April 28, 2025 • 59 mins
Listener discretion advised: This episode contains sensitive content, including discussions of abuse and assault.
In this weighty episode, Brody leans into one of the hardest questions we all face:
Where is God when bad things happen?
Whether it's the pain of abuse, the heartbreak of oppression, or the overwhelming brokenness we see in the world, Brody recognizes that these are not easy conversations.
He speaks directly to those wrestling with the problem of evil, the suffering of the innocent, and the seeming silence of God amid injustice. Drawing deeply from Scripture, Brody unpacks stories of pain and redemption, and offers tools to help believers—both strong and struggling—navigate these hard truths. He shares the hope we find in Christ. Jesus not only understands injustice but also endured it. His death and resurrection bring both freedom for the oppressed and justice for the oppressor.
- Ecclesiates 4
- Romans 2
- Romans 8
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
One of the hardest things for me as a pastor, or
even as a dad, to answer inpeople's lives, uh, or to speak
into people's lives, I guess toadd the questions that are
hardest to answer.
When people have questions andthis comes up a lot about the
problem of evil when is God inthe midst of injustice?
(00:22):
Why do bad things happen togood people?
Something like that and it's ahard question to answer and it's
even I want to say that evenfor a solid, mature believer
it's something that you'll beshook.
If you wrestle through that atany point in your life, it's not
like you're going to get to apoint where the injustice around
(00:44):
you that you see in the worlddoesn't affect you anymore.
You're just like, oh, God's gotit.
It's never like that.
You're going to wrestle withthis the rest of your life.
But there are some, some toolsin your kit, some weapons in
your kit that I think you canuse and utilize from scripture,
from common sense, to help youat least be able to navigate
(01:06):
that, that internal conversationor that conversation with
somebody else when it comes up.
That's what we're going to betalking about today when is God
in the midst of injustice?
Uh, thanks for listening.
Welcome to no sanity required.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
Welcome to no Required from the Ministry of
Snowbird Wilderness Outfitters.
A podcast about the Bibleculture and stories from around
the globe.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
I want to start off with not a joke, but a funny
scene.
There's a movie and I don'tremember what the movie is
called and it's a 20-year-oldmovie, and it's one of those
movies where you watch thetrailer.
The trailer's funny, themovie's stupid, the movie's not
very good, um, but there's ascene in the movie where this
(01:56):
guy is in a phone booth.
Now, for younger folks, a phonebooth is maybe obsolete now,
but this is a place where youcould make a phone call before
people had cell phones.
So maybe you're out and about,you need to call 911 or you need
to call home.
You would go into a littlebooth, little glass or metal tin
(02:16):
booth outside of a gas stationor something like that.
There'd be a phone.
If it's a local call, you couldput 25 cents in it.
That's a quarter.
I'm being a little facetious,but you drop that in there.
You make your call.
If it's a long distance call,you would dial zero.
An operator would pick up andthen you would say I need to
make a collect call and youwould give her the number and uh
(02:39):
, and then she would call that.
Someone on the other end of theline would pick up and say
hello and she would say I have acollect call from.
She would say that Someone onthe other end of the line would
pick up and say hello, and shewould say I have a collect call
from.
She would say the caller's name, that person, and she'd say
will you accept the charges,because a call outside of your
area costs money.
It's crazy for young people tothink about now, but that's how
we used to have to make phonecalls.
So in this old movie there's ascene where a guy's in a phone
(03:02):
booth.
And old movie there's a scenewhere a guy's in a phone booth
and he's caught and I don'tremember the, I don't remember
the storyline, it's kind of likea spoof comedy, but it's about
organized crime.
And he's calling and he's goingto make a threat, uh, to this
mob boss.
And this, this little asian guywith a thick accent, answers
the phone and the guy on thephone and the phone booth says
(03:25):
at the end of the call he saystell him, justice will be
waiting.
And the little guy goes okay,thank you Justin, I tell him bye
.
And he hangs up.
And I always thought it was sofunny, cause as he hangs up, the
guy in the phone booth goes no,no, no, I said justice.
And it's like the whole, thewhole spoof of the thing is in
(03:47):
my mind is like, oh, you can'teven get your point across.
That justice is coming, youknow like, and I feel like
that's kind of.
That scene is stupid and funnyas it is.
It sort of encapsulates how alot of us feel when it comes to
where's, where's the justice incrazy situations and
circumstances, and so I want totalk about that today.
(04:08):
I want to talk about justice,injustice.
Where's God when bad thingshappen?
Why do bad things happen toseemingly good people?
And I want to drill into just afew places in Scripture where
we can find hope.
That'll help us navigate thosewaters.
And let me say, before I startand get into this, I know that
(04:31):
percentage wise, um, the statstell us that one in eight people
are the victim of some sort ofabuse.
My experience in 30 years ofministry is that that that
number is much closer to one andfour.
I know that in in the Countythat I live in, cherokee County,
(04:54):
north Carolina, uh, we just hadmeetings with our sheriff's
department, um to discuss umoperating procedures for any
event that we have crime beingcommitted at SWO, active shooter
scenarios, stuff like that.
But in a sidebar conversationI'm sitting talking with the
(05:17):
narcotics officers for ourcounty department and we ended
up talking for an hour and ahalf and I was shocked to find
that the county I live in,cherokee County, north Carolina,
which is a rural county, it's amassive county.
It takes an hour plus to drivefrom one end to the other.
If you drive from corner tocorner and in that county
there's 30,000 people so youcould take, you, move into a
(05:41):
suburb of Atlanta.
You got 30,000 people in just afew subdivisions.
That you cover really quick.
This massive land area county,30,000 people, it's not a lot.
Just east of us is a countycalled Buncombe County.
The seat of that county is thecity of Asheville.
Asheville is 100,000 people inthe greater Asheville area.
(06:02):
Buncombe County is many morepeople than that.
Our county last year had moremurders than any county in
western North Carolina.
On the last day of the yearthere was a double homicide in
Asheville that either tied themwith us or bumped them one ahead
(06:23):
of us.
So in a rural county we hadnine homicides last year.
It's a pretty staggering number, but the more staggering number
that came out of thatconversation that I had
yesterday was that one in fourpeople in this county are
victims of some sort of abuse orviolent crime.
