God is Faithful to Keep His Promises

PRAY OVER THIS

“Forever, O LORD, Your word is settled in heaven. Your faithfulness endures to all generations; You established the earth, and it abides.” Psalm 119:89-90

 

PONDER THIS

While you are preparing for this coming year, keep your eyes on the Lord Jesus Christ. He will not only guide you through the unknown places but also grant you unfading promises. Do you know what a covenant is? A covenant is a promise that is unfading and unfailing. The Lord Jesus Christ had the last meal with His disciples and said, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood” (Luke 22:20). He is our ark of the covenant. All the promises of God are yes and amen in Him. He will guide us through unknown places. He will grant us the unfailing promises of God. Don’t let 2,000 years keep you from a promise. The promises didn’t die with Moses or Joshua. The promises are for all saints; they are for all seasons; they are for all situations. Don’t think that somehow God blessed these people, but God won’t keep His covenant with us. If you’ll say, “My New Year’s resolution is to follow the ark, and wherever it goes, I’ll go after it,” He will guide you in the uncharted places, grant you unfading promises, and guard you with unfailing power.

What are some New Year’s resolutions you have considered making? What would need to change for you to commit to “follow the ark”?

When have you been tempted to forget the promises of God?

PRACTICE THIS

Write a list of your New Year’s resolutions and write down some things in your life that might change if you commit to following the ark.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

Death Rehearsal

You sweep them away as with a flood; they are like a dream, like grass that is renewed in the morning: in the morning it flourishes and is renewed; in the evening it fades and withers. . . . So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom. (Psalm 90:5–6, 12)

For me, the end of a year is like the end of my life. And 11:59 pm on December 31 is like the moment of my death.

The 365 days of the year are like a miniature lifetime. And these final hours are like the last days in the hospital after the doctor has told me that the end is very near. And in these last hours, the lifetime of this year passes before my eyes, and I face the inevitable question: Did I live it well? Will Jesus Christ, the righteous Judge, say “Well done, good and faithful servant” (Matthew 25:21)?

I feel very fortunate that this is the way my year ends. And I pray that the year’s end might have the same significance for you.

The reason I feel fortunate is that it is a great advantage to have a trial run at my own dying. It is a great benefit to rehearse once a year in preparation for the last scene of your life. It is a great benefit because the morning of January 1 will find most of us still alive, at the brink of a whole new lifetime, able to start fresh all over again.

The great thing about rehearsals is that they show you where your weaknesses are, where your preparation was faulty; and they leave you time to change before the real play in front of a real audience.

I suppose for some of you the thought of dying is so morbid, so gloomy, so fraught with grief and pain that you do your best to keep it out of your minds, especially during holidays. I think that is unwise and that you do yourself a great disservice. I have found that there are few things more revolutionizing for my life than a periodic pondering of my own death.

How do you get a heart of wisdom so as to know how best to live? The psalmist answers:

You sweep them away as with a flood; they are like a dream, like grass that is renewed in the morning: in the morning it flourishes and is renewed; in the evening it fades and withers. . . . So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom. (Psalm 90:5–6, 12)

Numbering your days simply means remembering that your life is short and your dying will be soon. Great wisdom — great, life-revolutionizing wisdom — comes from periodically pondering these things.

The criterion of success, that Paul used to measure his life, was whether he had kept the faith. “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing” (2 Timothy 4:7–8). Let this be our test at year’s end.

And if we discover that we did not keep the faith this past year, then we can be glad, as I am, that this year-end death is (probably) only a rehearsal, and a whole life of potential faith-keeping lies before us in the next year.

John Piper 

Bible astudy

Psalm 119:89-93

Lamedh

    [89] Forever, O LORD, your word

        is firmly fixed in the heavens. 

    [90] Your faithfulness endures to all generations;

        you have established the earth, and it stands fast. 

    [91] By your appointment they stand this day,

        for all things are your servants. 

    [92] If your law had not been my delight,

        I would have perished in my affliction. 

