Tonight's scripture is from Luke chapter 13 verses 1 through 5. There were some present at that very time who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And he answered them, do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered in this way? No, I tell you. But unless you repent, you will likewise perish.
Speaker 1:Or those 18 on whom the tower of Siloam fell and killed them, Do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem? No, I tell you. But unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. This is the word of the lord.
Jeffrey Heine:Thanks be to god. Pray with me. Lord, we ask that you would speak with incredible clarity tonight, but we understand that even clear words can fall on deaf ears. And so we pray that you would open up our ears, open up our hearts and our minds to receive what you have for us. Speak life.
Jeffrey Heine:Pray that my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore, but Lord may your words remain and may they change us. We pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen. Even if we didn't have a Bible, Pilate would still have gone down in history as a pretty horrible and cruel governor. At times Pilate could be ruthless.
Jeffrey Heine:The event that Benjamin just read about that's described here was one of those moments, in which Pilate, he he took money from the temple treasury to fund a government project. So, of course, that would make the Jewish people very angry, especially the Galileans, and they would protest. And so Pilate wanted to deal with them, but he didn't attack them at one of their protest. He he actually attacked them while they were making sacrifices during the worship service. And he disguised his soldiers.
Jeffrey Heine:He told them to just go in just like the rest of the Galileans and hide their their swords. And at a given moment, right after these Galileans had made their sacrifices, they brought out their swords and they cut them all down. And so the blood of these Galilean Jews, it mixed with the blood of the sacrifices. It was a horrible atrocity. Around this same time, and we're a little less clear about this event, but there there was a tower likely near the Pool of Siloam, which was by one of the city walls there, and this tower fell and it killed 18 people.
Jeffrey Heine:And so you've got 2 horrible tragedies here. Now one tragedy is something that's caused by the evil of man. It's what we would call an atrocity. The other was caused by a horrible accident or some kind of natural disaster. One that we would likely call an act of God.
Jeffrey Heine:Jesus doesn't make a distinction here. The people whom Jesus is talking to, they want to know why these things happen. Why do these tragedies happen? It's a very relevant question. Is it because these people, they're, they're evil people or does that have nothing to do with it?
Jeffrey Heine:Well, why do things like genocide, earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, why do they happen? Why is there so much pain and suffering in the world? And so I want us to look at tonight what the Bible has to say about this. And we're gonna start by looking at ways not to understand this tragedy. Let me just go through ways to not understand what is going on here.
Jeffrey Heine:Do not think that tragedies like this happen because the people are worse than you. Tragedies like this happen because people are worse than you. And I would call this maybe the the moralistic or the religious view. And that's, you know, bad things happen to bad people. Good things happen to good people.
Jeffrey Heine:It's totally false. In John chapter 9, the disciples encountered a man who had been born blind, and so they asked Jesus, why was this man born blind? Was it because of his sin or his parents? Jesus said, neither. There's no relation to why this person is born blind in some specific sin.
Jeffrey Heine:That person is not worse than you. And this moralistic view, this religious view is actually very common today. It's a little more subtle, but it's just as common not just in the Pat Robertsons of the world that you're gonna hear in the news, but it's actually the default of our human heart. I recently had a conversation with somebody who worked for Chick Fil A, which I eat there 2, 3 times a week it seems. And, this person, they said, you know, I think God has really blessed this ministry or not this ministry, this, restaurant, and I said, yes.
Jeffrey Heine:And said, I think he's blessed it because we have such good values. You know, we, we don't operate on Sunday. We are very kind to those who come in. And so I think as a result, God's blessed us. That's actually a very moralistic view here.
Jeffrey Heine:I didn't say this, I should have, but I was like, well what about all of those other really good good businesses? Those other God honoring businesses that taint this past year. Why didn't God bless them? Were they worse? Somehow worse?
Jeffrey Heine:Yeah. I mean, I agree God bless, but is it really based on merit there? Or or what about all those evil corrupt businesses that have flourished this past year? Is there really a direct causality there? Let's just give God the honor and just say, yes, he has blessed Chick Fil A, but it's not because of any merit.
