I WONDER
WHAT HE’S UP TO NOW
MIKE
CUNNINGHAM
Please don’t think I’m
trying to sound humble but, all things considered, this morning’s message was
the best I could come up with. I had to borrow bits and pieces from previous
sermons because last week was one of the most emotionally draining weeks of my entire
life. So much so, that I was tempted and came very close to asking Him to take
me home. That will give you an idea of how worn out I felt. But that was last
week and I’m doing much better now, thanks to Christ’s strength within me and
the prayers of a lot folks.
Have you ever made the
statement, “divorce is always wrong?” I honestly can’t recall having done so,
but I suppose it’s possible. How about you? If you have, you’re in very good
company. In his book, “The Divine Conspiracy,”
Allow me to
explain. Willard once blurted out that remark years ago to a group of fellow
seminarian’s and no one challenged him. In the passing of time however, the
Lord opened his eyes to reality. For instance, he went on to inform his readers
that, “Later I came across a situation of a devout woman whose husband had
married her as a cover for his homosexually. He consummated the marriage so it
couldn’t be annulled, and after that he had nothing to do with her. They had no
personal relationship at all. He would bring his male friends home and, in her
presence, have sex in the living room or wherever else they pleased any time
they pleased. Her religious guides continued to tell her that she must stay in
“the marriage,” while she died a further death, year after year.” I was simply
an ignorant young man full of self-righteous ideas,” he added. “This and later
episodes of discovery educated me in the hardness of the human heart. But
Jesus, of course, always knew.”
Many Christians might
concede the abused woman’s justification in fleeing from such an evil
environment. But, they adamantly refuse to acknowledge divorce is permissible
under any circumstance. A passage frequently used to justify their view is
found in Matthew 19: 6, “Therefore, what God has joined together, let no man
separate” (NKJV). Now allow me to ask you this question: do any of you believe
the marriage I just described was actually made in Heaven? In my wildest
imagination, I can’t believe the One who is the very personification of love,
the One who is perfect in righteousness; that Holy One ever called into the
Gospel Ministry homosexual predators, drunkards, womanizers and the like, men
who unless they repent, will not inherit the Kingdom of Heaven. Nor do I
believe that God called such men into His church where they were free to
masquerade as priests and ministers, and in His name, join a man and woman
together in marriage.
Even if a divinely
ordained man had united a couple in a
marriage; quite often ‘the passing of time’ has revealed that there had
been a phony ‘pre-marital conversion’ to Christianity on the part of one person, just as ‘the
doing of time’ has revealed there had been a ‘phony jail-house
conversion.’ Can you imagine God forbidding one of His children who had
been deceived in such a manner not to remarry an obviously born-again
Christian? In the eyes of the state such marriages are valid, but I can’t
believe they are in God’s eyes. You and I may never have endured such suffering
as the woman who was deceived into marrying the appalling homosexual, but in
one way or another, we also know what it’s like to be treated with contempt.
Are any of you folks strangers to being put down, despised, ignored or viewed
as being inferior or worthless by another person or persons, or have you
somehow managed to escape other peoples scorn and ridicule? Of course not!
That’s the sad reality of the world we live in. I’ll be the first to admit it’s
pretty difficult not to get angry with people who treat us so despicably and
God doesn’t tell us that we shouldn’t.
Ephesians
4:26-27 (ESV)
26 Be angry and do not sin; do not
let the sun go down on your anger, 27 and
give no opportunity to the devil.
As my son Mike is fond
of saying, “I try to get rid of my anger before my head hits the pillow.” Of
course he doesn’t always succeed but he honestly tries to. One of the things
I’ve stressed in numerous messages is the responsibility of Christians to
forgive those who have sinned against them, just as they have been forgiven by
God in Christ Jesus; including folks who repeatedly treat them with such contempt.
However, the time may come when it becomes obvious the person could care less about
our love or forgiveness just as most people want nothing to do with the love of
Jesus, and His offer of forgiveness for their sins. If that’s the case, we may
have to sever our relationship with him or her completely, or reduce it to a
bare minimum.”
