Just have one verse we're going to use really kind of like a theme verse, I guess, to launch into the things we're going to talk about this morning. That verse is found in Isaiah chapter forty five or seven. One of the many verses in the Bible, one of the many portions of passages in the Bible that testify to the great sovereignty of God, that God has, in fact, ordained whatsoever comes to pass. Isaiah forty five, seven. Hear now the Word of God. I formed the light and create darkness. I make peace and create calamity. I, the Lord, do all these things. Thus far, the reading of God's Word. Father in heaven, we do pray this morning that you would expand the horizons of our minds and hearts as we consider The God who has made us and who has saved us. That we, Father, might know more fully your sovereign hand in not only the big things, but the small things. Everything. That we might, Father, take great comfort in this knowledge. For who, Father, would we rather trust? So, bless our time, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. During the past few years, and especially the last few months, I've been in correspondence with a friend of mine, friend of over 50 years, who whose son, a local police officer with two young daughters, seven and nine, was dying of cancer. There were many variables in this that I don't have the liberty to share right now with you. But a couple of weeks ago, the day before his son died, he wrote me a letter expressing his passions and his anger, quite frankly, and his questions that really amounted to this, in which I've entitled this sermon. You know, where is God in the tragedy? I mean, where is God in all of this? If you remember correctly, a few weeks ago, I asked the congregation to pray that I might give him a thoughtful response, accurate, biblical response. At the memorial service this week, Thursday, where, by the way, a very, very solid gospel was preached. It was very encouraging. I mean, there were a lot of people there. This guy, a 35-year-old police officer, we're talking like thousands of people. And quite frankly, you never know what's going to be said at an event like that. And so the guy gets up to preach and You know, I always get a little bit, Lord, come on, let's do something good here. And the guy was great. I mean, he gave a gospel message that was like that. I'm thinking, I hope nobody rushes the platform, you know. Well, while I was driving in the motorcade from the memorial to the gravesite, another tragedy happened. I mean, it got worse. I'm just trying to I'm giving you my uncharacteristic testimony a little bit about how my week was going and the years that led to this week. And I'm driving because there are many people in this event who I know very well, who, quite frankly, aren't getting along well with each other. And I'm kind of driving there, praying and thinking, how can I talk to this person and that person to soothe them in their grief while at the same time? facilitates some reconciliation between them because they're at each other's throats a little. You know, I'm driving, just going, this is so disastrous. And I'm thinking of his two little girls and his daughter who played volleyball at Redondo. I mean, the wife who played volleyball at Redondo where, you know, I coached many years ago. And I'm driving, and we're in this big, long motorcade all the way from Manhattan Beach to San Pedro. And all of a sudden, about 50 feet from my car, I hear a crash. And I look out my window, and debris is flying all over the place. And I look at the motorcycle cop next to me, and he looks, because I can't totally see it. And he puts a siren on and runs over there. Well, if you've been reading the paper, you know what happened. There was a collision, and another motorcycle cop dies with two young children, two boys, 7 and 12. Now, I have a boy 12. You know, I think to myself what it would be like for him to get the news that this little boy was about to get. I have a little boy 5. I have daughters, you know, 10 and 12. I mean, I have kids that age, right? So you're always thinking, what's that going to be – you know, I'm sitting there going, wow, this is overwhelming. This is overwhelming tragedy. And I think of my friend whose son had just died. Now we're going to get to the grave site, and he's going to find out this. at the reception after the graveside, my old friend approached me. And he asked me, he goes, well, do you have answers to my questions? And to be honest with you, I did. And it's not like I've never dealt with this. So it wasn't really a matter of whether or not I had answers to his question. The answer at that point was, you know, being sensitive to the environment You know, I didn't want to just put on the radio host apologetic hat and bowl him over with a biblical response to pain and suffering. You know, I'm looking at a father and a friend who I've known for over 50 years, who's just lost a son and now found out that on the, you know, the motorcade on the way over one other guy's in critical condition and the other one guy dies. So I'm trying to figure out how am I going to answer this? We had a good discussion. And we had an agreement to continue the discussion, because you can imagine in the event of, like I say, hundreds, thousands of people. I asked if I could