Jeffrey Heine:It's not because he's blessing our good. I've actually heard this view being sung about in the Brooks household many times. If if you have 3 girls, it's inevitable. The sound of music is, is going to be played a lot in your house. My children love the sound of music.
Jeffrey Heine:It's actually growing on me. I don't know what's wrong with me, but, but there's a song in there when when Julie Andrews, she's falling in love with the captain, and and things are starting to get together, and things are working out really well for them. And they're about to live happily ever after. And there's this song, I won't sing it, I'll just say it. Nothing comes from nothing.
Jeffrey Heine:Nothing ever could. I must have done something good in my youth and childhood For in my youth and childhood, I must have done something good. But the reason I'm being blessed, the reason I'm given this wonderful relationship is because I did something good. It's a very moralistic view. We do well that God treats us right.
Jeffrey Heine:We do bad, bad things happen to us. And Jesus looks at this view and he says, no, no, the Galileans were not killed because they were worse than you. Let's look at another false belief concerning tragedy. This perhaps is the most common view out there and that is that God is not in control and God is not in control. Mother Nature is in control according to Whoopi Goldberg on the view.
Jeffrey Heine:I don't watch that, but Dwight is the one who gave that to me. These things just happen. The problem is, this goes against the entire Bible. Let me just run through a few verses. Daniel 4 says his dominion is an eternal dominion.
Jeffrey Heine:His kingdom endures from generation to generation. All the peoples of the earth are regarded as nothing before him. He does what he pleases both in the powers of heaven and the peoples of earth. No one can hold back his hand or say to him, Lord, what have you done? Psalm 135 says, the Lord does whatever pleases him in the heavens and on the earth and the seas and in their depths.
Jeffrey Heine:One of the more familiar ones is Matthew 10:29, are not 2 sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them falls to the ground apart from the will of your father in heaven. Even the very hairs of your head are numbered. Meaning God is in absolute control of everything from, from the orbits of planets or stars and to the falling of a little hair or the most minute detail you can imagine. God is an absolute total control.
Jeffrey Heine:Proverbs 21:1 says, even the king's heart is like a channel of water in the in the Lord's hands and he could direct it wherever he wishes. Which means that when it comes election night, God is not up there pacing around on the clouds wondering who's gonna win. He's not all of a sudden just thinking, oh my gosh, that legislation passed, what am I going to do? The king's heart's in his hands. Proverbs 1633 says, a lot is cast into the lap, but it's every decision comes from the Lord.
Jeffrey Heine:Every outcome of, if you were to go to Vegas and pull a slot machine, every outcome is from the Lord. Every roll of the die, that comes from the Lord. Amos 3:6, does disaster come to a city unless the Lord has done it? This means that no calamity hits a city. No calamity hits New Orleans or Port au Prince, unless the Lord has caused it.
Jeffrey Heine:And I would say if God cannot keep tectonic plate plates from shifting, then you shouldn't worship him. If God cannot tell the wind or the waves to peace be still, and they quiet and they obey him, he is not worthy of your worship. That is a pathetic God, a powerless God, not a God that's worthy of worship. My father died when I was 20 years old. He had a heart attack, came on suddenly, had a heart attack, and, my mom called 911, and my sister was there, and so they waited, for the emergency response unit to come.
Jeffrey Heine:And, they waited, and they waited. And now the emergency response unit is less than 1 mile from my house. And so they're on the phone, and the operator is saying, just stay where you are, they're on their way. Stay where you are, they're on their way. Minutes by minute passed, 30 minutes went by.
Jeffrey Heine:They did not show up. Finally, we got a neighbor to go, and they got the emergency response unit themselves, and they brought them there, And when they got to the driveway, my dad died. And I tell you what, that shook our family. My mom cried every day for about the next 6 years. How do you how do you deal with that?
Jeffrey Heine:And so, you know, people would would come and they would, with good intentions, try to comfort me, comfort my mom. And they would say things like, well, you know, have faith. Keep trusting God. We know that God was not in control of that. We know that that wasn't God at work.
Jeffrey Heine:God wouldn't do something like that. And let me tell you that there is no more devastating thing you could say to somebody than that. Because I'm thinking, so you are telling me now I need to place my eternal trust in a God who cannot operate a switchboard. I'm supposed supposed to place my my eternal soul into the hands of a person who can't move an ambulance from point a to point b. That's the God I'm supposed to trust.
