Today with Jeff Vines

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Pain and faith are not always related. No matter how
much faith you have in God, you're not going to
be spared from pain. Sometimes God allows us to experience
pain to wake us up to who we've become. We've
strayed so far away from His ideal and his abundant
life principles. We got to get back to the center
if we ever hope to gain any kind of peace
and abundant living.

Speaker 2 (00:19):
Today.

Speaker 3 (00:20):
Today, Today, Today with Jeff Fines, pasta apologist and Bible teacher.
You're listening to Today with Jeff Findes. My name is Aaron,
and this week we start a new series called Help.
Today's message encourages us to just keep moving when obstacles

(00:43):
in your life seem insurmountable. Pastor Jeff is preaching from
Job chapter thirty eight. So let's keep things moving on
and get straight into the message. Here's Pastor Jeff.

Speaker 1 (01:05):
Hey turning your Bibles over to Job chapter thirty eight.

Speaker 2 (01:09):
Job thirty eight.

Speaker 1 (01:10):
I gotta tell you I never ever thought I'd use
the Beatles as a spiritual example, but I want you
to listen to these words now, profound song.

Speaker 2 (01:18):
When I was younger, so much.

Speaker 1 (01:19):
Younger than today, I never needed anybody's help in any way.
But now these days are gone. I'm not so self assured.
Now I find I've changed my mind and opened up
the doors. Help me if you can. I'm feeling down now.
They're only stating what the rest of us already know.
When you're young, life is difficult, but not that difficult

(01:41):
compared to with what's coming. And the older you get,
the more intense the pain comes, the frustration, the disappointments.
Right now, you tell me that you, at some point
in your life have not wanted to gain an audience
with God and just give him a piece of your mind.
Come on, now, it's not sacrilege. Sees Lewis said, we
ought to bring for God what is in us, not

(02:01):
what ought to be in us. So in reality, there
have been times I wanted to take God behind the woodshed.
That's right, your pastor, I'll say. He Let me ask you,
if you think this is your world, this is the
best you can do all this disappointment, frustration and pain,
And I'll tell you, if you're honest with yourself, if
you're gonna be honest about your faith, you gotta admit
that there are times you want to do that I

(02:23):
love the line in Patch Adams, one of my favorite movies,
where Patch.

Speaker 2 (02:26):
Goes out to the clip.

Speaker 1 (02:27):
He's thinking about jumping off because you know, in his
mind he's lost everything he cares about. He's tried to
do the good thing, and every time he tries to
do the good he's just met with evil. And finally
he looks in that powerful line, he says this to God.
He says, God, you created the world in six days,
and on the.

Speaker 2 (02:46):
Seventh day you rested. Maybe you should have spent that
day on compassion.

Speaker 1 (02:51):
Now, when I first heard that, I thought that's acrilege,
you know, But a part of me thought, man, that's
how I feel sometimes, That's how we all feel. Now,
here's the beauty of it. If you did get that
audience with God to be able to speak your mind,
you have any idea what he would say in return.

Speaker 2 (03:07):
You no longer have to wonder.

Speaker 1 (03:09):
Because there's a man by the name of Job who
had an audience with God for thirty seven chapters. He
said everything that you're gonna say. Why is the world
so tough? You're a good, perfect and loving God. Why
so much pain? Why so much evil? So there's no
question or no coment, you're gonna be able to make
the God that hasn't been.

Speaker 2 (03:30):
Made to him before.

Speaker 1 (03:31):
And the beauty of that is Now we can know
what God would say, because you're gonna find it in.

Speaker 2 (03:36):
Job chapter thirty eight, verse two through three.

Speaker 1 (03:38):
Here's how God would respond to you when you say, God,
why can't you do a better job in the world
than this? I'm feeling pain for my children, for my wife,
for my husband, for the loss of my job, whatever
it is. Here's how God would respond. After you've spoken
for thirty eight chapters. Now, here's what God would say.
Who is this that darkens my counsel with words? Without mindy,

(04:00):
brace yourself like a man. I will question you and
you shall answer me. Now it's on the screen because
you're going to go through here hurriedly. Where were you
when I laid de Earth's foundation? Tell me if you
understand who marked off its dimensions?

