Faith in God’s trustworthiness during challenges

0:00Feeling happy. Welcome to Faithless. I'm Pastor Rick Stevens and this is the place. It's always the place where we understand that faith is absolute confidence in the trustworthiness of God. That's a mouthful of living when you say absolute confidence in the trustworthiness of God. I don't know if you've had any challenges. I certainly have in my life. I don't know whether these challenges will ever

1:05go away. But these challenges pop up that stretch us in God's direction. We have said here we want to stretch toward God's high calling and so these things in life come up and they stretch us to have absolute confidence in the trustworthiness of God. And I want you to know, none of us escape that. I wrestle with that. I work on that. Sometimes I'm agonized about that. How am I going to trust God because I don't see what's going to happen going forward. But I always come back to the reality that in the Bible there are many stories where people did not know how things were going to work out and they still trusted God. Daniel's a good example of that. Well, there are others. So I just want to encourage you that even though even though that sounds like an impossibility, the more I remind myself that God is

2:07trustworthy, the more I can pray with thanksgiving and the more confidence I can have that God will handle things. It also helps a little bit anyway. I wouldn't say it helps. And answers every struggle that you have when you come to these challenges. But it also helps that I've lived life a day or two. And I have seen God has sustained me. Now I like what an acquaintance of mine who's now gone to be with the Lord named Stan toller, said Stan toller, easy for me to say, a minister. And I don't know if I can quote him exactly. But he said something along the line one time that God has never failed him yet. But he sure has scared him a few times. And I thought that's a pretty honest statement from that pastor. God has never failed me yet. But he sure has scared me a few times. Well, maybe that's your experience. It's

3:08certainly been mine. And I have to continue to remind myself. I continue to to stretch myself that God is trustworthy. God knows us. He knows what we need. And really when it comes down to it, we don't really need all the things that we need. We need a savior. We need God. We need him to be with us. And he's promised to be with us. And so I continue to get myself into shape, so to speak, so that I can always have confidence in God's trustworthiness. I think it's where we need to live. And unfortunately, life makes it all too easy for us to have the challenge to live right there. But we're going to do it right. We're not giving up on God. We're not giving up on ourselves. We're not giving up on the

4:11reality that God is trustworthy. Everything around us may look crazy. And boy, sometimes it does. But God is faithful. And we can trust him. And we will. All right, several things we want to talk about today and one of the things I want to make sure I remind this is that we need to pray for the piece of Jerusalem. Now people kind of wonder about why I keep saying that. And it's a simple simple explanation. One, the Bible tells us, pray for the piece of Jerusalem. Okay, that's easy enough. Should we pray for the piece of other areas, other cities, other countries? Well, sure, we can pray for that. Now, why does God specifically mention Jerusalem? Well, there may be a number of reasons, but let's narrow it down to today. Jerusalem represents the coming together of all of the tensions that are wrapped up in the Middle East. There are other

5:12countries nearby. There are other countries, you know, the war going on with Iran, all the things moving oil through the strait and all of that stuff. There's a lot of tensions that go on in that region. There are similarly tensions represented in Jerusalem itself. And having visited there, I was reminded just absolutely vividly how important it is to recognize that when we pray for the piece of Jerusalem, we are praying that God would intervene and resolve all these tensions that plague the world. So we pray for the piece of Jerusalem. It's not just about that city or that country, Israel. It's about all of the things, the crazy things that drive the tensions between people and diminish, even destroy the peace of Christ in so many people. So pray for the peace

6:16of Jerusalem. All right, I've been following a pattern of doing instant sermon programs because we do instant sermon at our church. And so last Sunday was instant sermon. So I thought I would do it this week because then I can bring you, and maybe it's a good example, I can bring you the actual questions that somebody asked during instant sermon. Now what is instant sermon? Instant sermon is our way of giving the people of our church the opportunity to participate in the sermon time on Sunday. Generally speaking, a pastor, the pastor of a church in my case, we present a sermon. Well, on instant sermon Sunday, we give people the opportunity to write down a question, a thought, a confusion. Please talk about this. And it can be a lot of different subjects. And you'll see it was a lot of different subjects this week. I'm not even sure we're going to get to all of them,

