Judging Providence

There in the bulletin with place
for notes if you prefer. The Gospel of Luke, chapter 12,
where we have been for several weeks, you remember the context.
The context there was one of Jesus urging those around him
to readiness foretelling of the judgment that was pending, even
coming upon them already. And the context is not entirely
different in the passage before us. Sometimes chapter breaks
can be deceiving because we think that just because there’s a new
chapter, we’ve left behind the previous context. The context
is still one of urging those around him to readiness. But
the image before us in the passage that we’ll consider this morning
is quite striking, quite different. than what he had advanced in
the past. Jesus used every means and every opportunity to call
people to readiness, to call people to preparation for the
judgment of God that was to come. I want to set before you an image,
not a pleasant image, but I want to set before you in our high
country, these winding roads, And I want to just set before
you the hypothetical situation of a crash, a bus crash, that
goes over the mountainside and numerous people are killed. Many of us, one of the first
things that we will try to do is try to interpret that, try
to figure out, not so much am I talking about what caused the
bus crash, was it brake failure? Was it something mechanical?
Was it road conditions? But some of us want to play God,
as it were, and we want to judge providence. We want to essentially
interpret the accident, don’t we? And we want to try to pin
some kind of blame upon the people in the bus. And I’ll tell you
exactly how that unfolds in a moment and how inconsistent we are in
doing so. And in being inconsistent, how
wrong we are in playing God, in judging Providence, we don’t
have enough data really to judge Providence. Sometimes, you know,
if a criminal is caught in the act, if a criminal is shot while
robbing the bank, we can say that he got what was owing him.
But if a calamity falls upon somebody, we are not equipped,
we’re not God. We’re not supposed to play God
by judging providence and by jumping to conclusions and assuming
that they got what they deserved. And I’ll tell you, as we proceed,
how that shakes out. Who was on the bus makes all
the difference in the world as to how we judge. Jesus faced exactly that kind
of scenario in the passage before us, where there were those that
came to him smugly, arrogantly judging providence. They came
to him with news. It just happened to be news of
Jesus countrymen, as we’ll see in a moment. But it was news
of calamity. And even in the sharing of the
details, their motives are betrayed. And Jesus sees right through
it and he dismantles their argument and he gives us God’s perspective
on calamity. Look, if you would, beginning
in the first five verses of chapter 13. Now, on the same occasion,
there were some present who reported to him about the Galileans whose
blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. And Jesus said to
them, do you suppose that these Galileans were greater sinners
than all other Galileans because they suffered this fate? I tell
you, no, but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.
Or do you suppose that those 18 on whom the Tower of Siloam
fell and killed them were worse culprits than all the men who
lived in Jerusalem? I tell you, no. But unless you
repent, you will all likewise perish. That was the scene. And Luke
ties it clearly to chapter 12 into the same context of urging
those around him to readiness when he says on the same occasion,
the same occasion when he had just urged his apostles to readiness
and urged even those unrepentant Pharisees to be ready. He pleaded with them. To ready
themselves for the coming judgment. Now, on the same occasion, it
says there were those there were some present who reported to
him. Don’t you love? I mean, we talked
about it last week. People love to play weatherman.
