Why Stoicism Is Toxic

00:00:00.000 | Several related email questions have come in from something you said in a podcast addressing

00:00:09.120 | John MacArthur and his strange fire conference.

00:00:12.600 | Eric writes in to ask, "Pastor John, you stated at the end of episode 216 that a lack of emotions

00:00:18.400 | may be worse than too much emotion when discussing charismatic abuses.

00:00:22.400 | Can you explain why?"

00:00:24.040 | Nick from Sanford, Florida asks more generally, "Pastor John, what is the proper role of emotions

00:00:29.960 | in the Christian life?"

00:00:31.440 | And Kathy in South Dakota asks, "Pastor John, can you expand on your comment at the end

00:00:35.960 | of episode 216 about the absence of emotion being more deadly than the excess?"

00:00:41.200 | I am super pleased that those listeners picked up on that comment.

00:00:44.640 | I wanted to say more about that because I felt like I dropped that in there.

00:00:48.920 | I think, "Is anybody going to get this?"

00:00:51.040 | I mean, this is important.

00:00:53.160 | I think too few people make the observation that non-emotion is more dangerous than excessive

00:01:05.400 | emotion.

00:01:06.960 | Many see emotionalism and condemn it rightly, all right, rightly.

00:01:13.440 | That is, emotion—here's my definition of emotionalism—emotion that is not rooted

00:01:19.000 | in truth and is not proportional to the truth that's in view and is not regulated by truth.

00:01:26.360 | So as soon as emotion gets disconnected from biblical truth and the mental grasp of that

00:01:34.240 | truth, it spins out of control into emotionalism, and that is rightly criticized.

00:01:43.800 | So we see that, and we recognize that because it's usually weird, right?

00:01:49.920 | It usually gets on TV, and it's over the top, and people make spoofs of it with Benny

00:01:54.760 | Hinn wielding a lightsaber and that sort of thing.

00:01:58.000 | So we know that that is a problem, but too few see the dangers of the absence of emotion.

00:02:07.360 | They think that this is more or less safe and normal and not very vulnerable to error

00:02:15.120 | and destruction.

00:02:17.260 | But stop and think about it.

00:02:19.340 | How many warnings are there in Scripture of being too glad in God?

00:02:26.120 | Not many.

00:02:28.500 | How many commands are there to be glad in God, really glad in God, exceedingly, like

00:02:35.040 | leaping like a lamb from the stall, and great is the Lord and greatly to be praised?

00:02:41.600 | How many of those are there?

00:02:42.760 | Well, dozens and dozens and dozens.

00:02:46.440 | Very few warnings about excessive rejoicing in the Bible.

00:02:50.760 | Very, very few.

00:02:52.640 | Lots of commands to get your heart up high in affections for God.

00:03:00.340 | And there are warnings about worshiping God with your lips and not with your heart.

00:03:07.560 | Matthew 15, 8.

00:03:09.320 | They worship Him in vain.

00:03:12.300 | And that means that the absence of heart engagement is deadly as far as Jesus is concerned.

00:03:21.840 | And I know Paul said, "Be babes in evil, in your thinking be mature," to which I say,

00:03:28.400 | yes, yes, yes, yes, in your thinking be mature.

00:03:32.120 | I love thinking.

00:03:33.660 | We started schools.

00:03:35.180 | I write books.

00:03:36.700 | We try to think clearly about God.

00:03:38.640 | But there's nothing in the Bible that says right thinking must or should be associated

00:03:43.800 | with weak or low muffled emotions.

00:03:47.560 | That's a cultural connection that ought to be destroyed.

00:03:52.320 | High, clear, rigorous, logical thinking about the things of God produces low emotions.

00:04:00.000 | Baloney.

00:04:01.000 | It doesn't.

00:04:02.440 | It mustn't.

00:04:03.840 | So in answer to the question, the proper role of emotion is that spiritual emotions are

00:04:10.920 | essential to pleasing God.

