The following message is by pastor John Piper.

More information from Desiring God is available at

W.W.

D. desiring God.

O.G.

I wrote down four reasons why it is so good of God to make John Owen the topic of this talk.

This is CJ's idea, not mine, and I'm

going to give reasons now why I think God was in it.

Number one, because it gives me an occasion to say what an odd thing it is for a person to ask anybody to speak about John Owen

and what it says about CJ and this

gathering in this movement. Owen. So what in the world is anybody doing asking to bore a whole room full of people

with with a 300-year-old unreadable theologian.

And it says a huge amount about CJ,

it says a huge amount about what

sovereign grace ministries stands for, namely that you believe in it,

what he stood for, how rare it is that anybody would want Owen, how rare it is that anybody would want anything 300 years old,

how rare it is that anybody would want theology. How rare it is that anybody

would want God-centered theology,

so, Christ exulting, Bible-saturated theology.

So, CJ, the very fact of the topic is a celebration in my mind of what God has done in you and this group because

when I think of the big movements among evangelicals in this country right now. This is the last topic.

Now I could name names, right? I could name the big names.

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