(upbeat music) Well, God can prevent every trial from entering our lives. He can, and he doesn't. Why not? That's the question that every believer must eventually answer, especially if you believe that God is all powerful. If God is all powerful, why does he allow trials into our lives? Why does he let the car break down in the middle of nowhere?

To that end, we have a fascinating clip to address this very point, a clip from a 1996 sermon that marked the 125th anniversary of Bethlehem Baptist Church. Pastor John was preaching Jeremiah 32, verses 36 to 42. And to introduce the text, he shared a poem and a personal story.

Have a listen. Our aim is to celebrate the sustaining grace of God for 125 years. And my first question is, what is that? What is sustaining grace? And I want to put it in a four line poem that I took about an hour to figure out yesterday. And I'm going to say it over and over again, because when I take the time to put things in a rhyme that is true, it just helps me, helps me.

So you have to tolerate this. (audience laughing) What is sustaining grace? Not grace to bar what is not bliss, nor flight from all distress, but this. The grace that orders our trouble and pain, and then in the darkness is there to sustain. Now, the reason I stress this is because if we were to celebrate a grace this morning that bars us from what is not bliss, and that gives flight from all distress, and that does not order our pain, it would be biblically false and experientially unrealistic.

Our experience and the Bible teaches us that grace does not prevent pain, but orders it, arranges it, measures it out, and then in the darkness of it sustains us. For example, yesterday, Bob Ricker, I'm going to borrow your story. You go to him and get it corrected afterwards if I've missed anything.

He told us in that other room over there that God ordains that the people of the Lord from time to time take stones and make memorials out of them so that when they look at them and children say, "What's that?" Parents and others can say, "That's because God did that." And then he told the story of a little less than 10 years ago, their daughter was in a very serious automobile accident, so serious that she would have died, but the car behind, providentially, had a doctor in it.

The doctor providentially had in his pocket an air tube. He also had the presence of mind and got to her just as she was turning blue to force this into her throat and she lived. And he did her wedding here, a couple of, it was 892, I think you said.

And as he looked at her doing the wedding as the pastor and saw these little scars that remain, he said to her, "Those are a memorial of sustaining grace." Now, Bob Ricker is not naive. He knows that if God can manage a doctor in the car behind, and if God can manage a little air tube in his pocket, if God can manage to put him on the scene with the presence of mind and the saving action to save her life, he could have stopped the accident in the first place.

Not grace to bar what is not bliss, nor flight from all distress, but this, the grace that orders our trouble and pain and then in the darkness is there to sustain. Another story, a little lighter this time. Noel, Abraham, Barnabas and Talitha are in the car two Saturdays ago, driving from here to Georgia.

The car breaks down three times and daddy is at home comfortable. (audience laughing) The third time it broke down was about an hour outside of Indianapolis on a lonely stretch Saturday afternoon. And the radiator crumbles to pieces basically. Car overheats, they're off on the side of the road, baby, two kids, wife and no daddy.

What do you do on Saturday afternoon? A farmer stops, 67 year old farmer, and says, "Can I help?" And Noel says, "Well, we just need a motel." And a Monday morning with a garage somewhere, where are we? And he says, "Well, would you be willing "to come stay with us, my wife and me?" Pause.

Well, I'm not sure we would wanna impose. And he says, "You know, the Lord says "that when you serve people in need, "it's like serving the Lord." And she says, "Well, can we go to church "with you tomorrow morning?" And he says, "Can you take a Baptist church?" (audience laughing) Not only is he a farmer, he is a retired aviation mechanic.

(audience laughing) And he sets them up. Monday morning, he drives to Indianapolis at 6 a.m., buys the radiator, puts it in, will not charge her for the labor. And they're on their way mid-morning on Saturday. And the icing on the cake is that he has a pond on his farm and Abraham catches a 19 inch catfish.

(audience laughing) Now, if God can manage a farmer on the scene who happens to be a Christian and a Baptist to boot, and an aviation mechanic and an open home and a heart for the hurting and a fish pond, he could have saved the radiator. And he didn't because sustaining grace is not grace to bar what is not bliss nor flight from all distress, but this, the grace that orders our troubles and pain and then in the darkness is there to sustain.

Amen. Can you take a Baptist church? That's so good. This clip was taken from the very start of John Piper's June 16, 1996 sermon titled "Sustained by Sovereign Grace Forever." You can find it online at desiringgod.org. The clip was emailed to me by Brian, a pastor in Minden, Nevada.

He writes, "I started listening to Pastor John's sermons "in seminary in 1990 and 1991. "The Nelsons, a faithful couple at Bethlehem, "made the sermon tapes from cassettes bought in bulk "from Sam's Club. "When I moved to Nevada to plant the church, "I kept getting the sermon cassettes in the mail.

"This particular sermon from 1996 made such an impact on me. "Pastor John's story about God's providence "gave me an example for me to give to my own kids "when we encountered trials. "The first occasion was a short period after the sermon, "I hit a deer outside of Augusta, Georgia "and totaled a car.

"I asked my kids after it was all over, "couldn't God have just kept the deer out of the road? "Yes, he could have, but not grace to bar "what is not bliss nor flight from all distress, "but this, the grace that orders our trouble and pain "and then in the darkness is there to sustain." Wow, Brad, thanks for pointing all of us to this great clip.

If you have a clip that would bless others, email me, give me your name, hometown, the sermon title, timestamp of where the clip happens in the audio, and tell me how it impacted you. Put the word clip in the subject line of an email, send it to me at askpastorjohn@desiringgod.org.

That's an email address, askpastorjohn@desiringgod.org. Well, how progressive can a progressive Christian get? And at what point does a progressive Christian progress to the point of no longer being a Christian at all? That's a deep question that needs to be answered in a day like ours when biblical revelation is taken too lightly.

To that question, we go next time with Pastor John back in the studio with me on Friday. We'll see you then. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)