Q&A 41: Between Israel killing Canaanites, the cruelty of Assyrians and...
Vern Peterman · Oct 24, 2010
Questions & Answers, No. 42
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/410261630255751

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

The question we have this time, this is question 41, and I've put it a couple of different ways, partly because in some cases we'll try to be brief, but the top of the page says, between Israel killing Canaanites and being commanded to do so, the cruelty of the Assyrians and Babylonians, and chapters and verses about God's love, how do we reconcile these? The way we have it at the bottom of the page is a little more succinct. but gets the point across.

How do we reconcile God's love and the cruelty God commands or allows? How do we reconcile God's love and the cruelty God commands or allows? The question here will be started by first defining what kind of cruelty are we talking about here, and obviously there's lots of cruelty that is possibly included. What are some examples of cruelty, mass cruelty, even in the last century? around the world. Pardon?

The Holocaust, right? Okay. That would be one. Well, the Russians, of course, in Moscow and other cities would have answered that for the annihilation. Yeah. Essentially, you know, World War II and post-World War II era, the incursion of communism, profoundly cruel. Aside from the things that took place during World War II. Rwanda, and the war in Egypt. Yeah, Idi Amin in Uganda.

Just horrible things. The Chinese Christians. Yes, the Chinese Christians. We have had atrocities en masse. just within the last century, and we have not touched on everything. Lots of horrible things. Not quite a century ago, the Turks went and wiped out thousands and thousands of Armenians, not Armenians, but Armenians. And we could go on and on. They're just horrible atrocities.

Scripture records some major ones. And so I'll take a look at those. We have them outlined briefly on the first page. Israel killing the Canaanites. Israel was told by God through Moses to drive out the inhabitants of the land of Canaan. And that as they were obedient to God, he would drive out the inhabitants before them. So it's an interesting thing. You do it, and as you obey, I'll do it. is the way the Lord put it.

The exceptions to that were Jericho and Ai and the central cities along the paths of Joshua's conquering the land north and south. We've got some maps here. On the overhead, this is a kind of an oblique map. There's the top of the Dead Sea or the north end of the Dead Sea and right up in here Joshua took The Israelites in there conquered Jericho, and with a bit of a stumbling start, Ai, and then went south into a number of these central cities. Additionally, as they went north, they went along the west side of the Sea of Galilee, and some of the Canaanites, they were driven off. They left and headed north. Let's see.

This map here shows, you see the Dead Sea at the southern part and Sea of Galilee up at the northern part. In this red area is the initial area of settlement under Joshua. And these green areas were areas that were left untouched, at least in the initial stage there. And then here were the, by color, the tribal allotments that they ultimately were supposed to take. Okay, so we have that.

The cruelty of Assyria and Babylon. Both the Assyrians and the Babylonians prided themselves in cruelty. One of the things that Bruce and I took a look at when I made the first trip over to Uganda, we had a layover in London, so we went to the British Museum. And there they had some of the stone relief carvings from the Assyrians. The Assyrians in their palace walls would have pictures of cruelty which they prided themselves in.

You can hardly blame Jonah for being reluctant to go and preach to these people. Imagine being told, you're supposed to go and tell these people that if they repent, I won't punish them. Well, the last thing that Jonah wanted was to have the Lord show mercy. These guys were really cruel.

Let's see if I've got some pictures conveniently here. I'm going to jump ahead. There. Here is a part of what they have. They show Elamites being tied down and skinned alive. Oh, and that's not all. Then they'd pour salt water on them. And they were so proud of their cruelty that they put it on the palace walls. That's where these stone reliefs were from. Here's another. They would force people to grind the bones of their ancestors. The ancient belief was if you ground up the bones, then the person couldn't be resurrected. So they would force people to grind up the bones of their own ancestors.

Again, part of their cruelty about which they were very proud. The Babylonians did similar cruel things. except that the Babylonians had some additional ways in which they were cruel. Of course, we have the account in Daniel where, you know, you do this or we throw you in an extremely hot fire. But aside from that, they also were known for completely destroying things as a punishment, as a show of their power. If they were going to punish a person, they would not only kill them, but they would kill their entire family and burn them to ashes, burn them to powder, and break down their house and break that to pieces until that was powder. So there was just basically no evidence that they ever existed. And that was the Babylonians' infamous claim to fame.

