let the Holy Scriptures ever have the preeminence. Let Scripture be first and most in your hearts and hands and other books be used as subservient to it.” Charles Spurgeon said, “Visit many good books, but live in the Bible.”

In this video clip from a session at a Desiring God National Conference I spoke at several years ago, I share some thoughts about the importance of reading.

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