Beeson Podcast, Episode 364 Robert Smith Jr. October 31, 2017 Announcer: Welcome to the Beeson Podcast, coming to you from Beeson Divinity School on the campus of Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama. Now your host, Timothy George. Timothy George: Welcome to today's Beeson Podcast. Every week during this preaching series, I get the opportunity of introducing with my colleague, Robert Smith Jr., a sermon by a great contemporary preacher or sometimes one of the classics from the past. Well today you're going to get to hear a classic from the present because it is a sermon by none other than Robert Smith himself. Dr. Robert Smith holds the Charles T. Carter Baptist Chair of Divinity here at Beeson Divinity School. He's a dear friend and colleague and pastor to our whole community. We love him. This is a sermon he preached in the fall of 2007. I was telling him he's preached many great sermons. This has got to be the greatest of the great, one of my favorite all time sermons, not just by him but by anybody, called the “Glory of the Groan.” Now, Dr. Smith, tell us what in the world you were trying to do in this great sermon. Robert Smith Jr: To God be the praise. Dean George, I am trying to fit in with others who are preaching in this series, "Walking with the Saints," and I am lifting up Charles H. Spurgeon as a paragon of preaching. My text is Romans 8:18-30, and I'm dealing with the glory of the groan within that particular pericope. I'm an exegetical weaver, so I'm weaving the threads of exposition, illustration, application, throughout the sermon. I think that the message is relevant in that creation is still groaning. That creatures are groaning and that God groans. The Spirit makes intercession for us with groans that are too deep for words. I am not treating points specifically but I am developing movements. I am moving throughout the passage, not necessarily in a sequential arrangement because I start out with Romans 8:18 and Romans 8:30, trying to establish the idea of present glory and future glory. Then I treat the three groans of creation, the creature and ultimately God, as the Holy Spirit. The biblical illustrations are used to illumine this particular passage and are used as a supporting cast actually from places like Luke 24:13-36 and Acts 2:23-24 in which I am trying to showcase this whole idea of theology of the cross and theology of glory, in the crucifixion, the cross, the groan and the resurrection, the glory. I do use illustrations from people like Dr. James Earl Massey and his thought of the primal tone and Gardner Taylor and his thought of us becoming more like Jesus in 1 John 3:2. Finally, I close the sermon with the eschaton in that the groan one day will be swallowed up in the glory. In that day, there will be no more groaning. There will just be praising. No more sin. It will be a land of no more. It will be a land of no more as a transition from the land on earth of some more. It's a message that was on my heart and it epitomizes what I try to do in preaching. Timothy George: Dr. Smith is not only a great preacher of the gospel that you're going to hear in this sermon. He's also blessed the church through his writing ministry, the publication of a number of books. I'll just mention two of them. If you don't know his writing, go and check out, get a copy of Doctrine that Dances: Bringing Doctrinal Preaching and Teaching to Life. It was published in 2008. More recently his book The Oasis of God: From Mourning to Morning, Biblical Insights from Psalm 42 and 43. Wonderful edifying books. Now we go to Hodges Chapel back in 2007. We listen to our dear colleague and friend, Robert Smith Jr., preaching on the glory of the groan. Robert Smith Jr: God started a revival in the preaching of Charles Haddon Spurgeon, for the people flock to hear him. They came to hear the preacher in the church instead of the preacher of the church having to go to them. And they came. They came to the New Park Baptist Church. They came to temporary meeting houses and music halls. They came to the Metropolitan Baptist Tabernacle, a facility that was constructed with 5,000 seats and had room for 1,000 standees. 6,000 persons. Spurgeon filled it up on Sunday morning and Sunday night for 30 consecutive years. They came. They came to the Surrey Garden Music Hall on October the 19th, 1856. Spurgeon would preach there for the first time and 10,000 people filled that place. James Earl Massey calls preaching the burdensome joy and Gardner Calvin Taylor calls it the sweet torture of Sunday morning, but on that day there was no joy. There was burden. There was no sweetness. There was torture. For in that crowd of 10,000 people, some mischief makers screamed out, "Fire! Fire!" A stampede ensued and seven people were left dead and 28 people were injured. This shadowed the life of Spurgeon, plunging him into a pit of depression out of which he would never emerge for the rest of his life and has served as a symbol for the horror that can befall the very people of God. On September the 11th, 2001, I stood up in my classroom, S305, to open up our day's work by calling for prayer requests. I was not prepared for what I would hear for I had not watched the news before I left home. I hadn't turned the radio on while I was making my way to school. "Dr. Smith, I think we ought to in light of the most recent development, pray for our country. In light of the fact that a plane guided by terrorists has