Kennystix's podcast
Where Is God?
The following resource is from DesiringGod.org. One of the truths of the Bible that I and we at our church back in Minneapolis embrace with trembling joy is the truth of God's supremacy in all things. The mission of our church, and I would say the mission of my life, is that I exist. We exist to spread a passion for the supremacy of God in all things for the joy of all peoples through Jesus Christ. And when we say that, that we exist to spread a passion for the supremacy of God in all things we don't mean we exist to spread a passion for the supremacy of God in all things except Katrina or all things except Pakistan. So the supremacy of God in all things except your mother's cancer or the supremacy of God in all things except your little brother's leukemia. There are no accepts. We exist to spread a passion for the supremacy of God in all things, period, no exceptions. All things, our lives exist to make God look what he really is gloriously supreme in all things for the joy of all peoples through Jesus Christ. And we didn't formulate that mission statement with our head in the sand as though we got it phrased and then went out and bumped into suffering in the world and said oops we forgot something. That's not the way it came into being. We have walked in the twenty-five years that I've been there. Many people into the grave, some of them at age five hours and some of them at age five months and some five years and some five decades and some eight decades and many of them have died hard, not easy. We exist to spread a passion for the supremacy of God in all things for the joy of all peoples through Jesus Christ and none of us who has lived a few decades would ever embrace this mission without trembling and none of us who's ever lived in this for a few months has lived in it without tears. We've said it dozens of times at our church. I hope you say it. I hope you learn it, say it, live it. That the joy we seek and I'm a Christian hedonist, I am always seeking joy, always seeking my joy. The joy we seek is a joy that is always laced with sorrow, no exceptions. There is no unadulterated joy in this world for people who have their heads out of the sand and love people. Sorrowful, yet always rejoicing, 2 Corinthians 6 and is a motto at our church, sorrowful, yet always rejoicing. How can that be? I wonder if you're old enough to have learned that mystery. I am sorrowful, yet always rejoicing. I am rejoicing, yet always sorrowful, always sorrowful. How can that be? It can be because God is supreme over all things and there is suffering in the world. God is now and always will be absolutely sovereign and supreme and there is now and it will come to an end, suffering and the Bible says weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who rejoice and you always know somebody who is weeping and you always know somebody who is rejoicing and therefore you will always be rejoicing and you will always be sorrowful if you love people and you live in a real world. It's Romans 12, 15, sorrowful with those who are sorrowing, rejoicing with those who are rejoicing and you always know somebody who is rejoicing and you always know somebody who is sorrowing. So that little phrase from 2 Corinthians 6 and sorrowful yet always rejoicing is an absolute key, at least understanding the way I work out my Christian hedonism. I'm on a quest for maximum joy and I mean maximum in quality and maximum in extent which means I won't settle for any two-bit half-baked short-term 80-year-long joy that lets you down in hell when you're done with it. Not the least interested in that, I want a kind of joy that is as deep and high as it can be and as long as it can be and it better be 80,000 years or I'm not interested and I hope you aren't either. I hope you're not so foolish as to trade your soul for 80 years of pleasure. So it came about that a few weeks ago the anniversary of 9/11 happened on a Sunday. And we gave a lot of thought to that at our church and what we ought to do with it and so these reflections are partly because of that. The first plane that flew flight 11 into the tower had 92 people on board and of course they all died instantly in a ball of fire. Flight 175 hit the second tower a few minutes later it had 65 people on board and they all died instantly in another ball of fire. And the towers themselves in spite of so many valiant efforts, 2,595 people perished when they fell including hundreds of those who were going up the stairs instead of down the stairs because they cared about people. Flight 77 carried 64 people when it hit the Pentagon about an hour later on the first attack and inside the Pentagon 125 people died, so 64 of those and 125 of them. And then flight 93 with 45 people on board was turning around making a U-turn over Pennsylvania when the cell phones started popping and Todd Beemer and others evidently wrestled the controls of the plane from the hijackers and brought it down to Jacksonville, Pennsylvania and all 45 people died for a total of about 200 2,986 people. We thought on that Lord's Day that we would mark that as the thing everybody was feeling and you know what happened instead that nobody hardly was thinking about 9/11 that weekend everybody was thinking