Listen, have you ever read the Bible and then saw a scripture and went, "What’s up with that?" I mean, "Why did God say that? Why did God do that? That doesn’t make any sense to me." Or maybe you saw something happen in your life where you had a question and you said, "Why would God allow that? What is going on?" We’ve all had those moments, haven’t we?
Well, that’s what this series was about, and what we decided is that we’d take just a short series. We’re gonna just make it two weeks and we would say to you, "Hey, email us your questions." Well, the stack that I’ve gotten in is like this. It’s like a whole ream so far.
And so we’re gonna stretch it out. How long is it gonna last? I don’t know. Until we get tired of it. Until we want to move onto something else. Because I think we’ll be able to hit a lot of really good issues Biblically and then personally also.
And so I want to say don’t quit sending your questions. If this sparks something today or maybe you haven’t really gotten a question in, send it in to me at pastorgreg@seacoast.org and we’ll try to do our best to deal with them.
Now, obviously I will not be able to get through every question. I’m trying to kind of stack them to those that are the most asked or maybe the most interesting. And -- but we have a tool that you can access called After the Message. What you do is you go to the website, whatever campus that you happen to be in, and click on Current Series, Today’s Message, and on there there’ll be a click for After the Message and it’s a really cool resource and tool.
We just started about a month ago. We can send you emails if you want email updates or whatever. But what it is, is we’ve taken some of the things that will fall off the table, like today, I’m not gonna be able to get to even everything I’ve got on your outline sheet. I already figured that out. And some of the answers will have to be very, very brief. We’ll have expanded answers on there. We’ll have questions that we didn’t get to.
We also will have ways that you can self-feed. You know, how do you find your own answers on these issues? So take advantage of that resource, After the Message.
Let me jump in, let’s go. We’ve got a lot to cover. You guys have some great questions. Before I do this -- a little bit more background, okay? We’re gonna kind of categorize it for a little while and then we’ll scatter as we go.
If you have questions on relationships, you know, somebody asked the question I saw that -- I don’t know, I won’t even say last night there were questions asked, but all kinds of different questions, questions of relationships, questions of Jesus, question on work, family, whatever. Text those in.
This week we’re gonna talk about God, okay? Specifically God and how God responds. We may do that for a couple of weeks, it looks like, then we’ll go in various directions.
Here we go. Ready? All right. Question number 1. In fact, the first three questions that I want to deal with has to do with creation. And so let’s have a look at them. First of all, here’s a question from Eric and I think that Eric lives here in Charleston.
It says, "Thank you, Greg. I continually find myself in the same roadblock when it comes to discussions of the Bible. I’m very analytical and have difficulty with trying to grasp the intangibles. Perhaps your insight might be the path that helps me navigate this obstacle. For example, Adam and Eve, creation of the earth, Noah and the ark, do you believe literally word for word or perhaps they’re parables, stories back during those times where people didn’t know as much and used parables or stories to explain certain issues and questions?"
Let me just ask real quickly, how many of you have had a question like that? Have you ever wondered that? I mean, you read Noah and the ark, you read Adam and Eve, all that, is this really literal?
Well, let me just dive into that one and say that obviously some parts of the Bible are history. They’re history. Not a lot of it but some are, Kings and Chronicles and just the historical account of what went on. Some parts of the Bible are poetry. You’ve got obviously the Psalms and some Proverbs and Song of Solomon and some various -- and then there’s little bits of poetry and other things.
There’s drama, there is allegories, there’s all kinds of different things. And here’s what I believe. I believe that all of it is inspired. Regardless of what it is, it’s all inspired. 2 Timothy 3:16 says, "All scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives."
Obviously, there are some very interesting parts of scripture. I mean, if you look at Revelations. Have you ever read Revelations? Is that a trip or what? That’s a vision of John. Have you ever thought John had too many burritos? Anybody ever thought that? I mean, being honest. You know, bad burrito the night before, great vision, write it down.
Well, I believe that his vision was inspired by God. But is it possible that John, who lived during Jesus’ time was shown in a vision -- let’s say he was shown a fighter jet from today, how would you describe that? You know, as this giant animal with whatever.
So they described things sometimes that God showed them in the ways that they saw. But I believe that all of it is inspired. The question specifically, is the story in Genesis a literal story? And let me kind of approach that like this. Genesis seemed to present them as real. It doesn’t say, "This is a story," or whatever. It seems to present them as real. There are genealogies. You know what a genealogy is? Genealogy is so-and-so begat so-and-so, who begat -- that’s the part of the Bible that you skim, right? You skim. You come to it, quiet time, skim right through that. We all do that. But there are nuggets in each one of the genealogies.