flown into one of the Twin Towers." Before that class was over, the second tower was struck and America, since that time, has been shadowed by this disaster, plunged into a pit of depression, and it has served for us a symbol for how horror can fall upon any nation at any time. We are here to walk with Saint Charles Haddon Spurgeon, not to copy him, but to try to comprehend him, and to understand his understanding of preaching. He said, and these are his words, "Preaching is for the glory of God." He said, "Preaching that is done aptly is done to accomplish two purposes: one, the edification of the saints; two, the salvation of sinners," and he shows us how both of these come together in his sermon "Songs in the Night," taken from Job 35:10, "Where is God my maker, who giveth songs in the night?". He opens up the sermon by referring to the Ionian harp. He says the Ionian harp renders sweet music when the wind blows through the strings, but the difficulty is when there is no wind. He says a singer can sing as long as there is light to read the notes on the music sheet, but the difficulty comes when there are no rays of light from the sun. Then the skillful singer has to reach inside of himself to his living existence and come in contact with his spirit and sing from the interior book. He says any fool, these are his words, "Any fool can sing during the day." He says, "It's unnatural to sing in trouble. It's unnatural to sing at night. Therefore the believer gets his songs from God for God gives songs during the night." We have not come here to mourn. We have come here to sing. I've come here to sing. “I've seen the lightening flashing. I've heard the thunder roar. I've felt since breakers dashing, trying to conquer my soul, but I heard the voice of Jesus telling me to still fight on. He promised never to leave me, never to leave me alone.” This teaching pericope, chapter 8 of Romans, 18 through 30, gives to us a movement from glory to glory. Verse number 18, he says, "I consider that our present sufferings are not worth being compared to the glory that shall be revealed," the un-inaugurated glory, the unrealized glory, the not yet glory. Paul is saying there's a glory that's going to be ours but it's not yet. It's in the future. And when I think about that, I think about what Goethe this German poet, renowned, said. He said that he watched a puppy being born. As soon as the puppy was born, he picked up the poor puppy and pulled it by the ear. He said the puppy's eyes that were closed, he was trying to strain to look toward the lights. There is something within us, since we are made in the image of God, that strains for the Son of righteousness who rises with healing in his wings. There's something there. This world is not my home. I'm just a passing through. My hopes and all my treasures are laid up there in the blue. The angels beckon me from heaven's open door and I can't feel at home in this world anymore. There's a straining toward the not yet. This is the way John puts it in 1 John 3:2. He says, "It dost not yet appear what we shall be,"—future—“but we know that when he appears, we shall be like him for we shall see him as he is." Brother Gardner Taylor astounded me with this remark, but to show what God is doing in our lives, he said that, "When Jesus appears and the son," smaller s, "of God stands next to the Son of God," capital S, "the angel will look at us and we will look so much like Jesus that the angels will ask, Who's Jesus?" Because it have not yet appeared, we will be like him for we shall see him as he is. It's future glory, but there's present glory, verse 30. "For, since he has predestinated us, he also has called and those whom he has called he has justified and those he has justified he has also," present, "glorified." We have within us the imago dei. We have the image of God and we can never find rest, according to Augustine. “Thou has made us for thyself, and our souls cannot find rest until they find rest in thee.” But we want more of what we already have. We want more of the glory. We want more of this Christ. James Earl Massey was preaching at the E.K. Bailey International Conference on Expository Preaching, Wednesday night at the Concord Baptist Church. He lifted up this illustration. He says, "When a baby is disgruntled and upset and crying uncontrollably, the mother will pick up that baby and press that baby against her breast and after a while, that baby will be comforted and stop crying." He explained it this way. That baby has become reconnected with the primal tone, the heartbeat of the mother. It goes back to the time when it was in the womb of the mother and heard that heartbeat all the time, but now that it has come out of the womb, it is only when it is pressed against the breast of that mother that it hears the primal tone. We long for the primal tone. Sunday morning is not enough. We want to be somewhere where the wicked ceases from troubling and the weary is at rest and every day is Sunday and we have uninterrupted worship. I wonder about us sometime. One hour is too much for us, “but when we've been there 10,000 years, bright shining as the sun, we've no less days to sing God's praise than when we'd first begun.” What are you going to do when there is no benediction? What are you going to do when there is no intermission? What are you going to do when there is no interlude praising my savior, all the day long? We move from glory to glory. This teaching