about the week before and New Orleans. New Orleans was different, Katrina was different in anything this country has experienced ever. There was a hurricane in Galveston, September 8, 1900 that killed up to 12,000 people. So it wasn't different in that it killed 1,000 people, the quantities were far greater with other hurricanes especially that one. But it was the first time in the history of this world, I mean this country that a city was totally empty, a major city totally emptied and so devastated with hundreds of thousands of people being displaced, some of them to our town even in Minneapolis. So we were thinking about that and now if we were marking anything we would be thinking about Pakistan and what is the number, has it gotten beyond 80, 90,000 people taken out in one earthquake. And I want to make sure you don't think naively about this as though the cost of life there was unusual in any of those, 9/11, Katrina, Pakistan, you know don't you that 50 million people die every day in this world, 50 million people die every day in the world, 6,000 roughly every hour, 100 every minute, I said day, it's 50 million a year, 50 million a year, 6,000 every hour, 100 every minute, get this right, I think I've got it now, 50 million every year, 6,000 every hour, 100 every minute, you check my math. And here's the catch, if the numbers weren't awesome enough, most of them do not die in ripe old age, most of them do not die sleeping peacefully in bed, most of them die young and most of them die after long struggles with agonizing pain, millions die because of the evil of man against man. Sudden calamities shock us only to awaken us to what is happening every single hour of every single day, thousands perish in misery every day. Every 7 or 8,000 people will have died before this entire service is over and they won't get in the news, though that's more than 9/11 and more than Katrina. If there's going to be any Christian joy in this world for people who care about people, it will have to be brokenhearted joy, it will have to be sorrowful, yet always rejoicing and I don't know if you've discovered this yet, I assume you have, that the sweetest joys in life are marked with tears, not laughter, laughter is good, it does good like a medicine but it's not deep, you don't laugh at the deepest moments, you cry, even at the happiest deepest moments, it's a strange thing the way the Lord has set up our hearts that we would cry at the saddest things and cry at the happiest things and laughter comes in the middle somewhere when things are fairly light because we need that kind of relief as well but the deepest joys are marked by tears, not by laughter. So I think that that tear-stained joy is a parable, I think it's pointing to something that goes like this, the times of suffering, of calamity in this world are often the times when God is most needed and most evident for some people, it works that way for some. We usually think that the times of calamity are the times when God is called into question, people go on the radio and get interviewed, where's God, where's God, where's God, but in fact in the times of the worst calamity, thousands of people find this is the time when God is most needed and when he is most evident, let me give you an illustration of how that might work. Let's take the Holocaust, for example, six million murders in the Second World War, most of them Jewish people or you could take the Soviet Stalinist regime in the Second World War, not six million but sixty million people systematically wiped out, sent to the Gulag, and in those days there's a person who up till that time has been blithely in his 20th century academic, naive gamesmanship, play in the language game at the university in relativism. It's good for you, it's good for you, and what's good for me is good for me and there's no absolute good and there's no absolute evil, everybody does his own thing and of course nobody believes in that. It's an academic gain that we pay professors to write books about in universities and they're absolutely without integrity because they don't live it. And they're playing their games and along comes an evil that is so horrific that suddenly out of their mouths, these people that are playing these academic games and what's good for you and what's good for me and I won't put my good on you and you don't put your gun on me and I won't put my evil on you and you don't put your evil on me and suddenly out of his mouth comes, "No, that's evil." And he's so startled that suddenly out of his mouth came a moral judgment. It came out of his mouth with absolute heart felt certainty and he's faced with an absolute crisis of faithlessness. Everything he'd been doing in his brain up till that point looked like absurdity. What's evil for you is evil for you and what's evil for me is evil for me and there's no absolute evil that is totally off his radar screen and now he has voiced felt and nose beyond the shadow of the doubt, there is evil. Call it what you will, you don't believe it, it is true. And suddenly he's got an absolute and he's got a crisis because in his old system that's a bunch of chemical synapses just kind of popping funny in his brain in this primate who's just a little more advanced than purposes and