248.8'6—dc22 2006026383

When the Darkness Will Not Lift: Doing What We Can While We Wait for God—and Joy

Published by Crossway Books

a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers 1300 Crescent Street Wheaton, Illinois 60187

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, except as provided by USA copyright law.

Cover design: Josh Dennis

Cover photo: iStock

First printing 2007

Printed in the United States of America

Scripture quotations marked ESV are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®, copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

All emphases in Scripture quotations have been added by the author unless otherwise noted.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Piper, John, 1946– When the darkness will not lift : doing what we can while we wait for God and joy / John Piper.

p. cm. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 13: 978-1-58134-876-7 (tpb) ISBN 10: 1-58134-876-2 1. Depressed persons—Religious life. 2. Spiritual life—Christi anity. 3. Expectation (Psychology)—Religious aspects—Christianity. 4. Trust in God. 5. Patience—Religious aspects—Christianity. 6. Depression, Mental—Religious aspects—Christianity. I. Title. BV4910.34.P57 2006 248.8'6—dc22 2006026383

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To the memory of

JOHN OWEN

who has wakened hope for many

in the darkness of perfectionistic despair

Contents

Introduction: Faith Alone and the Fight

for Joy 11

To Help Those for Whom Joy Stays Out of Reach

The Foundation of Gutsy Guilt

The Great Work of Christ Outside of Us

Confusing Justification and Sanctification Will Kill Joy

John Bunyan Sees His Righteousness in Heaven

Start with Despair in Yourself

1 The Darkness of Melancholy 23

The Physical Side of Spiritual Darkness

The Place of Medication in the Fight for Joy

2 Waiting in Darkness, We Are Not Lost and Not Alone 33

How Long, O Lord, How Long!

The Ground of Our Assurance When We Cannot See Our Faith

When a Child of God Is Persuaded That He Is Not

3 Fold Not the Arms of Action 45

What Matters Is Your Duty, Not Your Joy?

Duty Includes the Duty of Joy

Will You Be a Hypocrite If You Obey without Joy?

Thanksgiving with the Mouth Stirs Up Thankfulness in the Heart

4 Does Unconfessed Sin Clog Our Joy? 53

Confessing to God and to Man Is Sweet Freedom

Give the Devil His Due, but No More

The Devil Cannot Abide with the Light of Cherished Truth

5 The Darkness That Feeds on Self-Absorption 61

How Bill Leslie Became a Watered Garden and a Spring

What My Eighty-Five-Year-Old Father Said Was Missing

The Aim Is That Our Words Would Be the Overflow of Joy in Christ

Is the Cause You Live for Large Enough for Your Christ-Exalting Heart?

6 Loving Those Who Cannot See the Light 69

The Amazing Grace of John Newton's Care for Cowper

There Is No Wasted Work in Loving Those without Light

Desiring God—A Note on Resources 80

When the Darkness

Will Not Lift

Doing What We Can While We Wait for God—and Joy

I waited patiently for the LORD.

P s a l m 4 0 : 1

Weeping may tarry for the night,

but joy comes with the morning.

P s a l m 3 0 : 5

Ah my deare angrie Lord, Since thou dost love, yet strike;

Cast down, yet help afford;

Sure I will do the like.

I will complain, yet praise;

I will bewail, approve: And all my sowre-sweet dayes

I will lament, and love.

G e o r g e H e r b e r t

"Bitter-sweet"1

1 George Herbert, "Bitter-sweet," from his collection titled The Temple (1633), quoted from: http://www.ccel.org/h/herbert/temple/Bittersweet.html (accessed July 11, 2006).

Introduction

Faith Alone and the

Fight for Joy

n addressing the topic of spiritual darkness, I am

aware that I have put my oar in a very large sea. I

rise from my desk and walk past a wall of books that

speak more wisely than I on the care and cure of sad

Christian souls. Just opening these volumes reminds me

of how many wise and valuable things could be said—

and cannot be said in a book of this size. It will always

be so. The Word of God is inexhaustible, and the world

he made holds countless treasures waiting to be found

by clear eyes in search of Christ-exalting joy.

12 When the Darkness Will Not Lift

The needs of embattled people who ﬁght for joy will

always be as diverse as the people themselves. So I con

tent myself with rowing out into this sea as far as my

limits allow, and I pray that you will search out some of

these great old books and go farther in your quest for

joy than I am able to take you here.1

To Help Those for Whom Joy Stays Out of Reach

My aim is to give some guidance and hope to those for

whom joy seems to stay out of reach. Virtually all Bible-

saturated physicians of the soul have spoken about long

seasons of darkness and desolation. In the old days they

called it melancholy. Richard Baxter, for example, who

died in 1691, wrote with astonishing relevance about

the complexities of dealing with Christians who seem

1 Willem Teellinck, The Path of True Godliness, trans. Annemie Godbehere, ed. Joel R. Beeke (repr. Grand Rapids, Mich: Baker, 2003); Richard Sibbes, The Bruised Reed (1630; repr. Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1998); William Bridge, A Lifting Up for the Downcast (1649; repr. Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1979); Jeremiah Burroughs, The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment (1648; repr. Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1979); John Owen, Overcoming Sin and Temptation (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books, 2006); John Owen, Communion with God (1657; repr. Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1992); Richard Baxter (died 1691), "The Cure of Melancholy and Overmuch Sorrow by Faith and Physic," in Puritan Sermons 1659–1689, vol. 3, ed. Samuel Annesley (Wheaton, Ill.: Richard Owen Roberts Publishers, 1981 [available to read at http://www.puritansermons.com/baxter/baxter25.htm]); Walter Marshall, The Gospel Mystery of Sanctiﬁcation (1692; repr. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Reformation Heritage Books, 1999); Henry Scougal, The Life of God in the Soul of Man (1739; repr. Ross-shire, Scotland: Christian Focus, 1996); Jonathan Edwards, The Religious Affections (1746; repr. Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1986); Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Spiritual Depression: Its Causes and Cures (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1965); Gaius Davies, Genius, Grief and Grace: A Doctor Looks at Suffering and Success (Ross-shire, Scotland: Christian Focus, 2001); J. I. Packer, Faithfulness and Holiness: The Witness of J. C. Ryle (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books, 2002).

Introduction 13

unable to enjoy God. "Delighting in God, and in his

word and ways," he said, "is the ﬂower and life of true

religion. But these that I speak of can delight in noth

ing—neither God, nor in his word, nor any duty."2

I think that is technically an overstatement. At least

I prefer to say that all true believers in Christ have

within them the seed of joy, and that they do experience

it in some real way. They may not have the "ﬂower" of

"true religion," but they do have the "life," even though

it may be only a mustard seed of joy in Christ.3 They

have tasted and seen that the Lord Jesus is a sweet, life-

giving spring of eternal joy for their souls (Ps. 34:8; 1

Pet. 2:2-3), but the taste, even though it indicates that

there is true spiritual life, is easily overwhelmed by the

ﬂoods of darkness that threaten to bury it. These are the

ones I want to help in this small book.

The Foundation of Gutsy Guilt

This book began as the ﬁnal chapter of a larger book

titled When I Don't Desire God: How to Fight for Joy.4

2 Baxter, "The Cure of Melancholy," 257.

3 For a fuller discussion of the relationship between joy and saving faith see John Piper, "The Purifying Power of Living by Faith" in Future Grace (Sisters, Oregon: Multnomah Publishers, 1995), chapters 14–16.

4 John Piper, When I Don't Desire God: How to Fight for Joy (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2004), 209-34.

14 When the Darkness Will Not Lift

I hope that if this small book proves helpful, readers will

consider what is in the larger one. There are crucial

foundations in that larger book which are not included

here. One of the most important is learning to ﬁght for

joy like a justiﬁed sinner. I call this "gutsy guilt." Every

embattled saint has learned this secret, even if they

never called it by that name.

Gutsy guilt means learning to live on the rock-solid

truth of what happened for us when Jesus Christ died

on the cross and rose again from the dead. It means real

izing that in this life we will always be sinful and imper

fect. Therefore in ourselves we will always be guilty.

This will prove emotionally devastating if we do not dis

cover the reality of justiﬁcation by faith, that is, the

secret of gutsy guilt. This is not the only weapon with

which we ﬁght for joy in the darkness of discourage

ment, but it is one of the most foundational and the

most important.

The biblical truth of justiﬁcation says that my res

cue from sin and God's wrath is ﬁrst a legal rescue, and

only then a moral one. First, I am legally absolved of

guilt and credited with a righteousness that I don't

have. That is, I am declared righteous in the courtroom

of heaven, where God sits as judge, and where I, with

Introduction 15

out justiﬁcation, would stand condemned by his law.

