Does God Ever Withdraw His Presence from His Children?
00:00:00.000 | [music]
00:00:06.000 | Are there times in the Christian life when, for whatever reason, God chooses to withhold
00:00:09.920 | His presence from us, and thus nullifies all hope that we would experience Godward affections?
00:00:15.640 | The Puritans seem to operate from this assumption.
00:00:17.760 | Pastor John, if this is true, if God withdraws from the Christian at times, thus making joy
00:00:22.260 | in God impossible, doesn't then Christian hedonism, the call to be happy in God, doesn't
00:00:27.160 | this plea just heap guilt on such a person?
00:00:30.680 | I do believe that God lifts His hand, or another image would be covers us with darkness at
00:00:40.360 | times.
00:00:41.880 | I don't think Christian hedonism adds guilt.
00:00:45.400 | I think Christian hedonism names guilt.
00:00:49.120 | In other words, it is proper to feel bad that we're not rejoicing in the Lord.
00:00:57.520 | That's part of what darkness is.
00:01:01.480 | We can't rejoice, and we feel bad we can't rejoice.
00:01:04.680 | Christian hedonism is not going to withdraw the biblical statements, "Rejoice always."
00:01:09.400 | It's not going to withdraw the biblical mandate to be sorrowful, yet always rejoicing, as
00:01:15.920 | though, "Okay, we'll just change the Bible so you don't feel bad in this moment."
00:01:19.600 | Instead, what Christian hedonism does is say, "I know what you're talking about."
00:01:26.480 | This view of joy is not a naïve view of joy.
00:01:29.800 | It's not a view that assumes we don't have seasons of horrible darkness.
00:01:36.120 | My favorite passage of Scripture in this regard of darkness and seasons of desertion is Micah
00:01:44.440 | 7, 8, and 9.
00:01:46.360 | I preached a sermon a few years ago in which I used the phrase "gutsy guilt."
00:01:53.880 | It goes like this.
00:01:54.880 | This is Micah 7, 8.
00:01:56.800 | "Rejoice not over me, O my enemy.
00:02:00.080 | When I fall, I shall rise.
00:02:03.120 | When I sit in darkness, the Lord will be a light for me."
00:02:08.400 | He's confessing right there, "I do sit in darkness."
00:02:12.920 | It's not bright right now.
00:02:13.920 | It's a cloud.
00:02:14.920 | So verse 9, "I will bear the indignation of the Lord because I have sinned against
00:02:20.600 | Him until He pleads my cause and executes judgment for me.
00:02:26.040 | He will bring me out to the light.
00:02:28.120 | I shall look upon His vindication."
00:02:30.480 | That is one of the most magnificent, realistic statements of what it means to be a justified
00:02:37.240 | sinner in darkness.
00:02:40.480 | It's an unbelievably gutsy experience of guilt.
00:02:44.440 | That's why I'm resisting the statement that we shouldn't feel guilty or shouldn't
00:02:49.600 | add to guilt by acknowledging biblical truth.
00:02:53.120 | We embrace our guilt.
00:02:55.240 | When I am discouraged, defeated, dark, and feel little joy, it's not going to help
00:03:02.640 | me to have a naive view of my own sin and say, "Oh, I'm not so guilty after all."
00:03:07.280 | I am guilty.
00:03:08.280 | Then the question is, "What do you do with your guilt?"
00:03:12.120 | He says, "When I fall, I shall rise.
00:03:15.000 | When I sit in darkness, the Lord is still my light even though I can't see it.
00:03:19.040 | I'm going to bear this indignation because I've sinned against Him until," and there's
00:03:23.840 | this lapse of time, "He pleads my cause and executes judgment for me."
00:03:29.480 | What I want to say to the person in darkness, even lengthy darkness, is keep holding on
00:03:36.600 | to the hope that God is going to vindicate you and bring you out to the light.
00:03:42.400 | The text that I have probably used most often with discouraged, dark saints, including myself,
00:03:48.600 | is Psalm 40.
00:03:50.120 | When I came to Bethlehem 32+ years ago, one of the first sermons I preached was called
00:03:57.680 | In the Pits with the King, based on Psalm 40, where it says, "I waited patiently
00:04:04.680 | for the Lord.
00:04:06.000 | He heard my cry.
00:04:07.280 | He lifted me up out of the miry pit, out of the bog.
00:04:10.480 | He set my feet upon a rock.
00:04:12.800 | He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God.
00:04:16.360 | Many will see and fear and put their trust in the Lord."
00:04:18.840 | I asked people when I caught them that, "How long do you think they waited for the Lord?"
00:04:25.680 | I waited for the Lord.
00:04:28.520 | David is saying, "I was in a pit.
00:04:31.460 | My feet were in muck.
00:04:33.580 | There was darkness over my head, and God wasn't showing up."
00:04:37.400 | He waited.
00:04:38.400 | That's what I want to say, that we wait.
00:04:42.240 | Christian hedonists say we ought to be happy.
00:04:45.040 | We're not.
00:04:46.040 | That's bad.
00:04:47.040 | We acknowledge it's bad, and we're not going to despair because we are bad.
00:04:51.680 | We're looking away in the darkness, looking away to Christ, and we're waiting for God's
00:04:57.560 | timing to restore the joy of our salvation.
00:05:01.560 | When he does it, then we realize, "Okay, there was a purpose for that, because now
00:05:06.240 | people are seeing and putting their trust in the Lord."
00:05:10.280 | Thank you, Pastor John, and thank you for listening to this podcast.
00:05:14.920 | For more on this subject, see Pastor John's book, "When the Darkness Will Not Lift."
00:05:19.680 | You can find it and thousands of other free resources from John Piper online at DesiringGod.org.
00:05:24.560 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke.
00:05:26.120 | Thanks for listening.
00:05:26.880 | [END]
00:05:27.380 | Desiring God's Timing to Restore the Joy of Our Salvation.
00:05:29.380 | By John Piper.
00:05:31.380 | [PAUSE]
00:05:33.380 | [BLANK_AUDIO]