everything in his soul is witnessing that absurd, everything. And he has to then, if he's honest, come to terms, where does this come from? This reality to which is clearly not molecules banging into each other here, everything in his soul, everything in his mind is screaming absolute reality. This is wrong. He realizes there must be right and wrong, there must be good and bad, there must be beautiful and ugly, there are standards, there are realities, there are things outside my mind that have objective reality, where did that come from? And suddenly people find God in the midst of the worst evil. In other words, there's no way that they can make sense out of the moral judgments rising up in their own hearts than to say, okay, there must be an absolute being who is person who has moral ideas and has written them across the universe and across my heart. So I think there's a witness, there's a witness in just the fact that our deepest joys, our tear-stained joys, there's just a vague pointer to what can happen in the worst of times. And the question I want to wrestle with tonight with you is why is there a world with Katrina? Why is there a world with 9/11? Why is there a world with Pakistani earthquakes or buses that explode and burn with old people in Texas or ferry boats that roll over and drown older people in New York or floods in New Hampshire or three little Christian girls beheaded day before yesterday in Indonesia by Muslims? Why? Why? Why? And the list just goes on and on. You are growing up in a world, I have no idea what it is going to be. And what I would like to do is put under your feet such a rock tonight that you like the magnificent woman in Psalm 31 describes kind of the ideal wife. One of the sentences that I love most about that woman is she laughs at the time to come. That's my kind of woman. That's my wife, no way. Somebody gets a whole nervous, don't you worry about this and don't you worry about that? No. Why? God! She didn't say it like that. I say it like that. I have two reasons to give you why this terrorized evil world, two reasons to give you that are wrong. They're not true for why this world exists and then I have four that are true. So let's tackle them. Number one, here's the first wrong answer of why this terrorized and troubled world exists. It's wrong to say it exists because God is not in control. The Bible is overwhelmingly clear that God governs everything in the universe from the smallest bird to the largest storm. Let me just read you a litany of Bible verses. Matthew 10, 29, are not two sparrows sold for a penny and not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your father. Now if Jesus had known molecular biology, he wouldn't have used that illustration. He was trying to grope for the most insignificant, unseen, out of the way, a little bird, off in some forest, out in a country nobody has ever been to, dies, falls off the limb, hits the ground and becomes fertilizer. That does not happen apart from your father. We would talk about molecules. We would say with RC Sproul, there are no maverick molecules in the universe. God reigns over the orbit of every one of them. That's what Jesus is getting at with. Not one of these little birds falls to the ground apart from your father. Matthew 8, 27, the winds and sea obey him. If God can't say to Katrina, peace be still and have it obey, I won't worship him. And you shouldn't either. Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever. And when he takes his stand in a boat and looks at a sea and says, silence, it obeys. That's what the Bible says. If it isn't true, let's just pack it out here and go home. Matthew, Proverbs 16, 33, the lot is cast in the lap and every decision is from the Lord. There's not one dice roll in Reno that is not governed by God. Not one, not one letter pulled out of a scrabble bag that is not governed by God. Proverbs 21, 1. The heart's king is a stream in the hand of the water. The heart's the king's heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord and he turns it wherever he will. And that applies to good kings and bad kings. Lamentations 3, 27, who has spoken and it came to pass unless the Lord has commanded it. Amos 3, 6, does disaster fall upon a city unless the Lord has done it? Mark 1, 27, he commands the unclean spirits and they obey him. Isaiah 46, 9, I am God and there is no one like me saying, my counsel should stand and I will accomplish all my purpose. No person in the universe can thwart the sovereign will of God. Satan is his most powerful adversary and Satan cannot move without God loosening his leash. We learn that from the book of Job as well as from Luke 22, 32. You're not as familiar with that one as you are with Job probably. I don't know if you remember this. Jesus looks at Peter before the three denials and he says, Peter, Satan has demanded to have you that he might sift you like wheat. But I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail when you have turned, strengthen your brothers. That is absolute sovereignty talking. When you have turned, not if, when you have turned, strengthen your brothers. In other words, Peter, Satan has asked to sift you like wheat. The Father has given him permission. I have interceded that your faith