What Would You Ask Him?

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If you want to be a part of the program today, we'd love to have you. I am in Aurora, Colorado, where we are now past our 10th week with my wife's admission in the hospital. And she has had a lot of extra stuff. She had surgery yesterday and on Friday we'll have her 95th surgery.

That's a lot of surgery. When she reaches that milestone, that's what they told me. Maybe a toaster, I don't know, but she's had a rough go of it, but she's committed and she said, look, this is what it takes. We've got to get this right. And we've just had some pesky things that we've had to deal with, but she's in good spirits and she is tough. Tough gal.

There are some people that say that they're tough, but she takes it to a whole nother place. I want to ask you something. I'm going to read this to you in Acts 1.

How many of you are familiar with this? Right there, Jesus is getting ready to be taken up for the ascension. And they're with Him. This is the last time that they will be with Him face to face. Now they may not quite know that at that point, but they're getting ready to figure it out. And they've got a chance to ask Him. Now, they've already seen the crucifixion, the resurrection. They've been with Him a time or two now for the days after His resurrection. They gathered around Him in verse 6 and asked Him, Lord, are You at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel? And I thought about that.

What question would you ask, if you could, right now, face to face with Jesus, ask Him a question? They were still thinking geopolitically. They were still thinking this way.

And, you know, we've got to get back under control, back under Jewish control, get rid of the Romans, all that kind of stuff. And that's how they were thinking. That's not how Jesus was thinking, but that's how they were thinking. And He said, It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has sent you. You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you, and you will be My witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth. And after He said this, He was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid them from their sight. So they're saying, Hey, you going to fix things here? No, this ain't for you boys to know these things.

But this is what's going to happen. You're going to be witnesses to My kingdom. But it did get me thinking, what question would you ask? And as I think about this stuff with my wife here in the hospital, you know, that's certainly been plaguing. I have a question I would ask.

I could share the questions I thought I would ask. I'd like to hear what you would ask, but I thought I would ask, Well, why are you allowing her to go through all this stuff? Why does she have to suffer like this?

Why not intervene? I mean, you know, how much is enough? You know, all these kinds of things. Those are the questions that have plagued me, you know, for decades that I've been doing this with her. She got hurt before I met her.

But the vast majority of this has been when I've watched this. And I've had those questions. And I bet you've had some tough questions too. Is that what you would ask?

If you could ask one question? Is that what you would ask? And have you thought about that? Have you given some thought to that?

And I, you know, I admit that I have. I've really spent some time on this issue because it has been so up in our face. And we've been talking over the last couple of weeks, going forth on this subject of suffering.

Is it required? What's involved with this? Because that's not something we want to talk about. If you notice a lot of our big pulpits out there, you know, on television and so forth, and a lot of big names in the preacher world, you know, you don't hear a whole lot on suffering. You hear a lot of relieving from suffering. But you don't hear a whole lot on enduring suffering.

That this isn't going to go away. A lot of people quote Jeremiah 29.11, "'For I know the plans I have for you,' says the Lord." But they don't quote the context of it.

You know the context of that? Go a couple of verses up at the beginning of the chapter. Jeremiah appeared on the scene and the people, they were excited.

They were excited because the prophet was there and he was going to tell them that God was going to get them out of this captivity they were in. And that's not what Jeremiah said. He said, "'Thus saith the Lord.'" And it wasn't what they wanted to hear, but he said, "'Stay where you are. Get married, plant your vineyards, build your houses, live.'" He said, "'You're going to be here for a while.'"

I think it was about 75 years. He said, "'When I'm ready to come get you, I'll come get you.' "'For I know the plans I have for you,' declares the Lord." That's the part that we omit, that beginning part. And those are things we don't want to hear. We want to say, "'God, get me out of this. Why won't you solve this problem?'" Those are the questions I've had over the years, but my questions changed.

And I'm curious to see what may be your question. There's no wrong answer to this. It's where we are.