Speaker 2 (04:15):
Surely you know.

Speaker 1 (04:17):
Have you journeyed to the springs of the sea or
walked in the recesses of the deep? Have the gates
of death been shown to you? What is the way
to the abode of light? And where does darkness reside?
Can you bring forth the constellations in their seasons, who
endowed the heart with wisdom or gave understanding to the mind.
Do you know when the mountain goats give birth? Do

(04:38):
you watch when the dough bears her fawn?

Speaker 2 (04:41):
Now I want you to look up.

Speaker 1 (04:43):
Last night I came out on this stage and I
preached the message, and about a third of the way
through it, I don't know if it was me talking
to myself or God. Sometimes it's hard to distinguish, isn't it.
And I felt someone or something saying to me, what
in Heaven's name are you doing? Because every time I
approached this issue of pain and frustration and disappointment, I

(05:04):
go back and settle into the part which I am
most comfortable, the apologist. After living ten years in New Zealand,
I always approached the issue of pain from a philosophical
point of view. But the problem is, many of you
are here because you believe in God. You're not questioning
the existence of God. You're wanting to know why on
earth he works.

Speaker 2 (05:24):
The way he does.

Speaker 1 (05:26):
You know, it's one thing to talk about pain and
suffering and theory. And I came last night and I
got out here and I thought, Okay, let me take
you through this. I came out and I wanted to comfort,
But then I started thinking about last Tuesday when we're
in a meeting and there's a father who was playing
with his daughter on his shoulders and she fell. She

(05:46):
hit her head on the ground first. So now they're
at the emergency room. They're wondering if the daughter's going
to survive. Then there's bleeding on the brain. They're doing
all kinds of X rays, And in the context of that,
my whole sermon I just want to throw in the
trash can, because it's one thing to talk about pain
and theory. It's another thing to talk about it when
you're right smack dab in the middle of it. And

(06:06):
I came out and I wanted to encourage. So I
started out by saying, you know, pain and faith are
not always related. No matter how much faith you have
in God, no matter how much you love Him and
trust you have in his goodness, You're not gonna be
spared from pain. You're not gonna be spared from frustration
and disappointment. It's ludicrous to think. And then a lot
of us believe it because we've been watching too many

(06:27):
preachers on TV. You think that if you have an
up faith and you say the right words, that you'll
be spared from anything that's gonna be painful.

Speaker 2 (06:34):
I promise you.

Speaker 1 (06:36):
There's nothing in scripture that even suggests that. As a
matter of fact, the first verse in this Book of
Job says this, there was a man in the land
of Us whose name was Job. And that man was blameless, upright,
fearing God and turning away from evil, and yet he
suffered the most other than Jesus. Evil and pain appear
in places it shouldn't be good people experience it, so

(06:58):
I thought that would encourage them. He seemed to smile,
and then I went to the next thing. Pain's not
always bad, and I got really philosophical. I thought, you know,
pain sometimes can be good. Oh, that's gonna help. And
I use the example of this past week, my wife
asked me if I wanted to go to a vegetarian restaurant.
Of course, my response was the same as always, I'd
rather have a root canal, and it's true. But then

(07:21):
I got all philosophizing and I talked about how a
root canal is really good though, because it spares greater
infection and pain.

Speaker 2 (07:27):
Oh, so that's gonna help.

Speaker 1 (07:28):
You if you're right in the middle of something harsh,
isn't it. Well, this could be good for me. Sounds
good in theory, not very good when you're right in
the middle of it. Oh and then I really got
into the apologetics thing. I said, you know, pain really
proves the existence of God. Yeah, and everybody just kind
of looked up what And that's when I started thinking,
what on earth are you doing?

Speaker 2 (07:47):
Now?

Speaker 1 (07:47):
I had a good point to make, After all, we
categorize pain as evil, sees Lewis said, we do not
merely posit the reality of pain. We positioned the question
in a decidedly moral category. He's saying that we assumed
that pain is evil. But wait a minute. If we're
all here by accident.