not fail utterly. You will go so far. But when I look at you, you will weep and be broken. And when you turn, become a strengthener of broken people. That's just all in the package plan. Satan is not running free in this world. So that's no answer that God isn't in control. Here's the second wrong answer. God is evil, sure strong, and he's evil. 1 John 1, 5, this is the message we have heard from him and proclaimed to you that God is light and in him is no darkness at all. Good and upright is the Lord, Psalm 25, 8. The angels cry around God in heaven every day, holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty. There is no whiff of evil in God. And here's a sentence that you need to take and binge your brain with because most of us have not yet had our brains brought into shape by the Bible and sentences like this kind of bend our brain to get into biblical formation. Otherwise, you can't make sense of Scripture. In God ordains that sin be, he does not thereby sin. In ordaining that there be sin, God does not sin. If you cannot handle that in your head, you cannot handle the cross because the cross was horrific evil and totally planned by the Almighty. You got to have a category in your brain for God willing that there be sin and not sinning in willing that there be sin. So he's not evil. He gives us a little statement in Genesis 50 verse 20 to lay over all apparent evil in his heart, apparent evil. And the sentence is, you meant it for evil, but God meant it for good. Same act to intentionality. Humans, we mean it for evil. God in and through that means it for good. And of course, he was talking about Joseph's being sold into slavery. And then it turns out he was planning to rescue the people of Israel 13 years later. God works all things together for good for those who walk uprightly, love him or call. So those are my two wrong answers. It's wrong to say we've got the world we've got, the Katrina world, the Pakistan world, the cancer world, the babies being born with terrible deformities, world. We've got this world of pain and suffering because God is evil or God's not in control. Those are two wrong on biblical answers. So what are the right answers? The biblical answers. And here's number one. The reason this terrorized and troubled world exists is because God planned the history of redemption and then permitted sin to enter the world through our first parents, Adam and Eve. I'm going to take these in stages. Now these answers build on each other. God planned a history of saving, a history of redeeming, a history of redemption and then permitted the fall of Adam and Eve, our first parents as a means to that end. Let me read you a couple of verses and see if you draw this conclusion. 2 Timothy 1, 9. God saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works, but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began. Grace is what sinners need. You don't need any grace if you are Christ. You don't need any grace if you are flawless and perfect and sinless. You just need justice and you've got heaven. But if you're a sinner, you need grace. You need to be treated better than you deserve and you need a Savior called Jesus Christ. And if by faith you can be in Jesus Christ, he bears all you're seeing, he provides all your righteousness and grace floods you. And when did you get that? This text says before the creation of the world, which means that God was planning sin. If grace is there before the foundation of the world because God is looking at people coming to his son and he knows that sin is going to happen when he creates the world and he contemplates whether he should do it or not and he decides to do it knowing it's going to happen, we call that plan. It doesn't matter how you conceive of the immediate causality. All the matters is you know if you do this, this will happen and you'll need to do that and you want to do that and therefore you do this and that comes and it's all in the plan. And so my first answer to where this world comes from is that it comes from God's intentionality to have a history of redemption from sin and in preparation for that he ordains and permits and plans that there be a fall of Adam into sin. Let me give you another verse. Revelation 13, 8, all who dwell on the earth will worship the beast. Everyone whose name has not been written before the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb that was slain. You get that picture? The beast? And it says everybody's going to bow to the beast except for one group, the people whose names are in the book. What book? The book of life? The book of life of the Lamb? The book of life of the Lamb who was slain? The book of life who was slain of the Lamb who was slain before the foundation of the world. The slaughter of the Son of God is in the mind of God before creation. Therefore creation he knew would involve sin for which the Lamb must be slaughtered and if he knew that sin was coming and he created the world anyway, it's a plan. This is God's design. This is the universe he means to create. Otherwise he wouldn't have created it. It's not logic. That's Revelation 13, 8, and 2 Timothy 1, 9. Therefore Adam's sin is part of God's plan so that now in this world of sin God might display