John Piper and John MacArthur: A Conversation

I can garter thank you for your message that was biblically encouraging thank you when he asked you to when you met each other for the first time or when did you become aware of each other's ministries you remember I think I remember he wouldn't remember of course I met him at 12:30 katie is a.m. or whatever there he was screaming away years and years ago and I didn't like this guy he was just too harsh for me and and he came to speak at Bethel whether the founders week or something and we had breakfast together with John sale Hamer and that's the first time we ever met and I asked you the question I remember I asked you whether I was thinking at that point about just leaving and going to Bethlehem but because I don't member the date if you were starting over how would you make sure evangelism happened in your local church since since I saw you as an expository said the first staff member I would add would be an evangelist so that's my memory of our our first encounter was in a restaurant that I think has gone defunct somewhere up in New Brighton remember the year would have been the end of the 70s yeah he's right I don't remember that I hate to say that but there have been a there was a real highlight in my life and he was a part of that highlight when irony mentioned early when he wrote they owned it when I wrote the Gospel according to Jesus I was so exercised because that no lordship theology was coming out of the heritage that was my heritage you know in that sense and and when I wrote that book I didn't know anybody outside of that group really and I I didn't know how this book would be received and when Jim Boice agreed to write a foreword and you wrote an endorsement that was absolutely stunning to me because I was really not moving in reformed circles at that time I was I was a leaky dispensationalist and they were that was my world and I realized that I was much more one of you than I was one of them you know so it was that was I I was so overwhelmed that John gave such a good encouraging endorsement to that and that's when I first and of course I from then on you know I've read and followed your ministry with joy gratitude and one of the another one of the little highlights in my life was when we had little meeting down in Louisville and John got the assignment to pray for me and I I was so blessed just to have him pray for me I'll never forget that you talked about your father in the beginning of your message and I was looking this morning at the dates of your two father's lives and you can correct me if I'm wrong doctor Jack McArthur 1914 2005 dr. bill Piper 1919 2007 it's almost the exact same life span both doctorates honorary doctorates from Bob Jones both Baptist both traveling evangelists just if you could both talk about the examples the lessons that your dad that you remember specifically from your dad of faithfulness and endurance particular things that stick out to you that have impacted your ministry in life when you say that I would just love to have heard your dad I don't think I ever did but I press you just say a little bit and then you sell a bit and maybe we'll keep talking but I could talk forever about my dad the main distinctive about my dad's evangelism is that it was so doctrinal he was a Bible saturated in in the dispensational school but so doctrinal which is why he was different so he did his evangelism by developing the doctrine of regeneration or the doctrine of hell or the doctrine of heaven or the doctrine of repentance that's the way he thought and so I grew up assuming that's the way you handle the Bible that's what you do even if you do evangelism if you Shepherd a church you take the Bible and you you find what it means across its terrain and coherency and you that's what reality is so it was an awesome privilege to grow up in the home where my dad would leave for two three three weeks if he crossed the country in those days five weeks six weeks come home for four days eight days leave again and and was just one of the things I love people feel like I got my back to you folks a lot of people get bent out of shape at dads this or that and I never ever resented my father's ministry though he was home a third of the time it seemed like an awesome privilege to me and I I think the key there was that my mom loved his ministry she never badmouth him she never said where is he oh never come phone never was there any of that so I just growing up you assume dad's got a call on his life this is it my job with my mom is to back him up and when he comes home he tells the stories of the victories of the gospel and what could be better he also brought jokes with him we'd sit at the table and he'd give me his latest joke well again it's a very hard thing for me to jump in I think the thing that always stood out in my mind was how just on a personal side how much my dad loved my mother it was just a treasure to me I learned how you're supposed to love your wife he just loved her and he loved his children in a unique way very endearing qualities he also was an evangelist with fuller foundation with Charles E fuller traveling evangelists around the States he was an evangelist at Moody in the years of William Culbertson when he was president of the Moody I think it was cover soon anyway somewhere in there and he traveled all over in citywide meetings all over the Midwest and the East he graduated from Eastern Seminary in Philadelphia so he had all kinds of Eastern connections so I had the same kind of experience as a kid living in California with my dad going away for long periods of time on the train and doing citywide meetings and meetings here and there and he even went overseas a couple of times to do some