(06:43):
Abuse or violent crime.
That's staggering.
And then take into account thatwe have, on average, three to
five officers on patrol in thecounty trying to cover all that
area and all those people, andreal quick you realize that if
you live in a healthy householdwhere people are nice to each
(07:05):
other, nobody gets hit, nobodygets sexually touched or
assaulted, nobody gets yelled at.
If you live in a subdivisionwhere you don't see crime in the
street, you don't hear peoplebeing harmed or hurt, you are in
the minority in history andeven in the minority today.
(07:27):
I believe that the majority ofour listeners live in a very
safe upper middle class probablyenvironment.
And the reality is that even inthose environments the same
types of things happen, but theyoften happen in the dark or in
silence.
So, saying all that to say, welive in a world regardless of
(07:49):
where you live.
But for me, even just put it inthe context of my local
community we live in a worldwhere bad things happen to
people I'm careful to say goodpeople, because the scripture
says no one's good.
Romans 3, verse 10 saysnobody's good.
Romans 3, 12 no one's good.
Romans 3, verse 10 saysnobody's good.
Romans 3, verse 12 saysnobody's righteous.
(08:10):
The next verse says humans, ourthroats are like open graves
just consuming death.
So that's the natural state orcondition of a man's heart, a
woman's heart.
So we can say bad things happento people, but I do think we
can say bad things happen topeople.
But I do think we can.
We can say bad things happen togood or innocent people.
When we're talking about thestrong hurting the weak, the
(08:34):
strong oppressing the weak and Icould tell stories.
I thought about this.
I could literally tell storiesfor sure for hours on, hours on
hours on end, if not for days onend, of, in 30 years of
ministry, the conversations I'vehad with law enforcement, with
(08:56):
counselors, with fathers,husbands, mothers, daughters,
brothers, like people that havebeen hurt by people close to
them, as well as people thathave been been victimized by
strangers.
We had a girl on staff here, um, and she, while she was serving
here, we had to work throughher coming to terms with being
(09:17):
raped in a scenario that was acrime of opportunity, where she
was a teenage girl with herfriends at the beach and they're
walking down the beach on kindof this boardwalk area and she
gets literally grabbed andpulled into a dark room in an
abandoned building that used tobe a restaurant or something.
Somebody grabs her, pulls herin there, sexually assaults and
(09:38):
rapes her and then they justleave.
She has no idea who it was.
There's another scenario where aclose friend of the ministry
this lady has brought studentsand she was on I don't remember
if it was like a cruise or amission trip, but she was in an
international context.
She was in another country.
(09:59):
They had a day where they weregoing to go on an excursion and
I think they went.
It was something like they wentsnorkeling or they went riding
around in a boat doing something.
Anyway, she ends up there's notenough people to all get in one
boat to get transported back towhere they were staying.
They'd gone out, maybe to anisland.
(10:20):
I think they'd gone out to anisland or something to just do
some exploration.
So she's like I'll hang back.
She hangs back.
There's there's two or threeguys that are guiding this
outing and they rape her.
This is a woman that's thatbrings students to SWO and um,
and then they say, if you tellanybody, they're not going to
(10:41):
believe you, cause nobody evenknows who we are, cause these
are just some obscure dudes in athird world context that like.
And so what I learned fromtalking with her and other
ladies is a lot of times womenthat get assaulted like that,
they don't end up even tellinganybody because they think who's
going to listen?
Who am I going to tell?
I'm ashamed, I'm scared, I'mfor it's so traumatizing that
(11:04):
for me.
I think.
Tell your dad, tell yourhusband, tell your brother, tell
me, like, if it's one of mygirls or one of my sisters or
any girl that works at SWO or asa part of Red Oak, tell me,
we'll go deal with it, you knowwe'll it.
Whether that's, we physicallydeal with it or we'll get the
law enforcement that needs to beinvolved involved.
But typically in many of youthat have been sexually or
(11:25):
physically assaulted, you knowit's so traumatizes you
psychologically and emotionally.
It confuses and disruptseverything about the way you
even process what happened.
A lot of times it doesn't getreported and so then a person is
left to carry this the rest oftheir life and as they
internalize it they end upsaying, well, I got nobody else
to blame.
I blame God, or why did God letthis happen?
(11:45):
It's really difficult, and sowhat will end up happening is
we'll end up in conversationswith people at SWO because they
get away from home, they get toan event here and I think
there's something to be said foroftentimes the longevity of our
ministry SWO has been faithfulfor three decades.
(12:06):
I had someone call me two weeksago and say can I talk to you?
And this was a60-something-year-old lady who
sits on a board of directors fora nonprofit Christian ministry
and there's some stuff going onthere and she's reaching out to
me.
And I was having a conversationwith Rob Conte about it and I
said it's crazy, people likethat will call us.
And he said it's crazy, peoplelike that will call us.
(12:31):
And he said it's because we'veproven faithful and I'm really
grateful for that and I want tosteward that and manage that
Well.
People feel like they can trustus enough to tell us things.
But what gets difficult is I'mnot a counselor, I'm not a
psychiatrist, I'm not apsychologist.
I have no certifications orlicenses.
My degree was in government.
You know, I've got a ministryexperience, but what I've
learned is the wisdom and thewisdom that the scripture
(12:53):
provides, along with the commonsense of working through things
with people.
A lot of times, what people needto hear is just it's, it's okay
, we can work through this andhelp you kind of land on some
solid footing, and that's whatI'm hoping this episode today
will do.
This may turn into multipleepisodes, because I'm sure we're
going to get feedback from this.
I want to tell a couple morestories because I really want to
(13:15):
set this up.
I want to hopefully get a holdof your heart and your mind and
your emotions.
This is a weightier than normalepisode.
There was a girl We'll callyour emotions.
This is a weightier than normalepisode.
There was a girl.
We'll call her Lauren.
That is not her name.
We'll call her Lauren.
Lauren came to SWO as a younglady, probably, I think, 14.
(13:36):
And Little and I had theopportunity to minister to her
over the next few years.
She came to SWO several yearsin a row, I believe.