justice, mercy, grace, patience, wrath, compassion, none of which would be possible without the fall. You can't have mercy. You can't have compassion. You can't have grace. You can't have patience where you don't have guilt, sin. Therefore God's passion for his glory is to display the entirety of his whole being and all of his attributes including the capstone attribute of the glory of his grace and therefore he plans a history of redemption and he puts everything in place for it. That's the first answer in the series. Here's the second one. The reason this terrorized and troubled world exists is because God then subjected the natural world to futility. That's a quote from Romans 8. I'll come back to it. That is God put the natural world under a curse so that the physical horrors, now listen carefully to this, so that the physical horrors we see around us in diseases and calamities would become a vivid picture of how horrible moral evil is. In other words, natural evil is a signpost pointing to the horrors of moral evil against God. And let me, before I say another word on this point, let me say something quick and clear. Some of the most godly, loving, kind, Christ-like, heaven-bound people carry some of the weightiest signs of disability, disease, signs. Signs would say, "This, though I am Christ, this is a physical witness to what that moral evil is." Listen to Romans 8, 18. You'll hear where I'm getting this. The sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing to the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God, for the creation was subjected to futility. That's what we see all over the world. The creation was subjected to futility not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, who's that? That's God because it says he subjected it in hope that the creation itself would be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. So God subjected, when Adam sinned, a curse from God comes upon the natural order. Futility, bondage, decay, misery, death. God disordered the natural world. God disordered the natural world in order to bear witness to the horror of moral evil. Have you ever wondered why since Adam sinned was a moral choice against the living God, why God would strike his body with sweat and his wife's body with labor pains and the whole world with physical upheavals like volcanoes and floods and pestilence and earthquake. Isn't that as accurate as odd that the punishment would come in physical form when the sin was in the moral realm? And that's where I'm getting this idea that if that's a response, then it must be that physical evils, calamities, horrors, are meant to witness to that. And that makes sense to me because I know my fallen heart. And you know what? I am not moved very deeply emotionally by my selfishness. I am not outraged at my godlessness. I am not outraged. The world none of you is outraged anywhere near what you should be at the way you have black-balled God in your attitude. The way you have not trusted him, not delighted him, not obeyed him, not treasured him. The spot on your mother's carpet has caused more emotional upheaval than blaspheming the living God. God seeing that we are that impervious, insensitive, unable to comprehend emotionally the outrage of the way we have treated God in our sins says, I know how to outrage these people, Katrina, Pakistan, cancer. Then they get their attention, then they get upset, then they get riled up because they worship their comfort. They worship their life. They don't worship me. Suddenly we're shocked at the intensity of our emotions about things that are not God. And we hardly have any corresponding intensity of emotion about the outrage of unbelief in our own souls. So I think the second answer is that God subjected the world to futility physically with all of its outrages, all of its calamities as a witness to the outrage of moral evil against God. Whenever you see a physical calamity, you should conclude sin is horrible. You should not conclude that person must have been a horrible sinner to be swept away in Katrina when this person wasn't swept away. That's an absolutely unbiblical conclusion. You remember the story, Jesus, was told about Jesus. They came to him and told him two stories. Pilot had mingled the blood of people with their sacrifices in the temple. He had slaughtered the people and mingled their blood with their sacrifices. And they came to Jesus and says, what do you think about that? And Jesus said, do you think that the rest of the people in Jerusalem were less sinful than they? And then he just looks at his question or right in the eye and says, unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. And then he says, and the tower of Salom is fell over and killed 18 people. Do you think that those people were any worse sinners than all the others in Jerusalem? No, I tell you, but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. What is the point of those two stories? The point is calamities are about you. I was interviewed by Ms. Hagerty on NPR after the tsunami. She's one of the religion reporters. She spent 45 minutes with me on the telephone, and I got eight seconds on the radio. That's the way it goes. I hate to do those interviews, but you can get that entire recording at Desiring