Luke's Gospel

We are going to be reading from verse 54 of chapter 12 through to verse 9 of chapter 13. If you're visiting us for the first time, we have been working our way through Luke's gospel, and it's been a delight to hear god speaking to us week by week as we open up his word. This careful orderly account that Luke put together so that we might understand and love Jesus. And, we are approaching this this next bit now. So look 12.

Jesus said to the crowd, when you see a cloud rising in the west, immediately, you say it's going to rain, and it does. And when the south wind blows, you say it's gonna be hot. And it is. Hippocrats. You know how to interpret the appearance of the earth and the sky How is it that you don't know how to interpret this present time?

Why don't you judge for yourselves what is right? As you are going with your adversary to the magistrate, try hard to be reconciled on the way, or your adversary may drag you off to the judge and the judge turn you over to the officer and the officer throw you into prison. I tell you you will not get out until you have paid the last penny. Now there was some present at that time who told Jesus about the Gallians whose blood pilot had mixed with their sacrifices. Jesus answered, do you think that these Gallians were worse sinners than all the other Gallians because they suffered in this way, I tell you no, but unless you repent, you too will all perish.

Or those 18 who died when the tower in siloam fell on them, do you think they were more guilty? Than all the others living in Jerusalem. I tell you no, but unless you repent, you too will all perish. Then he told this parable. A man had a fig tree growing in his vineyard, and he went to look for fruit on it but did not find any.

So he said to the man who took care of the vineyards for 3 years now, I've been coming to look for fruit on this victory and haven't found any. Cut it down. Why should it use up the soil? Sir, the man replied, leave it alone for 1 more year, and I'll de ground it and fertilize it. If it bears fruit next year, fine.

If not, then cut it down. Well, good evening. My name's, Pete Woodcock. I'm the pastor of the church. And as Tom said, we're working our way through Luke's gospel.

You come to this fantastic, little part of Luke. So keep that open. I don't know whether you've ever been in a situation. It's it seems to have happened to me quite a lot where your you're watching some stage show or it's 1 of those sort of, outside stage show things that's going on, you know, there's someone getting an audience and there's a crowd around. And and, you're enjoying it.

You're just, you're just an amused onlooker. And then suddenly you realize that you are being called to be part of the, the thing that's happening on stage. I don't know whether that's ever happened to you. You suddenly And now we have a volunteer and they point at you and you just have to go up otherwise, you know, everybody's against you. So you go from that sort of nice, amused onlooker to this, really awful sort of realization that you're included in something center stage.

There's a big difference, isn't there? And when it comes to the subject of suffering, because that's what I want us to think about tonight, and I want you that's what's going on in this passage in a minute. It's very important to make that distinction really important. To make the distinction between being someone that just gazes on at the events going on center stage. And someone who is brought into center stage.

There's a big difference when we ask the questions about suffering and tragedies and disasters and terrorism, quite a difference. A disaster happens, and we feel the shock of it But undoubtedly those who have been involved in it feel it a lot more than you do. Their perspective is a lot deeper than yours. Or those that perhaps know people that have been involved in it. You see do you see the difference?

Now here's the question, and it's it's it's a fine question to ask. What about god? How close and involved is god to the whole area of suffering and disaster and tragedy and terrorism? How close is god to those things? To what extent is he a spectator?

Just looking at looking on at the stage. What extent is he someone that just gives advice? Perhaps he's there in, in heaven, in his in his majesty, and he's looking down at the world, spectating from a distance. And he might give advice. He might send a word.

And it would probably be good advice, I guess, if god is going to going to do that, but it's just that, isn't it? It's just a commentary. He's remote. He's just shouting down from heaven. Or has he come on to center stage?

Has he known what it is to suffer? Has he known what it is to have a crowd in a frenzy out to destroy him and kill him. So you know what it is to have a best mate turn his back on him. And sell him. Has he known those things?

Well, of course, if you read the story of the Bible and if we carried on breathing Luke's gospel, which we will, You'll you'll find out that god isn't just an interested onlooker. This is the amazing thing about the Christian faith. That god has come into this world. That god has taken on human flesh flesh like yours and mine that feels and hurts He knows what it is to be unappreciated. He knows what it is to have people call him a loony.

He's mad. He's gone out of his brain. He knows what it is. To have family members turn against him. He knows what it is to have a best mate, sell him.