That's what the word "justify" means: not make just,

but declare just.5

We can see this in Luke 7:29 where the people "jus

tiﬁed God"! That is, they declared that he was just.

They didn't make him just. The difference is that we are

sinners and do not have a righteousness of our own. We

should, but we don't. That's why we are guilty and des

tined for eternal punishment. This is the deepest root of

all our misery. If we could sever this root, we would

ﬁght for joy as victors. God's gift of justiﬁcation on the

basis of Christ's blood and righteousness does sever this

root of misery.

The Great Work of Christ Outside of Us

To make a way for us to be saved, God sent Christ to live

a perfect divine-human life, and die an obedient death. In

this way Christ became both the substitute punishment

for our sins (Matt. 26:28; 1 Cor. 15:3; 1 Pet. 3:18) and

the substitute performer of our righteousness (Rom. 5:19;

10:4; 2 Cor. 5:21; Phil. 3:9). Therefore, in the courtroom

5 For a fuller explanation and defense of this understanding of the doctrine of justiﬁcation by faith, see John Piper, Counted Righteous in Christ (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2002).

16 When the Darkness Will Not Lift

of God, my guilt for sin is removed by Christ's blood ("In

him we have redemption through his blood, the forgive

ness of our trespasses" [Eph. 1:7]); and my title to heaven

is provided by Christ's obedience ("By the one man's obe

dience the many will be made righteous" [Rom. 5:19]). I

am declared just—freed from the punishment of sin and

now possessing a title to heaven. This is what the Bible

means by justiﬁcation.

The capstone of its joy-producing glory is that jus

tification is by faith alone apart from works of the law.

Paul said, "We hold that one is justified by faith apart

from works of the law. . . . To the one who does not

work but trusts him who justifies the ungodly, his

faith is counted as righteousness" (Rom. 3:28; 4:4-5).

The best news in all the world to the "ungodly," who

grieve under the cloud of darkness and guilt, is the

news that God, by faith alone, counts them as righ

teous because of Christ. This is the rock where we

stand when the dark clouds gather and the floods lick

at our feet: justification is by grace alone (not mixed

with our merit), through faith alone (not mixed with

our works) on the basis of Christ alone (not mingling

his righteousness with ours), to the glory of God alone

(not ours).

Introduction 17

Confusing Justification and Sanctification Will Kill Joy

Then, and only then, on the basis of this forgiveness and

this declaration of righteousness, God gives us his Holy

Spirit and progressively transforms us morally into the

image of his Son. This progressive change is not justiﬁca

tion, but is based on justiﬁcation. This change is what we

call sanctiﬁcation. "Now that you have been set free from

sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads

to sanctiﬁcation and its end, eternal life" (Rom. 6:22).

First, the legal issue is settled. In the courtroom of

heaven, we ungodly sinners are declared righteous by

faith alone. Christ's righteousness is imputed to us. We

do not have a righteousness of our own when God

accepts us. Our faith was not our righteousness. It was

our desperate receiving of Christ and all that he is for

us. We had not yet become loving. Instead, with empty

hands we received Christ whose faithful life of love per

fectly fulﬁlled the law of God. By faith alone we were

united to Christ. And all that he is was imputed to us,

the ungodly. This is justiﬁcation. This is the settling of

the legal issue ﬁrst.

When that is settled—and it is settled in the twin

kling of an eye—then the moral progress goes forward

18 When the Darkness Will Not Lift

(sanctiﬁcation) all too slowly, we lament. Both justiﬁ

cation and sanctiﬁcation are gifts from God. Both are

bought by the blood of Christ. They are inseparable,

but different. Both are by faith alone. Justiﬁcation is by

faith alone because only faith receives the declaration

that we, the ungodly, are counted righteous.

Sanctification is by faith alone because only faith

receives the power to bear the fruit of love.

It is crucial in the ﬁght for joy that we not confuse

or combine justiﬁcation and sanctiﬁcation. Confusing

them will, in the end, undermine the gospel, and turn

justiﬁcation by faith into justiﬁcation by performance.

If that happens, the great gospel weapon in the ﬁght for

joy will fall from our hands.

God accepts us on the basis of Christ's righteous

ness, not ours. To be sure, our progressive sanctiﬁca

tion—our all-too-slow growth in Christlikeness—

matters. It is the necessary evidence that the seed of

spiritual life is in our soul and that our faith is real.6 But,

6 The historic Westminster Confession of Faith expresses well how faith alone justiﬁes but is never alone, and always gives rise to love. "Those whom God effectually calleth He also freely justiﬁ eth; not by infusing righteousness into them, but by pardoning their sins, and by accounting and accepting their persons as righteous: not for anything wrought in them, or done by them, but for Christ's sake alone: nor by imputing faith itself, the act of believing, or any other evangeli cal obedience, to them as their righteousness; but by imputing the obedience and satisfaction of Christ unto them, they receiving and resting on Him and His righteousness, by faith: which faith they have not of themselves; it is the gift of God" (11.1); and "Faith, thus receiving and resting on Christ and His righteousness, is the alone instrument of justiﬁcation; yet is it not alone in the person justiﬁed, but is ever accompanied with all other saving graces, and is no dead faith, but worketh by love" (11:2).

Introduction 19

O what a difference it makes to be assured, in the dis

couraging darkness of our own imperfection, that we

have a perfect righteousness outside ourselves, namely

Christ's.

John Bunyan Sees His Righteousness in Heaven

This was John Bunyan's experience and he tells his story

to encourage us to rejoice in the doctrine of justiﬁca

tion—that there is a perfect, objective, external righ

teousness imputed to us that is not our own but Christ's.

Bunyan is the one who wrote The Pilgrim's Progress,

which has sold more copies in English than any book

besides the Bible. He was a pastor in the seventeenth

century who spent over twelve years in prison because

he refused to stop preaching the word of the cross. The

greatest Puritan theologian and contemporary of

Bunyan, John Owen, when asked by King Charles why

he went to hear an uneducated tinker preach, said, "I

would willingly exchange my learning for the tinker's

power of touching men's hearts."7

But Bunyan was not always so bold and full of

7 John Brown, John Bunyan: His Life, Times and Work (London: The Hulbert Publishing Co., 1928), 366. This is a paraphrase of an indirect quote.

20 When the Darkness Will Not Lift

gospel power. In his twenties there were terrible strug

gles. "A whole ﬂood of blasphemies, both against God,

Christ, and the Scriptures were poured upon my spirit,

to my great confusion and astonishment. . . . My heart

was at times exceeding hard. If I would have given a

thousand pounds for a tear, I could not shed one. . . .

Oh, the desperateness of man's heart. . . . I feared that

this wicked sin of mine might be that sin unpardon

able. . . . Oh, no one knows the terrors of those days but

myself."8

Then came the decisive moment of triumph over

despair and joylessness. It was an awakening to the

magnificent truth of the imputation of Christ's

righteousness.

One day as I was passing into the ﬁeld . . . this sentence

fell upon my soul. Thy righteousness is in heaven. And

. . . I saw with the eyes of my soul Jesus Christ at God's

right hand; there, I say, was my righteousness; so that

wherever I was, or whatever I was doing, God could

not say of me, he [lacks] my righteousness, for that was

just before him. I also saw, moreover, that it was not my

good frame of heart that made my righteousness better,

nor yet my bad frame that made my righteousness

8 John Bunyan, Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners (Hertfordshire, England: Evangelical Press, 1978), 55-59.

Introduction 21

worse, for my righteousness was Jesus Christ himself,

"The same yesterday, today, and forever" (Heb. 13:8).

Now did my chains fall off my legs indeed. I was loosed

from my afflictions and irons; my temptations also ﬂed

away; so that from that time those dreadful scriptures

of God [about the unforgivable sin] left off to trouble

me; now went I also home rejoicing for the grace and

love of God."9

Start with Despair in Yourself

Bunyan went home rejoicing when he saw that his righ

teousness was outside himself. It was Jesus Christ. I

pray that this will be your experience too. Where should

you start? Start at the easiest place for those in darkness.

Start with despair. Despair of ﬁnding any answer in

yourself. I pray that you will cease from all efforts to

look inside yourself for the rescue you need. I pray that

you will do what only desperate people can do, namely,

cast yourself on Christ. May you say to him, "You are

my only hope. I have no righteousness in myself. I am

overwhelmed with sin and guilt. I am under the wrath

of God. My own conscience condemns me, and makes

me miserable. I am perishing. Darkness is all about me.

Have mercy upon me. I trust you."