People love to play newsman, don’t they? People love to be
involved in sharing news, especially bad news. It’s a sad feature,
especially in this day and age when we’re privy to so much news
already as if we need anybody else helping us. The news stations
galore on the television 24 hours a day. Can’t escape it. You get in the car and the news
blasts every 15 minutes. I want to look specifically at
this particular calamity. What do we know of it? The bottom
line, if I can share with you, there’s no record of this massacre
in any historical source, either a biblical source, any of the
books of the Bible. No one else mentions it. No external source mentions this
kind of calamity or this specific calamity. All that we really
know about this specific incident that happened in Galilee, some
kind of a massacre of sorts, is what Luke tells us right here. There were some people that had
come from Galilee, they had made a pilgrimage to the city of Jerusalem,
and while they were engaged in offering sacrifices, which was
commanded of them by the law, while they were engaged in that
practice, By orders of Pilate, many were killed. And it said
that’s what it means there when it says that Pilate had mingled
their own blood with their sacrifices. I take that to mean not just
figurative language, but these were actually people in the midst
of going through the sacrificial offering. And during that, they
were killed and literally their blood was mixed. It’s a terrible
scene. We knew that we know of Pilate
as being a merciless, hateful, vengeful man. We knew of the
Romans that would always and often rather collide with those
Jews over whom they reigned. And so the story itself doesn’t
surprise us. There are really numerous stories
very similar to this. And so something on a lesser
scale wouldn’t surprise us a bit. Josephus, the great historian,
records a number of such incidents. At one Passover during the sacrifices,
he records 3000 Jews had been sacrificed or pardon me, massacred. even like their own victims,
like the sacrifices that they were offering. So this was a
regular feature of the temple sacrifice. The Romans were always
nervous at these big gatherings. They would send soldiers in mass
into it. And when you get that kind of
tension mixed together from time to time, things erupt. It’s exactly
what Josephus records. He says on the approach of the
feast of the Passover, an innumerable multitude came out of the country
from beyond its limits in order to worship God. They were there
for pure purposes. Archelaus was afraid, lest some
terrible thing should spring up by means of these men’s madness,
and he sent a regiment of armed men and with them a captain of
a thousand to suppress the violent efforts of these seditious people. So they were viewed suspiciously,
they were viewed just by their very gathering the Jews as being
against the government. And it goes on and says. He wanted
to suppress the violent efforts before the whole multitude could
be infected with like madness, in other words, he wanted to
prevent a riot. But those that were seditious on account of
the teachers of the law irritated the people by noise and clamors.
And they used they used to encourage the people in their designs.
So they made an assault upon the soldiers, came up to them,
stoned the better part of them. And although many of them ran
away wounded and their captain among them, when they had done
this, they returned to the sacrifices that they were offering. So they
drove off the soldiers. And what do you suppose the response
is going to be? of a man like Pilate. So Pilate
sent the whole army among them and sent the horsemen to prevent
those that had their tents outside the temple from assisting those
that were inside the temple and to kill such as ran away from
the footmen when they thought themselves out of danger. And
the horsemen slew three thousand men. This was a regular feature,
this tension that existed between the Romans and the Jews was a
regular feature. And so to think that it took
place on a smaller scale isn’t a stretch. And really, it wasn’t
news. It wasn’t news that Jesus was
unaware of. It wasn’t news that Jesus really
needed. The Galileans were in the court of
the temporal near what’s called the Great Altar in the process
of offering their sacrificial lambs, and suddenly Suddenly,
Pilate has his soldiers go in and do the unthinkable. I mean,
what you would do is liken this to communion. Here we are in
the process of celebrating communion and in comes the government,
the federal authorities or what have you. And immediately. You have chaos. Anyway, you look at it, the people
here were in the act of worship. And the only question that immediately
comes into your mind is how could God allow this? How could God
allow this in the act of worship, worship of God Himself? Unless
it was judgment. And don’t we do that? I’ll tell
you how it works. Remember the bus? Here’s how
our mind works. If the bus is filled with Those
that are on a tour going to the casinos. We count it as judgment, don’t
we? If somebody has a calamity in
our life, immediately we begin to look below that calamity,
don’t we? We try to see behind it, try to wonder why on earth
they could have gotten the disease or could have suffered bankruptcy
or could have gone through whatever. But we immediately begin to judge
providence. We begin to serve as God, pronouncing
judgment upon them for their many sins, which must be worse
than ours because we’re not going through what they are. That’s
how our mind works. And you know what? Jesus doesn’t
even wait. He brings up another instance
that’s related, that’s very similar. In fact, even more, if you will,
providential. Because in the second scenario,
it is an evil man perpetrating these things. It’s just it just
happened. Look at verse four, do you suppose
that the those 18 men on whom the tower in Siloam fell and
killed them were worse culprits? You know what he says? He tells
about a tower. And you know what? We don’t have any data on this
either. We don’t really have record that there was a tower,
but we take it on good authority. Christ said it. There was a tower,
some kind of towering structure near the pool of Siloam fell
down. We don’t know if it was bad construction,
we’re not given that data. We don’t know of any lawsuits
that took place against the construction company that built the tower.
We have it on pretty good authority that it wasn’t Islamic terrorists
that brought down this tower. Was it an act of treachery? We
don’t know. Was it an earthquake? We have
no idea. What we’re left to there is the simple providence of God.
