Randy Alcorn's Blog, page 208

Homosexuality and Happiness

Tony Reinke, a young evangelical thinker who I know and deeply appreciate, has written what I think is an excellent piece on homosexuality, idolatry and happiness. (I’ve written an endorsement for his delightful book Lit!: A Christian Guide to Reading Books.)

Let me introduce Tony’s article by saying this. When true happiness is rightly seen as God’s desire for human beings, it undercuts the assumptions so often brought to the table by both unbelievers and believers in the “holiness versus happiness” debate. The world is seen to argue for the rightness of whatever makes people happy. Christians then counter with arguments of right and wrong, saying that people should do what is moral, not what makes them happy. The underlying message is that what is moral does not make people happy, and what is immoral does make people happy but should be opposed on moral grounds. But the Bible’s ultimate argument is different. True, it says that we sometimes should sacrifice short-term pleasures for long-term good, but that long-term good is inseparable from human happiness. And what is immoral and unholy will NOT ultimately make us happy—rather, it will make us decidedly unhappy. Hence, what is morally wrong, including homosexual behavior, is not only wrong, but it is also foolish. For it does not result in happiness, but ultimate unhappiness.

Thanks, Tony, for saying this so well:

What’s At Stake in the Homosexuality Debate

By Tony Reinke

The stakes could not be higher in the homosexuality debate, because — to put it rather bluntly — homosexual activity is a sin that parallels idolatry. The Apostle Paul seems to draw this connection in Ephesians 5:5 and Colossians 3:5, and he certainly does in Romans 1:18–27.

Robert Gagnon, a leading scholar on sexuality in Scripture, says these themes are closely related for Paul because both idolatry and same-sex intercourse equally oppose the designs of the Creator. He sees several strong connections that link Romans 1 to the creation account in Genesis 1–2. In his acclaimed book The Bible and Homosexual Practice, Gagnon writes, "Idolatry and homosexual behavior are in some measure parallel (not just successive) phenomena since both are presented as willful suppression of the obvious truth about God and God's design in the natural world."1

Pagan idolatry is twisted because it is the act of rejecting the Creator and replacing worship of him with the worship of what he has made. Similarly, homosexual acts are twisted because they reject God's natural design for human sexuality.2 Thus, homosexuality and idolatry are related. Both are evidence of a twisted distortion of God's design for men and women, both dehumanize men and women, both are rooted in a rejection of the Creator. That is to say, the distortions of idolatry and same-sex intercourse are foremost rooted in a worship disorder (Romans 1:21, 24–25).

An Obstacle to the Full Life

And there isn't a disorder more serious than a worship disorder. The stakes could not be higher for sinners who refuse to honor and thank God for his created design. And when worship disorders spread, and souls hang in the balance, loving Christians speak up, not with voices of spite or hatred but with voices of love and compassion.

This is a point Gagnon makes:

Without taking into account God's will for holy living, love turns into affirmation of self-degrading and other-degrading conduct. This means that true love of one's neighbor does not embrace every form of consensual behavior. What constitutes an expression of love to one's neighbor depends significantly on how one assesses the benefit or harm of the neighbor's behavior. If indeed homosexual behavior is sin and an obstacle to the fullness of life available in Christ, then the church has an obligation both to protect the church from the debilitating effect of sanctioned immorality and to protect the homosexual for whom more is at stake than the satisfaction of sensual impulses.3

Yes. That last sentence is critical.

Homosexual intercourse is an obstacle to fullness in Christ, in fact it is an empty faux-replacement for the good design of the Creator. To seek happiness in homosexual activity is a replacement god, it kicks against the Creator, it is a rejection of the Creator just like idolatry.

Opposed to What Kills Joy

John Piper is right when he says, "God's judgment on homosexual and lesbian relationships is not because he is a killjoy, but because he is opposed to what kills joy."4 Fullness of joy in Christ is at stake. And fullness of joy will never be found in crossing the wires of God's created intentions.

Heterosexual sin and homosexual sin alike are ultimately rooted in a worship disorder, a worship disorder that robs the soul of joy now and robs the soul of joy eternally. The fullness of joy we all long for is reserved for those sinners who, by God's grace alone, have been healed from this worship disorder, who are rightly oriented with the Creator, and who turn away from selfishness that kicks against the created order.

