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Why Pray for Protection When Suffering Keeps Coming? · Pastor John Piper's answers

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  Speaker 1: We start to speek off with a tough email. There's
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  Speaker 1: no great way to introduce the topic other than to
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  Speaker 1: just read the story. They came in from a listener,
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  Speaker 1: a woman named Belinda good Day pastor John. She writes,
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  Speaker 1: I find myself in a place of confusion about life,
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  Speaker 1: and my question is whether there's a point to praying
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  Speaker 1: for God's protection over our lives, for example, protection from
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  Speaker 1: accidents when going on a car trip, protection from disease
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  Speaker 1: or from criminals, or from being injured in athletics. When
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  Speaker 1: we know that this earthly life is full of suffering
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  Speaker 1: in hardships. I've been reading that God isn't in the
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  Speaker 1: business of intervening in every event in our lives. I
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  Speaker 1: used to believe that my family and I were generally
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  Speaker 1: well protected by God. I would sing over my young
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  Speaker 1: children at night, the benediction the Lord bless you and
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  Speaker 1: keep you, and life was pretty good. When my almost
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  Speaker 1: five year old daughter died by drowning in our swimming
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  Speaker 1: pool a few years back, I stop singing that song,
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  Speaker 1: and since then I feel insincere praying for the Lord's protection.
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  Speaker 1: It didn't help my faith when we were robbed of
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  Speaker 1: our valuables at gunpoint three years ago. Either I do
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  Speaker 1: still actually pray numerous times for God to keep my
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  Speaker 1: family safe and healthy, But I don't know if there's
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  Speaker 1: a point to these prayers. He didn't protect my daughter
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  Speaker 1: from drowning, he didn't protect us from criminals. My elderly
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  Speaker 1: parents have been burglarized and scammed, and I have no
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  Speaker 1: guarantee that my family and I will be spared trials
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  Speaker 1: in the future. What why? How should I be praying
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  Speaker 1: regarding the topic of protection when it feels so utterly pointless?
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  Speaker 2: Well, let's start with those three questions. What should I
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  Speaker 2: be praying regarding protection? Why should I be praying for protection?
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  Speaker 2: How should I be praying for protection? All three of
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  Speaker 2: these are, she says, very explicitly, under the emotional shadow
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  Speaker 2: of this statement, Why, what? How? When it feels so
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  Speaker 2: utterly pointless. So I'm going to come back to that
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  Speaker 2: statement of feeling pointless at the end, because that's that's
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  Speaker 2: a shadow that is shaping everything. But she did ask
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  Speaker 2: why and how, and I'm going to take them one
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  Speaker 2: at a time. What should we be praying regarding the
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  Speaker 2: topic of protection. We should be praying that God would
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  Speaker 2: protect us from any test of our faith that would
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  Speaker 2: exceed the grace he promises to provide for the endurance
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  Speaker 2: of it and the ability to grow by it and
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  Speaker 2: glorify Him in it. And I say that because of
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  Speaker 2: the promise in verse Corinthians ten thirteen. And I'm going
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  Speaker 2: to translate this replacing the word temptation with tests, because
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  Speaker 2: they are exactly the same word in Greek. And I
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  Speaker 2: think it has this broader sense. No test has overtaken
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  Speaker 2: you that is not common to man. God is faithful,
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  Speaker 2: and he will not let you be tested beyond your ability.
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  Speaker 2: But with the test he will also provide the way
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  Speaker 2: of escape that you may be able to endure it.
