Let the Nations Be Glad! — Thirty Years Later
00:00:00.000 | [Music]
00:00:04.000 | It's Monday on the podcast, but it's Tuesday in real time for us because we're in Nashville right now
00:00:08.800 | at the Sing Global 2022 Getty Music Worship Conference,
00:00:12.720 | recording this before a live studio audience. Let me hear you.
00:00:16.240 | [Applause]
00:00:22.960 | That was good.
00:00:23.760 | We have been recently on the podcast talking a lot about spiritual gifts,
00:00:26.640 | and speaking of spiritual gifts, if anyone here has any inclination whatsoever towards missions,
00:00:31.760 | you've probably heard about or even read John Piper's book, Let the Nations Be Glad.
00:00:36.560 | That book turns 30 years old this summer, with over 300,000 copies sold.
00:00:43.680 | To celebrate, we just released a 30th anniversary edition, an expanded hardcover of that book.
00:00:50.240 | For those of you who want to read it again, or maybe you haven't read it before,
00:00:53.680 | this is a good time to do it. Let the Nations Be Glad.
00:00:56.560 | Pastor John, looking back now on 30 years of what God has done with that book,
00:01:00.160 | what thoughts do you have on that book and missions going forward?
00:01:03.600 | It's the most surprising book that I've written, surprising in its effect,
00:01:11.360 | because it has been used to strengthen the hands of veteran missionaries and awaken a desire for
00:01:18.720 | missions among aspiring missionaries, and it has been used to clarify what we're doing among
00:01:25.680 | younger missionaries.
00:01:27.520 | And so I've been amazed.
00:01:28.640 | And what's surprising is that I've never been a missionary.
00:01:32.800 | I've never crossed a culture, learned a new language, embedded myself in a people,
00:01:39.120 | and given my life to growing Christ Church there.
00:01:42.720 | I've never done that.
00:01:43.600 | I've been a pastor of a local church all those years when that book was coming into being.
00:01:48.400 | And so it has stunned me that a person with no, no missionary experience could write a book
00:01:55.760 | that God would use in mission.
00:01:59.680 | So that's the first thing that strikes me is why would that be?
00:02:05.280 | I think the answer is it's Bible-saturated, and Bible has its own power.
00:02:12.240 | You don't have to be anybody if you speak the Word of God faithfully.
00:02:17.440 | So that's the first thought.
00:02:18.960 | The second thought is I was just trying in those early years, during the '80s,
00:02:23.600 | the book I think came out in '91 or '92, since this is 30 years.
00:02:28.320 | I was just trying to bring my big God theology, Calvinism, Reform theology,
00:02:37.760 | to bear on the local church and to be consistent with it in all that we did.
00:02:45.840 | And one of the things we wanted to be was a platform for the sending of missionaries.
00:02:51.600 | And I had to come to terms with, okay, what's the relationship between being radically
00:02:58.080 | God-centered, believing in the absolute sovereignty of God and the saving of sinners,
00:03:02.960 | and that launching pad?
00:03:05.520 | And it emerged as perfect because the book, the subtitle is called "The Supremacy of God
00:03:13.120 | in Missions," and the title is called "Let the Nations Be Glad."
00:03:17.280 | So my Reform theology comes out in the subtitle, and my Christian hedonism comes out in the title.
00:03:25.600 | And Christian hedonism simply means that God is most glorified among the nations
00:03:30.800 | when the nations are most satisfied in God.
00:03:35.120 | And that's what Psalm 67 says.
00:03:37.520 | "Let the nations be glad.
00:03:38.720 | Let the peoples praise him, O Lord.
00:03:41.120 | Let the peoples praise you."
00:03:43.040 | So the gladness of the nations and the glory of God came together perfectly in my theology.
00:03:51.760 | I thought there's nothing more obvious than that we should be a missionary sending church
00:03:56.720 | and that I should do everything I can to mobilize people for the cause of missions.
00:04:01.120 | And during those years of trying to mobilize people, thought after thought after thought
00:04:07.040 | came that moved towards a book.
00:04:10.000 | And some of those thoughts included, "Are people really lost?"
00:04:13.680 | So many people today don't--they're all into other issues besides rescuing lost people
00:04:20.480 | from perishing.
00:04:21.280 | Are people going to hell?
00:04:23.600 | So I had to answer that, give good, solid, exegetical foundations for that heartbreaking
00:04:31.200 | reality.
00:04:31.840 | And then, do you have to hear about Jesus in order to be saved?
