Why Would God Let This Happen?

And one of my daughters spoke for all of us when she said words that sort of just hung in the air. She said, "Why would God let this happen?" And you could just feel it came out raw, it came out hot, it came out honest, and it came from a deep place. Why would God let this happen? My counselor likes to ask me the question when I'm complaining or venting or ranting, which is what counselors are there for, by the way, right? And all the people close to me and laugh are grateful I have a counselor, right? 'Cause then I don't have to have all that come out on them, right? So I have someone whose job it is to handle that. And he likes to say this to me when I'm kind of mid-rent. I leave out, "How old does this feel?" Does it feel like a new annoyance or does it feel like old grievance, something old lodged in there that's kind of now pushing up some Mentos and Diet Coke inside your spirit? When I heard my daughter say, "Why would God let this happen?" It resonated with me as being old, not to her, she's not old, but old to humanity. You know, the oldest book in the Bible, from what we can understand about when they were chronologically written, not the events themselves, but when they were written, the book of Job is the one that went pen to paper first. And it's an entire book in our Bible that's dedicated to wrestling this big, difficult question, "Why would God let this happen?" Perhaps it's the oldest sentiment to come out of our lips. And all of us, if we haven't, will at some point in our lives, have to be forced to reckon with this question. Now, we're in a series that we're starting today that we're calling "God Only Knows." And we're going to try and spend some time just at least staring down some of these challenging questions. What happens to people who die, who have never heard of Jesus? Is it possible to lose your salvation? Where did God come from? What is the deal with angels and demons and what difference should it make to our lives?

That one we're going to cover Halloween weekend, by the way, and we're going to talk about spirits feels right. But we begin with this important question, "Why would God let?" And you could fill in the blank on what this is for you, but the title of the message, "Why would God let this happen?" It's the problem of pain. It's the challenging subject of good things and bad people and the messy cocktail that it creates. And if you have a copy of the Scriptures, we're going to begin in John chapter 9. We will bounce around due to the topical nature of this subject, but we're going to start here in John chapter 9. It says, "Now as Jesus passed by, he saw a man who was blind from birth. And his disciples asked him, saying, "Rabbi, who sinned this man or his parents that he was born blind?" Jesus answered, "Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but that the works of God should be revealed in him. And I must work the works of him who sent me while at his day. The night is coming when no one can work." And so Jesus here brings to the foreground his perspective, which is different to even his disciples' perspective. You see me? You see what we're saying here? Even the disciples' perspective on pain is contrary to Jesus'. And what that does for us is it allows us to have the first of a few categories. We're not going to answer the question here today, why do bad things happen to good people? What we're going to try and do is we're going to try and stack some things into different bins, like a child putting away their toys. That's the best I got here for you today. Better minds than mine have tried. And so what we're going to do is we're going to try and put away some toys into these categories. And so if you take notes, you could even draw four containers and we're going to call the first one not helpful. That's the first container that we've outlined today. This is going to have lots of things that are going. When someone suffers, when someone's hurting, there are almost no end to the amount of things that can be said or done. Not helpful, right? And I would put everything that came out of the disciples of Jesus' mouth here in this moment, square in that bin.

First of all, talking about a guy like he's not there, right? The guy's like, I'm blind, but not deaf. I can hear you as they're passing by. Whose fault is this, right? Who did that, Jesus, right? Not helpful, right? How about a cup of coffee? How about a hug? How about a God bless you? How about Jesus, look, right? You do good stuff with hurting people. Come on, Jesus, tick them, right? Whose fault is that, right? Come on, man, right? Inside the not helpful bin, we could put all the cliches. We could put all the usual content that would go in the sermon you're about to hear on the subject of bad stuff. Well, here's my five points. Here's what you need to know, right? Until your life's on fire, and then it sure seems like there is not anything you're gonna hear that's really gonna help you. All the pat answers, listen, all the finger pointing. Even if you can figure out what caused this man to be blind, he's still blind and has been so from birth. It's true when people in our lives face grief and loss. There are many things we will want to say, rush to say, right? That are gonna go in the not helpful container. Oh, don't worry.