The tower fell. This tower evidently had been
either occupied by a certain number of people or at least
there were a certain number of people near the tower. The tower
fell and many people were killed. And Jesus says, do you really
do you really draw the conclusion that these were worse? Wouldn’t
we? Don’t we have that same tendency
to look down our nose and begin to judge? Begin to wonder. Let’s look, first of all, before
we begin to dig into the deeper question of their interpretation,
let’s look at their motive. Why on earth would these men
come and bring this information? We faced these kinds of people
before. Jesus faced them all the time. Remember, out of the
crowd, the voice came, tell my brother to divide the family
inheritance with me. These men were seizing upon the
opportunity to put Jesus on the spot, and he knew it. They wanted
to put this information out to Christ because they knew it would
challenge his own heart. Maybe they wanted him to rise
up. Maybe they wanted him to go pick a fight with Pilate. They knew for sure that being
a Galilean, this would not look well for Christ to hear some
of his own countrymen had been put to death for an insurrection
or at least an allegation. You know what these were? These
people are like little tattletales. You see their motive because
of the message and the attitude that is behind it. It just pours
out. Their attitude is exposed by
the message that they bring. They took delight in sharing
this with Christ. Some of his own countrymen. They
come on purpose to give this announcement of this catastrophe.
We don’t know exactly what they wanted to do, whether they wanted
to try to kindle in Christ some kind of hostile response. But they did take it. It’s clear
that they did take some kind of pleasure in recounting the
misfortunes of these Galileans. They took kind of a sadistic
glee in maybe even a music to a musical tone to their voices.
They shared it with Christ. Look what happened to them. They knew that Jesus was a Galilean.
They knew that his 12 apostles were Galileans. We see why they
were ready to give Jesus this information, a bad piece of information
about these Galileans. They were on the side of Pilate
and they were believing and wanted Jesus to know that they believed
that these Galileans were sinners, greater sinners than others.
They used this as a chance to taunt Christ, to rub it in his
face. Essentially, they saw Christ
as the same kind of fanatic that these so-called insurrectionists. And there were some evil Galileans.
There were some that were just flat, dead set against the Romans
being over them, and they picked fights everywhere they went.
And that’s what they likened Christ to. If we could, let’s pause for
a minute and let’s look at their interpretation. Let’s look at the informers interpretation,
because really, you know what this is? This is man’s perspective
of calamity. I gave you two points, though,
there in your bulletin, and I don’t want you to think that perhaps
it’s even miswritten. There’s two perspectives of disaster,
essentially. There’s our perspective and there’s
God’s. There’s man’s perspective that
looks on calamity and says, oh, they must have done something
wrong. Look what they’re going through. They must have done
something wrong. And then there’s God’s perspective.
Let’s look first at man’s. Let’s look at the informer’s
perspective, which is so much like ours. What is clearly implied
there is this. that they didn’t so much focus
on Pilate’s cruelty, that he was an evil man doing an evil
thing at a very despicable thing at a very inopportune time. But
rather, they focused on this being some kind of evidence of
divine displeasure. How on earth could they possibly
have brought this kind of judgment down on themselves unless it
were some kind of spectacular sin? The reasoning was simple. The victims of Pilate’s wrath
being so evil himself must have been exceedingly wicked. You
say, well, that is preposterous. We don’t think that way. Yes,
we do. Yes, we do. Job’s friends thought
that way. You remember when Job began to
feel all that feedback after going through all those difficult
things Walk your way through Job with me, Job 4-7. Remember
now, whoever perished being innocent, where were the upright destroyed?
That’s the human mentality, isn’t it? We see, and there’s absolute
truth to the fact that God tends to judge disobedience and He
tends to bless obedience. But we get all confused when
good people experience difficulty, don’t we? Especially if the good
people are us. Job 8.4, if your sons sinned
against Him, then He delivered them into the power of their
transgression. Thanks for that advice. Job 8.20,
lo, God would not reject a man of integrity, nor will He support
the evildoers. In other words, the implication
is, Job, you better take a look at your life. Job 11.6, and show you the secrets of wisdom
For sound wisdom has two sides. Know, then, that God forgets
a part of your iniquity. In other words, they said, Job,
you’re not digging deep enough. Job 22, 5 through 10. Is not
your wickedness great and your iniquities without end? For you
have taken pledges of your brothers without cause and stripped men
naked. To the weary you have given no water to drink. From
the hungry you have withheld bread. But the earth belongs
to the mighty man and the honorable man dwells in it. You have sent
widows away empty and the strength of the orphans has been crushed.
Therefore, snares surround you and sudden death terrifies you.”