7:17but we'll see what we do. But anyway, people ask the questions. And then then I try to respond to that. I don't promise that I'll be able to give super well reasoned response. I try to give authentic, carefully thought out responses. It's kind of a challenge sometimes on this part of the moment, but that's okay. That's part of the experience as Jesus processed these things this way. And so we had a number of really good questions. In recent instant sermon Sundays here at our church, we've had some remarkably insightful questions. And I think you'll find that was true this time as well as we get into this. So that's what instant sermon is. And so I'm going to do that here on the program and just take, I've got the cards with me and I'm going to take them one by one, just like I would on instant sermon Sunday. And I do have it a little bit of an advantage now. I have thought about these a little bit more because I had the opportunity to start processing this on Sunday during church. But I haven't taken the time. I haven't prepared an outline of here's

8:17what I want to talk about. This is more along the lines of an ex-temperanius. Hey, let's talk out loud about this. And let's see if we can come to some better understandings about these issues. Will we exhaust the understanding? Oh, of course not. But we'll scratch the itch a little bit. And hopefully challenge each other to stretch in our understanding and into our practice of wisdom. Because we want to be wise people. So here we go. We start off with quite a quiet a question. Here's the question as written on the card. How are we? And by we, the person I assumed and it was clear in the context of things. How are we as Christians to deal with the trans agenda and homosexuality in a loving way and be scripturally true? Now, I think that's a very good question. It's very challenging subject. And it's also really interesting that the person who wrote the question said

9:19in a loving way and be scripturally true as if they might be mutually exclusive. Well, let's agree right up front that we can be scripturally true and love people. Let's not fall into the trap of thinking that if you're scripturally faithful, you're offensive to people. That's not the case. Now, it's also possibly the case that when we talk about what the Bible says, there are people that are going to reject that and take offense at it. But understand that when they take offense at what the Bible says, it's not the same as us offending them. They have chosen a response to the scripture. Now, I know, I know, whenever you say something that people disagree with, then they call you a hater. Well, I can't keep them from making that response, but I can say that for us, we want to do our best to make sure we present our understanding of what God says in a truthful, honest, loving way.

10:27It doesn't demonstrate love to lie to people and set them up for God's judgment. That's just true. So we got to figure out how to navigate that. Now, how do we do that? Well, I was fortunate. I heard a sermon. I watched it online earlier this weekend at Quentin said, put it out there. And so I said, well, I'll check it out. I didn't know the pastor. Don't know anything about him other than his sermon was well done. And he was talking a little bit about these same kinds of ideas. And he pointed out in his sermon that Colossians chapter 4, verses 5 and 6 deal with this idea of really how do we talk about things that are truthful in the context of today's hyper exaggerated response to things. Well, Colossians 4, 5 and 6 say this from the Christian standard Bible, act wisely toward outsiders, making them most of the time.

11:32Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you should answer each person. All right, so there were two things that the pastor pointed out. And it's true here. It's about how do we walk the walk and how do we talk the talk? I don't know that he said it that way, but that's the way I say it. Well, the first thing that says in verse 5 is to act wisely toward outsiders. So that's the idea of we need to to live a life that demonstrates biblical faithfulness, faithfulness to Christ. This is act wisely. So we act wisely by living wisely, according to what the Bible says. Now it mentions the word outsiders. All that is a simple description of people who are not followers of Jesus. It's not a pejorative of any kind. It's just a description that some people believe in Jesus and walk with Him and some people don't. So if you're trying to help somebody who doesn't walk with Jesus, they are an outsider. And so then we

12:39have to figure out how do we influence the people that don't know Jesus. And the first thing we want to say here is we need to be careful that we live what we say we believe. Now that's going to take on different, how should I say, forms maybe for different people. You may have deep convictions about one thing and I have maybe significant convictions about another thing and maybe those don't agree. I'm not saying we all have to walk and lock stuff on everything, but we do have to think about what we're communicating as followers of Jesus. I can give you a simple example of that. A lot of people and I make no judgment about this. Don't misunderstand a lot of people wear a lot of interesting t-shirts and hats. They say interesting things on them sometimes. Well, I have always been very conscious. I don't know, I never heard of anything about this. I

13:42don't know where I got the idea. It's just me. I'm very conscious of what I wear in terms of a hat or a t-shirt that communicates a message. So, for example, do I want to wear a hat from XYZ school in support of their football team? Well, I like to identify as a fan of that team and yet I'm always thoughtful about doing that because I want to make sure that my testimony, everything that I am about, communicates the right things. Now, I think in most cases, people do not associate if you support a college football team with a moral position. Okay, so I'm using that as kind of a, how should I say a bland or a neutral example. Now,