It's what we live with. The disciples were beginning by saying, "'Lord, at this time are you going to restore the kingdom to Israel?'" They weren't in moral sin there. But this is what was heavy on their minds. And they're asking, "'Lord, can you do something about this?'" Because they didn't like the Romans running them.

They wanted to see it restored back to what it was at this time. And God had something much bigger. And He said, "'It's not for you to know the times or the dates the Father has set by His own authority.'"

And we... I don't know about you, but I would love to have God move... I've often offered my services of consulting to the Almighty. You know, He's never taken me up on that one time. Can you believe that?

And yet I keep offering. My father used to say, "'God's got this problem.' He thinks He's God." And that puts it all in perspective to realize, you know what?

He knows. I heard a pastor once say, "'If I had God's power, I would change a lot of things. If I had His wisdom, I wouldn't change anything.'"

That's a big statement. What question would you have if you could ask him? 866-866-348-7884.

I'd be curious to hear what you have. This is Peter Rosenberger, PeterRosenberger.com, Truth Talk Live. We'll be right back. Truth Talk Live! You're listening to the Truth Network and TruthNetwork.com. Welcome back to Truth Talk Live. This is Peter Rosenberger, and I'm glad to be with you. 866-348-7884. Listen, if it cuts out a little bit on the audio, we're doing this remotely while being in a hospital for 10 weeks.

So, be family, and I apologize for that. We have top men working on this for the technical purposes. Men, as I said, in Raiders of the Lost Ark. The Ministry of the Month contest with the Truth Network, did you know about that? You can go out to TruthNetwork.com right at the top, Ministry of the Month contest, and you can enter to win different prizes.

And the Ministry of the Month is standing with hope. The ministry that my wife and I founded after, this was her vision to put prosthetic limbs on her fellow amputees. And it's been an amazing work, and we've got a patient that we feature every month, and you can go out to my website and see.

But the patient this month is Joah, and you'll love just seeing the look on her face and what she's been able to do now with the prosthetic limb. Get up and walk, and you can see more about that. But if you want to see more as well at the Truth Network, you can. You can fill out that little form. It's up in the right-hand corner on your website, and you can just fill out the little form, and you may win several prizes. I put several books in there, and there's a grand prize winner, and there's all kinds of things.

So I hope you'll go out to my site and look around and see what we do and why we do it and how we do it. It's an extraordinary thing to see somebody that is lame get up and walk. And I never cease to be amazed by it when watching it with my wife when she puts on her prosthetic legs. She has both legs amputated. Thirty years ago this year, she became a double amputee. She had already lost her right leg. And prosthetics are amazing. You ever spent time with somebody who uses prosthetics and what they can do? When she first had her leg back, they would today because prosthetics are so amazing. She would have been up and running. One of the reasons she has so many surgeries is because orthopedically she's just a train wreck because of the way they put her back together. And it was nobody's fault. Medical science has evolved a lot since.

I mean, think about how long this has been going on. Oh, by the way, the number to call in for the program, if you want to answer my question today of what question would you have, if you could sit down with Jesus face to face, just one question. I look at the disciples. They're out there in the mountains.

He's getting ready to be ascended. What's the question that's foremost on their mind? It wasn't a wrong question. It wasn't a sinful question. It was just that's what was on their mind.

What question would be on your mind? 866-34-TRUTH, 866-348-7884. I appreciate the Truth Network, Standing with Hope, the Ministry of the Month.

I love what we get to do. It's an exceptional thing to watch, and I'm amazed by prosthetic technology. A lot of people think amputation is her big issue, and it's not. They are amazing devices, and the issue she has is just orthopedic from all the other stuff she's had on her body, her back and everything else, and hips, and that's what we've been struggling with for some time.

But her prosthetics are great. She learned on two prosthetic limbs, and she was pretty good. She went down mostly blues by the time, she hasn't skied in some time because her back was so bent over, but she was going down mostly blue runs, which are at Big Sky Montana, which are not simple. Pretty intense, and it was amazing to watch her do it. She did try one black diamond, and she did it. She just went slow. She followed me behind and did great. And she doesn't sit like a lot of times people do with disabilities.

