Is It Sin to Dislike Divine Election?

00:00:05.000 | As Pastor John Piper finishes up his travels through the Middle East during the month of November,

00:00:10.000 | we're going back into the archives and re-spreading a few Ask Pastor John recordings from years past.

00:00:15.000 | And back in January of 2010, he was asked to respond to this question,

00:00:20.000 | "I believe in the doctrine of election, but I don't like it. Is it a sin for me to not like the doctrine of election?"

00:00:27.000 | Here's what Pastor John had to say.

00:00:29.000 | It's sin not to like the true doctrine of election.

00:00:35.000 | It's sin not to like what God likes.

00:00:40.000 | Now, I would want to say it like that because many people have conceptions of doctrines,

00:00:49.000 | all kinds of doctrines, that are inaccurate and therefore their good hearts dislike them.

00:00:59.000 | So you could say, "I dislike election," and be a good person because you don't see election clearly.

00:01:10.000 | And what you're disliking should be disliked.

00:01:15.000 | Or you may be a person who is starting to see it clearly and your old self, which is bad,

00:01:23.000 | is rising up and not liking what ought to be liked.

00:01:26.000 | So I don't know whether this person should be chastised or not.

00:01:31.000 | So the principle would be, to the degree that you see biblical truth clearly, you should like it.

00:01:43.000 | Now, hell is a biblical truth.

00:01:49.000 | So when I say you should like hell, what I mean is the way God does.

00:01:56.000 | God says He's not willing that any should perish.

00:02:00.000 | God does not delight in the death of the wicked.

00:02:03.000 | God afflicts us, but not from His heart, Lamentations 3.

00:02:08.000 | So there is in God Himself a willing that hell be, and liking that it exists in that big picture,

00:02:19.000 | and yet grieving over sending anybody there.

00:02:23.000 | And so the word "like" is just a little bit difficult here,

00:02:28.000 | because you're going to have to do double perspectives again.

00:02:31.000 | If God ordains that Jerusalem be destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar, should we like that?

00:02:39.000 | And my answer is a yes and no.

00:02:41.000 | We should not like women boiling their children, but we should approve of God's decision that it happen.

00:02:50.000 | And so there's a double perspective in which the things that you see in the small lens should be disliked,

00:03:01.000 | and in the bigger lens, liking that God would run the world this way.

00:03:07.000 | That was Pastor John Piper.

00:03:09.000 | And speaking of the doctrine of election, Pastor John's latest book is now out.

00:03:13.000 | It's titled "Five Points Towards a Deeper Experience of God's Grace," and it was published by Christian Focus.

00:03:19.000 | Chapter 6 is all about election, and you can download it right now by downloading the entire book as a PDF, free of charge, at DesiringGod.org.

00:03:28.000 | There, if you click on "Resource Library" and then "Books," you'll find it.

00:03:32.000 | "Five Points Towards a Deeper Experience of God's Grace."

00:03:35.000 | I'm your host, Tony Ranke. Thanks for listening.

00:03:38.000 | [ Silence ]

00:03:43.000 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

Is It Sin to Dislike Divine Election?

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