The one thing that was different between the Assyrians and Babylonians, they both relocated people, but the Assyrian philosophy was scramble them. Take some of the Jews and move them over here. Take people from over here and move them into here. So that they would just move all, you know, people all around the empire and get them all scrambled up and in different places. so that they couldn't get any rebellion together, they couldn't even talk to their neighbors. So that was the Assyrians. The Babylonians basically took all the people and moved everybody to Babylon and just stripped out, there was hardly any population left in the outlying areas. Everybody moved to Babylon. They figured if they have them right under their nose, they can't do anything.

So it was similar but not identical treatment. Now we have these passages about God's love. Bottom of page 1 there. John 3.16 and the New American Standard. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

Romans 5.8. But God demonstrates his own love toward us that why we were yet sinners Christ died for us. Here's Romans 8, 37-39, But in all things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us.

For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

We have these as samplings. We could think of other passages that talk about God's love. There's one more series from 1 John on the top of page 2. 1 John 4, 7, 8, and 16. Love is from God. God is love. One of the four statements where it says God is this, God is that. God is love in 1 John 4, verse 16. The love which God has for us. Again, God is love.

So, how do we reconcile these things? How do you reconcile these things? I'm saying that part of it is because of the absolute cruelty of the Assyrians. God needed to do it. Well, we'll get there, because I think there's actually a number of perspectives we can bring together. And I think there isn't some singular answer, but there are a number of different aspects to the answer.

We have the next one here, God is absolutely and infinitely holy, and sin is just absolutely awful. I think a part of it is coming to recognize how bad sin is. There's a tendency for people to think sin isn't so bad. Why do you think people come to that perspective while sin isn't that bad? Yeah, you can find people who think they're worse. That would be one. Compared to all the bad people, I'm not that bad. Yeah, a lot of people will say, well, I'm better than average or something like that, right? I'm not too bad.

People can just go on sinning and sinning and it appears that nothing happened. Ah, yes. Retribution or consequences of the sin don't always seem to crop up or be visible. There are many situations in this life where justice is not served. Just plain, pure, and simple. We see it at a personal level, where we can think of instances where this was not right, that wasn't just, you know. And we can also see it at a larger level. What comes across in the news, you know, heaven sakes, you know.

Some pretty outrageous things happen and it seems like the bad people get away with it. sometimes for a long time. I think Idi Amin reigned from about 71 to 79, and he got away with hundreds of thousands of people being killed. God is a God of holiness. God is a God of justice.

But by contrast, sin is just really awful. and that's a part of it, is recognizing how bad sin is. Sin is not always as bad as it could be. Sin is not always as bad as it could be. We think of some major instances, the Holocaust, we think of some of the major communist mass killings within the last century and other instances. Sin is always awful, but it doesn't always appear as bad as it could be.

Sin is capable of being terrible. What's that? Yes, and I think that's part of the problem is from our standpoint we look at some terrible, awful things and we say, well that's awful. But the reality is, all sin is sin, isn't it? And some of it may appear to be less problematic than other sin, but sin is sin. And here's a question we have right in the middle of the page. It's a one-liner. Would God be justified in punishing all mankind and destroying all of everything? Yes.

See, if our perspective is that God ought to do this or ought to do that, then it's not really fully understanding what sin is and how awful sin is. Right below that, it says, if we fail to see these things, we might be tempted to see it as God's job to make everything nice, keep people out of trouble, and to mitigate all pain and distress. If that is God's job, and scripture does not say that's his job, he's doing a really poor job indeed. If it's God's job to make things generally pretty nice and fairly comfortable and to keep people from getting in trouble and having difficulty, if that's God's job, he's not doing a good job. Right? Okay. Next one.

Sometimes God uses those who are evil for his righteous purposes. Why did God allow Assyria and Babylon terrible, terribly cruel people? Why did God have the Assyrians and then the Babylonians attack his people, Israel? Because he told them he would.