    [93] I will never forget your precepts,

        for by them you have given me life.

1 Peter 1:25

    [25] but the word of the Lord remains forever.”

    And this word is the good news that was preached to you. 

Psalm 119:151-152

    [151] But you are near, O LORD,

        and all your commandments are true. 

    [152] Long have I known from your testimonies

        that you have founded them forever.

Jeremiah 31:35

    [35] Thus says the LORD,

    who gives the sun for light by day

        and the fixed order of the moon and the stars for light by night,

    who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar—

        the LORD of hosts is his name:

Are You Worried About Tomorrow?

PRAY OVER THIS

“Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.’” Matthew 6:31-34

 

PONDER THIS

I heard about some people who were out in a boat on a dark stormy night. The passengers were frightened, so they sent somebody to talk to the captain. He asked the captain about the boat’s condition. The captain said, “I’m going to give it to you straight. This is a leaky old ship, and we may go down. But the boilers on this ship are very weak. We may go up. Whether we go down or up, we’re going on.”

That’s where we are as we look at the year to come. It’s a dark and stormy night, and this old world is not what it ought to be. We don’t know what’s going to happen. We may go down. We may die. We may go up. Jesus may come this year, but whether we go down or up, we are going on. We don’t know what a new year brings. We have never passed this way before. But we don’t have to know where we are going. Abraham went out; he didn’t know where he was going. He marched under sealed orders. Had Abraham known where he was going, it would have put his eyes on the destination. So, where did he keep his eyes? On God. God may keep you in the dark so that you’ll keep your eyes on Him. Aren’t you glad you don’t know the future? What if you knew the demands that would be placed on you in the future? What if you knew the sorrows or challenges that might come? It might choke you down. But in Christ, we can have confidence, no matter what the day, month, or year brings.

How do you feel about the year to come? What are you excited about? Anxious about?

How has God changed the way you handle the unknowns in your life?

PRACTICE THIS

Pray and be honest with God about the unknowns of the coming year that scare you. Consider what it would look like to fix your eyes on Him in the future.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

Outfitted and Empowered

Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. (Hebrews 13:20–21)

Christ shed the blood of the eternal covenant. By this successful redemption, he obtained the blessing of his own resurrection from the dead. That is even clearer in Greek than it is in English, and here it’s clear enough: “God . . . brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus . . . by the blood of the eternal covenant.” This Jesus — raised by the blood of the covenant — is now our living Lord and Shepherd.

And because of all that, God does two things:

he equips us with everything good that we may do his will, and

he works in us that which is pleasing in his sight.

The “eternal covenant,” secured by the blood of Christ, is the new covenant. And the new covenant promise is this: “I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts” (Jeremiah 31:33). Therefore, the blood of this covenant not only secures God’s equipping us to do his will, but also secures God working in us to make that equipping successful.

The will of God is not just written on stone or paper as a means of grace. It is worked in us. And the effect is: We feel and think and act in ways more pleasing to God.

We are still commanded to use the equipment he gives: “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.” But more importantly we are told why: “For it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Philippians 2:12–13).

If we are able to please God — if we do his good pleasure — it is because the blood-bought grace of God has moved from mere equipping to omnipotent transforming.

John Piper 

Bible Study

James 4:13-15

Boasting About Tomorrow

[13] Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”—[14] yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. [15] Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.”

1 Peter 3:9

[9] Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, bless, for to this you were called, that you may obtain a blessing.

1 Timothy 4:8

[8] for while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come.

Job 7:7

    [7] “Remember that my life is a breath;

        my eye will never again see good.

Following Jesus to Victory

PRAY OVER THIS

“And they commanded the people, saying, ‘When you see the ark of the covenant of the LORD your God, and the priests, the Levites, bearing it, then you shall set out from your place and go after it. Yet there shall be a space between you and it, about two thousand cubits by measure. Do not come near it, that you may know the way by which you must go, for you have not passed this way before.’”