14:42there are other kinds of t-shirts that people wear from time to time. And some of those I find trying to be interesting sometimes hilarious, but they aren't things that I would ever wear because as a Christian, and maybe specifically because I'm a pastor and people know it, I'm careful about what I wear because I know it communicates something and I want to make sure that to the best of my ability, what I do matches what I say, I believe. So, that's the idea of act wisely to live it out. There are things that you and I may not have a strong moral conviction about, but because we know it might offend or affect someone negatively for the gospel, then we limit our freedom. That comes down to, pardon me, that comes down to things like what we say about things we care about and the words we use to describe that. You know, I might feel strongly about something,

15:47but I'm kind of careful that I phrase what I feel about in a way that's accurate to my concerns, but not inflammatory or unnecessarily over the top. Sometimes I'm over the top like everybody is, but anyway, I'm conscious about that. That's the idea of walking the walk. Now, the next part of that is let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, and so that's why I'm careful what I say, because I want to say things in a way that helps people hear them. And so, if I'm not careful about that, then I have taken away or limited or damaged their ability to understand what I'm trying to say. So, I want to be gracious, but I don't want to be untruthful. I want to be kind, but I don't want to lead the mistray.

16:48And so, when it says be gracious, seasoned with salt, the idea of salt makes things more palatable. And so, I try to think about doing that. I think that's how we approach some of these issues, like the trans agenda and homosexuality. And so, for example, one of the things that has occurred to me for a long time now, that's probably not a new idea to you. But as this whole idea of the trans agenda is really an affront to the image of God in people, because God said very clearly that He created people in His image, male and female, both reflect the image of God. And so, it matters to God that we are men and women. And not only is it okay with Him, but He likes the fact that there are men and there are women. So, you and I need to honor that. And one of the ways we can help people with the whole trans idea is to remind them, you know, this isn't against a person who

17:50struggles. This is to celebrate that, you know, a God who loves us very much created us the way we are. And He likes it. And He wants us to celebrate it and to like it too. So, that man, I can miss everybody, but it's a little bit of an idea of how we can approach these things carefully. I don't think I would ever be so naive as to expect everybody who gets their hair on fire over some of these issues to hear anything that you or I say without reacting to it. And so, sometimes, we just have to understand that they're not rejecting what we say as much as they're rejecting what God says. And certainly, that was true in the life of Jesus. As careful as He was and as straightforward as He was and as plain spoken as He was, there were people that just ran away and said, no thanks. And that was the end of that. So, maybe that'll help. Maybe we need to remind

18:50ourselves that first of all, our lives need to reflect the practice of wisdom as the Bible explains it. And second, our speech needs to be well thought out, gracious, not condemning, gracious, truthful, and presented in a way that helps people listen. All right. Here's another one, another very thoughtful question. I'm probably spending too much time on these. Probably won't get to all of them, but it is what it is. So, the next question was this. I was a little surprised by this, but glad to hear it. Are the Jews still God's chosen people? And the person also adds on the card, this was asked of me this week. How would you respond? In other words, how would I respond? And my first and clear and unhesitating responses, yes, they are still God's chosen people. In Romans, we read it in our church service few weeks ago. There is a very clear statement from the Apostle

19:55Paul, a Jew, a former Pharisee. He was a, we might say, a Jews Jew in his day. And he writes in Romans chapter 10 at the end and then into chapter 11, he says verse 21 of Romans 10. But to Israel, he says, now this is God, he's quoting God. God says to Israel, all day long, I've held up my hands to a disobedient and defiant people. I ask them, and this is the Apostle now asking, Paul says, I ask them, has God rejected his people? Absolutely not. Paul continues, for I too am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham from the tribe of Benjamin. God has not rejected his people whom he forenew, or don't you know what the scripture says in the passage about Elijah, how he pleads with God against Israel. And now I quote Elijah, Lord, they have killed your prophets and torn down your alters.

