When Towers Fall

I am Steve Nichols, president of Reformation Bible college and I'm excited to announce to you the launch of our online foundation year program you can earn a certificate in theology, you can build a firm foundation that you can take with you into whatever ministry or whatever career you end up pursuing apply today to invest in an affordable education. Please visit us@reformationbiblecollege.org/online in Luke chapter 13 the people asked Jesus to help them understand why good people died in tragic circumstances. How could something of the enormity of this tragedy take place in a universe that is governed by a holy God is hard enough to understand how human beings could be so inhumane and so wicked in their treatment of other human beings.

But how could God allow these things to happen illicitly?

Millions of people have been asking these days is a sense of injustice creeps and when we witness tragic events, but the way that Jesus answered this question leaves permitting scratching their heads. We welcome you to the Monday edition of Renewing Your Mind. I'm really well I'm glad you joined us this week. Dr. RC Sproul will examine some of the difficult passages we encounter in Scripture and today's lesson is titled when towers fall to turn our attention to some of the sayings of Jesus. What we call a hard saying is a saying that is either difficult for us in the sense that we perceive it as being harsh or severe or we can call it a hard saying because it's hard to grasp are hard to understand is difficult to figure out what it means.

And so will be choosing both of those types of hard sayings and today I want to turn your attention to the gospel according to St. Luke to the 13th chapter 2 an episode that is contained there that I in an earlier series have already spoken about under our series entitled the providence of God, but I want to revisit this episode in light of its being a hard say chapter 13 of Luke begins with these works that were present at that season. Some who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices and Jesus answered and said to them, do you suppose that these Galileans were worse sinners than all other Galileans, because they suffered such things I tell you no, but unless you repent you will all likewise perish, or those 18, on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them. Do you think that they were worse sinners than all other men who dwelt in Jerusalem I tell you no, but unless you repent you will all likewise perish. Obviously the questions that were being brought to Jesus were questions that people had about catastrophes that had befallen people in their day and they were wondering how a good God, a loving God could allow these tragic catastrophes to take place.

I remember the bombing episode that took place in 1995 in April 1995 in Oklahoma City were terrorists took this huge bomb in a highly crowded federal office building that included at daycare center and detonated in the nation watched the news reports of this in the quarter and this was one of those rare occasions where the news media rushing to bring fresh information to the viewers would bring in on edited tapes and the usual shield we have from gory reports of violence in the world were absent on that occasion. Who can forget the picture of the policeman carrying the baby and handing it over to the firemen and then later to realize that the infant had died and I was interested in listening to the adjectives and the language that the news reporters groped for to give an adequate description of the degree of heinousness of this cry. I heard one newsman say that this was an in human sip panic act and another newsman say wait a minute. We have to realize that people are capable of this kind of atrocity, but there was a national sense of outrage and particularly because children were included in this incident.

Somebody said to me why children why would anybody kill children. What's the purpose of terrorism. When I said the purpose of terrorism is obvious, it's to terrorize is to bring people to a state of fear that will cause them to react in ways by which those who are perpetrating this can control their responses. That's what terrorism is all about. But again, the questions were how could something of the enormity of this tragedy take place in a universe that is governed by a holy God. How can God allow such a disaster to take places hard enough to understand how human beings could be so inhumane and so wicked in their treatment of other human beings.

But how could God allow these things to happen with those questions are the questions that every generation seeks to answer and the people in Jesus day were no different and they came to Jesus and reported to specific incidents from their own day.

The first one refers to an event that Took Pl. in Galilee where, while people were in the midst of worship in church if you will. Some of the soldiers under the authority of Pontius Pilate came in and massacred them mixing their blood with the blood of the animals when these were not warriors on the battlefield. These were supplicants in the worship environment who were stormed upon and treated with a brutal massacre so that their blood was flowing and desecrating the sanctity of the religious buildings there and so they come to Jesus and they say and how can this be, and Jesus answered and said to them, do you suppose that these Galileans were worse sinners than all other Galileans, because they suffered such things. Jesus, in the sense that docs their question and takes this opportunity to instruct them on a very weighty and difficult theological truth. Jesus answers a question with a question and it's very similar to the response he gave elsewhere in his ministry was recorded in the ninth chapter of the Gospel of John, where people brought a man who would been blind from birth to Jesus and asked this question trying to trap Jesus with a theological poser. They set the Jesus who sinned, this man or his parents that he was born blind now. Those who raise that question committed an informal fallacy of logic and that fallacy is called the fallacy of the false dilemma or sometimes is called the either or fallacy.

