Greg Laurie and Harvest Ministries recommend the bestselling book Cold Case Christianity from former detective J. Warner Wallace. Shortly after I became a Christian I had the opportunity to pray with someone to accept Christ. This came as a great shock to me. I have told you the story before. I was only a couple of weeks old.
Maybe three weeks old in my faith. And I went out on the beach in Newport armed with a copy of the four spiritual laws and basically read it verbatim to some lady there. And she prayed and accepted the Lord. And I was feeling hey I am pretty good. You know Billy Graham move over.
There is a new kid in town. And I was full of zeal and excitement and wanted to reach lost people. Well anyway I had a bunch of buddies I used to hang around with before I was a Christian. And after I accepted the Lord I remember telling them, guys don't worry about me.
I am not going to go off the deep end. I know you have seen other people become Jesus freaks and they carry Bibles around and say stuff like praise the Lord. That will never happen to Greg Laurie. I said, you will never hear me say praise the Lord. I will never publicly carry a Bible or wear like a cross around my neck.
I am not going to be that way. So a few weeks go by and after I had led this lady to the Lord I am walking down the street and who comes walking toward me but one of my old friends also named Greg. Greg and I spent a lot of years in elementary school together. We knew each other very well. He looked at me and I looked at him and we both broke out laughing.
Why? Because in my hand was a Bible in public. Hanging around my neck was a cross.
A little bit too big I might add. And before I could catch myself I said, praise the Lord. That is all we laughed. And I said, Greg I know this is so crazy. Here I am. You have known me all these years and now here I am doing this. But I have to tell you that God has really changed my life. And so we started a conversation and I began to share with Greg some of the things that the Lord had been doing in me and how things had changed for me.
And there is this guy who was eavesdropping on our conversation. I didn't even really notice him. But he walks right in. Interrupts me and turns to me and says, hey Christian I have a few questions for you. I look at him like, I have known the Lord for four weeks. Fire away. And he hit me with like four or five questions.
I don't even recall what they were now. All I know is I was dumbfounded. Where is Dinesh D'Souza when you need him? And he was great last week too wasn't he by the way.
Really really good. Appreciate Dinesh. Well Dinesh was not there. Nor was Ravi Zacharias or Josh McDowell or anybody else with answers. And I needed. I was dumbfounded and I thought I need to start getting ready for this kind of thing because I need to know what answers are to questions that people ask. Now I don't claim to have all the answers. But I believe that there are answers for many of the questions that people will bring before us. And we pointed out to you that as Christians we are to give an answer to every man who asks us according to 1 Peter 3.15.
And you remember that phrase giving to every man an answer is from the Greek word apologia where we get our English word apologetic. It means a legal defense is in a court of law. So it is sort of like you are making your case in the courtroom a public opinion with a person who is listening to you.
But keep this in mind. In this courtroom so-called you are not there as a prosecuting attorney but a witness. See a prosecuting attorney is going to win. He might even be wrong.
But he is still going to win. A witness just says what they have seen. And sometimes I have seen Christians armed with all the information they can get assault nonbelievers and effectively blow them out of the water. Yeah.
I would smoke that person. Yeah. They don't ever want to hear about this again. You won the argument but you lost the soul. And that is not the objective. When we go to a person even though we may know a great deal more than they know we should present this information with love and grace and humility. In fact we are told in 2 Timothy 2.24, "'The Lord's servant must not quarrel but must be kind to everyone and gently teach those that oppose the truth so God will change their hearts and they will believe the truth and they will come to their senses.'"
Ok. So when you are out telling others about Christ you will often be barraged with questions. Now sometimes people ask questions they actually want the answers to. And when you give them the answer they will say, that really cleared that up for me.
Thank you so much. But a lot of times these questions are like a smokescreen. They are there to get you off track.
Basically they are there to get you to shut up and go away. And we saw the example with Jesus and the woman at the well as He engaged her and began to speak to her heart she tried to get Him off on a secondary issue about the technical place where God ought to be worshiped. And He gave a basic answer to that and brought her back into the thing that really mattered. So when we are dealing with these questions it is important to address what we are being asked.
But remember our core message to the nonbeliever is the gospel. So what are those questions? Well I wish I could deal with all the questions we hear.