21:00I am the only one left and they are trying to take my life. But what was God's answer to him? This is God speaking to Elijah. I have left 7,000 for myself who have not bowed down to bail. So you see, there was a remnant there, he goes on to say in the same way, then there is also at the present time a remnant chosen by grace. Oh, at the present time, that was Paul speaking at his time, there was a remnant chosen by grace, verse six. Now if by grace, then it is not by works, otherwise grace ceases to be grace. But then he gets into the idea of grace. And there's more to that, you can read that Romans chapter 11, it's a helpful passage. But the clear answer is that God has not abandoned his chosen people. Now how do we, how shall I say, how do we reconcile that to the reality that many of God's chosen people have not embraced Jesus as Messiah? Well, that's not easy to know how

22:10to reconcile that. I don't pretend to know how God is going to handle that because Paul says God has not rejected his people. But it's also true that in at least to the extent that Jesus enters the picture, they have rejected God. Now that's not new in the history of God's people, that's not new in the history of Christianity. Now people have regularly over time rejected God in what he said. But God has reinforced particularly here in Romans chapter 11 that he has not rejected his people. Now I was struck when I was in Israel, back in December of last year, I was struck by the sincere faithfulness demonstrated by some of the people that I saw, particularly when they went to the Western Wall to pray. And I don't know what God makes of all of this,

23:11you know, that's between them and God. I'm not God to try to sort that out. But it was clear that they had not abandoned God, at least as they understand it. It was clear from the testimony of the young man that was held captive for months by Hamas and darkness so deep that he could not see his hand in front of his face. It was clear that he cried out and depended upon and drew strength from God. So when you see that, it causes you to pause a little bit and say, no, wait a minute, we can't, we can't just have a knee jerk response to God and his people. There's more going on here than what we seem to know about. And I think that's true. I just don't know that I understand what God is going to do about it. But I do know this. And you know this too because we've seen it in our lives that it is remarkable how God can redeem certain situations. It's remarkable how we

24:16go through a time of loss and devastation. One problem after another, we continue to walk in faithfulness and we continue to stretch toward God and to have absolute confidence in his trusted worthiness. And then at the at the other end of the challenge, God somehow redeems it. Well, I don't really understand how God does that all the time. I see situations that I just don't understand, but he did. And he does. So it's really kind of fascinating to me to ask the question, not his God abandoned his people, but how is God going to bring about the reconciliation with his people? Because it seems to me there's a very real possibility that God will somehow in his own way and his own design reveal himself in a way that his people embrace. And there's a reconciliation

25:16between him and them. Now, wouldn't that be cool? Wouldn't that be amazing? But that's not beyond the realm of possibility because God has not abandoned his people. Well, we've got a few more questions. We're going to look at those. I'm Pastor Rick, you hang on. We'll be right back. I'm Dr. Kelly Victory with the wellness company and I know this personally. I exercised a to healthy diet and had no symptoms when a routine mammogram resulted in a cancer diagnosis. It revealed a hard truth. Even healthy people can get cancer and much of modern medicine is reactive, not preventative. So I began asking a different question. What can we do daily to support the body before something goes wrong? That question led me to formulate shield. Shield is a two-part nutraceutical system designed to support immune balance, antioxidant defense, and cellular health. A chemical-free cocoa mix and soft gels containing medicinal mushrooms, turmeric, green tea extract, olive leaf, burberry, and black seed oil. Prevention is power. Visit twc.health-outloud and

26:22use code out loud for an exclusive discount. Are you tired of struggling with low energy? We get it. That's why we created organic energy juice. In just one minute, you'll have clean, natural energy all day and never struggle with low energy again. And it tastes amazing. And there's no toxic chemicals or stimulants that make you crash. You shouldn't have to struggle with low energy and with organic energy juice, you won't. If you're struggling with low energy, then buying organic energy juice is the right decision. With our double your money back guarantee, there is zero risk to try it. Go to chemicalfreebody.com, forward slash out loud for an exclusive discount. That's chemicalfreebody.com, forward slash out loud. We wouldn't go a day without washing our hands, brushing our teeth, then washing our nose. Well, wait, we wash our nose. Yes, the number one place where bacteria, viruses, and pollen in our body is through the nose. So the average person breathes over 23,000 times a day. That's 23,000 opportunities for bacteria, viruses, and irritants

27:23to get into your nose and make you sick. For an extra layer of protection, wash your nose with clear. That is clear. XLEAR. Clear's drug-free nasal spray features xylitol, an ingredient proven to block adhesion of many nasty bacteria and viruses and effectively clean, not just rinse like a saline, but wash your nose. Clear nasal spray quickly alleviates congestion, opens your airway, and ensures your body's natural defenses are strong. Read the research studies for yourself at clear.com. That's x-al-e-a-r.com. Protect yourself from the pathogens and junk you breathe. Pick up a bottle for you and your family today. I'm Doug Evans, author of the Sprout Book. I want to share something that's powerful. You can grow your own food right on your kitchen countertop. Sprouting is an ancient method that turns ordinary seeds into living vegetables in just three to five days. No soil, no sunshine, no fertilizer. Just seeds, water, for under a dollar, a serving, you can

