Has God Abandoned Me?

00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)

00:00:02.580 | - Well, how do we respond when God feels distant from us?

00:00:09.260 | Several versions of that question have come in recently

00:00:12.760 | from listeners on the topic of spiritual desertion.

00:00:16.080 | I can boil them down to three categories basically.

00:00:19.340 | First, spiritual desertion is an experience

00:00:23.100 | of God hiding his face from the believer.

00:00:26.120 | But in the great text on contentment

00:00:28.240 | and how we live free from the love of money,

00:00:30.840 | we are given a glorious promise,

00:00:32.520 | one we have repeated several times on APJ.

00:00:34.960 | We should cultivate material contentment in this life

00:00:37.600 | because God has promised us,

00:00:39.040 | quote, "I will never leave you nor forsake you,"

00:00:42.320 | end quote, that's Hebrews 13 five.

00:00:45.240 | So how does desertion relate to this promise

00:00:47.720 | that we will never be forsaken?

00:00:50.080 | Secondly, does the Bible tell us why God deserts believers?

00:00:54.280 | Should we read into the experience of desertion

00:00:57.020 | as something we have failed to do or need yet to do?

00:01:00.680 | And what has his absence felt like to you,

00:01:03.480 | Pastor John, personally?

00:01:06.040 | And then third, in the famous desertion psalm of Psalm 22,

00:01:09.360 | we read that God does not hear the psalmist's prayers

00:01:12.560 | and refuses to deliver him from his distress,

00:01:14.960 | hence the felt desertion.

00:01:17.080 | And yet the psalmist still delights in God in verse eight.

00:01:19.920 | So what does it look like to delight in God

00:01:22.520 | in felt desertion?

00:01:24.720 | So Pastor John, there's a mix of questions for you

00:01:27.580 | all under this label, this umbrella of spiritual desertion.

00:01:31.740 | - Well, just a word of caution to start.

00:01:34.700 | The term spiritual desertion doesn't occur in the Bible,

00:01:39.700 | nor does the word desertion itself,

00:01:43.020 | at least not in the ESV.

00:01:45.820 | So we have to be careful that when non-biblical words

00:01:51.240 | or terms are used to describe biblical realities,

00:01:56.140 | we don't force any connotations of those non-biblical words

00:02:01.140 | onto the biblical reality.

00:02:04.980 | I think what's being asked in all of these concerns

00:02:09.580 | is not only about the objective circumstances

00:02:14.460 | that can be so painful in the lives of Christians

00:02:17.580 | that it looks objectively like God

00:02:20.900 | is just no longer working for us,

00:02:23.940 | but probably more what's being asked

00:02:27.620 | is about the subjective inner sense

00:02:31.380 | when we don't feel the presence of God

00:02:34.800 | and we don't see the glory of God

00:02:37.340 | and we don't sense the sweetness of his fellowship.

00:02:41.000 | Whether he's near or far,

00:02:42.780 | the question I think is mainly about subjectively,

00:02:45.600 | he feels far, it's true that a Christian

00:02:50.280 | can have the experience of desertion

00:02:53.580 | in both of these senses.

00:02:55.800 | The objective, it just looks like he's gone.

00:02:58.980 | He doesn't do anything for me anymore.

00:03:01.340 | And the subjective, whether he's near or far,

00:03:04.580 | I don't feel, I don't taste, I don't sense.

00:03:08.060 | I think that's the main concern.

00:03:10.160 | So I won't linger long over the first sense

00:03:13.240 | because that's not the focus of these questions,

00:03:16.020 | I don't think, and I've spoken about it so often.

00:03:19.060 | I'll only say that Paul deals

00:03:21.300 | with the objective afflictions of Christians

00:03:25.700 | in Romans 8, 35 to 38,

00:03:27.720 | and amazingly, he does so by quoting the Psalms.

00:03:32.720 | He quotes Psalm 42, 22 to 24, which says,

00:03:37.460 | "We have not forgotten your name, O Lord.

00:03:40.780 | "We have not spread out our hands to a foreign God,

00:03:44.080 | "yet for your sake we are being killed all day long.

00:03:47.700 | "We are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.

00:03:50.480 | "Why do you hide your face?"

00:03:54.160 | And Paul explains that God's face is hidden

00:03:59.160 | only in the sense that outward,

00:04:02.440 | physical blessings are being withheld.