Yeah, I know you lost your child, but God always picks the best roses to bring him to his table in heaven, not helpful, right? I remember, I'll never forget the people who would say to me, I know just what you're feeling when your daughter died. I lost my grandma last year too, not helpful, right? 'Cause you're thinking in your mind, old people die, young people shouldn't. Your grandma had it, and again, it's not helpful, but what we like to do, what we try to do, what our brains struggle to do is to normalize and find common ground, and we're trying to say you're not the only person that's hurting, but it can feel like cold comfort. I have a friend whose son died and someone, true story, told them, I know just what you're feeling like, we lost a dog that meant a lot to us this year, right? Not helpful, so there's a lot that can be put, and I get it, this is by the way why sometimes the temptation is to say nothing, 'cause you're so scared of saying the wrong thing that when someone's suffering, you say nothing, and guess what, that is also, not helpful, right? The only thing that's been said worse than saying the wrong thing is to say nothing and to not even try and say that you care. So the disciples, not helpful comments, come down to whose fault is this? They're trying to level blame, they're trying to think, and this is just kind of a human thing.

If I can figure out what happened, then maybe we can avoid it, right? Maybe we can learn from it. This guy, well, too bad for him, he's toast, you know? He's never seen it anyway, right? But other people could learn from this mistake, and it was a commonly held cliche at the time that sin and suffering were so connected that when you saw unusual suffering that it was probably caused by unusual sin. And so notice what they said, they said to Jesus, Jesus, we know sin, like this is their built in. We know sin caused this, so whose sin was it? But have you ever heard the expression leading the witness? What do they say to Jesus? Was it A or B? They're leading the witness, they're telling him and these are the only possible outcomes, and I think sometimes we do that with God. We approach God, we say, is it this or this? What if he says neither? What if he says it's C? What if he says it's none of the above? What if he says it's E, all of the above? You see what I'm saying? We must not bring our pre-decided outcome and put it at the feet of Jesus and force him to pick it up. They said to Jesus, is it this or is it that? And what were the two that they brought to Jesus?

They brought to him, is it his sin or is it his parents sin? Think about that, pretty cruel if you think about it. What did his parents do that caused their baby to be born with this congenital condition, right? With this circumstance of his birth, did they sin while he was in the womb? Is it their fault that they had a baby with this birth defect? That's cruel, but what about the alternative? Well, maybe it wasn't their sin. Maybe it was his sin. And you're like, what was he doing in there that was so wrong that he deserved this? That's even more messed up than blaming it on the parents. But it was a commonly held rabbinical teaching And if you were born with some sort of medical condition or not born safely, that that was maybe some sin done on the part of the fetus. Now, here's why it's always a mistake to assume sin as the particular cause for any specific suffering. There can be suffering on behalf of those who didn't do anything wrong to bring that about, right? I mean, I just thought of a few examples, but one would be 2 Corinthians 12 verse seven. Paul suffers and travails with this massive, what he calls a thorn. And if you actually track down 2 Corinthians 12 seven, it says he got the thorn because of tremendous revelation. God gave him heavenly supernatural knowledge that had been not given to any other single person.

And God gave him the thorn to pin him down like a stake that you put down in your tent. So the tent doesn't blow away. God didn't want Paul to blow away with the huge revelation that he had been entrusted. And so the thorn there pinned him down to the ground and kept him humble and kept him grounded instead. So why did he receive that suffering that he was so hurt by that he travailed in prayer, asking God again and again and again, please take it away. Please take it away. Have you ever felt that way? You ever had something in your life? You could take it away. I don't want this, I didn't ask for this, right? He's suffering, he's begging God to change his circumstances. We don't know what it was, we don't know what the thorn was. Anybody who tells, I cracked the code, I figured it out, does not know. And maybe it's better that way because then we can see ourselves in his story because we can relate to the struggle. Maybe if we knew exactly what it was, we wouldn't connect as much with the passage because we go, I don't have that exact issue. But because we were able to put our own suffering into it, we feel that. Now why did he have it? Because he was bad, no, because he was blessed. He was blessed with revelation.