Speaker 2 (08:03):
Then pain is a good thing.

Speaker 1 (08:06):
How because it's Darwinism one oh one. Survival of the
fitis you're not fit, so you don't survive. If you
experience pain and you die, it's the progression of the
human race. It's good when you die out because you're
weak and you're holding the rest of his back. So
it's a good point to make, but it really doesn't

(08:26):
help you when you're in the middle of pain and
I'm moved on to the fourth aspect. Pain is often
the result of our own doing. Oh, that's really gonna
help you. Right, I'm in this position because I've been
a bad boy or girl. Now there is some truth
to this. Again, I am bezel at work. I lose
my job, I can't get another job. And we say, God,
how could you do this to me? I cheat on

(08:46):
my wife so you won't forgive me in return? God,
how could you do this to my marriage? We ignore
our children, they get older, they ignore us.

Speaker 2 (08:52):
God, how could you?

Speaker 1 (08:54):
There is a sense in which we gain a sense
of entitlement. We go out and pursue the things of
the world. We get so far in debt because we
think we got to live above our means. We find
ourselves in financial disarray. And next thing you know, we're
throwing our hands in frustration to God and said, how
could you put us in this situation? And God said,
I said, tear up the credit cards a long time ago.

(09:15):
Why is the state of California in the position it's in?
Can you say mismanagement and overspending and greed? You know,
there's an old Texas saying says, if one person calls
you a horse's rear, ignore them. If two people call
you a horse's rear, look in the mirror. If three
people call you a horse's rear by a saddle, what's

(09:37):
the point is this? Sometimes God allows us to experience
pain to wake us up to who we've become. We've
strayed so far away from His ideal and his abundant
life principles.

Speaker 2 (09:47):
That we got to get back to the.

Speaker 1 (09:49):
Center if we ever hope to gain any kind of
peace and abundant living. But again, that really didn't make
anybody feel that good when you're in the middle of
pain to think, well, maybe I put myself And then
I mentioned the fifth thing. Pain is often the result
of somebody else is doing. I think of the children
who are m sexually, physically, mentally, what chance do they

(10:09):
have in a difficult, harsh world. Sometimes people do things
to us that just shade the way we look at life.
Everything becomes cloudy and hazy, and we can't see the
real part of reality, what God.

Speaker 2 (10:23):
Wants to see in the world.

Speaker 1 (10:24):
We start off such behind the eight ball that we'll
never be able to see the light of day.

Speaker 2 (10:30):
Is that our fault? Though somebody did it to us?

Speaker 1 (10:32):
So I get through this whole journey and everybody just
kind of looking at me. So I go home last
night and I think, what is wrong here?

Speaker 2 (10:39):
Because right now people are hurting.

Speaker 1 (10:41):
They're hurting, so seriously, it's not time for philosophy, it's
not time for apologetics. It's time for help. And when
I read the story of Job again, it dawned on me.
The beauty of it is God does not care why
are you got in this situation. He's not concerned with
you did this to yourself? That God is not like

(11:02):
us When you come to him. He doesn't spend an
hour giving you a speech about well this happened because
you did this and you should have done that. You
got yourself into this mess, you get yourself out. That's
not the God of the Bible. That's the way we
treat each other. But you know what God does. God says,
if you run to me in the midst of whatever
it is you're facing, some beautiful things are going to happen.

(11:24):
Here's where the journey starts. I want you to notice
again how God responds to Job's questions.

Speaker 2 (11:31):
Where were you when I leave the Earth's foundation?

Speaker 1 (11:33):
Have you journeyed to the springs of the sea, or
walked in the recesses.

Speaker 2 (11:37):
Of the deep?

Speaker 1 (11:38):
What is the way to the abode of light? And
where does darkness reside? Do you know when the mountain
goats give birth? Do you watch when the doe bears
her fawn? Now focus just right here. The first response
God gives to Job Again, it's not a speech about
what you shouldn't have done that, or you wouldn't be
in this position.

Speaker 2 (11:57):
God is not like that.