Yeah? And why? Was it because he just said, you guys need to have some hassles? You know? You guys need some problems? What was the reason? You're right. He told them he would. What was the reason that he said, I'm sending in the Assyrians? I'm sending in the Babylonians?

Yeah, in other words, you have the Israelites and they were not following the Lord. The false gods, yes, exactly. They were worshiping the false gods and God said, look, and you go back to Deuteronomy 28, verse 14, 15 verses, 14 verses, talk about the blessings that you'll have if you obey the Lord. From there to the end of the chapter, about 68, verse 68, it's all about here's what's going to happen if you don't obey. And guess what? They didn't obey, and so God says, well, okay, that's what's going to happen.

And so he used the Assyrians and he used the Babylonians to be his instrument to do exactly what he told them was going to happen. Now, did the Assyrians ultimately get away with what they did? No. The Assyrians were likewise punished, and so were the Babylonians. But God used these cruel, evil people to punish his own people, the Israelites. Oh, and here's a key distinction. You actually see passages where it says God's wrath came against Israel. God's wrath came against Israel.

We in the church, however, have multiple promises. that God's wrath will not come against us. Isn't that interesting? A difference in the relationship. Okay, now, the next one. God's execution of judgment against all evil is total, absolute, and perfect. One of the difficulties that we run into when we try to evaluate, well, was justice done? Is this right?

And when we ask that question, frequently it's in terms of this life and what we see and what we experience. And frankly, in counseling, one of the things that I frequently want to present to people is that we need to understand that God's justice is not carried out in this life. Frequently. Frequently, people will have bitterness or anger because justice was not served in this life. There are three places or events, three times, when justice is carried out. And we tend to only look at just one, this life.

First of all, justice was carried out on the cross. Christ died for the sins of the whole world. Justice was carried out on the cross. And guess what? The sins that are just private, the sins that are maybe even between two people, the sins that were never spoken of or carried beyond those private, quiet moments, Christ died for those too. So justice took place on the cross.

Justice sometimes happens in this life, but frankly, a great deal of the time, not. But there's one other place where justice is dealt with, and that's in eternity. For those who are saved by faith and take God up on Christ's payment for sins, There is a matter of reward, but there's also a loss of reward. For the unbeliever who refuses Christ's payment for their sins, they say, no, I don't want to take you up on Christ's payment for the sins. I'll pay them myself. Well, good luck. It's not going to work out real good.

But I think it does a lot both in answering this question as well as dealing with injustice issues that we see, that we have experienced, that we've been involved with. It does a lot to get settled on this understanding that God will bring about justice ultimately in one of those three areas.

But nothing, absolutely nothing, pardon the noise here, Absolutely nothing will be left. God isn't going to say, oh, we just won't worry about that. No. God will be absolutely, totally justice. He will carry out justice in all eternity in one of those three areas. Let's take a look here on page three. We've got those numbered, and number one is at the cross, number two is sometimes justice on the earth, number three is those who are saved by faith, and this talks about judgment and eternity. I'll let you read through the details on that, but I think that just the understanding that God does not carry out all justice here, this is not the place where justice gets universally dealt with.

But God doesn't miss anything. He doesn't overlook anything. He doesn't sweep anything under the rug. Everything, down to the finest detail, because God is a God of absolute holiness and absolute justice, everything will be dealt with. And we can settle our hearts on that. Let's look at the middle of page three.

Withholding blessings and carrying out curses. These are some of the things that God spelled out. We have the quote here from Genesis 12, when God made a promise to Abraham. God's covenants with Abraham and Israel, including Israel's Palestinian or land covenant, call for some blessings and some curses. Withholding blessings and carrying out curses faithfully are part of God's covenants. So here in Genesis 12, 1 through 3, The Lord said to Abraham, Now go forth from your country, and from your relatives, and from your father's house, to the land which I will show you. He hadn't been there, right?

To the land which I will show you, and I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, and so you shall be a blessing. And I will bless those who bless you, and what? And the one who curses you I will curse. blessings and curses. The one who curses Israel is in trouble. Instantly in trouble, not necessarily, but it's just not going to turn out good for them.