She ended up serving on ourelement team, which at the time
was called servant team, and shehad been, uh, repeatedly
sexually assaulted by herstepfather, a guy that we'll
(13:57):
call, uh, bob that's a prettygeneric name, no offense to the
Bobs out there, but we'll callhim Bob, also not his name, um,
and he had.
He had sexually assaulted herrepeatedly and she had um.
She had finally had the courageto tell somebody and things
went to litigation, went to herprosecution and Bob went to
(14:20):
prison.
Now I want to address aterrible injustice that happens
to people like Lauren byexplaining something that
happened when Bob went to prison.
Bob goes to prison.
Lauren gets, I think, one or twosessions of counseling with
probably a dime store counselor.
(14:42):
No offense to good counselorsout there, but there's some
idiots in the counseling world,some complete idiots who just
want their $150 an hour fee.
And the reason I trust ourcounseling so much is because we
don't get paid to do it andwe're doing it out of the
calling God's placed on ourlives.
The reason I trust Nikki Smithto sit down with a girl and help
(15:04):
her navigate this is becauseNikki's heart is proven for the
Lord and for people and shedoesn't get paid bonus hours to
counsel.
Nikki Smith earned her master'sdegree in biblical counseling
on her own time and partially onher own dime, and we helped her
with that.
But she put in the blood, sweat, tears, money, money and equity
(15:24):
, to sit across from girls andhelp them navigate this, and
part of it was because oflauren's story, because nikki
walked through this with laurenas well.
Nikki's uh, someone that if you, if you're a person, you know,
nikki smith, she's, she'sincredible, oversees our element
program and is our in-housesort of our in-house counselor.
But, but a lot of counselorsagain, I'm not throwing
(15:46):
everybody under the bus here.
There's some good counselorsout there, but good counselors
are not doing it for the money,um, and that's why I really
trust pastoral counseling morethan anything.
So that's another conversation.
Maybe that needs to be anepisode where we talk about
biblical counseling.
That being said, lauren wassent to a counselor.
(16:09):
I think two sessions is whatshe got.
When it was over, everyoneassumed Lauren's going to be
fine.
The stepdad's gone to prison,she got some counseling.
Let's leave it be.
Well, she's like this 16 yearold broken kid.
So when she gets to us, byGod's grace, we start to help
her navigate how to deal withher emotions, how to deal with
(16:29):
the feelings of of, you know,resentment towards people and
distrust.
I mean it's just so cognitivelyit disrupts even a person's
development.
It's very statistically proven,scientifically proven,
medically proven in the world ofpsychology and psychiatry
(16:50):
Because there is some credenceand credibility there that when
a person is sexually abused at ayoung age, there's a cognitive
arrest in their development.
They sort of freeze up in thatstage in their life and so
you'll have 30, 40, 50 year oldwomen that will.
There'll be parts of them, andI'm not being scientific here
because I don't even know theterminology for this.
I'm just telling you I'veobserved it.
(17:10):
Science, by the way, is partobservation, observation of fact
.
And so I've observed thatpeople will sort of have this,
they'll be sort of cognitivelyarrested in in this 16 year old
moment, even though they're a 35year old mom, and they'll have
these.
They'll revert back to thismoment.
That's where a lot of thestruggle will be.
(17:32):
So she's wrestling with thingsthat had happened and and and is
graphically described.
This to little enough, and sowe're trying to help her, we're
trying to counsel her throughthis, help her navigate this.
Well then, the guy only doeslike three years.
I don't know how many timesI've had this happen, where a
sex offender only does threeyears.
(17:54):
I don't.
I don't know who's in charge ofthat.
I don't know who's in charge ofthat we had another gal that
served on full-time.
It's a story in a story here.
Real quick Side note a veryfaithful lady that has been on
NSR.
If you go back and you listento the Courtney Seifert episode
um, now Courtney Williams, shemarried, she married and and, uh
(18:14):
, her last name's Williams yougo back and listen to that
episode uh think season two, Idon't remember now, but you can
look it up and the story of herdad who brutalized little boys
in a Boy Scout troop for severalyears and did, I think, three
years in prison.
Like I don't understand thesystem, and so it's infuriating
(18:35):
and you end up very pissed offmost days if you let yourself
think about this stuff.
And so how did this guy onlyserve three years in prison?
I don't know, but that's whathe got, so he's getting out.
So we've walked through withthis young lady.
Hey, we're going to go sit down.
You're going to sit down andwe're going to support you and
you're going to confront himover this, but you're going to
tell him you forgive him, thatwas what she wanted to do.
(18:57):
She needed for her closure.
She needed to say to him Iforgive him, that was what she
wanted to do she needed for herclosure.
She needed to say to him Iforgive you, but I don't ever
want to see you again, and thatwas how she was going to deal
with it.
And the dude gets out of prisonand hangs himself in his closet
at his house, so she doesn'tget that closure.
He does that before she can gosit down and talk with him, and
(19:20):
so we watched her life kind ofgo off the rails over the next
few years.
She ended up in a reallyunhealthy relationship.
Stories like that are thestories I could literally tell
for if not hours, maybe days.
There's a girl named Tara thatcame here with an FBI agent that
escorted her and her counselorto SWO for a week because she
was at the center of a sextrafficking investigation not
(19:43):
investigation, it was a trial.
They already had a case file onthe on the Kingpin of this
operation.
It was about that thick.
And this 15 year old girl comesto camp from 12 to 14.
She was pimped out.
Sit and talk with this girl andrealize she's she's so confused
about just reality.
You know why did that happen toher?
She's so confused about justreality.
You know why did that happen toher?
That's the question you wrestlewith.
(20:03):
I've had so many conversationslike that on the other sort of
sort of a different side to thiscoin, a different side to the
Rubik's cube.
You know so many sides to thiswould be talking to combat
veterans of you.
Uh, listen to episodes with garbozeman, who we're going to
have.
(20:23):
Uh, gar will be featured in theno sanity book, that no sanity
stories book that's coming outin 2026.
But part of gar's testimony iswrestling with the atrocities of
war things not that he saw butthat he and then dealing with
his own conscience over.
I remember talking with aveteran who had killed a man
(20:44):
with his bare hands that theywere interrogating.
He picked the guy up anddropped him on his head on a
stone floor and the guy diedfrom it.