In other words, they say, you know what, Job? If you’re not
creative enough, let us think of some things to suggest that
you might need to confess. You say, well, that was the book
of Job. No, it’s us. Jump forward to John 9. Remember
the man born blind? Don’t go there. By the time you
get there, I’ll be gone. In John chapter nine, the man’s born
blind. Remember, they come across him blind from birth. You know
what the apostles immediate question was? Who sinned? This man or
his parents? It had to be one or the other
to bring on this kind of judgment. That’s our interpretation. Calamity
equals judgment. It’s a simple formula. Difficulty
equals God’s displeasure. Remember, Paul, the Apostle Paul,
in Acts chapter 28. Wandering around in the jungle,
got bit by a snake, you know what their counsel was? Aha,
he’s going to die. And it’s because of the judgment
of God on his life. Acts 28, 4. When the natives
saw the creature hanging from his hand, they began to say to
one another, undoubtedly, this man is a murderer. Though he’s been saved from the
sea, justice has not allowed him to live. J.C. Ryle said it
this way. He said there are very few notions
that men seem to cling to so naturally as the notion that
bodily sufferings and all affliction are the direct consequences of
sin. And that a diseased or afflicted
person must necessarily be a very wicked man. This was precisely
the short sighted view that Job’s three friends took up when they
came to visit him and against which Job contended. Paints the
exact scenario. That’s our common tendency to
look upon calamity and to conclude that they have done something
and they’ve done something that we never did. It was a generally accepted interpretation. It’s kind of what people came
to think and believe and it hasn’t died. The health and wealth gospel
that began to promote itself in the 70s is not dead yet. The people think that if you’re
right with God, you are going to be healthy and wealthy. Now, I don’t know how they expect
to sustain that over a long period of time. And it’s funny to watch
those as they do begin to show the effects of their years, how
their theology changes. Another said it this way, describing
this phenomenon. The common opinion is that if
a man died quietly and go away like a lamb, and it pictures
this scene that we all long for, don’t we? standing people standing
around our bedside and just falling serenely into eternal peace.
Right. Well, he says that if you die
that way, the common opinion is that you go straight to heaven
and that you must have lived a good life. But if the violence
of the disease stirs up impatience and causes frantic behavior,
then men used to say there is a judgment of God serving either
to discover a hypocrite or to plague wicked men. The truth
is otherwise a man may die like a lamb and go straight to hell
and one dying exceedingly great torment and strange behavior
of the body may go to heaven. We don’t know. We can’t judge
providence. Now, I ask you, what if the bus?
What if the bus is filled with church kids on the way to camp?
What’s your take now? Jesus begins to show the hypocrisy
of this judgment. Jesus says, I tell you, no. And
he kept throwing it up to them, I tell you, no. Your interpretation
is faulty. Your judgment is incorrect. And
in so doing, Jesus doesn’t deny that all suffering ultimately
has its cause back in the fall of Adam and Eve, right? We’ve
studied it before. Remember, when we came out of
there, we said that we are we are inherently sinful. That’s
where our sin nature came from. Thanks to Adam and Eve. And if
we had been there, we’d have done the same thing they did,
so don’t take any solace in that. Not only are we inherently sinful,
but we are temporarily vexed. Remember the sweat of the brow,
the pain of the childbirth and everything else that comes with
it. Everything, all the difficulties of the world, traffic on college
is a part of the fall. Weeds in my garden, part of the
fall. Not only inherently sinful and
temporally vexed, it says that we are spiritually dead and we
are physically dying. I’ve said it before, we all have
a terminable disease. Something is going to take us. You can count on it. Go to the
bank. Any disease, any disease, any
sickness, the whole aging process, cancer that we can get from almost
every source imaginable, it’s all part of the fall. Jesus said what he said on this
occasion. He didn’t try to answer the eternal
question, how far can we take somebody’s lot in life? And determine
that as some kind of a judgment on their character. But he did
assume he didn’t deny that these were sinners. He acknowledges
as such. He just says they weren’t any
greater than others. They weren’t any worse sinners than others. One said it this way, there is
a large sphere of divine action within which moral distinctions
among men are overlooked. Look at your own lives. Can we
honestly say, any of us, that we get what we deserve? Have
any of us gotten what we deserved? No way. There is no way. You
wouldn’t be here. I wouldn’t be here if I got what
I deserved. God doesn’t operate that way.
