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Why Good Men Fail God · Pastor John Piper's answers

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  Speaker 1: Well, we know the story. A guy starts out full
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  Speaker 1: of faith. He does everything right, so it seems on
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  Speaker 1: the outside, But as the years pass, maybe even right
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  Speaker 1: at the finish line, in the last few years of life,
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  Speaker 1: he completely blows it. He gets bitter, he loses his faith,
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  Speaker 1: he relies on himself, he stops trusting God. This seems
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  Speaker 1: to be what happened to King Asa in the Bible,
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  Speaker 1: and it leaves us wondering if someone so deeply devoted
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  Speaker 1: to God can just drift away at the end, what
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  Speaker 1: does that mean for the rest of us today? Un
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  Speaker 1: asked Pastor John, why good men fail God? This weekend,
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  Speaker 1: in our Navigator's Bible reading plan, we are reading about
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  Speaker 1: King Asa and the Old pest Man, and to get
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  Speaker 1: ready for reading his life story. Here's a question from
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  Speaker 1: an anonymous listener. Pastor John, thanks for the podcast and
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  Speaker 1: for taking questions. Mine is about Second Chronicles fourteen to sixteen,
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  Speaker 1: those chapters that are in our reading this weekend. I've
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  Speaker 1: been thinking a lot about the trajectory of King Asa,
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  Speaker 1: especially in light of Second Chronicle sixteen nine, where it
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  Speaker 1: says for the eyes of the Lord run to and
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  Speaker 1: fro throughout the whole earth. To give strong support to
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  Speaker 1: those whose heart is blameless towards him. That is a
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  Speaker 1: precious text that you explained really well two years ago
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  Speaker 1: in Apja twenty sixty four. God is eager to work
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  Speaker 1: for you. I love that episode. What I struggle with
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  Speaker 1: is the contrast between the start and end of AS's reign.
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  Speaker 1: Early he's described as doing what is good and right
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  Speaker 1: in the Lord's eyes in Second Chronicles fourteen two, but
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  Speaker 1: near the end he is rebuked for relying on the
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  Speaker 1: King of Syria instead of the Lord in Second Chronicles
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  Speaker 1: sixteen verses seven to ten, and then when he becomes
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  Speaker 1: seriously ill, the text says that he sought help from physicians,
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  Speaker 1: not from the Lord. In Second Chronicles sixteen twelve. He
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  Speaker 1: also seems angry and bitter when confronted. At the same time,
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  Speaker 1: Second Chronicles fifteen seven and First Kings fifteen fourteen says
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  Speaker 1: Asa was wholeheartedly devoted to the Lord all his life.
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  Speaker 1: So how should we make sense of this? How can
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  Speaker 1: someone be described that way and still seem to drift
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  Speaker 1: or hearden near the end? And what does ASA's story
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  Speaker 1: teach us about finishing well both for our own faith
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  Speaker 1: and for how we think about older believers whose lives
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  Speaker 1: maybe don't end as spiritually strongly as they were earlier.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a really good question. And then I share
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  Speaker 2: the struggle about asa you love him? And then you
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  Speaker 2: say what It seems to me that one of the
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  Speaker 2: overarching lessons that God intends for us to learn from
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  Speaker 2: the Old Testament is that sin has corrupted the best
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  Speaker 2: of men. I think that's one of the big lessons.
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  Speaker 2: And the implication of that lesson for the world, all
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  Speaker 2: of us, all the nations, not just Israel, is that
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  Speaker 2: God's chosen people, Israel, under all his favors. If they,
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  Speaker 2: under all his favors, could not produce a godly society
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  Speaker 2: or even any persons who are not corrupted in some
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  Speaker 2: measure by sin, then there's no hope for the rest
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  Speaker 2: of the world to be pleasing to God, and we're
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  Speaker 2: all in need of a savior from God. I think
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  Speaker 2: that's the point of Romans three nineteen following. Now we
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  Speaker 2: know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those
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  Speaker 2: who are under the law that's Israel, so that every
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  Speaker 2: mouth that's all of us, may be stopped and the
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  Speaker 2: whole world held accountable to God for by works of
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  Speaker 2: the law. No human being we justified in his sight,
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  Speaker 2: since through the law comes the knowledge of sin. In
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  Speaker 2: other words, no matter how hard anyone has ever tried,
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  Speaker 2: or ever will try, the human heart is simply too
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  Speaker 2: sinful for us to establish our own righteousness. We must
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  Speaker 2: have a savior, and Jesus is the one, the only
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  Speaker 2: one there is in the Old Testament. This range mingling
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  Speaker 2: of judgment and mercy and hope. The stories, even the
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  Speaker 2: best of them, are tinged with sin. Adam and Eve
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  Speaker 2: were created good, and they rebelled. Noah was good, and
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  Speaker 2: then he failed in his drunkenness. Abraham was good to
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  Speaker 2: his nephew Lot and less than perfect with his wife.