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  Speaker 2: For example, when Paul asked for protection and deliverance from
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  Speaker 2: his thorn in the flesh, which caused him pain, the
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  Speaker 2: Lord refused to protect him from it or take the
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  Speaker 2: thorn away. He had another kind of protection in mind,
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  Speaker 2: not physical protection, another kind. He said, my grace, Paul,
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  Speaker 2: is sufficient for you in this test. My power is
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  Speaker 2: made perfect in your weakness. And Paul responds amazingly, wonderfully, gloriously,
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  Speaker 2: I will boast all the more gladly of my weakness,
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  Speaker 2: so the power of Christ may rest upon me. Two
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  Speaker 2: Christians twelve nine. What we pray is, don't let anything
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  Speaker 2: happen to me that would exceed the sufficiency of your grace,
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  Speaker 2: to help me endure it, grow in my faith by it,
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  Speaker 2: and glorify your grace in it. If God removes his
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  Speaker 2: protection in any area of our lives, which he regularly does,
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  Speaker 2: these are the purposes to help us endure, to increase
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  Speaker 2: our reliance on Him in loss, and to glorify the
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  Speaker 2: sufficiency of His grace to carry us through even with
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  Speaker 2: joy in the loss. So if I were with Belinda,
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  Speaker 2: I would ask her. I would ask you, Belinda, as
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  Speaker 2: tenderly as possible, when you say it didn't help my
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  Speaker 2: faith when we were robbed of our valuables at gunpoint
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  Speaker 2: three years ago, why is that? Because that was God's
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  Speaker 2: purpose in it. Hebrews ten thirty four says you joyfully
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  Speaker 2: accepted the plundering of your property since you knew that
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  Speaker 2: you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one.
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  Speaker 2: Paul said that he was crushed to the point of
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  Speaker 2: despairing of life, and that was God's purpose. It was
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  Speaker 2: God's purpose to make him rely not on himself but
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  Speaker 2: on God. Was the design of the crushing, And so
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  Speaker 2: I would ask you, do you have a biblical view
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  Speaker 2: of suffering? Do you embrace the whole Bible as the
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  Speaker 2: way it guides you and teaches you how to handle
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  Speaker 2: the crushing experiences when God lovingly, yes, lovingly removes his protection.
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  Speaker 2: So what we pray for is that God would protect
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  Speaker 2: us from everything that would undermine our faith or his
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  Speaker 2: glory in our lives. And that assumes that we have
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  Speaker 2: a biblical understanding of His sovereignty in our suffering. Second question,
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  Speaker 2: why should we pray for protection? First because he tells
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  Speaker 2: us to pray, then like this, lead us not into temptation,
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  Speaker 2: but deliver us from evil, in other words, protect us
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  Speaker 2: from soul destroying evil. Second, because the biblical saints prayed
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  Speaker 2: for protection Psalm fifty nine. Deliver me from my enemies,
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  Speaker 2: Oh God, protect me from those who rise up against me.
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  Speaker 2: And Paul asked the Romans to pray for his protection
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  Speaker 2: in Jerusalem so that he could make it to Rome
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  Speaker 2: and then Spain. Third, because there is protection we will
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  Speaker 2: not have if we don't ask for it James four,
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  Speaker 2: verse two. You have not because you asked not. Fourth,
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  Speaker 2: because God intends for us to work with him by
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  Speaker 2: prayer to bring about His purposes in our lives. Prayer
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  Speaker 2: is a precious gift, and God uses it to accomplish
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  Speaker 2: his purposes in more ways than we can imagine. And Fifth,
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  Speaker 2: because God is our father, we pray for protection. Because
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  Speaker 2: God is our father and he loves to give good
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  Speaker 2: things to his children who ask him. Third question, how
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  Speaker 2: shall we pray for protection? Well, I'll tell you how
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  Speaker 2: Noel and I have done it. We have prayed in
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  Speaker 2: this house where we live now, and before that, of course,
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  Speaker 2: but we've been here for forty one years. We have
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  Speaker 2: prayed for protection on this corner, in this neighborhood with
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  Speaker 2: rising and falling urgency. As we have felt threatened, and
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  Speaker 2: we always feel threatened. Like Satan exists, right, we pray
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  Speaker 2: for four s's the letter S to help us remember Lord,
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  Speaker 2: protect us from sin and from satan, and from sickness
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  Speaker 2: and from sabotage. We pray them in that order, starting
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  Speaker 2: with the most serious. We believe sin, our sin, not
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  Speaker 2: other people's sin. Our sin is our greatest enemy. That's
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  Speaker 2: the only thing that can damn us. Right. Nobody else can,
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  Speaker 2: nothing else can unforgiven sin. Sin in God's face protect
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  Speaker 2: us from damning sin, and then comes satanic attacks, and
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  Speaker 2: then comes sickness, and then comes sabotage, somebody breaking into
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  Speaker 2: our house or setting the house on fire. The greatest
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  Speaker 2: danger in life is that we sin against God, that
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  Speaker 2: we distrust God, and so we start there. So those
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  Speaker 2: are my answers to the three questions, what and why
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  Speaker 2: and how should I pray for protection? But Belinda's root issue,
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  Speaker 2: it seems to me, is the shadow under which these
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  Speaker 2: questions have fallen for her. Why how pray for protection?