I remember this guy was analcoholic, he was suicidal, he
was using pills to medicatebecause he couldn't cope with
the fact that he had done this.
So now you've got this cloudedview of justice, injustice,
(21:04):
where you're like well, we fightin a just war.
I was there in service to mycountry but I went too far.
But it was the fog of war andit's just confusing.
I've had a lot of those kindsof conversations.
I had conversations withrepentant abusers, men that say,
yeah, I was abusive, maybe it'sphysical abuse, maybe it's
sexual abuse.
(21:24):
Um, can God forgive me?
I now have put my faith andtrust in Jesus.
Can the Lord forgive me forthis?
And I can tell you, it's hardas a dad and a and a, as a
pastor, a dad, a protector, aprovider.
It's hard to talk to a dudelike that and try to help him
navigate grace Cause I don'twant to give it to him, you know
(21:46):
.
And so these are things that Ithink every Christian has to
wrestle through, has to, has towrestle with.
And you've got to land on solidfooting.
Because if you haven't had todeal with this, if you've lived
in a really sterile, safeenvironment, good for you, good
on you.
But it ain't always going to belike that.
(22:08):
You're going to have agranddaughter or a or a nephew
or somebody that's going to havesome atrocity committed against
them and you're going to haveto wrestle with that.
And it's not like you don'tjust, you don't just tell a
person that's been abused oh,god is enough.
The Lord will heal you, theLord will get you through this.
(22:28):
It doesn't, it's not like thatI remember.
I remember, uh, mybrother-in-law getting killed
and my mom well-intentioned Ilove my mom so much, she's such
an amazing lady.
But I remember she's talking tomy nephew and she's trying to
help him understand why hisfather died in this horrible
(22:49):
accident and she said Jesuswanted your dad to come be with
him.
And I saw this switch flip inthis little boy where he started
immediately to go.
I could see, oh, he's going togo down a path of hating Jesus
because he said, well, but he'smy dad, he's not Jesus' dad.
Why did Jesus take my dad awayfrom me?
(23:10):
So now we've dug the holedeeper Again.
I'm not blaming.
I mean, my mom meant well, andthe Lord let me hear that and I
jumped in and intervened andsaid well, let's back up, this
is not Jesus' fault.
We live in a fallen, brokenworld and so we're able to then
unpack.
Death is real, catastrophe,calamity, atrocity is real.
(23:32):
What Jesus has done is give ushope so that when bad things
happen, we can rest in and fallback into the promises of Jesus.
So I want to look at somethings to help navigate
specifically what happens wheninjustice occurs, when the
(23:58):
strong harm the weak, when thepowerful and evil do damage and
harm to the innocent and theweak.
I want to look at that, okay,and I want to go to Ecclesiastes
, where questions are asked.
And Ecclesiastes is a book thatwill spin you out, by the way,
(24:21):
because it asks these questionsand you got and it asks them in
like high volume, but you got toreally drill into the to the
book to find the answers, causethere's only a couple of answers
.
He asks a million questions inthe book and only gives you a
couple answers.
The beauty is we'll get to theanswers.
One answer is enough, like whenJesus answers and he gives one
(24:45):
answer.
It's enough.
But the guy in Ecclesiastes iswrestling with this.
So anyway, this is Ecclesiastes4.
He says this, just three versesAgain.
I saw all the oppressions thatare done under the sun and
behold the tears of theoppressed, and they had no one
(25:05):
to comfort them.
On the side of their oppressors, there was power and there was
no one to comfort them.
And I thought the dead, who arealready dead, more fortunate
than the living who are stillalive, but better than both is
he who has not yet been and hasnot seen the evil deeds that are
done under the sun.
So he's he's.
He's in verse one.
(25:26):
He's saying I saw oppressionsdone under the sun and the
people that were oppressed hadno one to comfort them.
On the side of the oppressors,there was power and there was no
one to comfort them.
So the picture he's painting isvery much the picture that
we're describing here, which isthe oppressed being weak and
(25:48):
powerless against the oppressor.
And what ends up happeningoftentimes and maybe you, as a
listener, this has happened andyou've wrestled with this If
you're watching this orlistening to it is that it
causes you to question one oftwo things you either question
the goodness of the Lord or youquestion the power of the Lord,
(26:08):
like the might and the strengthof the Lord.
Because, okay, when we say Godis sovereign, we say that he is
all.
What we're saying is he's allpowerful and he has complete and
total freedom to do as hepleases Psalm 115.3,.
The Lord is in his heavens, hedoes whatever he pleases, so he
has the power and the freedom todo what he pleases.
So when we wrestle with thisand we go, you know, on behalf
(26:32):
of the oppressed, or if you arethe oppressed, you go where is
God when this happens?
Why didn't he stop it?
We then question is he just notgood enough?
Because if he's powerful enoughand he has the freedom and the
power to do it because I thinkhe's sovereign but he doesn't do
it, it must mean he's not good,he's not completely benevolent,
(26:56):
or maybe he's benevolent buthe's out of touch because he's
God and he can't be oppressed.
So he can't understand.
Listen, this is where thegospel gets so real.
In this, in this subject.
We wrestle with this and we goGod.
Maybe God is not good enough orhe can't identify with this
because he's never feltoppression.
(27:17):
No one can hurt him, no one canbeat him, no one can abuse him.
No one can beat him.
No one can abuse him.
No one can sexually assault him.
Nobody can can demoralize ordemean him.
He's God, he's sovereign, he'sall powerful.
But the thing is, when Jesushumbled himself and endured the
cross, not only in his life butin his death, he endured abuse.
(27:41):
He endured injustice like noone will ever endure injustice.
Because he didn't only endureinjustice in the beating that he
took, he didn't only endureinjustice in the, in the wrong
that was done against him or theillegal trials where he was
stood before people and wronglyaccused and unjustly condemned,
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but when he was actually on thecross and he was hanging there
with the sin of the world, thatthat he was atoning for is laid
on his back, laid on hisshoulders.
He's dying under the sin ofsexual abuse, physical abuse,
emotional abuse.
He's dying under the sin ofsexual abuse, physical abuse,
emotional abuse.
He's dying for those and it'snot just he's dying for people
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that would be abusers who wouldthen, through repentance, cry
out to him for salvation.
