Great Christian Biographies with John Piper: John Bunyan 3

He says I have handled this in a few words this issue of suffering To show you that our sufferings are ordered and disposed by him and that you might always

When you come into trouble for his name not stagger or be at a loss or but be stayed and composed and settled

In your mind, so I just plead with you get this fixed before you have to be in that crush situation yourself

I've had some wonderful testimonies in this church. Let me tell you one. This isn't in my manuscript, but it comes to my mind and Risk it.

I'd set four more pages here which could take a half an hour, but I'll hurry a

Family came to our church. In fact, she may be here. I don't know you're welcome If you're here, and you wouldn't mind me telling telling this story

Started coming in May came to me last November or so tears staying right there after a sermon saying we had to leave our other church we don't we won't go into the details about the problems, but We have learned more about the sovereignty of God in these five months or whatever it was

Then we did in 20 years previous That week

I got a call from them that the doctor wanted their son to come quickly because something was very wrong with his blood

Well, here we are two months later he has leukemia he just had a bone marrow transplant on the 12th

Of January, I believe it was and he's I Hope gonna make it so here's a family got introduced to the sovereignty of God in the most radical form and Are tested immediately with a 21 year old son who now had to have his bone marrow killed and Have his brother

Matt's bone marrow replace his which isn't exactly perfect match 80 % it's not a very good chance and And Bonnie said to me

I Would have gone insane Without the sovereignty of God. I hear those stories a lot

Which is one of the reasons I get worked up about these things They are pastorally precious to me and to millions of people

He warns against revenge. He warns against revenge of those

Listen, listen to what he says about the persecutors learn to pity and bewail the condition of the enemy

Never grudge them their present Advantages fret not thyself because of evil men neither be thou envious of the workers of iniquity fret not

Though they spoil thy resting place. It is God that hath bidden them do it

To try thy faith and patience thereby wish them no ill with what they get of thine

It is their wages for their work and it will appear to them ere long

That they have earned it dearly so we must learn to live upon God who is

Invisible we need Tribulation we need suffering He says there is that of God to be seen in such a day as cannot be seen in another

We are apt to overshoot in the days of calm and think ourselves far higher and More strong than we find we be when the trying day is upon us

We could not live without such turnings of the hand of God upon us We should be overgrown with flesh if we had not our

Seasonable winters it is said that in some countries trees will grow

But will bear no fruit because there is no winter there

Let me beg of thee he says That thou will not be offended

Either with God or with men if the cross is laid heavy upon thee

Not with God for he doth nothing without cause Nor with men for they are the servants of God to thee for good

Take therefore what comes to thee from God by them Thankfully last point number five

Bunyan sufferings deepened in him a Confidence in the

Bible as the Word of God and a passion for Bible memory and Bible exposition as the key to perseverance

I better read that again Bunyan suffering deepened in him a confidence in the

Bible as the Word of God and a passion for Bible memory and Bible exposition as the key to perseverance

If you ask Bunyan, okay, if living on God who is invisible is the key to suffering rightly?

What's the key to living on God that is invisible? He would answer Living on the

Word of God. That's what he would answer one of the greatest Scenes and you know which one

I'm going to in the pilgrims progress is the scene of Christian in the dungeon of doubting castle with giant despair guarding and hopeful at his side

Making the long overdue discovery and the thing

I want you to listen to as I read it is Where's the key

Where's the key listen to the language carefully What a fool

I've been To lie like this in a stinking dungeon When I could have just as well walked free in my chest pocket.

I have a key called promise That will I am thoroughly persuaded open any lock in doubting castle

Then said hopeful. That's good news. My good brother Do immediately take it out of your chest pocket and Try it then

Christian took the key from his chest and Began to try the lock of the dungeon door and as he turned the key the bolt

Unlocked and the door flew open with ease so that Christian and hopeful immediately came out

Did you ever get that before? This is Bible memory folks This is laying up the

Word of God in your chest That you might not sin and that you might get out of died in castle when there's no

Bible in your hand It's too dark in the room Or they brought you to the hospital and you're waking up And there's no

Bible in your hand. He go to your chest

Or if you don't where do you go? How do you live how do you survive without the

Bible in your chest Oh Bunjan loved the

Bible. He loved the Bible he said

I Have never had in all my life so great an inlet into the

Word of God as now in prison That's why he didn't begrudge God his suffering those scriptures that I saw nothing in before were made in this place and state