have his permission to share our discussion. with the congregation and maybe even some other areas. And he was very much into that. He was he's like, these questions need to be answered. See, I had addressed this kind of thing in the Daily Breeze years ago in a column I wrote, and he had read it and he kind of was like, yeah, that's I need I need that explained to me again. So we had the discussion and he said, yeah, if you want to, you can do. And so I have this letter here. I'm not going to read his letter. Because there were things written in the letter that I feel like later he might want to reconsider because he wrote in anger. And, you know, so I want to be sensitive to the fact that he might later go, yeah, I guess I wish I wouldn't have written that. So, you know, I'm going to be selective. And I had originally intended to continue, quite frankly, my sermon on parables today. But as I sat down to write the parable, a sermon on the parable of the Good Samaritan, which is a great parable, I realized that I had what you guys who write books, I guess, call a writer's block. And I'm trying to write. I'm like, I got nothing going here. Nothing's happening here because I couldn't stop thinking about this. We understand. Right. I mean, does that make sense? Because right about now, I'm not sure what's making sense or not. So you might want to give me some really good Baptist head nodding. No, Baptists say things. Presbyterians head nod. So give me just so that I know you're hearing and getting. OK, we can go with the amen. As I read his letter, I realized it got down, it kind of distilled down to three questions that he was asking me. Like, I'm trying to sift through it, right? Because it's an emotional letter. And I'm like, what is he asking me? What does he want to find out? And it got down, friends, to three things. One was, what about the promise of healing in the Bible? What about the people? And this is what happened with him. What about the people who said God told them that his son would be healed? What about that? His thing was God made these promises. He hasn't kept his promise. The Bible promises healing and people came in here and they said that he would be healed. And he wasn't. What about that? Second question. How would God speak to him to answer these types of questions? His next question was, how will I know if it's even God talking to me and giving me the answers to these questions? And the third question being like the big question, why would God take such a fine young man with two little girls? And then during the memorial, take another fine young man with two little boys. Why would God do that? And he's using the word, you know, God protector, God merciful, God loving, God gracious. And he's like, where is that? You kind of understand what's going on here with my friend, right? So first question, what about the promises of healing? What about the people who said God had told them his son would be healed? I have to say. This is the part that I think was the most evil part of the whole thing. People taking it upon themselves to walk into a hospital room, and prophesy and then tell the mother, tell the father, tell the wife, tell the daughters, he's going to be all right. God has told me he's going to be all right. I can't tell you, you know, I'm normally a pretty, maybe from sports, pretty cool, under pressure. This makes me so angry. I'm having to give an apologetic for people within the boundaries of the church who are so amazingly reckless And so I don't want to get all upset and angry here. So I thought I'd do is let God speak So I'm going to read a long portion of the Bible here And let you get an idea of how God feels about that kind of thing. It's in Jeremiah chapter 23 And I'm going to read 16 through 21 and then 25 through 32 and Thus says the Lord of hosts, Do not listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you, filling you with vain hopes. How's that? Is that not exactly what happened here? They speak visions of their own mind. Not from the mouth of the Lord. They say continually to those who despise the word of the Lord, it shall be well with you. And to everyone who stubbornly follows their own heart, they say, no disaster shall come upon you. It's a little different flavor. They're basically saying, look, you don't believe in Jesus. You don't believe in God. You don't believe in the true triune God. You'll be fine. For who among them has stood in the counsel of the Lord to see and to hear his word, or who has paid attention to his word? And listen, I think of Isaiah, who was caught up into the presence of God, who stood before the counsel of God, or the apostle Paul, right? Caught up into the third heaven, had a personal, unmediated audience with God. Behold the storm of the Lord. Wrath has gone forth, a whirling tempest. It will burst upon the head of the wicked. The anger of the Lord will not turn back until he has executed and accomplished the intent of his heart. In the latter days, you will understand it clearly. I did not send the prophets. He's talking about those prophets. I have heard what the prophets have said, who prophesy lies in my name, saying, I have dreamed, I have dreamed. I don't know how many of you. I have had people write their dreams out, their prophetic dreams, and