He knows what it is. To have nails driven through his hands, and through his feet, and be in agony. So when we come to Luke 13, we need to come knowing that Jesus who's going to answer questions about terrorism and suffering, as I'll show you in in in a second, we've gotta come knowing that he knows what he's talking about. He will be center stage. It's only a few weeks time, and he's gonna be on the cross.

So this isn't just interesting philosophy here. This isn't just someone answering stuff about tragedies and sufferings. This is someone who sent a stage felt the pain of a nasty world that was against him. So he's worth listening to, I think. So here we are.

Here's the scene. There's a man called pilot. He's the 1 that would, it's the Roman governor. He's the 1 that's going to condemn Jesus to the cross if if you know the story. But what he's done is he's walked into a place of worship and he's murdered the worshipers, and he's mixed the blood of the sacrifices with the blood of the worshipers.

I mean, it's just a it's a horrific thing. It would be terrorism if he wasn't the actual government in charge. But it's a racist, violent, terrorist act against the people. It's horrible. In their worship, he bursts through the doors, guns them down, and mix their blood.

With the sacrifices. This this is something that's gone on there back in those days. And then the other event is this tower. It's called the tower of Saloam. It's it's what people would often call a sort of natural disaster.

Now, we don't know why it fell down. It may have been people, you know, not using the the best, cement or whatever like that, all kinds things putting on the wrong cladding or whatever it is, just to make some more money, but it had fallen down, and it had crushed 18 people to death these were national disasters. Right? They were in the psyche. People were talking about them.

They were in the papers. They'd be on the metro. They would be be beamed into all of your your media stuff. They were big stories. People were talking about them.

Look at chapter 13 verses 1 to 3. Now There were some present at the time who told Jesus about the Gallians whose blood pilot had mixed with their sacrifices. Jesus answered Do you think that these Gallians were worse sinners than all the other Gallians because they suffered this way? I tell you no. But unless you repent, you too, all, you too will all perish.

Or those 18 who died, when the tower of Soloum fell on them. Now it's really interesting this. You've gotta get this because these are terrible national disasters and and act of terrorism and blood and and stuff. But it's interesting where it comes, just just a little thing, and this is why it's worth reading whole chapters. We just had, and if you were here last week, you have heard Tom, open up that really, really in your face passage, really.

About judgment and stuff, you know, knowing the times and, you know, and and it's it's Jesus sort of at his fiercest. If you like. I mean, it must have been shocking to be in that crowd to hear what Jesus was saying. Death, judgment. You gotta repent.

And it's it's in the middle of that, he's he's just done that talk. And then someone burst in and says, oh, yeah, what about the terrorist realm? What about the, and it is just amazing because it's almost as if It was so hot what Jesus was saying that actually we just need to distract our mind. I've gotta think of something else. Let's bring it down to earth.

All this judgment stuff Let's what what about reality? Let's change the subject a little bit. Now, actually, if you go back in Luke, you see in chapter 12, the same thing happens. Jesus is talking about judgment and heaven and hell. And then a man bursts in and says, can you let's talk about money and, my brother who owes me some money.

That sort of stuff, the inheritance. It is interesting. It's worth getting this, isn't it? It is interesting how we divert You know, when when when someone's sort of telling us truths that hurt a little bit, we we divert. What about what about?

But what about? So Jesus does take it up. The first thing I want you to see here, and I really do want you to see this, is that Jesus actually rejects a lot of popular views about suffering. So we're thinking about tragedies and suffering, but first thing I want you to see is that he he's gonna clear the way so he can speak truth, but he he he he rejects a lot of false ideas about suffering. And the first false idea about suffering is that it's a punishment for a particular sin when someone suffers.

It's a punishment for a particular sin. That's the first view he gets rid of. Now it's true, and we've gotta get this that suffering and sin are linked together in general terms in the bible. They definitely are. The world is suffering, and I'll show you that again in in a minute.

The world is suffering because it has rebelled against the god of truth and the god of love and so the world is suffering and suffering in this world is a fruit of us turning from god. The reason this world is suffering is because we've turned from god. That's absolutely true. But it's not true to say that you particularly suffer because of a particular sin that you've done. Now having said that, it can be true.