They'll sit on a monoski. They call it a chain. She doesn't do that. She skis on her prosthesis. And she has these outriggers, they're called, and they're poles with little tiny skis on the end of it.

And it's amazing to watch her do it. So prosthesis are amazing. Now, we do legs. We have done, and prosthetic arms, but those are harder to get the value out of because the hands don't move.

You can open it up like it's a hook, and then you can put a hand cover on it, but it's still basically a movable hook, and you don't have the dexterity of the fingers. Now, they do have that with bionics and so forth now and robotics, but they're incredibly expensive, and so we're not there just yet. So we focus more on legs because you can get them back into life, the workforce, school, whatever, and you have more amputees that are lower limb amputees than you do upper limb.

I don't know if you knew that or not, and the number one cause is still diabetes worldwide. A lot of the patients with children are going to have with trauma, and they get hit by vehicles. I don't know if you've ever been in many developing countries, but the traffic there where we hub out of Ghana and West Africa, and I mean, I'm in the van. We would have a service who we partner with, and man, another coat of paint, and we'd hit somebody. I mean, you just close your eyes and just say, Lord, I'm ready.

Just make sure you're right with Jesus before you get in the traffic. But unfortunately, a lot of people get hurt, and amputation is due for those type of things, and so we've treated a lot of young children and get them up walking, and we have to make legs for them as they grow. So we have to make new legs.

Once they reach fully grown status, it's about every six, seven, eight years, depending on the person and how active they are. But what we do is we recycle prosthesis from here in America, and they go to a prison down in Arizona where inmates volunteer through a really kind of a cool program that we modeled. We've been doing it for some time for 14 years, and they disassemble so we can recycle the feet, the knees, the pylons, the screws, the adapters, and all that kind of stuff. It's kind of cool, and we will make a brand new socket, and the folks at Core Civic have a lot of faith-based programs for the correctional facilities they run across the country, and faith-based is the way to reduce recidivism. Their lives become transformed, and they don't come back to prison. The number of comebacks, if you will, is so small when they go through these types of programs and understand the gospel.

It's one that they use for that. So it's all at our website at PeterRosenberger.com, where you go out to the TruthNetwork.com and register to win for the Ministry of the Month all the things. We've got more to go here on Truth Talk Live. This is Peter Rosenberger, 866-34-TRUTH. We'll be right back. You're listening to the Truth Network and TruthNetwork.com. Welcome back to Truth Talk Live.

This is Peter Rosenberger. Glad to be with you. 866-34-8-7884. I am told that we still have a bit of a technical problem here connecting, and again, I apologize for it. So you'll just have to call in, because that way you can do the show, and I can listen to you.

866-34-8-4, and that would be helpful. So I appreciate very much your patience as we sort this thing out. I was finishing up some things here, and I've got an article that's going to hit next week for each. Gracie wrote, and I'd like for you to learn more about this and be able to see it, and you can go out to our website and sign up for an email.

We sent out one a month, and it just says what her blog post is. She's been doing this on chronic pain and punching through some of the things that she has to punch through, and I help her write, but she is going to be releasing this next week through LifeWay and some others. And it's about learning to minister and care out of a place, because she's had to deal with that reality. And I'll give you some background, because it's quite an interesting story that she had this little nun that kind of imparted this to her when she woke up from a wreck. She had taken her to a Catholic hospital in Nashville. She didn't know anything there. And she woke up, and this little nun one time came, and Gracie had a lot of flowers.

Her name was Sister Euphemia, and I'm pretty sure she's about 900 years old. And Gracie had a lot of flowers in her room, and one time Gracie woke up, and she had a little cart, and she was humming to herself as she was taking some of her flowers. And she said, what are you doing? And her jaw was wired shut, and she said, what are you doing? She said, well, Mary Grace, I'd like to call her by her full name, and she said, you have plenty of flowers. Other people don't have any.

