Well, we know that God is most glorified in those who most love him. And that is why God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him. But is God at all glorified in those who reject him? It's the question from an international listener today named Jen Red.

Jen Red asks this, "Pastor John, if God is most glorified when we are most satisfied in him, why does he use that nearly constant refrain so that they may know that I am the Lord in reference to things that would not bring about the satisfaction of anyone? And we're certainly not done for that specific purpose.

There are many times when God seems to me perfectly content with people seeing his glory and realizing that he is God, even though that realization is in terror and in judgment. How do you make sense of this?" This is a really important question, especially for someone like me, who's a Christian hedonist.

But really, it's an important question for everyone because it's about God's ultimate purposes, both in painful things as well as pleasant things, and how they relate to the glory of God and his commitment to glorify himself in everything he does. So let me restate the question so that we all have it clear and can see the relevance of it.

He's responding to the central claim of Christian hedonism, namely, "God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him." And his question assumes, rightly, that God is zealous for his glory. He is always committed to uphold and magnify and communicate his glory. And he alludes to the first question of the Westminster Catechism, which asks, "What's the chief end of man?" And answers, "The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever." So his question begins by putting in place things that we agree on.

Namely, first, God is always upholding and magnifying and communicating his glory in everything that he does in history. And second, God is most glorified in us when we're most satisfied in him. And those two premises, which I believe are biblical, and Jen Redd agrees, it seems, he believes are biblical, they create for him a problem.

For texts in Ezekiel, like, "They will know that I am the Lord when I have made the land a desolation because of all their abominations." Seventy-two times in the book of Ezekiel, the prophet says that God will do things so that you may know that I am the Lord.

It's astonishing, over and over again. And Jen Redd assumes, rightly, that this is an expression of God's zeal for his glory, and then he spots a problem because some of these things that God does in order that we may know that he is the Lord, that he may get glory, is painful things toward us that don't quicken in people satisfaction in God.

And so he wonders, "Well, if God is most glorified by our being satisfied in him, how can he get glory, like Ezekiel says he does, by doing things that don't satisfy us but damn us, send people to hell because it's judgment?" Now, there are at least two answers. First, when I say God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him, I am referring to how God is most glorified or magnified in us, that is, in us who believe.

I'm not talking about a general cosmic statement about how God maximizes his glory in the universe. I'm talking about whether God is more glorified this afternoon in John Piper's heart and life by my being satisfied in him or whether he is more glorified this afternoon by my being less satisfied in him.

That's the issue, because what I'm trying to argue for is that all believers should pursue—and I mean pursue with all their might—maximum satisfaction in God over against money and sex and leisure and family and even ministry. In my argument for that pursuit, my argument for that pursuit is that God is less glorified on any given day in my heart and life if I am begrudgingly obedient rather than being joyfully obedient, because he satisfied my soul.

So that's the first answer. The statement that God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him is not a statement about the way God maximizes his glory in the universe and all his creatures. It's a statement about how God commands people to glorify him in this world, in their hearts.

Here's my second answer, that when people refuse to be satisfied in God and live lives of preferring other things to God and finding more satisfaction in other things than God, the glory of his wrath is magnified when they are justly punished. In other words, God is not only glorified when his people are satisfied in him, he is also glorified when he is defied by people and then pours out on them a just and holy wrath.

And the glory and rightness and indeed moral beauty of that wrath is made visible. This is the point of Romans 9, 22 and 23. It goes like this. "What if God, desiring to show his wrath and make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he prepared beforehand for glory?" That's what's going on in Ezekiel when repeatedly God says, "So that you may know that I am the Lord," even when he's performing acts of judgment.

God means for the world to see him as glorious both in his mercy and his wrath. It's not as though God is glorious when he shows mercy and inglorious when he shows wrath and judgment. Both his wrath and his mercy are glorious. They are perfectly just, perfectly proportioned, perfectly expressed.

And I would say in view of the logic of Romans 9, 22 and 23 that part of the glory in the display of wrath and mercy is that the wrath is intended by God to make the mercy look all the more astonishing and precious and beautiful and glorious. So let me end the way the Bible does in the book of Revelation as the glory of God, the praises of God rise both in response to judgment and in response to salvation.

Here's Revelation 19 and some excerpts from verses 1 to 7. It goes like this, "I heard a great multitude in heaven crying out, 'Hallelujah! Salvation and glory and power belong to our God, for his judgments are true and just, for he has judged the great prostitute who corrupted the earth with her immorality and has avenged on her the blood of his servants.' Once more they cried, 'Hallelujah!

The smoke from her goes up forever and ever.' Then I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude, like the roar of many waters and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder, crying, 'Hallelujah! For the Lord God the Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and exult and give him glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come and his bride has made herself ready.'" So, the hallelujah to God's glory will rise forever and ever, both for the mercy experienced at the Supper of the Lamb and for the judgment that falls upon those who have rejected that mercy and dishonored God in unbelief.

So nothing I say or mean by the sentence, "God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him," is intended to contradict any of that, but only affirm it. Yeah. Yeah, really profound text in Revelation. Hard truths, but vital to know if we are to understand God's will and works, and both his mercy and his wrath as displays of his glory.

Thank you, Pastor John. At our online home at DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn, you can explore all 1,200 plus of our episodes to date. You can scan a list of our most popular episodes, read full transcripts, and even send us a question of your own. And to get new episodes delivered to you three times per week, subscribe to the Ask Pastor John podcast on your favorite podcast app.

Well, John Piper is a big advocate for seeing glimpses of the peculiar glory of Jesus in scripture, and those moments of discovery in his Bible are more than mere intellectual revelations. Those discoveries are affectional, feeding his delight in God. So the question then becomes, well, what does it feel like to see the beauty of Christ?

I don't think this question has ever come up in the podcast in the past, and I don't recall Pastor John ever addressing it either. He will on Wednesday. I'm your host, Tony Ranke. We'll see you back here then.