If you're so drunk, that you fall over in the middle of the road and a car runs you over, your suffering and your sin are linked together, obviously. Yeah. You can you can see that. But we have no liberty to say 18 people died in that tower. What did they do wrong?

Those people were had their blood mixed with, with their sac what did they they must have they must have been bad. That type of thinking, that type of belief is is the doctrine, is the teaching of hinduism. It's not Christian. And it goes along with the terrible, terrible teaching that some people think is nice of karma. The trouble with the word karma, it sounds so nice, doesn't it?

Karma, you know, it's actually horrible because there's no mercy. Karma is basically payback You do something wrong and you're paid back, you will suffer. That's the teaching of historic Hinduism. And the teaching of karma. You do something wrong and it's payback time.

So you do something wrong in this life in this what they call incarnation in this fleshly life, then you will be reincarnated as something worse than you were in this life. With with with some forms of Hinduism, that means you might come back as a woman because that's worse for you. Than being a man. I don't I'm not teaching this. Don't start getting on.

No. But that's what some says. Payback time. That's why you're a woman. If you're a woman here, You must have done something pretty bad.

Yeah? So there you go. The Bible rejects that. The Bible rejects that. In fact, the Bible has a whole book, a whole book called Job, and it's a big 1.

Right in the middle of the Bible that rejects that explanation of suffering. There are people called Job's friends. You may have heard of that sort of proverb, you know, Job's friends. And they come and they say, Job, you are suffering, and he was suffering because you have done a particular sin. If you repent, if you confess, then your suffering will go away.

And at the end of the book, God comes to the friends and said you misrepresented me. You got it totally wrong. You're wrong. That is not Christian teaching when it comes to suffering. Particularly judgment on a particular sin.

And Jesus clearly rejects it. Look at verse 2 of chapter 13. Jesus answered, do you think? Is this is this what you think? That these Gallilians were worse sinners than all the other Gallilians because they suffered this way.

And of course his answer is don't be don't be that's not what it's about. Now the problem is I don't know what whether you've noticed. Whenever there's a tragedy or an act of terrorism, the the BBC particularly And I think they probably put it there. Always focus in the flowers, and then there's always a sign right in the middle with the word Why? When you see the next tragedy, you'll see that.

It's always there And I so I guess someone puts it there in order for for it to be on TV, but it's always why. And the truth is it's not a bad thing to be there because so often people ask why when they suffer. What have I done to cause this to happen to me? Why me or you find people surprised. I never thought it would happen in this neighborhood.

Why didn't you think it wouldn't happen in this neighborhood? Because we're the good ones. So why here? Jesus rejects the idea that suffering is always the punishment for a particular sin. So let's be careful on that.

Here's the second 1. Jesus rejects the idea that suffering is an illusion. Now you may say that's a weird thing, but there are lots of people around that think that suffering is is not a really a reality. This is the teaching of Buddhism. It doesn't really believe in suffering because this whole world is is an illusion.

And so if you follow Buddhism and you follow the 4 noble truths, and then the eightfold path, you'll see that actually it eliminates suffering because this is just an illusion. It it all only comes from desire suffering and desire is an internal thing where you've got it wrong. If you can get rid of desire and that's why you met tape and empty your mind of everything. If you can get rid of desire, then you won't have suffering, which is an illusion. There's a group around they're opposite the university, actually.

It's a cult. It's not Christian. It's not science at all. If you read the staff called Christian scientists. They're even more explicit than Buddhism, and they say there is no sin.

There is no disease. There is no suffering. It's all an illusion. I did a bible study for about 6 weeks with a woman who was a Christian scientist, She was the yillest person I I knew at the time. She was so ill.

She had to carry oxygen around with her. She had a great big a big oxygen tank and had to be breathing. So you were doing bible studies and she was breathing in this. And she said suffering is an illusion. And when I pointed out to her, which I did every bible study, I was trying not to be cruel, but it was very odd, that you're the illest person around this table.

She said, no. I'm not. I'm not ill. It's an illusion. That's an extraordinary, weird thing, isn't it?

Sufferings and illusion, what an ugly thing that is. It's not real. And it clearly Jesus clearly rejects it. Look at verse 2 again of chapter 13, Jesus answered, do you think that these Gallians were worse sinners than all the other Gallians because they suffered this way, this way. He rejects the idea that it's an illusion.

