How God Works

26 February 2017

Dear Phyllis,

There are four positions to explain the various events that happen in life.

The FIRST is the naturalist position. This holds that all the phenomenon that happen are the result of natural laws instituted by God. When God created the world He instituted natural laws that govern what happens today. All weather phenomenon are controlled by meteorological laws that predictably determine hot and cold, wet and dry, thunder storms, tides, etc. Human event are largely the product of human involvement. You get out of life what you put in. There is a place for luck or good and bad fortune but this is largely by the law of probability.

The SECOND position is the good God position. Those who subscript to this position say that every good and perfect gift comes from above and absolutely nothing negative is from God. This is the Kenneth Hagin position. The world is divided between two opposing forces with everything good and positive coming from God, and anything bad or negative is the work of satan. There are a couple of problems with this position as it restricts God to 50% of all that happens in life.

The son of a friend of mine who lived in Hong Kong died while in college in the states. When the grief stricken father flew to the states for the funeral, a well-meaning, brain dead, pastor/friend met Brad at the airport and immediately told him, “I want you to know that God had nothing to do with the death of your son”. The benighted pastor meant well by that consolation but it put Brad in a grave of grief from which he could never emerge. And it put God in a terrible position. How is God supposed to respond to that scenario? He has two options. One would be silence, and allow Brad to go through life wondering, “Where was Jesus when my son died?”. Or God could be a God of consolation and show up at the funeral and say, “That was really too bad what happened to your son. I wish I could have helped him, but that was outside my jurisdiction and the devil killed him.” Or there is one more position God could take, but that is not a good one. Jesus could allow Brad to go through life grieving for his son. Then when he gets to heaven, Jesus could explain to him, “I'm really sorry what happened to your son, but he made a choice to follow the devil so I had to allow the devil to kill him. He brought it on himself and got what he had coming.”

Then the THIRD position is the one that believes God is absolutely omnipotent. He sovereignly controls ALL THINGS. He believes in EVERYTHING we should give thanks (1 Thes. 5:18). Be believes that ALL THINGS are OF Him, THROUGH Him and TO Him (Rom. 11:36). He believes that God makes ALL THINGS to work together for the good of those who love Him (Rom.8:28). As Frances Havergal wrote in that classic hymn, Like A River Glorious, “Every joy or trial, falleth from above; Traced upon our dial, by the Son of love. We may trust Him fully, all for us to do; Those who trust Him wholly find Him wholly true”. What joy and liberty there is for those who believe this is true.

There is still one more position that I believe most Christians would like to subscribe to. They believe that there are forces in nature to which everyone is subject. They see that God does not distinguish between morally different people and causes His sun to shine and His rain to fall on the just and the unjust all equally alike. They believe there is a great deal of human responsibility and to a large degree we get out of life pretty much what we put into it. Those who sow abundantly reap abundantly, and those who sow sparingly reap sparingly. It certainly is true that God is not responsible for my sin. I can't say, “God made me do it”. If I jump off a roof, God is not responsible if I break my leg. If I slide on ice and wreck my car that is my own fool fault. We must also acknowledge that Romans 8:28 does not apply to the unsaved. It only applies to those who love God and are called according to His purpose. To a large degree everyone else is under the control of the devil (Eph. 2:2,3). The devil runs this place. The biggest problem with this fourth – a little here, a little there – position is that this excludes the omnipotent God position and people holding to this cannot thank God for ALL THINGS. And not ALL THINGS are from God – only some.

We have a strange incident in the life of David when Shimei cursed him (2 Sam. 16:10,11). David said, “Leave him alone. God has told him to curse David”. Do you believe God told him to do that? That is highly unlikely but for David it was the will of God for him to be curse by Shimei. From David's position he could take that as from God.

One of the greatest examples of God making evil to work for good is David. David is tagged for two major sins. The first and most heinous is his adultery with Bathsheba and murder of her husband. But shockingly the fruit of that was the birth of Solomon and the line of Christ (Mt. 1:6). The other sin was his numbering the people (1 Chron. 21). And the fruit of that was the selection of the site for Solomon's Temple (2 Chron. 3:1). But the all time greatest illustration of God making good out of evil is the Fall of Adam. Had Adam never sinned and the subsequent inexplicable depravity of humanity we never would have known the magnitude of the love of God and the glory of Christ.

The reason for this long dissertation is because a week ago Friday disaster struck. My computer froze, and, in attempting to fix it, I inadvertently erased the basics off my computer so I couldn't write last weeks PB letter. A month before then a similar thing happened, and, as a result of prayer, I miraculously was able to fix the crash. This time the same thing happened. I prayed asking Jesus to help me, but, this time, I wiped out the computer. I thought, “The Lord must take a very dim view of my use of a computer and zapped me so I could no longer write letters or access email. If Jesus is that opposed to my letters, then that is it for me for the rest of my life.”

Admittedly, I could have used my old computer to write last weeks letter, but my daughter, Bee, is using that and I didn't want to take it from her. And I probably could have used Pammy's computer, but I don't know how to use that dumb thing. Someone might mistakenly think I was like a 5 year old boy throwing a temper tantrum. But, of course, that was not the case. I am an 81 year old mature man, who has been serving the Lord for 60 years. This is serious. The Lord closed me down from writing letters. In all honestly, I am afraid that reality was - and Jesus looked at me - like a little boy pouting because something went sideways, and I was mad because I can't have my way. “If I can't play with my marbles the way I want to play I won't play marbles.”

Oh the frustration was awful! One thing after another went sideways. I thought I would lose my mind. Finally last Thursdays Sangha got his son to work on my computer and he recovered all I had erased. Praise the Lord! Jesus gave me my computer back again, and I can write you this week explaining the silence last week. I will allow the Lord to explain why that happened in His own time, but for several days I had to accept that for some unknown reason Jesus had closed me down. I have a clue. Perhaps the Lord wants me to be a little more careful about the way I use Internet. That is not too difficult to figure out.