But he's dying not just as apropitiation for our sin, which
means he's dying in our place.
He's also dying as an expiationfor our sin, which means he's
dying in our place.
He's also dying as an expiationfor our sin.
In other words, he'll take thesin that's been committed
against you and he'll take thatunto himself and put it to death
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on the cross.
So, first off, theologically,where your freedom from this
abuse lies is recognizing thatJesus will put the sin that's
been committed against you.
He'll put that to death on yourbehalf, so that it no longer
controls you and hold you inbondage.
And so, where you know, when wewrestle with that question of
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where's God is, is there nogoodness?
Oh, no, jesus is on the cross,dying to free you from this pain
, and he'll do it.
Now I know we need to go a fewmore layers because that sounds
theologically so good and it isgood for me because I'm there, I
accept it and see it.
But maybe you're wrestling tosee how, how that's a reality
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and how that's good, jesus asyour expiation, setting you free
from the sin that's beencommitted against you.
That's one of the greatestfacets of the cross of Christ.
We've just recently celebratedthe resurrection of Jesus on
Easter Sunday, and we celebratethe fact that he died in our
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place.
But I want you, if you're one ofthose who's been oppressed or
victimized or abused, to see healso died to set you free from
your abuser.
That's a deep, powerful truthof the cross and where that
scene in the Old Testament was,when they would take the
scapegoat.
If you know this story, youfind it in Leviticus, I think
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Leviticus 16 and they would takethis animal and they would lay
the sins on that animal that hadbeen committed against people.
And they kill the one goat andit's like hey, here we're going
to take this animal, we're goingto slay this animal, we're
going to take its blood andcover your sin.
They would take the other oneand they would take that animal
out in the wilderness andrelease it, and and the picture
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is it's taken the wrong that'sbeen done to you and it's
removing that from you.
So you're free from that.
So your oppressors don'tcontrol you anymore.
So Jesus, he's the scapegoat,he takes that away from us, and
that's very important.
So, as Solomon's asking thisquestion in Ecclesiastes 4, I've
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seen the oppressed and I'veseen the oppressor, and there's
no one to hear the cries of theoppressed.
Jesus hears the cry of theoppressed.
There are those of us thatJesus has put in this world that
hear the cries of the oppressed.
Some of us were the oppressedand we've been set free from
that, and so that's the firstsort of message of hope.
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Um, I've, I've often said thatthe you know, you talk to people
that work in law enforcementand a lot of times they have
sort of a warped sense of humor.
Um, same with people that workin, uh, like paramedics, because
I think it's like a copingmechanism.
They'll, they'll laugh atthings that make you a little
(31:42):
uncomfortable, you know.
Um same with police officers,and I get it.
I think it's partially, becauseif you live in that world where
you're dealing with trauma orcrime or death, you almost got
to come up with a way to sort oflike cope with that.
You know, and so you see that alot.
(32:02):
But I've often said, the twovocations or jobs that will
completely distort your view ofhumanity more than anything else
are law enforcement or ministry.
(32:23):
By being in full-time ministryministry I become so cynical
towards people.
I have to fight, not looking atpeople and thinking I wonder
what that dude's doing at home.
I wonder how he treats hisdaughter, I wonder how he?
You know, like I did ityesterday, literally yesterday I
saw a guy interacting with somepeople and I know, and I and
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this guy's got a kid interactingwith some people.
And I know, and I and thisguy's got a kid, um, I don't
know the guy.
I spoke to him.
I was actually, um, he was inhis yard.
I was walking, I was on a longwalk.
It was two days ago.
I was on a long walk.
This guy's out in his yard, Ithink he's drunk, he's got a
beer in his hand and he yells atme and his speech is pretty
(33:04):
slurred.
He's got a beer in his hand andhe yells at me and his speech
is pretty slurred and, uh, Imean he got a.
He looked like Joe dirt, whichthat's my people.
So I'm trying to be judgmental.
But my man's out there, it'srebel flags for curtains in two
of the bedrooms on the trailerand then he's, he's got a beer
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and there's two little girls inthe yard.
And I'm sorry, man, I know thisis wrong, but I listened to him
yell at those kids and Ithought I wonder, you know, I
just wonder what goes on thereand and I like that's probably
super condescending but I can'thelp it, like I've been, because
it just so happens that I'vebeen into that same exact
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trailer to intervene.
The previous people that rentedthat trailer, we went into that
trailer to intervene in adomestic abuse situation.
I want to tell that story, butI'll come back to it Because I
want you to hear that there arepeople who will fight for you
and who will do what's right byyou.
So anyway, the point I'm makingis I walk around and I see a
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guy just in the yard with hiskids.
I don't have any right to judgethat dude, but I've just had so
many of these situations thatI've been confronted with that,
I've become very jaded and justassumed the worst and people you
know a lot of times.
So I have to.
Not, I don't just live thereand dwell there, I take that to
the Lord.
I ask God to give mesensitivity and mercy and grace
towards people, and he does, butit's.
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It gives you sort of like thisskewed view when you start to
face this stuff.
And so a lot of people who arethe victims, who are what
Solomon and Ecclesiastes iscalling the oppressed, they just
don't look at anybodytrustingly.
You know if that's a word.
So I want to give you I'm onlygoing to look at two passages.
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There's a lot in scripture wecould look at.
I mean, this is spoken to a lot.
But to wrap our time up here,I'm at 36 minutes.
I think we're over half an hour, so I want to.
I want to spend the rest of ourtime, cause this has been heavy
.
I want to.
I want to give you a couple ofthings to point out in scripture
(35:16):
that you can look to.
The first one is I want to goto Romans, chapter two.
Let me back up, let me go.
Chapter two, 2, verse 4.
Verse 4.
Or do you presume on the richesof his kindness and forbearance
and patience, not knowing thatGod's kindness is meant to lead
(35:37):
you to repentance, but becauseof your hard and impenitent
heart, you're storing up wrathfor yourself.
On the day of wrath, when God'srighteous judgment will be
revealed, he will render to eachone according to his works.
Now it's a statement.
You'll see in scripture a lot.
Jesus speaks to it, I thinkPsalm one.