9 Grace Abounding, 90-91.

22 When the Darkness Will Not Lift

He has promised not to turn you away. "Whoever

comes to me I will never cast out" (John 6:37). By this

act of faith God will unite you to Jesus. You will be "in

him," and in him you will be now and forever loved,

forgiven, and righteous. The light will rise in your dark

ness in due time. God will hold onto you (Jude 24). You

will make it. That is his promise: "Those whom he

called he also justiﬁed, and those whom he justiﬁed he

also gloriﬁed" (Rom. 8:30). The glory is coming. In the

meantime, "this slight momentary affliction is prepar

ing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all com

parison, as we look not to the things that are seen but

to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen

are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal."

(2 Cor. 4:17-18).

The Darkness of

Melancholy

ow can we help Christians who seem unable to

break out of darkness into the light of joy? Yes,

I call them Christians, and thus assume that such things

happen to genuine believers. It happens because of sin,

or because of Satanic assault, or because of distressing

circumstances, or because of hereditary or other physi

cal causes. What makes the old books that I referred to

in the Introduction so remarkable is the way they come

to terms with all these causes and their many combina

tions, and how they address each condition appropri

24 When the Darkness Will Not Lift

ately. The old Puritan pastors never seemed to give up

on anyone because of discouraging darkness.

Long before the rise of psychiatry and contempo

rary brain electrophysiology, Bible-saturated Puritan

pastors recognized the complexity of causes behind the

darkness of melancholy. In fact, the ﬁrst answer Baxter

mentions to the question, "What are the causes and

cure of it?" is, "With very many there is a great part of

the cause in distemper, weakness, and diseasedness of

the body; and by it the soul is greatly disabled to any

comfortable sense. But the more it ariseth from such

natural necessity, it is the less sinful and less dangerous

to the soul; but never the less troublesome."1

In his sermon on the causes and cures of melancholy,

he has an entire section on "medicine and diet." He

says, in his quaint but remarkably accurate language,

"The disease called 'melancholy' is formally in the spir

its, whose distemper unﬁts them for their office, in serv

ing the imagination, understanding, memory, and

affections; so by their distemper the thinking faculty is

diseased, and becomes like an inﬂamed eye, or a foot

1 Richard Baxter, "The Cure of Melancholy and Overmuch Sorrow by Faith and Physic," in Puritan Sermons 1659–1689, vol. 3, ed. Samuel Annesley (Wheaton, Ill.: Richard Owen Roberts Publishers, 1981 [available to read at http://www.puritansermons.com/baxter/ baxter25.htm]), 258.

The Darkness of Melancholy 25

that is sprained or out of joint, disabled for its proper

work."2

The Physical Side of Spiritual Darkness

I will not go further in discussing the physical treatment

of melancholy—and its severe form, depression. This is

the work of a medical doctor, which I am not. What we

should be clear about, though, is that the condition of

our bodies makes a difference in the capacity of our

minds to think clearly and of our souls to see the beauty

of hope-giving truth. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, the great

preacher at Westminster Chapel in London in the mid-

twentieth century, began his helpful book Spiritual

Depression by waving the ﬂag of warning that we not

overlook the physical. It is signiﬁcant that Lloyd-Jones

was a medical doctor before he was called to the min

istry of preaching.

Does someone hold the view that as long as you are a

Christian it does not matter what the condition of

your body is? Well, you will soon be disillusioned if

you believe that. Physical conditions play their part in

2 Ibid., 286.

26 When the Darkness Will Not Lift

all this. . . . There are certain physical ailments which

tend to promote depression. . . . [T]ake that great

preacher who preached in London for nearly forty

years in the last century—Charles Haddon

Spurgeon—one of the truly great preachers of all time.

That great man was subject to spiritual depression,

and the main explanation in his case was undoubtedly

the fact that he suffered from a gouty condition which

finally killed him. He had to face this problem of spir

itual depression often in a most acute form. A ten

dency to acute depression is an unfailing

accompaniment of the gout which he inherited from

his forebears. And there are many, I find, who come

to talk to me about these matters, in whose case it

seems quite clear to me that the cause of the trouble is

mainly physical. Into this group, speaking generally,

you can put tiredness, overstrain, illness, any form of

illness. You cannot isolate the spiritual from the phys

ical for we are body, mind and spirit. The greatest and

the best Christians when they are physically weak are

more prone to an attack of spiritual depression than

at any other time and there are great illustrations of

this in the scriptures.3

Gaius Davies, a psychiatrist in Britain who knew Lloyd-

Jones well, observed:

3 Lloyd-Jones, Spiritual Depression, 18-19.

The Darkness of Melancholy 27

Before 1954, when the series of sermons on depression

was completed, no effective antidepressant had been on

the market, though some progress was made towards

that in 1954. Later, in 1955-6 when new forms of med

ication were available freely, I know how concerned Dr.

Lloyd-Jones was to know which kinds of antidepres

sants were most effective, because he asked me about

them a good deal when I was beginning my medical

career, and talked to other doctors in a similar way. He

wanted to know enough to be able to advise those who

asked his opinion.4

The Place of Medication in the Fight for Joy

I do not want to give the impression that medication

should be the ﬁrst or main solution to spiritual dark

ness. Of course, by itself medicine is never a solution to

spiritual darkness. All the fundamental issues of life

remain to be brought into proper relation to Christ

when the medicine has done its work. Antidepressants

are not the decisive savior. Christ is. In fact, the almost

automatic use of pills for child misbehavior and adult

sorrows is probably going to hurt us as a society.

David Powlison, who edits The Journal of Biblical

4 Davies, Genius, Grief and Grace, 354.

28 When the Darkness Will Not Lift

Counseling, counsels at the Christian Counseling and

Educational Foundation, and lectures at Westminster

Seminary, wrote of a sea change in the mental sciences

in the mid-1990s:

Have no doubt, the world did change in the mid-90s.

The action is now in your body. It's what you got from

Mom and Dad, not what they did to you. The excite

ment is about brain functions, not family dysfunctions.

The cutting edge is in hard science medical research and

psychiatry, not squishy soft, philosophy-of-life, feel-

your-pain psychologies. . . . Biology is suddenly hot.

Psychiatry has broken forth, a blitzkrieg sweeping away

all opposition. . . . Medicine is poised to claim the

human personality. . . . The biopsychologizing of

human life is having a huge effect, both in culture and

the church.5

His conclusion is that this preoccupation with biopsy

chiatry will pass, and as it does,

biopsychiatry will cure a few things, for which we

should praise the God of common grace. But in the

long run, unwanted and unforeseen side effects will

combine with vast disillusionment. The gains will

never live up to the promises. And the lives of count

5 David Powlison, "Biological Psychiatry," in Journal of Biblical Counseling 17 (Spring 1999): 3-4.

The Darkness of Melancholy 29

less people, whose normal life problems are now

being medicated, will not be qualitatively changed

and redirected. Only intelligent repentance, living

faith, and tangible obedience turn the world upside

down.6

Powlison refers sympathetically to Ed Welch's book

Blame It on the Brain? where Welch is willing to employ

medication in cases of persistent debilitating depression.

Welch says:

If the person is not taking medication but is consider

ing it, I typically suggest that he or she postpone that

decision for a period of time. During that time, I con

sider possible causes, and together we ask God to

teach us about both ourselves and him so that we can

grow in faith in the midst of hardship. If the depression

persists, I might let the person know that medication

is an option to deal with some of the physical

symptoms.7

To many, this may seem excessively cautious. But

widespread scientiﬁc evidence is already reining in the

initial enthusiasm about the unique effectiveness of

6 Ibid., 6.

7 Edward T. Welch, Blame It on the Brain? Distinguishing Chemical Imbalances, Brain Disorders, and Disobedience (Phillipsburg, N.J., P&R, 1998), 126.

30 When the Darkness Will Not Lift

antidepressants. One summary article in The

Washington Post in May 2002 put the situation starkly

like this:

After thousands of studies, hundreds of millions of pre

scriptions and tens of billions of dollars in sales, two

things are certain about pills that treat depression:

Antidepressants like Prozac, Paxil and Zoloft work.

And so do sugar pills. A new analysis has found that in

the majority of trials conducted by drug companies in

recent decades, sugar pills have done as well as—or bet

ter than—antidepressants.8

The point of Welch's caution and the Post's skepticism

is not that depression or spiritual darkness is discon

nected with our physical condition. They are deeply

connected. The point is that the relationship between

the soul and the brain is beyond human comprehension

and should be handled with the greatest care and with

profound attention to the moral and spiritual realities

of human personhood that may exert as much inﬂuence

on the brain as vice versa.

In other words, if someone reading this book is on

8 Shankar Vedantam, "Against Depression, a Sugar Pill Is Hard to Beat," in Washington Post (May 7, 2002): A01. Cited from www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn-articles/A42930 2002May6.html (link defunct).