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  Speaker 2: She says, when it feels so utterly pointless, And the
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  Speaker 2: keyword there is feels. Belinda's feelings have been deeply shaped
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  Speaker 2: by the tragic loss of her child. Who can imagine
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  Speaker 2: the burglary, her parents' trials, These profound disappointments, these jarring experience,
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  Speaker 2: these fears, are making prayer for protection feel keyword feel
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  Speaker 2: pointless now, as with almost everything I say on as
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  Speaker 2: Pastor John, In a sense, it's presumptuous of me from
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  Speaker 2: my distance to look into your heart, Melinda and know
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  Speaker 2: what's there. I can't if I were there, If I
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  Speaker 2: are your pastor and I knew you better, I might
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  Speaker 2: speak differently. But I hope you are surrounded by wise, loving,
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  Speaker 2: Bible saturated friends in a healthy church makes a huge
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  Speaker 2: difference for recovering from these crushing things. But since you ask,
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  Speaker 2: and you did, you wrote and asked me, So what
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  Speaker 2: can I do? Here's what I would say about your
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  Speaker 2: feelings that prayer for protection is pointless. Here as I say,
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  Speaker 2: these feelings are based on a falsehood. They are what
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  Speaker 2: the Bible called deceptive feelings. It's not true. It is
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  Speaker 2: not true that your prayers for protection in the past,
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  Speaker 2: or the present or the future are pointless. It's not true,
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  Speaker 2: and you need to put truth over against your feelings
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  Speaker 2: and reshape them. You mentioned four really significant heartbreaks heart
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  Speaker 2: aches in your life where you didn't get the protection
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  Speaker 2: you hoped for, and all of us have experienced that
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  Speaker 2: kind of non protection. But I want to remind you
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  Speaker 2: that for every one of those, there have been a thousand,
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  Speaker 2: Yes this is no exaggeration, a thousand acts of God
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  Speaker 2: to protect you from sin, from satan, from sickness, from sabotage.
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  Speaker 2: God has protected you in thousands upon thousands of ways. No,
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  Speaker 2: you can never prove this. Skeptics will always say, well, right,
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  Speaker 2: it wouldn't have happened anyway. So when you say you
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  Speaker 2: pray for it not to happen, it's pointless to pray
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  Speaker 2: because you might not have happened anyway. Yeah, that's true,
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  Speaker 2: that's true. But it's not pointless. It's absolutely not pointless.
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  Speaker 2: God is our father. He bids us pray for his protection,
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  Speaker 2: and when we do, there are thousands of answers that
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  Speaker 2: we can know now by faith and know someday by sight.
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  Speaker 2: You do not pray for protection in vain, Belinda, you don't.
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  Speaker 2: It's not pointless. God has wise and good and righteous
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  Speaker 2: reasons for why some thorns are not taken away and
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  Speaker 2: some children die. But the very fact that you are
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  Speaker 2: alive and that you have written to us means God
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  Speaker 2: has protected you in thousands of ways to bring you
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  Speaker 2: to where you are. He is your father, he is sovereign,
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  Speaker 2: he is good. It is never pointless to ask him
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  Speaker 2: for what you need.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, never pointless. Very good, very wise, very personal, coming
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  Speaker 1: from decades of experienced Thank you, pastor John. As you
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  Speaker 1: may have picked up here in this episode, the Pipers
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  Speaker 1: live in a pretty rough neighborhood, So doesn't life in
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  Speaker 1: a rough neighborhood demand that a man own a gun
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  Speaker 1: for Home Defense. Pastor John's answer, no, it's not that simple,
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  Speaker 1: an answer that became one of our most controversial episodes ever,
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  Speaker 1: leading to multiple follow up episodes. As you can imagine
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  Speaker 1: if you haven't heard those, get up to speed on
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  Speaker 1: what was covered in the Asked Pastor John book on
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  Speaker 1: pages two thirty three and two thirty four. Well, it's heaven,
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  Speaker 1: a real place right now, Somewhere the resurrected Christ in
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  Speaker 1: his physical body must exist. So where is he? It's
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  Speaker 1: a great question. Up next, I'm Tony Rinky. See you
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  Speaker 1: on Thursday