(35:57):
Uh, let's see Psalm 62, 12, Ithink I think it's in Psalm 62
that that uh, same phrase isused.
Uh, job, it's spoken of in Job.
So you'll see throughoutscripture this idea that God's
going to render according toeach one of us.
He's going to render judgmentaccording to our works.
(36:18):
And so here he says he willrender to each one according to
his works.
And he say it in the context ofGod's wrath and judgment being
revealed.
So God's righteous that wordrighteous means just.
We're talking about injustice.
Injustice God's just orrighteous wrath is going to be
revealed as he renders judgmentaccording to people's works.
(36:42):
To those who, by patience andwell-doing, seek for glory and
honor and immortality, he willgive eternal life.
So it takes me to Romans eightone.
There's therefore now nocondemnation for those who are
in Christ Jesus, for those of usthat seek the Lord, notice he
doesn't say for those who liveperfectly.
He says let me read it again.
He says um to those who buypatience.
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So, as you live your life,you're going to make mistakes,
you're going to mess up.
You got to be patient with theprocess of pursuing Christ
because you're going to makemistakes, you're going to falter
, you're going to fail, but Godis going to grow us in who, by
patience and well-doing, seekfor glory, honor, immortality.
So if the if, the desire ofyour heart and what you fix your
(37:28):
eyes on, what you put your handto, what you pursue after, is
glory, honor, immortality, thinkof the doxology in Jude where
he says to the only true God, tohim who is able to keep you
from stumbling, in that doxology, where God's going to keep me
(37:49):
from stumbling, he's going tocarry me through.
He says to him belong um, glory, honor, majesty, dominion, for
now and for all time,forevermore.
So if my if, the goal and thepursuit of my life is to seek
Christ, to pursue Christ, whenbad things happen to me or
whatever, I'm going to continueto pursue him, knowing there's
coming a day where all pain isgoing to be gone.
(38:11):
Tears are going to be wipedaway.
Jesus reveals to us this in thebook of Revelation.
He says I'm going to wipe yourtears away.
Those tears will never returnand separate you from the pain
that's been caused to you.
So in this life we got towrestle with the trauma, the
PTSD, the past.
You know the feeling of.
You know you're around thatperson that was your abuser, the
(38:33):
feeling you get.
We got to wrestle with that.
But when we're with Christ,eternally, we won't have to
wrestle with that anymore.
There's coming a day whenyou're not going to have to deal
with this anymore, but rightnow the Lord will use it to
refine and grow you, but also toto to fix your eyes on that
which is immortal.
This is mortal.
One day, that which is mortalis going to give way to that
(38:54):
which is immortal.
We're going to be eternal.
And so he says for those of usthat are seeking the glory of
the Lord, seeking the honor ofthe Lord, judgment is going to
be found in Christ.
He will have received ourjudgment for our sin, and what
we'll receive and inherit is notonly his righteousness but
eternal life.
There's therefore now nocondemnation for those who are
(39:16):
in Christ Jesus, but for thosewho are self-seeking.
An abuser is self-seekingSomeone who uses a child or a
woman for sexual pleasureagainst their will.
A woman against her will achild doesn't even have the
option of having a will.
That's just sheer aggression,oppression and abuse.
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I remember talking to a girl onetime who and I don't remember
her name but I do remember herface and she had been so
sexually abused.
This girl was one of the one ofthe success stories of the
gospel.
She had come out of it andfound her hope in Christ and she
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was living a victorious life.
She went on, she got married,um, they're plugged into their
church like.
I'm really thankful for hertestimony.
I can can't remember her name,but I've seen her from time to
time at camp.
But when she was a kid, mom'sboyfriend was sexually abusing
her, raping her.
It started off when she was 12or 13.
(40:18):
When she was about 16, shestarted to consent to having
sexual relations with him sothat he would be satisfied to
not mess with her younger sister.
So when they would get off thebus and come through the door,
cause the guy was a sucker and adeadbeat who didn't work.
So he's at home in theafternoon cause he's a complete
(40:38):
piece of trash and doesn't work.
So while their mom's offworking and he's bumming living
in their government housingapartment, the two girls would
get off the bus.
When they would come in, the 16year old would take him and go
into the bedroom and have sexualacts with him so that the
younger sister wouldn't beexposed to it, and she would say
go to the neighbor's house andplay so, so, wrestling through
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that, that, that man, what he'sdoing is what it says.
Uh, in verse seven, eight he'sself-seeking.
He's for those who areself-seeking, he's purely
pleasing his twisted, perverted,disgusting flesh.
(41:22):
That is as disgusting a storyas I've ever heard or told, and
I've only ever told it righthere, right now.
It's not one I bring up, evenwith our staff.
I don't bring that up in stafftraining because it'll our staff
would be so shook if we walkthrough that in our training and
a lot of them will listen tothis.
But in the when we're trainingwe're talking about hard
situations that you might face.
I don't want to freak them outany.
(41:44):
They're already freaked out,knowing they're going to be
having conversations withstudents that are dealing with
stuff.
That young lady, we got herhelp, we got him prosecuted.
We got her plugged intodiscipleship.
She experienced healing andgrace and God has used her in
other people's lives.
But that dude was self-seeking.
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And so he says for those who areself-seeking and do not obey
the truth but obeyunrighteousness, what does that
mean?
They obey the demands anddesires of the flesh and the
devil.
Like Romans 8, if you put todeath the deeds of the flesh,
you will live.
But those who live according tothe flesh cannot please God,
(42:28):
they're hostile to God and theywill die.
So you're going to die in yoursin if you live according to the
flesh.
So he obeys unrighteousness.
There will be listen to thisand I am perfectly content and
satisfied that it's okay to feelthis way, to take joy in
knowing this.
There will be wrath and fury.
(42:51):
Do I pray for men like the guy Ijust described that did that?
I will be completelytransparent.
I have a hard time praying forthat guy, for his soul, for his
salvation, and I wrestle.
I'm not preaching a sermonright now.
It's the beauty of a podcast.
I can say things here that Imight be scared to say in the
pulpit, to make sure it's not.
I don't know if that makessense to you, but but but I'm
(43:14):
just being transparent.
I think one of the thingsthat's made NSR effective is
people feel the transparency andthe real and raw nature of how
we communicate with you.