The Darkness of Melancholy 31

medication, or is thinking about it, I do not condemn

you for that, nor does the Bible. It may or may not be

the best course of action. I commend you to the wisdom

of a God-centered, Bible-saturated medical doctor. If

there was imperfection in the choice to use medication,

the imputed righteousness of Christ will swallow it up

as you rest in him.

Waiting in Darkness,

We Are Not Lost

and Not Alone

ith or without medication there are other

things that can be done in the midst of pro

longed darkness. And I would love to encourage you in

some of these. It will be of great advantage to the strug

gling Christian to remember that seasons of darkness

are normal in the Christian life. I don't mean that we

should not try to live above them. I mean that if we do

not succeed, we are not lost, and we are not alone, as

34 When the Darkness Will Not Lift

the fragment of our faith cleaves to Christ. Consider the

experience of David in Psalm 40:1-3:

I waited patiently for the LORD; he inclined to me and heard my cry. He drew me up from the pit of destruction, out of the miry bog, and set my feet upon a rock, making my steps secure. He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God. Many will see and fear, and put their trust in the LORD.

The king of Israel is in "the pit of destruction" and "the

miry bog"—descriptions of his spiritual condition. The

song of praise is coming, he says, but it is not now on his

lips. It is as if David had fallen into a deep, dark well and

plunged into life-threatening mud. There was one other

time when David wrote about this kind of experience. He

combined the images of mud and ﬂood: "Save me, O

God! For the waters have come up to my neck. I sink in

deep mire, where there is no foothold; I have come into

deep waters, and the ﬂood sweeps over me" (Ps. 69:1-2).

In this pit of mud and destruction there is a sense of

helplessness and desperation. Suddenly air, just air, is

worth a million dollars. Helplessness, desperation,

Waiting in Darkness, We Are Not Lost and Not Alone 35

apparent hopelessness, the breaking point for the over

worked businessman, the outer limits of exasperation

for the mother of three constantly crying children, the

impossible expectations of too many classes in school,

the grinding stress of a lingering illness, the imminent

attack of a powerful enemy. It is good that we don't

know what the experience was. It makes it easier to see

ourselves in the pit with the king. Anything that causes

a sense of helplessness and desperation and threatens to

ruin life or take it away—that is the king's pit.

How Long, O Lord, How Long!

Then comes the king's cry: "I waited patiently for the

LORD; he inclined to me and heard my cry." One of the

reasons God loved David so much was that he cried so

much. "I am weary with my moaning; every night I

ﬂood my bed with tears; I drench my couch with my

weeping" (Ps. 6:6). "You have kept count of my toss

ings; put my tears in your bottle. Are they not in your

book?" (Ps. 56:8). Indeed they are! "Blessed are those

who mourn" (Matt. 5:4). It is a beautiful thing when a

broken man genuinely cries out to God.

Then after the cry you wait. "I waited patiently for

the LORD." This is crucial to know: saints who cry to the

36 When the Darkness Will Not Lift

Lord for deliverance from pits of darkness must learn to

wait patiently for the Lord. There is no statement about

how long David waited. I have known saints who

walked through eight years of debilitating depression

and came out into glorious light. Only God knows how

long we must wait. The prophet Micah experienced

prolonged and painful waiting. "I sit in darkness . . .

until [the Lord] pleads my cause and . . . will bring me

out to the light" (Mic. 7:8-9). We can draw no deadlines

for God. He hastens or he delays as he sees ﬁt. And his

timing is all-loving toward his children. Oh, that we

might learn to be patient in the hour of darkness. I don't

mean that we make peace with darkness. We ﬁght for

joy. But we ﬁght as those who are saved by grace and

held by Christ. We say with Paul Gerhardt that our night

will soon—in God's good timing—turn to day:

Give to the winds thy fears,

Hope and be undismayed.

God hears thy sighs and counts thy tears,

God shall lift up thy head.

Through waves and clouds and storms,

He gently clears thy way;

Wait thou His time; so shall this night

Soon end in joyous day.

Waiting in Darkness, We Are Not Lost and Not Alone 37

Far, far above thy thought, His counsel shall appear, When fully He the work hath wrought, That caused thy needless fear.

Leave to His sovereign sway To choose and to command; So shalt thou, wondering, own that way, How wise, how strong this hand.1

The Ground of Our Assurance When We Cannot See Our Faith2

It is utterly crucial that in our darkness we affirm the

wise, strong hand of God to hold us, even when we have

no strength to hold him. This is the way Paul thought

of his own strivings. He said, "Not that I have already

obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to

make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his

own" (Phil. 3:12). The key thing to see in this verse is

that all Paul's efforts to grasp the fullness of joy in

Christ are secured by Christ's grasp of him. Never for

get that your security rests on Christ's faithfulness ﬁrst.

Our faith rises and falls. It has degrees. But our secu

1 Paul Gerhardt, "Give to the Winds Thy Fears" (1656), trans. John Wesley (1737), www.cyberhymnal.org/htm/g/i/givetotw.htm.

2 For a biblical and balanced treatment of assurance, see Donald S. Whitney, How Can I Be Sure I'm a Christian? What the Bible Says About Assurance of Salvation (Colorado Springs: NavPress, 1994).

38 When the Darkness Will Not Lift

rity does not rise and fall. It has no degrees. We must

persevere in faith. That's true. But there are times when

our faith is the size of a mustard seed and barely visible.

In fact, the darkest experience for the child of God is

when his faith sinks out of his own sight. Not out of

God's sight, but his. Yes, it is possible to be so over

whelmed with darkness that you do not know if you are

a Christian—and yet still be one.

All the great doctors of the soul have distinguished

between faith and its full assurance. The reason for this

is that we are saved by the work of God causing us to be

born again and bringing us to faith. "The wind blows

where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not

know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with

everyone who is born of the Spirit" (John 3:8). We are

not saved by producing faith on our own and then mak

ing that the basis of our new birth. It is the other way

around, which means that God is at the bottom of my

faith; and when it disappears for a season from my own

view, God may yet be there sustaining its root in the new

birth and protecting the seed from destruction. This was

crucial in Richard Baxter's soul care.

Certainty of our faith and sincerity is not necessary to

salvation, but the sincerity of faith itself is necessary. He

Waiting in Darkness, We Are Not Lost and Not Alone 39

shall be saved that giveth up himself to Christ, though

he know not that he is sincere in doing it. Christ

knoweth his own grace, when they that have it know

not that it is sound.

An abundance are cast down by ignorance of them

selves, not knowing the sincerity which God hath given

them. Grace is weak in the best of us here; and little and

weak grace is not very easily perceived, for it acteth

weakly and unconstantly, and it is known but by its

acts; and weak grace is always joined with too strong

corruption; and all sin in heart and life is contrary to

grace, and doth obscure it. . . . And how can any under

all these hindrances, yet keep any full assurance of their

own sincerity?3

Baxter's aim here is not to destroy a Christian's com

fort. On the contrary, he wants to help us in the times of

our darkness to know that we can be safe in Jesus, even

when we have lost sight of our own sincerity. The wit

ness of the Holy Spirit that we are the children of God

(Rom. 8:16) may be clear or faint. But the reality is

unshakable. "God's ﬁrm foundation stands, bearing this

seal: 'The Lord knows those who are his'" (2 Tim. 2:19).

"God is faithful, by whom you were called" (1 Cor. 1:9).

3 Baxter, "The Cure of Melancholy," 266, 278.

40 When the Darkness Will Not Lift

"He who began a good work in you will bring it to com

pletion at the day of Jesus Christ" (Phil. 1:6). Baxter's

words are crucial counsel if we are to survive the dark

night of the soul. And that night will come for almost

every Christian. And when it comes, we must wait for

the Lord, cry to him, and know that our own self-indict

ment, rendered in the darkness, is not as sure as God's

Word spoken in the light.

When a Child of God Is Persuaded That He Is Not

Christians in the darkness of depression may ask des

perately, how can I know that I am truly a child of God?

They are not usually asking to be reminded that we are

saved by grace through faith. They know that. They are

asking how they can know that their faith is real. God

must guide us in how we answer, and knowing the per

son will help us know what to say.4

The ﬁrst and best thing to say may be, "I love you.

And I am not letting you go." In those words a person

may feel God's keeping presence, which they may not

4 For two helpful articles on depression and how to help those who struggle, see Edward T. Welch, "Counseling Those Who Are Depressed" and "Words of Hope for Those Who Struggle with Depression," Journal of Biblical Counseling 18, no. 2 (2000): 5-31, 40-46.

Waiting in Darkness, We Are Not Lost and Not Alone 41

feel in any other way. Or, second, we might say, "Stop

looking at your faith, and rivet your attention on Christ.

Faith is sustained by looking at Christ, cruciﬁed and

risen, not by turning from Christ to analyze your faith.

