Difficult Questions Answered

Sinners are not condemned for what they don’t know about Jesus but for what they do know about God from creation, and willfully suppress and reject (Rom. 1:18-32). If ignorance of Jesus is an excuse at the Judgment (which it isn’t), then an argument could be made that we shouldn’t chance people’s eternal destiny by evangelizing them. But salvation comes, not by ignorance, but by hearing the truth of the gospel (Rom. 10:17). Therefore, God sends His people into all the world with the message of free forgiveness and eternal life through faith in Jesus Christ that we might be right with God and fulfill our life purpose: to glorify Jesus Christ in all things and enjoy God forever.

It is not “God’s job” to forgive anyone or even to give them a chance to be saved. (It’s not God’s job, but it is His promise.) Salvation is not an entitlement. The sovereign Lord owes us sinners nothing but judgment and condemnation in hell under His just wrath forever. Our problem is that God’s holiness sits on us like a feather and, therefore, like mud on a pig, we are too comfortable in our sin. We need to learn that we are all “sinful beyond measure” because God is infinitely holy (Rom. 7:13). The more appropriate question is, “How is it possible that God could save any of us filthy, rebellious sinners at all?” We make God small, forgetting that He sovereignly saves whom He pleases and His hand is not shortened (Is. 59:1). God is the Potter, we are the clay. Has the Potter no right over the clay to make out of the same lump of humanity some for honored use and another for dishonored use (Rom. 9:21)?

I have had some amazing experiences in my life outside of the Church that I knew God was there. When I read the Bible, no where do I read that Christians have a solo act in living in the world. Actually the scripture talks about community and refers to the community as an “assembly” or “body of Christ.” The New Testament is full of “one another” commands. We are to comfort one another (I Thessalonians 4:18), build up one another (I Thessalonians 5:11), confess our sins to one another (James 5:16) and pray for one another (James 5:16) A Christian who answers only to himself can easily rationalize sinful attitudes or actions; regular contact and fellowship with other Christians can keep us close to the heart and will of Christ.

There are some irreplaceable pieces of the Christian life and experiences that cannot happen when you live in isolation from the church. Every Christian is designed to become a part of the body of Christ. A single verse can answer this question: Hebrews 10:25  “Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another–and all the more as you see the Day approaching.”

I pray we all can consider the need to be a part of a Church. We all are broken people, but through God’s grace we can find a place to share in our brokenness and find healing. It is a place where you can be given the opportunity to give back to others from the struggles you have experienced. Together we can be the Church!

When it comes to how everything above us, below us, and around us came into being, we really have only two choices. We believe in the Genesis account of creation; or we believe in man’s theory of evolution. We either believe Genesis 1:1 that “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth”, or we believe that everything evolved over billions of years. Make no mistake, we cannot believe both and it is futile to try and harmonize the two. It has to be one or the other.

Evolution is a theory that was invented to eliminate the God of Genesis who gave us His Law which we have broken. Society embraces evolution because it eliminates the God to whom we are accountable. If there is no creator there is no judge, if there is no judge we can live as we please. Evolution fits perfectly into the predominant ideology of the day, humanism. To me it is much more reasonable to believe the eyewitness account of the Creator than to believe a theory of someone who was not there when it happened.

The Christian’s argument against evolution is Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning God created….” It all boils down to the issue of “authority.” What is our authority? It is either the Bible or scientific theory. Everyone must choose whether they will appraise Scripture by science or science by Scripture. It is just that simple when it comes to evolution- what is our authority? The origin of everything that science can observe is explained in one succinct verse, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”

One of the names of God is Jehovah-Rapha, “the Lord who heals.” So “Why doesn’t God always heal the sick when we pray for healing?” God is never surprised by the trials in our lives. God is sovereign and he is never caught off guard by our diagnoses of cancer. He knows our needs before we do and will supply us what we need when we need it. Mathew 6:26 states” Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?”

Although we don’t need cancer, or even a cold, God sometimes uses these trials to refine us and bring us closer to him and closer to the person we were meant to be. So, in light of God’s sovereignty, and the fact that he knows what we need, our diagnosis of a disease might sometimes be a positive thing. I believe that things just happen because we are human and live in a fallen world. However, the big ticket items, like cancer, may in certain instances, be a blessing in disguise. Mark 8:26 states “What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?”

What a tragedy to lose someone to cancer or some other terrible disease, but an even greater tragedy to lose a soul to grips of hell. C.S. Lewis stated it best when he said “Pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our consciences, but shouts in our pains. It is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”

“A Bonafide Miracle!”

In 1996, four doctors said my 60 year-old mother had 3 months to live — with cirrhosis of the liver in its final stages. She rededicated her life to Christ, and moved into my house.

The fourth doctor, Eugene Evans, in Panama City, told me, “The liver doesn’t regenerate. I suggest: make her as comfortable as possible; pray she dies in her sleep.”

At home, I desperately cried, “Lord, I don’t know how to pray, as you said (Rom. 8:26). I accept your will, but tell me what it IS. Will you heal her HERE, or in HEAVEN? I’m asking for a clear answer EITHER WAY.”

Soon after, when no one was home but Mom and me, I was paying her bills. Suddenly, audibly, very clearly, I heard a voice behind me. It said, “I will heal your mother.” I turned to see if someone was there, but there wasn’t.