have written them and sent them to me as if I am obliged to view their dream as the word of God. And have chastised me as a pastor for not acquiescing before the authority of their dream. And to be honest, as a young pastor, I was a little bit like vexed. Not anymore. How long shall there be lies in the hearts of the prophets who prophesy lies and prophesy the deceit of their own heart? Who think to make my people forget my name by their dreams that they tell one another, even as the fathers forgot my name in Baal. Let the prophet who has a dream tell the dream. But let him who has my word speak my word faithfully. That is my prayer for me and my interaction with my friend. He's sharing crazy stuff, and my goal, my prayer, my prayer request from you is that I might speak it accurately, faithfully. God is arguing here that there's no comparison between the truth and the lies. What has straw in common with wheat, declares the Lord, is not my word like fire, declares the Lord, and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces. There's a promise there that the truth will prevail. Therefore, behold, I am against the prophets, declares the Lord, who steal my words from one another. Behold, I'm against the prophets, declares the Lord, who use their tongues and declare, declares the Lord. See what he's saying there? The Lord has said. Behold, I'm against those who prophesy lying dreams, declares the Lord, and who tell them and lead my people astray by their lies and their recklessness. when I did not send them or charge them, so they do not profit this people at all, declares the Lord." Friends, self-proclaim modern-day prophets and apostles walk into hospital rooms and start making bold claims about healing and hearing God's voice. I have friends who've done that. I have a friend in the ministry who tried to raise somebody from the dead. I go, you did what? He goes, yeah, they were dead. He goes, I just and I'm thinking that's not the way it works. You tried it and failed. That you read your Bible and it doesn't work that way. It's not as if the prophet, you know, Elijah or Paul or Peter or the it's not as if, hey, we'll try it and see if it works. It's not as if when Jesus raised somebody from the dead that it might not happen. Or when Peter said, silver and gold I have none, but in the name of Jesus, get up and walk. It wasn't as if that might not happen. It would happen because it was something he did with apostolic authority. He spoke for God. Prophets spoke for God. They took the authority to say, I'm not saying this, thus saith the Lord. And everybody in the room had to bow before those words. And even in the Bible, it was an exception. And not everything the Apostle Paul ever said, if I can put it this way, was apostolic. Not everything he ever did, if you think of Paul or Peter, not everything they always did was exactly what God would have them do. It's almost like they recognized when they were speaking as an apostle and when they weren't. You think about this for a second. Paul had a friend that he really loved, that he really cared about. We see it in Philippians chapter 2, I believe, is Epaphroditus. And he was sick, and he was dying. And the Apostle Paul says, you know, that God healed him. And not only that, it was a great favor to me, because my sorrow would have been so great. Okay, you know the story? But wasn't that the same Apostle Paul who was teaching a Bible study late into the night? And Eutychus was on the third floor, and he fell asleep. Not that I've ever experienced that as a teacher of a Bible study. And he fell out of a three story window and died. And what did the apostle Paul do? He went back downstairs and brought him back to life. So don't you have to ask the question, well, Paul, couldn't you just bring Epaphroditus back to life? But he recognized even there, even then, it was specific. God calling the apostles to specific things they would do or say that were apostolic. And there were signs of an apostle. That they might do these signs and wonders, by the way, not seen in a vacuum, not done in a vacuum, but seen by all. When Paul was on trial, he's talking to, I think it was, was it Agrippa he was talking to? Or he's going, look at you. These things weren't done in a corner. Everybody saw Jesus rise from the dead. Everybody saw the feeding of the five thousand. You hear about people, you know, who've done miraculous things and stuff. But, you know, why isn't that on CNN? Or at least Fox News. You think Fox would cover something like that? Because there was a uniqueness to that. Friends, there is a danger, there is a danger and an incredibly abusive element to those who deny Sola Scriptura. We've seen it in mass. You know, this may not be politically correct. We've seen it in mass in the Roman Catholic Church all throughout history. And we see it in things like my friend just had to endure with people walking in saying, the Lord has told me your son's going to be fine. As far as promise of healing, we must recognize That not only was supernatural healing an exception then. I mean, for all the people in the world who were sick, a very small number of people actually were supernaturally healed, right? I mean, people in contact with Jesus are the apostles. That was it. There were people all over the