He Doesn't Waste Pain

This is Stu Epperson from the Truth Talk Podcast, connecting current events, pop culture, and theology, and we're so grateful for you that you've chosen the Truth Podcast Network.

It's about to start in just a few seconds. Enjoy it, and please share it around with all your friends. Thanks for listening, and thanks for choosing the Truth Podcast Network. This is the Truth Network. Welcome to If Not For God, stories of hopelessness that turn to hope. Here is your host, Mike Zwick. Welcome to If Not For God with Mike Zwick. Today, we really are in an If Not For God situation, because, wow, Mike, you were reading in Mark chapter 6 and 7, and God gave you a really phenomenal insight, and I'm wondering if you could share that with our listeners. Absolutely, and Robbie, it's good to have you back, man. Good to have you back. I interview a lot of different people, we talk to a lot of different people, but man, I enjoy talking with you at least just as much as anybody else, if not more.

We have some good guests, but man, you're a great talk show host, and if the listeners, if you guys are listening to this, then definitely check out... Robbie has several shows that he's on himself, The Christian Car Guy. Well, the deal is that it's just really fun. When somebody is really hungry and thirsty for God, you get to have a discussion with them, right? That's it. That's it. And when they really understand Job 38, which we're gonna talk about a little bit here later, the people that don't think they have it all figured out are more fun to talk with.

I don't know if you've ever noticed that. Absolutely. Yeah, man.

Yeah, yeah. We used to call them when I was teaching somebody how to sell insurance or training somebody, and you'd come in and you'd meet somebody and they knew absolutely nothing, but they thought that they knew everything. Well, I couldn't train that person because they weren't teachable.

How do you teach somebody who thinks they know it all and won't accept advice? But when you're talking about Job 37 and 38, Job is complaining about everything. Why is this happening? Why is that happening? Why is this the other and whatever? And then in Job 38, it says, then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind and said, who is this who darkens counsel? Now prepare yourself like a man. I will question you and you shall answer me.

Where were you? When I, when I laid the foundations of the earth, tell me if you have understanding who determined its measurements, surely, you know, or who stretched the line upon it to what were its foundations fastened or who laid its cornerstone when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy or who shut, who shut in the sea with doors when it burst forth and issued from the womb. When I made the clouds, it's garment and thick darkness at squaddling band. When I fixed my limit for it and set bars and doors, when I said this, this far you may come, but no farther and here your proud waves must stop. Well, God goes on and on and on. And then he's asking Job the questions now. And well, you know, it all Job, tell me about all of this. And then I guess Job has an aha moment later on where he says, I've spoken once, but I've spoken no more.

I'm just going to listen. I don't have an answer for you, God. And, and, and one of the things that I've seen is that many times when, when rough times are happening in our lives, reasons are not always given.

We don't always know why the, why the relative dies. We don't always know why, you know, our we're having a tough time and, and nobody seems to like us or nobody seems to agree with us or everybody seems to be coming against us. As a matter of fact, if everybody's coming against you, well, then you're in good company because not everybody liked Jesus, right?

Robbie. Yeah. Well that, and, and therein lies the, the actual place you went in Mark chapter six and seven. But you know, that passage in Job is just precious to me because I always, when I hear it, I go back to a young, you know, honestly, Scientologist that was reading that chapter in the Bible.

And, and, and I thought I had all the answers, you know, cause I'd studied Scientology and I'd also been told to read the Bible. So I had gotten from Genesis all the way to this particular chapter in Job and through the Bible, I'd gotten madder and madder at God. And I was really mad about the whole book of Job. Like, I mean, really, this book is supposed to be about patients and you, you kill the guy's kids. I mean, you're, you allow Satan to kill the guy's kids and you, and you know, all you allow all this stuff to happen to this poor guy boils in the whole bit. And then we got to listen to these people talk at him for dang, I'm 29, 30, whatever chapters, you know, 34 or five. And I am furious at God by the time I get to chapter 38, I am really, you know, this is this young Scientologist has all the answers and I'm looking for answers. So reason I'm reading the Bible is I'm looking for answers and I'm like, okay, let's have some answers instead.