And so I'm going to take some of yours and give them to them. And there was nothing she knew about it. She said, traction.

This little nun is taking her, pilfering her flowers. And then there was another time when Gracie was feeling kind of sorry for herself, and there's a prison there, not far from where the hospital was, outside of Nashville. And Sister Euphemia wheeled a man into her room who had a terrible head injury. And he was handcuffed to the wheelchair. And she just introduced him to Gracie, and the guy was pretty wretched, looked pretty rough.

You two needed to meet. And it shocked Gracie. And she was learning to see that there were others who were dealing with far more painful things, and she would have to learn to give out of her lack. And there's so many different lessons on this. And this new blog post that she has that you'll see next week, if you go out and register for this, about what you see in this. It's really amazing. She dictated it to me, because she's very good at dictating to me.

It's been years of field work practice. But anyway, I want to get back to our question of the day is, what would you ask Jesus, if you could? Because this has been ever-present in my mind. I'm watching my wife's. What question would you ask?

Dalton in Dayton, Ohio. He has a thought on that one. Dalton, what do you got on your mind? Yes, sir, yes.

Howdy, howdy. I was just listening to you, and I've been kind of thinking about it as well. It's kind of like a different subject, but how like Abba and Yahweh the Father, and I hear different people say Abba, and then Jesus, the true Father. My question, I mean, I guess would be like, I know like the Father in heaven, I wouldn't know if we would call, like, would we call Jesus, or, I know He's our Savior, but what would be like, I wonder what would be the term that we would call Him, like Holy One. I know, I mean, I don't know, would we call Him the Father, you know, even though, you know, Lord the Father, you know, Father, Son, Holy Spirit, all in one.

I just was wondering, you know, your take on what we might be saying. Well, what would you ask Jesus? If you could ask Him one question, what would you ask Him? What would we be calling you in heaven, in your kingdom?

Well, remember what He asked His disciples? What do men say that I am? No, He said, who do men say that I am?

And what do they respond with, how do they respond? You are the Christ, you are the Christ, you are the God. They respond, that's how Peter responded, but how did the other disciples say? And what did the other disciples say?

You know, people say you are Elijah, people say you are, you know, some people say you are a prophet, others say, yeah. You say that I am, and what did Peter say? He said, you are the Christ, you are the Son of the living God. And what did Jesus say to him? Bless for you, Peter, because I will reveal this to you, but my Father in heaven has revealed this to you.

And then on this rock, I will build my church. So I think that that question, that's a very good question, but I think Jesus laid that out very clearly in scripture. Who do you say I am? Well, you're the Christ, the Son of the living God.

And Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you. And so he's identifying that the Father is the Father, but he's the Son of the living God. He's the Christ, the Messiah, the chosen one, the one, the Son of man, the house of David. Jesus, from what I can see in scripture, has more titles than anyone else, ever, in history. He is the rose of Sharon. There was a pastor that got up one time to speak, and he was supposed to give some kind of theological thing, and everybody was prepared to kind of go to sleep.

It was probably going to be a little boring. And he stood up and just started reading all the names ascribed to Jesus. And saying them, without repeating, and it went on for 45 minutes. All the names, the rose of Sharon, the lily of the valley. And as he just kept building the line of Judah, the people in the whole auditorium all stood up in attention. And they stood there for 45 minutes and read off the names of Jesus. That is a great question that opens up an opportunity to just say, this is how magnificent our Savior is.

What do we call you? I say to you, Dalton, who do you say that Jesus is? I know He is my Savior, and He is the Savior of the world. And I believe that He is God Himself in the flesh. That's what I believe that truly Jesus was. Is?

Yes, thank you, yes. And I love how he responded to Peter. Blessed are you, Simon Barjona. When Peter bursts forth with that proclamation, thou art the Christ, the Son of the Living.