Jeffrey Heine:A God who can't control that. No, that's no comfort. My comfort is that God is intimately in control of that. Every detail, every confusion was Him. And though I might not understand the outer workings of that or the inner workings of that, I can still trust him knowing that he's working something out, that this is birth pains.
Jeffrey Heine:But there will be joy at the end of this. But our comfort is that God is in absolute control. But believing in this can lead to another false belief concerning tragedy. I said, okay, God is in control, therefore God is evil. Or at the very least, God is indifferent to suffering.
Jeffrey Heine:I guess another way you could put that is God sends, and we don't have time to go through all the verses here. So let me just give you one. First John 15 says, God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. Now, this is a difficult concept to understand, but if if you want to understand evil, if you want to understand the sufferings in this world, you have got to come to grips with this. You're you're gonna have to find some place in your brain for this to work, but God can ordain evil.
Jeffrey Heine:He can ordain sin and yet he cannot sin. He can ordain it. He could control it, but he does not sin. Let me give you a couple of examples. Actually for those of you who are going through the Bible with the, the schedule, the reading Bible schedule that we gave you, this week you're gonna come across a story.
Jeffrey Heine:When you read the life of Joseph that demonstrates that. And you know the life of, of Joseph, how he was beaten, he was thrown into a pit, sold into slavery by his brothers. Later he was thrown in jail on false charges. God finally brought him up to a position of power. His brothers come before him many, many years later, trembling, scared to death.
Jeffrey Heine:And Joseph looks at him and he says, you know what? You meant this for evil, but God meant this for good. You have the exact same act. The beatings, the thrown into the pit. Same same action, but for one group it's evil, but for God it's good.
Jeffrey Heine:He ordained it, but he didn't sin because he is working good. The best example of this would be the crucifixion of Jesus. The very center of our faith. Jesus was beaten. He was mocked.
Jeffrey Heine:He was put through a joke trial, convicted, killed. I think everybody in here would call that evil. That is evil. Yet acts 4 27 says, for truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant, Jesus, whom you anointed. He's talking to the Lord, praying here.
Jeffrey Heine:Whom you anointed both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the people of Israel to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place. So the crucifixion of Jesus was God's plan. That doesn't just happen in a vacuum. That means that every malicious blow that Jesus received was part of God's plan. Every, every spit that hit his face and went down, went down his cheek.
Jeffrey Heine:That was part of god's plan. Every blow that went on his crown of thorns and the blood that flowed down, that was part of god's plan. Those are evil things, sinful things. And yet, God had planned that before time. He had ordained that that would happen.
Jeffrey Heine:These people who did this to Jesus meant it for evil. Same action. God means it for good. What I have found is that I think people ask the wrong questions. They wrestle with the wrong questions.
Jeffrey Heine:We ask questions like how could God create a world that's full of evil? A better question would be, how could God create a world or a universe that can display all of his glory and perfection? Cause that's the question that God answers. That's the question he was answering when he created the world and he created all of its suffering. He created a world in which he ordained the fall.
Jeffrey Heine:He or he made a world fall and full of sin so that he might show justice, mercy, compassion, patience, wrath, grace, and all of those things. All those sides of God would be impossible to shine forth unless evil was there. The cross could have never happened. And let me tell you, the cross was not plan B for God. There was no other plan.
Jeffrey Heine:He had always intended for His Son to be crucified. The lamb of God was slain before the foundations of the world. This was his plan because it is in the crosses and the crucifixion of Jesus. That's the blazing glory of God. That is when we most clearly see who God is.
Jeffrey Heine:So he ordained that to happen. He had to create a world in which Jesus could suffer. A painful world in which Jesus could receive pain. A sorrowful world in which Jesus could have sorrow. A world in which people could be killed so his son could be killed.
Jeffrey Heine:These things had to happen so that his glory might be seen. Move on. Let's, let's, let's look at the correct understandings of this tragedy, or we'll be here all night. Let's read again verses 45. Those 18 on whom the tower and Siloam fell and killed them.