28:26grow nutrient dense packed greens anywhere. City apartments, dorm rooms, off the grid cabins. In a time when food prices are rising, Sprouting gives you control, abundance, and peace of mind. Join the self-reliance revolution. Go to thesproutingcompany.com, slash out loud, and use the code out loud for an exclusive offer. Prepare for the next pandemic with the wellness companies Contagion Emergency Kit, designed by Dr. Peter McCullough. Get life-saving medications like Ivermectin and Hydroxychloroquine, plus a free nebulizer and a guidebook for safe use. Order now by going to TWC.dot-health-forward-slash-out loud and use code out loud for $65 off your first order plus free shipping. Let's get real, let's get loud. In America, loud talk radio. This is a McCullough report, and I'm Dr. Peter McCullough, but I want to put in a word about the bear bar. The bear bar, and we feature bear bar products on the America Loud Shop website. So go to America Loud Shop and get your discount. You are going to want to try the bear bar. Get a whole box. The flavors include the original, turmeric, spicy, and herb.

29:34Now these are all natural, no GMOs, no artificial ingredients whatsoever. They're carefully baked and made in a facility in San Diego, California under the watch of Brian Bowers, who I personally know. So these are in a sense handcrafted. They have great ingredients, and all the natural ingredients that your body is going to want. Now they're not a sweet bar. They are savory, meaning when you eat them, you get a great sense of satisfaction. I told Malcolm on our last show, you get a sense of a feeling healthy when you eat the bear bar. I think one of the best applications is crumpled it up, and you can put it on a salad, for instance, probably the best salad I think I've ever had. But you certainly can eat it as a snack. Malcolm likes to eat them right before I come on our show. No wonder he's in such a good mood when he comes on with me on

30:35America Loud Pulse. So when you eat a bear bar, this is not like any other energy or power bar. This is healthy. Check them out. Go to America Loud Shop, and then search for the bear bar. Order a box. I'd suggest order a box for each one of the flavors now. So you get a sense of what they are non-agimo gluten-free. That's important for me. I'm gluten-free. I know I can have any one of the bear bars. So let's get real. Let's get loud. And America Loud talk radio. It means country is not a certain area of land, of mountains, rivers, and woods. But it is a principle and patriotism is loyal to that principle. I'm happy to report that American patriotism flows freely once again. America Loud.News is that place to awaken your heart, soul, and mind

31:35to the outbound truth. Welcome back, I'm Pastor Rick Stevens, and you're listening to Faith is where we stretch toward God's high calling, and we understand that faith is absolute confidence in the trustworthiness of God, and we do trust Him. It is hard sometimes, but we do. All right, so we've been going through some instant sermon questions, and we had some really good wins this time, as I said earlier, at our church. Really good ones. And this next one is a challenging topic. And I want to be clear in my understanding of it, and I want to be, as we said earlier, when it comes to these challenging topics, we want to be gracious in the way we talk about it, and I want to help you hear what I understand that God would say to us as we talk about it and

32:37have this conversation together. What I'm about to talk about is not a really serious document that's been written up. This is my pastoral response when someone would ask me a question which they did at instant sermon. So here's the question. What does the Wesleyan Church consider suicide, or I'm sorry I said that wrong, does the Wesleyan Church consider suicide a mortal sin? All right, so obviously the question of suicide is a very challenging one. Many of us, maybe all of us, in one way or another have been touched by the tragic results of suicide. It is a horror and it is difficult for people. I cannot imagine some of the things that people have had to wrestle with, right, regarding the suicide of a loved one.