God turns the table. Yeah. And he says, all right, Robbie, since you have this all figured out, you know, going a little further on and job, go ahead, Robbie, make it snow or my, the one that really sent me into Wonderland was put a hook in a bohomath or, you know, and let's see what happens then. You know, and I had no idea what a bohomath was. So I went and bought a commentary, a Matthew Henry commentary in order to figure out what a bohomath was.

And I've found out from Matthew Henry's perspective, it was a hippopotamus, but I don't, I think it was actually a dinosaur now that I've studied it a bit further, but nonetheless, I don't think you want to take on a hippopotamus or a dinosaur. You know, it's just not anything that I could, I could reasonably do. So I was left with this difficult situation of number one, I don't have the answer to making it snow. Right. And number two, okay, there is a God. And if there is one, he obviously has a very high standard because I saw what happened to a lot of people that, you know, didn't do what was right throughout the Old Testament and you really have a problem. And that is that you need Jesus desperately. Yes. You need an answer to the situation that you don't measure up.

You can't make it based on what the standard is. And so how do you, how do you get yourself to that position, which made me even more thirsty to understand? So I got to the New Testament by the time I got to the chapters that you're referring to, Mark, I was all about trying to find this guy that could possibly, you know, get me straight.

And that's the beauty of the way that I always say the Bible is canonized. You may have heard that it's a, it's a, you know, theological word of some kind, but I always think of this cannonball is headed for my head. And when it hits you, you're like, you just flattened that they're like, Oh, I don't have those answers. I don't have the answers.

And, and, and it's interesting when you were talking Robbie, I didn't see this before the show, but I actually see a connection between Joe, what we're talking about in Mark chapter six and Mark chapter seven and Joe, um, Joe is asking, why is this all happening? He's complaining against God. He's saying things that woe is me. Things are bad. He's basically saying, God, you don't know things good enough.

You're not good enough, God. And what I was looking at and in Mark chapter six, and I'll start off in verse 37, it says, but he answered, you give them something to eat. They said to him, that would, that would take more than a half a year's wages. Are we to go and spend that much on bread and give it to them to eat? How many loaves do you have? He asked, go and see when they found out, they said they had five loaves and two fish. Then Jesus directed them to have all the people sit in groups on the green, on the green grass. So they sat down in groups of hundreds and 50, taking the loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven.

He gave thanks and broke the loaves. Then he gave them to his disciples to distribute to the people. He also divided the two fish among them all.

They all ate and were satisfied. And the disciple picked up disciples, picked up 12 basket fulls of broken pieces of bread and fish. The number of men who had eaten was 5,000 out of just a few fish and a few loaves. So, and then after that, Jesus walks on water. Immediately, Jesus made his disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to, but say to just dismissing the crowd after leaving them, he went up to pray. Later on that night, the boat was in the middle of the lake and he had gone on land. He saw the disciples straining at the oars because the wind was against him. Shortly before dawn, he went out to them walking on the lake, walking on the lake, take courage because there were words, take what's going on, take courage in his eye.

Don't be afraid. And then in Mark chapter seven, right after Jesus did all these things, the Pharisees and the teachers of the law who had come from Jerusalem gathered around Jesus and saw some of the disciples eating food with hands that were defiled that is unwashed. Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they give their hands a ceremonial washing. And Jesus replied, Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites, as it is written, these people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.

They worship me in vain. Their teachings were merely human rules. You have let go of the commands of God and are holding onto human traditions.

You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe your own traditions. And Jesus goes on and said, it doesn't matter. Here it is in verse 14, listen to me, everyone understand this, nothing outside of a person can defile them by going into them.

Rather it is what comes out of a person that defiles them. So Jesus and his disciples are eating and they didn't wash their hands. The Pharisees don't look at the fact Jesus just walked on water. He took a few loaves and a few fishes. Then he fed 5,000 men aside from women and children, as it says in another, and they're saying, well, you know what, Jesus, you're eating and you didn't wash your hands.

