What about the bus crash with believers returning from a Gospel Concert?

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Permalink Reply by Carla on October 5, 2013 at 6:59am

I'm posting this here.  I came across it this morning.  It's long..  It's incredible. 

 

First in the "Experiencing God" series. Delivered February 26, 2006 by Rev. John Schmidt.

Theme: Even in a world as messed up as ours, God is already and always at work to effect his plan of salvation. We need to learn how to recognize the signs of God's work in our personal world. This is the first step of adjusting our lives to his work in the world around us.

The audio file of this sermon is available for download and listening in MP3 format.

Click to Download & Listen (4.4MB)

Sermon Text: Exodus 1-2:10

 

I've got yesterday's newspaper here.  I have to use yesterday's newspaper because Sunday's paper is never in our house when I leave for church on Sunday morning.  I always have to see it when I go back.  So this is yesterday's paper and take a look at the front page.  On this side there is an article that has to do with the fact that terrorism is a problem in the world.  It's a terrible thing.  On the other side you can see that there is a long-standing debate in our culture over the issue of abortion.  On the bottom of the same side there is an article that's talking about the fact that the Academy is stunned by an accusation that an assault happened in the Naval Academy.

Going to page 9 on the inside, more bad news; more news about war, that there is violence in Iraq on top of violence.  Another reference to terrorism, an attack on Saudi oil processing sites.  This is not fun reading.  Let's go the Maryland; maybe Maryland is a little better.  I hear knowing laughs here.  Quite apart from the politics there is other bad news, okay.  Epidemics, a fear of pandemics, diseases so bad that they can wipe out millions of people.  At the bottom of the front part of the Maryland section they are talking about a teenager, teenagers getting gunned down in the streets.

This is what news is like about the world that we live in.  You can take any day; I could have taken today's paper, I could take tomorrow's or last week's and this is the kind of news that we run into, because this is what the world is like.  And I am going to be talking today about the fact that God is at work in the world.  This kind of world?  A world that has war, a world that has murders, worldwide threat of diseases, assaults, guns, tanks, nuclear bombs, famine, genocide, AIDS, this is all the stuff we get in the daily news.  And when we look in the news what we see there you know is sort of familiar because even though we are not making front pages, there is a lot of bad news in our lives too.

This has been an incredibly bad week for Central Presbyterian Church. There is a member of our congregation that was assaulted at work and was hospitalized.  There is the Davis family whose son got into a skiing accident.  Judy heard the news while she was in the hospital.  I think it was her brother-in-law that was in the hospital at the same time and her mother came in to the hospital as she was leaving.  This is all in one day.

Our situation might not be quite as acute as that, but we all have these dramas, these difficulties, this bad news that is going on in our lives.  It might be illnesses.  It might be tensions in our families. There is the struggle of divorce.  There are problems that our kids are having and it's just all of these problems and it just doesn't seem that we can get our arms around them all the time and really handle them. And this is the stuff of our daily lives and it's true for the person next door.  The same drama is happening next door and might even be worse.

And so in this world we are saying that God is at work.  This world, the real world, not some make believe world, you know a kind of world that we pretend exists when we put on a happy church face and come in and are like, "Oh yeah, God is at work and everything is fine." We are tempted to do that because we look around and it looks like everything is fine with everybody else, but we are saying not in that make believe world, but in the real world, the world we go home to, where we live, where we work, where we play.  In that world, God is at work.  We don't have to be afraid of being realistic, because the Bible is realistic. Let's take a look at Exodus 1.  Let's pray.

God, we thank you for your word and we pray now that as we look in to it, may the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, for you are our Rock and our Redeemer.  Amen.

Let's take a look at Exodus 1.  I am going to go through the whole chapter verse by verse.

"These are the names of the sons of Israel who went to Egypt with Jacob, each with his family: Reuben, Simeon, Levi and Judah; Issachar, Zebulun and Benjamin; Dan and Naphtali; Gad and Asher." One of the things that you have to remember is that you just say those things with confidence no matter how you pronounce them, because nobody knows.  "The descendants of Jacob numbered seventy in all; Joseph was already in Egypt.  Now Joseph and all his brothers and all that generation died, but the Israelites were fruitful and multiplied greatly and became exceedingly numerous, so that the land was filled with them."