33:37It's just heart-rending, heart-breaking. I get that. If you've had that experience, please understand that nothing I want to say to you should keep you from recognizing that there is a God who loves you and your loved one very much. His desire for you and your loved one is for healing and wholeness. We can't know all that goes on. We can't know all that a person who takes their own life wrestles with and God has given us no permission to judge. He's given us a challenge, a commandment, to love, to support and to help. So let me start out by saying that as far as I know, the Wesleyan Church does not take a position about suicide relative to it being a mortal sin. I know some other churches do. I think this may represent, but I don't know because I don't know

34:42who asked the question. May represent some of the Roman Catholic thinking on suicide and how they will distinguish one sin for another and this one described as a mortal sin or one that would result in the person going to hell. I'm not clear on all of what they think, but that's probably what the questioner was thinking when they asked this. That's just based on my knowledge of the church and the situation. Now the Wesleyan Church does not approach things in the same way when it comes to things of sin. We understand that Bible calls things sin, but we would think of it more along the lines of God's value of life and that life is sacred to God. It matters to God that people are alive and that he gave them life. It's stunning to me even now, even though

35:43I've been around a while, it's stunning to me how clear the Bible is that when someone murders another person, that the reason the death penalty is in place is because they took the life of someone created in the image of God and God takes that very seriously. So life matters to God, life from birth to natural death. Now I know and you know we live in a time when some of these issues get more complicated because of one circumstance or another. So all of this stuff takes place on what we might call the edges of life. A lot of times it's because people are distraught by something. Maybe something they've done that they don't see any way that God could redeem that and that they could have a whole and holy life going forward. And so they don't

36:46know what else to do. They can't stand the thought of going forward. The other edges sometimes are related to health diagnosis. Nobody wants a serious diagnosis. You've probably known people that had a diagnosis that the doctor said this disease will likely take your life. And some of those things they are painful both physically painful and they weigh on people's minds. So there's a lot of things that go into this and there are a lot of pressures that sometimes people feel. Sometimes they impose on themselves. I will admit that I think you would too. They just don't know what to do and it's just though the whole world comes crashing in on them. It's most tragic when it's teenagers because teenagers seem to have the the the biggest challenges. Well they think they're the biggest challenges they will ever face and they don't know what to do. And tragically that sometimes results in a young man or a young woman taking their life. Sometimes that results I've

37:52been hearing about this a little bit that results because online predators get their hooks into them and threaten them with one thing or another and these young men and women don't know any way out. Then it drives them to take their own life. How does God view this? Because that's really the question. The Westland Church doesn't take a position similar to what this question represents but really it doesn't matter what Westland theology says or what the Westland Church says. It really is intended when we do theological conclusions. It's intended to reflect what God thinks. And I know that God thinks life matters and it's valuable and people are important to him. And I know you know that that we should do everything we can to preserve life and ourselves and other people. We just have to recognize the value of human life because God values people.

38:57We also know that God specializes in redeeming difficult situations. We sometimes face things and we don't know how God is going to work this out at all. And sometimes you know I've said to God maybe you have to have the perfect solution just do this this and this and it doesn't turn out the way I told God was the perfect solution. But in spite of my failure to see what really needed to happen like God does, God is able to put situations back together in ways that you know surprise us. So we need to recognize that that God is able to unwind even the most tangled situations. Maybe you face a tangled situation in your life. Let me tell you God knows how to unwind that stuff. And you don't need to walk in shame or fear or any of the rest of that stuff. I want to tell you that

39:58God came to liberate you from all of that. And he can and he will if you'll trust him. Now you may have to do some hard work getting to that trust because we get ourselves in lots of knots both in our own thinking and in other kinds of ways. But I may assure you there are people of God that will help you. They will stand up with you. They will encourage you and you can get through that situation. So don't ever consider don't ever consider taking your own life. It's a permanent solution to a temporary problem. Now I know that's a trite sounding phrase, but it's true. All of our problems are more temporary than we sometimes think and we need to get some perspective and trust the God who loves us very much. And I cannot and I never have taken the position that I can condemn someone who takes their own life. I've had situations that I'm aware of where people have been

41:01in enormous physical pain. One reason or another it was not alleviated. I can't stand in judgment of their medical related decisions, but sometimes they don't see any way out of the pain except by taking their own life. I can't justify that decision, but I have to trust that God was there with them expressing his love for them, doing everything he could to give grace to them. And I have to leave the results of that with God because only God knows what they and he were talking about in those final moments. And I don't mean that to be a cop out. I mean that to be a sincere demonstration that God is present and God helps people. And I have to leave the rest of that to him because that's way as I sometimes say way above my pay grade. And I'm not going to try

42:04to play God in all of that. All right, so it has some pretty serious questions. Here's one that's not very, well, I guess it's serious, but it's not serious like the other ones were. So here's something that I'm never going to ask this question. I don't think ever in my life. If you could do anything else besides this meaning be a past room, what career would you have gone into? I don't think anybody's ever asked me that. I did think about some other things, but not really seriously because even though I started down the path of another direction at one time in my life, I always knew. I don't know how to explain this really, but for as long as I can remember from my childhood, I can remember believing that God and I was convinced that God had called me to do some kind of Christian work. Or in the early days, that was as a music director or we called on minister of music in those days. Now we call it worship leader. Not sure that's the best