He was entrusted with, no, so it's always a mistake to assume that there was a specific sin connected to this extraordinary suffering. Job would be another example. You're like, Job, you have a whole book, right? Why did Job go through what he went through? God only knows, God didn't tell Job, he didn't get to read Job chapter one. He just is dealing with the reality and brutality of life. He's dealing with friends who are saying, bro, you must have sinned. Come on, admit it, come on, come on. You were on your iPad, it was late at night, you went to this side, admit it, right? 'Cause that would make sense. You're dealing with this extraordinary loss. There must have been something you did that brought it upon you. And they were right. He had done something that brought this upon him. He lived such a holy, pure life full of the fear of God that the devil paid attention. And the devil came to God and said, if you let me have a crack at him, I'll crack this walnut. I'll get him cursing you, right? And so yeah, he had done something, not something wrong, he had done something right that invited this persecution. And so we could go on and on, but we,

for the sake of time, we'll keep moving. The end point is not only were the disciples not helpful, they were not accurate. They were not accurate. It had not been the disciple, this man sinned nor his parents that brought this about. But here's the interesting thing about it. What's interesting about it is that even if they had been right, it still would not be helpful. Even if you can get to the bottom, it's not gonna fix the problem. You see? What am I trying to say? I'm trying to say there are, of course, times when a specific sin does bring about suffering. I remember one of my very first pastoral calls. I remember the young men who were underage drinking, driving ATVs, crashed into a tree, liquified their internal organs, died on the spot. And you could say, well, underage drinking's a sin. They were doing something stupid, driving these ATVs at night, right? They crashed into a tree. That suffering, did we solve anything? It still hurts even when you understand what happened. There's still incredible pain experienced by a whole lot of people, even when there was something done that was foolish. So what is needed is not answers.

What is needed is not platitudes. What is needed is tears. What is needed is space held for sorrow. What is needed is willingness to enter into lament. Job's friends came and sat with him for days, saying not a word. Then they talked and it went downhill, right? But when they just sat with him And we're willing to be safe. when instead we're just willing to be sad regardless of what happened here. That's where the Holy Spirit can do some of His best work. All right, second bin is not optional, not optional. Not only is there a lot we can do that's not helpful, but every time we face suffering, we need to remember this is universal. This is the experience of every single person living on this planet. There is a sense in which suffering is universal. And I'll just have you take note of the passage. It's Genesis chapter 3. God warned mankind, "If you eat of this one tree that I told you not to eat from, you will invite suffering. You will bring in sorrow. The day you eat of it, you shall surely die." And as a result, from that moment forward, the last word spoken over every single human is ashes to ashes, dust to dust. And this world began to be a place where there is serpents with venomous bites, where cliffs that people fall off of, where freak rocks. I did a hike this last week on the way up, trail completely clear. On the way down, a boulder the size of a refrigerator from a dormitory, like a dorm fridge, just in the middle of the trail, where we had just walked through. And you just think, "Wow, when did that get here? There's fresh trees and cactus all over, all over the world, because this boulder had fallen down. That could have been me. I could have been standing there. My little sister could have been standing there when that rock came by." So suffering, listen to me, all of it, there's some element of truth to what the disciples were asking. All suffering does trace back to sin in general. So what do we need? What are we trying to kind of almost like with a metal detector, right? Beep, beep. We're trying to get a little closer. What we need to remember is, and then we think we're there, and it's like, "Nope,