Third 1, we're gonna get there, so please be with me. This Jesus rejects the view that suffering is meaningless or just random events. He doesn't take it as meaningless or accidents, actually. Now you gotta get this in the ancient world there were those who believed that actually suffering had no meaning at all as there are today. They were the stoics And, you basically had 2 groups of people.

You had this when it came to suffering and no and and and no meaning. You had the stoics and then you had these epicureans. So you had these 2 groups of people, stoics and epicureans. The stoics, said there is no meaning to suffering So we'll face it and we'll have the stiff upper lip and we'll say we'll fight it. There's no meaning, so we won't allow it to touch us.

They're the stoics. You know, I'm not gonna suffer. You know? It's very British. Well, it used to be.

It's not now. Everybody's a snowflake now, but it used to be British, you know, stoics. But the epicureans, they took it the other way. There is no suffering. There is no suffering and the way to get rid of the idea that there is a suffering is just to go and do everything we can, you know, turn up the music, turn up the lust, just party away so that we won't feel any suffering.

And of course, we do that sort of thing today. We we try to get rid of pain. We run away from suffering. We won't allow it. We won't express that we're we're in pain.

We turn up the music, and it's the same sort of thing. But Jesus clearly rejects this idea that it's meaningless because he goes on and teaches from it. So hold it, where are we? Suffering and disasters and tragedies and terrorism, a neither punishment for particular wrongs of the people that have suffered under it, necessarily. They're not illusions, and they're not meaningless.

There's some meaning to them. So here's my second point. Jesus teaches the meaning. Of tragedies and sufferings. This isn't everything the Bible says on suffering, but there's a good start.

So we've seen what he doesn't believe. He's cleared the way to say they're wrong ideas so that he can now teach right ideas. And here they are. So this is where you need to look at the passage. These things, these tragedies, these sufferings, these disasters, these of terrorism are there to show us there's something wrong with the world.

That's what they're there for. To show us that we're in a cracks design, flawed. Our present world order that you and I live in is not as it originally was created to be like. There's something gone wrong. We see the design, but there's a big floor through it.

A great crack right the way through it. God created the world, if you know the story of the Bible, beautiful, harmonious, exciting. If you go back to the first sentence in the Bible, it tells us this. In the beginning, god created the heavens and the earth. And that's sort of right the subject title.

That's like the the chapter title of the book. In the beginning, god created the heavens and the earth, and then it goes on and says what he did. It says, now the earth, get this, was formless, empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep. So you have this scene. God's gonna create the heavens and the earth, and what's he gonna create it from Well, it's described as no order, no form, all is darkness, no shape, no light, no movement, no meaning, empty, dark, nothingness.

And then god speaks. So there's this dark, empty void, formless, nothingness. And then god speaks. God speaks. And changes that darkness.

And it says, god said, let there be light, and there was light. And god saw the light, and it was good. God speaks into the darkness. And nothingness suddenly turns into beauty and light, and it is good. And then he makes men and women and places them in this good beautiful perfection and there's innocence in those early days.

But then you know the story perhaps in Genesis 3. It's only the third chapter on in the Bible. We see that mankind turn away from god. And turned to rebel against him. And so we turned back to darkness.

We extinguished light. And we become self obsessed. And this whole world cracks. An evil comes in. And there are evil desires and everything goes wrong and it's flawed and cracked and broken and sinful and ruined.

Because we didn't listen to the word. The word that takes darkness and turns it into light, we said I don't wanna hear it. And so Jesus is saying here in Luke 13, there is a universal sinfulness that is seen when you look at the world. And when you see terrorism, and violence and murders. And when you see tragedies, whether they're natural or man made, It's supposed to say there is something wrong with the world.

Tradities and sufferings are supposed to say there's something wrong. We see design and beauty on the 1 hand but we see flaws and murder and violence. We see the the wonder of of a human. We were looking at that this morning, the fingers, and the eyes, and the amazingness of of of what it is to be a person designed I mean, you know, just the portable plumbing that we have around us. It's not an accident.

We see it designed and yet diseases come in, tragedies come in. I can be knife to death shot to death. A tower can fall on me. Some terrorists can blow me up or shoot me. We're in this world.

Where it's cracked and flawed, but not only the world is. I am cracked and flawed. I have very high views sometimes. Very sacrificial thoughts, but mixed with that is selfishness and anger and violence. Isn't that in you?

