I’m Likely Going to Prison — Now What?
00:00:00.000 | We get many urgent and serious life situation emails in the inbox, and that includes this
00:00:08.560 | one today from a woman who wishes to remain anonymous.
00:00:11.680 | "Dear Pastor John, hello.
00:00:13.640 | I am a born-again Christian.
00:00:15.280 | A while back I engaged in corrupt activities at work, and this is now causing me a great
00:00:20.160 | deal of suffering.
00:00:21.400 | I will be charged in court soon and then likely headed to prison.
00:00:26.440 | I have since repented of my sins and prayed to God for deliverance, however my prayers
00:00:30.480 | have been met with dead silence from God.
00:00:34.560 | My family has also experienced so much pain and suffering, with my siblings losing their
00:00:38.400 | jobs as a result of my sin.
00:00:41.000 | Here are my questions.
00:00:42.620 | What encouragement can you offer me in what I face ahead, and what should a child of God
00:00:47.560 | like me do when I now face legal suffering for my crimes?
00:00:52.800 | My faith in God is intact, but I am at my lowest spiritually.
00:00:57.880 | Please help me.
00:00:58.880 | I have wished that God would just call me home instead of watching my family suffer
00:01:04.420 | through the nightmare of watching what is to come."
00:01:10.280 | I want to begin by pointing our about-to-be-imprisoned sister to a passage of scripture that I pray
00:01:21.380 | she will find hope-giving.
00:01:25.720 | Psalm 107 has proved to be, in my life and ministry, one of the most amazingly helpful
00:01:33.360 | psalms for people in all manner of distress because it deals with such different kinds
00:01:41.680 | of trouble.
00:01:42.680 | Here's the section of the psalm that is so relevant for our about-to-be-imprisoned
00:01:49.640 | friend.
00:01:50.640 | And what makes it so relevant is that the affliction which these people here in this
00:01:57.800 | psalm are dealing with, this affliction came about precisely because they sinned, just
00:02:06.440 | like she did, in her illegal activities.
00:02:09.580 | They sinned and now they're in her condition.
00:02:12.880 | Here's what it says.
00:02:13.960 | This is Psalm 107, verse 10.
00:02:16.400 | "Some sat in darkness and in the shadow of death, prisoners in affliction and in irons,
00:02:27.180 | for they had rebelled against the words of God and spurned the counsel of the Most High.
00:02:35.880 | So he, he bowed their hearts down with hard labor.
00:02:43.200 | They fell down with none to help.
00:02:47.480 | Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress.
00:02:54.240 | He brought them out of darkness and the shadow of death and burst their bonds apart.
00:03:00.440 | Let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love, for his wondrous works to the children
00:03:06.600 | of man, for he shatters the doors of bronze and cuts into the bars of iron."
00:03:14.280 | Now be sure that you hear this, friend.
00:03:17.080 | These are people who are imprisoned because they ought to be in prison.
00:03:22.840 | They rebelled against God.
00:03:24.760 | They spurned his counsel.
00:03:26.860 | They broke his law.
00:03:28.600 | They were found guilty, and they were put in prison where they belong.
00:03:35.840 | That's why they and you right now feel, quote, "in darkness and in the shadow of death."
00:03:45.480 | Guilt is a horrible thing.
00:03:47.700 | Praise God for the gospel and Jesus.
00:03:51.320 | I know exactly what you mean when you say you would rather die right now rather than
00:03:57.600 | see other people suffer for your wrongs.
00:04:00.320 | Of course you would.
00:04:01.840 | I would too.
00:04:03.360 | I have felt like that more than once in my life.
00:04:06.960 | And this psalm is even more amazing.
00:04:10.040 | Verse 12 says, "It's precisely God himself who bowed their hearts down with hard labor."
00:04:18.920 | In other words, God ordained this imprisonment of his people.
00:04:23.800 | He wasn't wringing his hands in heaven as though his people were being treated unjustly.
00:04:30.260 | God himself was in the judgment, and he's in yours.
00:04:35.760 | And amazingly, amazingly, these prisoners did not give way to bitterness or hopelessness
00:04:45.840 | or self-pity.
00:04:46.840 | Instead, they humbled themselves and they cried to the Lord in their trouble.
00:04:55.200 | We don't know how long he left them in prison, but he did hear their cry and he delivered
00:05:02.800 | them.
00:05:04.520 | And we see at least two purposes that God achieves through this.
00:05:09.720 | First, their hearts were filled with overwhelming thankfulness to the Lord for his steadfast
00:05:15.520 | love that he would show them mercy even though they are guilty sinners in prison.
00:05:20.800 | And second, they magnify his power to break the bars of iron.
00:05:27.360 | Now, here's one way to describe the crisis you are facing.
00:05:33.100 | You can fixate on the providence of God as a problem, or you can take hold of the providence
00:05:41.600 | of God as your hope.
00:05:44.320 | The problem, of course, would be that God, in control of all things, could have kept
00:05:51.320 | you back from your illegal activities and spared your family all these miseries.
00:05:58.200 | He could have, and he didn't.