world. I'm certainly not suggesting there's no value in praying for people to be healed. But keep this in mind, and this is something I don't know. I'm always a little shocked. When people, when bad things happen to people and then they deny their faith because something bad happened. You know, like my friend's struggling with this. I'm not insensitive to that. I can only put it this way. Every last single person that Jesus healed, every last single person that the apostles healed are dead. They all died. The healing had a purpose. The purpose of the healing, the supernatural healing, was to give the credibility to the person who had the ability to heal that they were speaking the Word of God. So does God still heal? Yeah, I believe He does. But we need to recognize the problem here isn't whether or not God has the power to heal. The problem is we need to recognize God's sovereign hand in all things. And there is appointed for us a time to die. And that time to die is an appointment made by God. Now, it kind of gets me to my to my fourth point, but what we need to recognize here and an answer to that first question is every last one of our prayers needs to have a subtext and the subtext is not my will, but thy will be done. It's always got to be there. Obviously, Jesus said that. But James tells us to all say that. Instead, you ought to say, he's going, you know what? You plan to go here. You're going to do that. You got all these plans and you think you're going to do it. He goes, you arrogant man. Here's what you need to say to yourself. And here's what you need to say. You should say, if the Lord wills, we will live and do this and do that. I mean, it's got to be, you know, I'll see you later. Quite frankly, I'll talk to you guys later. And it's always you don't have to say it every time. Right. But Lord willing. So it's always Lord willing. So the bottom line. And you know what, this is the bottom line for which we should all be thankful. Is that men are not calling the shots in life. God is. OK, now, I'm very 25 years ago, I would have been very comfortable with where I am in my notes right now. because I used to be very from-the-hip. I was great. I was a from-the-hip guy. Mick remembers, right? In St. Andrews, I'd get up in front to preach, and my notes would be, talk about God. Over the years, I've grown to have a healthy fear of this post. I think you should be afraid to talk about God. I mean, a healthy fear, because you don't want to just wing things. But because of the way the week was, I was originally going to give a sermon on the. What was I going to give a sermon on? And I just couldn't do it. And I writing and even when I'm writing this, I'm just I'm sitting there going, I guess Thursday is the day I would get this all done. And I was at the memorial all day long and. So I only had and then I had these notes that were just so scattered. That's why you don't have notes today. Right. I'm like, I can't seem to put together these notes. And I wasn't really comfortable with that. So I got up this morning really early. I gave myself about two or three hours this morning, got up, you know, kind of just barely light. And I'm like, I need to organize this. I need to get this. I can't get up and just do this from the hip because I don't want to. I'm not that vulnerable and transparent. What have you. So I go down and I start writing and writing and writing. And I get right to here where it says that men are not calling the shots in life. God is. And I hit the period. And somehow, for some reason, my delete key just starts deleting everything. And I'm like watching. I have six more pages of notes. And it's sucking it in there. You know, it's not the backspace. It's the delete. And it's kind of like looking at my coffee on the delete key and my leaning on something. And I'm trying to click and nothing's clicking. And I go, maybe my mouse isn't working. And then I think maybe I can voice activate. I'm like, stop. Stop doing that stuff. And it just goes all the way to the end. And I'm like. I'm not charismatic. I'm not a charismatic, right? But if I were charismatic, I would say either a demon was pushing the delete key or an angel. How would I know, right? But I do believe in providence. And I do believe that that was it. And God was basically providentially going, you're pretty much done with any type of thorough presentation. So your congregation is simply going to have to endure The second and third point, kind of from the hip. Well, here are the questions and I'll just give you the answers the best I can. How does God, how would God speak to him to answer these types of questions? Well, my first answer is these answers are found in scripture. that we need to understand that it's not a person walking into the hospital room, and it's not, and this guy's got a Roman Catholic background, it's not the priest who, quite frankly, he was more upset at than anybody because of the things they were saying. You know, for example, he's telling me the priest was talking to his son who died at 35, and the priest's counsel was, well, you know, Jesus died at 33. And he and I are both looking at each other going, what does that even mean? Like, what is the counsel there? Where's the answer? The answer, the answer is found in the Word of God. But that