Latest / Pastor John Piper's answers / God Will Heal Me Completely — But When?

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God Will Heal Me Completely — But When? · Pastor John Piper's answers

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  Speaker 1: Welcome back. We just looked at the idea that God
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  Speaker 1: withholds no good thing from his children, and that's according
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  Speaker 1: to Psalm eighty four to eleven, and we asked what
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  Speaker 1: does it mean, because you know, we don't have every
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  Speaker 1: good thing that we possibly could have. That was Apga
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  Speaker 1: twenty one to forty one. We looked at that. So
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  Speaker 1: we have to deal with the blanket promises of scripture
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  Speaker 1: and just the blunt reality of our lives. And so
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  Speaker 1: today we look at another wonderful blanket promise in the
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  Speaker 1: Psalms that God heals all of our diseases. Obviously, Christian
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  Speaker 1: struggle with diseases all around the world every single day.
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  Speaker 1: So we need to think about this because Psalm one
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  Speaker 1: oh three is in our navigator's Bible reading plan reading tomorrow,
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  Speaker 1: and because this is a question on the mind of
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  Speaker 1: Ian today. Ian lives in Australia and he wrote us
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  Speaker 1: this pastor down, hello, how would you preach from Psalm
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  Speaker 1: one oh three, verse three, which says God heals all
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  Speaker 1: your diseases? Do we just spiritualize this he heals us
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  Speaker 1: from the disease of sin? Or do we take it
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  Speaker 1: in the ultimate sense that one day we will be
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  Speaker 1: healed in heaven. As you know, there are many Christians
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  Speaker 1: today who die of awful diseases. I just don't know
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  Speaker 1: how to apply the promise to the Christian life today.
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  Speaker 1: Do you have any advice for me?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, this is an absolutely crucial question because verse three
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  Speaker 2: of some one O three he forgives all your iniquarity,
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  Speaker 2: he heals all your diseases is one of dozens of
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  Speaker 2: places in the Psalms that seem to promise things that
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  Speaker 2: are so idealistic, so far beyond anybody's ordinary experience. And
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  Speaker 2: so we really do need an answer to this question
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  Speaker 2: of not only how to teach them, but how to
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  Speaker 2: believe them, how to how to enjoy them. What comforts
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  Speaker 2: me and has helped me perhaps as much as anything
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  Speaker 2: in wrestling with the absolute statements of blessing in the Psalms,
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  Speaker 2: is that Jesus knew this problem and the Devil knew it,
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  Speaker 2: and the way they interacted about it is very illuminating.
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  Speaker 2: So the devil nos Psalm ninety one. It's one of
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  Speaker 2: those psalms like the arrow will not come near you.
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  Speaker 2: It's just an amazing Psalm ninety one. You're gonna be protected.
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  Speaker 2: Nothing is going to harm you. So the devil quotes
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  Speaker 2: this to Jesus standing on the top of the temple,
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  Speaker 2: and he says, if you're the son of God, I
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  Speaker 2: throw yourself down from here, for it is written, and
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  Speaker 2: he quotes in the Bible. The devil's quoting the Bible.
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  Speaker 2: He will command his angels concerning you to guard you
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  Speaker 2: on their hands. They will bear you up unless you
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  Speaker 2: strike your foot against the stone. In other words, he sing, Jesus,
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  Speaker 2: jump off of here, because the Bible says angels won't
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  Speaker 2: let you die jumping off this temple. So he's tempting
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  Speaker 2: Jesus by quoting him in scripture. Just like he heals
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  Speaker 2: all your diseases. I mean, they're in the same category.
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  Speaker 2: He never lets you dash your foot against the stone.
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  Speaker 2: You can't fall off a cliff if you're a Christian,
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  Speaker 2: and you won't get any diseases, or if you get one,
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  Speaker 2: you'll be healed. And Jesus answered him and said, you
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  Speaker 2: shall not put the Lord your God to the test.
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  Speaker 2: That's Luke four nine. You shall not put the Lord
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  Speaker 2: your God to the test. So for Jesus, the devil
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  Speaker 2: was quoting the Bible at a wrong time in the
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  Speaker 2: wrong way, for the wrong end. Jesus had come into
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  Speaker 2: the world to suffer and to die. He was going
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  Speaker 2: to be crushed. Therefore, all the psalms of never coming
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  Speaker 2: to harm or always being delivered could not be applied
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  Speaker 2: directly to Jesus at any given moment he came to die.