These first few verses are some good news.  Back a little earlier in the life of Israel when they were just a large family, the initial founding families of this tribe of Israel.  When they were still just a group of brothers and their families there came a time that a famine hit their land and they were able to move to Egypt because they had kicked their brother out of the family years before.  I can't go in to all of the details of the story, but God used something terrible that they did to their own brother years and years later to save the whole family, so this family could move to Egypt where there was food and the tribe survived.  And so now these people live in Egypt as refugees; not in their own land, not with their own culture and their own language, but living there and they prosper.  That is what it says in Verse 6.  They became exceedingly numerous were fruitful and multiplied.  Good news as far as it goes. If you can call it good news when you are a refugee people and you are not in your own country.  Let's go on.

"Then a new king, who did not know about Joseph, came to power in Egypt.  "Look," he said to his people, "the Israelites have become much too numerous for us.  Come, we must deal shrewdly with them or they will become even more numerous and, if war breaks out, will join our enemies, fight against us and so leave the country." So they put slave masters over them to oppress them with forced labor, and they built Pithom and Rameses as store cities for Pharaoh.  But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread; so that the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites and worked them ruthlessly. They made their lives bitter with hard work, hard labor in brick and mortar and with all kinds of work in the fields; in all their hard labor the Egyptians used them ruthlessly."

Well the good news was that they were multiplying, but the bad news comes that this threatens the leadership of their country and so they enslave the people.  So this group that is already refugees now becomes slaves and it's not an easy life.  Look at how often the word ruthlessly is used.  Bitter lives with hard labor, oppressed with forced labor. It's a terrible situation and yet it's a situation that reflects the kind of world we live in even now.  The world is like this.  So there is bad news in this chapter.  And yet in the middle of it there is a little bit of good news because even though this was going on, they continued to multiply and spread.  Well it's bad, but it gets worse.  Go down to Verse 15.

"The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, whose names were Shiphrah and Puah, "When you help the Hebrew women in childbirth and observe them on the delivery stool, if it is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, let her live." The midwives, however, feared God and did not do what the king of Egypt had told them to do; they let the boys live. Then the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and asked them, "Why have you done this? Why have you let the boys live?" The midwives answered Pharaoh, "Hebrew women are not like Egyptian women; they are vigorous and give birth before the midwives arrive."

Now this is not the first lie in scripture and it's not the last. Genocide, this king decides that an entire race of people shouldn't live.  Think about the families that are living there.  These Hebrew families are already refugees, already living in a foreign country with memories of what it would be like, this land that was promised for your ancestors and as you have this longing, life gets worse.  Your whole nation is made slaves and then they start to kill your children before your eyes as they are born.  This is not good news.  But this is the real world. Parents having to watch their children die and in this case for a political reason.  There are two people though that stand up against this.  There is a little tiny glimmer of good news.  The midwives who are asked to do this don't do it because they fear God. There is something bigger than even the king in their lives.  They are not about to do this to their own people.  And so we see a little glimmer of good news in that and then we see even more because to a certain extent they get away with it.  It says now in Verse 20:

"So God was kind to the midwives and the people increased and became even more numerous.  And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families of their own."

So there is a little glimmer here that God actually rewards this faithfulness because so many midwives were midwives because they were married women who didn't have families of their own and this is one of the ministries or jobs that they had.  And so God gives them families of their own.  Again, a little bit of good news.  It would be great if it ended there, but it doesn't.  Verse 22:

"Then Pharaoh gave this order to all his people: "Every boy that is born, you must throw into the Nile, but let every girl live."

So, Chapter 1 ends with the Pharaoh saying, okay I can't get it done through the midwives, we are going to kill them some other way and he sends out the word to everyone.  Now this is bad news.  If the book ended here it would be nothing but bad news, but it doesn't.  This is the start of the Book of Exodus.  There is more coming.  We see the nation in trouble.  We see God working among some of them to protect them.  And then we come to Chapter 2 where God is at work in one individual's life.  Let's take a look at what happens there.  Chapter 2, and I am going to begin at Verse 1.