And the genealogies, many of them refer back to Adam and Eve. In fact, Jesus’ genealogy, I think, in Matthew, Adam and Eve are at the top of the food chain. It refers back to them. Jesus also referred to them in his teaching. You remember when somebody asked him about divorce, is it okay to divorce. We’ll do divorce as a question in the relationship part of the Q&A. But Jesus’ response was this, he said -- he referred to Adam and Eve and he said that it’s right for a man to leave his father and his mother and to cleave to his wife, the two will become one flesh. And he referred to Adam and Eve as real people there.
So, also there had to be a first couple. Would you agree with that? Somewhere along the line there was a first couple. Why not Adam and Eve? So I choose to believe that Adam and Eve are literal -- it’s a literal story and a literal deal. Now, at the very outset of this series, let me just say that there are some people who are Christians who disagree with my answers on some of the things that I’m gonna talk about. And it’s okay.
At Seacoast we say you have a right to be wrong. Okay? You don’t have to agree with me on everything. You have the right to be wrong. But what I’m hoping you do is you go home and you study like crazy and figure out why it is that you believe what you do. There are some things that we all need to believe the same on, and I’ll throw those -- when it happens I’ll throw it out and say, "Gang, we better believe this." There are other things, you know, that we can dispute and argue about and hopefully I spark arguments all day long. I think one thing I’m gonna say is gonna really tick you off. And so I’m hoping to get to that.
Second question has to do with creation, too. And it was from Chuck. I’m not sure where Chuck lives. Chuck said, "Genesis describes, ’God created the heavens, earth, plants, animals and man in six days.’ Science estimates the earth to be approximately 5 billion years old. Plants are half a billion years old. Mammals are 2 million years old and man only 200,000 years old. Can you explain the discrepancy in time between the Bible story of creation versus evolution in science?"
How many of you have ever had one of those questions? Did you go to school? Okay? All right. There are two ways to explain that, two tracks to take on that. One track of Biblical theologians say this, the Genesis account is the Genesis account, that’s the way it was. It describes exactly the number of years, you number them back, the earth is about 6,000 years old, a little bit more than 6,000 years old. That’s what it is and science is wrong. Most of science is wrong, modern science.
They will say that, you know, carbon dating changes about every three years and, you know, who’s to know that ultimately the Bible will win out. But you’ve got to trust God that that’s just the way it is. And that’s what some theologians say.
Other theologians say, "You know what? You can believe in a literal translation or a literal belief in the Book of Genesis," as I described that I do, "and still believe that the earth is perhaps billions of years old and not lose faith in God."
Well, how can you do that? Because Genesis says that it’s -- what six days? And then on the seventh day He rested? Well, there’s two ways that some theologians look at that, the second group of theologians. Some say that there is a time gap between Genesis 1:2 and Genesis 1:3. Let me show you that.
Genesis 1:1 says, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth and now the earth was formless and empty and darkness was over the surface of the deep and the spirit of God was hovering over the waters." God created it. God created it. Big bang, maybe. Started somewhere, something outside of the bang. God created it.
And then there is a gap between that and Verse 3, "And God said, ’Let there be light,’ and there was light. And God saw that the light was good and he separated the light from the darkness." And some theologians say, "Well, there is a gap of thousands, millions, billions of years right there." Some people say that.
Others say this, "You know what? When the Bible uses the word ’day’ sometimes day doesn’t refer to a 24 hour period, sometimes it refers to something greater than that." And there are all kinds of -- one of them is 2 Peter 3:8 which says, "Do not forget this one thing, dear friends, with the Lord a day is as a thousand years and a thousand years is as a day." Have you ever heard that scripture?
There’s a great joke on that. I’m not gonna tell it, I don’t have time. Google it, laugh, and say, "Greg, you are funny." Okay? So, what its saying is that when it says "day," then that day had to be more than 24 hours.
For example, let’s look at the third day of creation. It was a very full day. Follow me on this. "Then God said, ’Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.’ And it was so. The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening, and there was morning -- the third day."
It says its one day. That’s a lot of stuff to happen in a day. Would you agree with that? It says basically that the vegetation grew up, that trees grew up, bore seed, dropped them for new trees. How long does that take? A long time.