meetings and like you I never resented that it was just a wonderful thing when he left and a wonderful thing when he came home but eventually he became a pastor and I had the privilege from my high school years on what junior high on to sit under his ministry and he was an expository Matthew through Romans through John and always with an apologetic vent he was always it was always leaning hard on evidences for biblical veracity always trying to answer the critic and answer the person who had reasons not to believe the Bible so everything was laced with that and that became the predominant emphasis of his radio ministry in the last years he was on the radio voice of Calvary for 60 some years so he was faithful and he used to start the program by playing the marimba he played the theme at the beginning in the end and preached in the middle so my mother played the marimba for my dad it's she yeah hold two sticks in each hand yeah yeah that's right her arms would shake her here now you're supposed to cover that up if it's doing me I think that's going to end up on YouTube did your father's wolf want you to be pastors they've expressed that desire that you would we you have five generations of fasters well my father never put pressure on me to be a pastor he never he loved the ministry he loved the church he never had the church for Sunday dinner or anything like that he loved the church he loved the people in the church he loved to preach he loved to read and studied he was just a voracious reader he just loved his ministry and so I grew up with a man who loved everything he did and yet he never put any pressure on me because he always felt that only the Lord can do that and he didn't want to cloud my thinking because I had such great respect for him I think he backed far away from that but the time came in my life through a car accident when I was 18 I got thrown out of a car and went about 120 yards down the middle of the highway and survived three months in bed that was a time when the Lord really got hold of my heart but he'd never put pressure on me but once I committed to that then I became his personal project and they got serious do you remember the conversation you had when you told him you felt called the gospel man well some I don't remember the exact conversation but somewhere around there he gave me a Bible and he just wrote in it dear Johnny preach the word love dad he just wanted to say one thing to me and that was what he wanted to say preach the word and we had that conversation about second Timothy 4 about preaching it all the way to the end and being faithful to the end because that's how his father was and that's that that's the goal that he wanted for his own life then he'd I was basically a football player jock in my high school days and even in college and he dragged me off to seminary and he said you got to go to seminary you got to get serious and go to seminary and you need to go to Talbot seminary because as his guy there named charles feinberg you remember the name who was brilliant studied 14 years to be a rabbi and was converted to christ two earned doctorates went to dallas seminary got his THD and president of dallas was chafer in those days and he said he was the only graduate they ever had who knew more when he got there than he did when he left so I'm not sure I don't know what he meant by that but that they had a negative effect on the poor guy and so he left there I went to Johns Hopkins and did a PhD in under William Foxwell Albright who is a great middle-eastern archaeologist and he knew all kinds of languages and so my dad had worked a deal with Feinberg to take me on as a personal project while I was in seminary which he did and he gave me books and this is a quick story he called me into his office periodically in honor of my dad I know he didn't tell me he was doing it because my dad but I know my dad was behind the scenes trying to shift my mental focus and he would give me books to read and he would have conversations with me and even was in his home I became a good friend with his son Paul another another good friend of the son John and we spent a lot of time together he I had to preach my first year in seminary and in Chapel before the whole student body and he chose the text and he gave me second Samuel seven the great Davidic promise and you know I preached on presuming on God you know Nathan said go build it and God said Nathan no I wanted to do it he's a man of blood and so forth and I precent presuming God which was like a massive missing of the point because the point was the Davidic covenant not presuming on God that was trivial so he pointed that out oh-ho when I finished he gave me a sheet and he wrote in red you missed the entire point of the passage see me in my office and I went into the office and he I'm telling you he shredded me as only he could and you know he that was the greatest lesson I ever learned really was to get the point of the passages it's all we're asking out of you that's all we're asking we don't want your creativity just get the point of the passage so when when he went to be with the Lord some years ago his family called and asked if I would speak at the funeral so I guess somewhere along the line he told somebody that he thought I was getting the point of the past they felt free to ask me to speak Jonathan do you remember the time when you you were a letter to your father telling him about your decision to go into pastoral ministry alright my dad never to in my memory urged me to be a pastor in fact when I chose to leave teaching in 1979 and head to the pastor he wrote a page and a half to dissuade me because after being in a thousand churches he was afraid for me he just said you have found your niche you