"Now a man of the house of Levi married a Levite woman, and she became pregnant and gave birth to a son. When she saw that he was a fine child, she hid him for three months.  But when she could hide him no longer, she got a papyrus basket for him and coated it with tar and pitch. Then she placed the child in it and put it among the reeds along the bank of the Nile.  His sister stood at a distance to see what would happen to him.  Then Pharaoh's daughter came, went down to the Nile to bathe, and her attendants were walking along the riverbank. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her slave girl to get it. She opened it and saw the baby. He was crying, and she felt sorry for him. "This is one of the Hebrew babies," she said.  Then his sister asked Pharaoh's daughter, "Shall I go and get one of the Hebrew women to nurse the baby for you?" "Yes, go," she answered. And the girl went and got the baby's mother.  Pharaoh's daughter said to her, "Take this baby and nurse him for me, and I will pay you." So the woman took the baby and nursed him. When the child grew older, she took him to Pharaoh's daughter and he became her son. She named him Moses, saying, "I drew him out of the water."

In the midst of all of these stories going on, stories that we don't know any of the details about, in the midst of all that there's one story, one family where a baby is put into the river.  A mother has done all she can to make sure that the baby will stay safe and God preserves this child.  And there is a sense of humor about it.  There is an irony here, because who is it that ends up protecting the baby?  Pharaoh's own daughter, the very person that gave the command, its from his family that God is going to protect a child that God is going to use in the future.  And then God uses the baby's own mother to nurse the child and then she gets paid to do it.  Amazing what God is doing.  God's control is so complete here that he is making a fool out of Pharaoh's family. The problem is, no one knows.

All people who were living then can see is Chapter 1; the fact that God is actually at work in a way to preserve a single individual that ultimately is going to liberate the entire people; none of that is known, none of that is understood at the time.  It's invisible.  God is at work.  God is in control, but we can't see it.  That's the kind of world they lived in and that's the kind of world we live in.  Despite all of the problems and despite all of the suffering, God is concerned and we see the other side of reality in Chapter 3.  We are going to be looking more at Chapter 3 in the future, but I want to hit a few verses, just about 2 or 3 verses in Chapter 3 that give us a sense of God's heart.  Chapter 3, verse 7:

"The Lord said I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers and I am concerned about their suffering, so I have come down to rescue them."

We will stop there.  That is the only part I will read.  I have heard, I have seen, I am concerned, I have come to rescue; that is the other side of reality, that while all of these terrible things are going on in Chapter 1, God sees it, God hears it, God is concerned about it and God is getting ready to do something about it and when he begins to sovereignly work, people can't even see it because God is using Pharaoh's own household to get it to happen.

Our church vision can be summarized by saying: moving people toward Christ where we live, work and play.  Now that's not our mission statement.  Our mission statement is outside and talks about equipping and loving and helping people by sending them out.  But when we think about how all of this lived out in the community and we write it all up paragraph after paragraph and we boil it all down, what we are saying is that we want to be moving people towards Christ where we live, work and play.  And if that's our calling as a church then that means that first we've got to believe that God is moving people towards Christ right around us.

It's what we have got to believe.  If we are going to experience God, God has got to be there to experience.  He's got to be engaged with this world.  He's got to be engaged with our lives.  And so we've got to begin our whole understanding by this fact that God is at work right around us.  But that means that God is right now moving people towards Christ through the things that these people who live around us are experiencing right now.  We might not be able to see it, but in some of these families, in some of these places God is at work just as truly as he was at work in Moses' life.  It might be an illness that hits the family.

We had an officer's retreat this weekend.  We got our elders, deacons and trustees together and one of the elders shared about how he came to know Christ.  He abused alcohol most of his early life.  He was sort of physically belligerent with people, determined that nobody would ever take advantage of him.  And one day his Christian wife got deathly ill and they were afraid she was going to die and in that time when she was so ill he got to see this body take care of them.  People came over and brought food.  People ran errands.  People did those things that need to be done when a family is in crisis.

Now these people were just like those midwives; they are just doing what's right.  They are doing what they know they have to do.  They don't necessarily know how it is all going to add up; how God is going to weave it in to something bigger. But as these faithful came and loved them and accepted him unconditionally he would look at them and notice that there was something in their lives that he really wanted.  That there was a reality there that he just couldn't deny and this particular illness, even after she became well, this illness was a turning point that directly led him to that day that he confessed Jesus Christ as his own Savior and Lord.  And the people who were helping that family had no idea that not only would it turn him from darkness to light and change his life, and help him receive everything that God is willing to give, but that through his life he would now be mentoring other people. That's the bigger picture.  That's the part we don't see when it's all happening around us.  God is at work in those illnesses.  God is at work in those family difficulties, in the financial issues, in all those burdens that we carry and people carry who live around us.  What we believe is God is at work.