Joshua 3:3-4

 

PONDER THIS

Why are some Christians victorious and others not? All Christians possess Jesus. The difference in Christians is not in possession; it is in position. When the Lord becomes the leader, when the Resident becomes the president, when the Christ who abides comes to preside, when the Lord begins to lead, He leads to victory. Every Christian is a possessor of God’s ark of the covenant, but not every Christian follows the Lord Jesus Christ into victory.

Learn to follow after the ark. Consider your New Year’s resolutions this year. Think about committing to God. You may say, “I am not going to take a step without my eyes on the ark, wherever the ark goes that’s where I’m going.” When you live your life like that, I promise you’ll have good success, and you’ll have true victory. Victory is seeing which way God is going and then joining Him. That’s it. Are you experiencing victory?

Would you say you are living in victory in Jesus? Why or why not?

What are some areas where you have seen God at work in the world around you?

PRACTICE THIS

Consider what things you are planning for the year to come. What would it be like to make a resolution to look for where God is going and join Him?

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

A Horrible Destiny

. . . Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come. (1 Thessalonians 1:10)

Do you remember the time you were lost as a child, or slipping over a precipice, or about to drown? Then suddenly you were rescued. You held on for “dear life.” You trembled for what you almost lost. You were happy. Oh, so happy, and thankful. And you trembled with joy.

That’s the way I feel at the end of the year about my rescue from God’s wrath. All day Christmas we had a fire in the fireplace. Sometimes the coals were so hot that when I stoked it my hand hurt. I pulled back and shuddered at the horrendous thought of the wrath of God against sin in hell. Oh, how unspeakably horrible that will be!

Christmas afternoon I visited a woman who had been burned over 87 percent of her body. She has been in the hospital since August. My heart broke for her. How wonderful it was to hold out hope to her from God’s word for a new body in the age to come! But I came away not only thinking about her pain in this life, but also about the everlasting pain I have been saved from through Jesus.

Test my experience with me. Is this trembling joy a fitting way to end the year? Paul was glad that “Jesus . . . delivers us from the wrath to come” (1 Thessalonians 1:10). He warned that “for those who . . . do not obey the truth . . . there will be wrath and fury” (Romans 2:8). And “because of [sexual immorality, impurity, and covetousness] the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience” (Ephesians 5:6).

Here at the end of the year, I am finishing my trek through the Bible and reading the last book, Revelation. It is a glorious prophecy of the triumph of God, and the everlasting joy of all who “take the water of life without price” (Revelation 22:17). No more tears, no more pain, no more depression, no more sorrow, no more death, no more sin (Revelation 21:4).

But oh, the horror of not repenting and not holding fast to the testimony of Jesus! The description of the wrath of God by the “apostle of love” (John) is terrifying. Those who spurn God’s love will “drink the wine of God’s wrath, poured full strength into the cup of his anger, and he will be tormented with fire and sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever, and they have no rest, day or night” (Revelation 14:10–11).

“And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire” (Revelation 20:15). Jesus will “tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty” (Revelation 19:15). And blood will flow “from the winepress, as high as a horse’s bridle, for 184 miles” (Revelation 14:20). Whatever that vision signifies, it is meant to communicate something unspeakably terrible.

I tremble with joy that I am saved! But oh, the holy wrath of God is a horrible destiny. Flee this, brothers and sisters. Flee this with all your might. And let us save as many as we can! No wonder there is more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous (Luke 15:7)!

John Piper 

Bible Study

1 Thessalonians 4:16-18

[16] For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. [17] Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. [18] Therefore encourage one another with these words.

2 Thessalonians 1:9-12

[9] They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might, [10] when he comes on that day to be glorified in his saints, and to be marveled at among all who have believed, because our testimony to you was believed. [11] To this end we always pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of his calling and may fulfill every resolve for good and every work of faith by his power, [12] so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Acts 2:24

[24] God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it.

Romans 5:9-12

[9] Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. [10] For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. [11] More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

Death in Adam, Life in Christ

[12] Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—

Do You Believe in Miracles?