43:07est title, but that is what it is. So I did that until I became the pastor of a church, but I never really thought of doing anything else. There are times that I probably should have. I didn't. That's all I can say about that. Now I did have a sixth grade teacher. I don't remember her name. I don't have any idea what the situation was at the time. I must have been up to something. Now sure, I know you don't believe that's possible that I could have been up to something. There must have been something going on, but I remember her saying to me, you should when you grow up, you should either be a preacher or a lawyer. I remember that clearly. And I also remember clearly that that is that, well, I'm going to be a preacher. I remember thinking that at the time. It was just kind of remarkable. So yeah, there are some other things that I could probably do. For whatever reason, God put me here and here I am. I hope that's okay.

44:16I think it is. All right. Now to another big question, I'm telling you we have had big questions in this instant sermon edition. This was asked again at church last Sunday. And it's very simple. Person writes on the card, please explain. Pre versus post millennialism and what the Bible says. All right. Well, that's a lot to ask in one simple question. Okay. So pre versus post millennialism and what the Bible says. Now the millennial idea is generally centered around a thousand year reign of Christ. The question when it comes to pre or post millennialism is that the pre would be that the rapture, which is another, another commonly described event, but not unanimously agreed to in the in the theological world, in the Christian world, would mean that God would come and take

45:20Christians out of the world. And the other one mean that there would be after some of these things take place. And now I remember hearing years ago, and there's a lot of stuff talked about this. I mean, this was a topic that shook the church. I mean, it was a serious focus on a lot of things. And I remember being terrified by some of the things that I heard and couldn't imagine that. I mean, it's just now it's kind of like why would why would any child be exposed to things that made them so scared? Well, people didn't try to scare me. They were trying to understand and faithfully represent what the Bible says. That being said, a lot of things are misunderstood and need to be better understood by the people of God. That being said, when I unpack this a little bit, there are people that are going to say about me, well, you've just abandoned biblical faithfulness.

46:23Well, no, I haven't. And please understand that on a lot of these subjects, there is a lot of room for interpretive conclusions. I respect people who interpret what the Bible says differently from me, but I don't always have to agree with them. It's just the way that cookie crumbles, you might say. So let's talk about the end time and all of this confusion. One guy was wrestling with that as a pastor one time or at least this is the way he told the story. I don't know if he kind of exaggerated. I think maybe he did, but back in the day, there were charts about this and charts about that. And he said he was working on his sermon for Sunday and he had all this stuff spread out. And he said, he looked up to God and said, what am I supposed to make of this? How do I understand this? And he said, God just kind of shrugged and said, he didn't get it either. Well, that's kind of a funny way of saying there was a lot of stuff going on. Some of it was contradictory.

47:27And the guy said, so finally, he came to the conclusion that he didn't understand pre or post. He just realized it's all going to pan out in God's good time. And so he decided he'd be a pan millennialist. Well, that's a humorous way of describing the challenge of those days because there was a lot of stuff that was challenging for people to sort out. And he was doing his best and trying to address it. And people had questions and so as a pastor, he would have had to try to do that. But let's think about this in a little different way. And let me give you just a little touch of the history of this theological concept that resulted in this question. Is it pre-millennial or post-millennial? It all started with a guy in England named John Darby. And he studied the scriptures and he came up with this whole idea, it goes by the name dispensationalism a little bit, but it's also goes by the name of rapture theology sometimes. And he had this whole

48:32idea carefully thought out that this is what was going to happen. This is sequence of events. And here it was all going to play out. Now, when I tell you, it was well represented. This theological idea was well represented in the left behind book series of many years ago. Maybe that'll help you understand what he came up with. Now, I read the left behind books not because I was necessarily agreeing with them, but I wanted to know what people were thinking. And it was a wincily told story, but I cannot accept this idea of rapture theology in the way it was unfolded. Now, it became popular. Teachings do become popular. Interestingly enough, never before in the history of the church had the ideas that he was promoting come to the fore. So it was not based on any historical interpretation of the Bible. It was just Mr. Darby's idea. It came to this country where it caught on. It was popularized in something called the Scofield reference Bible. You may have one of those.

