Tim Challies interviews Dr. R.C. Sproul, Jr. on his latest book, Believing God: Twelve Biblical Promises Christians Struggle to Accept. Here is an excerpt:
QUESTION: Psalm 37:4 promises that God will give us the desires of our hearts if we delight in Him. You address this in chapter 6 by saying, “We believe, I believe, that we cannot meet this qualifier because we can’t begin to understand it.” What does it mean to delight in the Lord?
SPROUL JR: To delight in the Lord is nothing other than beholding His glory. When we are blessed to see Him, even as through a glass darkly, there are no other steps we need take to delight in Him. In my book Almighty Over All, I devote a chapter to the simplicity of God, the idea that He is not a string of attributes, but is, as we read in Deuteronomy 6:4, one. His beauty, His glory, His holiness–these are all one thing. As we learn to see Him in His Word, in His creation, and in and through His Son, our rejoicing ceases to be tied to our circumstances and is instead grounded in His being. Remember that David knew he would not want long before he had green pastures and still waters. It was enough that God was His Shepherd. Sadly, in our day, God is marketed through a series of bullet-point promises: Come to Jesus and your family life will be better, your finances will be more ordered, your breath will be more fresh. These promises may or may not be true, but this we know–if we come to Christ, repenting of our sins and trusting in His finished work, then God Himself is our exceedingly great reward. That’s not just enough, but too much.