To shine upon me Christ. Also was never more real and apparent than now

Here I have seen him and felt him indeed I have had sweet sights of the forgiveness of my sins in this place and my being with Jesus in another world

I have seen that Here that I am persuaded. I shall never while in this world be able to express

He loved the promises of God revealed to him in prison. He said I tell thee friend

There are some promises That the Lord has helped me laid hold of that I would not have out of the

Bible for as much gold and silver as can lie between York and London piled to the stars

You got one which one would you pick I'd pick Romans 832

I I would not trade Romans 832 for all the gold between here and Gaithersburg piled to the stars

Would you He who did not spare his only son but gave him up for us all how then shall he not

Let me stick in through tribulation and distress and Persecution and peril and sword and famine and nakedness.

How shall he not through all those things? Give us all things

With him would you trade that for anything? And if not, do you know how rich you are and what a glorious calling we have to build such priceless

Commodities into our people who would want to be a stockbroker

When you can broker Romans 832

For which you wouldn't trade all the gold in Fort Knox. I Think I should be done.

I'm out of time, but I have one last paragraph here he

So loved the Bible he said let me die With the

Philistines rather than deal corruptly with the blessed Word of God. I tell you brothers

Doctrine and right interpretation matters. I Grieve at Christian leaders today who don't think it matters

Just can't get it Let me close with this paragraph

You go home to your people now Go home to your people filled with love for people filled with love for promises ready to suffer filled with love for right doctrine and You you you woo your people, you know beach people you woo your people

You gotta out rejoice people you gotta win them up into God where you're enjoying him

You can't coerce them or lever them. You gotta woo them and win them and here's the way

You say it? Bunyan wooing his people God hath strewed all the way from the gate of hell where thou wast to the gate of heaven

Withered art going with flowers out of his own garden.

He means promises flowers out of his own garden behold how the promises invitations calls and encouragements like lilies

Lie round about thee and then he wouldn't be a

Puritan if he didn't add Take heed That thou not tread them under thy feet that's not a chipper sentence

That's a gloriously true sentence you say to your people take heed

Don't tread This promise under your feet through unbelief

Believe it Now I will linger for maybe 10 minutes to field your questions

Yes, we all appreciate you very much and and I'm just so thankful for your ministry to me personally when you talk about John Bunyan and you talk about the relationship between suffering and Loving your people and and I don't want to I don't want to miss out on the

Suffering that I need to go through in order to love the word and love the people

God has given me But yet we do live in in an affluent culture and I'm wondering

As I read your book hungering for God and as I've read some other on fasting I'm wondering if if fasting and As I try to understand how much

I have to mortify my own flesh to pray Is that the suffering that I need to go through as a pastor?

In order to love my people and to love God as his word or do you think there is something else?

It is definitely part of it, I don't think it's the main part I think voluntary suffering is so dangerous because it mainly will produce pride.

I Believe he's unbelievably dangerous discipline Because it can produce as much vanity as it does brokenness

But yes, you will discover your bondage to food in a big hurry if you dive do a three -day fast

And and that's a very important discovery to make or if you're hooked on television or if you're hooked on the newspaper or if you're hooked on coffee or if you're hooked on sugar or if you're hooked on Being a couch potato at night or whatever you happen to be

Paul said I will not be enslaved by anything

And Jesus said cut off your hand if you are Or gouge out your eye these men spoke

These men I run I run knowing that if one pains

I follow my body lest I myself be a castaway having preached the gospel to others Where is that spirit?

Yes, yes voluntary suffering pummeling your body getting to bed when you should being up when you should getting the exercise you should and if somebody calls you on the phone going whether it's late or early and Systematically building fasting into your life building study into your life getting disciplined into your life

Though that's piece of it, but I say all of that is to use

Colossians 2 In one sense useless for the mortification of the flesh

And in fact can become flesh through and through so just a warning. Yes, but However, Paul says those who desire to live a godly life will be persecuted period

So if we're not being we're probably not being godly the I think we have domesticated

Sabaya godliness I doubt that godliness means

Not going to the wrong movies or not committing adultery or not stealing and killing

Mainly in other words avoidance ethics avoidance ethics is probably not what

Paul meant by Those who desire to be godly will be persecuted.

