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The sermons found on this blog are selected sermons preached by Rev. Wyrick during a ministry of over 50 years. This syndicated columnist/minister thanks you for visiting.
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THE WHY AND WHAT TO DO ABOUT SUFFERING
Hebrews 10:31 “fall into the hands of the living God. ” (check new translation)
(A CONTINUATION FROM LAST TUESDAY)
But what about suffering one does not pursue? Not health pattern mistakes but nature on a rampage. Floods and famine and earthquakes? Or depression or the death of a wife in a car accident? The questions are not new ones. Job in the book of Job asked them.
Book of Job. Fast overview. Why did tempest destroy both house and children? Why did fire burn up servants and sheep? Why miserable and painful sores from the top of his head to the bottom of his toes. Why all to a man whom the Bible calls“blameless and upright, one who feared God, and turned away from evil?”
Move from the Old testament to the New and the question does not go away. A man born blind and neither he or parents first class sinners. All this spelled out by good authority, by Jesus himself.
Who and why? It is the ultimate question for which we seek an ultimate answer. Nature gone awry. Accidents without rhyme or reason. Jesus says“If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him?” And you in all honesty reply, “Tell me about it. . . explain to me why when I have asked for bread I have been given a stone. . . explain to be why when I have asked for health I have been given sickness. tell me about it” And God does.
Through Jesus who begins to give an answer with definitions and deeds. On top of a mountain where he is tempted by the Devil. When he cast out deamons. When He calls this source of evil. “. . . a liar and a father of lies” And if you let theological common sense speak to you you begin to get a message. God allows pain and problems but does not inflict them. God is not a deamon or a devil or schizophrenic.
If you have problem with this answer look at the cross. In shouts mortality and immortality. Pain and salvation. The mystery of life and an answer to life. It shouts the power of the Devil is a transient power. Momentary victories but not ultimate triumphs.
Pain can be a friend. It makes an athlete slow down and rest a pulled muscle or broken bone. It does not allow us to keep an appendage on a stove until it is burned beyond repair.
Does God use evil to bring about good, suffering to bring about salvation? The answer is yes. Does this mean he sends evil and suffering? The answer is no. Does then bad come from an evil Devil and good from a good God? I’m confortable with that.
Why doesn’t God just rewrite the script? Edit out all pain and problems. Create Paradise as a present reality rather than something to which we go? I don’t know completely why. By study, prayer and insight I know enough to be able to live with what I don’t know.
I do know that is creative pain and pointless pain. That having a baby is creative. That passing a kidney stone is pointless unless by driving a man to his knees he stays there long enough to pray.
I do know that God has given us a largely precise and orderly world. That heavy objects don’t float and light objects don’t squash.
I do know that the body you see standing before you is a miracle that defies description. That because my digestive system and circulation system are functioning properly I am alive and have been alive for quite some long while. That I am seeing you and you are seeing me because the pupils of my eyes are contracting and expanding. And the miracle goes on and on.
I do know that this body has remarkable recuperative powers. That I have broken bones, and had a heart attack, and a kidney removed. 13 major physical problems and the body has adapted and I continue function at a very high level.
I do know that if a bullet is fired at me I will be seriously wounded or die. That if I go where disease is in abundance I may walk away with that disease. That if I jump out a 5 story building someone may shout at me as I go by the third floor, so far so good, but that I will indeed in a very short time go splat. The law of gravity has not been repealed.
I do know that pain is the price we pay for being alive. My fingernails are not alive and feel no pain. My hair is not alive and feels no pain. But I, Neil Wyrick, am alive. . . vitally, with soul and spirit, enthusiastically miraculously alive.
I know that certain questions must be asked if we are to deal with pain and problems. . . such as how I can I make times of pain and problem meaningful.
I know pain makes some people bitter and others empathetic and compassionate.
I know people recover from sickness faster when people pray for them.
In Swift’s Gulliver’sTravels in the land of Lugg . Gulliver imagines these children to be the most fortunate people imaginable, “being born exempt from that universal calamity of human nature,” death.
But as he comes to know them, he realizes that they are in fact most miserable. They grow old and feeble. Their friends and contemporaries die off. At the age of eighty, their property is taken from them and given to their children, who would otherwise never inherit from them. Their bodies contract various ailments, they accumulate grudges and grievances, they grow weary of the struggle of life, and they can never look forward to being released from the pain of living.
There are many things I do not know or understand and many that I do. And one of those I can comprehend is that while death at first seems frightening and tragic, to know I would never die would be unbearable.
If people lived forever here on earth the world would become terribly crowed and there would be a public outcry every time a birth took place. And what a loss if there was no infant population. No fresh starts. No new beginnings.
I know that once a war is started all the meanness in man is multiplied and that war does not have Gods’ blessing. I know that when on TV we see thousands starving to death God did not create the famine but rather greedy men, or lazy men who would not practice proper agricultural procedure, or dig enough wells. I know that sometimes this may not be true but that too often it is.
I know that when men do not practice brotherhood they worship at an altar of brutality, brutality of spirit that leads to brutal actions that leads to earthly hell.
I know that when we waste funds on foolish projects or shrivel funds by fraud we prolong the causes of diseases that might otherwise be discovered.
I do know that insurance companies call floods and tornadoes acts of God. I know I call the people who come out of the woodwork to help people they don’t even know, I call their acts of God.
I do know the worst of times bring out the best in people.
I almost decided not to preach on this subject or too avoid what I’m now trying to explain because it’s a theological problem with both devil horns and angel wings. Because there’s not a one of us here this morning who hasn’t wrestled with it.
But it has to be preached on. It has to be looked at. And when we’re through if you gotten a bit more insight its’ worth the foolishness that led me to try to explain.
Two men are in a car wreck. One is made well. One is welcomed into paradise. My left arm was paralyzed for two solid months and then the paralysis went away. What if it had not? How would having a permanently crippled arm have affected my life, my attitudes, the mortal me? I have no idea. I only know that somehow tragedy struck and somehow healing took place.
My father had two hard attacks and was dead in four days. My mother had 14 heart attacks and never died of a heart attack. , finally passing away from uremic poisoning.
I know this. There are only two choices when there are too many problems and too much pain.
One is to rebel and the other is to attempt to relate.
Poets and philosophers and theologians and the Apostle Paul have mightily sought to give satisfactory answers to this mighty question.
Paul says “. . . the thorn in his side. . . ” which is never readily identified “. . perfected his weakness. ”
Yet another unknown writer wrote,
“My life is but the weaving
Between my God and me.
I only choose the colors
He weaveth steadily.
Sometimes he weaveth sorrow.
And I in foolish pride,
Forget he sees the upper.
And I the under side. ”
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Recent articles Rev. Wyrick has written for this web site are:
· Here Comes Summer (July 2012)
· Spring(May 2012)
· Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow (April 2012)
· Wayward and Windy (April 2012)
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