you've gone too far. Now you're getting colder again." Because once they tried to start blaming it on the little fetus in there, you know what I'm saying? And mommy up there, you probably should have bought white milk instead of chocolate milk. You've been fine. Okay, colder, colder, colder, right? Teacher, he's a warmer, warmer, warmer. It's like, but the embryo didn't, colder, colder, colder. So what are we trying to say? We're trying to theologically tease out this tension. All suffering is the result of sin in general, but it is always then a gross overstatement to blame any suffering on sin in particular, all right? Is that helpful? But why do we like to do so? Why do we want to be able to write, you know, tie a bow up over a situation and go, "This is exactly what happened." Because I think if we feel deep down maybe if we understand it, then we can avoid it. That's maybe what we're trying to say deep down and is control that we want. The text we need to turn to to get the other side of this is Luke chapter 13. This is another time Jesus was specifically asked how to think about loss. Luke 13, "There were present at that season some who told him about the Galileans whose blood pilot had mingled with their sacrifices." Now, we don't have time to get into all of this, but basically this is the reason that the Jew, if you've ever read the crucifixion account and you're like, "Man, why does Pilate cow-tow to the Jewish leaders so much?" It's because he had early on in his career been so violent that reports had been sent back to Caesar. And so when they say, "If you do this, if you don't do this, we'll tell Caesar," it hearkens back to what he had done as an impetuous, young leader when he tried to assert his dominance and make a name for himself, had led with far too heavy of a hand. So some Pilate had mingled their blood with their sacrifices, right? Pilate had not liked the way that they had been responding, so he just put a bunch of people to death. They're pretty much at the altar. And so they were asking Jesus, "What are we to make of this suffering?" They're asking, "Jesus, what are we to make of this loss?" And Jesus answered and said to them, "Do you suppose that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered such things?" Right? He's saying, "Do you think the reason these particular people had such an unusual amount of suffering is because there was an unusual amount of sin in their lives and that God was so displeased, this is why they suffered?" He says, verse 3, "I tell you no, but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish." Or those 18 on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed were up to code. So this tower was not built well and 18 people were killed when the structure

collapsed upon them. Do you think that the reason it happened was because they were worse sinners than all the other men who dwelt in Jerusalem? I tell you no, but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. Again, I think a lot of us, we hope that when someone suffers in some extraordinary way that there's some math we can do to figure out what happened, so that we can avoid it. This truly happened to them because of this. And if I just simply don't do that, I will never experience this. What we're trying to say is I hope that if I just be good enough, I will never have bad things happen to me. And Jesus says, no, they didn't deal with that because they had done something extraordinarily bad. They dealt with that because this world is broken. They dealt with that because sin got invited to the party and with it came suffering and with it came thorns and with it came venom and with it came all the consequences. So it's not because of unusual sin that brought about unusual suffering. It was just the plain old sin that all of us have done. So the question, why do bad things happen to good people is a flawed premise because there are no good people. He says, you're saying that smugly going, did they die because they did something bad? I hope so because I haven't done bad things. Thus I can guarantee myself a life without that. And he goes, oh, you're in trouble too. There's an even worse tower that's about to fall down. It's called life. And when the music stops, every one of us, we go to hell unless we repent and receive everlasting life, which only is available through me, by the way, Jesus is saying. So he's saying to the people who ask, how can I avoid that? Am I safe from such a fate? He goes, no, you're actually headed toward an even worse fate, not just physical death, but spiritual death is your biggest problem here. Where we only want to look at this life, Jesus is saying, look beyond. There's a bigger problem than your body dying. There's your soul being thrown into hell forever. And that's where you're heading unless you repent. That's what he's trying to say. So he's trying to say we cannot simply look at what is our theories or our thoughts. We have to realize there is a bigger problem for all of us that we need to face down. So the tower of physical death, pilot's massacre is real, but the greater judgment is our bigger problem. And that's where we need to focus our attention, not on other people, but ourselves. None of us are safe. Third category is not necessary, not necessary. What is not necessary? Any certainty about why whatever we have faced that is making us ask the question, why would God let this