doesn't mean if you believe in the Word of God that you don't believe in teachers. The Bible, you know, Ephesians 4, 11 says God has, you know, prophets and evangelists, teachers. And so we are to avail ourselves of teachers. And what we need to do to find this answer is not only study the word of God, but avail ourselves of those people God has raised up to be teachers. And I would argue that you really need teachers who are accountable to counsel. So I'm going to put it this far. I'm going to go way Presbyterian on you right now. And in light of what just happened with Harold Camping, there should be amens for that, because when I get up here and say, here's what I think the Bible means. There's a group of elders in this church who essentially are standing behind me saying, amen, amen, amen. You know, we're taking responsibility for what our teaching elder says. And you as a congregation, if you hear me go amiss, you go to that session and you go, you know, Pastor Paul seems to be going herald camping on us. And, you know, and then the session needs to kind of evaluate because it's easy for one person to go wacky. It's a little harder for seven people to go wacky. It can happen. It's a little harder for a denomination to go wacky. It can happen. But that's the failsafe that God has utilized. I mean, I don't know if you heard the interview with Harold Camping this last week, you know, about why he had to change the date and there was a spiritual, you know, judgment and all this stuff. But what caught my attention was because, you know, he doesn't believe in the church. He believes the church age is over. He doesn't believe that we should even be meeting here. I mean, his eschatology is the least of his problems. His comment was that he's not in authority over anybody except his wife. And quite frankly, he's not under any authority. There's no counsel. There's no session he's answerable to. And then he'll say this. He'll say, I'm not telling you my opinion. I'm just telling you what the Bible says. You know what needs to be inserted there? What needs to be inserted is, I'm just telling you my opinion of what the Bible says. But you see the arrogance there? You know, in the beginning of the sermon, I said, hear now the word of God, thus far the reading of God's word. That's what the Bible says. And when I look up and start talking, it's my opinion of what it means. And let me tell you something, I may be wrong. Because I am not an apostle, and I'm not a prophet. I am a teacher and teachers are subject to error. And you have a responsibility to study and hold me accountable. And I have a responsibility to the session at this church. And we need to be watching each other. So how does God speak to us? He speaks to us by the word of God, utilizing a proper instituted structure of pastors, elders and so on. Not just somebody going, hey, I got a Bible and my heart's beating. Therefore, I'm a teacher. Finally, and this is the big question. Why would why? He's like, why would God do this? Why would you know, why would God take where the word is the word he wrote? Find a young man with two daughters and then take another man with two sons. Let me just tell you something. What I thought was really accurate in his question. And because a lot of my Friends in ministry would correct, would try to correct his question when he said, why did God do this? You know, a lot of people say a lot of Christians say God didn't do that. I don't want to be insulting. Smart people don't receive that answer. They they don't. You're asking somebody to suspend their intellect, to suspend their disbelief long enough to be comforted by bad theology. I mean, at very least, the next question a thoughtful person might ask is, well, could he have stopped it? To which everybody will say, everybody within remotely Orthodox Christianity will say, well, yeah, he could have stopped it. And then the next question, well, why didn't he? I mean, does not God hold me responsible for the things that I could do and then fail to do? Is not negligence a sin? Didn't Jesus said, I was hungry and you what? Did not feed me. I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink. I was in prison and you didn't visit me. Implied in all those questions is you could have and you didn't. Doesn't the psalmist say that God will hold us responsible for delivering the innocent whose blood is shed? I mean, over and over, God is saying, look it, you know what's the right thing to do. And so it's not just a sin you commit. It's a sin of omission. It's the things that you should do that you fail to do. And so to say God could have done it and didn't doesn't help the argument. You think of Job. Job got it. Right. What did he say? You know, some verses you hear a lot. God helps those who help themselves. Adverse. I think that was Ben Franklin, right? The first book of Ben. That's not in the Bible, but, you know, I remember thinking it was in the Bible. It's not in the Bible. How about the Lord gives. And the Lord takes away, is that in the Bible, it is in the Bible, it's in the first chapter of Job, the Lord, and you know what the context was? His family. His children had been killed. The Lord gives. The Lord takes away. You know how that ends? Blessed be the name of the Lord. Wow. You're just like