You must fight the unbelief that says it's all over. My future is unredeemable and I might

as well just go ahead and live for the devil because I've blown it so bad it could not

be made right or good. That's just unbelief talking.

The experience of regret is inevitable for all of us. So how do we as Christians fight

it so that it doesn't take root within us? That's the question John Piper answers from

2 Corinthians 7, 8-10 in this episode of Light and Truth. This sermon was originally preached

at Bethlehem Baptist Church on October 24, 1988.

Regret. It's a state of the heart that can do you in, can ruin your life, can cause

you to make shipwreck of faith and bail out of the Christian experience because you just

give up because of so many past things that you feel regret for. And so there has to

be a way, biblically, to fight this thing called regret. But now as soon as I pose the

question like that, somebody thinking critically as you ought to will say, wait a minute, there's

a good place for regret, isn't there? I mean, regret isn't all bad, isn't always

owing to unbelief, is it? Let's turn to 2 Corinthians together this time, because

we're going to stay here a minute, 2 Corinthians chapter 7. And I want to answer that question

with yes, because Paul does, yes, there is good regret, there's godly regret. Now he

uses the word grief, but if I read it in context, you'll see that the meaning is what we

mean by regret. We'll read 2 Corinthians 7 verses 8, 9, and 10. Even if I made you

sorry, so here it is, regretful, with my letter, so he had written them a letter of pretty

stinging or indicting letter evidently, I do not regret it, though I did regret it before

he understood what he had accomplished. For I see that letter grieved you, though only

for a while, as it is, I rejoice not because you were grieved, but because you were grieved

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