On the 1 hand, you're a marvel. On the other hand, you're an evil. Devil. Isn't that true? You can you can do acts of wonderful things, then you can do acts of selfish, stubborn, even to people you love.

It's a broken, fallen, flawed, cracked, world. Part of our problem is We go through the world, avoiding these terrorism and this suffering. And therefore, we think we're alright. See, we love, in this, in our country, if you're from another land, you you'll soon pick this up if you ever watch any news or TV or read it. We love Hitler in this country as 1 of our heroes.

Hitler is 1 of our heroes in this country. We absolutely adore Adolph Hitler. We adore him. You you you you can't hardly get away, from talking to a British person without them wanting to talk about Hitler. We love Hitler.

And I'll tell you why we love him because he's a monster. He's horrible. He's a dictator that killed millions of people. And so it makes me look good. That's why we like him.

It makes me look, I'm not that long, not like him, but you are, aren't you? Hitler was a baby once. People came to a church and gave thanks for Hitler once. Ladies and gentlemen, we're here in this building. We would like to give thanks for this lovely lovely little head off.

There's a little bit of getting a little head off. Lovely little let off. Do you want some milk out of? But in our hearts, you see? We may not have done what he's done physically, but, you know, you think about the things that we've said and thought and the people we've ignored.

Extraordinary holocaust goes on in our minds sometimes. We don't like that. We don't like the idea to think that this world is flawed and cracked and broken in that sense. And so these tragedies says Jesus. Are there as a lesson to show us something's wrong with people, including you.

Something's gone wrong. Now there are groups around, of course, that see this. Extinction rebellion, which are going to close down London again tomorrow. They see that the world is cracked, and something's gone wrong. But they've got the wrong understanding of where it's gone wrong.

They think it's only pollution They think it's only a bit of carbon in the atmosphere man made. They don't understand that what we're talking about here is something much more than a bit of carbon that man makes, but it's sin and violence. And that's the problem that we should be rebelling against. So that's the first lesson. Here's the second lesson.

I must move on quickly. The second thing is that these things, these terrorists things, and these disasters They teach us that we're living in a temporary home. It's temporary. So here are these Gallians. They're now dead.

Here are the people that pilot, murderously, killed. They're killed. They're dead. You know, 18 are killed in verse 4 by the Taro of Salom, and, these other ones by pilot are killed. They're dead.

They're dead. Yeah. And Jesus is saying, this is teaching us that we're living in a home that is temporary. When you see these things, you should think you're living in a temporary home. Here's here's the question.

What's the tragedy? What's the tragedy here? Why is it tragic 18 people were killed? Why? What's what's the problem?

Why why when a terrorist thing happens? Why why do we say it's a tragedy? What's the tragedy? The tragedy is death. Do you see it?

The tragedy's death. These people would be dead anyway. They wouldn't be here sitting here, would they? If the terrorist alone didn't fall on those 18 people, do you think they'd be here? They would die anyway.

These people that were killed in this terrorist act, They wouldn't be here if they weren't. The big tragedy is death In fact, Jesus uses a word, he says, but unless you repent, you too will perish, he says. You too will Perish. That word perish is bigger than death. It's what he's been talking about in the previous chapter.

It's bigger than death. It means to be utterly completely ruined. It means to be cut off from life and light. The problem is is death. And after death, perish.

This is the awful thing that he's saying here. So you see, let me just get this. We talk about a young child that dies at a young age, and what a tragedy that is. And then we talk about an old man that dies at the ripe old age of a hundred. And we say, oh, well, you know, you had a good innings, people who went to cricket talk like that.

It's like weird, isn't He had a good innings. He got a hundred. Yeah. Not out, and then he is out. Yeah.

Bold out by death. But he had a good innings. The tragedy is death. In fact, the young child might have trusted in the lord Jesus Christ and be in the new creation. And yet we see it's a tragedy but the old man never turned to Jesus.

That's the tragedy. You miss out on god and life and everything the universe is all about. This life is temporary, and sufferings and disasters tell us that. Now you you students here You are all being taught constantly. Remember, you're being preached at all the time.

Constantly preach that. Yeah? And we've preached the the materialistic, philosophy. We're people of materialism. And of course, if we believe that that wealth and health and, long life, are what it's all about.