Jeffrey Heine:Do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem? No, I tell you, but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. Tragedies should be signposts. Think of them as signposts that remind us of our need to repent. Tragedies are signpost that remind us of our need to repent.
Jeffrey Heine:In at first reading, Jesus's answer doesn't make any sense when he responds, no, these people were not worse because you would expect his answer after that, no, they weren't any worse. You see, God's not punishing people, for any wrong that they did, So you're fine. You don't have to worry. That's not what God says. He says, no, it's not because they're worse, but Hey, you repent or you likewise will perish.
Jeffrey Heine:Repent. This entire passage is about repentance. Actually having your worship guide the very first of Martin Luther's 95 theses, which is all of life is about repentance. And here, Jesus is talking about a certain type of repentance. You have to understand the type of person that Jesus is talking to here.
Jeffrey Heine:This is, this is not a people who are currently suffering. These are people who things are going pretty well for. They're they're not in the midst of a tragedy here. They're not in the midst of suffering. Things are going well.
Jeffrey Heine:Other people are suffering. They're pointing to other people suffering, but they currently are not. And Jesus looks at the people who are comfortable, the people who are not suffering, and he says, hey. There is no better time than to repent right now in the midst of your comfort. When things are really going well, you need to think about repentance.
Jeffrey Heine:And I know that we tend to think of repentance as you're turning away from some very specific sin, and repentance certainly can be that. But I don't think that's the kind of repentance that Jesus is talking about here. Repentance is not so much needed for doing bad things against God, but for trusting in good things rather than God. Did you get that? Repentance is not so much needed for doing bad things against God, it's needed for trusting in good things rather than God.
Jeffrey Heine:That's the repentance that's being talked about here. It's it's repenting during your good times, your good times when your children are very well behaved. When you're generally happy. When your relationship with your spouse or your boyfriend or girlfriend is going great. When you have financial security.
Jeffrey Heine:It's at these times that you're in the greatest danger. You're in danger because they're going to begin trusting in those good things for your salvation. You're gonna think that your kids are great because you are one wonderful parent. That's why my kids are so good. You You're gonna think that you are financially secure because you work hard for your money.
Jeffrey Heine:You've earned it. You're gonna think you have all the friends that you have because you're just a great guy, And you're not going to think that you owe all of those things to the mercy and grace of God, Tragedy snaps you out of that. You know, you can see this so clearly in the life of David when, when David was always on the run, King David, when he was always on the run, man, his prayer life was unbelievable. The Psalms, all the Psalms that came from him during that time. I mean, he was always seeking the Lord, always crying out to the Lord.
Jeffrey Heine:You know, when he's on the run, he would say, God, you are my refuge. God, you are my rock. God, you are my fortress. God, you are my help in a time of trouble. And he's always crying to God for help.
Jeffrey Heine:And then he becomes king. He's got some peace. He's got some prosperity. Kick back, take it easy. And that's when he falls into sin.
Jeffrey Heine:That's when he commits adultery. That's when he commits murder. That's when later he he gets in trouble for starting to count all of his soldiers. He wants to see how many fighting many has to see how powerful he is. He's looking at himself for salvation, not God.
Jeffrey Heine:It's in these times of comfort that we need to repent. So falling towers come. Cancer, hurricanes, all of these, they come and they're, they're signpost telling us we need to repent. This, this is how they are signpost. You've got to go all the way back to the beginning of the Bible, to the fall of Adam and Eve.
Jeffrey Heine:When they sinned, when they disobeyed God, God cursed them. He cursed them, kicked them out of the garden, but he also cursed the ground. He cursed the world so they fell under a curse and so did the world. They committed a moral sin and God gave them a very physical punishment that happened afterwards. Paul explains this in Romans 8 and we don't have time to really unpack this, but in Romans 8, Paul says, for the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it.
Jeffrey Heine:And Paul is saying that God subjected all of creation to futility. He put creation under a curse. He put creation in bondage because of our sin. Our moral sin had very physical consequences for the world. And so God curses a world.
Jeffrey Heine:He makes a world full of suffering, a world full of calamities, full of hurricanes, tsunamis, earthquakes, so that every time we would see one of those physical horrors, we would be reminded of our sin. They're signposts. We see them and now we are reminded of our fall. They remind us of what it means when we reject Jesus. When we reject the glory of God.
