- [John Piper] Well, first of all, let me get a load off my chest.
I don't like the question. I hear seminaries criticized so often
because they didn't do this and they didn't do that. And I've never faulted my
seminary experience for any ministry discovery I've made that I know of.
I've never thought, "Okay, you should have told me how to sweep
up the blood off the furniture and floor after one of your members blew his brains
out so his wife wouldn't have to do that." You should not have to learn in seminary
how you're going to talk to your 15-year-old if he runs away from home.
In other words, there are 1,000 things you're going to find in ministry
that simply cannot be covered in seminary. There are going to be sexual aberrations
that are going to show up in 20 years that people in seminary today didn't even dream
could happen. And if you say, "Oh, my seminary was the problem," it's not.
Here's the catch, I love seminaries and I love the Bible. And here's what I know,
the Bible says, "All Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching,
for correction, for training in righteousness, that the man
of God may be complete, fully equipped for every good work." Now, if I understand
that, it means that if you have the tools to dig down into the resources of the
Bible, all the gold that's down there, all the silver that's down there,
or if you have the right mechanism for putting your hands into the honeycomb
and bringing out honey and drippings from the honeycomb, then your life will be
so sweetened and so enriched, and so empowered, that you will be
equipped for every good work that that seminary training never could dream you
would be called upon to do. And so I want seminaries to give me the
means of knowing the scriptures, knowing God, and let me learn,
which is what the question presumes anyway. So maybe it's not such a
bad question. So here's my answer. What lesson did I learn?
And here's the one I think I would want to mention. In ministry,
you can be so discouraged for reasons you may not even be able to point to.
Sometimes you can point to five reasons why you're discouraged. Other times,
you're discouraged, sitting on the steps crying and your wife is asking you,
"What's wrong?" And you say, "I don't even know what's wrong."
You can be so discouraged, or you can have a kind of chest-tightening
frustration with your marriage, and you just don't know how to make it better.
And it seems like if it doesn't get better it's going to be ministry-ruining.
Those come. And the lesson is don't quit. Don't walk away. Go to Psalm 40 and do
this, "I waited patiently for the Lord. He heard my cry. He lifted me up out of the
pit of destruction and out of the miry clay. He put my feet upon a rock,
making my steps secure. He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God.
Many will see and fear, and put their trust in the Lord."
And here's the key to that text, I was in the miry clay.
Right? That's where David was. I preached a sermon one time called
"In the Pits with the King." How long was he there?
I am so thankful the Bible doesn't tell me how long he was there. A week? A year?
What I know is this, he waited. He waited for the Lord.
And so my lesson is, when those times of paralyzing discouragement
come, or frustration in marriage come, don't make any big decision about walking
away from the ministry or the wife, or the husband. Don't do it. Stay there. Wait
for the Lord. Call upon the Lord. He is faithful. Now, unto him who is able
to keep you from falling and to present you without blemish before the presence
of his glory with great joy. To him be glory and majesty, dominion,
and power before all time, now and forevermore. He will keep you.
That's the lesson I've learned.