High Stakes

The gospel of Jesus Christ offers us victory in our worship disorders. By Christ's death and resurrection and through our union with him, we turn away from the wisdom of our own eyes, we turn from idols, and we turn from what contradicts God's beautiful design. We continue to battle sinful sexual impulses and all sin, and we fight sin together as brothers and sisters in Christ who look forward to a day when all temptations will be gone and we will enjoy eternal pleasures forever in the presence of our Creator (Psalm 16:11). That is why this topic matters, because eternal happiness is ultimately what's at stake in the homosexuality debate.

__________________

1Robert A. J. Gagnon, The Bible and Homosexual Practice: Texts and Hermeneutics (Abingdon Press, 2001), 286.

2"In effect, Paul is saying: Start with the obvious fittedness of human anatomy; when done with that, consider procreative design as a clue; then move to a broad range of interpersonal differences that define maleness and femaleness. These are much better clues to God's will for human sexuality than preexisting, controlling passions — which can be warped by the fall and shaped by socialization factors." [Robert A. J. Gagnon, "Sexuality," in Dictionary for Theological Interpretation of the Bible (Baker Academic, 2005), 745–746.]

3Robert A. J. Gagnon, The Bible and Homosexual Practice: Texts and Hermeneutics (Abingdon Press, 2001), 34.

4John Piper, sermon, "Let Marriage Be Held in Honor Among All" (August 11, 1991).

 

      

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An Epidemic Among Young Men

Those who read my blog post on Steve Saint and prayed for his surgery will be interested in this June 20 update from the Saint Family:

Steve came through his surgery very well. One of the biggest things for him is that he does not require his neck brace. He was able to stand up on his feet for about a minute this morning, with help. This is just the start of the long road ahead, but we know that he is a fighter and hard worker. By the beginning of next week, he should be moved into an in-patient rehab facility to begin intensive physical therapy. Please continue to pray for Steve and Ginny, as well as the rest of our family and care-givers as we continue this journey together to see how God will use this for our good and His Glory.

Thank you!

Jaime Saint for the Saint Family

You can continue to follow Steve’s recovery at ITEC's Facebook page.

I have lamented before about the large number of young men who are not readers, and who therefore are not readers of God's Word or great books that can deepen their walk with God, and prepare them to be Christ-centered leaders of their families and churches. I have also commented on the addiction to video games, movies, TV and social media that has drained them of time and interest to discover the virtues and satisfaction of reading and sustained contemplative thought. I have also addressed the pornography problem, which has shipwrecked countless young men in our culture, and in our churches.

All of this is part of a culture of boys who never grow up, and young men who still live with their parents a decade after graduating from high school, and who are unemployed and don't seriously look for work. In other cases, they are married but spend their time gaming, watching media, and wasting away their days while their wives work and bring home the income that supplements their husband's addictions and idleness.

Thankfully there are many exceptions to this. I thank God for the several young men I know who are sold out to Christ, study God's Word, read great books, provide for their wives and children, and offer them spiritual leadership. But we dare not ignore the extent of the problem of addicted and unmotivated young men who are wasting their lives and not stepping up to the plate and becoming what God has called them to be.

Russell Moore has written an excellent and important article addressing some of these issues. I highly recommend that every parent, church leader, young man and young woman read it and take it to heart. We can break the chains and reverse the trend, but only if we first recognize the reality and depth of the problem we are facing among young men in our culture and in our churches:

Fake Love, Fake War: Why So Many Men Are Addicted to Internet Porn and Video Games

by Russell Moore

You know the guy I'm talking about. He spends hours into the night playing video games and surfing for pornography. He fears he's a loser.

And he has no idea just how much of a loser he is. For some time now, studies have shown us that porn and gaming can become compulsive and addicting. What we too often don't recognize, though, is why.

In a new book, The Demise of Guys: Why Boys Are Struggling and What We Can Do About It, psychologists Philip Zimbardo and Nikita Duncan say we may lose an entire generation of men to pornography and video gaming addictions. Their concern isn't about morality, but instead about the nature of these addictions in reshaping the pattern of desires necessary for community.

If you're addicted to sugar or tequila or heroin you want more and more of that substance. But porn and video games both are built on novelty, on the quest for newer and different experiences. That's why you rarely find a man addicted to a single pornographic image. He's entrapped in an ever-expanding kaleidoscope.