00:06:01.120 | You can fixate on that as a problem and become an embittered, self-pitying, angry, mean-spirited,
00:06:11.360 | depressed, hopeless person.
00:06:14.280 | That would be a great tragedy, and it would be a double triumph for Satan.
00:06:18.280 | He's already had one triumph.
00:06:20.880 | He should not get another in your life.
00:06:23.840 | Or instead of fixating on providence as a problem, you can take hold of providence as
00:06:30.680 | your hope.
00:06:31.680 | That's what the people in the psalm did.
00:06:35.520 | They know that God is the one who has bowed their hearts down with hard labor.
00:06:40.960 | God did it.
00:06:42.200 | How natural, how easy it would have been for them to turn all their affliction into anger
00:06:47.000 | at the providence of God.
00:06:48.660 | But instead, they took the other path.
00:06:51.320 | It's a sweet path.
00:06:52.880 | I encourage you to take it.
00:06:54.680 | They believed that God's power would not discipline them forever, but that his mercy
00:07:02.200 | would return again and deliver.
00:07:05.600 | This will require enormous humility and faith on your part.
00:07:11.120 | But God will give it to you if you ask him and patiently wait for his timing.
00:07:17.360 | Consider one more passage of Scripture to shed light on your situation.
00:07:21.880 | Paul, the apostle, was granted the gift of having stupendous revelations from God.
00:07:31.000 | God saw that such privileges could make Paul arrogant and self-exalting.
00:07:36.480 | Therefore, God appointed Satan to afflict Paul with a thorn in the flesh.
00:07:45.600 | We don't know what it was, but 2 Corinthians 12.7 says, "A thorn was given to me in the
00:07:52.440 | flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from being conceited."
00:08:01.600 | In other words, God made Satan serve Paul's sanctification.
00:08:07.960 | This was a kind of imprisonment for Paul—imprisonment inside the suffering of a thorn.
00:08:15.080 | But it wasn't an imprisonment because of sins he had committed.
00:08:20.120 | It was because of sins he might commit.
00:08:23.760 | How easy it would be for Paul to get angry at God and say, "You can't protect me
00:08:29.160 | from sinning other ways.
00:08:32.040 | You don't need to use a thorn in my flesh to keep me from being proud."
00:08:37.880 | And of course, that's true.
00:08:39.920 | But God is God, and we are not.
00:08:43.320 | God has purposes for this.
00:08:45.240 | Wise purposes.
00:08:46.840 | Paul experienced the same things you did.
00:08:50.160 | Namely, three times he cried out, "Deliver me, deliver me, deliver me."
00:08:55.280 | And every time God said, "No."
00:08:58.840 | And then come the words from Jesus to Paul, "My grace is sufficient for you.
00:09:05.520 | My power is made perfect in weakness."
00:09:08.640 | To which Paul responds miraculously, and I pray the same for you.
00:09:14.240 | "Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ
00:09:20.880 | may rest upon me.
00:09:23.080 | For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions,
00:09:30.480 | and calamities.
00:09:31.780 | For when I am weak, then I am strong."
00:09:34.840 | So my prayer for you, dear sister, is that you will embrace the providence of God as
00:09:41.800 | your hope.
00:09:43.280 | Yes, it involves discipline for past sins.
00:09:47.560 | And yes, it involves thorns to protect you from future sins.
00:09:53.640 | And yes, he will break the bars of iron and bring you out, and there will be a future
00:10:01.680 | and a hope.
00:10:03.120 | That may seem impossible now, but nothing is too hard for the Lord.
00:10:10.400 | Amen.
00:10:11.400 | Thank you for those words of hope and comfort, Pastor John.
00:10:14.320 | We appreciate the raw question.
00:10:15.920 | We welcome all your questions.
00:10:17.600 | You can send those to us online.
00:10:19.040 | Go to DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn.
00:10:24.400 | On Wednesday, we're going to look at prayer, particularly the confidence to pray.
00:10:29.600 | We will only pray if we believe that God has the power to answer our prayers.
00:10:34.560 | So what truth can give us confidence that God has the right and the power to answer
00:10:39.800 | our prayers?
00:10:41.480 | As you may have guessed, it's the doctrine of providence.
00:10:44.600 | When we return on Wednesday, Pastor John is going to explain why God's providence gives
00:10:48.480 | us confidence to pray.
00:10:50.960 | Don't miss it.
00:10:51.960 | I'm your host Tony Reiki, and I'll see you back here on Wednesday.
00:10:54.280 | Thanks for listening to the Ask Pastor John podcast with longtime author and pastor John
00:10:58.920 | Piper.
00:10:59.920 | We'll see you Wednesday.
00:10:59.920 | [END]
00:11:00.280 | 1.
00:11:01.280 | What truth can give us confidence to pray?
00:11:02.280 | Ask Pastor John.
00:11:02.280 | 2.
00:11:03.280 | What truth can give us confidence to pray?
00:11:04.280 | Ask Pastor John.
00:11:04.280 | 3.
00:11:05.280 | What truth can give us confidence to pray?
00:11:06.280 | Ask Pastor John.
00:11:06.280 | [BLANK_AUDIO]