We dealt with some of them last week with Dinesh. But here are the questions we will deal with in our short time that we have together. Number one. How do you know the Bible is the Word of God? You will mention Scripture and people will say, well I don't believe in the Bible. I think it was written by men. In fact it is full of contradictions.
I always love to ask them to show me one or two. Rarely can they even come up with a halfhearted attempt to bring any contradiction from the Bible so called. They just say that.
Number two. People will say, how can a God of love send people to hell? You say you believe that there is a hell. How could a loving God send someone there? You might also get asked, what about the person who has never heard the gospel? Will God send them to hell? And then the question you hear probably more often than any other.
If God is all good and God is all loving why does He allow tragedy, injustice, all the problems of life? So let's take a shot at some of these questions. Let's start with the one about the Word of God. How do you know the Bible is the Word of God? How many of you brought a Bible with you today? Why don't you grab it and just hold it up right now.
This book you are holding in your hand is the most amazing book ever written. Please put it down. That is long enough. This guy.
That was way too long. No. I am kidding.
I am kidding. It is the most amazing book ever written. It is literally God's message to us. Technically speaking the Bible is not one book but it is 66 books written over a 1500 year span from 40 authors each inspired by the Holy Spirit coming from every walk of life including kings, peasants, philosophers, fishermen, poets, statesmen, and scholars. Yet they have one theme that reverberates from Genesis to Revelation. And that is the redemption of mankind.
And every one of these men was directed, inspired by the Holy Spirit to write these words. And we say that. But how can we know the Bible really is true? Let me give you a few reasons. Number one. I know the Bible is true because it gave me the experience it claimed it would give me.
I repeat. I know the Bible is true because it gave me the experience it claimed it would give me. Now that is not the only reason I believe it. And perhaps it is not even the most convincing reason to the skeptic. But it has certainly helped me to personally believe.
Isn't that true for you? I know it is true because it all happened for me. For instance I read in the Bible that if I would confess my sin God would forgive me my sin and remove my guilt. Well I confess my sin.
And guess what. My guilt was removed. The Bible promised that I would have a peace that passes all human understanding. And I have experienced that time and time again. The Bible promised that God would answer my prayers. And I have prayed about certain things. And I have seen God faithfully answer over all these years.
The Bible promised that God would never give me more that I could handle. And I have gone through hardships in life and have found God's Word to be true. And it has sustained me.
In fact it has sustained me through the worst crisis of my life to date. And that is the death of my son. Yesterday marked the two year anniversary of the day he left us for heaven.
It was a very hard day for us. And you know at this point in time people don't come up as often and say things. They probably feel like it has been said. And maybe they are over it.
Well listen. Just on behalf of all people who are grieving who have lost a loved one, especially a child, we aren't over it. And frankly we will never get over it.
In fact do us a favor and don't ever ask us if we are over it. You don't get over something like that. But you do get through it day by day. And I have gotten through it day by day because of God's Spirit sustaining me through the Scripture. Reading the Scripture.
Trusting the Word of God. My emotions don't always cooperate. So I have to apply my mind and heart to believe what the Bible says. And there are times when I kind of feel it.
There are a lot of times when I am not feeling it. But I have found God's Word to be true. C. S. Lewis put it this way, quote, You never really know how much you really believe anything until its truth or falsehood becomes a matter of life or death to you. End quote.
That was in this book of Grief Observed that he wrote in the aftermath of his wife's death. Yeah. That is true. You can say, Oh I believe this. But what about when it happens to you? Oh I believe that my loved one is in heaven.
We will even say that. Someone says, Well they are in heaven. Well yeah we know that but when that loved one was with you yesterday and they are not with you today and someone says, Well they are in heaven. It is like, Yeah we know but you know what? We miss them.
Ok. But then even when you yourself are thinking about it, Yeah I know they are in heaven but do I really believe they are in heaven? Do I actually believe they are there? And do I really believe I will see them again? The answer is yes I do.
And yes I will. I have found the Word of God to be true. God has kept His promises to me. But that is not the only reason I believe the Bible is true. The Bible is true because it is confirmed by science. And we touched on this a little bit when Dinesh joined us and how science and the Bible sometimes conflict.
But often they are in harmony. For instance it is the Bible that said first, long before science figured it out, that the stars in the heavens are beyond counting. We read in Isaiah 51 that God stretched forth the heavens into limitless expanse which can never be measured and filled it with stars which are as numerous as the sands upon the seashore. And for years astronomers, scientists, and so forth mocked the Bible. The Bible says there are more stars than you can count.