There's a key difference between porn and gaming. Pornography can't be consumed in moderation because it is, by definition, immoral. A video game can be a harmless diversion along the lines of a low-stakes athletic competition. But the compulsive form of gaming shares a key element with porn: both are meant to simulate something, something for which men long.

Pornography promises orgasm without intimacy. Video warfare promises adrenaline without danger. The arousal that makes these so attractive is ultimately spiritual to the core.

Satan isn't a creator but a plagiarist. His power is parasitic, latching on to good impulses and directing them toward his own purpose.

God intends a man to feel the wildness of sexuality in the self-giving union with his wife. And a man is meant to, when necessary, fight for his family, his people, for the weak and vulnerable who are being oppressed.

The drive to the ecstasy of just love and to the valor of just war are gospel matters. The sexual union pictures the cosmic mystery of the union of Christ and his church. The call to fight is grounded in a God who protects his people, a Shepherd Christ who grabs his sheep from the jaws of the wolves.

When these drives are directed toward the illusion of ever-expanding novelty, they kill joy. The search for a mate is good, but blessedness isn't in the parade of novelty before Adam. It is in finding the one who is fitted for him, and living with her in the mission of cultivating the next generation. When necessary, it is right to fight.

But God's warfare isn't forever novel. It ends in a supper, and in a perpetual peace.

Moreover, these addictions foster the seemingly opposite vices of passivity and hyper-aggression. The porn addict becomes a lecherous loser, with one-flesh union supplanted by masturbatory isolation. The video game addict becomes a pugilistic coward, with other-protecting courage supplanted by aggression with no chance of losing one's life.

In both cases, one seeks the sensation of being a real lover or a real fighter, but venting one's reproductive or adrenal glands over pixilated images, not flesh and blood for which one is responsible.

Zimbardo and Duncan are right, this is a generation mired in fake love and fake war, and that is dangerous. A man who learns to be a lover through porn will simultaneously love everyone and no one. A man obsessed with violent gaming can learn to fight everyone and no one.

The answer to both addictions is to fight arousal with arousal. Set forth the gospel vision of a Christ who loves his bride and who fights to save her. And then let's train our young men to follow Christ by learning to love a real woman, sometimes by fighting his own desires and the spirit beings who would eat him up. Let's teach our men to make love, and to make war . . . for real.

      

Francis Chan on Aging Biblically—a Message for All Ages

Here’s a 3.5 minute video clip of Francis Chan talking about aging biblically, realizing that every year we live we’re one year closer to meeting God. As we grow older, let’s not just sit in the rocking chair looking back at those days when we served God. On the contrary, let’s serve God with greater zeal. Let’s pour ourselves into serving others for the glory of God.  None of us knows how much time we have left in this world, but in terms of eternity, the time for all of us is very short. No matter what our age, we can all benefit from this perspective. As missionary C. T. Studd put it, “Only one life, ‘twill soon be past, only what’s done for Christ will last.”

      

Steve Saint speaks from his hospital bed

When I was a brand new Christian in 1969 I heard the story of the five missionary martyrs in Ecuador. It had a powerful effect on my life, one that has never diminished.

Some years ago Steve Saint and I became friends. He came to our church within a week of the 50th anniversary of the death of those missionaries, and I interviewed him and Mincaye, the former warrior who was one of the murderers of the missionaries, but who later came to faith in Christ. (In the photo, Steve is on my left and Mincaye is on my right.) I invited Steve McCully, son of Ed McCully (one of the other martyrs) to share in one of our services that weekend. (In the photo, Steve McCully is on the far right.)

In one of God’s powerful redemptive stories, Mincaye, one of his father’s killers, became a father-figure to Steve. You can see the closeness of their relationship in this excerpt of the fifty-minute interview I did with them at my church. That same day Nanci and I went with Steve Saint, Steve McCully and Mincaye to have dinner in the home in Portland where Jim Elliot grew up. It was there that I met Jim’s brother Bert who I’ve written about, and who recently went home to be with Jesus. The time at the Elliot house, with family members of three of the five martyrs, was incredible, and unforgettable. 