I think godliness is such a radical God orientation

That you are freed from the things of this world for risk taking big time in love

So we all need to be asking Where am I taking any risk to love somebody?

They can be small risks just like cold turkey evangelism David Livingston has that little sheet in your white folder to say something about new efforts in cold turkey visitation and What about making the hard phone calls the elder who's written you this nasty letter and You Just as soon write him another letter and never see him again

What about the phone call? What about the face -to -face contact? What about tonight? You talk about little levels of self -denial will result in big levels of trembling for us weak people

I just think radical godliness will get you in trouble and Then you won't have to ask the question.

You just asked And neither will I John you said some hard things to us today and I wonder when

I think of Reflecting on the victims and God did it

God did it The hardest cases in my ministry when

I emphasize things like that are talking to the victims of sexual abuse And I'm just wondering

What you'd say to them? I don't have to say would say to them

And there are real people and we've talked to What I say will depend on what they've heard

And where they are? In that process and in their own theological development and where they've been here and Truth must be positioned not changed but positioned according to people's ability and so We must learn pastorally sensitive ways to express our confidence in the sovereignty of God it can get down to something as simple as the choice of verbs

God did it Let's suppose they ask Where was

God? What's the most common? Where was God in those years when my daddy was?

Doing it to me You could very callously and heartlessly say

Right there helping your dad now there may be a

Really far out way that that would be an accurate statement But that would carry so much falsehood in that moment that it would be a very wrong thing to say

But you might say God was in heaven and He was in control of the world and he

Was then and is able today In his power over all things

To turn everything for your good Now she might at that moment say let me let me just let me just re -say what you just said

You're saying God was in control at that moment. Is that what you're saying? I'm saying

I Tried to say it carefully because it needs to be said carefully

Because God is a careful God and God is a big God and God is complex and God can weep

While he is doing things over which he weeps And I would say other things but I and then

I would ask her perhaps Would you have it such that God was wringing his hands and Couldn't do anything which means he can't today do anything perhaps to really help you

But I believe that God is so sovereign that today your life can be utterly redeemed utterly redeemed

The derial warts and all could be utterly redeemed And all the dysfunction in your life and all the emotional terror

Can be utterly redeemed and the reason I believe that is because I believe in the absolute Sovereignty of God over your life right now your hand your heart is in his hands he is a craftsman and can take your heart and if I detected from her at that moment some sense of That sounds hopeful.

That sounds good. I might say and you know if that's true Then the same

God was in in charge of the universe 20 years ago or five years ago or whatever

And and then I would I would also say probably depending on where she is and what her theology is

I would say, you know, I don't have all the answers and mystery abounds in the universe

And I'm not about to give an answer for why an earthquake landed on Armenia and didn't bring this church down on us today

I don't have an answer for that. I Don't know why we haven't been swallowed up right now

And they did I don't have an answer for that Or why you experience that and why

God let your dad do that and she said oh you should let You don't really believe let

I'd say I do believe let Because I believe the the way

God Exerts his causal agency is different in righteousness and sin

I think he ordains and super intends and governs it all and yet there's a more active agency

And then I might quote to her lamentations 337 where it says

He does not Help me see it

That is he does not willingly afflict the children of men now. I looked that up in the

Hebrew Willingly is the word malevol three Hebrew words.

You know them. Tell me the meaning of the Hebrew word mean From lave

Heart Oh at the end His from his heart he does not from his heart afflict the sons of men

So I would say to her you take a text like that now This is in the midst of lamentations where women are boiling and eating their children and it's called the judgment of God It and you say right in the middle of lamentations is a statement

God does not willingly affect the children of men and yet he afflicts them What that means is God is complex enough so that he has levels of emotion

Afflicting them. It's not his favorite activity But he does it Doesn't do it from his heart.

You know what his heart is his heart right now is your repentance and the forgiveness of your dad

Let's deal with that first But gives your flavor anyway,

I Think we'll save the other questions for tomorrow's panel So thank you so much for being here.

Enjoy your afternoon. Give it back Thank you for listening to this message by John Piper pastor for preaching at Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota feel free to make copies of this message to give to others, but please do not charge for those copies or Alter the content in any way without permission.

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