It is like the sand on the shore. How absurd. You can count the stars.
Well look. One. Two. Three.
Then they invented the first telescope. Ok. Well maybe there is a few more than we thought. 300. 400. 500.
Then a more powerful telescope. Well ok. 3,000. 4,000.
5,000. And then even more powerful telescopes come along. And now science and astronomy agree that you literally cannot count the stars in all of the galaxies that are out there.
And they have actually said they are as numerous as the sands on the shore. In fact estimates range of the number of stars out there today from 200 billion to 70 sextillion. 70 sextillion is 70 million million million. Some of you are still thinking 70 sextillion.
A few guys woke up. Did he say sex? No. It is ok. I am not talking sextillion.
Relax. The Bible said this. That the stars were beyond counting. It was the Bible that said that the things that we see are made up of things that cannot be seen. Hebrews 11.3. By faith we understand the entire universe was formed at God's command and what we now see did not come from anything that can be seen. What a weird statement. What do you mean it comes from something that can't be seen?
I can see this microphone stand or this monitor here. No. It is made up of other things. Oh now we know everything is made up from protons, neutrons, and electrons. That which we see is made up by that which we do not see. The Bible said that way before anybody else figured it out.
I could go on. But let me point out something that is very important. It is not the intention of the Bible to be a textbook on science per se. If it were it would be much thicker than it is and much less comprehensible. When the Bible addresses scientific or historical fact it is always accurate. But the Bible is primarily intended to be a book of redemption. Its primary purpose is not to tell us how the heavens go but rather to tell us how to go to heaven. So the Bible may address a scientific issue. It may address a historical issue. But the objective of the Bible is not to be a science textbook or a historical book as its main goal. The objective of Scripture is to reveal God to us.
But when it refers to those things it is always accurate and it is always trustworthy. Bringing me to the third reason why I believe the Bible is the Word of God. Because it is confirmed by archaeology. It is confirmed by archaeology. Over the years countless critics have challenged the teachings of the Bible but recent archaeological findings confirm time and time again the Bible was and is reliable. For years people disputed the biblical account of crucifixion. Oh well there is no historical evidence of crucifixion. We don't have any archaeological proof that a crucifixion ever took place. And you can see how a statement like that strikes at the very heart of the Christian faith because we talk so often about the fact that Jesus Christ was crucified on a cross. But this criticism was silenced in 1968 when the remains of a crucified man in his mid-30s were discovered north of Jerusalem with a seven inch iron nail still embedded in the heel. The state of his bones indicated the condemned man's were outstretched.
His feet had been placed sideways and the nail driven through a small block of wood and then through both heels and then into the cross. Once again the Bible said it before the so-called experts had it. Critics have come over the years saying, well we don't believe the Bible is true because it speaks in detail about a Roman governor named Pontius Pilate. But there is no historical and or archaeological evidence to confirm that a man named Pontius Pilate ever lived. That is until 1961 when they found what is now known as the Pilate Stone in Caesarea confirming that Pontius Pilate indeed existed and dedicated an amphitheater in the memory of Caesar himself. Critics also opine, oh the Bible can't be true because it talks about Caiaphas the high priest and there is no archaeological and or historical evidence for a man named Caiaphas ever existing. That is until 1990 when they found the tomb of the high priest Caiaphas. Jewish historian Nelson Glueck made this statement and I quote, "'It may be stated categorically that no archaeological discovery has ever controverted a biblical reference. Scores of archaeological findings have been made which confirm in clear outline or exact detail the historical statements made in the Bible.'" End quote. Number four.
I believe the Bible is true because it is the one book that dares to predict the future. Not once. Not twice.
But hundreds of times. With 20, 20 hindsight we have all of the prophecies that spoke of the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ among other things. And we can look back and realize that those prophecies were fulfilled exactly. But then of course the Bible speaks of our future. It was the Bible that told us that the Jewish people would be there in their land and they would be dispersed to the four corners of the earth. It was the Bible that told us they would regather again together in their land and would be isolated from the other nations of the world. It was the Bible that tells us that Jerusalem would be at the center of world conflict and the end times.
