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Ask Pastor John
Sovereignty and My Murdered Friend
00:11:35
Even great evil serves God’s eternal purposes — yet God also gives us precious promises to comfort us in the midst of our pain and grief.
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- [00:00]
Pastor John Piper
Foreign.
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Co-host or Podcast Host
We have a very heavy episode today, but before we get into it, I want to let you know that here at Desiring God we launched our Next Generation vision to aggressively spread great joy and a big God to the next generation. We launched it this year to upgrade our technology and expand the distribution of our resources far and wide. Obviously all free of charge. And as we close out our fiscal year, this month is the end of June. This is an invitation to you to join us in this work. Please consider joining us by giving a monthly or a one time gift to help offset the cost of free for thousands. Just like you go to desiring God.orggive today. That's desiring God.org give and if you already support us, thank you very much for making this ministry and this podcast possible. Appreciate it. Well, there's a kind of news that will stop you cold. Like what we read together in this email from a 17 year old high school student or close friend, A teammate and her friend's mother were both brutally murdered. Here's the question Pastor John I'm a high school student. A girl who was my close teammate and her mother were recently brutally murdered. People say this was her time or God's will, but I don't understand how this can be true. The murderer's actions were obviously sinful, violating God's commands like you shall not murder. If their choices were evil, how could this tragedy be God's plan? How does God's sovereign will operate alongside human sin, especially when it leads to such profound suffering? How can I reconcile this and turn to the Lord for comfort and understanding in my grief?
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Pastor John Piper
What I want to focus on here is this young woman's last question, the very personal one, namely, how can I turn to the Lord for comfort and understanding in my grief? And the reason I want to focus there is because we've already dealt in several Ask Pastor John's with the larger theological question about whether God can do what he commands not to be done, whether God can and does will that things happen which are sinful. We've dealt with that question several times. Whether it is sinful of God to plan to will that sin come to pass, for example, 1122 does God decree events he does not want to happen? And the answer from the Bible is yes, he does. The most significant example and is relevant for her own personal situation. Eventually I'll try to show the most significant example is from Acts 4, 27 and 28 where Luke tells us that Herod and Pontius Pilate and the Gentiles and the mobs in Israel were gathered together to do what God had predestined to take place. And virtually everything they did was sin. It was evil to murder Jesus. Everything about it was sinful. And God willed that his son be murdered so that we might be saved even if we are murderers. It's an amazing conjunction right there of the sovereignty of God and the saving love of God. Another example is job 1 17, where the Chaldeans attack and murder Job's servants, to which Job responds, In verse 21, the Lord has taken away. The Lord has taken away. And the inspired writer of the book of Job at the end of the book, in chapter 11, in chapter 42, verse 11, he refers to Job's losses, including the murder of his servants, as the evil that the Lord had brought upon him. So the Bible teaches that God is sovereign over every detail of the universe. Not a bird falls without his will. Matthew 10:29 the king's heart is like a river in the hand of the Lord. He turns it wherever he wills. Proverbs 21:1. The dice are thrown on the table, and every decision is from the Lord. Proverbs 16:33 we're supposed to say, according to James 4:15, if the Lord wills, we will live and do this, or that everything that happens is planned and governed by the sovereign will of God. Ephesians 1:11, Isaiah 46:10. Which means that we will not be able to understand Bible if we reject the reality that God can will that sin come to pass without Himself being sinful. We may not understand all the psychological dynamics of how he can do that, but that he does it is taught throughout the Bible. So it's plain that the biblical phrase will of God does have at least two distinct meanings in the Bible. One is his sovereign will, by which everything comes to pass, Ephesians 1:11. The other is his revealed will, or his will of command, by which he tells us what we ought to do. For example, Thou shalt not murder. And the biblical teaching is that God is not sinful when his sovereign will decrees that a person act contrary to his revealed will. So our young friend is asking, in view of her friend's tragic murder, how can I turn to the Lord for comfort and understanding in my grief? And here's my counsel to this young woman. First, realize that this murder was evil and should be called evil and unjust. Don't whitewash it. No theology of God's sovereignty requires that you minimize the evil. Second, believe that it was indeed contrary to God's commandment not to murder God's law was broken. 3rd Weep with those who weep. Romans 12:15 4th Grieve in your own heart, but not as those who have no hope. 1 Thessalonians 4:13 5th Embrace God's promise for you and your friends family. The Lord is near the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit. Embrace that promise he is near. Embrace the promise that the LORD will strengthen you and help you and hold you up in your sorrow. Isaiah 41:10 seventh take hold of Romans 8:28 and with all its mysteries believe it. Take your stand on it as a solid foundation while everything is shaking. God works everything together for good, for those who love him and are called according to his purpose. God will in fact make this great evil serve some righteous and good outcomes, most of which you will not see until you no longer look through a glass darkly. 8 Take hold of the promise that even evils that result in death are seized by God, made to serve his eternal purposes of glory. 2nd Corinthians 4:17 this affliction is preparing for you an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison as you look not to the things that are seen, but the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal. So open your heart to eternity and do not treat it as insignificant or far away. If not God's eternal purposes are precious and more important than his temporal purposes. None take to heart that this eternal glory will include the end of all sorrow totally. He will wipe away every tear from your eyes. Death shall be no more. Neither shall there be mourning, nor crying nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away. Revelation 21:4 and finally return to Acts 4:27 where God planned the murder of Jesus from all eternity. And remember, this was His Son, this was His Son, and He did it to save his enemies, namely us. So amazingly, the clearest place in the Bible where God's sovereign will decrees that his revealed will be broken is the place where he saves sinners for breaking his revealed will. And he does it by enduring our punishment for us.
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Co-host or Podcast Host
Yeah, paradox. Almost impossible to wrap our minds around. How can God be in control of a world where such horrific things happen? But as hard as that is, Scripture teaches us that God willed that His Son be murdered so that we might be saved even if we are murderers. Profound Grace Obviously we don't get all the answers in this life, but in times of grief, the comfort doesn't come from pretending that evil isn't there or acting like God is helpless in the situation that's just false comforts. And if you've not heard Pastor John speak about suffering's screaming witness, the screaming witness of suffering to the cosmic rupture that's happened between us and God by our sin. Oh my. That's one of those things I just want to put as a footnote that will change your whole worldview on this topic as well. For more on suffering screaming witness, see the Ask Pastor John book on page 386. And once again, our fiscal year ends this month. Please consider joining us by giving a monthly or one time gift to help offset the cost of free for thousands. Just like you go to desiringgod.org give. That's desiringgod.org give. And if you already support us, thank you so much. We greatly appreciate your partnership and everything that we do. Pastor John and I will see you back here on Thursday. Thanks for listening. We'll see you then.