are I wanted to name you Peter but my you mother wouldn't let me name you Peter Piper we named you John and and that's who you are you're the you're the quiet reflective type you're not the you're not the proclaimer and so you belong in the classroom so so stay there because you're going to be eaten alive in the church that was the lettering and and I couldn't resist the call and when I said daddy I think I want to do this anyway he said good I just want to make sure that was that was the approach that he took he took that exact same approach when we were about to adopt a little girl when I was 50 years old I said I'm going to adopt a little girl he wrote me a page and a half letters that's the stupidest thing you ever did in your life you're 50 years old you're the kids are gone what in the world are you doing and we couldn't shake that either and and after that was done he said she's beautiful I love this little girl so my dad I guess has a different way of encouraging ministry he really thought I had found my my niche and and I think he was wrong about that did your dad get to here did your dad get to hear you preach a lot not a lot but some yeah not not much you were 34 when you came to Bethlehem that's right I knew you were 30 29 29 so if you could go back now and talk to the 30 40 year old John Piper the 29 year old John MacArthur knowing what you know now what do you think would be the most important thing to tell them tell you on the front end of your ministries well it's clear to me that the most important things would have to do as my children and my wife and not the church I don't think I would do anything basically differently at best for him if I thought real hard about it I might think of some technical changes but I think we work out of a pastoral model that's so simple it's hard to change it you know it's just you open the Bible and you tell people what it means with all your heart and try to live it out before the people and figure out the other stuff as you go along but but the family I could do better I could really do better as a dad I think if I started over again there's nobody was talking in terms of shepherding a child's heart in those days no it's a book title if you all don't know that title I don't think I did very good at that in fact given illustration of I got a email from Nathan and there today in it you quoted Rick Gamache whose pastor of a Sovereign Grace Church here in town and Rick had done my class for me last Thursday and had told these guys about questions that he asks his children to draw out their heart and I read those 10 questions or so I copied him down I sent him to all for my son's they've all got kids and I don't want them to do as poorly as I did I think I was I was faithful to my kids I went to all the soccer games I tucked him in at night I set an example for them I had devotions every night but I rarely drew out their affectional life at age 13 14 15 and that that has not set them up to be as effective I think in their lives as they might have been so I would go to the John Piper at age 34 I think and I would say do better at supplementing your truth commitments with drawing out your wife's heart and drawing out your child's heart so that they they find ways to express what's in here not just what's in here and I think I was naive about that because all that stuff sort of comes naturally for me I mean easy for me to express emotions positive negative I'm all over the map but it doesn't come naturally you have to I think draw it out so that's the first thing that comes to my mind because it feels big now and the boys are all grown I've still got talent though which is a wonderful gift that I can know that's why I copied these 10 questions down because all right she's 11 and it's not too late well I think there's some of that with me there was a lot less introspection spiritually going on in evangelicalism when I was 29 and coming into my church I don't think people thought much about expressing feelings at least in the world that I lived in so I would think that would probably be more true of me too than it would be in later years but I think for me that the real challenge when I was 29 I was I'm not a high powered you know type a steam roller guy but I'm highly motivated I don't know whether it's a natural or spiritual gift to organize everything and I think I now I've let all that go and there's a natural like you said a simple natural flow to the life of the church but in the early years I was always trying to reorganize everything and restructure it and just moving people around in different boxes and they were all willing you know they were sure you know whatever try this try that try this try that and I finally figured out that that's not what you should be doing and I think that the price was paid to some degree with my family because I was so busy doing all the study and on top I was coming up with all these different ways to structure and organize things and I think I didn't give the time to Patricia in particular and when I even though I was home preoccupied trying to stuff so many things in you know the joke in our family is you know calling father they'd waved their fingers across my face you know even when I was there so I wasn't always easy to engage I that I think I'm better at it now you'd have to ask them I hope I am I think from the church's standpoint patience I've never been really a patient person with with myself particularly when I was young and expecting everything to happen fast and and being disappointed if it didn't happen at the pace that I thought it should happen at why can't people figure it out here it is do it and you know it was Grace Community Church but it was struggling to be grace you know so I think