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  Speaker 2: Isaac was wrong to prefer Esau over God's chosen see Jacob.
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  Speaker 2: Jacob was a trickster all his life. His son sold
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  Speaker 2: their brother into slavery. The period of the Judges is
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  Speaker 2: just anarchy without a king, and the first kings of
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  Speaker 2: Israel they're all mixed. Saul disobeyed and was deposed. Solomon
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  Speaker 2: was ruined by seven hundred wives. David commits adultery, and
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  Speaker 2: when the kingdom divides, all the kings are tainted, all
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  Speaker 2: of them or worse. And one of those kings is Aesa.
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  Speaker 2: So ASA's story, starting well and ending badly fits the pattern.
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  Speaker 2: It shouldn't be surprising. But what we have to figure
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  Speaker 2: out textually exegetically is what the author of First King's
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  Speaker 2: means in chapter fifteen, verse eleven to fourteen when he
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  Speaker 2: says this Asa did what was right in the eyes
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  Speaker 2: of the Lord, as David, his father had done. So
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  Speaker 2: there's a clue, because David didn't do everything. Well, that's
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  Speaker 2: a clue. Asa put away the male cult prostitutes out
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  Speaker 2: of the land and removed all the idols that his
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  Speaker 2: father had made. He also removed Mayaka, his mother, from
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  Speaker 2: being queen mother because she had made an abominable image
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  Speaker 2: for Ashira, and Asa caught down her image, burned it
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  Speaker 2: in the brook he drawn. But the high places were
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  Speaker 2: not taken in a way. Nevertheless, the heart of Asa
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  Speaker 2: was wholly true to the Lord all his days. That's
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  Speaker 2: the perplexing sentence. So he didn't take away the high places,
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  Speaker 2: but his heart was true, holy, true the Lord. This
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  Speaker 2: is pretty clear that the writer wants us to view
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  Speaker 2: a so mainly in a positive light. He does. He
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  Speaker 2: only mentions that the high places were not taken away,
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  Speaker 2: and he says Asa did what was right in the
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  Speaker 2: eyes of the Lord. And we know from Second Chronicles
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  Speaker 2: that there were other sins. He relied upon Syria at
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  Speaker 2: one point, he didn't consult God, but he consulted physicians
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  Speaker 2: when he got this disease in his feet. So it's
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  Speaker 2: clear that both in Second Chronicles and First Kings, Asa
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  Speaker 2: was a mainly good king but made some serious, sinful blunders.
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  Speaker 2: So the question is what does First Kings fifteen fourteen
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  Speaker 2: mean when it says the high places were not taken away? Nevertheless,
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  Speaker 2: the heart of Asa was wholly true to the Lord
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  Speaker 2: all his days. So we're not just dealing with attention
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  Speaker 2: between Second Chronicles and First Kings, as though two different
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  Speaker 2: authors contradicted each other. No. No, In the very same verse,
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  Speaker 2: the writer of First Kings says he didn't take away
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  Speaker 2: the high places, yet his heart was wholly true to
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  Speaker 2: the Lord. So we need to know what does wholly
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  Speaker 2: true to the Lord mean and how it can coexist
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  Speaker 2: with something that God disapproves of. So here's my suggestion.
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  Speaker 2: I did a search in the Hebrew phrase on the
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  Speaker 2: Hebrew phrase behind wholly true to the Lord, what does
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  Speaker 2: that mean? Yeah, it's whole with the Lord chalame im
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  Speaker 2: a Dounai, and I just clicked on that and searched it.
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  Speaker 2: Here's the interesting parallel in First Christians to First Christians
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  Speaker 2: fifteen fourteen, namely eleven four. When Solomon was old, his
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  Speaker 2: wives turned away his heart after other gods, and his
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  Speaker 2: heart was not wholly true to the Lord his God,
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  Speaker 2: as was David his father's. So there's the exact phrase.