Then if we have a short life and don't have wealth and a very poor and a pretty ugly looking people, then this world mocks us And the trouble is it's mocking all of us here because we're not that good looking. We're not that wealthy, and we don't know how long our life will be. Materialism puts blinkers on us says live for the now get the now, don't think about the future. Jesus says when you see these acts of violence, when you see the world that we're in. It's meant to say you are in a temporary world.

1 day, you too will die. And what will all of this wealth and all of this stuff get you? The tragedy here is that you'll die and perish says Jesus. So here's the lesson when you see these things. And there's a third 1.

The third thing you see is that we're in borrowed time. Jesus tells this little story about the fig tree. It's a follow-up of what he's saying. Look at verse 6. Let me read it quickly.

Then he told this parable, A man had a fig tree growing in the vineyard, and he went to look for fruit on it, but it did not he did not find any. So he said to the man who took care of the vineyard. For 3 years now, I've been coming to look for fruit on this, fig tree and haven't found any. Cut it down. Why should it use up the soil?

Sir, the man said, leave it alone for 1 more year, and then I'll, and I'll dig around it and fertilize it. If it bears fruit next year, fine. If not, we'll cut it down. It's a very simple story, and I hope you get it. You're living on borrowed time.

And these tragedies are meant to tell you that. If you're not producing the fruit that god wants because you're a tree that's meant to bring fruit, that you are meant to live for god, not selfish hard gnarled fruit that is just about itself. But fruit that's delicious and offers other people generous, deliciousness. If you're not bearing fruit, you're on borrowed time. You're a tree that god's planted in this world at this time And if you're not bearing fruit for god, you're on borrowed time.

And god in his generosity, and god in his patient says, give it another year, give it another year. It might come to its senses. Let's fertilize it. Let's teach it. Let's give it some stuff to try to encourage it to do the job that it's supposed to do.

And if it doesn't cut it down. His point in this is that we're in a cracked world. Something's wrong with this world when you see these things happening. And therefore, something's wrong with me. We're in a temporary world.

We're not gonna be here very long, but also we're on borrowed time. We're on borrowed time. But there's 1 last thing I want you to see. And it comes back to my illustration at the beginning. My last point here, I think Jesus would show us in Luke's gospel, is that these things teach us that we're living as debtors to love.

Jesus said to his listeners, unless you repent You too will perish. That sounds hard, and that sounds stern unless it's true. If it's true, it's not stern and hard. It's loving and kind. When you see this cracked world, when you see time is running out, when you see that we're in borrowed time, Then then you then you need to see those things.

Are god in his kindness holding back? So that you may know his love. Jesus goes on in Luke's gospel, to die on a cross. He, the perfect son of god, is nailed on a cross. He's cracked.

His time has run out. He's broken. He takes the very pollution and the sin of you on him so that we could be forgiven. So that we could bear fruit, so that we could know we are going for an eternity, so that we could know this world is not all there is, but we're just passing through this world and we're going on to the greater world. We could see that there will be a new creation.

Where all things will just be so good. And he does this by the cross. The cross shows me that god isn't an interested onlooker that just gives advice about suffering but that god is the 1 that takes the dark side of life, takes the pain, takes the suffering. That's the good news. He takes an eternity of judgment upon himself in a moment of time on the cross.

It's extraordinary. So I don't think I'd believe in god, if it wasn't for the cross, or I think I'd give up pretty quick. I'm so pleased. I'm so pleased that god isn't buddha. What does Buddha do with pain?

He says it doesn't exist. What does he do? He folds his legs and sits with a serene smile on his face, while the world is in pain and cracked. What does the Christian god do? He hangs bloody on a cross.

Taking the pain, taking the sin. Bringing in a brand new world where we can know the love of god in our hearts and bear fruit for him. Totally different god, isn't it? So when you see tragedies, And when you see terrorism, and when you see violence, it's meant to teach you a lesson. But the biggest lesson is this, you says Jesus.

You repent. Did you see how he goes? Jesus talks in chapter 12 about these, in chapter 12, about all of these huge issues, Yeah. Well, let me let me let me go further back. Jesus teaches, at the end of chapter 11 and in chapter 12, these amazing truths about judgment and and and, death and hell and heaven and it's so much someone says, Hey, teach me tell my brother to give some money.

