Luke 12:15-21

Death is inevitable, but at times it surprises us. Perhaps you know someone who died unexpectedly.

Today’s parable is a warning about such situations. It tells of a man who acquired comfort and wealth but thought only of his time on earth. Death came without warning, and he could take nothing with him. God called him a fool for living focused on “self.”

Though rich in the world’s eyes, the man had no relationship with God and hadn’t invested anything in Christ’s kingdom. All the treasures he stored here were worthless once he died. What’s worse, without Jesus, he would be separated from God forever. What a tragic waste of life.

As I think about this person’s choices, two questions come to mind that are important for all of us to contemplate. First, if you were to die today, would you go to heaven? Salvation is a free gift for those who trust in Jesus as the acceptable sacrifice for our sin. He is the only way–no excuses or even sincere beliefs in other “ways” will work. And Jesus promises that when believers die, they immediately find themselves in His presence (2 Cor. 5:6).

Second, what is your life accomplishing? Are you driven by selfish purposes, storing security and wealth for yourself? Or is your motivation to further God’s kingdom?

Like the man in this parable, we don’t know when we will die. We do know, however, that death is inescapable. Though dying is an unpleasant topic, eternity is a long time and worthy of our attention. It’s definitely a wise investment to make sure of your salvation and to invest in God’s kingdom.

 As a Christian writer and speaker, I am often asked what the most frequent questions are regarding the Christian faith. Of course, I am frequently asked questions of an intellectual or historic nature: Did Jesus of Nazareth really exist? Is his resurrection from the dead a historical event? How is one to understand the Bible as the Word of God? For some, the questions never go beyond intellectual curiosity or pursuit. For others, these questions need to be answered for constructing a sound apologetic.  

 For others, however, the questions come from the deepest places of the heart. They come because of personal experience with suffering of one form or another. Is there a God?  f so, does that God care about me, know me? If so, why does God seemingly allow so much suffering? When the fervent prayers of righteous men and women do not prevent the cancer from spreading, or the child from dying, or the plane from crashing, or the marriage from failing, these more existential questions come like water bursting through the dam. 

 Unfortunately, these questions are not unique to my ministry or this generation. They have been asked for millennia. The technical term for the theist’s problem with suffering is called theodicy. Theodicy is the word given in the seventeenth century by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, one of the great intellectual thinkers of the Enlightenment period.(1) Theodicy attempts to explain how and why there can be suffering in the world if God is all-powerful and loving. In trying to solve this problem, some thinkers have denied the omnipotence of God; God is all-loving, but not able to do anything about suffering. Others dispense of the notion that God is all-loving, at least in any conventional understanding. But, neither of these alternatives provides a satisfactory answer ultimately.    

 Intellectual wrangling over this problem, aside, the experience of suffering in light of both the goodness and power of God has caused many to doubt God, and others to walk away from faith altogether. If God does not prevent suffering, and if God does not care about the sufferer, then for some, the only alternative appears to be that God cannot exist in any meaningful way.

 The writers of Scripture wrestled with these questions too. Often, they provided different ways of answering these questions. Some believed that suffering resulted from sin.  Others believed that God causes suffering as a form of punishment. Still others asserted that suffering brings redemption.(2)

 In Mark’s gospel, a simple story about a boat caught in a terrible storm provides an altogether different answer framed around three profound questions. When evening had come, Jesus and his disciples got into a boat, most likely to cross the Sea of Galilee, in order to “go over to the other side” (Mark 4:35-41). In the course of their travel, a fierce storm arose suddenly and violently. It was so intense that the waves were not only breaking over the boat, but the boat was filling with water and on the verge of sinking. The gospel writer tells us that Jesus was asleep in the stern of the boat and resting soundly when the disciples roused him with their fearful, first question: “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?”  Jesus seems to ignore their question their question, and instead answers the wind and the waves, “Peace, be still.” His exhortation to the natural elements of wind and water was nevertheless intended for the disciples as well, for he returns their question with a second question: “Why are you afraid? Have you no faith?” To which the disciples reply to one another with the ultimate question, “Who then is this, that even wind and sea obey him?”

 It is not entirely unreasonable for those who want to be followers of Jesus to think that because he is in the boat suffering will not arise. But suffering does come, and the wind roars around and the sky turns black, and the storm of all storms appears to envelop all in darkness and terror. Jesus, don’t you care that we are perishing becomes an incredulous for all who would wish for immunity from the troubles of life. But Jesus’s answer reminds us that faith does not insulate us from life’s storms. Indeed, as noted author Craig Barnes has written “Faith…has little to do with our doctrines or even with our belief that Jesus could come up with a miracle if he would only pay attention. Faith has everything to do with seeing that…the Savior [is] on board“(3) 

 In the midst of difficult and often unending questions about suffering, Jesus is there in the midst of the storm of doubt, in the tumultuous waves of despair, in the gale-force winds of defeat. He rests in the assurance of God’s care in the storm. His presence with the disciples in the storm tells us more about who he is–neither removed from suffering, nor always preventing suffering–then why we suffer.  “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?” 

 Margaret Manning is a member of the writing and speaking team at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Seattle, Washington.