And in you, all the families of the earth will be blessed. Let's take a look at Deuteronomy 28, 1-14, which is at the top of page 4. Now, it shall be if you diligently obey the Lord your God, being careful to do all His commandments, which I command you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth. All these blessings will come upon you and overtake you if you obey the Lord your God, blessed, and it goes on, blessed, blessed, blessed, all the way through verse 14. And then, in Deuteronomy 28, 15-68, "...but it shall come about, if you do not obey the Lord your God, to observe all His commandments and His statutes with which I charge you today, that all these curses will come upon you and overtake you."

Cursed, cursed, cursed. And by the way, if you hadn't noticed, there's a whole lot more curses than there are blessings. A lot. So a lot of the difficulties that come about for Israel, for people, have to do with just these covenants that the Lord made. And basically the Lord will reward obedience and reward blessing Israel and he will curse, cause bad consequences for unfaithfulness and for those who curse Israel.

There's another part of this. God uses evil and pain in time for his good purposes in eternity. He uses evil and pain in time for his good purposes in eternity. And part of it is, in answering this question, is having an eternal perspective changes things. We mentioned the cruelty in communist China.

I think it was Eugene that brought that up. Years ago there was a friend of mine, he's now home with the Lord, He had been a missionary in China. His name was Dick Hillis. He was there when the Communist Chinese came in, and the Communist Chinese wanted him to, you know, okay, tell me the names of all the Christians. You know, start talking. And Dick said, I'm not going to tell you that. That wouldn't be good, because you're not going to do good things with that information. So he says, I won't tell you.

So the lieutenant who was talking to him pulled his pistol out and held it up to Dick's head. And the lieutenant said, do you realize I could blow your brains out? And Dick turned to him and said, that's all you can do. If you want to blow it out, that's fine. But, you know, that's all you can do.

And so the lieutenant just took the gun and put it back in his holster. Because he realized he wasn't going to get anywhere with Dick this way. Threatening him, even with death, that's not going to do it. Well, obviously, Lieutenant didn't have anything over Dick.

Why? It's because Dick had an eternal perspective. God uses pain and suffering in time for eternal purposes. And as Christians, that's an important thing for us to keep in mind. There are things that can happen that are just awful. And I think it's fine for us to say that there are awful things that happen. On the other hand, it's also important for us to realize that the Lord is using it all for an eternal purpose.

And by the way, when we're done here, when we're all through with our time here, is that pain and suffering going to be something that's constantly in our memory? No, it won't. No more mourning, sorrow, crying, or pain. No more tears. Not only does God use pain and suffering in time for His purposes in eternity, but the pain and suffering, though it may be great, And we can be honest and real about the pain. The pain and suffering won't last. Eternity will. Eternity will.

We can count upon that He works all things together for good, even if the things that happen are not good. And we can be straightforward and honest. We don't have to play any games. We can call bad, bad. And that's just fine. But He does work all things together for good.

Let me take a look at some more slides here. Before the people of Israel went into the land of Canaan, in Numbers 33, 51, and 52, It says, speak to the sons of Israel and say to them, when you cross over the Jordan into the land of Canaan, then you shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land before you. And then he goes on after that to talk about, you know, here are the practices that they have. And this is why you're driving them out and not just moving in as a neighbor. And they're awful things.

Joshua 6.21, they utterly destroyed everything in the city. This was referring to Jericho. both man and woman, young and old, and the ox and the sheep and the donkey with the edge of the sword." Now they didn't do that everywhere, but they most certainly did it at Jericho.

The Canaanites were spiritually and morally corrupt in the extreme. These kinds of spiritually corrupt practices are targeted in the rest of Numbers 33-52, the part that I didn't quote. You're not to do this, you're not to do that, And that's why you're driving these people out. You're not going to just move in next to them and start taking on their practices. They were corrupt in the extreme.

Deuteronomy 12.31, You shall not behave thus toward the Lord your God for every abominable act which the Lord hates they have done for their gods.