PRAY OVER THIS

“Then they took away the stone from the place where the dead man was lying. And Jesus lifted up His eyes and said, ‘Father, I thank You that You have heard Me. And I know that You always hear Me, but because of the people who are standing by I said this, that they may believe that You sent Me.’ Now when He had said these things, He cried with a loud voice, ‘Lazarus, come forth!’ And he who had died came out bound hand and foot with graveclothes, and his face was wrapped with a cloth. Jesus said to them, ‘Loose him, and let him go.’” John 11:41-44

 

PONDER THIS

Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead to give us an illustration of the greater spiritual truth of eternal life. When He said, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live” (John 11:25), He shared the greatest truth we need to learn.

Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, but He didn’t raise everybody from the dead in this life. So, what is the message in the miracle? Jesus is God’s answer to man’s death. “I am the resurrection and the life.” Miracles of glory speak of greater miracles of grace. We should believe in miracles but trust in Jesus. Do you understand what I’m saying? These miracles are not to have us put our faith in miracles. Our faith is to be in the Lord Jesus Christ. If you want a full and wonderful life, and the abundant life that we’ve been talking about, you must experience life in Jesus.

How has your relationship with Jesus changed your perspective on death?

Who is one person you know that you have seen experience life in Jesus?

PRACTICE THIS

Ask a mature Christian you know to share a testimony about experiencing life in Jesus. Consider some lessons you can use in your own life.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

Glory Is the Goal

Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. (Romans 5:2)

Seeing the glory of God is our ultimate hope. “We rejoice in hope of the glory of God” (Romans 5:2). God will “present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy” (Jude 24).

He will “make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory” (Romans 9:23). He “calls you into his own kingdom and glory” (1 Thessalonians 2:12). “Our blessed hope [is] the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ” (Titus 2:13).

Jesus, in all his person and work, is the incarnation and ultimate revelation of the glory of God. “He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature” (Hebrews 1:3). “Father, I desire that they . . . may be with me where I am, to see my glory” Jesus prays in John 17:24.

“So I exhort the elders among you, as a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, as well as a partaker in the glory that is going to be revealed” (1 Peter 5:1). “The creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God” (Romans 8:21).

“We impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory” (1 Corinthians 2:7). “This light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison” (2 Corinthians 4:17). “Those whom he justified he also glorified” (Romans 8:30).

Seeing and sharing in God’s glory is our ultimate hope through the gospel of Christ.

Such a hope, that is really known and treasured, has a huge and decisive effect on our present values and choices and actions.

Get to know the glory of God. Study the glory of God and the glory of Christ. Study the glory of the world that reveals the glory of God, and the glory of the gospel that reveals the glory of Christ.

Treasure the glory of God in all things and above all things.

Study your soul. Know the glory you are seduced by, and know why you treasure glories that are not God’s glory.

Study your own soul to know how to make the glories of the world collapse like the pagan idol Dagon in 1 Samuel 5:4. Let all glories that distract you from the glory of God shatter in pitiful pieces on the floor of the world’s temples. Treasure the glory of God above all this world.

John Piper 

Bible Study

2 Peter 3:12

[12] waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn!

2 Thessalonians 2:7-8

[7] For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work. Only he who now restrains it will do so until he is out of the way. [8] And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will kill with the breath of his mouth and bring to nothing by the appearance of his coming.

2 Peter 1:1-2

Greeting

[1] Simeon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, 

To those who have obtained a faith of equal standing with ours by the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ: 

[2] May grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.

2 Timothy 1:9-10

[9] who saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began, [10] and which now has been manifested through the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel,

The Key to True Life

PRAY OVER THIS

“Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?’” John 11:25-26

 

PONDER THIS

Jesus is the only reason we live. As a matter of fact, He came so that we might live. He said in John 10:10, “I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.” He’s the only reason I live.