You see? Let's change the subject. So he then teaches on money and all of that sort of stuff, and then he comes back, and there's all of this stuff again, and he's saying, Hey, listen. Listen, 1 day you'll die. You've gotta be right with god.

He's teaching all this sort of stuff in his way. Very graphic. Then someone says, well, yeah. Yeah. Well, we're fine.

Yeah. But what about those who died in the terrorist alone? And what about, those who's pilot the blood in the sacrifices. Well, yeah, what about us? Bring it down to work.

And he then says, yeah, but I'm gonna come back. You. You repent. You. If you don't repent, you will perish.

You will perish. A hundred years from now, where will you be? Doesn't really matter about your exams, does it? Doesn't really matter about the extension on the house, does it? Doesn't really matter whether you got the latest computer or not, does it?

Unless you repent, you too will perish. Let me pray. Father god, you know, everyone in this room, you know us everything there is to know about us, you know, where we hide, where we twist arguments, where we try to get out of the hard stuff, where we try to ignore your truths. We we you know all of our ways, and thank you for speaking to us through your word today. Please.

By your holy spirit, would you be kind and open our hearts and minds? So that we would repent and turn to the lord Jesus, the 1 who loves us, the 1 who loves us. So much to die for us. We pray this in Jesus' name. Oh, ma'am.

Now what we're going to do is, I'm going to take a few minutes of questions So on your tables, chat away what struck you, what you would like to ask, and then, we'll I'll give you a few minutes to just do that, think up some questions, and then I'll take a few questions and then back over to Tom. Okay. Oops. Okay. That's probably not enough time.

If you're in the student group, you can carry on discussions, which will be great. It's always a good thing to do, but Any any questions? Anybody wants to ask or thoughts? Yeah. So if it's say it's an individual suffering.

It's you that's suffering. You're suffering individually, and you get the concept. That, you know, you get you understand. Yeah. I know this world's broken.

I can see that. I'd get it from such a bottom suffering. What you didn't need more suffering. Why didn't you answer? Because I think, so that this this isn't telling you everything about what the Bible says about suffering.

But I think, when you see the Bible, you've got to realize that that this world is a world of suffering. 1 of the problems is that we cover that with our materialism, and particularly in countries like ours, because we're so just filthy rich. We're just so filthy rich. And we're so rich. We we can, you know, we can do all kinds of middle class rich things that people around the world can't even think about doing.

And and we think we're saving the planet by doing that. You know, we think we're doing good, but it's all really largely sort of middle class rich sort of stuff that we do. So that's 1 thing. But I think we're in a world that is just constantly It's it's a broken world. This is not heaven, and it never will be.

So we're not here. It's not heaven on earth. So the materialists are trying to find heaven on earth. They work their way through suffering. They've got enough money to go to the hospital and sort their suffering out.

They got enough money to, you know, whatever. But this world is con is is we're being shown constantly that this is not ever heaven. It's a broken world, but more than that is a cursed world. And god will wrap it up, and there is the new world to come. So partly us in this world, is this continue dealing with, and for Christians, 1 of the things is to deal constantly with suffering to show the world that this isn't our home.

We're just a passing through. See, those old those old, what they used to be called negro spiritual songs are fantastic. And the reason why they got they got this truth is because they suffered so much. So they sang that song. You know, this is not my home.

I'm just a passing through. And they got that. Even though they were being treated, you know, unjustly and they were suffering greatly, they knew that wasn't long before there's glory. I've got a home in glory land outshines the sun. Yeah.

You know? So all of those old songs came out of broken suffering knowing what it was to live in this world. And so it forces us to god. It pushes us to him. If I if I have everything and everything goes well for me, I don't think of god.

And that's what happens. You you see, It's interesting, isn't it? When you get a disaster, like in Haiti or something like that, where there's a great, you know, tsunami and so forth, and it destroys a poor country What do they do? They go to church. They go and pray to god.

What do we do and it hasn't happened to us? It's going, where's god then? Where's god? It's very, very interesting because materialism blinds us makes us think that we've got, abilities to save ourselves suffering. It's in pain, and some people know that more.

That there's a there's more to that there's more answers to that question when it comes to church and how we care and love for people. So but, I won't go down that line. Anything else. How do we get to a point where that non Christian friends who are suffering or might ask that question to come down the Yes. Well, it's it's it's it's not easy.