00:04:14.760 | And here's what I mean by spiritual emotions.

00:04:16.880 | I mean spiritual affections, the lively actings of the will, not the physical concomitants.

00:04:24.280 | Let me clarify.

00:04:26.280 | Fluttering eyelashes, wobbly knees, sweaty palms, quickened heart rate, short breath,

00:04:34.880 | warm to the touch, like if you're praying for somebody's healing and your hand gets

00:04:37.880 | warm, uncontrollable laughter, collapsing, etc.

00:04:42.520 | All these things.

00:04:43.520 | But these are not what I mean by spiritual emotions.

00:04:48.680 | They're merely physical reflexes that have no necessary spiritual significance at all.

00:04:55.360 | What I mean by spiritual emotions that count are the spiritual affections that are awakened

00:05:02.560 | by the Holy Spirit in response to God's Word and God's work.

00:05:08.580 | They're rooted in the Gospel.

00:05:10.640 | They're carried and enhanced by truth.

00:05:13.720 | They may be mild and quiet, or they may be intense and loud.

00:05:19.960 | They are what the heart was made by God to experience.

00:05:24.700 | This is what I say is essential to Christian living.

00:05:29.060 | Not to have these spiritual affections is to be dead.

00:05:33.360 | And to be dead is to be lost, and that's serious.

00:05:36.800 | We are to love God with all our heart, not just all our mind.

00:05:42.800 | We're commanded in the Bible, "Rejoice, fear, hope, be satisfied, be tenderhearted, be thankful,

00:05:51.000 | hate, be sorrowful, weep with those who weep."

00:05:54.560 | These are all spiritual emotions, and they're all commanded.

00:05:59.760 | They're not decisions of the will.

00:06:01.280 | None of those are.

00:06:02.560 | They're all events of the heart that rise because a person has been touched by something

00:06:09.480 | in the truth by the Holy Spirit.

00:06:11.480 | And they're not optional.

00:06:13.640 | It's not optional to be an ungrateful Christian.

00:06:16.640 | You can't be an ungrateful Christian.

00:06:18.480 | If you're an ungrateful Christian, you're dead.

00:06:21.520 | Christian has the affection, the emotion of gratitude welling up in his heart.

00:06:26.040 | So the psalmists cry out repeatedly for God to awaken and sustain their emotions.

00:06:32.440 | Now, I just wonder, how many people do that?

00:06:35.600 | Do they cry out, "God, give me joy.

00:06:38.200 | Give me the right sense of gratitude.

00:06:40.140 | Give me the right tenderness.

00:06:41.800 | Grant me these fruits of affections."

00:06:45.280 | They are so crucial.

00:06:46.280 | I've argued, I mean, most of my life is devoted to arguing, that the manifestation of the glory

00:06:53.000 | of God is at stake in this because God is most glorified in us when we're most satisfied

00:06:58.600 | in him.

00:06:59.800 | You show what your treasure is by what you take most pleasure in.

00:07:04.360 | Let me say that again because this is really radical.

00:07:08.200 | It's devastating to a lot of people.

00:07:10.100 | You show what your treasure is by what you take most pleasure in, either God or something

00:07:18.260 | he made, which is idolatry.

00:07:22.000 | Christians are not icing on the cake of Christian duty.

00:07:27.120 | They are at the heart of the faith because faith is coming to Jesus to have your heart

00:07:31.760 | satisfied in him and all God is for us in him.

00:07:37.880 | So that's the place that they have and how important they are, which is why I wrote the

00:07:43.160 | book "When I Don't Desire God, How to Fight for Joy" because I know most people, when

00:07:47.480 | they hear this, they feel discouraged because they say, "Whoa, if emotions and spiritual

00:07:53.240 | affections are that important, I'm a goner."

00:07:57.600 | And I want to say, "Well, join the club.

