Latest / Pastor John Piper's answers / Does God Punish from His Heart?

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Does God Punish from His Heart? · Pastor John Piper's answers

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  Speaker 1: Well, today we look at being tempted and tested and
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  Speaker 1: the difference between those two phenomena, even when the Greek
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  Speaker 1: terms are identical for tempting and testing. Today's question is
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  Speaker 1: about God's motives when he brings affliction into our lives,
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  Speaker 1: and the question is based on three of our most
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  Speaker 1: recent Bible readings. In Jeremiah in Lamitations and the question
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  Speaker 1: is from a young man in Baltimore. Hello, Pastor John,
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  Speaker 1: I've heard you preach and teach on Lamentations three thirty three,
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  Speaker 1: where it says the Lord does not afflict from his
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  Speaker 1: heart or grieve the children of men. But I'm struggling
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  Speaker 1: to reconcile this verse with Jeremiah twenty three twenty, which
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  Speaker 1: says the anger of the Lord will not turn back
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  Speaker 1: until he has executed and accomplished the intents of his heart. Specifically,
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  Speaker 1: I'm wrestling with how to understand God's wrath and judgment
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  Speaker 1: in light of these verses. Lamentations tells us that God
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  Speaker 1: does not afflict from his heart. Jeremiah speaks of his
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  Speaker 1: anger being executed according to the intent of his heart,
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  Speaker 1: and then there's a similar verse in Jeremiah thirty verse
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  Speaker 1: twenty four where the language shifts slightly to refer to
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  Speaker 1: the intentions of his mind rather than his heart. How
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  Speaker 1: do I make sense of this tension between these passages?
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  Speaker 1: How can God's judgment and anger be in accordance with
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  Speaker 1: his heart's intention, and yet lamentation says he does not
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  Speaker 1: afflict from his heart. I'm eager to understand these passages
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  Speaker 1: more clearly, with a heart full of gratitude for all
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  Speaker 1: that is done by You and desiring God.
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  Speaker 2: This is the kind of question that turns a Bible
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  Speaker 2: reader into a theologian. Thousands of people read their Bibles
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  Speaker 2: with great benefit, and yet some read their Bibles with
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  Speaker 2: that same benefit and ask difficult questions and linger over
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  Speaker 2: those questions long enough to find a biblically faithful answer.
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  Speaker 2: That lingering, that penetrating season of thought is what makes
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  Speaker 2: a person a theologian. And I don't mean a professional scholar.
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  Speaker 2: I just mean a very thoughtful person who puts the
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  Speaker 2: pieces together in a way that forms a larger, clearer,
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  Speaker 2: even more beautiful picture of God. I mean a theologian
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  Speaker 2: like Mary King the cook. The cook at Spurgeon School
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  Speaker 2: in Newmarket, because here's what Spurgeon wrote about this older,
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  Speaker 2: simple woman. The first lessons I ever had in theology
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  Speaker 2: were from an old cook named Mary King. She liked
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  Speaker 2: something very sweet, indeed good, strong calvinistic doctrine. But she
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  Speaker 2: lived strongly as well as fed strongly. Many a time
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  Speaker 2: we have gone over the Covenant of Grace together, and
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  Speaker 2: I do believe I learned more from her than I
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  Speaker 2: should have learned from any six doctors of divinity of
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  Speaker 2: the sort we have nowadays. How easy, how easy it
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  Speaker 2: is to spot two passages of scripture that seem to
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  Speaker 2: say opposite things, and to close the book, conclude that
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  Speaker 2: the Bible is self contradictory, unreliable, and move on to
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  Speaker 2: do what you're going to do in your day. But
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  Speaker 2: oh how difficult it is, and yet how fruitful it
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  Speaker 2: is to spot those apparent contradictions. Give the benefit of
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  Speaker 2: the doubt to God's word, dig down into the roots
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  Speaker 2: of each text and discover that, in fact, they have
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  Speaker 2: a common root of truth. Discovering the unifying roots is
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  Speaker 2: what makes a person a Mary King like theologian. So
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  Speaker 2: here are the two texts that seem to be contradictory.
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  Speaker 2: Lamentations three thirty two thirty three, Though he cause grief,
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  Speaker 2: Though God cause grief, he will have compassion, for he
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  Speaker 2: does not afflict from his heart or grieve the children
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  Speaker 2: of men. Then, in Jeremiah twenty through twenty, the anger
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  Speaker 2: of the Lord will not turn back until he has
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  Speaker 2: executed and accomplished the intense of his heart. So he's
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  Speaker 2: not going to turn back from judgment until he has
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  Speaker 2: accomplished the intense of his heart. So on the one hand,
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  Speaker 2: it appears that the Lord brings judgment but not from
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  Speaker 2: his heart. And on the other hand, it appears that
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  Speaker 2: the Lord brings judgment and it is from his heart. Now,
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  Speaker 2: before I suggest a way forward with this apparent contradiction,
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  Speaker 2: I think it's helpful to realize there are similar kinds
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  Speaker 2: of tensions in regard to God's judgments elsewhere in the Bible.