Simon Barjona, for flesh and blood has not revealed this. So when you ascribe to Jesus who He is, several things are going on. Number one, you're speaking truth. Number two, that the Holy Spirit has equipped you to do so. And every knee shall bow.

Every tongue confess that what? That Lord is Christ. No, that Jesus Christ is Lord. Yes, Jesus Christ is Lord. And every knee shall bow. Remember that old chorus.

He is Lord, He is Lord, He is risen from the dead and He is lost. Every tongue confess. I don't have the caregiver keyboard here with me, Dalton, so I can't play it. And I don't want to inflict my singing upon you, because there are FCC rules and regulations about that sort of thing. I think the Geneva Convention covered that, of torture to prisoners.

So I don't want to do that to you. What a great question that opens up that dialogue. Can you imagine being in that room where that theologian was just reading the names of Christ? Wouldn't you? And one day, Dalton, one day, we'll all be standing in attention for that. Yes. Yes. I mean, think about that.

Doesn't that just, wow, you know, isn't that exceptional? That's a great question though, Dalton. What do we call Him? And Jesus said, blessed are you, Simon Barjona.

Flesh and blood is not revealed to you. Thank you for the call on that, Dalton. I really do appreciate it, all right? Thank you for everything that you do, and God bless you guys. I'll let somebody else get in.

All right. This is Peter Rosenberg. This is Truth Talk Live! 866-34-TRUTH.

We'll be right back. Truth Talk Live! You're listening to the Truth Network and TruthNetwork.com. Welcome back to Truth Talk Live. This is Peter Rosenberg. Glad to be with you.

If you want to be a part of the program, it is 866-34-34-878-84. And we were talking about the question you would ask Jesus if you could. Not a question you'd ask me, or other, but not questions you have for other people to answer. What would you ask Him?

You're face to face with Him. And what prompted me, because I've been, I'm starting a study, and the disciples there in the first chapter are saying, okay, now Lord, are you going to finally set up the Kingdom of Israel? After all that, they've been with Him for years, and they watch the crucifixion, watch the resurrection, and they're still thinking geopolitically. They're still thinking temporarily.

Not kingdom-wise. And Jesus kind of brushes them off and points them to a higher view of what's going to happen, what's going to go on. And I thought about my own life and what kind of question I would ask Jesus if I could. Not a hypothetical exercise of just, well, it's just something to daydream about. No, because I think it reflects what's really going on.

What is going on in my life? And for many years, I confess, admit it freely, I would have asked Him, why are you doing this with Gracie? Why are you not stepping in and intervening on this? It's very painful to watch somebody suffer. It's painful for them, it's painful to watch it.

And I've done it for a lifetime. And it is a hard thing to watch helplessly as somebody you love is in need. All the indignities that go with it. And if you spend any time in the hospital with anybody, you'll get a taste of that. But she's facing her 95th surgery. I don't know how many in this audience have gone through something like this with 95 surgeries. To have watched somebody do this. And if you have, I'd love to hear from you.

How have you done it? Not many of us in that particular club. And so that was a question that just hung heavy on me. Why? And it dawned on me over time.

And it took a long time. I'm a slow learner. And it dawned on me that I don't think there's anything He's going to tell me that would cause me to smack my forehead and say, oh, okay, well that makes sense. Now I feel better. And I realized it was the wrong question. I was asking the wrong question. What could He possibly help me understand to make this somehow palatable? How could my mind wrap around something like this? It would make me say, oh, okay, well that's great now, I'm good, thank you, Lord.

What about you? And people would try to speculate, oh, look at the ministry you all have. I mean, you're putting legs on people, you're doing this, you're doing this. Let me tell you something, we're not that noble. And that's not why we do it.

And, you know, a lot of people have had great ministries without having to lose their legs and have 90-something surgeries. So is that the question? Is that the question? Why? I don't think so. At least not in regard to stopping this.