00:04:05.800 | But he protests strongly that in every loss

00:04:10.680 | and affliction for the Christian,

00:04:13.660 | we are more than conquerors.

00:04:16.440 | So Paul's answer to the outward,

00:04:18.580 | objective appearance of desertion

00:04:21.140 | is that God is present, he's here,

00:04:24.140 | and he's working through our troubles.

00:04:27.820 | And in that very teaching, Paul paradoxically shows

00:04:31.860 | that if we really understood what God was doing,

00:04:35.620 | we would know it was to help us see him more clearly,

00:04:39.420 | not less.

00:04:41.020 | There's this beautiful poem called "The Thorn"

00:04:44.780 | by Martha Nicholson, who died in 1953,

00:04:49.300 | that ends like this.

00:04:50.760 | He never gives a thorn without this added grace.

00:04:56.600 | He takes the thorn to pin aside the veil,

00:05:02.780 | which hides his face.

00:05:05.380 | So Paul's answer to this first kind of objective desertion

00:05:10.380 | is that we need to learn the biblical truth

00:05:13.540 | that the thorns of life, which we think are God's desertion,

00:05:18.540 | are in fact designed to pin back the veil of worldliness

00:05:23.620 | that hides God's loving face.

00:05:27.260 | That's a huge change in your mindset,

00:05:29.720 | but crucial in order to understand

00:05:32.800 | how to respond to what appears to be objective absence

00:05:37.380 | of God, but isn't.

00:05:39.140 | But the main thing, I think, being asked in these questions

00:05:43.060 | is about the inner sense of the Christian

00:05:47.100 | when we don't feel the presence of God

00:05:50.220 | and we don't see or savor the glory of God,

00:05:54.240 | and we don't sense the sweetness of his fellowship.

00:05:59.180 | So let me give several texts from the New Testament

00:06:03.640 | that provide biblical categories that are Christian,

00:06:08.640 | Christian categories for this experience,

00:06:13.400 | the experience of more or less of this darkness,

00:06:17.640 | as if the Lord were absent because you don't see

00:06:21.360 | or savor his beauty or feel his fellowship.

00:06:24.360 | So number one, 1 Corinthians 13, 12.

00:06:28.080 | Now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face.

00:06:33.080 | Now I know in part, then I shall know fully,

00:06:39.720 | even as I have been fully known.

00:06:41.480 | In other words, some measure of hiddenness

00:06:46.400 | is what we have to live with now,

00:06:49.740 | no matter how we live until Jesus comes.

00:06:54.600 | Second, Ephesians 5, 19, be filled with the Holy Spirit,

00:06:59.600 | meaning that there are different measures

00:07:04.720 | of experience of the Holy Spirit's fullness.

00:07:08.800 | And what does the Holy Spirit do

00:07:11.200 | but reveal the beauties of Christ

00:07:14.800 | and thus stir us up to joy and boldness?

00:07:18.600 | So there's more or less clarity

00:07:21.880 | of spiritual seeing and savoring,

00:07:25.280 | depending on what degree of fullness we are enjoying.

00:07:29.480 | Third, Ephesians 4, 30, Paul says,

00:07:32.880 | do not grieve the Holy Spirit.

00:07:36.040 | And in 1 Thessalonians 5, 19, he says,

00:07:39.000 | do not quench the Spirit.

00:07:41.440 | So there are sinful attitudes and behaviors

00:07:45.200 | which do indeed grieve and quench the Spirit

00:07:50.380 | and thus draw a veil between us and the beauty of Christ,

00:07:55.380 | which the Spirit gives.

00:07:58.820 | Fourth, Paul prays in Ephesians 1, 18,

00:08:03.960 | that the eyes of your hearts would be enlightened

00:08:07.960 | so that you may know your calling,

00:08:12.240 | your inheritance, and the power of Christ in you.

00:08:16.800 | In other words, the eyes of our hearts

00:08:19.640 | see with greater or lesser clarity the glories of Christ.

00:08:24.640 | And finally, 2 Corinthians 4, 6,

00:08:29.320 | Paul says that God shines in our hearts

00:08:32.720 | to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God

00:08:35.120 | in the face of Christ.

00:08:36.860 | That's the glory we long to see

00:08:39.060 | with steady, unveiled brightness.

00:08:43.540 | But all of these texts imply

00:08:47.300 | that the Christian life is variable.