And folks we are seeing this happen before our very eyes. I mean what are the possibilities that this could all be coincidental? Think of all the prophecies that Jesus fulfilled. A scientist figured out the odds of just eight prophecies of Jesus being fulfilled by mere coincidence. He said the chance that Jesus would be born of Bethlehem one in 280,000. The chance that He would have a forerunner announcing His coming one in 1,000. The chance that He would be betrayed for 30 pieces of silver one in 10,000. The chance that He would have His hands wounded one in 10,000. The chance that He would ride into Jerusalem on a donkey one in 1,000.
Put it all together. What are the chances that Jesus did these things coincidentally? He said one in 10 to the 28th power. That is almost as crazy as sextillion.
The illustrator put it this way. He said, "'If you were to cover the entire state of Texas with silver dollars two feet deep, then mark one and randomly throw it out there and blindfold someone and have them walk across the state of Texas, the chances of them reaching down and picking up the marked silver dollar are the same chances that Jesus could have had these things happen coincidentally.'" That is only eight of the prophecies. There were many many more.
Yes. The Bible is the book you can trust. I heard a story about a girl who was out sharing her faith one day and a little crowd had gathered around her and an atheist was eavesdropping and thought he would humiliate this young girl. And with this big booming voice she said, "'Young lady you believe the Bible?' She said, "'Well yes sir I do.' "'Well I have a question for you then if you believe the Bible.'
She said, "'Ok.' "'Do you believe all the miracles in the Bible?' She said, "'Yes I do.' "'Oh you do.' "'Then you must believe in the story of Jonah and the whale.
And a man was swallowed by a whale and then lived for three days and was spit out by the whale. You believe that?' She said, "'Yeah I believe it. It is in the Bible.' "'Now how did that happen?
How could such an event actually take place? It is impossible.' She says, "'I have no idea. When I get to heaven I will ask Jonah.' The atheist said, "'Well what if he is not in heaven?'
She said, "'Well then you ask him.'" How many of you have heard that story before? Raise every hand. Thank you for that courtesy laugh. Right when I started the story you leaned over and you said, "'He is going to do that lame story again. Just laugh. It makes him happy.
He is getting old now.'" Ok. What about this one. How could a God of love send someone to hell? "'If your God is all loving,' the person will say, how could He send a person to a place as horrible as hell?' Now by the way I will try to engage a person in dialogue when they say things like this. Instead of saying, "'Well that is an interesting question you asked there.
Do you believe there is a hell?' "'Well yes I do.' "'And who do you think would go there?' "'Well no I don't.
Whatever they say I will engage them.' "'Why do you bring that up?' "'And then it is interesting that you say why would God send a person?' "'So you know there is a God.
You believe there is a hell?' "'I will try to draw them out.'" A lot of times frankly these are things that people say because they have heard other people say them. They parrot this information.
And when you actually respond with a logical argument they back away. Well what about that. How could a God of love send someone to hell? Well the simple answer is God doesn't send anyone to hell.
We effectively send ourselves there. That is not a cop out. That is an accurate statement. Because hell was not created for people. Hell was created for the devil and his angels. That is what Jesus said. And God doesn't want anyone to go to hell. He wants all mankind to believe in Him and go to heaven.
2 Peter 3.9. God is not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. That is why He sent His Son to be crucified on a cross and murdered in cold blood. And the Bible says if we neglect this sacrifice of Jesus and His offer of forgiveness how can we escape if we neglect so great a salvation. So no one is going to be accidentally in hell. Nor will anyone be accidentally in heaven. People will be in heaven and in hell because of a deliberate choice. The result of a choice they make. C. S. Lewis said, quote, "'No one goes to heaven deservingly and no one goes to hell unwillingly.'"
End quote. Timothy Keller made this statement about hell. Quote, "'People only get in the afterlife what they most wanted. Either to have God as Savior and Master or to be their own saviors and masters. Hell is simply one freely chosen path going on forever.
He wanted to get away from God and God in His infinite justice sends us where we wanted to go.'" Yeah a person will say. But what about the person who has never heard the gospel? Will a God of love send them to hell?
Here is a short answer to that. God will judge us according to the light we have received. In other words God will not hold you responsible for something you have never heard before.
What does that mean? That means that you will be held accountable for what you know. And everybody knows something. Now some know a lot more than others. Some have sat through entire messages where the gospel was presented. They will be held accountable for what they have heard. Others have not heard the gospel.