A few nights later, Mom and I were praying together, and the words of Proverbs 18:21 and John 6:63 rose in my heart. As I prayed in His name, life-giving words from Jesus poured into her body. She said she felt God healing her.

After that, at each visit to Dr. Evans, he called for a second blood test to confirm his findings – she’s improving! Three months later, he said, “In all my years of medicine, I have NEVER seen anyone recover from cirrhosis of the liver in the final stage like this. Her liver is functioning normally. You have a bonafide miracle here!”

Mom volunteers at the hospital, and shares about Jesus’ healing power with anyone needing a miracle.

In reality are there any “bad cops?”   Yes, of course. And the reality is “yes” pretty much in any career field there are “bad apples.”  So in reality does that make the majority of cops bad? No, it doesn’t and in fact, most of them are good.  So in reality there are hypocrites in every church yet in reality that doesn’t make the majority of Christians hypocrites.

If you mistrust all cops because you ran into a bad cop you are incorrect in your inner assessment that all cops are bad.  Likewise if you run into a bonafide Christian hypocrite you are also incorrect in your inner assessment that all Christians are hypocrites.

WE DON’T WANT WHAT IS FAIR—WE WANT GRACE

Matthew 20:1-16

Charlie Brown’s little sister, Sally, is writing a letter to Santa Claus and in the process generates an enormous list of toys she wants. At the conclusion of her letter she writes, “Santa, if that is too much for you to carry, just send cash.” When Charlie Brown sees this and despairs over his sister’s greed, Sally angrily responds, “All I want is my fair share. All I want is what I have coming to me.” We all want life to be fair to us, but when it comes to salvation, “We Don’t Want What Is Fair. We Want Grace!” Jesus’ parable about the workers in the vineyard helps us to understand this great Biblical truth.

Peter had asked Jesus a serious question. Jesus tells a parable about a landowner who pays equal wages for workers who do not work equal hours. Everybody is treated the same! Jesus is telling Peter that he will receive the same reward for his discipleship as everyone else. This parable is not about receiving what is fair. It’s about grace.

The person who accepts Jesus late in life is just as saved and just as important as the person who accepts Jesus early in life. Romans 6:23 reminds us of what we deserve and of what God gives us instead: “The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life….” Instead of giving us what we deserve, punishment for our sins, God gives us what we don’t deserve, grace. When it comes to salvation, “We Don’t Want What Is Fair. We Want Grace!”

Mahatma Gandhi once said, “I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.” And with those words, uttered more than six decades ago, Gandhi shared the sentiment of most non-believers toward Christianity. In short, the problem is the gap between what we profess and how we live. The gap between the beautiful grace of Christ and the ugly actions of people who bear His name. The larger the gap, the larger the problem. And most non-believers think the gap is just too big. Jesus would use the word “hypocrite.”

And who can blame them? Gospel presentation without gospel demonstration is just a clanging cymbal. It takes Christ-like love in words and deeds to authenticate our message.

I have a friend who sells “Crocs” shoes. One day a customer was in his store and asked about the “Crocs.” My friend said, “If you buy them, you’ll never want another pair of shoes on your feet.” The customer then looked down, said, “so why aren’t you wearing them?” and then walked out of the store.

How can Christians answer that rejection? Here’s my two cents…We cannot answer that rejection by trying to win an argument. The unbelieving world will never be drawn to Christ by Christians who simply shout louder. When we proclaim the message of Christ, they will look us over, much like my friend’s customer, and ask, “But do you live the message?” And when we do, they will too.

Doubt has a bad reputation in most Christian circles because it is often portrayed as the enemy of faith. There is a problem with this portrayal of doubt though because faith is not certainty. The apostle Paul gives us some insight into the nature of faith in 1 Corinthians 13:12 when he says, “Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.” The insight Paul gives us here is that faith recognizes that there are things about God that we will never know in the short years of these mortal lives we are leading. God shows us enough of Himself to enable faith but to not force certainty upon us. Without certainty, doubt has room to roam and it does so throughout our lives.

The question then is not will we face doubt, but rather, what will we choose to believe when there is not sufficient information given for us to be certain. We will either choose to follow faith or fear. What is faith? The writer of Hebrews gives us a great definition in Hebrew 11:1, “Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see.” Faith is the choice to believe that God is true and trustworthy in spite of my fears and doubt.

YES. I would also accept a donation from a drug dealer, prostitute, stripper, or anyone else who has engaged in an illegal or questionable activity. WHY? Let’s be clear, I don’t support or encourage illegal or questionable activities, or things like the lottery which are legal but morally suspect when applying the principles of God’s Word. The question is not, “Do you support the lottery,” but very specifically, “Would you accept money from a person who obtained it from a questionable activity.” Read that last sentence again. There is a difference. Suppose someone received money through what may be considered questionable means, and decides to give some of the money to a church. If they experience the grace, mercy and love of Jesus Christ in their life, and want to express their gratitude in a monetary way… what kind of message would it send for the church to reject their heartfelt act of generosity toward God through the church? You’re not good enough, you’re too tainted to associate with us, or any number of impressions that would give off the “holier than thou” vibe. Listen, I’m not saying that we should compromise the principles of God’s word to make people comfortable. Quite the opposite. I’m saying that we should clearly live the principles of God’s Word, which includes loving people toward a loving Savior. Money itself is amoral (not good or evil in and of itself), so this isn’t a question about money as much as it’s a question about people.