No 18: To Heal us from Moral and Physical Sickness

I am 58, and so far, excepting our annual diet of colds and coughs, I have suffered no disease except jaundice at 18 - and that wasn't painful.  On the other hand Susan has suffered an auto-immune onslaught and now has no pancreatic or thyroid function.  Her daily life is circumscribed by this disease, and St Paul's phrase about being "subject to frustration" (Romans 8:20 NIV) seems very apt.  In other areas between us, you might say things go the other way.  All her brothers and sister are with her to this day; my beloved big sister, Catherine, died at 20 from lupus when I was 14.  Periodically, I need to weep and mourn my loss afresh.  Neither of us grew up in godly or safe families.  We really feel rescued and redeemed by God.  He continues to heal the damage to our hearts.  But Susan is not healed of her physical disease - yet miraculous healings break out around us, now in this person, now in that.

Piper's observations take an eternal perspective, and that's what we have to hold on to.  Disease will 'one day be utterly destoyed'. But not yet. 

A mystery is that every one of us can testify to how God has used suffering to change us and bring us closer to Him, repeating in our lives the principle of the Cross - life out of death, victory out of failure, healing out of suffering.  I believe that if I had not been wounded by losing my sister, I may not have gone searching for God.

Last October, God gave me this personal word, which I was allowed to share on Sunday morning at church:

“I am sovereign, I am King over My whole creation, and I will bring My creation to a glorious fulfillment.  Man, and you too, Johnny, are glorious amidst My creation and destined to sit beside Me in the world to come, holy and sanctified.  In that time My victory will be completed when even Satan and every evil power at his disposal bend the knee and acknowledge that I am just and true and everything I have done is just and true:  My righteousness will be glorious across My whole creation and every mouth will be stopped.  It will not be possible for you to possess My understanding while undergoing your span of life and serving out your part in My unfolding Kingdom.  But I have revealed a mystery of My working which will guide you through many dark places like a pole star: I train My children in the Kingdom by letting them suffer from evil – to stop the mouth of Satan.  The victory can be won in no other way, although My heart breaks to see how you suffer.  As each of you make your way into My courts when your life’s race is run, the noblest angels step aside before you, bowing in your honour, wondering and rejoicing to welcome such a hero home – for you have been tested in a fire which is outside their experience.

“Go back and read again the sacred writings of My people, which you call the Bible, and see how this word is true; and how eternal and unchanging the Gospel is.  You have always been made perfect in suffering.  Only in this way can I save you from reproducing the very evil which you oppose.”