There are people out there today who have never had someone tell them about Jesus Christ. So are they off the hook? Is ignorance bliss?
Not at all. They will be judged as well. According to what? Well here is what Romans 1 tells us. And let me read it to you. And this is from the New Living Translation that is quite helpful in this particular passage. It says, God shows His anger from heaven against all sinful, wicked people who push the truth away from themselves. For the truth about God is known to them instinctively. God has put this knowledge in their hearts. From the time the world was created, people have seen the earth and the sky and all that God made. They can see His invisible qualities, His eternal power and divine nature so they have no excuse whatsoever for not knowing God. So what this is saying is they have the testimony of nature.
No. Nature does not present the gospel of Jesus Christ. But nature declares the existence of a Creator God. And only a fool would ignore that. You look around and you go, there is a God.
Plus there is an internal compass. We instinctively know what is right and wrong. People say, well no I don't. I have my own rules. I live by my own standards and I believe the good Lord of the man upstairs or whatever they call him will judge me according to the standards that I have set in my life that I live by.
Here is the problem buckaroo. You don't even live by your own standards and you know it. You break your own rules all the time. Well that is why I keep writing new rules. Yeah.
And lowering the bar all the time. So you instinctively know what is right and wrong. Even a little child knows that. Watch a child when they are misbehaving. They know.
My little granddaughter Lucy she is so little. She is just learning how to walk but she knows when she is going to do something bad because just before she does it she looks over like that. We have that internal compass inside of us. Paul writes in Romans 2.12, "'God will punish sin wherever it is found. He will punish the non-believer when they sin, even though they never had God's written laws for, listen, down in their hearts they know right from wrong. God's laws are written within them. Their own conscience accuses them.'" You see.
So they know instinctively right from wrong. They have broken that. Not to mention that they have broken the commandments of God. Here is what it comes down to. If a person is a true seeker of truth the Lord will reveal Himself to them.
I believe that. I think there is a lot of people that say they are seeking truth but they aren't. Because if they were really seeking truth they would find their way to Jesus Christ. So you find someone that is in a cult or in some weird you know homemade version of what they think religion ought to be. A little New Age mysticism thrown in with a little Christianity and a little Buddhism. A little of this.
A little of that. And they say, well no this is my truth. You know what they have done is they don't want to change their lifestyle so they have found a religion that suits them.
Ok. That is the bottom line. Jesus said people don't come to the light because they don't want their evil deeds exposed. So they can give you all these reasons.
I am going to tell you the real reason. The reason is they don't want to change so they come up with some gobbledygook to believe in so they will feel better about themselves. But if they are a true seeker of truth if they really want to know God, God will reveal Himself to them. Because the Lord Himself says in Jeremiah 29 13, "'You will seek Me and find Me.
When you search for Me with all of your heart, I will be found by you.'" The Bible tells the story of a man named Cornelius. A Roman centurion. This was a man who was powerful. Had great responsibility.
An intelligent man to rise to such a rank. Yet unlike most of his fellow Romans he did not worship the false gods that they had adopted from the Greeks. Nor did he worship Caesar himself as was the custom of that day. Cornelius to the best of his understanding believed in the God of the Jews.
This was the land they were occupying. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Even though he was a Gentile he believed in the God of the Hebrews. He wanted to know God deep down in his heart. And he prayed to the God he knew. And guess what. God heard his prayer and sent Simon Peter to personally deliver the gospel to him. And when Cornelius heard it he believed right on the spot.
If a person really wants to know God the Lord will reveal Himself to them. Ok. Let's come to our last question. And this will use the remainder of our time up.
I wish I had more time to deal with it. It is such a vast important topic. How could a God of love allow suffering? People will ask. Why is there sickness, even death, tragedy, and so forth? Ok. For the answer let's look at John 9. And we are going to read verses 1–7.
Here is a story of a man who was healed. Now as Jesus passed by He saw a man who was blind from birth. And His disciples asked Him saying, "'Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?' Jesus answered, "'Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but that the works of God should be revealed in Him. I must work the works of Him who sent Me while it is day.
The night is coming when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.' And when He said these things, He spit on the ground, made clay with the saliva, and anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay. And He said to him, "'Go wash in the pool of Siloam,' which is translated sent. And so he washed and came back, seeing."
This is a crazy story. Here is a guy who is blind. Jesus heals him. How does He heal him? He spits in the dirt.