49:36You may have heard of it. I don't know that I've ever had one or seen one. Probably saw one someplace. Never had one to look at. Never tried to get one. But because it was popularized in that Bible, which became very popular, the idea of this, let's call it rapture theology, sunk into a lot of people's thinking. Now, when people started to unpack this kind of stuff, they began to realize, and after some time, I guess, maybe after the kind of, how should I say, sometimes there's more heat than light generated about these things. So maybe after the heat kind of dissipated, the light could shine in. And so people began to consider this more carefully. And they began to look at that and they began to think about, okay, now, how do we really understand this business of the end of time? Well, one thing that I want to make absolutely certain we understand and take away from this is that Jesus said over and over in various ways that we

50:43needed to be ready when he returns. So readiness and being what we used to call right with the Lord, and that's a good way to say it, to have our hearts right with him for us to have allegiance to Jesus. That matters because being ready is important because as it relates to the end of time, Jesus says, when I come back, I don't know when I'll come back. It's up to God. Only his words, only the Father knows. So it's clear in the New Testament. And sometimes this rapture theology caused people to get all caught up in all kinds of amazing calculations to tell us, well, Jesus is coming back on. And over time, there have been very specific statements of the when. Guess what? They have a hundred percent track record of being wrong. And we will never,

51:47you and I know when Jesus is coming back until here he is because Jesus said only the Father knows. Our responsibility is to be ready. Now related to, and again, here I've not given you a well-thought-out treatise on this. I'm giving you some things that I think will help us pastorally. And sometimes we use that term pastorally as an out to say, this is not academic. This is just us talking. And that is just us talking. So related to this and the rapture theology idea was a lot of fear. There were movies produced about the end of time and the horrible things that would happen. And the fear that would come on people who were trying to follow Jesus because they were going to be sought out and killed by the enemies of Jesus. And so the communication was designed

52:47to scare us into the kingdom. And that was pretty effective. I don't remember being scared into the kingdom. I remember being scared because I never really thought I wanted to go away from the kingdom of God. Then I mean, I'm the super saint or anything. It just means that didn't register that I wasn't going to be his. But it scared me enough that what if I wasn't really his because that was the way it was communicated. It wasn't about, are you and have you made a decision to follow Jesus? It was, are you sure you're good enough that when this happens that you're going to be right with God and you're not going to be killed, you're going to be saved? Well, that was that was a compelling idea. It would be compelling for any of us. We don't want to be lost. We want to be his. But the result of that fear was not healthy and is not healthy. And it's also interesting because in the New Testament, and I've thought about this a lot lately and I think I've surprised

53:48a few people at my church with this. In the New Testament, Jesus has presented as the friend of people the disciples grieved that he was leaving to go back to heaven. They were overjoyed when they discovered the resurrection. They delighted in keeping company with Jesus. And so the idea that this person that in whom people delight and enjoy their company is coming back should evoke joy and anticipation. But in those days, and in too much of rapture theology, it is used to create fear and doubt and worry to make sure you're ready. Now we could get into some of the nonsense related to that, but we'll leave that there. I want to twist that around or turn that around or correct that and to say, shouldn't we, as followers of Jesus, eagerly anticipate his

54:49return, shouldn't the return of Jesus evoke in us joy, glory, celebration, shouldn't we be able to say legitimately and honestly, like I'm about to say, even so, come Lord Jesus. Isn't that the way the book of Revelation ends? Yeah, it does. What happened to our eagerness for Jesus to come back because for those of us who follow him, that's the greatest thing to anticipate is when Jesus comes to fix the broken world we live in and to make the wrong things right. That should be overflowing joy. Joy unspeakable and full of glory in the old song said. Yet the rapture theology ideas were always framed in a worry and fear and dread. And no follower of Jesus should dread his return. One of the things I like about the return of

55:54Jesus is that he's going to bring justice and there's a whole lot of terrible things that have happened in this world and are happening now, right now, and he's going to come back and he's going to fix the brokenness of the world and he's going to make the wrong things right. Those people who have been doing evil, he will correct. And that's the good news of judgment. It's not the fear that you might be judged. It's the caution that you need to follow Jesus so you aren't judged, but it's the recognition that one day he will make all these wrong things right. And he will fix the broken world we live in. That is something to eagerly anticipate. And that's what I would want you to take away. Be ready, get ready, and embrace the coming of Jesus because you are ready. I'm Pastor Rick.