Let me help you look to Christ. Let's read Luke 22

through 24 together." Paradoxically, if we would expe

rience the joy of faith, we must not focus much on it.

We must focus on the greatness of our Savior.

Third, we might call attention to the evidences of

grace in their life. We might recount our own sense of

their authenticity when we were loved by them, and

then remind them of their own strong affirmations of

the lordship of Christ. Then say, "No one can say 'Jesus

is Lord' except in the Holy Spirit" (1 Cor. 12:3). This

approach is not usually successful in the short run,

because a depressed person is prone to discount all good

assessments of his own condition; but it can be valuable

in the long run, because it stands as an objective hope

and act of love over against his own subjective darkness.

Fourth, we might remind the sufferer that his

demand for a kind of absolute, mathematical certainty

about his right standing with God is asking for too

much. None of us lives with that kind of certainty

about any relationships in life, and this need not destroy

42 When the Darkness Will Not Lift

our comfort. As Baxter says, "No wife or child is cer

tain that the husband or father will not murder them;

and yet they may live comfortably, and not fear it."5 In

other words, there is a kind of certainty that we live by,

and it is enough. It is, in the end, a gift of God.

One can imagine a wife obsessed with fear that her

husband will kill her, or that during the night one of her

children will kill another one. No amount of arguing

may bring her away from the fear of this possibility.

Rationally and mathematically it is possible. But mil

lions of people live in complete peace about these

things, even though there is no absolute 2 + 2 = 4 kind

of certainty. The certainty is rooted in good experience

and the God-given stability of nature. It is a sweet

assurance—and a gift of God. So we say to our suffer

ing friend, "Don't demand the kind of certainty about

your own relationship to God that you don't require

about the other relationships in your life."

It follows from this that we should all fortify our

selves against the dark hours of depression by cultivat

ing a deep distrust of the certainties of despair. Despair

is relentless in the certainties of its pessimism. But we

have seen again and again, from our own experience

5 Baxter, "The Cure of Melancholy," 278.

Waiting in Darkness, We Are Not Lost and Not Alone 43

and others', that absolute statements of hopelessness

that we make in the dark are notoriously unreliable.

Our dark certainties are not sureties. While we have the

light, let us cultivate distrust of the certainties of

despair.

Fold Not the Arms

of Action

aiting for the Lord in a season of darkness

should not be a time of inactivity. We should

do what we can do. And doing is often God's appointed

remedy for despair. Wise Christian counselors, ancient

and modern, have given this advice. George

MacDonald, whom C. S. Lewis called "his master,"1

wrote:

1 C. S. Lewis, ed., George MacDonald: An Anthology (London: Geoffrey Bles, The Centenary Press, 1946), 20.

46 When the Darkness Will Not Lift

[God] changes not because thou changest. Nay, He has

an especial tenderness of love towards thee for that

thou art in the dark and hast no light, and His heart is

glad when thou dost arise and say, "I will go to my

Father." . . . Fold the arms of thy faith, and wait in the

quietness until light goes up in thy darkness. Fold the

arms of thy Faith I say, but not of thy Action: bethink

thee of something that thou oughtest to do, and go to

do it, if it be but the sweeping of a room, or the prepar

ing of a meal, or a visit to a friend. Heed not thy feel

ings: Do thy work.2

Richard Baxter gave the same counsel three hundred

years earlier than MacDonald and traced it back to the

Bible.

Be sure that you live not idly, but in some constant busi

ness of a lawful calling, so far as you have bodily

strength. Idleness is a constant sin, and labour is a duty.

Idleness is but the devil's home for temptation, and for

unproﬁtable, distracting musings. Labour proﬁteth oth

ers and ourselves; both soul and body need it. Six days

must thou labour, and must not eat "The bread of idle

ness." (Prov. xxxi. 13-27.) God hath made it our duty,

and will bless us in his appointed way. I have known

grievous, despairing melancholy cured and turned into

2 Ibid., 36. See the quote in its context from the sermon "The Eloi," at http://www.johannesen.com/SermonsSeriesI.htm.

Fold Not the Arms of Action 47

a life of godly cheerfulness, principally by setting upon

constancy and diligence in the business of families and

callings.3

What Matters Is Your Duty, Not Your Joy?

This counsel from MacDonald and Baxter raises a crit

ical question. They both seem to make feelings negligi

ble. They seem to say: What matters is that you do your

duty, not that you feel joy. But that may not be what

they mean, and if it were, I would strongly disagree.

When MacDonald says, "Heed not thy feelings: Do thy

work," he means: don't let wrong feelings govern you.

Act against them. If your feelings are telling you that

staying in bed is the best thing today, preach to your

feelings and tell them how foolish they are. Don't lose

sight of the gospel in this preaching! Don't forget that

defeating these wrong feelings and getting out of bed is

enabled by the Spirit and is becoming what you are in

Christ. But then exert your will and get up! I certainly

agree with this.

But the question is deeper: If joy in God is the foun

3 Baxter, "The Cure of Melancholy," 282.

48 When the Darkness Will Not Lift

tain of love and the root of right living—as I believe it

is—can behavior that proceeds without joy be virtuous?

I will answer the question at two levels.

First, I would say that a Christian, no matter how

dark the season of his sadness, never is completely with

out joy in God. I mean that there remains in his heart

the seed of joy in the form, perhaps, of only a remem

bered taste of goodness and an unwillingness to let the

goodness go. This is not the "joy that is inexpressible

and ﬁlled with glory" (1 Pet. 1:8). It's not the joy that

we have known at times and ﬁght to regain. But it is a

fragment of such joy—like a man who sits in prison and

pulls out a tattered picture of his wife, or a paralyzed

victim of a car accident who watches a video of the day

he could dance. Or, even more fragmentary, the joy may

only lie there in the cellar of our soul in the form of pen

itent sadness that we cannot desire God as we ought.

Inside that sadness is the seed of what we once knew of

joy.

Duty Includes the Duty of Joy

The other answer I would give is that we should never

say to ourselves or another person in the season of dark

ness, "Just do your work. Just do your duty. Just act like

Fold Not the Arms of Action 49

a Christian, even if you don't feel like one." That's

almost good advice. But the problem is in the word just.

Instead of only saying, "Just do your duty," we must say

four other things as well.

First, we must say that joy is part of your duty. The

Bible says, "Rejoice always" (1 Thess. 5:16). And in

regard to the duty of giving, it says, "God loves a cheer

ful giver" (2 Cor. 9:7). In regard to the duty of service,

it says, "Serve the Lord with gladness" (Ps. 100:2). In

regard to the duty of mercy, it says do it "with cheer

fulness" (Rom. 12:8). In regard to the duty of afflic

tions, it says, "Count it all joy" (James 1:2). We simply

water down the divine command when we call someone

to half their duty.

The second thing we must say when we tell a dis

consolate person to "do their job" is that while they do

their job, they should probably be repenting and con

fessing the sin of gloomy faith. I say "probably" because

even in cases where the main cause is physical, there is

probably some element of sinful pride or self-pity min

gled with it. I am aware that this may sound like an

added burden to the one who is in spiritual darkness.

But it is not an added burden. If it is a burden at all, it

is already there and not added by calling it what it is.

50 When the Darkness Will Not Lift

Failing to rejoice in God when we are commanded to

rejoice is sin. False comforts lead to artiﬁcial healing.

But the truest diagnoses lead to the deepest cures. So,

yes, we tell the disconsolate: "If you can, get up from

your bed and make a meal, or sweep a room, or take a

walk, or visit a friend, or go to work. But it is not a mat

ter of indifference whether you do this with joy in God,

and if you can't, then tell him so, and that you are sorry.

He will hear you mercifully and forgive."

Will You Be a Hypocrite If You Obey without Joy?

Which leads to the third thing we say along with "Do

your duty." We say: As you are able to do some of your

duty, ask God that the joy be restored. That is, don't sit

and wait for the joy, saying, "I will be a hypocrite if I

do an act of mercy today, since I do not feel the joy of

mercy." No, you will not be a hypocrite, if you know

that joy is your duty, and repent that you don't have it,

and ask God earnestly to restore the joy even as you do

the deed. That is not the way a hypocrite thinks. That

is the way a true Christian thinks in the ﬁght for joy.

And the fourth thing we say, when we counsel the

depressed Christian to be up and doing something

Fold Not the Arms of Action 51

good, is, "Be sure to thank God as you work that he has

given you at least the will to work." Do not say, "But it

is hypocritical to thank God with my tongue when I

don't feel thankful in my heart." There is such a thing

as hypocritical thanksgiving. Its aim is to conceal ingrat

itude and get the praise of men. That is not your aim.