So that day was probably more than 24 hours. Let me say this, I lean on the Old Earth theory, that the earth is a lot older than 6,000 years. I do believe God can create it all in, you know, 24 hour days if that’s what he chose to do. And if you don’t agree with me, that’s okay. Like I said, you have a right to be wrong. Okay?
But there’s another day -- day number six is an interesting day because day number six, Adam was created and then he went to sleep and then he woke up and then he named all the animals and then he looked for a helpmeet and then he went to sleep and then Eve was created. That’s a lot to happen in one day.
If the day is 24 hours, it’s a lot to happen. Well, does that mean that the Bible isn’t true? No, it just simply means that interpretation is different. Inspiration is given. I believe that the Bible is inspired. But the interpretation of how long all of that took can be a long, long time.
The day that Adam was created, the sixth day, could have been, you know, a billion years. A day is as a -- a thousand years is as a day in God’s sight. So is there -- does it -- what about evolution? Some would say there is no evolution, God created them just like they are. And that’s a view. I think that it is possible that -- and I’d love to get into this on a -- me and about three other people would be real interested in this. But I would love to get into it really in depth. But as you look at the species of evolution and you can kind of see them line up with creation.
I believe that there was probably evolution within species. God started the process and it went like that. I do not see any evidence for cross species jumping of evolution. I still don’t think I’m related to a monkey. Look like one a little bit, but I think that God created specifically man in the way that he did. But I do think there is some allowance for evolutionary process in there.
Which leads me to the third question that is along this lines is, "Pastor Greg, I’ve asked this question before but I have a hard time explaining dinosaurs and the flood and/or Adam and Eve. How do all these events fit into place? Did Adam and Eve name the dinosaurs? If not, were the dinosaurs here after the Garden and wiped out during the flood? And why do archeologists find dinosaur bones before human bones? Or am I wrong with my timeline? Thanks for your great wisdom." This is from John in Irmo. John, you are a wonderful man to recognize wisdom. Okay, good.
In fact, let’s do this. Let’s say hi to John in Irmo. "Hi, John in Irmo." Good, great. That was fun, wasn’t it?
All right, dinosaurs. Have you ever wondered where are the dinosaurs in the Bible? Have you? Nobody has. Okay, good. I think there’s a mention of them. This is the only service I’ve talked about this in because it just clicked with me. I think there’s a mention of dinosaurs in Job 40. Go look it up later, when he talks about behemoths, behemoths. So you can look up that later. You can go to people that came to other services and go, "Nah, nah, nah, nah, you didn’t get that."
Here’s what I think the dinosaurs are though. I think that the dinosaurs, if you take an Old Earth theory, the earth is older than 6,000 years, and that the days are ages, that on the sixth day before Adam was created, it is possible that dinosaurs came and went before that.
Now, if you are a theologian, and most of you can’t spell theologian, but some of you are. You would say, "Okay, here’s the argument, Greg, you’re saying that animals lived and died before the fall." Because remember when Adam and Eve were created in the Garden, if you read Genesis? There was no death until sin came and sin caused death.
Well, how can animals die before that? Let me say this, and this is gonna really tick some of you off. Plants lived and died before the fall. Would you agree with that? Because Adam and Eve were given permission, they were all vegetarians at that point. When did they start eating animals? After Noah. They were vegetarians up to that point, and they ate the plants, how you know that the plants died when they ate them. That’s a very painful thing. Dead, you’re done.
Okay, they didn’t have sin because they don’t have souls. They’re living creatures, right? They don’t have souls. I don’t think animals have souls, that’s why cats will not be in heaven, okay? All right. That’s it. I mean, that’s just it. And you don’t have to agree with me on that. You have a right to be wrong, but if you’re right I hope you live a long ways from me because I’m gonna be in the cat free area of heaven.
Now, I don’t think they have souls. Now, they may be in heaven, God may have another plan for them, and that’s up to Him. But, animals could live and die before the fall if they don’t have souls. Would you agree with that? So, dinosaurs could have been during that time. This is kind of fun, isn’t it? I like it.
All right. So the bottom-line of what I’m saying is there is no necessary contradiction between the Genesis account and science. I really don’t think so. You can say either most scientists are wrong, or you can say some Biblical scholars are wrong. And, you know, somewhere in between. You can be a Christian and believe either way. The important thing is to be a Christian.