If we are going to be talking about experiencing God, we've got to begin here.  God is here.  God is at work.  God can be experienced.  But it goes beyond that because what we are also saying is that if we take a step to join God in what he is doing; because God is inviting us in, if we take that step to join God, then life is never going to be quite the same again.  It's going to challenge our faith in ways we never expected before.  It's going to be scary at times.  To really walk with God can get scary and it also is going to demand some new sacrifice in our lives.  That's reality.  That's the reality of coming into harmony and walking together with God.  And there will fruit that comes from that. We don't know exactly what that fruit is.  We certainly don't know the fruit when we are actually engaged in the obedience and in the service, but somewhere down the line there is fruitfulness because of what God is doing in us.  If we follow God, somewhere down the line he will make sure there is fruit.

In 1961 a 19-year-old guy, Bruce Olson, an American, lie bleeding to death on the floor of a Colombian jungle.  He had a three-foot arrow through his thigh.  Olson went to Colombia in order to reach out to native peoples there.  He felt that God was sending him to reach out to the most unreached.  He heard about the Motolin people and so he went to try to contact them, but they were a very aggressive tribe.  No white people had ever met them and lived to tell about it.  And so here he was his first interaction with them and he is shot and dying on the floor of the jungle.

Now he didn't die and since he didn't die immediately the people from the tribe picked him up and brought him back to their village.  What was exactly in their minds there wasn't necessarily mercy, because maybe they were just making him well again so they could kill him again.  But the fact is that in that time, in that time he was getting well he built relationships and the tribe actually allowed him to continue to live with them.  He began to learn their language, learn their culture and look for the day that he could share the gospel with them.

Years later, years later, he is walking through the forest with his friend named Bobby.  He calls him Bobby because his actual name is too hard for him to pronounce and to hard for me to pronounce.  He is walking through the jungle with Bobby when they come to a spot where there are some men actually wailing in despair; they are crying out to God "Where are you?" This is a startling thing because they are climbing up trees and at the top of the trees they are calling out for God. Other guys are digging in the ground with their hands or with sticks calling in despair for God.

Olson doesn't understand what's happening so he asks, "What is going on here?" And so one of the guys told him that in their tribal stories there is one story that tells them that at one time in their lives they had a good relationship with the creator God, but someone came and lied to them and messed up that relationship.  And so, there were times in the life of their tribe that they would go out and try to reconnect with God and so Olson said, "Why do you look at the top of trees or in the ground?"

And they said, "Do you know a better place?" Why not?  And so he asked them one more question trying to get some clarity, trying to know how to get to the point where he could share with them and he said, "Is there any other place you look for God?" And they said, "Yes.  We look for God in banana stems."

That wasn't what he was expecting.  And so seeing that he really didn't understand what was going on, Bobby went over to one of the banana plants that were nearby, sliced through it and took a part of the stem and threw it at his feet and another one of the men causally cut it in half.  And while they were doing that they told him that another one of their stories says that the day will come that God will speak to them from a banana stem.  As Olson looks at the banana stem in front of him he notices that once it has been cut the inner leaves inside the stem are starting to peel off and it looks like a book.  A book.

So he reaches into his knapsack and pulls out his Bible and he puts the pages in the same shape as on the banana stem and he says, "This is God's banana stem." And right there in the jungle he gets to share with this tribe for the first time in their history about Jesus Christ and he is able to do it in their language, because he has been there long enough to learn and use their stories.

Now we can clearly see that God was at work in Olson's life orchestrating, protecting him, protecting his life and getting him to the point that he can be that special person that God is going to use to rescue this people, but what I find even more amazing is that generations and generations earlier there is some unnamed storyteller, some unnamed prophet that first told that story that at one time it was good between us and God, but somebody lied and that relationship was broken.  And somebody else, maybe it was the same person, said that the day is coming that God is going to speak to us from a banana stem.  God was at work generations earlier giving them just what they needed so that when that day came and Bruce Olson came they could hear the gospel. God is at work in the jungle.  God is at work where we live, work and play.  We can rely on that.  So let's learn how to join God.