Your aim in loosing your tongue with words of grati

tude is that God would be merciful and ﬁll your words

with the emotion of true gratitude. You are not seeking

the praise of men; you are seeing the mercy of God. You

are not hiding the hardness of ingratitude, but hoping

for the inbreaking of the Spirit.

Thanksgiving with the Mouth Stirs Up Thankfulness in the Heart

Moreover, we should probably ask the despairing saint,

"Do you know your heart so well that you are sure the

words of thanks have no trace of gratitude in them?" I,

for one, distrust my own assessment of my motives. I

doubt that I know my good ones well enough to see all

the traces of contamination. And I doubt that I know

my bad ones well enough to see the traces of grace.

Therefore, it is not folly for a Christian to assume that

there is a residue of gratitude in his heart when he

52 When the Darkness Will Not Lift

speaks and sings of God's goodness even though he feels

little or nothing.

To this should be added that experience shows that

doing the right thing, in the way I have described, is

often the way toward being in the right frame. Hence

Baxter gives this wise counsel to the oppressed

Christian:

Resolve to spend most of your time in thanksgiving and

praising God. If you cannot do it with the joy that you

should, yet do it as you can. You have not the power of

your comforts: but have you no power of your tongues?

Say not, that you are unﬁt for thanks and praises unless

you have a praising heart and were the children of God:

for every man, good and bad, is bound to praise God,

and to be thankful for all that he hath received, and to

do it as well as he can, rather than leave it undone. . . .

Doing it as you can is the way to be able to do it better.

Thanksgiving stirreth up thankfulness in the heart.4

4 Ibid., 281.

Does Unconfessed Sin

Clog Our Joy?

t may be that part of the cause of spiritual darkness

is cherished sin that we are unwilling to let go. I

have assumed so far in this book that the pursuit of joy

implies hatred for sin. Sin destroys joy. It offers decep

tive delights, but it kills in the end. In dealing with our

sin we can make two mistakes. One is to make light of

it. The other is to be overwhelmed by it. In the ﬁght for

joy we must take it seriously, hate it, renounce it, and

trust Christ as our only Savior from its guilt and power.

One of the reasons that some people suffer from

54 When the Darkness Will Not Lift

extended times of darkness is the unwillingness to

renounce some cherished sin. Jesus and the Apostle

Peter and King David all spoke of how unconfessed sin

hinders our joy in God. Jesus said, "If you are offering

your gift at the altar and there remember that your

brother has something against you, leave your gift there

before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your

brother, and then come and offer your gift" (Matt. 5:23

24). We quench the joy of fellowship with God when we

refuse to confess our offenses to man. Peter related this

to marriage and said that if a husband sins against his

wife, his prayers will be hindered (1 Pet. 3:7). If we want

the joy of seeing and savoring God in Christ, we must

not make peace with our sins. We must make war.

Listen to the experience of David that comes from

unconfessed and unforsaken sin in his life: "Blessed is

the man against whom the LORD counts no iniquity, and

in whose spirit there is no deceit. For when I kept silent,

my bones wasted away through my groaning all day

long" (Ps. 32:2-3). These words are full of hope. We can

hold fast to our sin, keep it secret, and "groan all day

long" in darkness—or we can confess it and experience

the stunning experience of "the man against whom the

Lord counts no iniquity."

Does Unconfessed Sin Clog Our Joy? 55

The almost incredible hope of confessing and

renouncing sin is that the Lord does not then rub it in

our face but cancels it. He does not count it against us.

From this side of Calvary, we know how God can do

that with justice. Christ bore the wrath of God for that

sin (Gal. 3:13). We don't have to. The accounts are set

tled. Therefore, we should not fear to confess and let go

of any cherished sin. The shame will not haunt us. Christ

clothes us with his own righteousness (2 Cor. 5:21).

Confessing to God and to Man Is Sweet Freedom

As we ponder both the deep, unconscious depravity of

our souls and the presumptuous sins of our wills, we

should pray the words of Psalm 19:12-13: "Who can

discern his errors? Declare me innocent from hidden

faults. Keep back your servant also from presumptuous

sins; let them not have dominion over me!" We have

hidden faults that we cannot even confess, because we

don't know what they are. And we have sins that we

know about. It is good news to realize there is a bibli

cal prayer that covers both. "Declare me innocent" of

the ones I don't know about (because of Christ's blood),

and "keep back your servant" from the ones I do know

56 When the Darkness Will Not Lift

about (by Christ's power). If you hold fast to sin instead

of renouncing it and ﬁghting it, the darkness will remain

as a severe but merciful witness to the outcome of cher

ishing idols.

Do not be content with whispering your sin to God.

That is good. Very good. But he offers us something

more: "Confess your sins to one another and pray for

one another, that you may be healed" (James 5:16).

There is a release and healing that ﬂows from confess

ing not only to God in the secret place of your heart, but

also to a trusted friend, or to the person you have

offended. The tender words, "I'm sorry, will you forgive

me?" are one of the surest paths to joy.

Give the Devil His Due, but No More

If you ask about the devil's role in your darkness, I

answer: give him his due, but no more. He and his

demons are always at work, not just sometimes. There

is nothing extraordinary about the fact of his harass

ment. Paul considers it a normal part of Christian war

fare to "take up the shield of faith, with which you can

extinguish all the ﬂaming darts of the evil one" (Eph.

6:16). Peter counsels us, "Be sober-minded; be watch

ful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roar

Does Unconfessed Sin Clog Our Joy? 57

ing lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, ﬁrm in

your faith" (1 Pet. 5:8-9). All this is normal. But the

quality of his harassment varies from mild temptation

to murder. Jesus calls him "a murderer from the begin

ning" (John 8:44). He has the power to inspire painful

persecution and even kill Christians (Rev. 2:10).

But there are three great comforts in the face of

Satan's attacks. One is that Satan cannot do anything

apart from God's sovereign permission (Job 1:12; 2:6),

which is governed by God's infinite wisdom and

covenant love. Thus Satan's servants become God's

sanctifying envoys (2 Cor. 12:7-10). So even if Satan has

a hand in your darkness, he is not free to do more than

your loving Father permits, and God will turn it for

your good (Luke 22:31-32).

Second, the decisive blow against Satan's destructive

power was delivered by the death of Jesus for our sins

(Col. 2:15; Heb. 2:14). This means that Satan can

harass us and even kill us, but he cannot destroy us.

Only unforgiven sin can damn the human soul. If Christ

has covered all our sin by his blood, and if God imputes

to us the perfect righteousness of Christ, then Satan has

no grounds for any damning accusation, and his case

against us fails in the court of heaven. "Who shall bring

58 When the Darkness Will Not Lift

any charge against God's elect? It is God who justiﬁes.

Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died"

(Rom. 8:33-34).

The Devil Cannot Abide with the Light of Cherished Truth

Third, deliverance from Satan's oppressing, darkening,

and deceiving work in the life of the Christian comes

most often by the power of truth, and only rarely by

exorcism. I have seen demon-possession and have been

a part of one very dramatic exorcism. I don't believe the

person was a Christian till after the deliverance. The

complete takeover of the personality by a demon is not

something the Holy Spirit would allow in the Christ

indwelt heart. But that distinction may not matter much

to the Christian who is being attacked and harassed

from without on every side. The battle can be ﬁerce.

What is called for usually is the ministry of 2 Timothy

2:24-26:

The Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome but kind

to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, cor

recting his opponents with gentleness. God may per

haps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of

Does Unconfessed Sin Clog Our Joy? 59

the truth, and they may escape from the snare of the

devil, after being captured by him to do his will.

Gentle, loving, teaching of the truth—especially the

truth of the gospel of Jesus' death and resurrection for

our deliverance from sin and wrath and death and

Satan—is the process in which God himself grants

repentance and a knowledge of the truth, which results

in an escape from the captivity of the devil. The devil

cannot abide truth and light. He is by nature a liar and

deceiver. He thrives in darkness. Therefore, if by God's

grace we can bring the full force of truth to shine in the

believer's darkness, the devil will not survive the light.

Good, solid Bible teaching is a crucial part of deliver

ance from the darkening power of the devil.1

1 For a careful and wise biblical assessment of the devil's role in the Christian life and how Jesus and we should make war, see David Powlison, Power Encounters: Reclaiming Spiritual Warfare (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 1995).

The Darkness That Feeds on Self-Absorption

ometimes the darkness of our souls is owing in part

to the fact that we have drifted into patterns of life

that are not blatantly sinful but are constricted and uncar

ing. Our world has shrunk down to mere prudential con

cerns about ourselves and our families. Ethics has

diminished from global concerns of justice and mercy and

missions down to little lists of bad things to avoid. We ﬁnd

ourselves not energized for any great cause, but always

62 When the Darkness Will Not Lift

thinking about the way to maximize our leisure and

escape pressure. Unconsciously we have become very self-

absorbed and oblivious and uncaring toward the pain and

suffering in the world that is far worse than our own.