going, whoa. I form the light and create darkness. I make peace and create what? Calamity. I, the Lord, do all these things. That word in the Hebrew for create, It means to shape, to cut, to carve, to form by cutting. It's the idea of God being like in his workshop going, I am making something here. I'm structuring something here. I create calamity. And some people, some versions will say evil. Some of your versions. And people resist that. And I can understand because God's not the author of evil. So they may not be a good translation, but the word. Translated, the Hebrew word means evil, or distress, or misery, or injury, or calamity. You know what it means? It means one of those things that if you and I were sitting there watching it, we'd be saying to ourselves, I want none of that. Calamity. Who's looking for calamity, or distress, or misery? You know the famine? We read about famines in the Bible, right? Remember the seven year of famine? I can't think of too many things that would be worse than a people dying in a famine, slowly starving to death. Then Elijah spoke to the woman whose son he had restored to life, saying, Arise and go, you and your household, and stay wherever you can, for the Lord has called for a famine. And furthermore, it will come upon the land for seven years. He didn't say, you know what, the Lord saw that a famine was coming, so he decided to use it as an object lesson. Or, you know, he checked the weather and there's going to be bad crops. The Lord has called for a famine. Over and over again, we see these things that you and I would view as, quite frankly, tragic, negative things, and God is not backpedaling. He's not saying I didn't have anything to do with that. You know, we have this kind of Elvis has left the building thing going when bad stuff happens. God didn't do that. Well, if you read your Bible, it seems like he does. Who put evil spirits into King Saul? The Bible says God did it. God is not going to allow us to think that the events in history are random. Or that somehow the devil is the ultimate cause of things. What do you think the story of Job is about? What is that whole big, long story about? You read Job. People read it. I remember reading it when a loved one died because you're like, OK, I need to I need to get in the dust here with Job. Job is a story of. The persevering faith that God grants those who believe in him. That's why they believe in him, because God has granted them persevering faith. Remember Job, the devil, goes to God and says, yeah, Job believes in you because you give him all this stuff. Take away the stuff and he'll curse you to your face. That's the dialogue. And God says, go ahead, have your way with him. I mean, that's what's going on here. So Job is attacked. Household, family, health, ashes. Who did that stuff to him? Satan? Yes. The Chaldeans? Yes. The Sabeans? Yes. But when Job recounts the events, who does he acknowledge as the one who's brought this to him? But he said to her, talking to his wife, he just said, you should just curse God and get it over with and die. You speak as one of the foolish women speak, shall we indeed accept good from God and shall we not accept adversity? When Job said in all of this, when Job said, though he slay me. Yet, well, I trust in him. Who is he talking about? The devil? No. Job understood that in an ultimate sense, this was all coming from from God. So anyway, I took a long time explaining that. I had to make the argument, I guess. But my friend's question is accurate. Why did God take him? And the answer is not God didn't do it. I didn't launch into all of this stuff at the memorial service with him. I just didn't question his question. I thought it was the right question. What is the answer? I mean, why God does that stuff? Don't we read in the Bible that God has great blessings for us? Don't we read in the Bible that God is a God who blesses? That God is, in fact, a gracious, loving, merciful protector? I mean, Paul writes it this way. He talks about what no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, God has prepared for those who love Him. I mean, you're looking at that going, You can't, if I don't have the ability to tell you how wonderful, and if I could, you wouldn't have the ability, the intellectual ability to grasp how wonderful. Not even in our imaginations. That's why, and I told you this before, when it comes to talking about hell, I always feel like I fall short of how bad it is. And when I talk about heaven, I always fall short of how good it is. I mean, the promises in the scriptures. So what's the deal? Well, I'll tell you what I think the deal is. I think that. And don't get me wrong, I believe that God is working in history, I believe that God is redeeming households and people and countries and nations, and I believe God is working through history, but. But I also believe over and above, quite frankly, that That it seems to be the purpose of God, if I could put it this way, in this age, to make sure that our treasure, our heart, is in the age to come. You understand what I'm saying? You know, Paul said, for me to live is Christ, but to die is what? Gain. That the idea is that God is orchestrating what's going on here with the express purpose of making sure that our faces are ever turned up. That we