Dealing With Problems

1 July 2018

Dear Phyllis,

Last Sunday evening we had an unusual meeting. Pammy has a new meeting place and a service on Sunday evenings. She is always asking me to go with her and preach. Last week I thought, Why not?, and decided to go. I really asked the Lord what He wanted me to talk about, but that was pretty difficult. I had two or three messages in mind but no clear assurance that this was the Lord's message. The meeting looked pretty bad with only three women and a 2/3 saved man showing up. Before I spoke one lady gave a testimony that her brother had died two days ago. That made the meeting totally different. As I sat there wondering what to do I felt very strongly that I had two options – I could preach, or talk to the women. They are not the same. At last I decided to go for reality rather than filling in squares at a religious meeting. When Pammy asked me to speak, rather than standing behind a pulpit I got a chair and sat down before the three women.

The first thing I said was to the lady who just lost her brother and said, “You are a the bottom of a very steep hill. It is a tough climb up and there are no other paths. For some time to come you just have to tough it out and grieve.” Then I talked about my own experience with death. I told them about my dad dying when I was 17 and losing a son 38 years ago. When that happened I was just numb for some time. And then I said, “The worse death I have ever been through was losing my family.” I remember when Bob Sorely's wife died when she was 35. I thought that was the most difficult sorrow a man could go through, but five years later I told Bob I was envious of him. Christ was honored in his wife's advance to heaven. Two years later Bob remarried and had a new family. The death of my family was dishonoring to Christ and had no solution.

I told them how we had been sent to Link Care in Fresno, Calif. to save our marriage. Link Care had the highest credentials as the best Christian counseling center in America, but I found it the most unscriptural place I had ever been. Link Care was Christian on the grounds that they went to church on Sunday but their counseling was 100% secular. Their entire approach was that they started with a problem and worked towards a solution. Because they were Christian, where it might help, they tried to use God some in the solution, but where their philosophy was in contradiction to the Bible or in violation to biblical principles secular psychology won out. The biblical will of God was never considered factor in their thinking.

As I was talking, it came to me that this described 90% of Christian thinking. Unquestionably, the overwhelming preaching, teaching, and books operate on this premise of problem and answer. The foundation stone of evangelical Christianity is man is lost and Jesus is the answer. Salvation is how to access that answer and we are told of several methods of evangelism. But it is problem and solution scenario. I sat through nearly 30 missionary conferences in Karuizawa and virtually all of them were on how to be a more effective missionary. The very essence of all seminars is about dealing with problems.

The human view is that we are all walking through life and being confronted with problems. How do we deal with them? There is a segment of Christianity that promotes the good God theology. The basis of this is that God is good and never does anything bad. All bad things come from the devil. One difficulty with this theory is that 50% of the Bible teaches against it. In Isaiah 45:7 the Lord declares, “I form light and create darkness: I make peace and create evil. I the Lord do all these things.” The good God people admit, “Yes, that is OT, but in the NT God never does anything bad”.

A few years ago Brad Jordan's son committed suicide while in college. When Brad flew home for his sons funeral, his benighted pastor met him at the airport and the first thing he said was, “Brad, I want you to know that God had nothing to do with the death of your son”. That remark put Brad in a pit from which there was no exit. For the rest of his life Brad had to deal with a God who was either impotent to protect his son or indifferent to the well being of the boy. God had His back turned and the devil took the life of the lad. Or the son just wanted to commit suicide and Jesus didn't to stop him.

I told our small gathering Sunday night, “Heaven is above earth. Everything that comes to us here is from heaven”. Life is not a matter of walking along life's road being confronted by problems to be solved. It is the Lord that sends us these things to teach us lessons and make us more like Himself. There is a tremendous conflict between these two mentalities. One is man centered and the other is God centered. The first one is man dealing with human problems and trying to use God to solve them. In healing when we are confronted with sickness there are a number of teachings how to deal with it, but all of them are ways to access spiritual laws to cure sickness. One is to deny that you are sick. One is to pray and believe. One is to quote various Bible verses. One is to rebuke the devil. But all of these are simply man trying to use spiritual laws that maybe are available to solve his problem. Where is God? He is on the side lines as someone, or some thing, to be used if we can access Him.

But I firmly believe the other view is the correct one. I believe God is central. The genesis of everything is from God. I believe the bottom line is NOT how to solve our dilemma, but how to honor Jesus through the difficulties He sends to us. I believe ALL THINGS are from Him, and through Him, and to Him, to the glory of God (Rom. 11:36). I believe in EVERYTHING we should give thanks, for this is the will of God for us (1 Thes. 5:18). The very essence in the first mentality is life is a series of problems we run into and we have to figure out a way to deal with them. The other approach is that these problems come from our loving Father for our good and His glory.

The problem is that there are many events that defy human logic and understanding. There are many horrible horrible things in life and to hang these around God's neck seems blasphemous. Is God responsible for the suicide of a son? Is God responsible for the holocaust? These things are indescribably repulsive to the human mind. But perhaps the greatest atrocity in history was the crucifixion of Jesus. Is God responsible for that? Yes. That was the will of God. How do we deal with some of these things that simply defy sanity?

I had some very dear friends in South Carolina who had a wonderful son who was killed in an auto accident. When sister King heard that her son was killed in an accident, her immediate response was to give God a piece of her mind. The Kings were some of the finest Christians on this planet. Their son was a wonderful Christian man with a beautify Christian family. To take his life when we was 45 leaving that family behind wasn't fair. Sister King knelt before the Lord and was about to tell Him what He did was wrong, but before she could speak the Lord spoke first. He said, “What I am doing now you don't understand but later you will” (Jn. 13:7). Sister King burst into tears and said, “Lord Jesus, forgive me”. Due to the death of his father their grandson, Walt, came to live with them. Walt King wound up being an outstanding missionary in Nepal. Jesus was right. In light of eternity the Kings lost nothing. Their wonderful family will all be united forever in heaven. The son's separation was only for a brief moment. Through that accident the Lord formed a great servant of God that would not have happened other wise.

Is it true? Can it possibly be real that God indeed does cause ALL THINGS to work together for GOOD for those who love God? (Rom. 8:28). Yes I believe that He does. And I thank Him for it.

Oh that men would get their eyes off their problems and how to solve them and look up to heaven to our wonderful Father who is still in charge and sends to us the things that we need to glorify Him.

Lord, help us, bill