Another time I’ll never forget is when Steve’s mother, Marge Saint, was dying in a hospital. Marge wanted me to know how much my Heaven book had meant to her. So Steve called me, then put the phone up to his mother’s ear. On the other end of the line I heard a breathy, tired voice that spoke with an almost supernatural exuberance: “Thank you!” I wept and wept. To think by God’s grace one of my books had a ministry to the widow of Nate Saint, whose story had such a profound impact on me over forty years ago! Steve called me just a day later to tell me his mother was now with Jesus. I wept again to think about Nate and Marge Saint being reunited fifty-some years after his death.

Steve Saint founded ITEC, Indigenous People's Technology and Education Center. They develop tools, technology and training systems for indigenous God-followers to reach their own people with the gospel of Christ through meeting their physical needs (see www.itecusa.org). Steve is an entrepreneur whose flying car has captured the imagination of many. As I noted on my Facebook page, last week he was seriously injured in a test flight.

Here’s Steve Saint himself, speaking from his hospital bed. I love this brother. Even in this crisis, his mind is on God’s kingdom.

      

What does it mean to “love not the things of the world”?

A blog reader asked, What exactly does it mean to “love not the world nor the things of the world” (1 John 2:15)? I hear it preached from time to time, but no one seems to have the courage to tell us what that means.

{View the video on Vimeo}

1 John 2:15-16 reads, “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh [the sin nature] and the desires of the eyes [which relates to the warped perspective we sometimes have] and pride in possessions—is not from the Father but is from the world.” (Pride is the root of all other sins. It is rebellion against God and self-sufficiency. It is the attitude, “I can make it on my own. I don’t need God. I’m going to do things my way. Don’t tell me what to do.”)

The world as it is now is under the curse of sin. This is the world we are not supposed to love. Now, we should certainly love the world as created by God. (Of course, in the beginning Eden was a perfect world, and the world to come—the New Earth—will be a great and wondrous world.) So it is not the earth we are supposed to reject and avoid (in fact we can’t avoid it), and certainly we are not supposed to hate people or culture. What we should hate is sin.

“Don’t love the world” in John 2:15 doesn’t mean “don’t love the world” that is spoken of in John 3:16, where the same word, cosmos, is used. What does “God so loved the world that He sent His only Son” mean? It doesn’t mean that God loved the sin of the world. It means God loved the people in the world. Obviously when Scripture says to us in 1 John 2, “Don’t love the world,” it’s not telling us, “Don’t love the people of the world.” Rather, it is telling us, “Don’t love the sin of the world.”

In terms of what that practically means, I think it involves not being mesmerized by popular culture. One of the negative things that I see in the American church today is its preoccupation with pop culture. It has become so much a part of us that we tend to be immersed in exactly the same things as the people around us. It’s not an inherently bad thing to watch a decent television program, go to a music concert, or enjoy some arts or sports that are decent and don’t contain anything that specifically violates Scripture. (And hopefully they have some things that not just avoid violating Scripture, but are actually in accord with it and honor it.)  There are such things in our culture, and they can be very positive. But let’s face it—there are a lot that aren’t.

I think sometimes we as Christians love the world around us in a way that draws our hearts away from God. Now, of course you can love the people in the world in the right sense and have your heart drawn toward God. But we need to guard against loving the decadent, cultural elements that appeal to our sin nature, pride, and independence. These things are not pleasing to God.

I think that’s really what 1 John 2 is saying. I don’t know that it takes a lot of courage to say that we should avoid being captivated by the world, but it does take courage to actually live out those words. One way we can begin to do that is by asking ourselves, “What are the novels I’m reading?” “What are the movies I’m watching?” “What are the things that preoccupy me?” “What are the things that I talk about?” “Am I proud of my favorite professional, college, or high school team and willing to talk about and defend that team, and yet am ashamed of the gospel of Christ?” Something is fundamentally wrong if we won’t talk to people about Jesus with any kind of passion and enthusiasm like we talk about a sports team or a movie or a TV program. Those things can become idolatrous. The passions we invest in other things should be directed to Jesus.

I think the warning of 1 John 2:15-16 corresponds beautifully to the last verse of 1 John which says, “Little children, keep yourselves from idols.” An idol is any God-substitute, anything we make bigger than Him. If we take some element of popular culture—whether it’s our leisure, pastime, hobby, or special interest in sports or arts or music—and make that an idol instead of serving the Lord, it becomes our god. We are set in orbit around it, and God becomes secondary. Idolatry is when God is removed from the throne and something else is put in His place. But God must always be primary.