paragraph, this teaching pericope, also gives to us a theology of the cross and a theology of glory. It's right there in verse 18. I consider that our present sufferings, theology of the cross, are not worth being compared to the glory, theology of glory, that is to come. It is what we are informed by, when Luther challenges and criticizes the scholastics. He says that the scholastics have a theology of glory, of attainment, of achievement. They need a theology of the cross. The Bible never separates the theology of the cross or the theology of glory. Jesus reminds us in Luke chapter 24, verse number 26, when he is talking to these downcast disciples going from Jerusalem to Emmaus. He says, "Was it not necessary," that word day, "Was it not necessary," past tense, "For the Christ, the first suffer," theology of the cross, "And then enter glory?" Theology of glory. There it is. In Acts chapter 2, verse 23 and 24, "God according to the predeterminate council of God, his set purpose, handed Jesus over to evil men who nailed him to the cross," theology of the cross. "But the third day, he raised him from the dead," theology of glory. There it is in 2 Timothy chapter 2, verse number 12, "If we suffer with him," theology of the cross, "we will reign with him." And so, brothers and sisters, I listen anew to Charles Spurgeon. He says there will be no crown wearers in heaven who have not first been cross bearers on earth. You say you want to wear a crown? Then you're calling for suffering. When I talk about suffering, I'm not talking about the fact that you get sick. I'm not talking about the fact that you stub your toe. I'm not talking about the fact that you're unemployed. I'm talking about when you and I suffer because of our stand for Christ, because of our commitment for Christ, because they are scorning us, because we have taken a stand for Jesus Christ. I'm talking about that. Then you will bear in your body the marks of the Lord Jesus Christ. There is in this teaching pericope also Trinitarian presence and Trinitarian activity. We have for so long been irresponsible in talking about the Trinity. We have fragmented the Trinity. We have splintered the Trinity. We have made the third person of the Trinity, the stepchild of the Trinity. We need to speak responsibly about the Trinity. In fact, when I really think about it, I hear James Weldon Johnson in God's Trombones, Seven Negro Sermons in Verse, the wonderful poem on the creation, that God stood out on nothing and God took nothing and told nothing to become something. When God had made everything, then God says, I'm lonely. I think I'll make a man. May I say this to you? God has never been lonely. Trinity has always interacted throughout human history and even in pre-existent eternity. We must speak responsibly about the Trinity. Jonathan Edwards says in the breadth of his writings that God has forever existed in a sweet and holy society as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Here there is Trinitarian activity. There it is in verse 28, "For we know that God," God, Father, God, "causes all things to work together to good for those who love God and to those who are called according to the purpose of God." There it is in verse number 29, "For whom he did foreknow, he did predestinate that he might be conformed to the image of his dear Son," God, the Son. And there it is in verse 26 and 27, "And the Spirit helps our weaknesses for when we don't know what to pray, the Spirit makes intercession for us with groanings that cannot be uttered, sighs too deep for words." And the Spirit who has access to our minds, since we have access to God, Romans, chapter 5, we have access, God has access to us. "Searches the hearts of the saints, knows the mind of the Spirit," God only knows God's self. In fact, John says in John chapter 1, verse 18, "No one has seen, no one has known God except the one and only God," the sui generis God, the unique God. His Son who's in the bosom of the Father, he has declared him. He has exegeted him. He has made him known. There is Trinitarian activity, even in this teaching paragraph. There is a trilogy of groans. Verse 22, "Creation groans." In fact the Greek has it, creation groans together. It is univocal groaning. It is groaning with one voice, all creation. Groaning. Why? Because when Adam and Eve sinned, when sin came into the world as the result of the disobedience of humanity, it ricocheted it off of humanity and affected creation. The penalty that man, that humans were suffering, was also inflicted if you will on creation, so the creation lost its equilibrium, lost its balance. Now, roses had thorns and the lion no longer will lie down with the lamb and the leopard would no longer lie down with the bear. We had earthquakes and tornadoes and hurricanes, and ever since that day, sin has wreaked havoc on creation and creation is groaning, desiring for Isaiah 65:17 to be fulfilled. God will make new heavens and a new earth. Groaning. The image there in verse number 22 is that of a woman in childbirth. In childbearing, she's travailing, groaning under the pain. The water has not broken. Everybody who knows anything about childbirth understands that when the water breaks, no midwife can keep that baby from coming. No obstetrician can keep that baby from coming when the water breaks. One of these days the water will break for creation. God will transform this world. In fact, it will be of such that there will be