happen? We do not need, it's not necessary for us to arrive at certainty in order to what? To actually continue to worship God and put our faith in him. A lot of us think, if I don't understand, I can't worship or my worship wouldn't be genuine. But listen to me, the Bible tells you flat out, you may never know many things in this entire life. First Corinthians 13 is the passage. For now we see in a mirror, what? Dimly. I look so good in dim mirrors. I love them. They're so flat on my claw, man. You're a foxy looking guy right there. Lights on. Oh, what happened? And those mirrors in the hotels get the behind me devil. I don't need to see all that. I don't need to know all that, right? Tells too much. But a dimly lit mirror, there's a lot you don't see, a lot you don't know. But then one day we will see face to face. Now I know in what? What? What? Part. And yet one day I shall know even as I am just, as I also am known. Here's what I came to tell you. What's going on in the not necessary bin? You needing to have all the answers in order to have authentic faith in God. You're not going to know, but you can choose to worship Him anyway. You can choose to have messy faith any, anyhow. I want to give you a picture of what faith looks like. I think sometimes we expect faith to figure it all out. Trust God, I know everything now I can, but now based on that, I'm going to give my faith. Those faith can be you're shaking and you're raging and you're confused and you're mad and your answer, your answer to prayer has not come and yet you're still saying, but I'm going to give it to you anyway. I'm going to give you my faith anyway. I'm going to give you my belief anyway. I'm going to give you my trust anyway. Like Job said, though, you slay me and I don't know why you would slay me because I thought you're a good God. But if you did, I still would choose you. I still would obey you. And one day I'll see and understand completely why you did this, but I'm going to just completely bow down at your feet regardless. I love that it's the beginning of Job. He's worshiped. where he's so emo, he's saying, I wish I had never been born. So in the middle, what happens to you in the middle, it doesn't matter. I don't know, he never got the answers, but he still raised up his hands. The revelation God gave me one day was that my anger wasn't anger at him. It was anger with him. I wasn't mad at God when my daughter died.

I was mad with God because he is mad too. Mad at sin, mad at the devil, mad at hell, mad at loss, mad at sorrow. But not just mad, he's angry enough to do something about it. And that is exactly what he did on that cross. And that's exactly what he did raised him from the dead. And that's exactly what he's going to do when he crushes the serpent under his boot. And so I could link up my anger with him. And it reminded me that Jesus hanging on the cross said, why God? I wasn't the first, Job wasn't the first. Listen, you're not going to be the last. Job was just saying what Jesus would eventually say. Why have you forsaken me? Think about that. Christ hanging on the cross. What is he doing in saying that? He was fulfilling the righteousness of Psalm 22, the Messianic Psalm, so that we could get to Psalm 23, the life that God's table in heaven. Psalm 22, he's pierced. His bones are out of joint. He's melted like wax. But he's fulfilling the righteousness by crying out, why have you forsaken me? The revelation God gave me was that why is worship too? Just take your why and bring it to him. God, I don't know why you allowed this, but I love you. I'm so angry and confused, but I'm yours. God, I'm hurting, but I'm here. God, I'm confused, but I'm called. God, I'm coming to your feet, and I'm bringing my frustration, and I'm bringing my disappointment, and I'm bringing it to you. Here's my why, and it's my worship.

I love you, even though I'm confused. It's not necessary for you to understand. You can struggle and stay put. You can have nothing to give, but still give him everything. And the good news is suffering, last category, it's not final. It's not final. This is what we need to hang on to. This is where we need to end. It's not final. It's not final for two reasons. It's not final. First of all, because you're being shaped by suffering. You're being shaped by suffering. What did Jesus say? The disciple said, "Jesus, who sinned this man or his parents so that he was born blind?" What did he say? Jesus said, "No." No, not either, not A or B. And even if it was, that's not the point. The point is, this man was born blind so that the works of God might be revealed in him. Night is coming. I got to work while there's a chance. I got to work while there's the time. I got to work while there's the opportunity. So that, why did this happen? He said, the final say is not going to be who did what, but what I did in him. What I did through this. Now, his redemption is not causation. That's important for you to understand. The redemption of God is not the causation of God, right? Did God cause, did God reach his finger into the embryo and fiddle with the genetic and