So we should ask ourselves, “Is anything more important to me than God?” If it is, it is an idol and should be taken down. We should also ask ourselves, “Is this activity that I’ve been involved in or place that I’ve been going to contaminating me by tempting me toward sin and helping me be entertained by sin? Do I find myself laughing at a joke that should make me cringe?” If it’s something that makes God in His holiness angry, and calls upon the wrath of God in judgment, why would we desire to be entertained by it and laugh at it? That’s why we should examine our hearts and get on our knees before the Lord. We need to seek His forgiveness and ask Him to convict us of areas of sin in our lives not when we’re loving the beauty of God’s world or the people of the world, but when we’re loving the world’s idols instead of loving God.

      

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Grace: A Light in Dark Times

Thanks so much for your prayers for my daughter Angela’s surgery yesterday. The surgeon told us the tumor, the size of a man's fist, came out easily. Early in the morning we joined several leaders of Angie and Dan's church, as well as Dan's parents John and Ann Stump, to pray for Angie. Our grandsons Jake and Ty were there too, which was wonderful. Nanci and I and Dan spent the day together waiting and praying, then we spent some time with Angie after she was out of recovery. She was still a bit dazed, but doing well. We hope she will be able to go home soon.

We are relieved and grateful. We still won’t get the results of the biopsy for 2 to 5 days to know whether the tumor was cancerous or not. But the surgery went very well, so we are extremely thankful. We so appreciate your continued prayers for Angela's recovery.

Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.

—Romans 5:1–5

God tells us that suffering isn’t pointless. We are to rejoice in our sufferings because of the outcomes they will produce: perseverance, character, hope, and the certain expectation that God will make all things right and work all things for our good and his glory.

Some of the most meaningful victories in our lives come in the context of our most difficult, seemingly useless suffering.

Howard Hendricks tells of visiting a leprosy center in India. The morning he arrived, the residents were gathered for a praise service. One of the women with leprosy hobbled to the platform. Hendricks said that even though she was partially blind and badly disfigured, she was one of the most beautiful women he’d ever seen.

Raising both of her nearly fingerless hands toward Heaven, she said in a clear voice, “I want to praise God that I am a leper because it was through my leprosy that I came to know Jesus Christ as my Savior. And I would rather be a leper who knows Christ than be completely whole and a stranger to His grace.”

Seeing God’s hand in our adversities comes in many different forms.

After serving in a ministry for fifteen years,  a brother I know, named Dan, endured a ten-year spiritual drought. He told me, “I felt like God just wasn’t there. My spiritual life became pointless.”

Finally, Dan determined to draw near to God, hoping God would keep his promise to draw near to him (see James 4:8). Ten Saturdays in a row he took a chair into the woods and sat for hours at a time. He vowed he would keep coming until “God showed up.” He brought pen and paper to write reflections. For the first nine weeks he sensed no contact with God and so had little to write.

On the tenth Saturday, suddenly Dan started writing. He felt God’s presence like a gentle wave, for the first time in ten years. Beginning that day, his life changed. He told me, “As miserable as those years were, I would not trade it for anything, because God showed me that my earlier fifteen years of Christian life and ministry had really been about me, not him. I had lived on my terms, not his. At last I was seeing God.”

Dan said, “After it was all over, I thanked God for those ten years.” Yet during that dark time, Dan said he couldn’t have imagined ever being grateful for it.

Since detailed past, present, and future knowledge is unavailable to us, we sometimes see negative circumstances as random and pointless. We do not see that God has and will accomplish good purposes through them. Who but God is wise enough to know…or powerful enough to make it happen?

Lord, your Word promises that we will forever benefit from character building that makes us more Christlike. You also reveal to us that suffering is a primary instrument you use to bring this about. While it seems counterintuitive to rejoice in our sufferings, you tell us to do so. Give us the ability to trust that what you’ve told us is true and that you know best, thereby revealing the light of joy in the midst of our darkness.

      

The Eyes of Faith

Our youngest daughter Angela turned 31 yesterday. Tomorrow at 9:00 a.m. Pacific, she goes into what will likely be a four hour surgery to remove a tumor from the base of her skull.