hopefully I've come to understand that a little better and and there's more patience with people and you know it's mentioning somebody earlier you preach the word strong and hard and bold and clear and straightforward and without compromise and then you apply it with tenderness and compassion and grace and long-suffering with people in the pulpit it's clear it's hard-hitting it's firm but when you come down and you Shepherd these people that's where you have to express in the application of these great truths the patience that endears them you love them in the process and move them along gradually and that's that's something I had to learn it's thinking earlier today about both of you and of everybody in this room you two probably received more praise and more criticism at the same time and just wondering specifically how you personally handle both the reception of praise which you get a lot of and the reception of criticism which you get a lot of how do you keep from being prideful on the one hand and overly discouraged on the other hand and how do you process that one a when a high praise comes into your a harsh criticism so that you're responding biblically well that's part of what I want to talk about in the morning but look as I said tonight this whole thing is a mercy my salvation is a mercy I'm not worthy of any of this and I think I'm always amazed that God does what he does who is adequate for these things as we were talking about I I think you just have to deal with things honestly realistically in the sense that God is not doing work on the basis of my abilities my gifts and my power and my insight and this is all in just a tool or an instrument I I think part of part of the benefit of being the same church for a long time is it reflects back all your strengths and weaknesses if you just go from town to town to town you might believe your press clippings but if you have to live continuously with the failures with the inadequacies with the weaknesses in your own life that show up reflected in your people and your family and your kids and I think there's something real about that I think it helps to have a wife who knows that praise can be harmful and without deciding that she's going to be a thorn in the flesh she can she can also be the the one who pulls you back to reality but I think you know I'm just grateful when people say kind things about me I know that they're responding to the teaching of the word of God and the work of the Spirit of the word I'm just grateful it always surprises me and I'm grateful on the other hand criticism I decided a long time ago not to try to defend myself if the truth were known I can't defend myself at some points if you happen to pick the one where I could that you know I don't want to get in a situation of trying to portray some kind of perfection or answering every critic I mean we all have weaknesses I have errors in my theology I don't know where they are if I knew where they were or I would change them but I don't know where they are I'm working on it but I think from the negative side I just refused many years ago long years ago 25 years ago I refused to defend myself I just I just try to do what I do and be faithful and do it and let my life and ministry speak for itself and not run around and try to answer every accusation every criticism that comes I understand that that they're out there I I don't I don't look for them if they come I just I'll write a letter sometimes it will say thank you for thank you for causing me to examine my own heart I appreciate what you've said and I want you to know that I took it seriously thank you that's about it so because those kinds of things as I'll say tomorrow you need to embrace those kinds of things because those are those things keep you on the work to keep you humble yeah we just make sure we hear both sides of the word mercy if praise comes the doctrine of God's sovereign mercy means that you must channel all the praise to him because without him nothing would be happening of any eternal significance so sovereign mercy pulls the plug on the complement terminating here it also works for criticism because what's devastating about criticism is that it seems to undo your standing with God or usefulness in the ministry and since God gives us ministry of our mercy and saves us by mercy therefore it can't it can't eat it people can't pull the plug on that because I can role not only the burdens of my pressures off onto the Lord but the burdens of my sin so I find it very helpful in counseling and I counsel myself every day that when somebody is feeling guilt for say the suicide of their son or a divorce or whatever and and they ask me should I be feeling guilty I say I don't know and it doesn't matter if you spend your time trying to fair whether you should be feeling guilty you'll always come up with an ambiguity so just relax and feel guilty and then deal with it the only way that you'll be able to deal with it at the Judgment Day because I promise you at the Judgment Day you'll feel guilty everything will be exposed the heart will be laid bare you'll have no argument at all guilty and if you don't have a solution for that issue now you may not then so let's just relax we're guilty as charged and now I repent now that's a little bit over simplest because some things were not guilty of that work accused of and and therefore we have to have people around us maybe that'd be another thing to say I'm I'm surrounded by people who I pray I think are not yes men at Bethlehem got a staff and they hear what I hear and they can say yeah you probably should take that into account that's got some validity to it or they say blow though I don't blow that away that we don't see it that way so being having