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  Speaker 2: And it seems to me that the author of First
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  Speaker 2: King's means by a heart being holy with the Lord
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  Speaker 2: is not the absence of sin, but the absence of idolatry.
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  Speaker 2: Can we make that distinction? I think he wants us
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  Speaker 2: to make that distinction. Those high places that Asa did
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  Speaker 2: not remove, I don't think were a sign of idolatry.
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  Speaker 2: That's what we're prone to think. I don't think so,
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  Speaker 2: because in verse twelve it says he removed all the
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  Speaker 2: idols that his fathers had made. Those high places did
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  Speaker 2: not represent aces turning to other gods. So my conclusion
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  Speaker 2: is that the writer of both Second Chronicles and First
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  Speaker 2: Kings portrayed Asa as never turning away from the Lord
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  Speaker 2: as his true and only God, and that's what he
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  Speaker 2: means the one he worshiped, he worships this God, but
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  Speaker 2: rather there were lapses in some of his political and
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  Speaker 2: personal dealings that were inconsistent with that devotion to the Lord.
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  Speaker 2: So stepping back, then, old Man John Piper trying to
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  Speaker 2: think this through for me, it seems to me that
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  Speaker 2: the lesson for me, and really for all of us,
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  Speaker 2: especially older people, is first that we need a savior.
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  Speaker 2: Oh how we need a savior. We will never be
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  Speaker 2: able to establish our own righteousness. We need the righteousness
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  Speaker 2: of Christ to be accepted before a holy God. Second,
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  Speaker 2: we should tremble. I should tremble at the possibility that
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  Speaker 2: I could bring reproach upon the Lord by failing in
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  Speaker 2: old age to act consistently with my faith. And Third,
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  Speaker 2: I should we should take heart that God knows our frame.
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  Speaker 2: He remembers that we are dust, and that our salvation
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  Speaker 2: does not depend on our perfection, but on Christ and
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  Speaker 2: our cleaving to Him.
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  Speaker 1: Hey, man pastor John, Yeah, the Old Testman certainly isn't
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  Speaker 1: hiding the flaws of its heroes. Actually, it's it's highlighting
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  Speaker 1: them for us to draw lessons like thee and one
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  Speaker 1: of the overarching lessons that God intends for us to
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  Speaker 1: learn from the Old Testament is that sin has corrupted
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  Speaker 1: the best of men. The best of men and sobering,
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  Speaker 1: and if the nation of Israel couldn't produce flawless people,
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  Speaker 1: then there is no hope for the rest of the
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  Speaker 1: world to be pleasing to God. And we are all
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  Speaker 1: in need of a savior from God. Amen. The Old
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  Speaker 1: Testament just consistently shows that even the best people are
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  Speaker 1: corrupted by sin. All of us need Christ. And like
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  Speaker 1: we saw last time on Monday, that forgiveness in Christ
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  Speaker 1: means that we are freed then to focus on daily
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  Speaker 1: present holiness rather than obsessing over our past failures. That
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  Speaker 1: is an awesome reality. I mean, what hope would we
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  Speaker 1: have apart from Christ? We would have none. On this
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  Speaker 1: topic of finishing well, we've covered a lot of the
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  Speaker 1: territory if you've been following this podcast. I mean we
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  Speaker 1: started it after Pastor John reached retirement age of sixty five,
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  Speaker 1: and so we've talked a lot about finishing well over
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  Speaker 1: these thirteen almost fourteen years, and all of that you
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  Speaker 1: can see in my summary of several episodes in the
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  Speaker 1: asp Pestu John book, beginning on page four twenty nine.
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  Speaker 1: If you have that book, Candy, check out that section
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  Speaker 1: on finishing well, beginning on page four to twenty nine.
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  Speaker 1: This need to remain vigilant and faithful until the very end.
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  Speaker 1: That's what we saw today. That's what we're going to
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  Speaker 1: see next time. What if Jesus returns tonight? How would
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  Speaker 1: you live differently today if you knew Jesus was coming tonight.
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  Speaker 1: I'm Tony Ranky and if Christ says in return, we
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  Speaker 1: will see you on Monday. Thanks for listening.