I love the fact that Jesus never healed any two people in exactly the same way. One person He touches them. Another person they touch Him. To another He speaks the Word. Another touches the hem of His garment.
This guy He spits in the dirt. Can you imagine coming up and asking for prayer from the pastors? Pray for me. Sure.
No problem. What? Well it is in the Bible. Maybe the Lord varied His methodology because He knew how prone we are to get hung up on things. We would form a whole denomination around it.
No. Jesus mixed it up so we would just remember it is God that does the healing. It is not a certain technique or a certain this or a certain that. So but here is the question that is asked. Whose sin asks His disciples, this man or his parents?
This really comes back to the essential question. Why does God allow suffering? How come this guy is blind?
Why did this disability take place? Who is at fault? Is it his own fault? Did it come as a punishment to him for something bad he had done? Or was it his parents' fault? And thus the Lord judged them through their child.
Jesus is saying, Oh stop. It is nobody's fault. This man didn't sin.
His parents didn't sin. And we want to always blame sin or the repercussions of the hardships of life on God. You know the problem of pain, writes C. S. Lewis, is atheism's most potent weapon against the Christian faith.
And it is true. Because life is filled with injustices. Things happen that just don't make sense. And sometimes people turn away from God because of this. Because a tragedy in life. You know their parents divorced or a parent dies or a sibling dies or they get cancer or somebody close to them has something horrible happen and they say, I can't believe in a God like that and they turn away from God. Or we look at tragedies that we all witness like the latest earthquake here or a tsunami that just hit there or a typhoon or the World Trade Center is attacked and those towers come crashing to the ground with such a horrible loss of life or a plane crashes or a train goes off the rails or a friend of ours who is a Christian gets cancer or a child is born with a disability or a young man is killed in an automobile accident and we wonder why. You see because our human intellects and notions of fairness reject the apparent contradiction between a loving God and a world of pain.
It just doesn't make sense to us. And then sometimes it seems wrong because there will be the drunk driver you know coming home from the bar that has a collision with the family of four on their way to church. And the Christian family dies and the drunk driver doesn't even get injured.
Ok. Now there are times when there is cause and effect. There are times when someone does something wicked and they reap the repercussions. They go rob a bank. They get arrested.
They go to prison. Oh you see you reap what you sow. Yeah that is true. There is a lot of times things make sense. But then there are times when things don't make sense at all. Then what?
What do we do? The way we see it God is all good but He is not all powerful. Therefore He can't stop evil. Or maybe God is all powerful but He isn't all good. Therefore He doesn't stop evil. Here is the answer.
You may like it or not like it. But it is the answer. Jesus is saying, neither this man nor his parents sin. Meaning in this particular instance there is no correlation between His condition and sin.
Jesus is saying bad things happen and they are inexplicable. All disability. All sickness.
All pain. Even death itself are the result of sin. Now when I say that I don't mean because of sin a person committed. I mean because of sin in general. Sin has polluted the human race. Because our first parents ate of the forbidden fruit. Sin entered the human race.
Romans 5.12 says it came into the world through one man and death spread to all men because all men have sinned. And so now because of the effects of sin we don't live forever. We weren't supposed to get old. We weren't supposed to lose our memories. What was I just saying?
No. We weren't supposed to have disease or illness. And we certainly weren't supposed to die. But sin has entered into this world. And God gave to our first parents Adam and Eve and to us a free will.
But we ask why do these things happen? You know after the World Trade Center was attacked I remember that a lot of people were asking why of course. Some preachers said, well this is the judgment of God on America. You may remember that I was not one of those preachers that said that because I heartily disagreed with that statement. Because to me it had all kinds of problems theologically. For starters if that was God's judgment on America why was that God's only judgment on America? And if it was His judgment why there? Is that really the one place that God would judge us there at the World Trade Center?
Listen. There were Christians in the Twin Towers too. So what is with that?
I will tell you what is with that. That was not God's judgment against America. That was a sinful act done by wicked Islamic terrorists in the name of their false god. They were wicked and did it for wicked reasons. God allowed it.
We don't know why. But bad things happen. Earthquakes happen. Tragedies happen. Murders happen.
Why? I don't know. But one day some people came to Jesus and they asked Him about a tower that fell. Apparently this was an event that was known by many. It fell on a group of Gentiles. This tower tipped over.
