HEALING BALM -WHEN YOU ARE MAD AT GOD 4-24-26

TRAGEDIES THAT CAUSE US TO QUESTION OR EVEN RESENT GOD FOR ALLOWING SOMETHING HE COULD HAVE CHANGED

Transcript

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The Lord said, For the hurt of the Dumbler of my people, I am hurt. I am mourning. Astonishment has taken hold of me. Is there no bomb and gilead? Is there no physician there? One of them is there no recovery for the help of the double of my people.

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This is asked you a question.

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A lot of Christians and unbelievers alike usually don't admit or advoice it out loud. Have you ever been mad at God? Maybe angry is a better word to use since Ephesians four twenty six and twenty seven tells us that we can be angry, but don't sin. Don't let the sun go down on your wrath, neither give place to the devil. If you've ever been mad at God, you've made the devil real happy and given place to him in your life. When tragedies happen in our lives, we're prone to question God, or at least ask why. That's a natural human response when we're hurting or grieving the loss of a loved one. When bad things happen, we can be quick to blame God and get angry with him for not preventing it. Tragedies teach us abrupt, cold hard truth in that we're not in charge. It's like hitting a stone wall head on, running 180 miles an hour. It knocks the wind out of you, and it can leave you with no words, just feelings. Or worse, numb, unfeelin', cold in distance, and that includes God. Distancing yourself from God. Ungodly anger causes self defeat. You know how it is when you really defeat your own self, that's stinking thinking. How's that so? Because there's nothing you can do to change it, and you're mad at the one who could have changed things. The devil torments our mind and winds up getting a foothold right in our lives. I've seen that happen a lot of times. Tragedy hits when we're not expecting it. Otherwise, I mean we have tragedies that we are expecting, you know, anticipated death in a long term illness, fatal illness, and that is a tragedy. But I guess maybe I should term it sudden tragedies because you don't have time to think about it. Sickness and diseases come despite all the praying and speaking words of faith over a dying loved one, and anger at God can happen when we can't see or understand why or what he's doing or or not doing. A few names in the Bible are familiar to most of us when they were frustrated or angry at God, and we've all heard about Job and David, Jonah, Jeremiah. I'm sure there's a whole lot more than just those. Maybe you've been mad at God because something wasn't fair or just because you didn't do anything to deserve what happened. That loss. You didn't bring it on yourself, but you gotta deal with it. Before we go on, I want to remind you that nothing on this lawless, sin infested earth is fair or just. In fact, Jesus Himself said they persecuted me and they will persecute you. He said they hated me first and they will hate you. They rejected me and they'll turn on and reject you for no justifiable reason. And honey, that don't leave anybody out. That can go from your kin folks to your friend folks. You never know who's gonna reject you and turn on you for no reason. You may be thinking, that's easy for you to say. You don't understand how I feel. What tragedy has done to my faith and my trust in God. You don't understand that. Because if he's real and if he loves me, why did he allow that to happen when he had the power to stop it? He does have the power. And he did have the power. At his crucifixion, he told them plainly, You don't take my life. I lay it down. Jesus told his disciples in the Garden of Gethsemane that he could call on his father to send twelve legions of angels to rescue him from that arrest impending death. You realize one Roman legion was usually six thousand soldiers times twelve legions? That figures to be an army of at least seventy-two thousand celestial being angels to wipe out every mocking, accusing, lying, murderous tongue. They were no match for what Jesus could have called to this earth. I can't imagine the restraint then or now. I can't imagine him restraining right now. But very soon what restrains is going to be taken away. And some people are going to get acquainted with a different side of a loving God. When I said you may be thinking I don't understand what you're going through, I want to share just a few minus a lot of details because I'm not going to tell my entire life story and put all the details in the street, but of encounters that I've had the opportunity to be mad at God. I'm not saying I never have been. I'm saying I understand. I've walked in some of the same shoes, just not yours. Not in your place. So I don't make light of your pain either. I've been mad at God. Out loud mad at God with cries that you could have heard in the heavens, and maybe they were. Maybe God did hear 'em. I buried two brothers at separate times, a few years apart, to murder. Road rage, drugs, alcohol, and violence. Each time my mother and stepdad who raised seven kids that he didn't bring into this world, as they stood at the caskets I saw not only pain, but life drained from their faces. You know, that was really difficult. I buried my grandmother, my mother's mother, my favorite person on earth. And in my heart she's still alive and her memory's still alive. But my mother's mother from alcohol poisoning, where her alcohol content was so high that it crystallized her blood and her veins ruptured all over her body. After she had wrestled over a twelve gauge shotgun in a drunken argument between her and my grandfather, the