00:08:50.780 | It is a fight to the end.

00:08:53.780 | Paul says, I have fought the good fight

00:08:56.820 | just before he dies.

00:08:57.880 | I've fought the good fight, finished my course.

00:09:02.020 | And it's mainly a fight to see.

00:09:04.500 | It's a fight to see and savor the beauty of Christ

00:09:09.120 | right to the end.

00:09:11.000 | One of the questions that you read

00:09:14.440 | asks me personally what the absence of God

00:09:18.780 | has felt like to me.

00:09:21.300 | And I would answer like this.

00:09:22.940 | God has given me the grace

00:09:27.120 | not to think in terms of God's absence,

00:09:31.420 | but only of my dullness, my disobedience.

00:09:37.160 | In other words, I believe that Jesus Christ,

00:09:41.720 | as my Savior, is always near.

00:09:45.360 | First, because he is omnipresent.

00:09:49.200 | He upholds the universe by the word of his power.

00:09:51.140 | But second, because he promised,

00:09:53.600 | I will be with you always, always, to the end of the age.

00:09:58.200 | Matthew 28, 20.

00:09:59.860 | And third, because he has put his spirit within me

00:10:03.540 | as the down payment of my final redemption,

00:10:06.540 | and the spirit does not come and go.

00:10:08.380 | Ephesians 1, 14.

00:10:10.440 | Therefore, my experience is not of God's absence,

00:10:15.360 | but of my absence, my dullness, my faithlessness,

00:10:20.360 | my disobedience.

00:10:23.300 | I don't fight to get God's objective presence.

00:10:28.300 | It's there.

00:10:29.860 | I fight to get his manifest presence, experienced presence.

00:10:37.080 | That's my experience of his reality,

00:10:40.960 | which really means that the key changes

00:10:43.400 | have to happen in me, not him.

00:10:46.880 | His location is not the issue.

00:10:49.680 | My faith, my sanctification is the issue,

00:10:53.420 | and that's the battle of my life every day.

00:10:57.080 | So finally, the last question is,

00:11:00.560 | what does it look like to delight in God

00:11:04.160 | in felt desertion?

00:11:07.120 | It's a huge question, so let me just point to a passage

00:11:11.600 | for you to think about.

00:11:13.200 | Hebrews 12, 2 says, "Look to Jesus,

00:11:16.720 | "who for the joy that was set before him

00:11:20.520 | "endured the cross."

00:11:24.040 | So Jesus experienced a profound sense of desertion

00:11:29.040 | on the cross as he cried out,

00:11:30.640 | "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

00:11:36.400 | And this text in Hebrews says,

00:11:39.040 | "He was able to endure that

00:11:41.680 | "by the joy that was set before him."

00:11:46.160 | Now, I think that means that the faith of Jesus

00:11:52.160 | in his father was able to hold on,

00:11:56.400 | was able to taste by memory or by hope

00:12:02.760 | some incremental measure of the anticipated joy with God.

00:12:07.760 | I think that's what it looks like for us as well.

00:12:14.040 | For God's elect, for his adopted children,

00:12:19.840 | God will hold us fast, like the song says.

00:12:24.840 | And the way he holds us is by preserving

00:12:29.600 | that mustard seed of remembered or anticipated joy

00:12:34.600 | at the father's right hand.

00:12:39.080 | - Thank you, Pastor John, for covering so much ground

00:12:42.560 | in this one episode, and thank you for sending in

00:12:44.760 | so many great questions to us.

00:12:46.640 | If you have a question you'd like to post to Pastor John,

00:12:49.040 | send it to us.

00:12:50.440 | Ask that question, search our growing archive,

00:12:52.280 | or subscribe to the podcast.

00:12:53.400 | You can do all that at desiringgod.org/askpastorjohn.

00:12:59.220 | Well, are non-Christian marriages,

00:13:01.380 | the marriages of two non-Christians,

00:13:04.040 | is that union legit in God's eyes?

00:13:07.400 | Why or why not?

00:13:08.280 | It's a great question.

00:13:09.840 | It's up next on the other side of The Weekend.

00:13:12.000 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke,

00:13:13.000 | and we'll see you back here on Monday.

00:13:15.280 | Thanks for listening.

00:13:16.320 | (upbeat music)

00:13:18.900 | (upbeat music)

00:13:21.480 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

Has God Abandoned Me?

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