no longer epidemics, no longer famines, no longer dust storms. In fact nature will be so changed and will undergo such a metamorphosis that we won't get sick. We won't even have to eat the fruit but the leaves of the tree will be good for the healing of the nation. The beasts of the wild will be led by a child and we'll be changed from the creature that we are. Creation is groaning, waiting for its deliverance, but not only is creation groaning, verse 23: creatures are groaning. We are groaning. Believers, saints are groaning. Why would we groan? Paul has just told us in chapter 8, verse 15, that because of our relationship, because Greek has it in terms of adoption, son-placing. We've been placed in his family which severs our former ties. We are in his family now and therefore we can cry out, "Abba, Father." Why would we groan? Verse number 16 tells us that because of this, that the Spirit testifies with our Spirit, that we are the children of God. If the Spirit testifies with my Spirit and says you're God's kid, why would I groan? Verse 17 says, of Romans 8, that "We are not only heirs but we are joint-heirs with Christ Jesus," that what he has, we have. My God, if we have all of that, why would groan? The text says in verse 23, this image of the first fruits of the Spirit, which is synonymous to what Paul is talking about in Ephesians 1:13-14, that the Spirit is the earnest, the deposit, the down payment if you will. Your ID card that you are a card-carrying member, that proves that you belong to the family of God. Since my name is written in heaven, and my witness is on high and you can't get to it to delete it, to erase it or white it out, it's there permanently, seems to me that we'd have no reason to groan; but we do. Why? Because we're waiting for the adoption of sons. Well, Paul, I thought you just got finished saying in verses 15 and 17 of the same chapter, that we have already been adopted, that the Spirit has already testified that we're the children of God, that we can cry out Abba Father because he is our Father and that we're heirs and joint-heirs of Christ then. What do you mean, since you said we were sons? Now you're saying we're waiting for the adoption as sons? My spirit has been adopted. I don't have a soul. I am a soul. I am redeemed spiritually, but my body is not. My body is decayed. If you don't believe your body is decayed, I know that some of us can take a look in the mirror and get high looking at ourselves, but keep on living. You're going to discover there's something going on in my body. I'm not the same. There's no sense in being mad for years and telling your wife, "You know, you don't look the same." Have you looked in the mirror lately? You don't either. Something is happening to our bodies. We are breaking down. Old Mother Johnson at our church used to say there's a leak in this old building, and my soul has got to move. Move to a building not made by hand. This body knows that it can't go to heaven this way. It's waiting for full adoption. Therefore, creatures, saints groan but God groans. Verse 26, "Likewise in the same manner, the Spirit helps." That same word help is found in Luke 10:4, where Martha says to the Lord, "Tell Mary to help me." The Spirit, the Pneuma, helps, becomes the Paraclete for us, stands alongside of us to assist us to help us. Why? Because we don't know what to pray. "Therefore the Spirit intercedes for us with groanings that cannot be interpreted." Groanings, sighs, too deep for words. "Then the Spirit who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, prays for us in accordance to the will of God." God groans? During the incarnation, God came from God. John 1:14 says, "And the word was made flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld his glory, the glory of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth." God came from God. The Nicene Creed has it right. God from God, true light from true light. God groans. During the crucifixion, God who came from God during the incarnation forsook God. Mark 15:34, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me," but in this text during the intercession, God talks to God. God groans to God. Now I know that this is a battleground for interpretation. Who's groaning? Some say well the creature, the saint is groaning. Why would Paul who has already said in verse 23, that we groan, move to verse 26 and say again, we groan. It seems to me that someone else is being referred to here. It seems to me. Likewise in the same manner, the Spirit does this. Others will say, God is doing the groaning. The reason why God has to groan is because he has to make an intercession for us because we don't know what to pray. Since we don't know what to pray then God the Spirit has to pray for us in words that cannot even be uttered. Then take to God, God talking to God, what God has heard us say. So consequently, maybe it's not either/or. Maybe it's both/and. Maybe my groan is swallowed up in his groan. Maybe my groan is transcended by his groan. Maybe when I'm trying to say it and I don't have the words, I can't articulate it, maybe God the Spirit takes my groans, interprets my groans and tells God what I was trying to say but I wasn't able to say. My mother used to, I used to watch her, I didn't understand it. When we had physical needs, lacks, no food sometimes, and she'd walk around and start moaning because black folk used to say when you moan, the devil doesn't know what you're