Yeah, it's absolutely, I mean, it's a phenomenal issue. You have layers and there's this essential layer of trust that is like, okay, God's got this, but in the meantime, this is really uncomfortable. And then there's this other layer of God has this and where is my place in this?

And then there's even another layer that's above that that is like, okay, God is really doing something cool here because he doesn't turn up the volume like this. That's right. Right?

Unless he doesn't waste pain. He just doesn't. Right. And when you're starting to see a whole lot of it going on, something really cool must be happening, as was the case in Job.

Because Job got to see something I've never seen. I mean, you've seen the whirlwind talk? No.

No. And so he got an understanding that clearly has been teaching people for centuries and centuries and centuries. Think how many people have found solace after they lost a child, after they lost their business, after they lost their marriage or whatever, and they find themselves in Job's shoes. Okay. And then they find themselves in Job chapter 38.

Right. Well, and one of the things that I was thinking, Robbie, and I've heard people say this before, but I think it was earlier this week, I had a recent birthday and I think I realized God has a sense of humor. But I was looking in Luke chapter 19 verse 37, and it says, when he came near the place where the road goes down the Mount of Olives, the whole crowd of disciples began joyfully to praise God in loud voices for all the miracles that they had seen. Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord, peace in heaven and glory in the highest. Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to Jesus, teacher, rebuke your disciples. Jesus said, I tell you, he replied, if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.

Something happened to me recently. And it was, it was, it was, it was kind of a, you know, kind of a funny story, but it reminded me of that passage right there where Jesus said, the stones will cry out because for years and years, my dad's not a Christian. And I've been telling them about Jesus, telling them about Jesus. Hey dad, you need to, you need to give your life to Jesus, this and that. And finally, I think it was about two or three years ago, he said, Mike, he said, look, he says, you have your beliefs.

I have mine. He says, but I don't want to hear any more about this Jesus. And I said, okay. And so I, you know, I kind of left him alone still sometimes I say so, but I, but I kind of left him alone. And so he actually took us out to eat for, uh, for my birthday. It was earlier this week and a nice birthday.

We had a good time. And so, you know, I remember he doesn't want me to say anything. And, but I remember two things distinctly that my dad knew. And so one of the things, my dad came from a Jewish background and he did not like the fact that I named my youngest child Christian.

That was one of them. And number two, I know he doesn't want anything to do with Jesus. So we went out to eat, we're sitting there and my three-year-old and my two-year-old are sitting there. And my three-year-old looks at my dad and points to my younger son, Christian, and goes, his name is Christian. And my dad just kind of sits there and looks at him and he goes, sat, sits there for a minute. He looks at my dad again and he goes, his name is Christian. Nobody told him to do this.

Nobody said anything about this, but he just said it. And so then a few minutes later, we're sitting there as well. Cause like I said, my dad doesn't like Christianity and we're sitting there and he looks, Michael, my three-year-old looks at my dad and he goes, I miss going to church. I don't know if my dad heard him or whatever, but a couple of minutes later, he goes, looks at my dad and he goes, I miss church. But you know, it's interesting. And that's how he was telling me that God has a sense of humor, but yeah, I mean, if we don't say anything about Jesus, it says the rocks will cry.

I mean, somebody's gonna, somebody's gonna be the microphone. Somebody's gonna be out there telling these people about Jesus. And you know, the funny thing is, and I think Stu and I were talking about the other day, Robbie, where there many times where there is the most persecution against Christians, Christianity just seems to blossom. Do you know about China, about how they suppress Christianity?

They're doing it right now. Right. And the underground church is just blowing up. Right.

And same thing in the Arab countries, you know, they've pulled out a lot of stops on, you know, but then again, you know, real Christianity, real faith comes from testing, right? And so to some extent, you know, the disciples are, when they're out on the lake and they're rolling against the storm, I mean, this is a test. Yeah.

