Did My Dad Die Because I Lacked Faith?
00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)
00:00:02.580 | A man who is anonymous, but who listens to the podcast
00:00:07.960 | and who does not give us his age, writes in to ask this.
00:00:11.840 | Hello, Pastor John, blessings to you.
00:00:13.920 | I have a faith question for you today.
00:00:16.800 | My dad recently died of a brain tumor.
00:00:20.840 | And man, we're sorry to hear about this.
00:00:23.660 | I prayed with all the faith I could muster
00:00:27.200 | to ask God that he not die,
00:00:29.780 | but he did.
00:00:31.400 | I wonder if I had more faith, would my dad be alive today?
00:00:35.640 | In the Bible, I always see Jesus healing people
00:00:38.220 | who had faith, even healing them because of their faith.
00:00:41.680 | In Matthew 9.22, Matthew 15.28,
00:00:45.280 | Jesus refused to heal people in his own hometown
00:00:48.280 | because of their unbelief, in Matthew 13.58.
00:00:52.500 | And he even connects the probability of seeing miracles
00:00:55.420 | to the size of one's own personal faith in Matthew 17.20.
00:01:00.120 | So could my lack of faith be a factor in my dad's death
00:01:05.120 | or was it simply the will of God for him to die?
00:01:07.880 | I'm sure this is a question for many people who like me
00:01:11.580 | get attacked often by guilt.
00:01:15.480 | I'm gonna take my cue from that last sentence.
00:01:19.600 | I'm sure this is a question for many people
00:01:22.600 | who like me get attacked often by guilt.
00:01:27.600 | So our friend is saying he is often attacked by guilt.
00:01:32.960 | In this case, it's guilt for the death of his father
00:01:39.340 | because of the possibility, he raises,
00:01:42.360 | that if he had had more faith, his father may not have died.
00:01:47.360 | And so he is attacked by guilt
00:01:51.600 | that he may not have had enough faith.
00:01:55.040 | So where I wanna start is this.
00:01:57.460 | Suppose I said, yes, your father would be alive today
00:02:02.460 | if you had had more faith.
00:02:04.720 | And suppose I was right, just two big suppositions,
00:02:07.760 | just saying, try it out.
00:02:09.640 | Suppose I was right and suppose you believed me,
00:02:12.760 | what would you do?
00:02:13.920 | Now, I think the answer to that question
00:02:17.120 | is more important than the question
00:02:19.360 | whether your father would have died
00:02:21.080 | if you'd had more faith.
00:02:22.560 | Because my question has to do with your eternal standing
00:02:27.560 | in God and how you live in it.
00:02:30.900 | But your question has to do only with the length of life
00:02:36.400 | on this earth of your dad
00:02:38.600 | and the relative quality of your faith.
00:02:41.160 | So what would you do if I said, yes,
00:02:44.840 | your father would be alive today if you'd had more faith?
00:02:48.840 | I hope you would say this.
00:02:52.880 | I would get down on my knees
00:02:54.640 | and I would tell God how sorry I was
00:02:59.000 | for being so weak in faith.
00:03:01.980 | And I would grieve over my lack of faith
00:03:05.200 | and I would grieve over the loss of my father.
00:03:09.240 | And I would cry out to Jesus who loved me
00:03:13.840 | and gave himself for me.
00:03:15.840 | And I would tell him that I trust him
00:03:18.640 | and I would receive from him afresh his forgiveness.
00:03:23.640 | And I would ask him to heal my memories,
00:03:29.480 | protect me from the destructive,
00:03:32.160 | paralyzing accusations of guilt
00:03:34.680 | and the evil one that I feel so often
00:03:37.840 | and get tangled up in.
00:03:40.520 | And I would resolve in a fresh way
00:03:44.000 | to put my faith in the promises of God's daily help,
00:03:49.000 | which I so need now to walk in as I move forward.
00:03:54.160 | Now, if that's the way you would respond
00:03:58.640 | to my telling you that your father would be alive
00:04:02.680 | if you had more faith,
00:04:04.400 | then you're in a very, very good position.
00:04:09.040 | Whatever the answer is to your question.
00:04:12.720 | In other words, the question about your faith
00:04:15.880 | in regard to your father's healing
00:04:17.640 | is not nearly as important as your faith
00:04:22.040 | in regard to your standing in the grace of Christ.
00:04:25.760 | This means that you can rest deeply and soundly in Christ.
00:04:30.760 | Whatever else I have to say, and I'm gonna say more.
00:04:35.520 | So here we go.
00:04:36.720 | You ask, "If I had more faith, would my dad be alive today?"
00:04:42.360 | Here's my answer.
00:04:44.080 | I don't know.
00:04:46.520 | And the reason I can say that
00:04:50.200 | and still believe in the sovereign will of God
00:04:53.520 | working all things according to his infinite wisdom,
00:04:57.040 | including life and death,
00:04:58.960 | is that James said, "We have not because we ask not."
00:05:03.280 | James 4, 2.
00:05:04.120 | "We have not because we ask not."