I have a hard time, as a dad anda pastor who's dealt with abuse
victims, praying for a guy likethat.
I just want him, I just wanthim to get what's coming.
But here's, here's where I hide, here's where I bury that
(43:37):
thought and that emotion.
I bury it in confidence thatGod can handle that.
If God chooses to save that man, I trust the Lord with that and
how he's going to deal withthat.
But if he doesn't save him,then I take hope in Romans 2.7.
What awaits him Romans 2.7,romans 2.8, is wrath and fury,
(44:01):
the fury of a righteous God whois capable of judging that kind
of evil.
I trust that.
I trust that wrath, vengeanceis mine.
The scripture says later inRomans Vengeance is mine, I will
repay.
That's what the Lord says.
I'm going to trust God to dealwith that.
So if you're a victim and you'rethe oppressed and you're asking
(44:22):
the question that Solomon'sasking in Ecclesiastes 4,
where's like I've seen theoppressor have power over the
oppressed and nothing comes ofit.
Oh, something's coming of itFor those people Solomon saw
doing that 3,000, 4,000 yearsago, whenever that was.
Oh, they got their wrath andfury and they got more coming.
They got more coming.
And I would have had wrath andfury coming but for the grace of
(44:44):
Jesus and the cleansing of hisblood and the atoning work that
he did on the cross.
I'm not.
I ain't getting wrath and fury.
I'm going to give an account.
I'm going to be judged for mythoughts, words and deeds.
Scripture's clear on that.
But the wrath and fury of ajust and righteous and holy God
has already been satisfied forme in Christ.
(45:06):
Righteous and holy God hasalready been satisfied for me in
Christ.
But not all of God's wrath andfury was satisfied at the cross.
That which is not under theblood of Jesus will be judged
and God's going to deal with it.
There will be tribulation.
Listen to how he describes itin verse 9.
(45:26):
There will be tribulation anddistress.
This is Romans two.
Now.
There'll be tribulation anddistress for every human being
who does evil, the Jew first andalso the Greek, but glory and
honor and peace for everyone whodoes good.
He's painting a contrast for theoppressed who then turns to
Jesus for that expiation, thathealing, that freedom from their
.
The oppressed who then turns toJesus for that expiation, that
(45:47):
healing, that freedom from their, the wrong has been done to
them.
Jesus frees you from that andthen he promises you eternal
peace.
But for the one who does eviland locks into that evil and
doesn't, doesn't, doesn't backout of that, there's going to be
tribulation and distress.
And that word tribulation meansto squeeze something till the
guts come out of that.
There's going to be tribulationand distress.
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And that word tribulation meansto squeeze something till the
guts come out of it.
It's a violent graphic.
It's it's the Greek wordthalipsis, and it means to
squeeze something tilleverything on the inside
squishes out of it.
That's a violent picture.
That's a violent picture of Godsqueezing and bringing distress
and judgment on those who dothis kind of evil.
(46:31):
He says to the Jew first andalso to the Greek God shows no
partiality.
God don't care if you're apastor, a police officer, a
school teacher, a daddy, a mama.
If you do that which needs tobe brought under wrath and fury,
there's no partiality and God'sgoing to deal with it.
So I find hope in that.
So I find hope in that.
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The last thing that I want tolook at, then, is Ecclesiastes
four.
Solomon does, at the end of hislife, come to a place where he
sees, he sees this same kind ofhope, and he says the end of the
matter, all has been heard.
So all of those questions youask, god hears them.
(47:18):
You might not get an immediateanswer, but God hears them.
All has been heard.
Fear God and love hiscommandments, keep his
commandments.
For me, what I can do is fearthe Lord and keep his
commandments.
I can.
I can, I can worry about me,for this is the whole duty of
man.
My duty is not to go on a witchhunt for every guy Like I could
(47:42):
never track down.
Here's the thing.
As a pastor and a friend pastorand a friend and someone who
hears these stories, I couldstart a vigilante law.
You know, I remember when I wasin school, I remember studying
about different vigilante groupswhere you know they take the
law into their own hands,they're going to go and they're
(48:04):
going to.
You know, one that I think ofwas, uh, the this.
There was an abolitionist name.
I think his name was John Brown, but I might be wrong.
There was a.
There was an abolitionistduring the time of American
slavery and he set out to setslaves free, but in the process
(48:26):
he ended up committing somepretty horrible crimes.
It's like someone who goes towar and in the act of war they
kill children on purpose.
You know, like, like, like,maliciously, and I want to be
careful even with that Cause.
I remember having aconversation with a combat
veteran where his unit had toshoot several eight, nine, 10
(48:47):
year old boys because they hadsuicide vests and RPGs and they
were getting ready to wipe outan entire battalion, like, like,
like part of the third infantrydivision and they had to shoot
these kids.
That's different.
That's not what I'm talkingabout.
I'm not saying it's good,that's another atrocity of war
and humanity.
But someone who kills andmurders innocent people, that's
(49:11):
what I'm talking about.
When you think about that typeor that level of depravity,
wrestle with that stuff.
I really wrestle with thatstuff.
I, I, I, I really wrestle withthat stuff and I know that.
That when I, when we thinkabout, like, when I think about,
(49:32):
I wish I could go practicevigilante law like these guys
did.
But what ended up happening isthese guys in practicing
vigilante.
Vigilante just means take thelaw into your own hands, and in
doing that they ended up notjust attacking those
slaveholders and slave traders,they ended up killing innocent
people by association.
(49:53):
They don't have therighteousness to handle bringing
the law into their own hands,so you can't do that.
There's a part of me I rememberin school watching uh, we had
to watch a movie.
It came out in the eighties andI I forget the name of the
movie, but it was this group ofjudges that said they were tired
of seeing criminals walkbecause of little hiccups in the
law.
(50:13):
So they formed this sort ofsecret society where they would
hire, hit men to go out and killpeople that had gotten, you
know, off the hook.
And if I remember the twist inthe, but you're watching the
movie and you're like yeah,right on Heck.
Yeah, we need some judges likethat.
You know you kind of.
It kind of resonates with theRobin hood mentality, but then
(50:34):
there's a point where they killsomeone innocently.