Yeah. And the one that they've not faced before, you know, they seem to get out on that lake in storms. This seems to be happening, you know, more than on one occasion. And in fishing expeditions as well where they don't catch anything, right?

And then all of a sudden they do catch something. And all these things are leading them to a point of, wow, the solution is Jesus. Yeah.

I mean, it's a Sunday school answer. Right. But it's so much more than that. And so I can't help but note, you know, or ask, because, you know, I think it's really cool that your dad took you out for your birthday. Right. I think that's really, really cool.

Yeah. And so what was his demeanor to all that? He literally just sat there and didn't say anything.

And it was, but it was that partial, I think it was just like God having a sense of humor saying, Mike, you've tried to tell your dad. I keep praying for him. And here's another something else that happened. He had a cleaning lady.

He got a new cleaning lady who came to his house and he gets this, I think through the VA or whatever. And he told me, this was probably about a year ago. He said, she's nice. She does a good job, but she's always trying to convert me to Christianity. So it's, it's, it's, it's, I guess on another level, Robbie, is that when we've told people about Jesus and we've, we've done our part. We, like you said, we tell stories, we, we, we become a witness.

We do everything that we can do. And then at some point it even says, Jesus even said this, he said, if somebody doesn't receive what you're saying, he says, dust off the dust off your shoes and move on. And maybe we can all learn something from that, but we, we can continue to pray for people even after they say no. And our prayers work, our prayers work. I mean, you have a pretty extensive prayer life that you, I mean, you pray every morning.

Yeah. It, it, it's amazing to me, the people that I've had a chance to years later, somebody that I had prayed for, witnessed for all that stuff. And then all of a sudden, you know, a friend will come by and say, you know, Tony or Eames today, wanted you to know that he came to Jesus. And I saw him the other day and he said, when you see Robbie, be sure and tell him, you know, I accepted Christ. And I've, I've had this happen, you know, on a number of occasions where just it's, it's, it's, it's God's way of letting the rocks cry out to some extent to let you know that yes, those prayers are going to be answered. I, you know, can't save anybody just like I can't make it snow and realize that the one that can is him and ask him. And I have many times, Lord, this, what is it that I can say?

What is it that you want me to do? But sometimes he wants you to shut up. Yeah.

He wants you to don't push them into a corner where they've got to fight their way out of it. Right. Right.

Right. And, uh, JD Greer, uh, the president of Southern Baptist convention actually had a good story about that. And he said, he said, there was a woodpecker that was just pecking away, pecking away at a telephone pole and he really wasn't doing anything. And he says, one night there was a terrible thunderstorm and lightning split the middle of this pole and it just devoured it and it was done. And he says, then the little woodpecker came back and he looked at it and he brought his friends back and he showed, he said, look what I did. Look what I did.

I split this telephone. No, he didn't. God did it with, with, with the lightning. But, and that's what we, that's what I think maybe sometimes we do when we say I led somebody to Christ, I led, I did this.

I did this. Really? That's a great, I've never heard, heard that particular one, but it's completely the case because, you know, when I look in my own life, you know, there were all these things that led up, there were people, oh, there were all kinds of people that, that pointed me in whatever directions that put me in the, you know, to thinking about what some questions, but essentially you're right.

The only way that telephone pole gets split is the lightning. And, and, you know, that's the beauty of the thing and the beauty of prayer and the beauty of, you know, allowing God to do this. But so often, you know, as a salesman, when you were, you were talking earlier about training salesmen, you know, how many times have you seen a rookie salesman talk themselves right out of a sale? Right. All the time. Yeah. And I actually, when I was, when I was selling books door to door, I'm glad I had a lady tell me, she said, and this is when I was just starting out, she said, I was interested in, I wanted to buy the books.

She says, but then you kept talking and I decided I didn't want them. I never forgot that. I mean, you know, in, in, in, in kind of like what we're talking about in the book of Job, I was telling you before the show, I've got a friend of mine named Scott bricks.