You see, what they did is they made horrible, horrible things a religious activity. That's what the Canaanites did. They even burned their sons and daughters in the fire to their gods. This was to their god Molech. What they would do is they would have this idol and they would start a fire inside so that the hands of this god were very hot. And then they would take the babies and put them on the hands and burn them to death on the hands. The Canaanite religious rituals, their religious activities, included child sacrifice, some of it in fire, but that wasn't the only way they would do it.

Another was incestuous practices and bestiality. We have one record of a Canaanite businessman. He interrupted a business meeting so that he could go have relations with his bull. I'm being polite. Homosexuality was involved and male and female cultic prostitution. They were corrupt in the extreme. They were so corrupt that the surrounding nations were grossed out. The pagans around them were grossed out by their behaviors and wrote about it. that they were gross. So when the Israelites were told to go in and drive them out and wipe them out, it was a matter of dealing with this extremely corrupt culture.

Here is an artist's rendering of the god Molech, where they're taking the babies. And obviously, I don't want to gross anybody out, but it gives you the sense of what they would do. So, and the Lord says, you will not do that. And that's one of the reasons you're going in and you're going to drive them out.

A substantial portion of the Mosaic law forbids the socially and morally destructive practices that were ingrained in the Canaanite culture. Historical books of the Old Testament record the assaults against and the seductions of the Canaanite religion to the extent that Israel had failed to drive out the Canaanites. What we see recorded in substantial portions of the Old Testament is because the Jews failed to drive out all of the Canaanites, we see the Israelites being sucked into the Canaanite moral and religious practices. and gross stuff, terrible stuff, including this Molech, you know, burn the babies practice here.

Now, looking down the line, here's Assyria conquers Israel. That was in 722. Starting then and in the years that followed then, the Assyrians began moving the Israelites out of the northern part of the land of Israel, and they moved them to other parts of their kingdom. So you have, here's the northern kingdom, Israel, which consisted of portions of the ten tribes, ten excluding Judah and Benjamin, and you find that the prophets there were Amos and Hosea, and then Isaiah that we looked at, studied a few years back, was carrying on ministry in the southern kingdom, Judah. But the Assyrians basically took people from the Northern Kingdom and moved them away and then moved other people into the same land and So they they continued on from 722 to 715 Here is the Assyrian Empire and you notice that it goes all the way down into to Egypt and all the way over to what is now Kuwait and So that's the Assyrian Empire. And so from here, the area of Israel, they moved them up closer to the center of the Assyrian Empire. So the people of Israel and Aram got moved.

I'm going to go into a little detail on this part of the chart. What they did is there in this area that became called Samaria, they moved them to this place up here. This is something, a question we dealt with previously, where are the 10 tribes lost? No, they weren't lost. We know exactly where they got moved. And then they moved people from here into the area called Samaria. So that's part of their scrambling the populations. And then back into the cruelty.

So, now, we've talked about a lot of different things. I think what we do when we try to answer this question, we don't come up with a single answer. We come up with these various perspectives. Understanding how bad is sin. We come up with a time perspective. We come up with starting with the understanding that God would be completely justified in wiping out the human race.

By the way, why didn't God do that? Pardon? Yeah, grace and mercy are the reasons that He doesn't just wipe us all out. Grace and mercy. But in terms of God's justice and holiness, He could have said, you know, this didn't turn out well. You're all done. but he didn't do that. Okay, questions, comments, thoughts, perspectives here? Let's see.

The Scythians were a group of people to the east of the Black Sea and I think Paul mentions them in the New Testament one time. They were known for being real dirty fighters. I mean, instead of going out there and carrying out battle, just as a warrior, they would do awful stuff. Were they something like the Assyrians? No, they were a different group, one. They weren't the same group. Whereas the Assyrians would be cruel, the Scythians were known for being dirty, scummy. So yeah, cruelty but in a different kind of way. And yeah, how about that? Varieties of cruelty.

A lot of people today will attribute evil to God because of mankind's evil. And you can certainly take care of the problem right away. If you take the example of the Pharaoh and the Israelites, he gave them multiple opportunities to do the right thing.