a community really really matters and the last thing I would say is this is kind of a theological paradox that people would like to hear but the Lord I think works on my pride by letting me sin so much there's so many words come out of my mouth towards my wife so many feelings towards people so many and that I went him go in my face and do this conscience thing I don't know how he could say what he said I have served to this day with a clear conscience I would plant it to this cow limo not just is you in touch I mean there are women in the world never had a thought goodnight wait so so I just I think he must I think he must he must he must mean something like I keep real short accounts or I mean a totally clear conscience Paul give me a break I just am I being blasphemous here heard the Word of God yes I think I think he dealt with it Roman Stefan he dealt with it well sure in Romans 7 he said you know I do what I don't want to do and I don't do what I ought to do and I'm a wretched man and a guilty conscience yeah but he dealt with it it didn't accumulate yeah so that's the point I took away is this cultivated secret life of sin that's the killer not that you never have a thought that you're ashamed of or that you never say a word that you're ashamed of good night so anyway my point was as I go on my face morning after morning I got so much stuff to deal with here I can't be pointing my finger to many many places and so when these and I stand in line down here and people say thank you thank you thank you thank you I know what's going on home I know what's going on here I've got so much stuff to deal with I'm just saying amazing amazing like you said if anybody gets saved you just want to stand back and feel the Thunder both of both of you so many young pastors missionaries look up do you read your books as you counsel young men and women on the mission field it seems like one of the truisms is that circumstances often confirm our calling and you know if you're good at something fruit often comes with that you've both had incredibly fruitful ministries how do you think through the issue of faithfulness and fruit less nests in other words somebody is out there they're in a small church they're on a mission field and a year goes by two years go by there are no converts seeming no fruit how do you think through this might not be your gifting you need to pull back from that there's no fruit that's being produced versus you need to just stick it out for another ten years twenty years thirty years well there's several ways to answer that question but first of all I'm not in charge of the results and that's the point I'm going to make tomorrow from the text Paul says if if our gospel be hid you know it's hid to the eyes of those that have been blinded by Satan I can't overpower that and I learned this as a football player you know I wanted to win the game always want to win the game that was the whole point of playing you don't play to lose play to win so that was a given but I I couldn't I couldn't guarantee the win because there were 11 people on the other side of the ball trying to stop me from doing what I wanted to do and ten people on my own team who sometimes didn't do the right thing either so there was way beyond my capability to achieve the end so at some point I determined that all I could control was effort I could not control outcome and early in the first year or so at Grace I had this little kind of model that I use if you concentrate on the depth of your ministry God will take care of the breadth of it and my ministry hasn't changed since that first year in that small little church it's all for me about the down and in in depth in the scripture and in my own personal walk with the Lord and and all of that and breath is something that God does and I think you've got to come to that or you're going to frustrate yourself comparing yourself with all kinds of other people and other situations it doesn't not to say that if nothing happens God wants you to stay there may want you to move but that becomes a personal decision to be made with much prayer and and perhaps some counsel but I think we have to be content with effort and leave outcome to the Lord and that's where you're going to find your contentment and it's like anything else if if you're only content with numbers then no number will bring you contentment because they'll always be somebody who has more somebody who's more popular or somebody who's more well-known there's a new fair-haired guy that's attracting the Christian interest you've got the focus on the issue of faithfulness at the effort to which you've been called again back to the idea of the mercy and just realized that God rewards that faithfulness I think the stories we hear about the Robert Morrison's he was the first Protestant missionary to China and this is the 200th anniversary of Protestant missions to China this year seven years before his first convert an armed Judson seven years of forest first convert David Brainerd same thing is a handful of these guys and their stories are told over and over again what what's forgotten is that you don't choose to go to the mission field wondering if you will have gifts gifts are verified at home before you go so I presume that the church the community of believers in which these men were saved and began to mature spotted in them spiritual gifts and the function of the church I think in the discovery of our gifts and calling is to confirm gifts and what could what's confirmed is not a skill that is ineffective that's not a spiritual gift I don't think a spiritual gift is a skill that the Spirit anoints to be effective the effect is not always just conversion it's the pricking of conscience --is it's the deepening