It's not easy. No. Because we don't just we're we're not weird, mouthy people, are we that just shout out. Repend. You know?

Because that that's sort of odd and un relational and un kind. We love them. And we show them patience. And we, don't see it as meaningless. And we don't see it as irrelevant or someone to be got rid of because they're suffering.

So I think 1 of the things we can do, it sort of comes back to your question, So if you take, you know, auntie Joan, so we we know this old lady, you know, for the last, was it year 2 years of her life? What was the point of her life? She couldn't move. She was in bed. She wasn't auntie Joan, you know, in her bright spirit.

She really didn't you couldn't really have a conversation with her. In fact, I was on the bus. And someone sat behind me and said, what's the point of Monte Jones? Actually, actually, it's exactly how it worked. Yeah.

I know you don't believe me with that. It is exactly how it happened. On the 71, I was sitting there and someone said what's the point of auntie Joan? And and this was a woman that was looking after her. She goes in there every day, looks after her, prays with her, talks to her, nothing back.

What is the point? The materialistic world says, no point, wouldn't it be good to get rid of her? Why not euthanate, you know, 1 a killer. It's the best thing is waste of money, waste of effort, waste. But it's not, is it?

Because we show the world that we love people and get nothing back from them because that's what Jesus did. And we show the world that people are are important even when their minds gone and even when their bodies failing. We love generously. We give And so the church is showing the world. It loves people that give nothing back, and that is the opposite to materialism, really.

So I think we we as a church have got to live out and help people that suffer and love and pray for them and care for them. We don't just destroy them and see them as irrelevant and, you know, unimportant. And then when we're doing that as a church, then, you know, to our non Christian friends, hopefully, that they're seeing that we care and that attitude of care and love comes through. Course we pray for them, and hopefully they'll ask us the question about suffering. But that's why we talk to them as not standing, looking, you know, so you can answer suffering questions standing, looking on at the stage, or you can answer suffering questions by being on the stage and suffering.

And that's why I'd want to show them Jesus, the great 1 who suffered. Yep. Any other questions? Yes. So we don't, so how do we react when we see a tragedy in some country like, you know, Haiti or Bangladesh or something, you know, well, you know, the great thing is that there are Christian agencies in all of these places working to relieve pain and suffering.

And we're Christians and we support those things. We may not support that individual thing. You can't do everything, but, you know, we should be supporting people in countries that are suffering to some degree. And, what is god saying? I, I I don't know whether we can say he's specifically saying to Haiti, but what he is saying, and the way Jesus does it is, you see what happened in Haiti, you remember that you are gonna face suffering.

So that's how he does it. He turns it around. And he says, okay, you've seen that they've died. Now go into the future and see that you will die. And and so he doesn't answer exactly what the reason for that, that tower falling down.

But he says that tower, stop asking questions that you can't know the answer to, but that tower should remind you that you 1 day will die. So it's always back to you repent. You make sure you're right with you make sure you're not living just for materialism. You make sure you've got your eternity sorted out. So I think that's that's what Jesus is doing there.

Alright. Yes. Well, I'm not sure if you you can put it in those terms that, you know, oh, those 18, thank you very much. You write to the family and say thank you. There were wonderful illustration to make me repent to become a Christian.

Lovely illustration. It's not sort of that harsh, is it? And he's not answering all the mysteries. He's not answering. And we just can't know everything, you know, and we don't know everything.

In fact, we know very little. In fact, very little. About anything. And so he doesn't answer that. What he does say is that there is a good god because I'm gonna lay my life down.

And these are make to make you think. So I don't think it's it's like, great, you know, 18, what a great illustration. But but so I I, you know, there are 18 people, and I guess, you know, that that there are 18 families that are represented. And so if you, you know, if you broaden that out, what was she real? We wanna care for those families.

We wanna love those families. We wanna feel for them. And so the Bible says and we we weep with those who weep and we laugh with those who laugh. So so there's there's a weeping and a concern and a shock at it But if it's just that newspaper headline news headline shock, Oh, isn't that awful? Why doesn't god do something about it?

Which is just dismissing everybody and everything and god. He's saying, don't do that. Make sure that you understand that they have died, and you, 1 day, will die. So he doesn't explain everything there, I don't think. Okay?

And we can't explain everything because it isn't a particular sin.