Ask Pastor John Long Sorrows Set the Stage
19 snips
Apr 13, 2026 
John Piper, theologian, pastor, and author known for preaching and founding Desiring God, discusses why long seasons of sorrow appear in Scripture. He offers three reasons emphasizing God’s different relation to time, how drawn-out judgment reveals human depravity, and how Israel’s long story prepares for the coming of Christ. He also highlights recurring mercy woven through prolonged suffering.
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Woman With Twelve Years Of Suffering
- Piper opens with Mark 5's woman suffering 12 years to illustrate long sorrow before immediate healing.
- He imagines sovereign control and asks rhetorically how quickly we'd fix every broken thing.
Time Does Not Equal Moral Change
- Time length in redemptive history resists human correlation because elapsed time doesn't map predictably to moral change.
- John Piper explains why it's impossible to pinpoint why God used centuries instead of decades in Israel's history.
Length And Horror Prove Human Sinfulness
- Judges uses both the depth of evil and its long duration to prove humans are incurably sinful and need a Savior.
- Piper points to graphic sins and four centuries of cycles under judges to underline sin's persistence.