God Ministries. She said, I said, you know, I know you're not going to give me much time. And this seems really like a waste of my time. And she said, I'll let you have the whole interview if you'll just keep talking to me. And she asked me, what was that about? And I said, it's about you repenting. It's about me repenting. Yeah, it was 10,000 miles away. But we know about it, just like the people know about the Tower of Siloam, do you think that the people under the tsunami were any worse sinners than American people? No, but unless we repent, we will all likewise perish. I was walking through the towers next door to our church. We're a downtown kind of an inner-city-type church, and this black friend of mine, Mary, who lives right there, comes over to our church, comes up to me right after Katrina. I'm walking through, she said, Pastor John, come here a minute. And she's talking with another woman here, and she says, Katrina, who did that? And I said, God did that. She looked at her friend and said, God did that. Pastor John says, God did that. Because that's what she had just been saying to her, her friend here. And then she turned to me and she said, why do you do that? Why do you do that? And I said, why do you think he did it? And she said, because we need to repent as a nation. Amen, Mary, you got it. You don't need me, just keep going. It was remarkable, was it not? It was remarkable how the news coverage, at least the ones I was watching, it's the nice, educated, well-to-do NPR crowd who say, where's God? And all the people who live there and lost everything when I see them getting interviewed, God reigns. He'll take care of us. We didn't even enter their mind to question God. I know that's not universally true, but it was an amazing testimony to me that the poor often have a way better theology than the rich. That was answer number two, that after the fall comes the curse. And now number three, I've got two more to go and then we're done. The reason this terrorized and troubled world exists is so that followers of Christ can experience and display that no pleasure, no treasure compares with knowing Christ. That is, the loss of everything good in this world is meant to reveal that Christ himself more than compensates for all losses. The reason God has ordained a world like this is so that his superior worth would shine when we are satisfied in him having lost everything on the earth. I have two passages of Scripture in mind and both of them are very, very precious to me. The one is from the New Testament and the one is from the Old Testament. The New Testament goes like this. You know probably where it's from. For the sake of Christ, I have suffered the loss of all things. Indeed, I count everything as rubbish for the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord. I count everything as rubbish, dung, because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus. What happens when a person says that in the midst of total loss? I'll tell you what happens, Christ shines as infinitely valuable more than at any other time. I don't know what you feel about the prosperity gospel, the health, wealth, and prosperity gospel, but I'll tell you what I feel about it, hatred. It is not the gospel. And it's being exported from this country to Africa and Asia, selling a bill of goods to the poorest of the poor. Believe this message, your pigs won't die, your wife won't have miscarriages, and you have rings on your fingers and coats on your back. That's coming out of America, the people that ought to be giving our money and our time and our lives instead selling them a bunch of crap called gospel. And here's the reason it is so horrible. When was the last time that any American, African, Asian ever said Jesus is all satisfying because you drove a BMW? Never. They'll say, "Jesus, give you that?" Yeah, "Pohate Jesus." That's idolatry. That's not the gospel. That's elevating gifts above giver. I'll tell you what makes Jesus look beautiful is when you smash your car and your little girl goes flying through the windshield and lands like I was with a little girl on the 11th Avenue two weeks ago, dead on the street for three hours before the police would let her go. And you say, through the deepest possible pain, God is enough. God is enough. He is good. He will take care of us. He will satisfy us. He will get us through this. He is our treasure whom have I in heaven but you and on earth. There's nothing that I deserve besides you. My flesh and my heart and my little girl may fail but you are the strength of my heart and my portion forever. That makes God look glorious. As God, none is giver of cars or safety or health. Oh, how I pray that Birmingham would be purged of the health, wealth and prosperity gospel. Indeed, America would be purged and that the Christian church, this UCF would be marked by suffering for Christ. God is most glorified in you when you are most satisfied in him in the midst of loss, not prosperity, wartime lifestyle. Now that was the New Testament text. Here's the one that's even more precious to me because in 1968, in December, I married Noel, married 37 years this December. Little teeny wedding, just family in Barnesville, Georgia in a little midway Baptist church out in the country