And I think that's ultimately giving every man an opportunity to choose him. Yeah, it's interesting. The Lord could have just created a world in which everything just runs automatically and there is no choice, there is no option, right? But very interestingly, the Lord created a world in which people can indeed choose Him. He is glorified by that choice. But in order to do that, you also have to give the opportunity for people to choose against him. Otherwise, it's not a choice, right?

Yeah? I'll get the same big deal, but when Ted Bundy killed all those girls, and I heard him in an interview with Dobson, it seemed like he might have even repented. I mean, just say if he became a Christian, that would all be wiped out because of the cross. You know what I'm saying? There are people who say, if God would let Ted Bundy get away with that, then I'm no different than Ted Bundy. Yeah, and that again is, if you look at it, Ted Bundy didn't get away with anything.

If you look at it, and again we've got this, here are the three places where God carries out justice. We will find many circumstances where people don't get justice here on this earth. But ultimately, between the cross and eternity, justice is served absolutely. Justice is served absolutely. And I think, yes? It gives me a comment. I mean, first of all, I did justice.

I mean, the reality is, when you look at these things, God doesn't give any of us what we deserve. We all are a part of Christ. I mean, so when I sit here and say, well, this is what He did to me, well, God didn't give me what I deserve. I mean, I'm a Christian. He gave me unmerited favor in Christ.

So for me to sit here and demand justice for everyone else, He didn't give me what I deserve. I mean, that's how I try to look at it. He doesn't give any of us what we deserve. One way to put it, thank God he doesn't give us what we deserve, right? Yeah. Yeah, thank God he doesn't give us what we deserve. If it were a matter of insisting upon justice, it wouldn't turn out good for any of us. If that's the way it was. Pardon? Yeah. Yeah, that's right. If we were to insist upon justice, that would not be a good outcome for any of us. Yeah.

And there is in fact horrible cruelty on this earth. We've talked about the instances and we've just touched upon a sampling of the horrible cruelties within the last century. And over time there have been awful things that have taken place. Some even in the name of Christianity.

But in the end, as we look at these aspects of the picture, I think it begins to make some sense. It doesn't make cruelty any less cruel. Don't get me wrong there, but in the big picture, considering these things, There is a reconciliation, I think, in the understanding. It is when people don't look at the full picture, including the eternal perspective, that it remains puzzling. Other thoughts, questions? Yeah, Pat? It gets back to this verse where Paul said, some may be earthen vessels, some are glorious.

And it's like, God made people for this purpose. Then it gets down to, well, I didn't choose to be my height or my weight or my personality. Well, what about I was made that way? In other words, are all the choices that I make determined? Well, if God made me the way I am, then it's like, okay, he set up this computer program and it does the way it's programmed. So that's what the program does.

There are Christians who would answer that in the affirmative, that God just makes everything And this is kind of hardline Calvinism, even double predestination. God chose this one to go to hell and this one to go to heaven. But the reality of Scripture doesn't describe things in quite that way. We certainly have an inclination. As a matter of fact, the sin nature has an inclination always to sin.

Would anybody, were it up to the sin nature, would anybody believe in Christ? No, we would not. Why is it that we are not absolutely fixed to choose against believing in Christ? Would there be any reason why that's just not a given, that we would turn down faith in Christ?

Pardon? We have volition. Why do we have a choice? First of all, God made the conditions that we could have a choice if Christ had not gone to the cross. We would have no choice to make, right? Interestingly enough, the Lord offered salvation to all of Adam's fallen race. So far as we know, a similar offer was not made to any of the angels.

Very interesting. Huh? Well, and that's what I'm working on. In John 16, We have the ministry of the Holy Spirit convicting hearts, right? And that is the one reason why human beings choose to believe at all. Otherwise, every person's sin nature would dictate, I'm not believing, right? That would be our own nature.

What is unknown to us and not disclosed is while the Holy Spirit has a ministry to the unbeliever of conviction, of sin and righteousness and judgment, while that ministry is there, we still are not told why is it that this person then chooses to be believed and be saved and this person does not.