They came with Jesus and I only gave them two options to account for the man's blindness, either.

They said the man was born blind because of his own sin or because of the sin of his parents house. Jesus asked the question. Neither did Neve there with this man, sin, or his parents, but that God may be glorified and he was indeed glorified through the healing of the man born blind. But what was behind that question that the disciples raced of Jesus in John's Gospel was the assumption that all suffering in this world is proportionately related to a person's particular degree of sinfulness. This is a weighty matter.

I don't know how many times I stood in the hospital room and talked privately as a confessional situation with dying people who've expressed to me their conviction that the reason for their pain and their suffering was some particular sin that they had committed and they wanted to get that authored conscience before they died. That is for more present and pervasive among people than we realize. We hardly ever talk about this because we want to divorce ourselves from any thought that there is a relationship between sin and suffering. Yet, in the broad picture the general scope of Scripture we are told that it is because of sin that suffering and death come into the world so that there was a sound idea at least partially in the minds of the disciples when they asked the question why is this man blind is because of his sin or the sin of his parents because the disciples at least understood that there is some kind of a connection between moral evil and physical suffering. But Jesus took that opportunity to teach them that though in general, there would be no suffering and there be no death in the world if there were no sin in the world. Nevertheless, we cannot rush to judgment leap to the conclusion that everybody suffers in proportionate measure to the degree of their sin in the Bible makes it very clear that that's not the case. There are the wicked who prosper and the righteous who suffer the whole book of Job is designed to belie that misunderstanding and the show that Job was the most upright man in all world when he was visited with untold misery and suffering, and the error of his friends was the assumption that because Job's suffering was so severe and so great that Job must've been the worst sinner in the whole world will both John chapter 9 and the book of Job should put that idea to rest once and for all, but it should not lead us to a false conclusion, namely that there is no relationship between suffering and sin. But when these people come to Jesus here in Luke and they asked him about this incident in Galilee where Pilate mangles the blood of the worshipers with the sacrifices. Jesus says to them, do you think that these Galileans who suffered were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered such thing. And obviously, Jesus is answering his own question.

Isn't he saying no, they're not worse sinners. So now you would expect Jesus to say hey accidents happen. This had nothing to do with their sin, or you might expect Jesus to save these people who were killed were total innocent people and assisted dreadful calamity that took place one of those fortuitous circumstances that happened by chance. That's not the conclusion either. Jesus said don't think that because they suffered you are better than they are, or they were worse than you are. And then he turns them and said, unless you repent you will all likewise perish. Beloved people do dreadful things to people who are innocent of any crime against those who injure them.

The terrorist works indiscriminately. He doesn't aim at military installments. He aims at the general public key aims of children in order to terrorize as many people as he possibly can and with respect to the relationship between the victim and the perpetrator. The victim is innocent and that's true, and we need to remember that on the other hand, it is also true that when we look vertically in terms of our relationship to God not have us is an innocent person before God and that's what Jesus is trying to communicate that lets you repent you will all likewise perish. He saying to these people. You're asking me the wrong question. Instead of being horrified that a good God would allow this catastrophe to both fall these innocent people in Galilee. The question you should be asking is why your blood wasn't spilled in Galilee, why she's the same that's a hard saying Jesus is trying to remind these people that there is no such thing as an innocent person and is trying to communicate to us that the real amazing question is not the justice of God, but the grace of God we have a song that we sing called amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me.

We sing that in church with great gusto and with very little belief. Do we really believe that we are wretches who have been saved by the grace of God.