A case in point is there
are some loose cannons out there I avoid like the plague. For instance, over
the past several weeks I started bumping into a middle aged intellectually challenged
woman I hadn’t seen in several years. She is a notorious loose cannon both
physically and verbally even to the point of kicking and screaming obscenities
at the police officers whenever it became necessary to restrain her. I spotted
her couple of days ago as my wife and I were shopping in a supermarket picking
up some things for our vacation. She was accompanied by another woman who
probably had been assigned to her by the State to see that she didn’t become a
danger to herself or others. I whispered to my wife to get going in the
opposite direction and I quickly split. I have been praying for that woman for
the past several weeks and I still am today. As I mentioned a moment ago; I
avoid her like the plague and so do others who have been on the receiving end
of her fits of rage. Whenever I think
about that woman or other folks I know who are enslaved by the acts of their
sinful nature, I pray fervently for them.
Galatians
5:19-21 (NIV)
19 The acts of the sinful nature
are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; 20 idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord,
jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions 21 and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the
like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not
inherit the
As I was thinking about
the eternal quality of life of that woman and other people who are still enslaved
by their sinful nature and who refuse to knock it off up until the moment of
their death; I was reminded of a very strange experience I once had while I was
thinking about a particular tragedy. It occurred three years ago next month
when a very disturbing animated image suddenly flashed through my mind. It only
lasted a second or two and seemed like a day-dream. Perhaps it was. Only the
Lord knows for sure. It stayed with me on an off throughout the day and into
the next, until several ministerial challenges took center stage. Nevertheless,
that particular mental picture continued to resurface every once in a while,
and here it is again today. At the time I had been recalling the tragic events
that occurred on the Interstate 35W B ridge in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Allow me
to explain by quoting brief excerpts from my August 5, 2007 with a few slight
modifications.
An August 2nd
update in the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported “the 1,907-foot bridge fell
into the Mississippi River and onto runways below. The span was packed with
rush hour traffic, and dozens of vehicles fell with the bridge leaving scores
of dazed commuters scrambling for their lives.” “Between 50 and 60 vehicles were
on the bridge when it went down shortly after 6 p.m., authorities said. Legions
of rescue workers and volunteers swarmed the scene and spent hours sifting
through the wreckage in a frantic search for survivors. Many vehicles,
including a least one semitrailer were on fire. People were reported to be
floundering in the river. Rescuers rushed to help people escape cars trapped in
the V-shaped hollow where the bridge caved in.”
As the “ripple effect”
expanded, the lives of untold numbers of people were being impacted
dramatically. Needless to say there were many questions as to why it happened.
Investigations were underway and fingers would no doubt soon be pointed at
someone to blame. Government officials were making all sorts of promises.
Politicians were intent on getting as much political mileage out of it as they
possibly could. The media and those TV and radio talk show “motor-mouths” were
having a field day. Anti-Christian activist atheists were gleefully hammering
that tragedy as another nail into what they hoped was God’s coffin. And those
who were directly affected by it were suffering intense sorrow, grief, anxiety,
and heartache, as the magnitude of their loss continued to unfold.”
“I don’t know about you
folks, but I seriously doubt if I won’t recall this particular tragedy every
time I start to cross a similar bridge in the future, as I hope to tomorrow as
we head onto the Maine Coast. And that’s exactly what our Creator wants
everyone to do. Christians can take comfort in the knowledge that however awful
that tragedy was, it had been planned and ordained by God in eternity past to
occur in our present. We can be assured God will somehow be glorified through
that tragedy and that it will work out for the eventual good of each of His
children who were affected by it.
Ephesians
1:11 (ESV)
11 In him we have obtained an
inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who
works all things according to the counsel of his will,
Daniel
4:35 (ESV)
35 all the inhabitants of the earth
are accounted as nothing, and he does according to his will among the host
of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay his hand
or say to him, “What have you done?”
Among other things, He
intends disasters to become a merciful blessing, and they will be for all those
who pay attention and learn from them. In other words, in addition to His
revelation of Himself in the Scriptures, our Creator speaks to His human
creatures through these acts of divine providence..
A very, very patient God
is speaking through tragedies such as 911 and the Oklahoma City bombing and the
current B. P. oil spill to individuals and our nation as a whole. A nation
which, [as of 2007], since 1972 has allowed American mothers to butcher over
four hundred million babies living in their womb [as of 2007]; an affluent
nation in which millions of people are caught up in the pursuit of pleasures
which are taking them further and further away from God. A nation in which much
of the media and educational system are trying to persuade us that evil is
good; as in granting homosexuals the right to marry and raise children. I could
go on and on, but I know you have the picture by now.
