As this year ends, the question I am asking is: Where was God when so many good things happened this past year?

How can God be a God of justice, yet allow so much good to happen to people who dishonor him by disbelieving in him, or giving lip service to his existence, or paying no more attention to him than the carpet in their den, or rejecting the kingship of his Son, or scorning his word, or preferring a hundred pleasures before him?

How can God be righteous and do so much good to us who are so unrighteous?

Where was God in 2012?

• Where was God when nine million planes landed safely in the United States?
• Where was God when the world revolved around the sun so accurately that it …

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In the summer of 1968, between college and seminary, I read Martyn Lloyd-Jones’s Studies in the Sermon on the Mount. It was then, and is now, spiritually and theologically powerful. Lloyd-Jones was one of the best preachers of the 20th century. Thanks to the grace of digital technology, he still is.

Now these 656 pages are recorded by Chris Allen in five apps for your phone, with about six hours of reading in each app. What is unusual about these apps is that the text of the book scrolls as they are read to you — or you can just read. It’s like getting an audio book and ebook and a player, all in one.

Besides the scrolling text and the audio, there is a built-in glossary of unusual or cu…

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Several years ago, I was asked in an online Q&A, “What should a wife’s submission to her husband look like if he’s an abuser?”

One of the criticisms of my answer has been that I did not mention the recourse that a wife has to law enforcement for protection. So let me clarify with seven biblical observations.

1. Every Christian is called to submit to various authorities and to each other: children to parents (Ephesians 6:1), citizens to government (Romans 13:1), wives to husbands (Ephesians 5:22), employees to employers (2 Thessalonians 3:10), church members to elders (Hebrews 13:17), all Christians to each other (Ephesians 5:21), all believers to Christ (Luke 6:46).

This puts the …

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Update 12/27
We have received $360,000 of the $745,000 that we need in order to meet our end-of-year financial goal. Thank you for your generous support! The Lord is good, and all of his paths are "steadfast love and faithfulness" (Psalm 25:10).

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Dear Friends,

It may surprise you the way the Desiring God website began. That’s what this video is about: how one ordinary man got an extraordinary vision from God. I hope the story of Moe Bergeron inspires you.

For decades, Moe was a factory worker and bi-vocational pastor on the rugged spiritual soil of New England. He was one of the first to believe in the power and potential of computers “talking” to each other, and he may have been …

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Murdering a human being is an assault on God. He made us in his own image. Destroying an image usually means you hate the imaged. Murdering God’s human image-bearer is not just murder. It’s treason — treason against the creator of the world. It is a capital crime — and more. “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image” (Genesis 9:6).

As usual, Jesus takes this up in devastating terms. None of us escapes.

You have heard that it was said to those of old, “You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.” But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his br

…

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We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize . . . but one who in every respect has been tested as we are. (Hebrews 4:15)

Mass murder is why Jesus came into the world the way he did. What kind of Savior do we need when our hearts are shredded by brutal loss?

We need a suffering Savior. We need a Savior who has tasted the cup of horror we are being forced to drink.

And that is how he came. He knew what this world needed. Not a comedian. Not a sports hero. Not a movie star. Not a political genius. Not a doctor. Not even a pastor. The world needed what no mere man could be.

The world needed a suffering Sovereign. Mere suffering would not do. Mere sovereignty would not do. Th…

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Dear Friends,

Have you ever wondered what became of the innkeeper in Bethlehem who let Mary and Joseph have their baby in his barn?

Did he have little children? When the soldiers came from Herod, did they hunt for the birth place of the dangerous baby and start the slaughter there? What did it cost the innkeeper to house the Messiah in his first hours?

In the poem called The Innkeeper, I tried to imagine what might have happened when the soldiers came. And what Jesus might have said if he showed up 30 years later to talk to the innkeeper about it. It’s fiction. But its aim is truth and hope and joy.

Desiring God and Crossway Books have teamed up to make a new video recordin…

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Ramez Atallah, the General Director of The Bible Society of Egypt, has given me permission to share this letter. It is at once educational, inspirational, and a call for prayer for the Coptic Church of Egypt.

On Sunday November 4th, I attended the extremely moving ceremony where the new Patriarch (Pope) of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Egypt was chosen. The Nominating Committee had narrowed the candidates from 17 names down to five, after which 2,406 Coptic leaders and laymen prayerfully elected three people, two Bishops and one monk. 

After much fasting and prayer, by most Copts, the leadership of the Church met at the Cathedral and a young, blindfolded child put his hand in a jar contai…

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I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life. . . . He set me apart before I was born, and called me by his grace.

 You were aflame, a Pharisee.
      I  was. Without a flaw.
Then blameless? Perfect purity?
     Yes, in the law.

Did you consent to Stephen's death?
     More than consent, approved.
And did you hear his final breath?
     I did, unmoved.

Did you condemn the innocent?
     More than condemn, blasphemed.
And was your sentence violent?
     It was. They screamed.

Did you not once lament all this?
     Not once. Nor felt regret.
Or feel the …

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Dear Friends,

I’m excited to tell you about a new free eBook for Advent from Desiring God. It’s called Good News of Great Joy, organized specifically for this Advent, 2012.

Advent is just around the corner. It starts the fourth Sunday before Christmas — this year, that’s December 2 — and is a season of preparation for Christmas Day.

The team here at Desiring God did a deep dive into our thirty-plus-year reservoir of sermons and articles, and selected brief devotional readings for each day of Advent. Our hope is that God would use these readings to deepen and sweeten your adoration of Jesus this Advent.

These daily devotionals correspond to the daily readings in our devotiona…

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