Most people today don’t have life, they have existence. They are fighting to live while they’re living to fight. They’re growing and breathing, and one day is turning into another. They have existence, but they don’t have life. They’ve got it all backward.

Jesus has come that you might have life. Satan has come to rob you of life—he comes to steal, kill, and destroy (see John 10:10). And he has stolen, killed, and destroyed life from many people. They don’t understand life, and they look at it very pessimistically. Benjamin Disraeli said, “youth is a blunder, manhood a struggle, and old age a regret.”[1] That may be true if you don’t know the Lord Jesus, but if you are in Christ, you have the key to true life.

How have you experienced life because of Jesus?

Who are some people you know who are only existing and not truly living because they do not experience the hope and life of Jesus?

PRACTICE THIS

Pray for someone you know who does not yet have the life and hope of Jesus.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

What Is Your Aim?

Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. . . . And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. (1 Corinthians 10:31; Colossians 3:17)

When you get up in the morning and you face the day, what do you say to yourself about your hopes for the day? When you look from the beginning of the day to the end of the day, what do you want to happen because you have lived?

If you say, “I don’t even think like that. I just get up and do what I’ve got to do,” then you are cutting yourself off from a basic means of grace and a source of guidance and strength and fruitfulness and joy. It is crystal clear in the Bible, including these texts, that God means for us to aim consciously at something significant in our days.

God’s revealed will for you is that when you get up in the morning, you don’t drift aimlessly through the day letting mere circumstances alone dictate what you do, but that you aim at something — that you focus on a certain kind of purpose. I’m talking about children here, and teenagers, and adults — single, married, widowed, moms, and every trade and every profession.

Aimlessness is akin to lifelessness. Dead leaves in the back yard may move around more than anything else — more than the dog, more than the children. The wind blows this way, they go this way. The wind blows that way, they go that way. They tumble, they bounce, they skip, they press against a fence, but they have no aim whatsoever. They are full of motion and empty of life.

God did not create humans in his image to be aimless, like lifeless leaves blown around in the backyard of life. He created us to be purposeful — to have a focus and an aim for all our days. What is yours today? What is yours for the new year? A good place to start is 1 Corinthians 10:31, “Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.”

John Piper 

Bible Study

John 6:40

[40] For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”

Colossians 3:3-4

[3] For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. [4] When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

John 12:25

[25] Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.

1 Corinthians 15:21-22

[21] For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. [22] For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.

How Do You Deal With Trouble?

PRAY OVER THIS

“My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.” James 1:2-4

 

PONDER THIS

What is God’s plan for you? God wants to enlarge you, not indulge you. God is not so interested in making you happy and healthy as He is in making you holy. So, God will use the trouble in your life. The Lord Jesus wants to develop us. Psalm 4:1 says: “You have relieved me in my distress.” Now think about that. Think about the times when you have grown the most. When there was trouble, that’s when you were stretched, and that’s when your faith was enlarged. We all enjoy not having trouble, but I want to tell you—and I can give this testimony—that I have grown the most in my own life in times of deepest despair. I know that when Joyce and I had a little baby boy step over into Heaven, we grew a quantum leap during that time. I know when I had a daughter go through deep heartache and distress, God stretched my heart and my life. I would never want it to happen again, but it did happen, and I’m here to tell you that I’m a better person because of it.

When has God grown you during a time of trouble in your life?

How do you approach God when you experience trouble?

PRACTICE THIS

Take some time to think about the different ways God has grown your faith in the past year and what events or circumstances contributed to that.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

How to Contemplate Calamity

“The waves of death encompassed me, the torrents of destruction assailed me. . . . This God — his way is perfect.” (2 Samuel 22:5, 31)

After the loss of his ten children owing to a natural disaster (Job 1:19), Job said, “The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord” (Job 1:21). At the end of the book, the inspired writer confirms Job’s understanding of what happened. He says Job’s brothers and sisters “comforted him for all the evil that the Lord had brought upon him” (Job 42:11).