Whenever I view the
video footage of a tragedy in which a lot of lives are lost, I try to visualize
the invisible activity also taking place. Then I’m able to imagine the spirits
of the dead Christians being warmly greeted by Jesus Himself. I can visualize
Him grinning from ear to ear, and with outstretched arms, motion His follower to
fly into them. I’m able to visualize that dead Christian who is now clothed
with a new immortal/invisible/spiritual body leaving his or her dead one behind
as they ascend further and further into the sky with Jesus and out of my sight
on their way to the unimaginably wonderful place He has prepared for them.
At this point I would
like to describe the disturbing animated image which flashed through my mind on
that particular Tuesday morning as I was thinking about the eternal quality of
life of folks who are caught up and enslaved by their sinful nature. These are
the ones who will not ask God to forgive them, and who defiantly refuse to stop
sinning up until the moment of their death. The unrecognizable spirit of such a
person was silently standing facing me when all of a sudden it was engulfed by
a huge fireball. The person’s horrible cries of pain were indescribable. A
millisecond later the fireball vanished and there standing before me was a
charred grotesque animated figure which no one would ever recognize a once
having been a human being, and which no human being would ever want to go near.
Then, the poor pathetic screaming thing seemed to be whisked away against its
will, off into the darkness and out of my sight.
In his famous sermon,
“Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” Jonathan Edwards described the plight
of such people. “Unconverted people walk over the pit of hell on a rotten
covering, and there are innumerable places in this covering so weak that they
will not hold their weight, and these places are not seen. The arrows of death
fly unseen at noonday and the sharpest sight cannot see them.” You and I know
people who want nothing to do with Jesus and His love for them. They are
wrapped up in themselves and the pursuit of their perceived needs. Sometimes
you and I are on the receiving end of their sins.
If we have truly been
born anew we will want to forgive everyone including Christians for the often
despicable way they have treated us. With those unbelievers the Lord has
brought into our life, we will want to do everything possible to lead them to
the Cross of Christ and forgiveness. I know from experience it’s often
very difficult to even want to forgive someone who has hurt us very much. Those
are the times we must plead with Him to powerfully incline us to want to
forgive them, and then give us the strength of Christ within us to do so. One of the things I suggest we do to help us to
forgive someone is to meditate on the scourging Jesus had to suffer at the
hands of the Roman soldiers for every our sins both the big and little ones. Concerning
Jesus, the ancient historian’s Josephus and Eusebus in their accounts of the
martyr’s wrote that: “They whipped His pain racked body so severely, that it
revealed His bones and cartilage and deep-seated veins and arteries. Even His
intestines and organs were exposed.” The Prophet Isaiah foretold and
described the horrible result. Speaking of the crucified Savior, Isaiah wrote:
Isaiah 52:14 (NIV) 14 Just as there were many who were appalled
at him—His appearance was so
disfigured beyond that of any man and His form marred beyond human likeness.
When time is no more,
and all human beings are looking back at human history from eternity, the
inescapable conclusion they will arrive at is that Hell was truly a very
difficult place to get in to. They will be able to see with crystal clear
clarity that, among other things, all their personal losses, sorrows,
frustrations, disappointments and heart break had been planned and ordained by
God to occur in their life in order to divert them from the place of eternal
torment and on to the road leading to Paradise. They will be able to see that
tragedies such as the bridge were in reality a divine mercy and that it truly
was a roadblock on the way to hell.
As we think about those
divinely ordained challenges we all experience which cause us so much distress;
difficulties which we can’t make any
sense of no matter how hard we try; it’s helpful to remember and believe that
line from the classic hymn: ‘behind a frowning providence He hides a smiling
face.’ Then we can scratch our head and ask ourselves this question: “I
wonder what He’s up to now?”
I hoping and praying that
every one of you folks who just heard this message preached, as well as those
who may read it later, will, if you haven’t already done so, confess your sins
to God and accept Christ’s love for poor sinners such as you and me.
Lord willing, on August
1st ….
Additional
Sermons || Leave Feedback