of love for the Lord it's the correcting of behavior in other words if you're in a small what I tell young people at Bethlehem is if they try to discern what does God want me to do I say just start doing what you love to do pray down blessing on it and see what people affirm if you're in a small group they're going to affirm that you're you're a helper and lover you're firm that you're an effective teacher or whatever and so I presume that these missionaries had some experience where they did some some ministry and it would blast it blessed people and then they had to believe God is for them he's going to use them and then they go and we we should be thankful that those early missionaries didn't have airplanes because they would have been home perhaps if you have to get on a boat and ride for six months you stick it out another year another year another year and which may be why today we don't have the same kinds of stories because it's just so easy to bail now and it wasn't in those days so I do think there must be F when it says look I see evidence of of spiritual fruitfulness when the elder must be apt to teach the doctor costs I don't think that just means he's good at what he does and nobody has helped I think the evidence of being apt to teach his lights go on for people they see things in the word they hadn't seen affections are are changed and he then starts seeing as coming back to him you've got a gift that's what happened to me at 7th grade boys at Lake Avenue Church in Pasadena then ninth grade boys then the Galilee and Sunday School class then I assisted Lazar in Greek and and the word started coming you we understand you we don't understand Lazar you you help make sense out of this and and I start feeling like maybe that's who I am my identity arose in community I you can't go into the woods and figure out who you are it just totally ambiguous so you stay in the church and you love people and you do what you love to do and and suddenly you start to discover who you are in in community when you personally get discouraged and want to throw in the towel where do you go biblically is there particular passage or book that you find yourself returning to over and over and again and where do you go outside the Bible is there particular author book that you return to over and over again when you're discouraged or don't guessed well I don't tend to be that way I don't know why I'm not really a kind of a nut a melancholy type of person I I just moved to the next responsibility there's no time for me to sit and feel sorry or feel bad there's too much to do I mean I sometimes get get discouraged but the next task looms large people have no idea what it is to preach week after week after week after week year after year decade after decade to the same people who have recorded everything you've ever said and then to speak in Chapel at a college and Chapel at a seminary and work on a book and do that for me this is the track the Lord has put me on there's no tyke I don't have time to sit and if I have those kinds of moments fleeting as they may be I always think of the Apostle Paul or I think of some of my personal heroes my mind often goes to William Carey when all of his manuscripts burned or it goes to Tyndale who is a particular treasure in my mind who's sitting in prison about to die and want somebody to bring him his the needle and thread so he can sew up his leggings because he's cold I've stood by Robert Morrison's grave and cried in China so I think of you no but but I it's it's not a long process for me because there's just they're relentless I preach Sunday morning one message Sunday night another message and usually every week somewhere else another time so they're you know in one of our ministry so I don't seem to have time to let those things get me down and every new opportunity when I prepare a message I am so still to this day if not more infused with the thrill of what I've learned and the eagerness to preach that that it drags me past whatever the you know and I even when I preach a really dumb sermon and all I want to do is hide somewhere the sooner I can start working on next week the better because I will leave that behind and and I will move into that new opportunity and and if for me it's just getting into the word and digging down and discovering what I need to know for the next ministry the Lord's wired you a little different what will take heart not everybody like that I know that yeah and you're very fortunate so here's one guy who that gets really discouraged and I got plenty of time to get discouraged in anything I pray probably the prayer keep me and preserve me as often as I pray any prayer but I mean keep me saved because I think God uses means to cause us to persevere and I mean keep me in the ministry I don't want to be one of these short-lived people and keep me married doing a wreck it that way and keep me I pray that now unto Him who is able to keep you I pray that blessing down on me a lot and the Lord has spared me but stir in this I'm 61 he's older than I am a little bit we have passed through seasons and there is something to men and midlife crisis I remember sitting in where was Ben Patterson pastor out there Irvine so he's sitting in Ben Patterson's house he's on vacation he's pastor Irvine he planted the church and they gave us their house so if we'd preach for him on Sunday and have a week vacation there and I remember I was 40 sitting on the steps halfway through vacation sobbing Noel comes down the steps what's wrong I said I don't have a clue it was like PMS I and I just I just sit up I don't know if I want to stay I don't know if I want I just don't I don't have a clue why I'm so sad and that season lasted several years and the grace