Paradoxically, depressed persons may say that they

must care for themselves and cannot take on the prob

lems of the world, when in fact part of the truth may be

that their depression is feeding on the ingrown quality

of their lives. This hit home to me when Bill Leslie came

to Minneapolis some years ago and told his story. Bill

Leslie was the pastor of LaSalle Street Church in

Chicago, Illinois, from 1961 to 1989. He died of a heart

attack at the age of sixty-one in 1993. His ministry was

marked by concern for the whole person in the context

of Chicago urban life. In an article on "Compassionate

Evangelicalism," Christianity Today listed Leslie among

the "early holistic ministry leaders."1

How Bill Leslie Became a Watered Garden and a Spring

He told of a near breakdown that he had, and how a

spiritual mentor directed him to Isaiah 58. He said it

1 Joel Carpenter, "Compassionate Evangelicalism," Christianity Today (December 2003), http://www.Christianitytoday.com/ct/2003/012/2.40.html (accessed July 11, 2006).

The Darkness That Feeds on Self-Absorption 63

was verses 10-11 that rescued him from a season of

darkness marked by feelings of exhaustion, burnout,

and a dead-end ministry. The text says:

If you pour yourself out for the hungry and satisfy the

desire of the afflicted, then shall your light rise in the

darkness and your gloom be as the noonday. And the

LORD will guide you continually and satisfy your desire

in scorched places and make your bones strong; and

you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of

water, whose waters do not fail.

What struck Pastor Leslie so powerfully was the fact

that if we pour ourselves out for others, God promises

to make us like "a watered garden"—that is, we will

receive the water we need for refreshment and joy. But

even more, we will thus be "a spring of water" that does

not fail—for others, for the demanding, exhausting,

draining ministry of urban self-giving. He saw that

God's way of lifting gloom and turning it into light was

to "pour yourself out for the hungry and satisfy the

desire of the afflicted." This gave him a pattern of

divine life that got him through his crisis and kept him

going for the rest of his days.

God has made us to ﬂourish by being spent for oth

ers. Jesus said, "It is more blessed to give than to

64 When the Darkness Will Not Lift

receive" (Acts 20:35). Most of us do not choose against

this life of outpouring; we drift away from it. We con

fuse pressured family life and stresses at work with

Christian sacriﬁce, when in fact much of it has little to

do with meeting the needs of the hungry and afflicted

and perishing.

Please hear me carefully. This is not the diagnosis for

all depression or discouragement. If it were, such self-

giving servants would never be depressed. But they are.

My point is that one of the causes of some people's

darkness is a slowly creeping self-absorption and small

mindedness. And the cure may be the gradual embrace

of a vision of life that is far greater than our present con

cerns. Some things may have to be taken out of our

schedule. But as health and joy return, we may be capa

ble of more than we ever dreamed.

What My Eighty-Five-Year-Old Father Said Was Missing

I would mention in particular the life-giving, joy-pro

ducing effect of sharing your faith with unbelievers by

word and deed. While writing the ﬁrst draft of this

book, I called my eighty-ﬁve-year-old father and said,

"Daddy, I am writing a book on how to ﬁght for joy.

The Darkness That Feeds on Self-Absorption 65

What one thing comes to your mind from sixty years of

ministry as to what Christians could do to increase their

joy?" Almost without hesitation he said, "Share their

faith." Joy in Christ thrives on being shared. That is the

essence of Christian joy: It overﬂows or dies.

Millions of Christians live with a low-grade feeling

of guilt for not openly commending Christ by their

words. They try to persuade themselves that keeping

their noses morally clean is a witness to Christ. The

problem with this notion is that millions of unbelievers

keep their noses morally clean. Christians will—and

should—continue to feel bad for not sharing their faith.

Christ is the most glorious person in the world. His sal

vation is inﬁnitely valuable. Everyone in the world

needs it. Horriﬁc consequences await those who do not

believe on Jesus. By grace alone we have seen him,

believed on him, and now love him. Therefore, not to

speak of Christ to unbelievers, and not to care about

our city or the unreached peoples of the world is so con

tradictory to Christ's worth, people's plight, and our joy

that it sends the quiet message to our souls day after

day: This Savior and this salvation do not mean to you

what you say they do. To maintain great joy in Christ

in the face of that persistent message is impossible.

66 When the Darkness Will Not Lift

The Aim Is That Our Words Would Be the Overflow of Joy in Christ

I am aware, again, that this will feel like added guilt for

the depressed person. It is not added. It is already there.

Hiding it is like hiding part of the diagnosis of a person's

disease. Jesus said shocking things, and hiding them will

serve no one well in the long run. "Everyone who

acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge

before my Father who is in heaven, but whoever denies

me before men, I also will deny before my Father who

is in heaven" (Matt. 10:32-33). This is not meant by

Jesus as a heavy burden or a hard yoke. "Come to me,

all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you

rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I

am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will ﬁnd rest for

your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light"

(Matt. 11:28-30).

What makes the gospel good news is not that Christ

can be buried in our TV-saturated lives without the loss

of joy. What makes it good news is that God is long-suf

fering and willing to forgive and start over with us again

and again. The depressed person cannot simply go out

and proclaim the joy of the Lord. But little by little a life

can be built on grace and forgiveness that comes to the

The Darkness That Feeds on Self-Absorption 67

point where to be an advocate and a witness to Jesus is

like breathing—and just as life-giving. The ﬁght is to

enjoy Christ so much that speaking of him is the over

ﬂow and increase of that enjoyment.2

Is the Cause You Live for Large Enough for Your Christ-exalting Heart?

J. Campbell White, secretary of the Laymen's

Missionary Movement, said in 1909:

Most men are not satisﬁed with the permanent output

of their lives. Nothing can wholly satisfy the life of

Christ within his followers except the adoption of

Christ's purpose toward the world he came to redeem.

Fame, pleasure and riches are but husks and ashes in

contrast with the boundless and abiding joy of work

ing with God for the fulﬁllment of his eternal plans. The

men who are putting everything into Christ's under

taking are getting out of life its sweetest and most price

less rewards.3

2 For biblical and encouraging help in personal evangelism, see Will Metzger, Tell the Truth: The Whole Gospel to the Whole Person by Whole People, revised and expanded edition (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2002).

3 J. Campbell White, "The Laymen's Missionary Movement," in Perspectives on the World Christian Movement, ed. Ralph D. Winter and Steven C. Hawthorne (Pasadena, Calif.: William Carey Library, 1981), 222.

68 When the Darkness Will Not Lift

In the midst of darkness, saints may have no strength to

pursue such global dreams. But it may be, in the mercy

of God, that as we wait for the light to go up, we can

do poorly what we would love to do well. Perhaps we

can read a short article about the church in China. Or

listen to a tape about a missionary who suffered much

for the gospel. Or write a note to a missionary family

with a few lines about how we are hanging onto grace,

and include a brief prayer for them.

Loving Those Who Cannot See the Light

or most people who are passing through the dark

night of the soul, the turnaround will come

because God brings unwavering lovers of Christ into

their lives who do not give up on them. Throughout

Richard Baxter's sermon on the causes and cures of

melancholy are strewn counsels to the church on how

to carry the burdens of the depressed. He says things

like, "Often set before them the great truths of the

gospel which are ﬁttest to comfort them; and read them

informing, comforting books; and live in a loving,

70 When the Darkness Will Not Lift

cheerful manner with them."1 If depressed saints cannot

read the Bible or a good book, we should read it to

them.

The Amazing Grace of John Newton's Care for Cowper

One great example of persevering love for a

depressed friend is John Newton,2 the English pastor

who wrote "Amazing Grace." He was one of the

healthiest, happiest pastors in the eighteenth century.

This proved to be life-giving—to a point—for a sui

cidal poet named William Cowper, who wrote some

of our best-known hymns. Newton had drunk deeply

at the fountain of grace, the cross of Jesus Christ. He

was filled with joy and overflowing for those who

weren't. To taste the kind of person Newton was, lis

ten to this testimony he wrote about how he lived his

days.

1 Richard Baxter, "The Cure of Melancholy," 284.

2 For the fuller story of Cowper and Newton from which this material is taken see John Piper, "The Clouds Ye So Much Dread Are Big with Mercy': Insanity and Spiritual Songs in the Life of William Cowper," in The Hidden Smile of God: The Fruit of Affliction in the Lives of John Bunyan, William Cowper, and David Brainerd (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books, 2001), 81-122. For more on Newton, see John Piper, "John Newton: The Tough Roots of His Habitual Tenderness," in The Roots of Endurance: Invincible Perseverance in the Lives of John Newton, Charles Simeon, and William Wilberforce (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books, 2002), 41-75.