This has several crucial implications for us — lessons for us here at the dawn of a new year — as we think about calamities in the world and in our lives — like the massive disaster that occurred December 26, 2004, in the Indian Ocean — one of the deadliest natural disasters on record with 1.7 million people made homeless, half a million injured, and over 230,000 killed.

Lesson #1. Satan is not ultimate; God is.

Satan had a hand in Job’s misery, but not the decisive hand. God gave Satan permission to afflict Job (Job 1:12; 2:6). But Job and the writer of this book treat God as the decisive cause. When Satan afflicts Job with sores, Job says to his wife, “Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?” (Job 2:10), and the writer calls these satanic sores “the evil that the Lord had brought upon him” (Job 42:11). So, Satan is real. Satan brings misery. But Satan is not ultimate or decisive. He is on a leash. He goes no farther than God decisively permits.

Lesson #2. Even if Satan caused that tsunami in the Indian Ocean the day after Christmas, 2004, he is not the decisive cause of over 200,000 deaths; God is.

God claims power over tsunamis in Job 38:8 and 11 when he asks Job rhetorically, “Who shut in the sea with doors when it burst out from the womb . . . and said, ‘Thus far shall you come, and no farther, and here shall your proud waves be stayed’?” Psalm 89:8–9 says, “O Lord . . . you rule the raging of the sea; when its waves rise, you still them.” And Jesus himself has the same control today as he once did over the deadly threats of waves: “He . . . rebuked the wind and the raging waves, and they ceased, and there was a calm” (Luke 8:24). In other words, even if Satan caused the earthquake, God could have stopped the waves. But he didn’t.

Lesson #3. Destructive calamities in this world mingle judgment and mercy.

God’s purposes are not simple. Job was a godly man and his miseries were not God’s punishment (Job 1:1, 8). Their design was purifying, not punishment (Job 42:6). James 5:11 says, “You have heard of the steadfastness of Job, and you have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful.”

But we do not know the spiritual condition of Job’s children who died. Job was certainly concerned about them (Job 1:5). God may have taken their life in judgment. We don’t know.

If that is true, then the same calamity proved in the end to be mercy for Job and judgment on his children. This double purpose is true of all calamities. They mingle judgment and mercy. They are both punishment and purification. Suffering, and even death, can be both judgment and mercy at the same time.

The clearest illustration of this is the death of Jesus. It was both judgment and mercy. It was judgment on Jesus because he bore our sins (not his own), and it was mercy toward us who trust him to bear our punishment (Galatians 3:13; 1 Peter 2:24) and be our righteousness (2 Corinthians 5:21).

Another example is the curse and miseries that have come on this earth because of the fall of Adam and Eve. Those who never believe in Christ experience it as judgment, but believers experience it as merciful, though painful — a preparation for glory. “The creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope” (Romans 8:20). This is God’s subjection. This is why there are tsunamis. But this subjection to futility is “in hope.”

Lesson #4. The heart that Christ gives to his people feels compassion for those who suffer, no matter what their faith is.

When the Bible says, “Weep with those who weep” (Romans 12:15), it does not add, “unless God caused the weeping.” Job’s comforters would have done better to weep with Job than talk so much. That does not change when we discover that Job’s suffering was ultimately from God. No, it is right to weep with those who suffer. Pain is pain, no matter who causes it. We are all sinners. Empathy flows not from the causes of pain, but from the company of pain. And we are all in it together.

Lesson #5. Finally, Christ calls us to show mercy to those who suffer, even if they do not deserve it.

That is the meaning of mercy — undeserved help. “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you” (Luke 6:27). This is how Christ treated us (Romans 5:10), dying for us when we were his enemies. By that power, and with that example, we do the same.

John Piper 

Bible Study

1 Peter 1:7-9

[7] so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. [8] Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, [9] obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

Romans 5:3-6

[3] Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, [4] and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, [5] and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

[6] For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.

Hebrews 10:36

[36] For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised.

2 Peter 1:3-4

Confirm Your Calling and Election

[3] His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, [4] by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.