Suppose you were abused as a child, and it has borne sad fruit for many
years: some uncle sexually abused you or a dad. And somebody is trying to help you,
counsel with you, help you to work through the implications of that and somebody asks
“Do you think that was the will of God?”
Now up until now I don’t know what you would answer to that question, but I
have just now taken fifteen minutes or so to try to give you a structure of
biblical thought to know how to answer that question in a way that not only
corresponds with the reality of biblical truth, but with deep needs of your soul
right now. The first need you have — and I don’t know which one comes first for you.
You might be you different. But there are two needs. One is: I need to believe God
hates what happened there. And when he was looking at the abuser he was saying, “Don’t do that!”
That is contrary to my will. I command you not to do that. He hates what he sees
and will approve of judgment. You need to believe that God is right there,
disapproving. And secondly, you need to believe that God is sovereign,
so sovereign in that moment that he can turn everything
for your glorious and everlasting good. And if you try to solve the problem of
God’s sovereignty at the moment of crisis, and push him so far out of that
moment of causality — so far to the edges — do you know what’s gonna happen? You will
now be left with no God to help you deal with this and turn it for good. He’ll be useless.
You’ve just shoved him off and said, “You can’t have anything to do with that.
Your will can’t be involved in this. Your governance of the universe
cannot oversee this. I cannot have a God who in any way would ordain that this
come to pass.” And you shoved him so far to the edge of the universe. Now in your
pain, for the rest of your life, you’re crying out to a God to do miracles and
you’ve pushed him away. If he can’t govern that moment, he can’t govern the
rest of your life and do the miracles you need for him to do. So you need two
things: You need a God who disapproves of the ugliness, and you need a God who
ordains that all things come to pass and is so sovereign he can take
everything, including that, and work it for good. And so if you try to say
there’s no sense in which the sovereign God willed that, you will lose God for the
rest of your life. So I think those two truths correspond to pretty profound
needs that we all have. You pick. It may not be abuse, it just may be the loss of
a loved one. It may be disease entering into your life, it may be some painful
relational conflict right now in a marriage or with kids or with friends.
You’re all in something and you need two things: a God who can empathize
with you as a high priest and hate sin — hate sin. The definition of sin is God
hates it, and says, “Don’t do it. I forbid it.
And you need a God, in that moment, who is totally sovereign and governing all
things so that even the sin being done against you is folded into his purposes
for you, and you can shine like the sun someday, even in spite of that loss, that
pain. Both of those are needs that I think God meets by being this kind of God.