Speaker 1 (11:58):
Instead, he says this to Job, Job, here's your assumption.
Your assumption is that if you could have a complete
and exhaustive understanding of your pain, if you could somehow
get a revelation from God and know exactly why you're
having to go through this, how long it's gonna last,
and will it will be over, and what God hopes

(12:18):
to accomplish in it. If you were to have a
here's your assumption, Job, a complete and exhaustive understanding of
every aspect of your pain, then you'd be able to
embrace it and accept it.

Speaker 2 (12:27):
Am I hearing you right?

Speaker 1 (12:28):
Job, to which thirty seven chapters would say, yes, God,
you're hearing me right, to which God says, this, really, Job,
There are a thousand things that you readily accept every
day of your life that you don't have a complete
and exhaustive and understanding about. Do you know how the
sun got in the sky? Oh, let me hear you.
Do you know the foundations of the earth? Let me

(12:49):
hear you explain it?

Speaker 2 (12:50):
Oh? You know it's there? You know the depths of
the sea. You've ever been down there? Do you know
how deep it goes? I mean, journey to the center
of the Earth. That's just a movie. I've been there?
Have you?

Speaker 1 (12:59):
Do you understand how a doe gives birth to the fawn.

Speaker 2 (13:02):
In the water? You don't even understand that. You know it,
baby comes out, but you don't know how it happens.

Speaker 1 (13:06):
You don't know the intricate details, and yet you just
readily accept it every day that you'll wake up, the
sun will be there, the moon will come out, the
stars will shine. But you don't have an exhaustive understanding, Joe,
and you accept it every day of your life. Job
your pain is no different. There's a point at which
you've got to understand.

Speaker 2 (13:23):
Something, Joe. You want the truth. You can't handle the truth.

Speaker 1 (13:29):
It take me too long to explain every intricate detail
of your pain. There is a point at which you've
got to understand.

Speaker 2 (13:34):
I am God, let me be God. Now, if he
stopped there, it still wouldn't be very encouraging me.

Speaker 1 (13:40):
And he goes the next level because as he builds
his way through this text of the beauty and the
wonder of the universe and creation and design, here's the
second thing he's saying, Joe, You'll never be able to
understand the intricate details everything that surrounds it.

Speaker 2 (13:53):
But I am God, let me be God. But here's
what I'll promise you.

Speaker 1 (13:58):
In the same way that I was able to take
the chaos in the early stages of the creation of
this universe and bring beauty, pattern and design into it,
I am the God who will bring beauty, pattern and
design into the chaos and the brokenness of your life.

(14:18):
Isn't that what happened to Job? Is that what happened
to Joseph? Remember Joseph great story. If you're skeptic here
this morning, go back and read Genesis. You'll encounter a
man by the name of Joseph who continued to do
the right thing, and every time he did the right thing,
he was punished for it. Ends up in prison he's
falsely accused, and he's just trying to honor God. And
it's not till years and years later that God ends

(14:40):
up using him because of the position he is now
in to save the nation of Israel from genocide, from extermination,
and God says, you know what what men meant for evil?
I worked and bought beauty and design and used.

Speaker 2 (14:59):
It for good.

Speaker 1 (15:00):
I walked out here last night and there was a
lady with her husband seated about four rows back here,
and I thought, you know, I've been so busy. I
need to get back in touch with people. And I
walked out and just started talking up a conversation. The
first thing I asked her was how's I listen, How's
life going. She couldn't even answer me. She just immediately
started to cry, which is what a lot of you

(15:21):
would do if I ask you that. And she told
me how she had just lost her baby girl to college.
She just took her baby girl to Texas and came back.
And man, when she started telling me that, I almost
started crying because I remember when I loaded up my
car and my mom's and we said goodbye, and I
was just going two.

Speaker 2 (15:39):
Hours away, and she was a wreck. And I was
a rake.