And I’ll answer the question, not today, it kind of sounds exclusive. What about the rest of the world? You know, are we the only ones going to heaven and all that. I’ll answer that on another day. But to be a Christian means this, A, B, C. A) that I admit my sin, that I am a sinner, B) that I believe that Jesus Christ is God and that He died for my sin, and C) that I confess that He is Lord of my life and I choose to follow Him.
And so if I do that then I’m a follower of Christ and all the other stuff that we’ve talked about even so far, can be argued among believers who are passionate about their relationship with Jesus.
All right, let’s go to five quick ones, okay? Five quick just kind of two or three word answers if I can. Here they are. Another Greg, not me, had this question, "Did Adam have a bellybutton?" Let’s poll the audience. How many of you think Adam had a bellybutton? How many of you think he didn’t? You’re right. I don’t know. I might be wrong but I’m thinking bellybutton has to do with birth and Adam wasn’t born. Right? Okay.
Let’s go to the next one. This comes from Keenan, and I know Keenan, came in on my Facebook and it says this, "Did Cain marry his sister?" It kind of grossed Keenan out to think about. I know her brother, I understand that. But did Cain marry his sister?
Here’s the drill. You guys know the drill. Adam, Eve, Cain, Abel, Seth and some others, okay? Those are the ones that are named. In Genesis 3 it says Cain and his wife. Who was his wife? There were limited choosings. Some of you this isn’t a big deal. You went to a small high school. You know that. And some of you grew up in Alabama, okay? All right?
So Cain married either his sister or his niece, one or the other. And why is it that, you know, you go, "That’s gross." It wasn’t gross back then. Why isn’t that incest? Why -- what’s the issue with incest? Well, incest laws today are largely around -- not entirely, but largely around the fact that medically and genetically it can cause real problems because of problems in the gene pool, and being multiplied.
Back then there weren’t those issues. There was a brand new gene pool, right? There was no sin in the gene pool until Adam and Eve fell and then that’s the first children and grandchildren. So you don’t have a big issue there and you’ve got to replenish the earth or you’ve got to make the earth multiply.
And secondly, there were no laws against incest until 1500 years later. Now there are laws now, okay? So don’t even think about it. But there were no laws at that point against it. So it was okay.
All right, go ahead. The third question of the quick ones is from Richard. "Does God hate the Cubs or is he just testing them?" God loves the Cubs, okay? He really does. And a day is as a thousand years in God’s sight so what’s a century, okay? What’s a bad century?
All right, number four comes from Barbara and she wants to know, "Was the star of Bethlehem a miracle or was it a God ordained planetary alignment?" Remember the star of Bethlehem which guided the magi? Was that just like -- God goes,
Could be either one. I don’t know. I think it’s probably a miracle. If you want a good argument on that, go to, "After the Message," on the Seacoast website and we got tons of stuff out there that we pointed to that you can find on that, some very, very good arguments.
The fifth quick one, "Will the world end in 2012. Notradamus has a prediction, there’s a movie, there’s books, there’s yada, yada, yada, yada, will it happen?" I tell you what, I don’t think so. I’m pretty confident about this. If you think it is, sign your stuff over to me the night before. I will probably be here when it happens.
You say, "Greg, how can you be so crass?" Well, it might happen, it might not, but people have predicted the end of the world -- that’s a racket. The end of the world is a racket. There are whole religious groups that are built on predicting the end of the world.
How many of you lived through 2000? In 1999 there was a book called -- big bestseller in the Christian realm because Christians are gullible and stupid, by and large. And this book was, 99 Reasons that Jesus Will Come Back in 1999. Guess what, he didn’t.
Jesus said, "No man knows the hour or the day or the time." I’m not on the date and time committee. I’m on the occupied until He comes committee. Okay? And so usually when there’s a prediction, trace the money. There’s a book, there’s a movie, there’s something that somebody’s promoting. Okay? That’s my deal. How many of you still love me? I really don’t care.
All right, next question. Here’s a bonus question. We’re in a fast right now. If you want to know more about the fast, go to the website, gregsurratt.org. I do a whole deal on the fast on what we’re doing. The question came, "The bread in the communion, if you’re doing a Daniel fast does that violate the Daniel fast?" Because the Daniel fast is no bread, no meat, no sweets. And the answer to that is the New Testament church, first of all, I think it’s a thing of your heart, but the New Testament church or the early church didn’t fast on Sundays because Sunday was a holy day and a celebration day. So we are not gonna fast on Sundays. So pig out on Sunday, all right? So it’s okay. It’s all right.