was that I could still function it lasted several years I've met people like him before I had a church chairman near all and Ericsson and Rowling would ask me define depression just he didn't have a clue he just it was like gus' or nan Platt so if you if you don't know it you don't know it you're just you're okay just stay there I feel like I'm missing a great experience if I was listening to an author the other day and they said what's the best thing about writing and she said the last page and so what's great about depression is the light at the end of the tunnel nobody nobody enjoys being depressed in the middle of it but one more thing as farce solutions go I have spent goodness knows how much effort development can theology of suffering this conference exists answer that question I want to last I want to stand I want to get through the discouraging times I want to help you not be fickle wishy-washy dropout trade your life away swap wives leave jobs trade churches I just don't want you to be that way so so make a conference and and we're talking about this this thing started tonight with these endless sufferings of the Apostle Paul so he said I go to Paul and I say Amen me too I I look at the the dot I look at 1st 2nd Corinthians 1 9 we were so unbearably crushed that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God raises the dead now I preach that to myself Here I am feeling that way I feel like I won't I'm just so so nice to go to heaven right now just let me go to heaven Noelle can take care of talath ax it'll all work out just let me go and and at that at that moment if the answer comes back know if your heart just keeps beating then then you have to do theology and I'm I'm wired that way anyway I do theology I I say God struck Paul down in order that he might not rely on himself but on the God who raises the dead he wanted him to be desperate so you're desperate so he must have a purpose for you and I I just preached myself through a theology of suffering back into a hope more usefulness so just keep on working on your sovereignty of God peace and your evil of the world peace that's the that's the greatest issues in life how can God be sovereign and and there'd be so much horror in the world including the horror in your own life that's making you so discouraged what encourages this man has known much suffering it just doesn't tend to come from within comes from without I think I I think it's not the things I feel it's how that processes in me because all of the spiritual battles all the disappointments all the griefs all the heartbreaks I don't know I'm wired to deal with those in a different way I can't imagine just sitting and crying and not knowing why I was doing it but but I but that's not to say that I don't feel the same longings on the inside it's how they get that's how they get process I think because the spiritual battle for me is the same as it is for anyone and I feel at this point in my life in in many ways that I've escaped by the hair of my change in jinn that I'm here but there would have been there could have been a thousand points at which through my life it all would have been it all turban ashes it's not to say that that's not a reality or that I don't I'm not aware of that it's the way I deal with that is differently different I don't know why it's just the way I'm wired yes as you will think back on your ministries or when you die someday how do you want people to remember you what do you want them to say about you what do you want to be known for do you ever think about that yes every funeral so having thought about it more than he has I'll give you some time I'm not trying to plan my post death no world not a player you don't get to plan it no but you do get to think about it I would I'd like him to say that I was humble and I don't think they will um I'd like them to say that he was I'd like all my sons to say he was a really tender-hearted sensitive understanding father and I think they'll say other things I'd like my church to say he was he was a really there for us and I don't think they'll say that so you might ask them why aren't you changing your lifestyle and it's it's I've tried I've tried and I'm still working at it but if they say that he was a means to many people getting a passion for the supremacy of God in all things for the joy of all people's through Christ I'll be okay if that's on the tombstone I really everything that you know Paul said what man says it's going to count anyway one person one person's verdict is going to matter so whatever is written on the tombstone will be of small consequence compared to the judge at the last day and I think what he'll look for is evidence that I was cleaving to Christ for my righteousness and my punishment John do you want to close us in prayer Father in Heaven we feel a great need for you and we love grace we love mercy we love the fact that our ministry is given by mercy our salvation is given by mercy our breath is given by mercy our singleness is given by mercy and our marriage is given by mercy and our children are given and taken by mercy we are a people who eat and drink and sleep and breathe mercy and this is the way we would have it be you exalt yourself to show mercy then we're happy to be the beneficiaries while you get the glory and you get the praise and you get the name we get the joy let's give us the rest we need tonight I pray and strengthen John MacArthur for tomorrow's ministry and randy alcorn and jerry bridges and helen rosa ver we're eager to meet with you again in your word tomorrow through Christ I pray amen you

Channel: Rob Karch

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Id: Sr9mcn-9hr0

Length: 53min 55sec (3235 seconds)

Published: Tue May 22 2012