Speaker 1 (15:41):
Why you cry, Mom, it's not you know, but that's
real to her. It's real to her, isn't it? And
I reminded her of how God can bring beauty and
design out of that chaos. Because her young daughter's gonna
go and she's gonna do it. She's gonna gain a
new revelation of God. You know, that's what happens when

(16:01):
your students go away, because you're not around all the
time anymore. They've got to go to the one who
is omnipresent. They will be forced to make a decision
whether they're gonna live with God or apart from Him
right then and there. That's what college does, Mom, and
Dad's not looking around anymore. Is there a God who's
watching how I behave?

Speaker 2 (16:19):
Is he with me on these tests and midterm exams?
Is he real?

Speaker 1 (16:26):
You lost your job? Let me tell you why. I
have no idea.

Speaker 2 (16:32):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (16:33):
Pain is intricate, it's difficult, it's complex. But what I
do say is that if you will run to God,
God promises that he will bring beauty and design out
of the chaos in your life.

Speaker 2 (16:43):
It might be to give you a better job.

Speaker 1 (16:45):
It might mean to put you in a position that
you should have been in a long time ago. Or
it might be to get your attention that you're pursuing
temporal things and it's gonna lead to a sense of emptiness.

Speaker 2 (16:56):
I don't know what it is. You've lost your house.
I don't know why. I don't know, but I know that.

Speaker 1 (17:02):
God is with you, that he will bring beauty and
design and pattern out of the chaos of your life.
Now listen, it gets more intense. Look at what happens
in Joe forty two. After Job has had his encounter
with God, he says this in verse five. My ears
had heard of you, but now my eyes have seen you.

(17:25):
Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.
Look at that again, I despise myself and repent in
dust and ashes. Why now, have you ever been to
a party or been in a meeting that you said
something you wish you had not said. As soon as
you said it, you wish you could just roll it
back in. That's what Job is saying. I can't believe
I said all these things to God for thirty seven chapters.

(17:48):
Now his eyes are wide open, and do you know
what He's recognizing something that's going to be.

Speaker 2 (17:52):
Hard for us to handle.

Speaker 1 (17:53):
Now, I promise you that God is the creator and
designer of all things, and that he owes us nothing.
You've been watching too much television. You think that God
owes you a good and easy life. It dawns on

(18:15):
joke that the very breath you breathe is a gift
from God. That life is a gift from God. You
didn't do something great in eternity past for God to say,
you know, you've been really good up here, Im gona
give you a good life.

Speaker 2 (18:29):
He gave it as a gift.

Speaker 1 (18:31):
And if you experience good in this world, that's just
icing on the cake. I can tell by looking at
you right now. This sense of entitlement in America has
just it's destroying the depth of our faith. Who we
really are. This world is theocentric. It's about God. It's
not about you or me. And God has the divine

(18:53):
right to mold and shape and bring pattern and beauty
and design out of the chaos He allows in your
life for his purposes. Job all of a sudden starts
to get that. And then in the end he says,
I know that my Redeemer lives and in the end
he will stand upon the earth. Why does he say that,
because the best news came last. Whatever God calls you

(19:16):
to endure, listen now, whatever God calls you to endure,
he not only promises to bring beauty and design out
of that chaos. He promises that He's gonna be with
you and upon you every step of the way. But
it's better than that. Now, don't shut me out. You're
gonna get a God revelation. You're gonna see God. The

(19:40):
more intense your pain, the bigger the revelation God gives.
Your eyes are gonna be open in a way that
no one who's ever who's never walked your path, will
ever see. I go back to my friend in Buloeo
in Zimbabwe. Her name is Gloria, you know, a great skeptic,
sharp mind, and I share my faith with her a

(20:01):
week after week, finally she becomes a Christian. Within weeks
of her becoming a christ follower, She's told she asked
cancer in about six months to live.

Speaker 2 (20:12):
Now.

Speaker 1 (20:12):
In the beginning, she said, Jeff, I know God's gonna
heal me. He is the God who is able, and
he is able, and he has healed. She said God's
gonna heal me. She continued to get more and more sick.
By the about the fifth month, the family called me
from Bulawayo and said, Jeff, I think we're near the end.

Speaker 2 (20:29):
Would you please come down and be with Gloria? Would
you just come down.