don't get so comfortable with what's going on here that we forget that the end of our lives will, in fact, be the end of our lives here on this earth, which will be followed by the age to come being in the presence of Christ forever. I'm trying to explain to my friend. whose son was led to Christ on his deathbed by this great pastor who gave a great sermon. And I don't have any doubt, as much as my human ability, that that was a legitimate conversion. And I'm looking at my friend, I go, you know what? The point is that if, in fact, you believe in Christ, that you and your son and I in a thousand years from now, in ten thousand years from now, we'll be rejoicing forever in heaven. And this day, is a day that somehow we'll praise God for. As hard as it is right now, that this day, this darkest day in your life, will be a day that you'll praise God that it happened. This will be nothing compared to the... How does Paul say it? He goes, you know, the trials, the tribulations, the pain, the suffering I go through now aren't even worthy to be compared to the glory that we will have. There's no comparison. He's not saying, you know what, the pain level here is a seven, but the glory level in heaven is going to be an eight. He's like, no, there's no comparison. I guess that's one way of. Us getting it right, when you think of the pain and the sorrow and he's going, you know how bad you feel, that's we can't even use that as a test to how wonderful the glory of heaven will be. The Apostle Paul wrote, I think, it this way in Romans chapter five, he says, therefore. This is I realized as I'm teaching my Bible study at the retirement home, I'm going through Romans and I realized that like every third verse in Romans is my favorite verse. And they're a little older, so they forget that I said that a different verse was my favorite verse. Except for Percy, he's like, didn't you just say last week that Romans five was your favorite verse? No, Percy, you don't remember correctly. But this is great. Therefore. Having been justified by faith, we have peace with God. Through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him. We have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. More than that. And now he goes on to go, you know, this I mean, if that's not good enough, let me explain where I'm going with this. More than that. We rejoice in our suffering. OK, now he's going to do, he's going to take this and he's going to lead it down a little kind of line of a cause and effect, right? Because I'm looking at that going, OK, explain to me exactly why I should rejoice in my suffering. I didn't say this to my friend. I was hoping he'd get it. But I mean, if I could to go, you know what, my friend, you can rejoice in your suffering. Why? Well, we rejoice in our suffering. Knowing that suffering produces endurance. And endurance produces character. And character produces hope. Remember that we have the hope of what the hope of the glory of God, he just said, so he's going like it in order for you to fully appreciate that. hope of the glory of God. God takes you through a series of suffering, endurance, pain, leads you to character and to hope. I am molding in you the kind of person who recognizes that ultimately your peace is found with me in eternity. You kind of get what he's doing here, what Paul seems to be saying here? And then over and against everything that you and I own and have and appreciate in this world, he says, and hope does not put us to shame because God's love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. The hope doesn't disappoint. The hope doesn't put us to shame. You know, I mean, Scott, I think, read the passage, right? Do not store up where moths can eat, right? Where rust can destroy. And I kind of feel like when we go through that stuff, when we go through those difficult things, when we go through that pain, and don't get me wrong, I think I don't want to outlive any of my kids. I don't want to have to go through what my friend went through. I don't want to go through that pain. I don't want to go through that sorrow. But I do hope and I pray that I would recognize this and we'd all recognize this, that no matter what we go through, it is the design of our loving father to bring us closer to him, that we might recognize that ultimately our peace lies with him in eternity. Amen to that. Let's pray. Father in heaven, we do pray that you would give us the mind of Christ and that we might be people whose thoughts would never stray far from recognizing that the message of the gospel is one of eternal peace, of that final resurrection where we will be with you forever. Certainly, Father, it is that event that the Apostle Paul calls Christians to comfort one another with. Help us, Father, to have that as our treasure, that we might be ever comforted. And even though, Father, we might experience, even as our Savior did, grief and sorrow, that we would never, ever enter into despair, knowing, Father, that there is hope, the hope of life eternal. a gift purchased for us, not through anything we have done, but Father, by you sending your Son to die, that we might live. Father, even this morning as we go to the Lord's table, may we recognize that as the message of the Gospel. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.