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  Speaker 2: For example, Ezekiel eighteen thirty two says, I do not
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  Speaker 2: have pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Lord God,
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  Speaker 2: So turn and live. And yet in Deuteronomy twenty eight
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  Speaker 2: sixty three, the Lord says, and as the Lord took
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  Speaker 2: delight in doing you good, so the Lord will take
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  Speaker 2: delight in bringing ruin upon you and destroying you. So
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  Speaker 2: I don't have pleasure in your defeat, and I do
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  Speaker 2: have pleasure in your defeat. Now what should we think
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  Speaker 2: when we find such apparent contradictions in the Bible. For
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  Speaker 2: those of us who have come to trust in Jesus
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  Speaker 2: and his view of the Old Testament, Remember he said
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  Speaker 2: in John ten thirty five, the scripture cannot be broken.
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  Speaker 2: Or in Matthew five eighteen he said, until heaven and
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  Speaker 2: earth pass away, not an ioda, not a dot will
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  Speaker 2: pass from the law until all is accomplished. For us
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  Speaker 2: who embrace both texts as true, we don't assume a contradiction.
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  Speaker 2: We think both sides of this apparent contradiction are true.
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  Speaker 2: So how could that be. We're not talking here about
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  Speaker 2: a strictly logical contradiction. We're talking about the complexities of
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  Speaker 2: the emotional life of God. And what do we know
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  Speaker 2: of that? We know what he tells us. That's all
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  Speaker 2: we know. That's all we can possibly know. The infinite
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  Speaker 2: Holy Creator, God, who holds the universe in being, either
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  Speaker 2: tells us or doesn't tell us what his emotional life
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  Speaker 2: is like. And what he tells us is that in
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  Speaker 2: some sense he does delight in the death of the wicked,
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  Speaker 2: and in some sense he does not delight in the
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  Speaker 2: death of the wicked. He tells us that in some
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  Speaker 2: sense He does not afflict us from his heart, and
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  Speaker 2: in some other sense he does afflict us from his heart.
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  Speaker 2: If this were not true, namely, that he does afflict
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  Speaker 2: us from his heart. If this wore not true, then
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  Speaker 2: all who are justly in hell could hold God hostage
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  Speaker 2: by their own wickedness. They could always say, haha, at
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  Speaker 2: least my suffering in hell is making God miserable. And
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  Speaker 2: God says, no, it's not that simple. Now. How can
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  Speaker 2: we fathom the complexity of the emotional life of God?
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  Speaker 2: For example, I don't know if you've ever thought of this,
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  Speaker 2: but I've thought about this so many times. Who can
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  Speaker 2: comprehend that the Lord hears, in one moment of time
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  Speaker 2: the prayers of millions of Christians around the world and
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  Speaker 2: sympathizes with each one personally and individually, like a caring father.
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  Speaker 2: According to Hebrews four fifteen, even though among those millions
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  Speaker 2: of prayers, some are broken hearted and some are bursting
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  Speaker 2: with joy, How can God weep with those who weep
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  Speaker 2: and rejoice with those who rejoice when they're both coming
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  Speaker 2: to him? Indeed, by the thousands and thousands coming to
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  Speaker 2: him at the same time. In fact, they're always coming
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  Speaker 2: to him with no break at all around the world.
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  Speaker 2: Or who can comprehend that God is angry at the
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  Speaker 2: sin of the world every day Psalm seven eleven. And
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  Speaker 2: yet every day, every moment, he is rejoicing with tremendous
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  Speaker 2: joy because somewhere in the world a sinner is repenting
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  Speaker 2: Luke fifteen seven. Remember the prodigal son. That whole chapter
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  Speaker 2: is there's joy in heaven, there's joy in the Father's
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  Speaker 2: heart when a prodigal returns, and that's happening every minute
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  Speaker 2: around the world. Who can comprehend that God grieves over
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  Speaker 2: the unholy speech of his people Pesians four twenty nine,
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  Speaker 2: and yet takes pleasure in them every day Pone for
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  Speaker 2: nine four and ceaselessly makes mary over the penitent prodigals
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  Speaker 2: who are coming home all the time. So, when we're
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  Speaker 2: dealing with this infinitely deep and complex reality of the
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  Speaker 2: emotional life of God, and he tells us that he
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  Speaker 2: is capable of afflicting us not from his heart, and
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  Speaker 2: in another sense, afflicting us from his heart, we would
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  Speaker 2: do well to humble ourselves and seek to be encouraged
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  Speaker 2: by what both of these tell us about our heavenly Father,
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  Speaker 2: that he is compassionate and that he delights in the
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  Speaker 2: wisdom and justice of his judgments.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, God's afflictions are never heartless. They come at the
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  Speaker 1: same time from his grief, his justice, and his compassion,
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  Speaker 1: so that even when he ordains suffering, it is never
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  Speaker 1: from a heart that delights in delivering pain, but from
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  Speaker 1: the wise and merciful purposes of an all wise Father
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  Speaker 1: who's inviting believers to trust in his goodness even amidst sorrows.
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  Speaker 1: Thank you, Pastor John for this wise answer to indeed
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  Speaker 1: the kind of question that turns a Bible reader into
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  Speaker 1: a theologian. And if you have such a question to
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  Speaker 1: ask Pastor John, email us via our homepage Askpastor John
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  Speaker 1: dot com. Well, in looking over the inbox, I know
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  Speaker 1: many of you are looking for a good church. So
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  Speaker 1: what are you looking for? Pastor John offers nine qualities
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  Speaker 1: you need in your next church. That's up next time.
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  Speaker 1: I'm Tony Rank. We'll see you back here on Thursday.