 (1) Bart Ehrman, God’s Problem (New York: HarperOne, 2008), 8.
(2) See for examples Proverbs 3:33, “The Lord’s curse is on the house of the wicked, but he blesses the abode of the righteous”; Amos 4:1-3, “[Y]ou cows of Bashan who oppress the poor, who crush the needy…the Lord God has sworn in his holiness: the time is surely coming upon you, when they shall take you away with hooks, even the last of you with fishhooks”; and Isaiah 53, the redemption by the suffering Servant.
(3) M. Craig Barnes, When God Interrupts (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1996), 138.

 Morning   “Just, and the justifier of him which believeth.” / Romans 3:26

 Being justified by faith, we have peace with God. Conscience accuses no

longer. Judgment now decides for the sinner instead of against him. Memory

looks back upon past sins, with deep sorrow for the sin, but yet with no dread

of any penalty to come; for Christ has paid the debt of his people to the last

jot and tittle, and received the divine receipt; and unless God can be so

unjust as to demand double payment for one debt, no soul for whom Jesus died

as a substitute can ever be cast into hell. It seems to be one of the very

principles of our enlightened nature to believe that God is just; we feel that

it must be so, and this gives us our terror at first; but is it not marvellous

that this very same belief that God is just, becomes afterwards the pillar of

our confidence and peace! If God be just, I, a sinner, alone and without a

substitute, must be punished; but Jesus stands in my stead and is punished for

me; and now, if God be just, I, a sinner, standing in Christ, can never be

punished. God must change his nature before one soul, for whom Jesus was a

substitute, can ever by any possibility suffer the lash of the law. Therefore,

Jesus having taken the place of the believer–having rendered a full

equivalent to divine wrath for all that his people ought to have suffered as

the result of sin, the believer can shout with glorious triumph, “Who shall

lay anything to the charge of God’s elect?” Not God, for he hath justified;

not Christ, for he hath died, “yea rather hath risen again.” My hope lives not

because I am not a sinner, but because I am a sinner for whom Christ died; my

trust is not that I am holy, but that being unholy, he is my righteousness. My

faith rests not upon what I am, or shall be, or feel, or know, but in what

Christ is, in what he has done, and in what he is now doing for me. On the

lion of justice the fair maid of hope rides like a queen.

 

Evening  “Who of God is made unto us wisdom.” / 1 Corinthians 1:30

 Man’s intellect seeks after rest, and by nature seeks it apart from the Lord

Jesus Christ. Men of education are apt, even when converted, to look upon the

simplicities of the cross of Christ with an eye too little reverent and

loving. They are snared in the old net in which the Grecians were taken, and

have a hankering to mix philosophy with revelation. The temptation with a man

of refined thought and high education is to depart from the simple truth of

Christ crucified, and to invent, as the term is, a more intellectual doctrine.

This led the early Christian churches into Gnosticism, and bewitched them with

all sorts of heresies. This is the root of Neology, and the other fine things

which in days gone by were so fashionable in Germany, and are now so ensnaring

to certain classes of divines. Whoever you are, good reader, and whatever your

education may be, if you be the Lord’s, be assured you will find no rest in

philosophizing divinity. You may receive this dogma of one great thinker, or

that dream of another profound reasoner, but what the chaff is to the wheat,

that will these be to the pure word of God. All that reason, when best guided,

can find out is but the A B C of truth, and even that lacks certainty, while

in Christ Jesus there is treasured up all the fulness of wisdom and knowledge.

All attempts on the part of Christians to be content with systems such as

Unitarian and Broad-church thinkers would approve of, must fail; true heirs of

heaven must come back to the grandly simple reality which makes the

ploughboy’s eye flash with joy, and gladens the pious pauper’s heart–“Jesus

Christ came into the world to save sinners.” Jesus satisfies the most elevated

intellect when he is believingly received, but apart from him the mind of the

regenerate discovers no rest. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of

knowledge.” “A good understanding have all they that do his commandments.”

Whom God made our wisdom.  1 Corinhians 1:30

Man’s intellect seeks for peace and by nature seeks it apart from the Lord Jesus Christ. Men of education are apt, even when converted, to look upon the simplicities of the cross of Christ with too little reverence and love. They are trapped in the old net in which the Greeks were taken and have a hankering to mix philosophy with revelation.

The temptation with a man of refined thought and high education is to depart from the simple truth of Christ crucified and to invent, as the term is, a more intellectual doctrine. This led the early Christian churches into Gnosticism and bewitched them with all sorts of heresies. This is the root of unorthodoxy and the other high-sounding notions that in the past were so fashionable in Germany and are now so enthralling to certain classes of divines. Whoever you are, good reader, and whatever your education may be, if you are the Lord’s, rest assured that you will find no peace in philosophizing divinity.

You may receive the dogma of one great thinker or the dream of another profound reasoner, but what the chaff is to the wheat is what these notions are to the pure Word of God. Reason at its best can only discover the ABCs of truth, and even that lacks certainty, while in Christ Jesus there is treasured up all the fullness of wisdom and knowledge. All attempts on the part of Christians to be content with the systems that Unitarian and liberal-church thinkers approve of must fail; true heirs of heaven must come back to the grandly simple reality that makes the plowboy’s eye flash with joy and rejoices the pious pauper’s heart—”Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.”1 Jesus satisfies the most elevated intellect when He is believingly received, but apart from Him the mind of the regenerate discovers no rest. “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge.”2 “All those who practice it have a good understanding.”3

11 Timothy 1:15 2Proverbs 1:7 3Psalm 111:10

Family Reading Plan   Ezekiel 28  Psalm 77