Do we really believe that the favors we received from the hand of God are unmerited and earned an undeserved to Jesus is saying we should be saying why didn't our blood flow in that place. How could we escape. How could God who is a good God allow me a sinner to continue to enjoy all these benefits, that's the question that should be being asked and likewise the next incident that is contained in this narrative are those 18, on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them. Do you think they were worse sinners than all the other men to dwell in Jerusalem, I tell you no, they were any worse. There weren't any better. 18 innocent people in a building and the building collapses. It's not like they were standing there outside the construction of this Temple playing sidewalk superintendent and harassing the construction workers and so as a result God judge them have the powerful on their heads. Not walking down the street minding her own business. The tower collapse and boom there, kill questions how can God allow that to happen. Jesus answered his heart he saying, why shouldn't God allow that the question should be asking is why the temple doesn't fall on your head if you really believe that we live by grace. That's the response you have to have and sometimes it takes the hard saying of Jesus in the question in a situation like this to get us to remember that that we are not exempt from tragedy or suffering or calamity or injustice from the hands of people as I've said over and over and over again.

It's very possible for me to commit an injustice against you and for you to commit an injustice against me because in terms of our relationship.

We may be innocent with respect to one another, but anything that the false me that is painful or sorrowful or grievous that comes to me from the hand of God. I can never see as an act of injustice because God does not owe me freedom from tragedies, God does not owe me freedom from temples falling on my head or towers bearing me beneath the rubble because I am a debtor before God, who cannot repay, and Jesus warning is hard in less you repent you will all likewise perish. Let's look at that again Jesus says that there is a necessary condition that has to be met here in less indicate something that has to take place for a consequence to follow unless a B cannot occur or unless a B will occur. And in this case, Jesus said, in less there is repentance, you will all likewise perish. The only antidote to perishing at the hands of God is repentance so we can all look forward to the temple falling on us or our blood being mingled with the sacrifices unless we repent and really get hard when you realize that even if we do repent temples can still follow letterheads in this world.

Although the final tower will not collapse upon us. The tower of God's final judgment.

We will escape that.

And yet, if a person makes it safely through all of life never has an automobile accident never is in a plane crash or train wreck or never has the house fall upon their head if they remain impenitent to the last day there will be a tower that will crush them and they will perish. That's the hard saying of Christ, and so I say to you, beloved, watch out for falling.

Jesus used the tragedy to remind the people that there was an imminent spiritual reality.

Everyone must be reconciled with God's good reminder for us in these turbulent days. Is it people all around us need to hear this truth they need to hear the gospel, you know, sometimes Jesus answers that seem harsh to his listeners and they can seem harsh to us to. That's why Dr. Spruill taught this hard sayings series and I will share more of the lessons with you as we progress through the week. RC actually taught for series on this topic, including the hard sayings of the Bible the hard sayings of the prophets, the hard sayings of the apostles and the series we are today the hard sayings of Jesus, all of them are contained on a single USB drive that there were offering to you for your gift of idiom out there are 30 lessons in all. So call us today with your gifted 800-435-4343 will be glad to send it to you. You can also make a request to give your gift online at Renewing Your Mind.or RC tackles many difficult questions in these four series. For example, do the warnings in the New Testament mean that a believer can lose his salvation. And what does it mean when we say in the apostles Creed that Jesus descended into hell will send you this USB thumb drive containing all 30 lessons for your gift of any about the dinner number is 800-435-4343 and our web address is Renewing Your Mind.work.

Another great resource for you to explore is our app it's available for Apple, android, and Kindle fire devices that only will you find articles and blog post, but you also have access to a library of past Renewing Your Mind episodes. Just search for linear in your app store before we go today.

Here's RC with a final thought for us. Surely we struggle with the kind of hard saying that we've looked at today that Jesus is not being insensitive or thoughtless or trying to be harsh with us here, but he does have to jolt them and jolt us into looking at things from the eternal perspective, and that's the only way we can deal with tragedy and with calamity is to understand that behind things that were experience in the here and now stands the eternal purpose of God. And it's funny how differently we respond to pain and the sorrow and the tragedy for some of us if we lose a loved one, or experience a painful loss. It makes us better and angry towards God, but for others in the midst of that pain. We are driven to our knees and to rush to the presence of God to seek the soloists the consolation and the comfort that he is prepared to give to his people. Remember the promise of God to his people that on the last day he will personally dry the tears from our eyes. And when God dries our tears. They stay dry well as a promises will come into play tomorrow as RC addresses another hard passage in the Bible and we are going to tackle that question of whether a believer can lose his salvation, so we hope you'll join us Tuesday for Renewing Your Mind