talking about. She'd say, mmm-hmmmm-mmmm mmm-hmmmmm, and tears be rolling down her eyes, no food. After awhile, somebody's knocking on the door. Here comes some turnip greens. Here comes some cornbread. I'm not telling you about what I heard. And all she did was to moan and I didn't understand and I didn't dare ask her because she wasn't moaning to me. Is it possible that when pressure is really on you, when there's losses in your family, when there's unemployment, when there are relational rifts, when disease is in your body and you don't know what to say ... I don't care what your GPA is, I don't care what kind of linguist you are, you just can't come up with the words. When you try to form the words, they get stuck in your throat and the only thing you can do is just groan. I was just talking to Dr. Ross this morning and he said that his wife said that a heartfelt groan is sometimes better than a sung anthem because if you can't say it, he understands. In fact, he could even understand your tears. Tears are a language that God understands, and that's all you can give him, all your tears. He'll take your tears and put them in a bottle for just the day of remembrance because God understands. Maybe that's one of the things God does, but maybe because verse 27 ends with these words, that, "He makes intercession for us in accordance with God's will." Maybe the Spirit has to take my groan, my desire, my yearning, which is misdirected because I'm praying according to my felt and perceived needs and the Spirit has to take my groans and my prayers, straighten them out and say, "God this is what he means and this is what he wants but this is sure what he needs." God I want you to give me $100,000 salary when I go to my first church, and I want an unlimited expense account. I want to drive a BMW. I want an unlimited library account and all of that. And God says, "I hear what he's saying, but let me straighten it out because I've got to pray according to God's will." God, what he needs is humility. I want to move him out in the country where he will preach to 20 people for five years. He will be the chairman of the deacon board because there are no deacons. He will be the superintendent of the Sunday School because he is the most qualified. He will be the chairman of the custodial committee because there are no janitors and he will be the song leader because the only one there that can lead songs is him." I want him to stay there in the back side of the desert in Midian for about five years, until he learns to be faithful over a few things. When he's faithful over a few things, I'll raise him up and he will be ruler over many. He can't handle five talents if he doesn't appreciate the one talent. What God will do is we'll have these prayers that are so narcissistic and so self-centered and God will say that's what he means but I want to tell you what he needs and God will give us what we need. I'm so glad that God has vetoed so many of our prayers. Some young ladies want to get married so bad. They say God give me a man. I want to give you the profile of the man I want. I want him to be tall, dark and handsome, and God says I hear you but that's not what you want. You need a man that is short and light-skinned and looks like somebody that you don't want to think about right now because if you marry him, that man will love you. If you marry him that man will show godliness in the home. If you marry him, he'll be a good father. If you marry him, he'll be faithful to the Lord. You don't need a Denzel Washington. You need a Sammy Davis Jr. in terms of looks. If we keep on pressing it, God will give you what you want and you won't want what you got. Some of us are trying, and this is my own way of saying it, to un-get what we got. He prays according to the will of God. Aren't you glad that he didn't answer some of your prayers? Just maybe he does that. Our exegesis has to match our experience. Dr. Massey has reminded us over and over again, never preach above your experience. We'll argue over this text, who's this ... You know something? It really doesn't matter if we don't pray. What difference does it make if we don't pray? If we're not groaning what difference does it make? There's going to come a time when you going to stand in your ministry and the only thing that's going to keep you is not your GPA. The only thing that's going to keep you is not your theological seminary. As important as that is, what will keep you is your spiritual relationship with God, that you have become a person of prayer because when the world has turned against you and when the bottom of life has dropped out and when you feel like saying to God like Jeremiah, I want to resign. I said I wouldn't say anything in his name anymore but his word was in my heart like fire shut up in my bones. Belief I tell you is what you may hold but conviction holds you. Spurgeon says I would rather give up my sermon than give up my prayer. Your experience has to match your exegesis. You can have a four point average and flunk in ministry. You can write excellent papers and you should, and flunk in ministry. There has to be something more than being a good preacher. There has to be something within that holds the reigns, something within that banishes pain, something within that we cannot explain. All that we know, there is something within. My father in the ministry, Dr. George Q. Brown, is suffering (with) Alzheimer's disease. He doesn't even