Angie posted on her Facebook page:

Continue to pray with me that the surgery will be effective and that the tumor will not even be malignant or that it has not spread throughout my body. But in all honesty, my biggest prayer is for whatever needs to happen for me to love Jesus more and bring more glory to His name. If I "beat" this but lose that focus, in the long run I will have lost.

Nanci and I are deeply grateful for all of you who have prayed. We would really appreciate your prayers for Angie today and tomorrow. At Angie’s request, before going to the hospital, we will be watching her and Dan’s youngest son Ty graduate from kindergarten tomorrow morning. :)

In this three minute video (filmed before we knew of Angie’s health issues), I share some thoughts about trusting God in adversity:

Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. (Hebrews 11:1)

Both Scripture and human experience testify to the surprising good God can bring out of evil and suffering. God calls upon us to trust him, that he will work all evil and suffering in our lives for good. We can learn to trust God in the worst of circumstances, even for what we cannot currently see—indeed, that is the very nature of biblical faith.

Spurgeon said,

Providence is wonderfully intricate. Ah! you want always to see through Providence, do you not? You never will, I assure you. You have not eyes good enough. You want to see what good that affliction was to you; you must believe it. You want to see how it can bring good to the soul; you may be enabled in a little time; but you cannot see it now; you must believe it. Honor God by trusting him. 

God can see all the ultimate results of suffering; we can see only some. When we see more, in his presence, we will forever praise him for it. He calls upon us to trust him and begin that praise now.

When we view life through the eyes of faith, we can say, “Things appear one way, but my God is sovereign, loving, merciful, and kind. Through his grace and empowerment, I will cling to him. I will come out on the other side of this evil and suffering a deeper and more Christlike person, marked forever by Jesus’ grace. And someday I will see that every minute was worth it.”

      

God’s Good Work

We ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.

In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will.

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.

—Romans 8:23–30

Paul, having spoken about a world groaning in its suffering, says, “We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him” (Romans 8:28). How can we know something so incredible? Because we know God is both sovereign and loving. We know he is fully in charge and he is lovingly carrying out a plan not only for his ultimate glory but for our ultimate good.

Benjamin B. Warfield, world-renowned theologian, taught at Princeton Seminary for thirty-four years until his death in 1921. Students still read his books today. But most of them don’t know that in 1876, at age twenty-five, he married Annie Kinkead. They traveled to Germany for their honeymoon. In an intense thunderstorm, lightning struck Annie and permanently paralyzed her (some biographers are uncertain of this but believe nonetheless she was traumatized by the storm, with permanent physical results). After Warfield cared for her for thirty-nine years, she died in 1915. Because of her extreme needs, Warfield seldom left his home for more than two hours at a time during all those years of marriage.

Imagine your marriage beginning like that on your honeymoon. Imagine how it might affect your worldview. So what did this theologian with shattered dreams have to say about Romans 8:28?

The fundamental thought is the universal government of God. All that comes to you is under His controlling hand. The secondary thought is the favour of God to those that love Him. If He governs all, then nothing but good can befall those to whom He would do good.… Though we are too weak to help ourselves and too blind to ask for what we need, and can only groan in unformed longings, He is the author in us of these very longings…and He will so govern all things that we shall reap only good from all that befalls us.

Really, Dr. Warfield? Only good from all that befalls us? Even from a personal tragedy that deeply hurts your beloved wife and dramatically restricts her personal liberties and your daily schedule for the rest of her life and for most of yours? Warfield spoke not from the sidelines but from the playing field of suffering, answering an emphatic “Yes!” to the loving sovereignty of God.

Paul wrote Romans 8:28 from a long track record of hardship, beatings, shipwrecks, cold, hunger, and sorrow. He had just spoken of the sufferings of this present time and the groanings of all creation, from God’s children and the Holy Spirit himself. Paul brought solid credentials of adversity to the writing of Romans 8:28. Countless people such as B. B. Warfield have affirmed the same truth, earning the right to do so in the school of suffering.

If we see God as he really is, as he is revealed in Scripture, we can trust in his loving sovereignty even in life’s greatest hardships.

God, we are grateful that our faith is not based on wishful thinking or today’s circumstances. As you did for Dr. Warfield, help us ground our faith in the bedrock of your unchanging character and the reality of your love for us, testified to in Scripture and indisputably proven in the Cross of Jesus.