We have a Bible study that we have together in, at the lambs chapel in Burlington. And he gave me a $25 gift card for Starbucks. And I was so glad to have it and whatever. And so I woke up one morning and I could not find the gift card anywhere.

And I looked all over the place. And what I ended up doing was I ended up cleaning out my car and I finally found the gift card. And when I was done cleaning out the car, when I was done finding the gift card, I go, Oh, not only did I find the gift card, which I wanted to begin with, but I cleaned, I got my car cleaned, had another friend of mine, Chuck Reich, who we actually had on the show.

And he was going to come down one day this week, cause he was traveling through to go to New Jersey. And I was going to have him, I was going to say, Hey, you can spend the night. And so what my wife and I did was we end up cleaning the bathroom downstairs. We put sheets on the bed.

We got the whole downstairs of the house cleaned. And then at around nine o'clock, I called him. I said, Hey, what time are you going to be here? And he goes, Mike, you're going to kill me. He's like, I'm not going to be there till 12 o'clock midnight.

So I may not be able to come. And I said, I said, Oh, that's no big deal. And my wife was kind of upset cause she was like, well, here we did all this cleaning. I said, Amanda, we needed to clean the downstairs anyways. Now we got the downstairs clean and it was like, you know, so this kind of stuff happens all the time. And maybe what the book of Job is telling us is that maybe God hides our little Starbucks gift card, or maybe God gets somebody to say, Hey, they're coming to spend the night when they're not. And we ended up cleaning up the whole house and maybe God says, Hey, look, maybe sometimes I can create a little bit of a mess in your life. And you start cleaning up stuff that you were, you never thought you were going to clean up.

And it's really God cleaning it up, but God cleans up stuff in our life that if we would have been in our comfortable little place where we were, it never would have happened. Right. Which gets back to is God in this right. And in other words, if not for God. Yeah, exactly.

That's the exact word. If not for God, because we begin to Fred or I do, I, you know, I'll just talk about myself, you know, but a lot of the stuff that's going on these days, you know, begin to worry about the economy, begin to worry about my family and, and again, find myself in those old layers versus, Whoa, you know, he's turning up the heat. And when, when, when the heat's getting turned up, you know, the silver gets refined. And I used to make turquoise jewelry when I lived in Albuquerque and I would have to solder these little cones that made squash blossom necklaces, which were big in the day. And you know, that you got to get the silver just hot enough to where it melts before it will solder the two pieces together. And you've heard it say that when the, when the silver is ready, you can see your face in it.

Right. Well, what you're actually seeing is the face of the, of the, of the Potter, so to speak that when God can look at the silver and begin to see his own image as, as it's heated up to the point that the dross has gone, you know, you then you start to get a mirror and that mirror that's reflecting is, is that image of God. And so, you know, as we come to this point in the show and we often find ourselves where you're going, if not for God, if you hadn't really ever, if you're sitting there wondering, wow, what would it really mean to trust God with my life? Not, not just trust him that, that everything's going to work out, but trust him with my life, with my salvation to be, to be actually found in Christ. You know, what would that look like?

What would I need to do in order to do that? You know, we're praying right now. I know Mike and I, that, that God will split this telephone pole and come into your heart.

Right. Would you pray with us right now? Um, Jesus, we know we're telephone poles and a lot of people have been woodpecker and honest, but we, we asked that you would split us wide open, split us wide open, that our heart would be open for you to come in and show us the real way.

Um, the way that Job found to actually have perfect peace and actually, um, come to know you serve you with our life. We admit that we have fallen very short. We've thought we've known a lot of stuff.

We did not know. And so Lord, we pray that you would save us now and that you would bring us into your kingdom. Help us to trust you and to follow you and to be more hungry and more thirsty for you. And we ask this in Jesus name, if not for God. There you go. Thank you for listening to If Not For God with Mike Zwick. For more shows, subscribe on iTunes to If Not For God. For more information on Mike or to contact him, go to ifnotforgod.life.