Why is He not? And then there was a deeper question that came, and it really came out of me studying not only the Scriptures, but I also went back to the hymnal. And I'm terribly saddened that we've allowed our hymnals to be covered with hymnals. We put the words for the songs up on a board on the wall, but we're not picking up a hymnal. And why is that important? Well, there's two reasons.

One of them is those old hymns contain a wealth of really strong doctrine and theology. The other thing is because if you see the words up on the board, you're not seeing the music. You're not seeing the notes. So people can't learn to sing harmonies with it.

They can't learn to play or to, you know, all those kinds of things. And we're missing out. The hymnal is the foundational for Western music. If you want to really get down to the crux of it, of the way the parts are written in the old hymnals. And the hymnal we used in this country, at the beginning of this country, was written by Isaac Watts. And most of the hymns were written by him, and he compiled them. And one of the hymns that he wrote, excuse me, you probably know, Oh God, our help in ages past, our hope for years to come.

I mean, he's written so many of them. But there's another hymn that stuck with me. And there's a line in it, I can't remember the lady that wrote it, but it's, Beneath the Cross of God. You know that one? Wonderful hymn.

If you don't know it, go look it up. It's a wonderful hymn. But there's a line in the, I think it's the third stanza. It says, And from my smitten heart with tears, Two wonders, I'm wondering about two things, the hymn writer says. The wonders of redeeming love. I'm wondering about the magnificence of redeeming love. And the second wonder, And from my smitten heart with tears, Two wonders, I confess, the wonders of redeeming love.

And my unworthiness. And then I switched over to Wesley. We owe quite a debt to Charles Wesley. Amazing hymns.

And he wrote one, And can it be that I should gain an interest in the Savior's, That's the question. How is this even possible? Amazing love.

How can it, Thou, my God, would die for me? Amazing love. How can this be?

And I think as I've struggled through this journey, And it has been quite a struggle, That's what I've landed on, is my question. How can this be? Why would you do such a thing for me? The wonders of redeeming love and my unworthiness. Two wonders, I confess. The wonders of redeeming love and my unworthiness. Amazing love.

How can it be? And I look at this and I think, When I change that question, when I stop saying, God, why won't you fix Gracie? I'd love to see her healthy and not having to deal with all these things.

And she certainly would love to. But it's no different than the disciples sitting there saying, Okay, now are you going to fix this problem we have with Rome? Now are you going to fix the political world that we live in? And I had to come to a higher view of God, Of understanding that He's got bigger things that He's doing.

We're thinking too low. My father used to ask, is that God's view? Man's view would say, I want Gracie healed right now. God's view says, I've got something to hire. And you're going to have to trust me. And how do we know we can trust Him?

How do you know that you can trust Him? Well, at the end of the book of John, John himself writes it down, he says, I wrote these things down. I observed these things so that you may believe. You're not taking a leap of faith into the dark.

You're taking a leap of faith into the light. Credible witnesses said, this is what I saw. I'm bearing witness to it. And you remember what it says in Revelation, John wrote, they overcame by the blood of the Lamb and the word of their opinion?

No. The word of their... What they experienced. What they witnessed. And you start to see that, you realize there's a transformation going on. And we accept by faith.

We take Him at His word. So that when I look, what my eyes see and what I'm going to have to deal with, as soon as I get off of this program today, walking across the street back to the hospital, where we've been now for over 10 weeks, and do I look at my wife and see a higher view of God? Or do I stay here saying, God, you've got to heal her.

You've got to take this away from us. Why can't I lift my eyes up a little higher? And every now and then, I aspire to do so by scripture, by these great hymn writers, so that my question changed and said, Why would you save me?

And can it be that I should gain? Amazing love, how can... And from my smitten heart with tears, to wonders, I confess, the wonders of redeeming love and my unworthiness. That is the question I would ask, Why would you do such... That's my question. And I thank you for taking the time to listen today and just spend some time with us as we kick around some of these things and explore the depths and the wonders. It's Truth Talk Live. This is Peter Rosenberger. Go to PeterRosenberger.com. See you next time.