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  Speaker 2: So to try to apply the psalm to the best
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  Speaker 2: of men would be a misapplication, and Jesus knew it,
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  Speaker 2: and Paul knew it. In fact, Paul saw that the
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  Speaker 2: psalms themselves would not allow this kind of simple application
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  Speaker 2: to every person at any time. Psalm forty four twenty
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  Speaker 2: two says, for your sake, God, we are being killed
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  Speaker 2: all day long. We are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered. Now,
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  Speaker 2: in that context, in Psalm forty four two, that is
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  Speaker 2: not owing to God's judgment. It's not owing to gods
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  Speaker 2: to their sin. It's simply the fact they've been faithful
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  Speaker 2: and they're being slaughtered, which is why Paul quotes it
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  Speaker 2: in Romans eight as part of what Christians can expect.
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  Speaker 2: He says, what shall separate us from the love of God?
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  Speaker 2: So tribulation and distress, or prosecution, or famine or naked
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  Speaker 2: us apparel or sword. As it is written, we are
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  Speaker 2: being killed all day long. So he quotes the very
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  Speaker 2: psalm that says will will be killed and destroyed. And
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  Speaker 2: so Christians can this so now against that backdrop of
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  Speaker 2: the New Testament, and Jesus and Paul helping us not
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  Speaker 2: oversimplify the absolute statements of blessing in the psalms. Of
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  Speaker 2: what do they mean? And here's my threefold answer. Number one,
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  Speaker 2: There is coming a time when all of these statements,
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  Speaker 2: all of these promises will be fulfilled in Jesus and
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  Speaker 2: in all of those who are in Jesus, in the
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  Speaker 2: New Earth, in the ideal world, and all those promises
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  Speaker 2: will not prove to be overstatements. All sins will be forgiven,
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  Speaker 2: all diseases will be healed eventually, and Jesus has forged
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  Speaker 2: the way through suffering. He calls us to forge the
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  Speaker 2: way through suffering into the full experience of those psalms
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  Speaker 2: in the age to come. Second, in this world, God
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  Speaker 2: does heal, and all that comes to us comes to
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  Speaker 2: us from God, and so we should look for it,
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  Speaker 2: ask for it, thank him when he gives it. But
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  Speaker 2: the final promise of no more death and no more
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  Speaker 2: disease will come in the future. And third, even our
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  Speaker 2: diseases and our calamities are not defeats. That's what Paul
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  Speaker 2: said in them all, we are more than conquerors through
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  Speaker 2: Him who loved us. They work good for us now
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  Speaker 2: in all the ways that count, and they prepare a
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  Speaker 2: weight of glory beyond all comparisons. So that's how I
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  Speaker 2: would teach my people to read that Psalm. He heals
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  Speaker 2: all your diseases, meaning He will heal them in the
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  Speaker 2: age to come. He heals them often now, and when
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  Speaker 2: he doesn't, they work a healing that's even better.
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  Speaker 1: I think best for John. And this whole episode just
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  Speaker 1: reminded me of an unforgetable story that you told a
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  Speaker 1: while back about the time that you were reciting some
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  Speaker 1: I think it was Psalm thirty four to twenty by
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  Speaker 1: heart on a Sunday morning to your congregation about how
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  Speaker 1: God keeps all of our bones and how not one
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  Speaker 1: of them is broken. And then you looked down in
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  Speaker 1: your congregation and right there in front of you as
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  Speaker 1: you were reciting this exact text, you made eye contact
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  Speaker 1: with a boy with a cast on his broken arm.
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  Speaker 1: I remember that story. For that story, see the asp
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  Speaker 1: pastroge On book on pages two sixty five to sixty six.
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  Speaker 1: In that section what eight moment, what a memory? Coming up?
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  Speaker 1: Next time we look at how wimpy theology makes wimpy women.
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  Speaker 1: That might ring a bell too if you've read the
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  Speaker 1: APJ book. That line is from a two thousand and
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  Speaker 1: eight conference message where Pastor John talked about how wimpy
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  Speaker 1: theology makes wimpy women, followed by a related Q and
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  Speaker 1: a panel with a line that had the conference center
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  Speaker 1: laughing about as heart as I've ever heard a conference
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  Speaker 1: center full of Calvinists laughing. I was there, I remember it,
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  Speaker 1: and I added that memory also to the APJ book
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  Speaker 1: on pages two thirty nine to two forty one if
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  Speaker 1: you want to recount that, if you have that book handy,
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  Speaker 1: I recount that two thousand and eight conference experience. I
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  Speaker 1: mentioned that because we return to that conference and that
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  Speaker 1: theme next time, wimpy women are vulnerable women. Maybe not
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  Speaker 1: the best way to set up this Mother's Day weekend.
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  Speaker 1: I don't know, Maybe it is. Whatever it is, Happy
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  Speaker 1: Mother's Day to all the moms out there. I'm Tony Ranky.
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  Speaker 1: Have a great weekend and we will see you on Monday,