'Spectacular Sins'

I must admit I took a roughly three-year break from reading John Piper. I had read so much of his printed work that I found myself beginning emulate his style, so I laid off soon after When I Don't Desire God: How to Fight For Joy helped jolt me into deeper spiritual truth and discipline that has carried on to this day. (That book has a reserved spot in my Top 10 books concerning faith).

And I may be adding another: I received a free copy of his most recent, Spectacular Sins (And Their Global Purpose in the Glory of Christ), at the Desiring God conference this Fall and found time to read it one day over the Thanksgiving holiday.

The book is classic Piper. And that is hardly to say the book, its prose or purpose, is stale. Anything but. Dr. Piper still moves the pen (so to speak) in such a way as to stir one's heart toward the deeper truths of the faith. In this case, his opening salvo is prophetic in telling his reader that the time's are changing and everything we as Christians have come to expect, be it creature comforts to cultural acceptance, is about to be ripped away as Satan grows more powerful.

He writes in the book's introduction:

The sources of this difficulty will be pervasive sin...Tragedies and calamities and horrific suffering and sinful atrocities should not take Christians off guard. 'Beloved, do not be surprised by the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you' (1 Peter 4:12). They are foreseen by God, and he foretold them for us to know. God sees them coming and does not intend to stop them. Therefore, it appears that they somehow fit into his purposes."

This is not comfort reading. You won't feel good reading this. But you will feel buttressed by essential understanding of how that which is intended for evil by Satan and fallen men is actually part of God's plan and purpose.

Shocking? Yep.
Hard to wrap your head around? Oh yeah.
Spiritually nourishing? ...like gallons of green tea to your soul. 

Piper describes in chapter 3 the reality of God governing every move of Satan:

"...God permitted Satan's fall, not because he was unable to stop it, but because he had a purpose for it. Since God is never taken off guard, his permissions are always purposeful. If he chooses to permit something, he does so for a reason - an infinitely wise reason because he is infinitely wise. How the sin arises in Satan's heart, we do not know. God has not told us. What we do know is that God is sovereign over Satan."

This theological truth has INCREDIBLE implications with how we view the sins of Satan, others, and ourselves. My own personal sin is permitted by God. For the same infinitely wise reason he permits Satan to roam the earth for a time, "he who is able to keep me from stumbling" (Jude 24) will however permit my stumbling sometimes because it will glorify His Son. God permits NOTHING that does not eventually lead to the glorification of Christ. And though I fall, I will rise (Micah 7:8-9) and no one will snatch me from the Father's hand (John 10:27-30).

Yeah. And that's just the surface of this barely-100-page read.

Piper then walks through several small chapters focused on spectacular sins from Scripture, including: Adam's disobedience, Joseph's being sold into slavery by his brothers, and Judas' betrayal of Christ Himself.

Chapter 5 is of particular interest to this writer, focusing on the pride of the people of Babel. As I wrote in a previous post, half the world's population now lives in cities; making urban missions the most important field for the harvest in the coming century. And Piper's theological treatment of the first metropolis is eye-opening:

"Then Genesis 11:1-9 drops the bomb on us. It wasn't obedience after all [to build the city]. The people weren't spreading to fill the earth. They were clustering. God came down and shattered their disobedience and made their clustering impossible. He confused their language and brok humanity into many peoples and languages."

Further:

"His will is not that we find our security in cities but in God whom we gladly obey."

He argues that God uses the sin of Babel to glorify His cause in the world: "We humans are far too evil to be allowed to unite in one language or one government. The gospel of the glory of Christ spreads better and flourishes because of 6,500 languages, not in spite of them."

I pray this short synopsis/review has whet your appetite to delve into the deep truth presented in this small volume. I highly commend it to you. With the times changing as rapidly they are and persecution of all types on the very near horizon, John Piper rallies the Kingdom army through presenting all-important Scriptural truth that will make you uncomfortable even as it comforts your soul. His admonition to readers of Spectacular Sins serves also to rattle you out of your complacency and challenges you to begin exploring the truth of how God works through even the most vile of sins: "Wimpy worldviews make wimpy Christians. And wimpy Christians won't survive the days ahead."