All right, let’s go on. Let’s do -- here’s what we’re gonna do, just to alert the team here, we’re not gonna get to all the questions. The text questions, we’re gonna do right after this next question rather than at the -- wherever they are in the program, okay? So we’ll do it that way.
Let’s get into a little bit meatier question or maybe more serious question that hits to where we are. And here it is, Bill asked this, "Why does God seem so mean and violent in the Old Testament and so loving and encouraging in the New Testament?" Okay? The question is, "Why does God seem --," oop, did Adam have a bellybutton? No, I don’t think he did. All right, whatever.
"Why did God seem so mean and violent in the Old Testament?" Have you ever wondered that? I mean, you read the Old Testament and you see God wiping out just a whole group of people. Just man, woman, children, dogs and certainly the cats.
And you go, "I mean that -- how can a loving God do that?" And you go to the New Testament and it talks about God being love. Here’s the -- is God hateful? Is it full of anger? The Old Testament, what’s the difference between the Old Testament and the New Testament?
Let’s look at a New Testament verse to kind of define that. 1 John 4:7 says, "Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because," why? "Because God is love."
God defines himself; in fact, God defines love, as God and God is love. So, how do you square that? Is God hateful when he destroys things, he gets mad and "boom." No, I don’t think he’s hateful. Does God hate? Yes, I think he does.
In fact, I don’t think you can love without hate. They’re two ends of kind of the same coin. You can’t have perfect love without having absolute hate. In fact, when we look at God we’ve got to remember that God -- it’s hard for us to understand God, number one. I’m giving you some answers that I think, but it’s real hard to put our head around, you know, who God is. We’ve just got to be honest about that.
But God is absolute. We live in a gray world, you know? We make decisions in grays and when we see somebody who has -- who makes decisions on real hard principals, we’re impressed by that, and sometimes we’re put off by it. Well, God is absolute. God is absolutely loving. God is absolutely merciful. God is absolutely wrathful. God is all of these things, and he has to be because God loves holiness, he hates sin.
Because God loves creation, he hates murder. In fact, if you’re reading through the Bible right now you’re probably in the -- one of those Bible reading programs, you’re in the first part of Genesis and you see right after creation, right after there’s a murder and God institutes the first law, "You can’t murder." And then right after the flood he reemphasizes that because God loves creation and he hates the unjust taking of life.
Because he loves marriage, he hates divorce. Because he loves mercy, he hates injustice. When he sees injustice being done, he hates it because he loves mercy. And so God is not only loving, but God is wrathful.
See, I’m to love God with all my heart, soul, mind, strength, body, everything, and it’s easy for me to love a loving God. "Man, I worship you, God, because you’re loving. I worship you because you are merciful." Have you ever said to God, "I worship you because you are full of wrath"? And yet God wants us to, we just don’t understand it.
Let me explain it just a little bit. One theologian defines wrath, and God’s wrath as just simply the fact that God intensely hates all sin because sin destroys creation in every form and God is wrathful.
Now, we should be grateful for the wrath of God because here’s the question. What would God be like if he did not hate sin? I’m gonna give you a modern day example. We’ve been reading the newspapers, listening to the news, about what’s going on with the Governor of Illinois. Have you done that?
Okay, I won’t get into it big time but the Governor of Illinois allegedly, allegedly, is trying to profit from or sell the seat of Obama who became President and he has the right to appoint the next Senator from Illinois. And so they’ve got all kind of taped things of him saying this, that and the other. And allegedly he’s profiting on that seat.
If that is true, there’s corruption there. Would you agree with that? If it is true, and there is corruption, you have an example of a leader who does not hate sin, a leader who does not have the capacity for the righteous wrath of God.
I’ve been, as you have probably, too, I’ve been to various countries in the world. You go to a third-world country, some of the Central American countries, you see, I mean, natural resources that are incredible and you go, "Why are they so poor? Why are things the way that they are?" And it’s a complicated question but at the root of it is usually corruption in government.
Its greedy men, greedy women, who rape the land, who take the money from the people, who profit for themselves and it is a case of leaders who do not hate sin. They profit off of sin.
What if God did not hate sin? Then God would be corrupt and I could not trust him. And therefore I worship God because not only is he loving, but he hates sin. And he pours out his wrath.