Speaker 1 (20:32):
None of her family, none of them were Christians, but
they wanted somebody to come and be with her and
then to do the funeral. When she died, I got
on a plane, went down there and I sat by
her bedside. It is it is the most powerful experience
of my life, because she moved in that last month
from God is gonna heal me to this. Stop praying

(20:52):
that God heal me. I want to go to heaven.
What And she kept saying, Jeff, You'll never understand.

Speaker 2 (21:00):
You've not walked this path.

Speaker 1 (21:01):
God is revealing things to me that I would have
never seen that i'm seeing right now. And I'm telling you, rejoice,
be happy. I'm going to meet God. And as a
twenty tw years I said, I don't want to travel
that road. I don't want to go that road. She
goes and she told me it's okay. Remember I'm the
pastor here. It's okay that you don't. But I'm telling you,

(21:23):
I'm seeing things I've never seen before. And that's what
I've learned as I set my hospital beds of age
patients who were dying. That God, when you're a believer
and you've crossed over, seems to give you a revelation
of himself as you get closer and closer to the end,
so that he can walk you across the where ultimately,
down deep inside you.

Speaker 2 (21:42):
Really want to go.

Speaker 1 (21:44):
But that's true of no matter what it is, some
of you you won't die. But in the midst of
your job, in the midst of your loss of a relationship,
God gives a revelation of himself.

Speaker 2 (21:53):
I saw this when my own mother died.

Speaker 1 (21:56):
You say, I wonder if there's ever a Tom Pastor
Jeff's going to stop talking about his mommy. The answer
to that is no, I miss her. I love my mom.
Getting to talk about her to you is a healing
thing for me. So will you continue to let me
just throw it in from time to time? I remember
having my struggle with God. Remember what I said with C. S.

Speaker 2 (22:15):
Lewis.

Speaker 1 (22:15):
He said, you ought to bring to God what is
in you, not what ought to be in you. Let
me tell you that week when my mom was dying,
I brought to God what was in me?

Speaker 2 (22:23):
God? What are you doing? Man?

Speaker 1 (22:24):
It's a good woman here. Why don you go over
and kill him? A goody over in Zimbabwe? He's an
evil dictator. If you have to have a life.

Speaker 2 (22:30):
Take his.

Speaker 1 (22:32):
My mom's a good woman. She's got a lot of
work to do here, and she was. And then it
was amazing how many times through that week God continued
to bring my attention back to a conversation I had
with my mom in the backyard when we were playing baseball.
I don't know, I was about twenty two to twenty
three somewhere, and my mom said, I'm worried about you.
Oh what are you worried about me? Mom?

Speaker 2 (22:53):
She goes, I'm worried about you because you don't love people.
What do you mean?

Speaker 1 (22:56):
You don't love them enough? All you want to do
is get sermons. But you don't love people. Until you
learn to love people and love them deeply, you'll never
speak anything into their lives, you know. And I realized
when my mom died. I never thought it was possible
to hurt that much and still be alive. I changed.

(23:17):
I realized that in every seat right now, there's pain.
And I do love you. I wish I could be
involved in every single one of your lives. That's why
we have multiple pastors here. But I want to tell
you God kept showing me out of this chaos that
you don't understand. I am bringing beauty and design and Jeff,
I'm bringing it into your life that God always comes near.

Speaker 3 (23:44):
You've been listening to Today with Jeff Fines. Thanks for
joining us. Next time we'll bring you the rest of
this message from pastor.

Speaker 1 (23:51):
Jeff moses, time to move on, excuse me. Mountain on
the left, mountain on the right, Pharaoh's army in the back,
and red seat, big body of water hues right in
front of us, and God says, move on, move on.

Speaker 2 (24:07):
And only as.

Speaker 1 (24:08):
They began to move did God opened up the sea.

Speaker 3 (24:14):
You can listen to more messages like this. Just search
for Today with Jeff Finds. Wherever you listen to podcasts,
you make me.

Speaker 2 (24:27):
With every single friend, I bring this

Speaker 1 (24:33):
Up Today, Today, Today, Today with Jeff Fines