shotgun discharged. Full impact to his chest. You can imagine the rest of the story. Driving my mother sixty miles to that scene is burned forever in my memory. Even though she was acquitted of murder by a hung jury, she could not live with the memories, so she tried to drink them away. As do a lot of people when they can't change something. They've got to find a way to stop the hurt. Look, Jesus is the only thing that can stop the hurt. I'm pretty sure she asked God why he allowed it to happen. I know she asked that because she was that type person. She was probably too hurt to be angry at God. Not just hurt at what had happened. Hurt that she could even do such a thing in a right mind or not in a right mind, just hurt. Too hurt to be angry at God. That I believe is where some of us are today. We're hurt with God. And the only tool we know how to use is anger. I could go on with tragedies that I've personally had to crawl through from being molested as a child by a drunk that called himself my daddy when all he was was a drunk sperm donor. That left me with hate for men for a lot of years. A distrust that still tries to rear its ugly head. A distrust for my mother because I never understood how she couldn't see what was happening. Or maybe it was the seven kids that she was facing raising alone that caused her to look away. But I'll spare the drama of the rest of what happened there. I do have one more thing to share concerning another brother that glorifies God. Everything is is not bad, and in all things really God should be glorified, and I do glorify him today that I'm even still standing, that I'm even still here against all odds. This brother went to prison for a very long sentence. He rode with and hung with a well known biker brotherhood prior to his arrest and lived a pretty rough lifestyle. But during that time in prison, he led seventy-two men to Jesus. He formed a different brotherhood there. He died of cancer, incarcerated. But you know what? He left this world praising God and witnessing to his delivering power. In death he was delivered. I still have a beautiful large handmade card made in prison with seventy-two signatures. Lots of love and and words and goodbyes to the man that led them to Jesus. We live in a sinful world with lying politicians, some preachers that are only self-serving hirelings instead of shepherds. Thank God there's still some that are watching and waiting in spite of all that's going on. You know, our feelings and our hearts do get hurt. Sometimes it's not just that we get dis disappointed in a preacher or a pastor or somebody that we put up on a pedestal. We shouldn't be putting them on a pedestal anyway. For one thing, they're human. And in being human, they do err. There's some repentance that has to take place behind the pulpit. It's not just the one sitting or standing in front of the pews. We're hurting people and we're full of questions. And we're also full of doubts. Our trust diminishes in mankind. Don't let Satan rob you of what's left of your life. Hasn't he already robbed you of enough? I want to leave you with the greatest story that was ever written, but explained a little bit different than you may have heard it. Just listen, hear me out. It's not gonna be a same old message. Just listen. If Jesus had not made it to that cross, we would have no hope. Satan knows that because he has no hope. Jesus wasn't dragged up that hill and murdered. That's what in essence some religion teaches. Or how they maybe how they understand it. But Jesus came here to go there. He had an appointment with that hill called Calvary. And hell with all its host couldn't stop him from that appointed time or that appointment with death. When Jesus said it is finished, it was after he cried out, the Aramaic phrase that translates, Eli Eli Lama Sabakhtani, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? You don't think he understands how that feels? When Jesus said it's finished, he conquered death, hell, and the grave. He shed his blood to purchase or buy back all that was lost in Adam. Because he sacrificed his own body, his spirit lives and reigns eternal. And he is coming back to redeem what he purchased that day. We belong to him, and he's going to redeem what he bought. Most likely his mother, Mary. She was with him everywhere, all the way to the end. She would have traded her own life for his. But it was not possible because Mary didn't come to reconcile man to God. Even though God Himself chose that channel, the birth canal, to bring physical life to the Creator God who would walk among men in a world that didn't even know or recognize who he was. God prepared himself a sacrifice. With Mary being as human as we are, a mother knowing Jesus had done nothing to deserve this end. The grief and horror that she must have felt as she stayed with him until the last breath. If it had been possible for her to be angry at God or turn her back on God, she would have that right according to her pain, right? But see, Mary saw God in the flesh that had entered this realm through her body into her physical son, God's only begotten son. How could she be mad at her son for fulfilling the purpose he was born for? That's how Mary dealt with her anger, I'm sure. She channeled it back to Satan rightfully. She knew who the deceiver, the accuser, and the murderer was. But because she knew who God really was and that he had not forsaken them, just like he's not forsaken us, he was there because he loved them, and he's here because he loves us, and he's coming back because he loves us. He feels our pain. He walked through it. I'm sure he didn't take that very lightly either. Y'all be blessed, and I look forward to being back with you shortly.