and my father did the service. I had one best man. She had one matron of honor and that's all and I said to my dad, Daddy, I want you to read her back at 3 17 and 18 over us for our marriage text, which he did. Though the fig tree should not blossom nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord. I will take joy in the God of my salvation. I think when you add up all of those privations, you have starvation. In other words, though everything in my life that sustains life goes, I rejoice in my God. If you do that now, when something terrible happens to you next week or if you make it a life calling to go a hard place in the world and do a hard thing and have joy in God, not in circumstance, Christ will shine brightly off of you and that's why the world was made like it is. Number four, I close. Finally, the terrorized and troubled world exists to make a place for Jesus Christ, the Son of God, to suffer and die for our sins. The reason there is terror in the world is so that Christ could be terrorized. The reason there is trouble in the world is so that Christ could be troubled. The reason there is pain in the universe is so that Christ could feel pain. This is the world that God prepared for the suffering and death of His Son. This is the world where the best display of divine love could happen because the Bible is real clear what the highest and most beautiful display of love is. It says Romans 5.8, God shows His love for us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. God shows His love for us. God shows His love for us. God wanted to show His love for us how in that while we were yet sinners there had to be sin, Christ died, there had to be death for us. This world of suffering and death exists so that God could love like He could only love in this world and you can back up and say, "I wouldn't have done it that way." Well, you're not God and I am thankful. I think it's really arrogant to say that you before the creation of the universe would have greater wisdom than the Almighty to design a universe in which the fullness of the panorama of His perfections would shine more brightly than in this one. I think that's the peak of arrogance. I don't want to go there and I hope you don't either. I'll give you one more verse. Acts chapter 4 verse 27, "Truly in this city, Jerusalem, there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, Herod, Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, those four groups, Pontius Pilate, Herod, Gentiles, Israel, to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place. All the mockery, all the betrayal, all the denial, all the mild Gibson-like beatings, all the nails in the hands, the sword in the side, the thorns pressing down on the head, the plucking of the beard, the blindfolding, the beating with the fists, the spit running down His beard, all of it planned for you." I really think that if you get into an argument with somebody about the problem of evil, why this and why that, it's a good place to go, to say, look, these are big, huge, mega-philosophical, theological, complicated things. I don't have it all together. I just know one thing, God came into this horrible world in His Son, Jesus Christ, and He knew this world was going to be that way, and He intended to come in, and He took on Himself and bore the weight of all the sins, of all those who would believe in Him. And He suffered more than any of us will ever suffer in order to display His heart toward us. And so, while I can't understand and satisfactorily explain it all, I invite you, I invite you to believe Him, trust Him. And there's the rock under your feet, the sovereignty of God and the blood of Christ at the center of the universe covering all the sins that you've ever committed, providing a perfect righteousness for you at the center of this blood-stained world. And so, that's what I'm doing here as we close. I just plead with you like I would plead with my own sons and daughters. Don't let Katrina, Pakistan, tsunami, cancer, calamity of any kind, disability of any kind, stand between you and the suffering, Savior. Let's pray. Father in Heaven, I pray that these weighty things that I have spoken of would be now taken and assessed biblically. May these friends be good Bereans who were more noble than those in Thessalonica, because when they heard the word preached, they went home and opened their Bibles to see if these things were so. And so, Grant, I pray, Father, that there would be a deep, serious dealing with you tonight. And if any is without the Savior, any who has been running because of evil away from the living God, I pray that they would run right into the arms of our bloody Savior, who has risen from the dead and reigns with all authority over heaven and earth and promises to all who follow Him. I'll be with you to the end of the age. His name we pray. Thank you for listening to this resource from DesiringGod.org. If you found it helpful, we encourage you to enjoy and share from thousands of resources on our site, including books, sermons, articles, and more available free of charge. 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John Piper | Spreading a passion for the supremacy of God in all things includes God’s supremacy in suffering and pain.