Loving Those Who Cannot See the Light 71

Two heaps of human happiness and misery; now if I can

take but the smallest bit from one heap and add to the

other, I carry a point. If, as I go home, a child has

dropped a halfpenny, and if, by giving it another, I can

wipe away its tears, I feel I have done something. I

should be glad to do greater things, but I will not

neglect this. When I hear a knock on my study door, I

hear a message from God; it may be a lesson of instruc

tion; perhaps a lesson of penitence; but, since it is his

message, it must be interesting.3

In 1767, at the age of thirty-six, William Cowper

entered Newton's life while Newton was pastor at

Olney. Cowper had already had a total mental break

down and had attempted suicide three different times.

He had been institutionalized at St. Alban's Insane

Asylum, where God met him in a powerful way through

the loving care of Dr. Nathaniel Cotton, and by a con

verting encounter with the gospel in Romans 3:25.

Immediately I received the strength to believe it, and the

full beams of the Sun of Righteousness shone upon me.

I saw the sufficiency of the atonement He had made, my

pardon sealed in His blood, and all the fullness and

3 Gilbert Thomas, William Cowper and the Eighteenth Century (London: Ivor Nicholson and Watson, Ltd., 1935), 202.

72 When the Darkness Will Not Lift

completeness of His justification. In a moment I

believed, and received the gospel.4

After his release from St. Alban's, Cowper moved in

with the Unwin family in a parish near Olney. When the

father of the family died, Newton came to console

them. Cowper was so helped by what he heard that he

and Mrs. Unwin moved to Olney to be a part of

Newton's church. For the next thirteen years Newton

tended the tangled garden of Cowper's soul. Cowper

said, "A sincerer or more affectionate friend no man

ever had."5

While there, Cowper entered a time of spiritual

despair that made him feel utterly God-forsaken and

lost. This lasted most of the rest of his life until he died

in 1800. Again there were repeated attempts at suicide,

and each time God providentially prevented him.

Newton stood by him all the way through this, even

sacriﬁcing at least one vacation so as not to leave

Cowper alone.

In 1780, Newton left Olney for a new pastorate in

London, where he served for the next twenty-seven

4 Ibid., 132.

5 Ibid., 192.

Loving Those Who Cannot See the Light 73

years. It is a great tribute to him that he did not aban

don his friendship with Cowper, though this would, no

doubt, have been emotionally easy to do. Instead, there

was an earnest exchange of letters for twenty years.

Cowper poured out his soul to Newton as he did to no

one else.

The last days of Cowper's life brought no relief.

There was no happy ending. In March 1800, Cowper

said to the visiting doctor, "I feel unutterable despair."

On April 24, Miss Perowne offered some refreshment

to him, to which he replied, "What can it signify?" He

never spoke again and died the next afternoon.6

To the end Newton remained Cowper's pastor and

friend, writing and visiting him again and again. He did

not despair of the despairing. After one of these visits in

1788 Cowper wrote,

I found those comforts in your visit, which have formerly

sweetened all our interviews, in part restored. I knew

you; knew you for the same shepherd who was sent to

lead me out of the wilderness into the pasture where the

Chief Shepherd feeds His ﬂock, and felt my sentiments of

affectionate friendship for you the same as ever.7

6 Ibid., 384.

7 Ibid., 356.

74 When the Darkness Will Not Lift

There Is No Wasted Work in Loving Those without Light

You cannot persuade a depressed person that he has

not been utterly rejected by God if he is persuaded that

he has been. But you can stand by him. And you can

keep soaking him, as Newton did for Cowper, in the

"benevolence, mercy, goodness, and sympathy" of

Jesus, and "the sufficiency of the atonement," and

"the fullness and completeness of Christ's justifica

tion."8 He may say that the comforts of Christ are

wonderful but do not belong to him—as Cowper did.

But in God's time these truths may yet be given the

power to awaken hope and beget a spirit of adoption.

Or, even in the absence of evidence that peace is given,

they may be used in some mysterious way to sustain

the mustard seed of faith that is so small it cannot be

seen.

I do not know with certainty the outcome of

Cowper's ﬁght for joy. But I do know that true saints

enter dark seasons, and should they die in the midst of

one, it is no sure sign that they were not born again, nor

that they were not sustained in their darkness by the

8 Ibid., 131-32.

Loving Those Who Cannot See the Light 75

sovereign hand of grace. God has his reasons why he

would leave one of his dear children feeling so forsaken.

Indeed he left his own precious Son forsaken on the

cross—"My God, my God, why have you forsaken

me?" (Matt. 27:46). And we know his reasons were full

of love for him and for us.

God has his reasons, even for the martyrdom of his

closest friends. Peter is the clearest example. After Jesus'

resurrection he said to Peter, "'Truly, truly, I say to you,

when you were young, you used to dress yourself and

walk wherever you wanted, but when you are old, you

will stretch out your hands, and another will dress you

and carry you where you do not want to go.' (This he

said to show by what kind of death he was to glorify

God.) And after saying this he said to him, 'Follow

me.'" (John 21:18-19). In other words, Jesus said that

Peter will die, it appears by crucifixion ("you will

stretch out your hands"), and it will not be in vain. It

will be for the glory of God.

But often we cannot see the more detailed reasons

why God appoints for us a season of darkness and suf

fering. Gaius Davies tells the following story:

Winston Churchill used to speak of his "black dog": he

survived though he was dogged by depression for much

76 When the Darkness Will Not Lift

of his life. It is said that only because Churchill had

faced his own black periods was he able, at sixty years

of age, to rally those who felt overwhelmed by the Nazi

threat. His own experience of adversity enabled him to

be a leader who helped to save the world from the dark

ness of tyranny.9

But Cowper did not live to lead a nation into

triumphant war. He died miserable. What was his

"black dog" good for? It is not for us to render this ﬁnal

judgment. But I bear one small testimony. Without his

struggles he probably would not have written "There Is

a Fountain Filled with Blood" and brought hope to

thousands of sinners who fear they have sinned their

lives away:

The dying thief rejoiced to see that fountain in his

day;

And there have I, though vile as he, washed all my

sins away.

Washed all my sins away, washed all my sins away;

And there have I, though vile as he, washed all my

sins away.10

9 Davies, Genius, Grief and Grace, 13.

10 William Cowper, "There Is a Fountain Filled with Blood" (1772).

Loving Those Who Cannot See the Light 77

And he would not have written "God Moves in a

Mysterious Way" and by it helped me and many others

through a hundred thickets of discouragement.

God moves in a mysterious way

His wonders to perform;

He plants his footsteps in the sea

And rides upon the storm.

Deep in unfathomable mines

Of never failing skill

He treasures up his bright designs

And works his sovereign will.

You fearful saints, fresh courage take;

The clouds you so much dread

Are big with mercy and shall break

In blessings on your head.

His purposes will ripen fast,

Unfolding every hour;

The bud may have a bitter taste,

But sweet will be the ﬂower.

Blind unbelief is sure to err

And scan his work in vain;

God is his own interpreter,

And he will make it plain.11

11 William Cowper, "God Moves in a Mysterious Way" (1774).

78 When the Darkness Will Not Lift

There is a legacy of severe mercy in writings such as

these. The words are costly. And so they prove precious.

So it is with everyone who stands beside a melancholy

saint and helps him ﬁght for joy.

William Cowper testiﬁed that the legacy had been

left to him by another embattled poet and pastor,

George Herbert, who had died at the age of thirty-nine

in 1633. Cowper said, "This was the only author I had

any delight reading. I pored over him all day long; and

though I found not here what I might have found—a

cure for my malady, yet it never seemed so much allevi

ated as while I was reading him."12 Not surprisingly,

therefore, a poem by Herbert wonderfully sums up this

chapter and this book. It's called "Bitter-sweet." I hope

you will read it twice, once to get the ﬂow, and once

aloud (as poetry is meant to be read) for the beauty and

the meaning. Please don't stumble over the old-fash

ioned spelling. Herbert would be very happy if you were

encouraged in your ﬁght for joy.

Ah my deare angrie Lord, Since thou dost love, yet strike; Cast down, yet help afford; Sure I will do the like.

12 Davies, Genius, Grief and Grace, 103-4.

Loving Those Who Cannot See the Light 79

I will complain, yet praise; I will bewail, approve: And all my sowre-sweet dayes I will lament, and love.13

Or as the apostle Paul put it for all the saints who

ﬁght for joy in this fallen world of pain and suffering,

we live and minister "as sorrowful, yet always rejoic

ing" (2 Cor. 6:10).

13 Herbert, "Bitter-sweet."

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