know his wife any longer, but a few years ago, about three years ago, we had him brought down from Cleveland, Ohio, to Cincinnati and we had a celebration program for him. He doesn't talk in an intelligible way. He slurs; he mumbles. And at the end of the program, after everyone had given their remarks and pastors who had pastored with him 30-some years before had given their remarks, he was on the program to sing “Precious Lord.” How's he going to do that? He can't talk. He doesn't know the words any longer, but his wife of 50-some years stood next to him. She's a singer in her own right. Gave him the mic and the organist played and when it was time for him to sing, she whispered in his ear, “Precious Lord. Take my hand. Lead me on.” She just kept feeding him the words, standing alongside of him and helping him. When he didn't have the words he took the words she gave him and sung. When he couldn't continue, she finished the song. I think that's what happens when we don't have the words. The Spirit will take our mumbling and clarify it and tell God exactly, according to the will of God, what we meant. Well, I thank God that there is a verse 28 in this episode. Paul wrote according to most New Testament scholars, Paul wrote Romans from Corinth. Not from Rome but from Corinth, when he wasn't in jail. He's in prison in Rome, not as a political prisoner but as a witness for Christ. It's much easier to write Romans 8:28 when you're not in Rome. "For God causes all things to work together for good, for those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose." But when you're in Rome, it's much more difficult to live out Romans 8:28. When I see what God has done, it amazes me. He causes all things to work together for good, and all things are not good, but he can recycle them and make something good according to his purpose come out. Joseph will tell you, what happened to me in itself, isolated was not good. He wrote Genesis 50:20, "What you meant unto me for evil, brothers, meant unto me for good to save much people alive,” and Judah was saved and out of Judah would come Jesus. But he didn't say that overnight. It took him 20 years to say that. He didn't say that when his brothers sold him into slavery. And he did not say that when Mrs. Potiphar put a phony molestation charge on him, and he did not say that when the chief cupbearer forgot about him. But when he looked back over his life, in the words of Soren Kierkegaard, life has to be lived forward but it can only be understood backward. He could see that God was up to something and as he says, "God brought him to Egypt." Brothers and sisters, things in themselves may not be good, but God can bring a good purpose out of it. For those who really love God and those who are called according to God's purpose. When I look at the tragedies that have taken place in America, I wonder how God can bring good out of them. They run like lines of credits in movies across the screen of my mind. Columbine, Katrina, Jonesboro, Virginia Tech, where a 76 year old Jewish professor of engineering stood in front of the door, giving enough time for students to climb to the edge of the window and jump out to safety, and he suffered a consequence of this deranged assailant taking his life. How can God bring any good out of that? Well as horrible as that is, there is something that is even more horrific, that looked senseless, that looked meaningless, so meaningless that the Jews called it a stumbling block and the Greeks called it foolishness, for the Jews couldn't understand how there could be a blessing when they said cursed be the man that hangs on the tree. It was ridiculous, so ridiculous, the way we look at it, that God didn't even watch it. The Father turned his back on his Son and earth started protesting. Midday became like midnight. The earth reeled and rocked like an inebriated man. Peter and six disciples went back fishing. Two on the road from Jerusalem went back to Emmaus. It was horrible. Nothing good could come out of that, but you have to hang around long enough, because three days later God caused it to work together for good. Because God had a purpose to bring out of it, and sure enough on Friday, it looked meaningless. It looked ridiculous. On Saturday it looked hopeless, but on Sunday morning, God brought treasure out of what seemed to be trash. On Sunday morning he rose from the dead with all power in his hands. Oh yes. I want to tell you today as you sit here in your seats, that God is the one who can take a groan and bring glory out of it. Yeah, God, Sister Darlene, as I was talking to you yesterday, can bring you joy in the midst of your storm. Because I suffered the same thing 23 years ago, but God is able to take your life and straighten it out so that you can bless his name for what he has done. Yes. There will be glory. Wondrous glory. Glory around the throne of God. Glory giving him praise. Glory lifting his name. Glory. He turns our groans into glory and we will exalt, rejoice in him while we exalt him forever more. Announcer: You've been listening to the Beeson Podcast with host Timothy George. You can subscribe to the Beeson Podcast at our website, beesondivinity.com. Beeson Divinity School is an interdenominational evangelical divinity school, training men and women in the service of Jesus Christ. We pray that this podcast will aid and encourage your work and we hope you will listen to each upcoming edition of the Beeson Podcast.