And we're not given that answer. So what's interesting is the nature of how we are made by ourselves would definitely say, you know, none of us are going to believe. We have a work of the Holy Spirit in the heart of the unbeliever to cause them to believe, but we're not given any insight as to why is it that this person chooses to believe and this person doesn't. We're not told that. What we are given is that there is a matter of choice, a matter of volition, and that we are to choose and can choose to be saved.

Scripture doesn't explain why this person believes and this one doesn't. Scripture doesn't address that. Some of the some of these things where scripture doesn't give us some nice little neat clean answer It's possible that when we walk through heaven's gates, we'll have a perspective and we go Oh, well, of course now it makes perfect sense from our standpoint. It's just simply a Okay, God did this. You know, I had this nature. God did this. He acted in this way. He made the choice available. He says that I should make the choice.

But it doesn't explain how that gets worked out and why this person believes with the ministry of the Holy Spirit working upon their heart and this other person doesn't. And Scripture doesn't answer that question. Someday it may be apparent, or maybe by the time we get through Heaven's gates we won't even wonder about it. I don't know. Other questions? Thoughts? Yeah.

I think along with the question you had to say for people to understand how God could appear to be so cruel in the Old Testament time, there's also like the tsunamis come and Haiti has another earthquake. Yeah, our tendency often is to look at large scale things and say, boy, that's really bad because that gets our attention.

But the reality is it happens every day at smaller scales that oftentimes don't even hit the papers. Things happen even in our own church body. We say, well, that's really bad that this happened or that happened, you know. And it isn't something en masse. It doesn't hit the TV news or it doesn't hit the headlines. But it's also, you know, all sorts of difficulty. Yeah.

But I think ultimately having the perspectives that we have, you know, from scripture, it doesn't make the problem go away. But it at least gives us some understanding and insight into these things. But also important to take it personally. That if I'm going through a difficulty, God's got a purpose for it. God's got a reason for it that's consistent with His love and His grace. Yeah.

Other thoughts, questions, ponderings, exasperations? Sometimes we don't see God. Just how blessed that is. Sometimes I wonder why can't people see God's glory in creation or evolution or anything. It just isn't an accident. Maybe it's the Holy Spirit that enlightens us to be able to see God. Whereas non-believers, they just don't see Him. Yeah, it's amazing. You'll have one person that looks and says, boy, this is amazing what God has made. And just be astounded by it. And another person says, boy, it's amazing how that all evolved by chance. One of the interesting things that I do from time to time is I'll get in conversations, and it's easy to do these days over the internet, get in conversations with someone who proclaims himself an atheist. And it's very interesting to talk to them.

I'll say, well, it's too bad you've come to a conclusion that your life is basically meaningless and that nothing really has any consequence and that justice and beauty are really a guise. They're just pretend. And they'll say, oh, what do you mean? I have meaning in life and all that. I say, no, you don't.

What you're telling me right now doesn't make any difference. and sometime you're going to be dead, and none of this is going to matter, because the way you look at it, this is all just biochemical interactions, and that's all it means. It's too bad for you that life has no meaning. Ultimately, they can't come up with anything. They try to infuse meaning into it, But basically, if there's no God, then it's all about chemistry and physics.

That's all it is, and there's no more significance than that. And I haven't come up with one of them that's come up with any good answers to it when I press it. Yeah. Whereas for the Christian, even the difficulties, the trials, even the huge tragedies and the cruelty, I can say, but there is significance to it. There's a reason for it. And it means something. In fact, I can even call the tragedy, tragedy. Whereas for the atheist, it's just a biochemical interaction and who cares? Nothing makes a difference. History is all just a series of biochemical interactions and nothing more. Doesn't mean anything, right? Okay, well, let's pray. We're past time. Lord, we do thank you.

We thank you that there is meaning and significance. We thank you that there is hope. We thank you for your love and your grace and your mercy. And Lord, even as we acknowledge that there are some great tragedies, there is immense cruelty in this world, that sin is indeed really, really awful. We also thank you for the hope that we have that when you take us home, and I hope it's today, when you take us home, the tears will be gone, the sorrows will be gone, the sighs, and it will be a totally hopeful eternity with you. We thank you for that. Thank you for your love and grace. In Jesus name, Amen.