Problems That Boggle Us

Problems That Boggle Us

Math Problem � math problems are logical / black and white and can be figured out, but life�s problems and especially faith problems -are not always so clear.

When Dr. woods suggested this topic, I doubt he had any idea how appropriate it is for me. You see awnry(sp) skepticism and independent thinking are in my blood.

When my dad was a teen he would study his Sunday School lesson just so he could find questions to stump the teacher. To this day my family seems to enjoy questioning religious and spiritual tradition and teaching simply to cause entertaining debate.

But as for me specifically, I have been sincerely grappling with some tough questions pertaining to doctrine. My pastor says that I�m asking the right questions, but I just wish he would give me the right answers.

In my planning for today I made the mistake of passing by the girl�s dorm and asking them what questions boggle them, and I got things like:

If everyone in the world flushed their toilets at the same time, what would happen?

Why do people water their lawns in the rain?

What happened to Amelia Airheart?

What happened to all the missing ships and plains in the Bermuda Triangle?

So I asked my family:

Why did / How could God harden pharaoh�s heart?

What if Moses had said �No�? Could he?

Why do bad things happen to good people.

Why do good things happen to bad people?

What version of the Bible should we use?

How can you have total faith in unanswered prayer?

Why does God care about us?

Why did Christ care enough to suffer?

Were the nails through his hands or wrist?

When is He coming back?

No matter how young or educated you are, somewhere inside is a question that boggles you.

I want to take a few minute this morning to encourage you. God has given us ways to rise above confusing questions. Winston Churchill once said, �Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing happened.� Let me tell you, Truth is not a rock that trips us up; it�s a mountain that we must climb. We�re going to continue to use that analogy as we talk about truth here. As we climb that mountain, we must never settle on a comfortable peak, but rather always be moving toward the summit. In order to do that you must not look down, stay close to the Rock, and trust your equipment.

1: Don�t look down. (Heb. 12:2-3)

Let me explain what I mean by �don�t look down.� It can be easy to get distracted by the view, or slip on some lose rock, or prematurely think that we have arrived, but you have to keep perspective, keep the main thing the main thing, keep your eyes on the summit; that is the simple truth of the Gospel.

How do we get distracted by the view? That�s when we stop and consider all the other hills people are climbing, and we wonder if maybe they are on a better path.

I once took a worlds religions class at MNU and they had a guest speaker. He was an old Buddhist priest. He explained that all roads lead to God or truth. After he spoke there was a time for Q&A. One man raised his hand and asked, �If all roads lead to God, what about the Satin worshipers and those that reject God and the truth?�

The old Buddhist, using verbage that I can�t quote here, said that some roads are just messed up from the start.

Just because people are climbing other mountains, doesn�t mean yours is the wrong one.

Then there�s the lose rocks. Lose rocks are those questions that really get you hung up. There the ones that make you feel that you just can�t go any farther until you settle it. They may even make you stumble. They take your eye off the summit and change your focus.

There was a baseball pitcher named Tug McGraw. He had a wonderful philosophy of pitching. He called it his "frozen snowball" theory. "If I come in to pitch with the bases loaded," Tug explained," and heavy hitter Willie Stargell is at bat, there's no reason I want to throw the ball. But eventually I have to pitch. So I remind myself that in a few billion years the earth will become a frozen snowball hurtling through space, and nobody's going to care what Willie Stargell did with the based loaded!"

Our Daily Bread, July 26, 1994.

So when you put your question in perspective, how important is your question to your salvation, or your ministry.

Satin loves to use these distractions to make us ineffective and to slow the work of the Kingdom.

Wheelbarrows

There�s another story about when there was a wave of petty theft in the Soviet Union. To curtail this the authorities put up guards around the factories. At one of them, the guard knew the workers in the factory very well. The first evening, out came a man named Petrovich with a wheelbarrow and, on the wheelbarrow, a great bulky sack with a suspicious-looking object inside.

�All right, Petrovich,� said the guard, �what have you got there?�

�Oh, just sawdust and shavings,� Petrovich replied.

�Come on,� the guard said, �I wasn�t born yesterday. Tip it out.� And out came nothing but sawdust and shavings. So he was allowed to put it all back again and go home. When the same thing happened every night of the week the guard became frustrated. Finally, his curiosity overcame his frustration.

�Petrovich,� he said, �I know you. Tell me what you�re smuggling out of here, and I�ll let you go.�

�Wheelbarrows, my friend, � said Petrovich, �wheelbarrows.�

(Quoted in The Devil�s Gauntlet, Os Guiness)

Sometimes when we face the big questions of faith, we only see what Satan wants us to see.

This leads us to the issues that cause us to settle prematurely and think that we�ve arrived. Some people get hung up on various doctrinal issues and start rearranging the pebbles on the mountain.

Picture this: Once the Devil was walking along with one of his cohorts. They saw a man ahead of them pick up something shiny. "What did he find?" asked the cohort.

"A piece of the truth," the Devil replied.

"Doesn't it bother you that he found a piece of the truth?" asked the cohort.

"No," said the Devil, "I will see to it that he makes a religion out of it."

Klyne Snodgrass, Between Two Truths - Living with Biblical Tensions, 1990, Zondervan Publishing House, p. 35.

2. Stay close to the Rock.

Here�s where we realize that we must stay close to the rock. As we grow in faith we learn that the closer we are to God, the closer we are to the safety of the truth. We have something to hold on to.

Ps 40:1-2

1 I waited patiently for the LORD;
he turned to me and heard my cry.

2 He lifted me out of the slimy pit,
out of the mud and mire;
he set my feet on a rock
and gave me a firm place to stand.

My grandfather told me the other day when grappling with tough questions that some things we just have to accept by faith

Now, if you�re anything like me, your reflex is to think, �that�s a lame religious copout�

But on further thought, No, it�s what we�ve been commanded to live by. It is the bases of our hope. Our faith is not empty, blind or unfounded. It�s based on facts, history and experience. Everyone has some form of faith. Even the atheist has faith that there is no God. It�s up to us to put our faith in the right things.

And It�s from that base, that we can face the problems that boggle us.

God has given us ways to rise above confusing questions.

Trust your equipment. (Acts 17:11)

Let�s move on to trust your equipment. A mountain climber has a limited amount of tools he can carry. He�s got to know how to use those tools and he has to be able to trust them. The Bible is the source of truth.

I like the verse in Acts 17: 11. You may turn there if you like.

So here you have Paul and Silas traveling around sharing this new teaching about fulfilled prophecy and a savior of all mankind. They had caused a riot in the last town and had to sneek out by night, and here they arrive in Berea.

11Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.

The Bereans were open to new ideas but they knew where the source of truth was and they �examined the Scriptures every day to see if� the new ideas could stand up to it.

Conclusion: God has given us ways to rise above confusing questions. Remember, Truth should not a rock that trips you up; it�s a mountain that you must climb. As we climb that mountain, we must never settle on a comfortable peak, but rather always be moving toward the summit. In order to do that you must not look down, stay close to the Rock, and trust your equipment. Because, God has given us ways to rise above confusing questions.