It fell and killed a bunch of people. And so they asked the question, were they the worst sinners in Jerusalem? In other words Lord is that tower fallen then because they were worst sinners and everybody else? And I love the answer of Christ. He said, no I tell you unless you repent you will perish.
In other words they were saying, Lord is it because these guys were so horrible this happened Jesus is saying no? People die. Period. And you better be careful because you might die too.
That is it. People die. We could be driving home today and die. You could have a heart attack today. You could find a lump in your breast and it is diagnosed as cancer and you only have a short time to live.
You could slip in your shower at home and hit your head and die. Greg this is like the most depressing message ever. I know. I know.
But I am dealing with a topic here all right. Everybody dies. There are no exceptions. That doesn't mean that God is unfair. It doesn't mean it was judgment. It just means it was time for that person to leave this earth and it will come to everyone. Some die young. Some die old. Some die slowly. Others die quickly. But everyone dies.
Here is the point Jesus was making. You don't know when it is going to happen so be ready to go. But why does God allow suffering?
Well I can't give you an answer that will probably satisfy you because if I could I would. And I have searched myself for answers to that question. And there are times we can say, well this good thing came out of that thing. I can see how the Lord is using it. And frankly there are times when we say, I don't get this at all.
This really doesn't seem good. But I am trusting God in His Word. And that in the end all things will make sense and work together for good to those that love God.
But here are some things to consider as we close. God may allow suffering and sickness to get our attention. He may allow suffering and sickness to get our attention. You know when everything is going well in life a lot of times we just don't really think we need God now do we?
A lot of times crisis is the wakeup call. Something traumatic. Something big.
Something earth shaking. Wakes us up to our need for God. As the psalmist said in Psalm 119 67, before I was afflicted I went astray but now I have kept Your Word.
So it might be something like that that wakes you up. Sometimes God will use the worst to accomplish the best. But then there are times when these things happen we don't get it. We just have to trust the Lord. People will say, well when I get to heaven I have a lot of questions to ask God.
I understand that. But I suggest to you when you get to heaven you will take one look in His holy face and say, never mind. And that day you will know as you are known. Maybe not until. Certainly not until. You might know some but not all.
Number two. Suffering helps us grow spiritually and makes us stronger in our faith. You know sometimes people will say, well through this crisis I lost my faith. Respectfully may I say maybe you never had faith. Because if your faith is real it will not be destroyed through crisis. It will only get stronger. And if your faith cannot withstand crisis then it is not genuine faith at all. So when people say they lost their faith I suggest maybe they never had faith in the living God.
But it is never too late to get some. But this will strengthen you. The thing you fear the most could be the best thing for you in your spiritual life.
Believe it or not. James 1 says, when all kinds of trials and temptations crowd into your lives, my brothers, don't treat them as intruders but as friends. Realize that they have come to test your faith and produce in you a quality of endurance. And let that process go on until that endurance is fully developed and you will find you become men and women of mature character. Men and women of integrity with no weak spots.
Third. Suffering can bring glory to God. It can bring glory to God.
How? Well sometimes when God removes it. That is what happened with the blind man. Hey who sinned?
This man or his parents said he was born blind. Hey no one sinned. But in order that the works of God might be put on display he heals the guy. So Jesus said, look don't worry about how this happened. Just watch what I will do. And there are times that crisis hits and we call on God and God comes through and crisis goes away. It happens. You know you get that bad news from the doctor. You pray and you go back in for a test and whatever it was that was bothering them isn't there anymore. We can't believe this.
We have never seen anything like this before. You have that situation where there is no way you will ever have the resources to pay these bills and boom you have the resources. You have this other problem. There is no way we will ever be fixed. And boom it is fixed. God comes through and He will say, look at what my God did. And people say, wow that is a powerful God just serving. But then there are times when you pray and the dead person isn't raised. The sight isn't restored. The crisis isn't averted.
In fact it even gets worse. Well then what? Then you can glorify the Lord through your suffering. And understand something. That is a powerful witness to a lost world.
See anybody can be happy when the sky is blue and the sun is shining. See people look at us as Christians and say, you know you are all so weird. You are Christians. Your little smiling Christian faces. You get in your little Christian cars and drive to your Christian church and go out and eat your Christian food and praise the Lord this and hallelujah that. You guys don't live in the real world. Then one day crisis hits that little Christian family and they are still going to church and they are still praising the Lord and the nonbeliever says, maybe there is something to it.