As we see it in the Old Testament, he pours out his wrath on sinful situations. And when he wipes out a whole city, who’s to know if perhaps there would have been a greater evil done by that group of people? There’s already injustice being done and who’s to know if that wouldn’t have spread and caused horror everywhere? And so I’ve got to trust that God is loving and that his wrath is justified.
Now, I’m gonna give you some good news, but first I want to give you the bad news. The bad news is that, is that God hates sin. How many of you are sinners? You have a problem because God will judge your sin. Because God is not a respecter of human beings. He does it to everybody. You have a problem. You are under the wrath of God.
Here’s the good news. God knew that that would happen and so he sent his son, Jesus Christ, the sinless one, who became the receptor for his wrath. On the cross God poured out his wrath on Jesus Christ.
In fact, and Jesus willingly accepted it. 1 John 4:9 says, "This is how God showed his love among us." The verse before said, "God is love." This is how he showed it. "He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins."
When you look at the cross you need to think of it like this. The cross is the intersection of God’s wrath and God’s love. God had to judge your sin. He had to. But here’s what he said, he said if you will trust in Jesus, if you will come into his family, you will trust in Jesus, then his wrath for you, for your sin which you rightly deserve, will be poured out on Jesus. And that is good, good, news. And hopefully take that home and chew on it just a little bit.
And because Jesus has taken the fullness of God’s wrath, those who trust in him no longer have to fear God being mean to us. God’s not always ticked off at you. God has poured out his anger on Jesus.
Before we go to the next question, let’s go to the -- why don’t you -- let’s go to the text questions, okay? You guys text’d in some questions. Let’s see how you did, all right? Let’s go to the first question. "What denomination is Seacoast?" That’s a pretty easy one but here’s what I’m gonna do. I’m gonna use some help today. So I’ve got some people behind the screen, here they are. Now, that’s my brother, Geoff, and that is Shawn Wood, and they’re gonna be our theologians for the day, and they’re gonna help me with these questions.
You guys, did you hear that one?
Geoff: We did, yeah. Seacoast, what denomination? Seacoast is actually -- it’s interesting because a lot of the staff grew up in different denominations. Greg, you and I grew up in the Assemblies of God. We have some who grew up Baptist and Catholic. But actually Seacoast is a non-denominational church. We’re not actually affiliated with any one particular denomination.
Shawn: I’m sorry; did you just say we’re not Southern Baptist?
Geoff: You didn’t realize that?
Shawn: I probably should have read the fine print a little better before taking the job.
Shawn: Sorry, Mom.
All right, great job, guys. We’re a non-denominational church. All right, let’s go to the next question. "Do you believe in once saved, always saved?" I’m gonna do a whole deal on this. Let’s just find out how these guys believe. Okay?
Shawn: I absolutely believe in once saved, always saved. My God saved me. I had nothing to do with it. And so I don’t think there’s anything I can do to get out of it.
Geoff: Unfortunately, Shawn’s wrong. I believe in the security of the believer but not -- I do believe that you can walk away from your salvation. So sorry, Shawn. Nice try.
Shawn is a moderate Calvinist, Geoff is a moderate Armenian. And what’s interesting about our staff is that we allow all kinds of -- we have great debates on these issues. I’m right, I’m more towards Shawn and I’ll tell you why later.
Okay, let’s go on. "Was Greg abused by cats as a child?" [Laughter] There seems to be some bitterness. Now, I’m going to admit I saw that question on the screens out front. That is a great question. Whoever did that, that’s funny. Yes, I was. [Laughter]
Actually, I’m gonna give you a serious one on this. Cats are wonderful creatures. I’m allergic to them; don’t like to be around them. And I kid with this stuff but I believe that the abuse of any of God’s creation is absolutely wrong. Would you agree with that? And so -- but it makes great laugh lines.
[Applause]
All right, is there another one or not? Okay. What’s the difference between transubstantiation; say that together, "Transubstantiation," and consubstantiation, say, "Consubstantiation." That’s a good one. Let’s see what the experts say.
Geoff: Well, since only one of us has a seminary degree, I think that we ought to go from that direction. So Shawn, why don’t you go ahead and answer this one.
Shawn: Yeah, at a Southern Baptist seminary, too. Transubstantiation comes from Catholic roots and means the bread and the wine literally become the body and the blood of Christ. And then consubstantiation comes from some Lutheran background. Not necessarily Martin Luther though, but some Lutheran background and believes that the three coexist together and that something kind of happens but that it’s not literally the body and the blood of Christ.