make him born? No. God does not do evil. God does not hurt. God does not sin. Every good imperfect gift comes down from the father of life with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning. God didn't kill my daughter. God didn't bring sin to the party. We did, okay? So causation and redemption are not the same. So when he says so that the works of God might be revealed in him, this is why he was born blind. He's saying the final word is going to be the story. He's not saying, I did this. So it could happen. He's saying, because it happened, this is what I'm going to do. Sin and death doesn't get the last word. I do. So at the end of the day, I'm going to use this for good. And we as believers can hang on to this, even if it was caused by sin, he can still choose to do a timeout because he's God and say, it's over when I say it's over. And this suffering will not be senseless. Looking back upon it, the story will not be just the pain, but the way if you allow me, I will work through the pain. The man had to do some crazy stuff to participate in his healing Okay, and he could have opted out But his suffering then became only a chapter in the story of God working in his life to make him more like Jesus Just like yours is I Got a good friend

Who was with me actually on the hike when the when the refrigerator sized rock fell and we were talking about this sermon and he said man Suffering being used to shape. He goes God saved my life through suffering So tell me about that And he said you could tell the tell the church He said he was skydiving over and over and over and over and over in hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of jumps And then one time his shoot caved in on a fall and he he smashed into the earth at high velocity breaking almost everything His entire body he lost consciousness his shoot reopened on the ground and he was dragged through three barbed wire fences unconscious He said but he said it was gratitude. He said it was Thanksgiving. He said this that saved my life He goes because the next thing I was about to start doing was bass jumping I Had already logged when I was gonna go to Moab and start bass jumping he goes and I know I would have killed myself And now he's married. He's got a beautiful little girl. He still walks with a limp We hiked all the way up that hill. He went all the way up and I guarantee he was meant for the next couple days But he said that suffering saved my life in more ways than one and So it is that God is able to utilize the pain we experienced in this world For our good to make us more like Jesus. That's the Romans 828 payoff. It's not just all things for good It's all things for good that we might be conformed to the image of the Sun God is able to utilize our pain and suffering to make us more like Christ and one of the best Benefits of suffering listen to me is that it exposes what we're building our life on. That's not God Because a lot of times suffering takes away thing Listen to me if it can be taken away It's not God because God can't be taken away So when suffering takes something away and it causes us to feel like we've lost everything What we're exposing is anxiety that's the result of idolatry Because I was building my life on something that's not him because if it was only him I was building my life on right he can't be taken away from me And so then suffering becomes a gift and a mercy to have something removed from us excavated from our hearts Thrown that isn't him So that we can be fully like him even though it hurts The second reason suffering is not final is because listen. I wrote it down this way. You are moving towards a life without loss

You are moving towards a life without suffering moving towards a life without pain. It's called heaven and Isaiah 25 verse 8 says he will swallow up death forever the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces the Rebukk of his people he will take away from all the earth for the Lord has spoken and Listen to me The very fact that you crave that Shows you God is real and You never crave that more Then when death Sin thorn when when part of what's gonna be removed But it's ugly head into your story You crave it so bad and you don't even realize you're what you're saying when you say why God why you're saying I crave heaven I Crave heaven. I can't you're saying when you say I hate death. I hate this sucks divorce I hate this pain. I hate cancer when you're raging against one of these things that will be removed That's not an argument. You're building that there is no God That's an argument that deep down your soul knows and and is aware of the fact that you were created for a life with God It was blaze Pascal who reasoned that we only ache for things that we Were supposed to have originally but got taken from us right So nobody is Walking around in this earth going I miss my I miss my third arm. I miss my third arm, right? None of us like I missed it man was soon remember when we had that third arm Right because you never had you were never supposed to have a third arm But if you cut this arm off me I walk around every time going oh, man I'll try and use the arm But it won't be there and I'll miss it because I had it and I lost it you hear me if If I see water, I don't go. Oh god It was so good when I had gills and I could just dive in and just swim around with my gills right I