To say that good may come to bad men and evil to good men
is to say the truth. To look out upon the horizon
and to observe those things is to say that’s the way life happens. It wouldn’t have been surprising
to Christ To be told that some of those that were killed in
this riot or crushed by the tower were some of the best men in
Jerusalem. Good guys, great men, pillars of the community. It
wouldn’t surprise Christ. Physical disasters, physical
disadvantages. Blindness, there no indication
that those who go through such things are worse or better than
anybody else. Can’t use that to judge if Jesus
says that God causes the rain to fall on the just and the unjust. Essentially, what he says is
it’s a wash. It’s all the same. We can’t use
that as a determining factor. You can’t look on somebody who’s
sick and say, therefore, they must not be wrong. It must not
be right with God. It’s exactly what happened in
John, chapter nine. The disciples came to a rapid
conclusion about that man. because it was deeply ingrained
in their minds. It’s not always the case. One pastor said it this way,
he said, the disease is almost natural to us to be too rigorous
and severe in judging others and too much disposed to flatter
our own faults. Isn’t that the truth? You know
what? If we go through suffering, we
think we consider ourselves a modern day Job, don’t we? Oh, Lord. Somebody else is going through
it. Boy, we become theologians extraordinaire. We want to interpret
their whole lives for them. He goes on and says, The consequence
is that we not only censure with excessive severity the offenses
of our brethren, but whenever they meet any calamity, we condemn
them as wicked and reprobate persons. On the other hand, every
man that is not sorely pressed by the hand of God slumbers at
ease in the midst of his sins. And isn’t that true? Do we really
think that God is judging everybody equitably at the right and perfect
moment? Then how do you explain so many
people in our country getting away with so much? Isn’t that
exactly the complaint of Psalm 73? Lord, their eyes are fat. They’re so well off and surrounded
and insulated from all the difficulties of life. And here I am suffering. Don’t you see this, Lord? If we suffer, as I said, we consider
ourselves a modern day Job, but if somebody else suffers, we
wag our heads like Job’s friends. We raise an eyebrow of suspicion
as to their secret sins. John Calvin challenged this thinking,
and he said it this way, to correct the false and cruel judgment
which we are accustomed to pass on wretched sufferers. And at
the same time, to shake off the indulgence with which every man
cherishes towards himself, doesn’t he put it in incredible language? We consider ourselves so picked
on, essentially, is what he says. He shows first that those who
are treated with severity are not the most wicked of all men,
because God administers his judgments in such a manner. Some are instantly
seized and punished and others are permitted to remain long
in the enjoyment of ease and luxury. Essentially, what he
says there is it’s beyond us figuring out. It’s beyond us
trying to identify and judge God’s providence. It’s beyond
us. Can’t come up with some kind
of a formula for health and wealth. The prosperity gospel. And yet,
you know, what was fascinating to me, even as recently as this
tsunami disaster, I heard it. You heard it. Perhaps we all
heard it. That because these were largely Muslim nations,
this was God’s judgment upon them. I don’t I don’t doubt that
that’s possible, but I’m certainly not going to stand and judge
categorically and say that that’s what that was. I want you to
think literally, do we really think that our national religion
Which is a religion really of hedonism and fleshly, secular
humanism. Do we really think that our national
religion is any more exportable than Islam? Any more pure in
God’s eyes than that? Isn’t even the weakened, sappy,
so-called Christianity of our own day even suspect? That we
could think for a minute to wag our fingers At the unfortunate
children that died in that disaster and say that, you know, categorically,
this was the judgment of God. Given what we know. As a nation,
given what we’ve rejected as a nation, aren’t we more deserving
of judgment than any heathen nation? Matthew Henry said it this way.
We cannot judge of men’s sins by their suffering in the world.
Many are thrown into the furnace of gold to be purified. Not as
dross and chaff to be consumed, we must therefore not be harsh
in our censures of those that are afflicted more than their
neighbors. Our first response to this tsunami tragedy should
have been one of abject mercy. Thanking God that it wasn’t us
and that it wasn’t our nation. Because God could make a way
that would scrub this earth clean. He’s done it. Henry goes on and he says, as
Job’s friends were in their censures of him, lest we condemn the generation
of the righteous, if we will be judging. You know what Henry
says there, if you want to be a judge. Judge yourselves. And that brings
us to point number two, because if man’s perspective, I think
of it. If man’s perspective that calamity
is judgment is incorrect, then what is the right perspective
of calamity? And that’s point number two. Point number two,
that if earthly calamity isn’t the unmitigated judgment of God,
then it must be the unambiguous call to repentance. And that’s
exactly what Jesus identifies it. It’s an opportunity. It’s a privilege. And what Jesus
was using this for is almost it’s it’s beyond me because it
goes so far beyond my own heart. With regards to mercy, what Jesus
did with the very people that brought in this news, as I mentioned,
was some kind of sadistic glee thinking to rub his nose in it.