So appreciate your prayers for my daughter Angie and her surgery this Thursday, June 14. We know that God is faithful and in control!

      

The Best and the Worst

Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. …Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him. —James 1:2-4, 12

Find joy in the midst of trials? Persevere under adversity? Do these seem like things only super-Christians could do and an impossible dream for the rest of us?

Take a closer look at your own life, and you may catch a glimpse of exactly what Scripture is talking about. Because if you consider the best and the worst things that have happened to you, you may see a startling overlap.

Fold a paper in half. Then write on the top half the worst things that have happened to you and on the bottom half the best.

Invariably, if you’ve lived long enough, if enough time has passed since some of those “worst things” happened to you, then you’ll almost certainly find an overlap. Experiences labeled as the worst things that ever happened, over time become some of the best. That’s because God uses the painful, difficult experiences of life for our ultimate good.

How is this possible? Because God is both loving and sovereign. Our lists provide persuasive proof that while evil and suffering are not good, God can use them to accomplish immeasurable good. This knowledge should give us great confidence that even when we don’t see any redemptive meaning in our suffering, God can see it—and one day we will too. Therefore, we need not run from suffering or lose hope if God doesn’t remove it. We can trust that God has a purpose for whatever he permits.

Perhaps the greatest test of whether we believe Romans 8:28—“In all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose”—is to identify the very worst things that have happened to us, then ask if we believe that in the end God will somehow use them for our good.

Reflecting on his long life, Malcolm Muggeridge wrote:

Contrary to what might be expected, I look back on experiences that at the time seemed especially desolating and painful with particular satisfaction. Indeed, I can say with complete truthfulness that everything I have learned in my seventy-five years in this world, everything that has truly enhanced and enlightened my existence, has been through affliction and not through happiness, whether pursued or attained.

Thanks so much for your continued prayers for my daughter Angie .

      

Trials, Trust, and Growing Christlike Character

Because of my daughter Angie’s pending surgery and diagnosis, and because the subjects of trust and trials are all pertinent in my heart right now, I wanted to share some thoughts about how the Lord uses pain and suffering in our lives.

In this four-minute video, made before we knew of Angie’s health issues, I talk about how God really does work all things together for our good:

I was struck by what Angie wrote in a recent update: “In all honesty, my biggest prayer is for whatever needs to happen for me to love Jesus more and bring more glory to His name. If I ‘beat’ this but lose that focus, in the long run I will have lost.”

Of course we are still praying for Angela’s healing. But my friends David and Nancy Guthrie once told me, “It troubles us that the church’s one response to suffering is to pray that it will be taken away. Nobody’s first prayer is ‘Use this to help us become Christlike.’”

Paul, in contrast, wrote, “I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead” (Philippians 3:10–11). God uses suffering as an instrument to make us better.

James 1:2-3 says, “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance.” Like James, Paul said, “We also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance” (Romans 5:3). Paul and James both claim we should rejoice in suffering because of what it produces: perseverance.

Adversity itself doesn’t cause our joy. Rather, our joy comes in the expectation of adversity’s by-product, the development of godly character. God doesn’t ask us to cheer because we lose our job, or a loved one contracts cancer, or a child has an incurable birth defect. He tells us to rejoice because he will produce in us something money can’t buy and ease will never produce—the precious quality of Christ-exalting perseverance.

Persevering is holding steady to a belief or course of action. It’s steadfastness in completing a commitment. Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples” (John 8:31). At the end of his life, Paul said, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness” (2 Timothy 4:7–8).

God gives each of us a race to run. To finish well we must develop perseverance. The Christian life is not a hundred-meter dash, but a marathon. Those who lack patience, endurance, and discipline will drop out of the race. God uses our trials to produce in us the persevering character that honors Him and prepares us to serve Him and touch the lives of others, for His glory.

We rejoice in suffering in the same way that Olympic athletes rejoice in their workouts—not because we find them easy, but because we know they will one day produce great reward.

      

 

Update on Achu

Here’s the latest picture of Achu, the Sudanese girl with the horrific leg wound that EPM had the privilege of helping by covering her medical expenses. (See my original post.) What a sweetheart! The picture of her leg shows that the wound is healing very nicely and has no sign of infection. Thanks to those of you who have prayed for this dear girl.