Yeah there is. God can be glorified in our suffering. A good example of this is Paul and Silas. They were thrown in prison for preaching the gospel. And they were whipped and put into a dungeon. It wasn't like the cell Lindsay Lohan is in right now. Where when she comes out of her cell everybody is put in lockdown. All the other prisoners are upset.
And you know what? I hope Lindsay Lohan comes to put her faith in Jesus Christ. Because that is what she needs to get out of the mess she is in. I hope she doesn't end up as another one of these Hollywood statistics of young girls, young boys who get even worse through a drug you know end up in a drug overdose or whatever it is.
Pray the Lord saves her soul. And maybe God will use these circumstances. But here is Paul and Silas. They are in a hell hole. They are in a dungeon.
They are in pain. But I love how in the book of Acts it says, but at midnight Paul and Silas sang praises to God. So Silas what do you want to do? How about a little two part harmony.
Let's go. And they start worshipping God. What?
The other prisoners the Bible says, listen. And that word listen can be translated listen with pleasure. Have you ever heard something you liked? Maybe a song on the radio. Oh I like that song. Turn it up.
Yeah. That is my song. That is how the people were listening.
They had never heard singing in a dungeon before. Then an earthquake comes. And the walls collapse. And the jailer who is in charge of all of this and had actually whipped Paul and Silas was ready to kill himself because the penalty in those days was if you lost your prisoners you would be put to death.
He is just ready to thrust the sword into his chest. And Paul and Silas says, wait. Wait. Wait.
Don't do it. We are all here still. And this guy says, Sirs what must I do to be saved? Paul says, hey believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. And that man believes and he takes Paul and Silas home. Gives them a nice meal. Cleans their backs up. His whole family comes to faith.
Why? Because they had earned the right to share the gospel with him by rejoicing in time of calamity. And when you worship God through hardships in life it will give you a platform to reach people in a different way.
Yes God can use these things to bring glory to His name. And fourth and lastly your suffering will not last forever. I know like it seems it will.
But it won't. 2 Corinthians 4.17 says, our present troubles are quite small and won't last very long. Yet they produce for us an immeasurably great glory that will last forever. So we don't look at the troubles we can see right now. Rather we look forward to what we have not yet seen. For the troubles we see now will soon be over.
But the joys to come will last forever. Maybe tragedy has recently knocked at your door. You have had a close brush with death. Or a friend or a loved one has died. Or you are very sick right now. Or you are just getting old.
And you know the clock is ticking. The fact is the pain and the joys of this life are all temporal. But eternity well that lasts forever.
And Jesus Christ suffered and died on a cross so you could live forever. Maybe you have come here today with some of the questions that I have raised. And I hope that I have been able to answer them in some way, shape, or form. You probably have other questions. That is ok. But you know what. When you become a Christian you take that step of faith and you believe. And there might be some of you here that have never asked Jesus Christ to forgive you of your sin. You don't have that assurance that when you die you will go to heaven.
But you want it. Maybe you are going through a hardship right now and you want God's help. You come to Christ and believe in Him and He will forgive you of every sin you have ever forgiven. The Bible promises this.
You will find this to be true for yourself. But you need to say, Lord come into my life. And as we close now in prayer if you have never asked Christ to come into your heart and life to be your Savior and Lord do it now. Pray this prayer out loud after me. This is where you are asking Christ to come into your life and forgive you of your sin. Again as I pray, pray this out loud after me if you would please.
Pray this now. Lord Jesus. I know I am a sinner. I ask You to forgive me of my sin right now. Come into my life. Be my Savior. Be my Lord. Be my God.
And be my friend. I choose to follow You now Jesus from this moment forward. Thank You for accepting me and forgiving me. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen. God bless each one of you that stood and prayed that prayer. God bless you guys. Hey everybody.
Thanks for listening to my podcast. Before you go I wanted to let you know about the important work we are doing here at Harvest. You know we have had the same goal these last 50 years which is simply this. We want to know God and we want to make Him known. And we do that in a lot of ways. Documentary films, animation, radio, television, large scale evangelistic events and more. If you want to be a part of what we are doing to fulfill the great commission you can support us with whatever you can give at harvest.org slash donate. Again that is harvest.org slash donate. And thanks so much.