The Lord is gracious beyond our understanding and it is great to be able to fellowship with you again today.

Thank You Jesus – honto ni (really),

                                                    bill

Book of Acts

5 February 2017

Dear Phyllis,

Last week with Sangha was absolutely incredible. He is easily the brightest thing that has happened to me since I have been in Thailand. It was truly a fortuitous day when Pammy went looking for a kindergarten to put our little girl Annie in. Annie was only with us for a few months but our relationship with Nettlahong kindergarten has persisted with increasing strength ever since then. It was a hallelujah day when Sangha accepted Jesus as his savior three years ago but little did I realize the deep bond that would develop between us since then. It is particularly amazing because Sangha's ability in English is stunningly poor. It would be unreasonable to expect him to understand much of any conversation, yet we spend at least an hour every day discussing deep things of the Spirit and the Word of God. Seldom have I met a man with such a hunger for the Bible. Every morning last week was fantastic. Wednesday we were talking about Stephen.

The Book of Acts is basically divided into two parts. From chapter 1 to 12 it is Peter, and from 13 to 28 it is Paul. But right in the middle of Acts there is an odd two chapters (6 &7) devoted to a man that was only an obscure deacon (Act 6:5). He certainly was a good man and surprisingly his message before the Sanhedrin is the longest message in the Bible. He was not a disciple. He was not an apostle. He was not a pastor or evangelist, but only a man that was chosen to “serve tables” (Act 6:2,3). The one thing that made Stephen outstanding was that he was filled with the Holy Spirit (Act 6:5; 7:55). We sure could use a few more Spirit filled laymen today. If we had a few more Spirit filled men like Stephen perhaps we could get by with a few less TV evangelists. He was so powerful that he got called to stand before the Jewish Sanhedrin (Israel congress). In his message from Act 7:2 to 50 basically all he is talking about is Jewish history. Then from verse 51 to 56 suddenly he goes ballistic and goes for their jugular. That so enraged the Sanhedrin that they took him outside to stone him. Stephen was the first NT martyr. But why should the Lord devote two chapters of the Book of Acts talking about this obscure deacon? For years I have pondered that question. Two week ago I believe the Lord gave the the answer to that question and I had a wonderful time sharing it with Sangha.

When everyone on the Sanhedrin lost their cool and dragged Stephen outside to kill him, a zealous young man said to one of his friends, “Here let me hold your coat”. This is the first time Saul's name appears in the Bible (Act 7:55).

This is a very weak argument, and if anyone wants to challenge me from the Word they can, but I believe it is a significant that the first verse in the next two chapters begin with “AND Saul”. The fact that both chapter 8 and 9 begin with “AND Saul” suggest that there is a grammatical connection with chapter 7, 8, and 9. The word AND is always used to connect two thought together. Admittedly, the AND at the beginning of 8 is to connect Stephen's martyrdom to Saul's intense program of persecution in the first three verses of Chapter 8. And the AND at the beginning of chapter 9 is picking up the story of that continued persecution. Anyone who knows the Word should know that Acts 9 is the story of the conversion of Saul. It was a special blessing for me Wednesday in sharing this story with Sangha that he didn't know that Saul's name later became Paul (Act 13:9).

Here is the secret to the mystery of why I believe these two chapters should appear so parenthetically in Act. Admittedly there is nothing in Stephens message that would account for Saul's conversion. Obviously, it was not the message that he heard from Stephen, but the bright light that shone from heaven and the Voice that spoke to him, is the reason Saul got saved. But the fact that the Holy Spirit should arrange the appearance of Saul's name so strategically in chapter 7, 8, and 9; suggest that all of this is tied together. There is one more spiritual law that I believe is applicable here. Jesus told us that, “Unless a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die it abideth alone, BUT IF IT DIE, it bringeth forth much fruit”. I believe the conversion of Saul is the direct result of one corn of wheat that fell in the ground and died that day. It was not Stephen's message, but the seed that fell in the ground that day is the reason why Saul was saved.

When we read of the result of Peter's message at Pentecost we see that the Lord gave Peter 3,000 souls that day (Act 2:41). A few days later, in his second message, 5,000 were saved (Act 4:4). That's pretty good. The Lord gave Peter 8,000 souls for two messages. The Lord only gave Stephen 1 soul.

But in God's tally, He doesn't just count the first generation. He counts all the subsequent generations that come from the first. God told Abraham that his seed would be like the stars in the heavens – innumerable millions. He only gave him one son but from that one, ultimately, came millions. Millions are the seed of Abraham. That is also true of our spiritual fruit. If I lead one soul to Christ that is one soul that goes in my basket to present before the Lord. But if that person leads 5 more to Christ then I get credit for 6. And if that 5 lead 25 to Christ that means there are now 31 in my basket. The Lord only gave one soul to Stephen for giving his life for Jesus. But, oh my goodness, what was the result of that one soul that was saved? We have no idea how many souls Peter can claim as he presents the fruit in his basket to Jesus. But when Stephen empties his basket I believe we will see all the souls that have been won as a result of the life of Paul. That might explain why the Lord put these two parenthetical chapters slam in the Book of Acts.

Sangha was deeply impressed when I showed him this truth. Then I told him, “Look, the Lord has given me very few souls since I came to Thailand. Now you are going to have to get on your horse and win a multitude.” Sangha is more sensitive to the Holy Spirit than any man I have ever met. When the Holy Spirit speaks to him he always gets goose bumps all over his arms. Wednesday his arms looked like a bird that had just been plucked.

Lord, let it be so. Give Sangha thousands.

                                                    bill

PS: And to you too.