00:05:05.760 | In other words, when certain secondary causes,
00:05:09.600 | praying in this case, asking,
00:05:11.840 | when certain secondary causes are not in place,
00:05:16.120 | then certain effects of those missing causes
00:05:20.760 | don't come about.
00:05:22.600 | And since God rules over the causes as well as the effects,
00:05:27.560 | this is not a contradiction of his sovereign rule.
00:05:31.760 | Here's an analogy.
00:05:33.120 | Would more people,
00:05:34.800 | and I'm with you now in this kind of question.
00:05:37.680 | So these are my questions, and they're like your question.
00:05:41.440 | Would more people have been converted to Christ
00:05:44.600 | when I preached if I had prayed more in preparation?
00:05:48.880 | If I had preached with greater earnestness and tears?
00:05:52.880 | If I had prepared a better sermon
00:05:55.560 | and not given people so many distractions
00:05:58.120 | in the way I stumbled around?
00:05:59.840 | If I had looked people in the eye
00:06:02.240 | and communicated greater personal compassion?
00:06:06.160 | If I had put my sin of pride and self-consciousness
00:06:09.800 | to death more effectively?
00:06:12.400 | If I too had had more faith, more faith,
00:06:15.600 | would more people have been converted?
00:06:17.960 | And my answer is, I don't know.
00:06:21.080 | What I do know is that I would go insane
00:06:25.160 | if I had to figure out that every time I preached,
00:06:30.880 | that when I preach, I've got to know what would have happened
00:06:35.080 | if I had done things differently.
00:06:38.600 | And when I preach, it's not just what's at stake earthly,
00:06:42.600 | it's what's at stake eternal.
00:06:44.800 | Eternal lives are at stake when I preach,
00:06:47.800 | not just my dad's few years of life on the planet.
00:06:51.560 | I cannot bear the burden.
00:06:53.320 | I can't bear it, having to answer the question,
00:06:56.520 | what if, what if, what if, what if?
00:06:59.080 | So it is with our prayers for those we love,
00:07:03.040 | whether physical healing or spiritual salvation.
00:07:07.440 | Would more faith heal?
00:07:09.280 | Would more faith save?
00:07:11.040 | Maybe, maybe not.
00:07:13.400 | Jesus healed when there was no faith.
00:07:16.080 | The widow's son at Nain and the man in John 9
00:07:19.480 | who didn't even know Jesus was after he was healed.
00:07:22.800 | And he healed in response to little faith.
00:07:25.640 | He healed in response to great faith.
00:07:27.760 | He withheld healing for lack of faith.
00:07:31.280 | And Paul called faith a gift.
00:07:33.760 | And he said, you can have faith to remove mountains
00:07:36.240 | and not have love and amount to a big spiritual zero.
00:07:39.800 | So I think the way forward is to seek to grow in faith
00:07:44.800 | and to grow in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus,
00:07:49.680 | according to 2 Peter 3, 18.
00:07:52.840 | Never, never, never be content
00:07:55.240 | with what you already possess in faith.
00:07:58.800 | Always want more of all that God has to give,
00:08:02.600 | but realize that faith is a gift
00:08:06.160 | and you can never presume that God owes it to you.
00:08:11.160 | James teaches us to say,
00:08:13.360 | if the Lord wills, we will live,
00:08:16.520 | live and do this or that.
00:08:19.600 | God decides who lives and who dies.
00:08:23.840 | And he decides when.
00:08:25.680 | And our main job is to trust his promise.
00:08:29.720 | And his promise is not to heal everyone we want healed.
00:08:35.640 | His promise is to do good to those who trust him
00:08:40.640 | and to conform us to Christ
00:08:43.520 | and to give us the grace we need
00:08:45.640 | to persevere in love and holiness to the end.
00:08:50.640 | - Amen.
00:08:51.880 | Those are precious, load-lifting promises to all of us.
00:08:54.760 | Thank you, Pastor John.
00:08:56.320 | And wherever you're listening in the midst of your day,
00:08:58.280 | driving to work, driving from work,
00:08:59.920 | driving the kids around at the gym,
00:09:01.840 | doing chores, walking the dog, whatever you're doing,
00:09:03.800 | thank you for joining us.
00:09:05.720 | And be sure to subscribe to Ask Pastor John
00:09:08.080 | in your favorite podcast app, in YouTube or in Spotify.
00:09:11.800 | For our episode archive or to submit a question,
00:09:14.020 | go to desiringgod.org/askpastorjohn.
00:09:17.600 | Well, is John Piper popular
00:09:20.400 | because he makes Christianity look intelligent?
00:09:24.280 | Hmm, that's an interesting question.
00:09:26.800 | It's one I did not see coming,
00:09:28.720 | but it's arrived and it's on the other side of the weekend.
00:09:32.060 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke.
00:09:33.320 | We'll see you back here on Monday.
00:09:35.240 | (upbeat music)
00:09:37.820 | (upbeat music)
00:09:40.400 | [BLANK_AUDIO]