He turns it around and he uses it as a plea for mercy. A plea
for them to repent. These Galileans weren’t any worse
than other Galileans. They weren’t any worse than Jews.
They weren’t these special misfortunes, weren’t signs of special guilt. This calamity wasn’t a proof
that they were greater sinners. Jesus reminded them essentially
that all have sinned, all have sinned and fallen short of the
glory of God. Is there nothing in your life that God doesn’t want to purify,
that God doesn’t want eradicated. We could look on a disaster like
the tsunami and see 200,000 people, perhaps, wiped out in a single
instance and not at least pause in reflection that, you know,
am I right? What if a wave hit me today? Jesus said, I tell you, no, Do
you think they’re worse sinners? I tell you, no. Do you think
they’re worse culprits? I tell you, no. But unless you
repent, you will all likewise perish. He wasn’t saying, you
know, he wasn’t saying that another pilots going to rise up and another
insurrection and another massacre. He wasn’t saying that there might
be another tower that falls. Not at all. He was saying, likewise, you
will perish. You will perish. You will perish. I will perish. We will all perish. It’s a matter
of course. Ecclesiastes says it this way.
Time and chance overtakes us all. It doesn’t matter what the
calamity is, even if it’s just a peaceful death on the bed.
In God’s eyes, that’s calamity. I’ve said it before. You know,
when you read the newspaper and it says you died of natural causes.
Nonsense. It’s nonsense. It’s not natural. God didn’t design us that way. One said it this way, the fate
of these people is a reminder, not of their sins, they were
neither better nor worse than others, but the urgency of the
gospel. He had known or had they known
what was coming, had they been warned about Pilate being in
a black mood or that the building was dangerous, they might have
saved their lives. Or if they knew that that would
be the day that they were going to die, perhaps they could have
repented. But there was nobody to warn them and they perished.
It’s exactly what Jesus says to them. Here’s your opportunity is what
he says. The best use that you can make
use of a report like that bad report. Bus goes off the mountain,
tsunami hits and kills 200,000. Man dies of a heart attack. The
best use that you can make of that is to examine your own life
in that instant. Am I right with God? What if
it were today? You know, one of my most regular
funeral passages that I use is Ecclesiastes 7.2. I love this
passage. It is better to go into the house
of mourning than into the house of feasting. Some of you will
have the Super Bowl party today. Nothing necessarily wrong with
that, but that’s not the best place to consider your eternal
destiny. Better to be in a house of mourning.
Why on earth? Does this Ecclesiastes guy, Solomon,
does he have some kind of, you know, problem? That he takes
pleasure in that kind of a place? He says, no, it’s better to go
in the house of mourning because that is the end of every man
and the living takes it to heart. It’s better. And that’s exactly
what Jesus says we ought to be using of these occasions of calamity,
these bad news. Calvin said it this way, he is
a blind and wicked judge who decides as to the sin of all
men by the punishments that they endure. It is not always the
most wicked man who is first dragged to punishment. But when
God sends few out of a large number to be punished, he holds
out their person a threatening that he will take vengeance on
the remainder in order that all will be alarmed. Did you hear
what Calvin says in that Elizabethan flowery language? When anything
happens like that, it serves as a warning to you and I, a
merciful warning of God. We all deserve what they got. That’s what Jesus says. Calamities
are like that. We all deserve calamity. We all
deserve the judgment of God. I love the way a more modern preacher
said it. John Piper said instead of saying
that they are no more sinful, than we are and being amazed
at their death. In other words, he doesn’t say
that their sin was extraordinarily horrible. He says that it was
ordinarily horrible. It was horrible. It was horrible
like your sin and my sin. Sin is horrible. But he doesn’t
say they’re any worse. He says that we’re just as sinful
as they are and we should get ready to die just like they did.
I love Piper’s simplicity. What Jesus teaches then is that
all of us are extremely sinful. We’re so sinful that calamities
and disasters should not shock us as though so