Let's pray. God we thank you that you are at work; that we have seen it in our own lives, we've seen it in scripture, we have seen it in the lives of missionaries, we've seen it in the lives of other people in our own congregation.  And so now we hold our broken lives before you, hold all the brokenness around us and commit ourselves to seeking you and joining you because we believe you are at work in the world and we pray this in Jesus' name.  Amen.

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Permalink Reply by a servant (Chris) on October 5, 2013 at 1:50pm

Richard

 As I have been reading Ephesians, I would like to add a few verses.  

18I pray that your hearts will be flooded with light so that you can understand the confident Hope He has given to those He called—His Holy people who are His rich and glorious inheritance.

19 I also pray that you will understand the incredible greatness of God’s power for us who believe Him. This is the same mighty power  that raised Christ from the dead and seated Him in the place of honor at God’s Right Hand in the heavenly realms. Eph 1:18-19

All to often when we hear or even face tragedies as these, the enemy jumps at the opportunity to place doubt in our hearts.  Even though so many will face the loss of loved ones and those who injured.   So many of us know what goes with these things, we must Pray and lift up these who are part of Our Family in Christ.  Still, God is in control. 

10 God’s purpose in all this was to use the church to display His Wisdom in its rich variety to all the unseen rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. 11 This was his eternal plan, which He carried out through Christ Jesus our Lord.12 Because of Christ and our faith in Him, we can now come boldly and confidently into God’s presence. 13 So please don’t lose heart because of my trials here. I am suffering for you, so you should feel honored.

Eph 3:10-13

For must we must always remember, For we are not fighting against flesh-and-blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places. Eph 6:12

Again we must stand in for those who are facing such heart-ache.  To stand in the gap for those who are going through such pain.  It is what the Body does.  When part of it is injured; when parts are unable to care for what has happened to another area of The Body.  We do whatever is needed to bring Healing.  In Jesus Name I stand in agreement with all the Prayers of Faith going out to all who are and will continue to be effected. 

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Permalink Reply by Colby on October 7, 2013 at 12:40pm

Especially when tragedy affects us directly--involving ourselves or close friends and family--we may find ourselves pausing to ask: Why God?  Why?

 

Admittedly, a sweeping generalization: Good things happen to bad people and bad things happen to good people.  People the world over have been and continue to die or sustain injury and undergo suffering on a wide scale because of senseless and brutal acts of violence, catastrophic acts of nature, and accidents.  They are a daily occurrence.  God's beloved, his children, the faithful--are not spared.

 

Of this I'm certain: that God allows such things to happen does not mean he is (a) indifferent (doesn't love or has lost interest in us); or (b) that he is not sovereign and omnipotent (capable of preventing such things from happening).  We need to always keep this in mind when bad things happen.

 

God, who exists outside of the time-space continuum, has his providential reasons (which are not necessarily apparent to us because of our finite minds) for not intervening to stop individuals from making bad choices that include committing evil, violent and sinful acts.  That he gave each of us liberty, which includes the freedom to obey or not obey his commandments, is born out of his love for us.  Make no mistake: He is in control with a grand purpose and plan.  He has given us the means [grace] by which we can overcome sin, be reconciled to him, and have eternal life.  Unfortunately, many choose to reject or ignore the Gospel of Jesus Christ. 

 

Likewise, God has his reasons for not acting to override the laws of nature to prevent catastrophic earthquakes, hurricanes, tsunamis, floods, etc., which are the unfortunate but inevitable consequence of the fall of our original parents Adam and Eve.

 

Accidents happen because of the actions/choices (or failure to act) of people.  Don't blame God. He didn't cause the tire on the bus to blow out.  In fact, more than 30,000 people die each year in the U.S. because of car accidents.  Many variables often come into play with accidents.  All man-made things will eventually fail with normal wear and tear.  Some are made with defects.  Did the tire malfunction as a result of poor workmanship, a lack of inspection and maintenance, or hitting some kind of object on the road or contact with a rough road surface?  We may never know.

 

Here is something else to ponder.  It is possible, even likely, (often without us knowing it) that God occasionally intervenes to keep bad things from happening, or to keep them "in check." 

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Permalink Reply by Leonard T on October 7, 2013 at 1:06pm

Good word.

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