Never had that I and I fume, and I rage, and I groan, and I weep, and I'm sad, it's because deep down I remember a life before sorrow, before sin and so do you. And so don't build your case against God and turn from him because of the very same thing that's trying to tell you there is a God, and there is a heaven, and there is a future, and there is a hope. And it's not just us that's longing for redemption, it's the world itself. Romans A, I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory, which shall be revealed in us. For the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility not willingly, but because of him who subjected it in hope. Hear me, hear me, hear me, hear me. The world does not want to kill people with volcanoes. The world does not want to spit out refrigerator sized boulders and crush people. The world does not want people to drown in its rivers. It was subjected to it against its will. Because the creation also itself, verse 21, will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now. Not only that, but we also who have the first roots

of the spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption of the redemption of our body. I close here. Same daughter who recoiled against the crisis. This week we were watching the sunset over the desert in Arizona and all of us gasped. Stopped what we were doing to just stare. And from her soul came this phrase that just, she said, "Oh, I just want to hug it. "I just want to hug it." And every single one of us standing there watching the sunset went, "Mm, me too." Deep down, there's some part of us that knows seeing it's not enough. We just wish we could grab it and hold it. And it was C.S. Lewis who said, "At present we are on the outside of the world, "the wrong side of the door. "We discern the freshness and purity of the morning, "but they do not make us fresh and pure. "We cannot mingle with the splendors we see, "but all the leaves of the New Testament are wrestling "with the rumor that it will not always be so. "Some day, God willing, we shall get in, "which is what is offered in the presence of the King, "which is what the man in John 9 experienced "when he was healed by Jesus that day, "then rejected by religious people "and then sought out by Christ, who, verse 35,

"Jesus heard they had cast him out, "and when he had found him, he said to him, "'Do you believe in the Son of God?' "'He answered and said, 'Who is he, Lord, "'that I may believe in him?' "'And Jesus said to him, 'You have both seen him, "'and it is he who is talking with you.' "'Then he said, 'Lord, I believe.' "'And he worshiped him.' "'One of the first faces this man ever saw "'was the face of his Savior.' "'And listen to me, beloved, it is that "'that will make heaven heaven.' "'Oh, you'll get a hug to sunrise. "'I got a weird, hot take that you'll get a fly, "'cause I do when I stand on the top of the mountain, "'just like almost all people have the weird desire "'to throw myself off of it.' Right, and they call it staring into the void. It's not just like, you're like, it's not just me, no, it's not just you. I think it's our memory. I think it's us longing for what we knew we were actually at one point able to do, and Jesus after the resurrection could fly, so, and we're told we'll get the same model he got, right? But it will not be flying off mountains, it will not be swimming with dolphins, it will not be golden streets that will make heaven heaven.

It will be being in the presence of Jesus face to face. Octavius Winslow said one second, one second of that kind of glory will extinguish a lifetime of suffering. All the travails of labor are forgotten the moment that baby's in your arms, or so I'm told. (audience laughing) Teresa of Avila said one kiss from the father at the gates of heaven will make a thousand lifetimes of suffering seem like a simply a night Jesus you'll suffer don't believe in Jesus you'll suffer the tower is falling the question is are you in the arc are have you come into the cross have you come to Christ if not today's today now is the time let's pray together father thank you for your word thank you for your life thank you for the promise of your presence in our suffering there is another in the fire like the son of God if you needed this message today could I just ask you raise up your hand to God this can be your why that's your worship this can be your God I need you and I don't understand you this can be God I'm angry but I'm angry with you thank you Jesus thank you Lord thank you for taking pain anger all of it shape us God form us make us we trust you we're yours we're not going anywhere you bought us we're yours God oh and how safe it is to be yours there is such safety in the arms of Christ you can put your hands on if you're here and you've never surrendered to Christ you are headed to hell that tower is falling but you can trust Christ and be set free he died for you he rose from the dead just say this to God say this to God church say it with a say say dear God save me thank you in Jesus name