Now, I’m somewhere in the middle. I believe something mystical happens during Communion, but I’m not sure quite what it is.
Geoff: Unfortunately Shawn, you’re 0 for 2. I believe there’s a very spiritual element to Communion, but I don’t really understand the mystical piece of this whole thing. Shawn’s doing well. He’s growing, we’re proud of him, but not quite there yet.
And Shawn’s almost right. I’m a little bit further toward consubstantiation than he is, and we may talk about that or we may not. Is there any other questions or not? That’s it? Okay, that’s it for this week? All right, good, we made it. Yeah. We’re gonna do some different -- we’re gonna use technology in different ways each week. So you’ll want to come be a part of that. I’m gonna get you guys involved in it a little bit as we go along.
I want to do one more question. And this is the big one; this is the number one question that came in. It’s always the number one question, and here it is, "I find that when I’m talking with skeptical people about Christianity one of the juicy questions that often arises is, ’How can you believe in a God in such a negative world where he allows bad things to happen to good people?’" That one was asked by Tracy from Greenville. Do you have it up here? A whole bunch of people, Jenna from Charleston, and many, many, many others asked that question.
And what makes that a big question and the toughest one is that it has context. We can laugh about some stuff, we can argue about some stuff, but this is never -- why bad things happen to good people is never asked in a vacuum. In fact, if I could read to you, which I’m not going to, but if I could read to you how many different ways that was asked of me in emails, and the stories that came behind them, it would rip your heart out.
It was asked by a lady who her younger brother died recently in a car wreck. And she said he was a great guy. Why would go let that happen? It was asked by an uncle who’s watching his 15 year old niece die of cancer. What’s the justice there? It was asked by a mother who’s watching her daughter with autism suffer more and more each year. It was asked by a woman whose parents died in a plane crash when she was 6 years old, and as a result of that her family was separated into three separate homes. Her brothers became alcoholics, she drugs, alcohol, sex, the whole nine yards, and asked for years and years and years, "Why could God allow that to happen?" And her parents were Christian missionaries, I believe.
Why bad things happen is fairly easy. It’s sin. Some people ask, "Why didn’t God create, you know, a place where there was none of this? Where there was no bad things going on that hurts and destroys innocent or good people?" And the answer to that is that he did. When he created the earth, the Garden, there was none of that.
But he gave Adam and Eve the greatest gift that you could give to anyone, and that’s the freedom to choose. That’s one of the things that makes our country great, is the freedom to choose. God gave Adam and Eve the freedom to choose. You can choose whether to love me or not because I want you to love me, and if you don’t have a choice you can never truly love. And he gave them that, and they choose to do their own thing, and sin was introduced and you can read about it in Genesis. That’s fairly easy.
The hard part is, so okay, that’s where it came from, why didn’t God intervene for my loved one? Is he not powerful enough? Or did he not care? Those are the two things. Either God is powerful but doesn’t care, or God cares and he’s not powerful enough. I would say that neither of those is true.
As we kind of get into this, the -- this is a tough one, tough one, tough on, because it’s difficult questions because we’re finite and God is not. And we’re trying to get into the mind of God, why God does things, and we’re coming at it from a human perspective and it’s always gonna be limited, and I don’t care how well I did at answering this question, it would not take the pain away from the loss that you feel. It just wouldn’t.
But let me take a swing at it. Let me take a swing at it. Three or four things to think about when you see injustice and suffering. Number one, God has a bigger perspective than you or I either one. God has a bigger perspective.
Sometimes what God allows may be less terrible than what could be in the future. See, I don’t know what the future holds. I mean, I’m naturally optimistic, most of us are, and so I’m optimistic that the future’s gonna be good. God knows the future and it is possible, in fact, one person that sent me an email said -- that lost her brother in a car wreck, said, "My mom and I find comfort only in the idea that God was saving him from something much worse. The concept that there was no meaning in his death, boy, that leaves you nowhere."
And she argues through that and she says, "The only thing I can imagine is that God was saving him from something much worse." And maybe he was. Sometimes that’s something that we need to kind of ponder and look at.
A second concept is this, is that God often times, we can see this throughout the Bible, uses suffering to draw us to him. Job 36:15 says, "But those who suffer he delivers in their suffering; he speaks to them in their affliction." C.S. Lewis said it this way, "God whispers to us in our pleasures, he speaks to us in our consciences, but he shouts in our pain. It is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world."