00:07:59.720 | It does feel like we're goners because we all fail to measure up to the kind of intensity

00:08:04.600 | God is worthy of."

00:08:06.380 | So if you're concerned about that, I would recommend "When I Don't Desire God" that I

00:08:11.920 | tried to write for people like us.

00:08:15.080 | Now, you asked one other question, I think.

00:08:20.080 | Why is the absence of emotion so deadly, more deadly than the excess?

00:08:25.160 | Because I said that in that podcast.

00:08:28.360 | Well consider this.

00:08:29.760 | If you follow the course or the pathway from evangelical faith to liberalism, say a person

00:08:38.520 | starts in a good solid church and he winds up a liberal who doesn't believe the Bible

00:08:43.280 | anymore or becomes a skeptic, agnostic, secularist, atheist, is that pathway that he has taken

00:08:51.720 | usually accompanied by people with intensified religious emotions or the death of religious

00:09:01.080 | emotions?

00:09:03.280 | And my answer is that most unbelieving liberal churches are not filled with emotion.

00:09:12.160 | And therefore, where we get the idea that emotion is a greater danger to the Christian

00:09:18.920 | faith than the absence of emotion is mind-bogglingly unintelligible to me.

00:09:25.040 | Are university classrooms where the faith is debunked filled with faculty who are excessively

00:09:31.920 | emotional about biblical things?

00:09:34.040 | "Oh, give me a break!"

00:09:36.560 | Or do they scoff at spiritual emotion?

00:09:40.080 | These are the real killers in our culture.

00:09:42.160 | These are the people that are destroying faith in our young people.

00:09:47.480 | They're not people who are over-the-top emotional about Jesus because they love Jesus so much

00:09:52.680 | they do weird things.

00:09:54.760 | These are people who are scoffing at emotion.

00:09:58.640 | So I would venture to say that millions more people perish in dead, emotionless churches

00:10:05.720 | than in churches that are excessively emotional.

00:10:08.440 | Here's my counter-statement to strange fire.

00:10:12.080 | Therefore, my crusade—closing admonition—my crusade is not to throw a damper on emotion

00:10:21.680 | when I find it in a church, even find it excessive, but to lift up a clear, robust, intellectually

00:10:29.560 | responsible biblical vision of the sovereignty of the grace of God, with all of its radical

00:10:35.880 | implications of God's absolute control.

00:10:39.440 | And what effect that has is separate the sheep and the goats really quick among the emotional

00:10:43.920 | people.

00:10:45.140 | The super-duper emotional people who are born of God, they hear it and they say, "Amen!

00:10:50.440 | Amen!"

00:10:51.440 | And they get more excited because God is sovereign and powerful.

00:10:55.440 | And those that are just there for the trip or the money or the influence, they hear the

00:11:00.720 | truth and they don't hear the shepherd.

00:11:05.000 | The sheep hear the shepherd and they follow and they bleat all the louder.

00:11:10.280 | And the goats, they wander off to find something else to be excited about.

00:11:14.360 | So I say let's focus on proclaiming and teaching truth, not berating emotional people.

00:11:22.720 | Thank you, Pastor John.

00:11:25.120 | And thank you, listeners, for your attentiveness and excellent email questions like these.

00:11:28.840 | Please continue to send us your questions.

00:11:31.340 | You can email them to us at AskPastorJohn@DesiringGod.org.

00:11:35.800 | And you can visit us online at DesiringGod.org to find thousands of books, articles, sermons,

00:11:39.720 | and other resources from John Piper, all free of charge.

00:11:42.860 | And that includes the book, "When I Don't Desire God," which you can download for free.

00:11:47.480 | Tomorrow we're back and we're talking tattoos.

00:11:49.640 | Yes, tattoos.

00:11:50.640 | Until then, I'm your host, Tony Reinke.

00:11:52.800 | Thanks for listening.

00:11:53.520 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

00:12:01.960 | you

Why Stoicism Is Toxic

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