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Come Now; Let Us Reason Together
Recently, I experienced a crisis of faith, or maybe I should say a crisis of faith in the faith. Of course, I must define faith, because it has various meanings in the Holy Scriptures. Combined with the fact that I used the phrase “faith in the faith”, which would be a phrasing error if faith is defined the same in each case. Therefore, first, when I say “faith”, I mean a belief, confidence, or assurance in something or someone. Secondly, when I precede the word faith with the definite article “the” it indicates a specific, distinctive faith. This distinctive faith is mentioned by the Apostle Paul some twenty-eight times in his letters recorded as sacred scripture. He writes;
"Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith…” (2 Corinthians 13:5, ESV).
"Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called … " (1 Timothy 6:12, ESV).
“I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith" (2 Timothy 4:7, ESV).
“The faith” is the full Gospel of the revelation of Christ Jesus. That faith is historically recorded as: In the fullness of God’s time, God was made flesh, dwelt with men, lived a sinless life; offered himself as a sacrifice for the sin of the world, was crucified and buried; rose from being dead on the third day, walked among men, ascended into heaven, and is now seated in the position of authority as Great High Priest, and will return, in like manner, to reign as King of King and Lord of Lords. It is this faith in which I had a momentary crisis of faith.
The incident occurred over a year ago on a return flight from Kansas City, Missouri to Washington DC. As the flight descended into view of Washington metro area, I could tell something was wrong. The flight crew had not made the final walk-through nor had they collected all the refreshment trash. The weather was clear, but the plane was making some erratic movements. I have flown into Washington National Airport many times before, and I’m aware of the unique approach an aircraft must take to avoid flying over national monuments; however, this was something different. I began to consider he plane may crash. This caused my heart rate to increase, and I began to panic. As is the case with most people when faced with the notion of pending death, I began to think about my love ones. How would they manage without me? Did I leave a legacy worthy of a father, a son, a friend, husband, or Christian? This went on for about 5 minutes as the plan tilted from side to side making what appeared to be sharp turns. Then, I remembered something from the Bible that changed my mental state. It was not any particular Bible verse but it was the message of the whole Bible. I say that to mean that the Bible is not only a record of the creation of the world and humanity, the fall and redemption of mankind, or even the foreteller of things to come. The Bible is all those things and more, but it is foremost the revealer of the character of God. The understanding of the character of God can be summed up in one word: Sovereign. When you grasp an understanding of the sovereignty of God, it is logical to conclude that he decrees whatsoever comes to past along with the means in which it comes to past. In this knowledge, you can rest in the assurance that you are not a leaf blown by the irrational forces of the wind. Therefore, whatever happens is good because a Good God has ordained it to come to past. I know some of you reading this are thinking; God would not ordain a plane crash, earthquake, tsunami, hurricane, or any other disaster. Although I feel your passion to state such, that viewpoint has no support within the Scriptures.
Most Christian would agree that God is omnipotent (all powerful), omniscience (all knowing) and omnipresent (everywhere present at the same time). If you are numbered among them, then you must conclude that if something we call bad or evil occurs, then God had the power to stop it and exercised his sovereign authority to allow it. Therefore, he ordained it to come to past.
How is this comforting while on a plane descending from 30 thousand feet and wobbling from side to side? It is comforting because I could rest in the character of God knowing that whatever happened was ultimately good, be it a fiery crash or soft landing. Either one, or the many other possible options, had God’s approval to bring him glory.
Consider those Christian who were martyred in the 1st Century at the hands of Emperor Nero. Many of them were cut to pieces, feed to the lions, made human torches, beheaded, and crucified upside down. Consider the monstrous business of the slave trade of the 1800’s, which cost the lives of tens of thousand of Africans before they could reach a shore where the real trouble began. Consider the millions of Jews who were systematically killed at the hands of Nazis who claimed to be doing God a favor. Are we to believe that God was asleep, powerless, or unconcerned? No. God was unfolding his plan.
It is correctly stated, “evil unwittingly works for God”, and “God allows what he hates, to accomplish what he loves.” Please do not charge me with saying that God causes disasters and performs evil acts. I am not making that assertion. For God cannot commit any evil act nor does God tempt anyone to do evil acts (James 1:13). However, God’s sovereign will permits act of evil as part of his Holy plan. Although we often overlook this truth, it is in the Gospel (The Faith) where we see a clear example. History recorded Jesus' crucifixion as cruel and deplorable event. Even to unbelieving bystanders, it was seen as an innocent person being subjected to unrestrained cruelty. However, the prophet Isaiah prophesied about the future event. He stated; "… and the Lord has laid on him [Jesus] the iniquity of us all. He [Jesus] was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth. By oppression and judgment, he was taken away; and as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people? And they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death, although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth. Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him; he has put him to grief...” (Isaiah 53:6-10, ESV). The King James Version renders verse 10 as “it pleased the LORD to bruise him.” It was God’s sovereign plan to allow the evil acts of men to reveal the majesty of His divine plan to save the world.
I close with the Apostle Paul’s comforting words to those Christian facing severe persecution in the early church. "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 8:35-39, ESV).
The Holy Bible, English Standard Version (ESV), Copyright 2000, 2001 by Crossway Bibles
A Crisis At 10 Thousand Feet.