Jeffrey Heine:And if there's some of you thinking, well, wow, that's an overreaction. That's that's kind of an overreaction from God. You know, a little disobedience there and now also the whole world is under a curse. All these terrible things are happening. It's only because we have almost no capacity to understand the glory of God.
Jeffrey Heine:We have no idea what we have lost when Adam and Eve sinned. We have no idea what our sin has cost us. We didn't live in paradise. We didn't walk with God in the cool of the evening. Adam and Eve did.
Jeffrey Heine:They knew what they lost, but we don't. And so we need something to awaken us up to how horrible sin is. And so when we see these tragedies, we see these were outraged. God says, yes. That's the horror of sin.
Jeffrey Heine:That's what happens. That's the sign as how bad and tragic sin is. That's what you've lost when you fell short of the glory of God. And I don't know about you, but I I don't weep much over my sin. I I I go through life.
Jeffrey Heine:I kind of sin casually, and I just kind of keep walking along. God says, you should be outraged. And since you're not, I'm get there's signs here. I gotta wake you up to the horrors of sin. So these things happen, and I'm reminded that sin is hideous.
Jeffrey Heine:Sin is horrible. I'm remind reminded of what we have lost. So every time you see or you hear of this some calamity, you should be vividly reminded that sin is horrible. It's absolutely horrible. Should make you weep.
Jeffrey Heine:It should cause you to tremble. And when we see towers fall, like the tower of Siloam falling, we should not ever think, why did this happen? But instead, we should always be wondering, why did this not happen to me? Why did this not happen to me? They're not worse than me.
Jeffrey Heine:I have sinned. I have violated the glory of God just as much as them. I deserve these horrible things that happened to me. One time, Jonathan Edwards, who was preaching a sermon, and the very question he asked his congregation was this, he said, can you give me one reason why God has not destroyed you since you got up this morning? Got about the same response I got now.
Jeffrey Heine:You can't give one. No one here has received the consequences of all of the stupid and evil things that you have done. Not one of you. God has been so gracious. Think how many times you have talked badly about a friend yet you did not lose that friendship.
Jeffrey Heine:Think of all the times parents that you temporarily lost track of your kids, yet they didn't run across into the street and get hit. God's been gracious. The times where you, you know, you've made that dumb financial decision and it didn't completely wipe you out Has been gracious. Driving down the road, you know, working, trying to text, do the cell phone, all that stuff, sleepy. You didn't go off the road and kill yourself.
Jeffrey Heine:God's been gracious. But for the most part, you just sleep through that. God's got to wake us up. So he created this world with signposts that remind us of his grace, remind us of the horror of our sin. And I'll end with this.
Jeffrey Heine:All of these signposts are ultimately pointing to the horrors that Jesus endured on the cross. Those are just signs. Christ took on all the evil, all the suffering in the world. Shortly after, the earthquake happened, president Obama, he was, he was giving a speech and he, it's interesting. He said that this causes one to look up in the sky and ask, have they been forsaken?
Jeffrey Heine:Have they been forsaken? Absolutely not. He then said, no. We will not forsake you, as if America is gonna come in. No, God has not forsaken them.
Jeffrey Heine:There's only one person who has ever been forsaken. Only one person who had their arms stretched out wide, nailed to a cross, who said, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? There's only 1. And he received all the the horror, all the judgment, all the wrath, and he did no evil. He didn't deserve it, but he took it all on him to restore what was lost when Adam and Eve fell, that we might once again have that relationship with the Lord.
Jeffrey Heine:So when we see those signs out there, we should be reminded of the cross and what Jesus had to pay, that we might be once again, right with God. Pray with me. Well, that's a heavy text. Just looking at some people here, it seems like we just got hit. I pray you would soften our hearts to receive your word.
Jeffrey Heine:Show us how we can give hope to those who are hurting, how we can point them to the God who is not indifferent to suffering, but indeed enters into it. The God who is in absolute control, who's working all things to his own end for his glory. God, it's new we trust. It's in you we worship. Pray that even now you begin bringing a heart of repentance to us.
Jeffrey Heine:And we pray this in the name of Jesus. Amen.