00:04:39.520 | Lots of evangelicals are inclusivists and say, "No, you don't have to hear about it."
00:04:45.840 | He did it, yes, and purchased salvation, but you don't have to hear about it in order to
00:04:51.840 | benefit from it.
00:04:52.560 | So I had to write about that.
00:04:54.560 | And then the last one was peoples versus people.
00:04:58.000 | I mean, that was a real red-hot issue that nobody thought about when I was growing up.
00:05:02.880 | I never used the word people with an S on the end when I was growing up, ever.
00:05:07.520 | I remember using it one time, and a little girl said to me, "People is already plural.
00:05:13.040 | You don't say peoples, you say people."
00:05:17.840 | She corrected me.
00:05:19.280 | That's very sharp.
00:05:21.520 | But now she needs to be taught missiology because there are thousands of peoples, and
00:05:28.880 | the Bible talks about them, and that missions is reaching all those peoples, not saving
00:05:34.400 | every soul.
00:05:35.440 | Jesus is going to come back when people are not yet saved, but I don't think He's coming
00:05:40.480 | back until the mission is finished, and the mission includes reaching the peoples.
00:05:45.680 | So we had to deal with the whole issue of peoples versus people.
00:05:51.840 | So those are the pieces that came together.
00:05:55.280 | And the last thing I would say is it's the only book I have written, I think, from which
00:06:02.080 | people remember one sentence.
00:06:05.280 | "Missions exist because worship doesn't."
00:06:07.920 | I was just talking to a guy in the restroom 20 minutes ago, all right?
00:06:14.400 | And he was asking me a question about my talk yesterday, and he said, "You gave the impression
00:06:20.480 | that eternity is going to be an endless worship service."
00:06:24.640 | I said, "Wrong impression."
00:06:26.400 | And you're right.
00:06:27.040 | I probably did leave that impression.
00:06:29.120 | I didn't mean to because I think worship from the heart, corporately, is more than worship
00:06:35.200 | services.
00:06:35.760 | It's all that you do, according to Romans 12, 1 and 2.
00:06:39.200 | You laid on your whole life in your vocation and your hobbies and everything when it does
00:06:44.720 | from the heart.
00:06:45.760 | And I said, "Most people, when they read that sentence, first sentence in the book,
00:06:52.880 | 'Missions exist because worship doesn't,' misunderstand it by thinking, 'I mean, missions
00:07:00.720 | exist because worship services don't exist.'
00:07:03.280 | That's not what I mean."
00:07:04.480 | And so I clarified it in later editions.
00:07:08.080 | I mean, people are not living out of a supreme valuing of God above all things.
00:07:14.960 | - Amen.
00:07:16.080 | We recorded this episode live in Nashville with a bunch of you who showed up and showed
00:07:20.480 | up alive and showed up engaged.
00:07:22.160 | It was a great memory.
00:07:23.280 | If you were there, thank you for your enthusiasm and your presence.
00:07:26.880 | It was great meeting so many of you after the session at the book signing.
00:07:31.600 | Four other episodes came from this recording session, and we're going to start 2023 off
00:07:35.840 | with them.
00:07:36.240 | So stay tuned for more episodes from our live recording in Nashville.
00:07:40.080 | In the 30th anniversary re-release of "Let the Nations Be Glad" is available in a newly
00:07:45.600 | expanded hardcover.
00:07:46.880 | Get it at a discount right now at Westminster Books.
00:07:50.480 | Go to WTSBooks.com.
00:07:53.040 | That's WTSBooks.com to find it.
00:07:56.720 | Next time we have a special episode on a topic that I've wanted to bring up for a long time,
00:08:02.240 | particularly over that question, "How do we approach God during seasons when we feel our
00:08:10.080 | brokenness, particularly when that brokenness is a brokenness over the guilt and shame of
00:08:14.800 | our own sin?"
00:08:15.680 | How then do we approach God?
00:08:19.600 | That question gets answered robustly in two full chapters in Nehemiah, chapters 9 and
00:08:23.920 | 10.
00:08:24.400 | Pastor John is going to walk us through those next time.
00:08:26.400 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke.
00:08:28.080 | We'll see you back here on Wednesday.
00:08:29.920 | Thanks for listening.
00:08:31.040 | [END]
00:08:32.080 | 1
00:08:33.040 | Nehemiah 2
00:08:34.320 | Nehemiah 3
00:08:35.360 | Nehemiah 4
00:08:36.320 | Nehemiah 5
00:08:36.320 | [BLANK_AUDIO]