And there have been many times, I know, in my life when we have had things that have happened to people we love that are disturbing and you go, "God, how can that be?" And we’re left in our suffering. We are drawn closer to God. And I believe that God draws closer to us during those times. I’ve taught several messages about that.
The third thing that I kind of think, is that God can use suffering for a greater good. Romans 8:28, I’d like you to read it out loud together. I think we’re gonna get it on the screen, or maybe you have it in your outline sheet. Let’s read it, "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose."
God doesn’t cause all things. God is not the creator of evil. But God certainly allows things to happen. And if we allow him to he’ll work good in it. Tim Keller says it like this. He says, "Just because we don’t see a reason for evil and suffering doesn’t mean that there’s not a reason for it."
Considering the story of Joseph and the amazing conclusion in Genesis 50:20, remember that story? Joseph was sold into slavery by his brothers. Joseph spent time in a prison when he was unjustly accused. Probably 10, 15, 20 years into the process Joseph probably looked up and said, "Why, God?" I mean, "Where is your goodness here? I don’t deserve any of this, and yet I’m getting it."
And yet at the end of the story, his brothers come to see him as the savior, not only of Egypt, but of Israel. And he says to them in Genesis 50:20, "You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives."
There are times, as hard as it is to really get our head around that, there are times that God will allow bad things to happen for a greater good to be accomplished. Sometimes we see it in our lifetime, and sometimes we don’t.
There are countless other stories where suffering was not good, but with time and perspective some people see the good that resulted from the pain and the tragedy in their lives.
One of the stories I told you was a young girl whose mother and father were killed in a car wreck and their family was torn apart and they went into all kind of alcohol and substance abuse. And she says every day of her life she asks, "God, why? God, why? God, why?" And she says now, from the perspective that she’s at now, she says, "I don’t ask those questions anymore. In fact --"
I’ll just tell you what she said. She says that her brother -- one of her brothers, finally went through a drug and alcohol recovery program that was Christian, and he got clean. And not only did he get clean but he became the Director there and he has led hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of men to wholeness through that.
And she says, "You know, if he had not gone through what he went through would that have happened?" Probably not. She’s a counselor herself and she says, "If I had not been through what I went through with so many counselors, would I be able to help teenagers as I do?" And she confidently says to me, "You know, I don’t even ask those questions anymore. I can see God’s hand from where I sit."
Let me give you one more perspective, and that’s this, you’ve got to remember this is not all there is. Sometimes we think, "This is it." That all the justice has to be meted out here, that all the scales have to be balanced. You know what? I like the story of a 17 year old boy, 14 years old, falls down some stairs, tears him up, has surgery after surgery after surgery, confined to a bed and a pastor comes to talk to him when he’s 17, three years later.
And he says, "Surely you are bitter against God." And he said, "No, sir, I’m really not." And he said, "Well, can you explain to me why?" And he says, "Because God has all eternity to make it up to me."
If I died today it would be, you know, tragic for my family and they would miss me tremendously, but don’t you cry for me because I just got there first. And never, ever forget. You could have 75 years of absolute pain, suffering and misery, which would be terrible, but it would pale in comparison to all the years that you will have with the Lord forever.
And so there’s our questions. What do our questions say about us? Our questions say that theology is not just for eggheads. That’s what we’re dealing with is theology. It’s not just for, you know, theologians somewhere; it’s for the mom who lost her baby to a miscarriage. It’s for the man who lost his job because of somebody else’s action. It’s -- somebody said that any theology worth its salt is a theology that speaks to the salt of the earth, to everyday people.
These questions tell me that something I’ve known for a long time, that at Seacoast we are a broken messy people with real life hurts and confusions and that we are hungry for a nearness of God. We’re hungry to know God. Not just in the surface level, but down deep inside.
Hopefully the answers that we discover together will help to reveal how big God is, how real he is, and how present he is, and how much that he loves each one of you.
I want to pray for you. Father, thank you for our time together. God, I thank you that you are a God who loves us. You’re a God who cares. God, you’re a God who is not put off by our questions. You said, "Come let us reason together."
Lord, I pray that you would draw us to you, more than anything else that we be drawn to you during this time, that we would reach out to you, that some of our questions would cause us to look beyond just surface things and say, "What is the meaning of life?" Which we believe can only be found in you.
God, I pray that you would search our hearts now as we prepare to respond to you. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.