I think is how it went down.
So you can never, we can never,take the law into our own hands
.
Even if we did, we could nevereradicate the world of this kind
of oppression, abuse andinjustice.
But what we can do is trustthat God is going to do that one
day and that we can fear Godand keep his commandments, live
(50:56):
just and upright lives, trustingthe Lord.
Now, here's, here's, here's thefinal thought.
For God will bring every deedinto judgment, with every secret
thing, whether good or evil.
God's going to bring every oneof your good deeds into judgment
, unto reward.
(51:17):
He's going to bring every evildeed and wrongdoing of the
oppressor, the abuser, intojudgment, to wrath and fury and
condemnation and justice.
So we can rest knowing thatwhen, when Paul writes in Romans
, vengeance is mine, I willrepay, and he says leave it in
the hands of God.
(51:37):
Sometimes it's not like, oh,just leave that in the hands of
God.
That doesn't mean don't pursueor seek justice.
I told you I'd tell you a story.
I'll end with this story.
We're we're, we're coming up onan hour here, so let me, let me
wrap up with this story andcome back to this thought Uh, we
had a, we had a girl and Imight've told this story here
before.
We had a lady.
(51:57):
She worked at a couple localbusinesses.
She worked cash register at agas station and she worked at
Subway, and so we would interactwith her.
The gas station that I go intoit's like where I'll go, like if
I need to run a store in theevening or whatever.
It's right down from my house.
She worked in there and shealso lived on that road where
(52:19):
that trailer is that I mentionedearlier, and she lived there
with the guy that never showedhimself.
I never saw him outside, but Iwould see her from time to time.
We'd speak to her and, uh, gotto know her.
She's working at this, this gasstation, and then we went to
subway one day.
She's working in there and like, dang, you work, you quit the
gas station and she said, no,I'm working both places, so
(52:41):
she's keeping, you know, holdingup this bum of a dude that's
with her, and once in a while,you'd see she she'd have, like I
remember one time she had abruise on her cheekbone and I
pressed her.
When I see that, I'm gonnapress it and I said, hey, who
hit you?
And uh, she's like, oh, nothing, nobody it was.
You know.
She had an excuse.
Well, uh, mugs, matts, mattJones, who everybody at SWO
(53:02):
calls Muggs, who's one of myexecutive partners, hank and me,
and Muggs, or the executiveteam, Muggs and his family, I
think they went into Subway andsaw her and she had a tooth
missing in her face.
She had been beat up and it waslike no hiding it, you know.
And he gets to talking to herand says we'll get you out of
the situation.
(53:23):
You know, we can help you.
Come to Red Oak Church.
This was on a Sunday afternoon.
He's like come to Red OakChurch this evening and we'll
talk.
So she came to church, sat downwith her, a lady at the time in
our church named Barbara Bond,who has since moved back home to
Tennessee.
Barbara and Aaron bond, dearfriends and partners in ministry
, and Barbara had come from apretty rough past and there was
(53:45):
a lot of abuse in there.
And and so, uh, barbara metwith her, talked with her,
barbara, super strong lady, anduh, and then me and a couple
other pastors met with her.
Anyway, we ended up.
She said I'll, I'll, I want tobe moved out, I want to get out
of there.
But I can't go back to that, tomy house, or he'll.
(54:05):
He'll beat me again If, if Itell him I'm going to leave, if
I don't just go home and comply.
She said, if I go home andcomply, he's going to be real
nice.
This is how abusers are sorry.
He'll beg me to forgive him,you know.
So I'll go back tonight.
That's what it's going to be.
And she said but I don't wantto go back.
And so we said well, do you havesomewhere you go?
She's from Michigan.
She said, yeah, I could go home.
(54:26):
My family's actually prettyloving.
She was an adopted girl, Ithink.
She came through the fostersystem and had been adopted by
this really loving family.
When she got old enough, sheleft.
She said I can go back to them.
They're, they're, they're,they're kind and gracious and
loving.
So we said all right, uh, wemake arrangements to get you to
Michigan.
And I'm telling you this storyso you know that there are
(54:48):
churches and people that willadvocate for you, because me and
three other dudes, I think, orfour other dudes took her, went
to that house, walked in thatdoor.
That dude was home, I didn'tknow.
The guy Walked in the house andsaid we're moving her out and
(55:09):
my man went in the back room andlocked the door.
You know, he hid.
He never showed his facebecause he's a coward, because
he beat up his girlfriend or akid, and so we moved her out and
sent her to Michigan to be withfamily.
Um, just saying, there arepeople that will advocate, that
will advocate, and so it's notjust that we wait for God's
(55:34):
judgment on this there.
There are things that there aregood people in this world that
will help the victim and theoppressed, and so you need to
believe that, and we've donethat often in our ministry.
But if you're wrestling withwhy did God let this happen?
Where's the healing from this?
The healing is in Christ.
The freedom is in Christ.
There's relationships that canbe cultivated with people that
(55:59):
are loving and trustworthy.
That's why finding a churchthat you can trust, is going to
handle things biblically andthat has accountability for
pastors and leaders there's notsome dude that's just running
roughshod over people whodoesn't have accountability in
his own life.
Stay away from a church likethat.
You want a church where there'scommunity, accountability and
(56:27):
people love one another, andyou'll feel that and you can
find healing and peace in that.
So where's the justice?
The justice has already come,in one sense, for those that are
in Christ Jesus, wherecondemnation is removed and
healing is available to you.
But justice is coming for thosethat are doing this kind of
work, this kind of harm.
(56:47):
Justice is coming.
They may not go down in a lawenforcement sting and go to
prison, but they will one daystand in the ultimate court, the
high court of King Jesus, andthey'll give an account and
wrath and fury is going to comedown on their head.
And you can rest knowing thatif you're a victim, if you're
the oppressed, god's going todeal with it and in the meantime
, find some healing and knowthat the Lord loves you and
(57:10):
he'll bring you through it.
And if you're part of our churchbecause I know most of the Red
Oak community listens to this wereiterate what we talked about
a few sundays ago you come seeus and and we'll do what we need
to do to get you healing, toget you whole, and maybe that
means getting you out of asituation.
And if you're a person thatfeels a propensity to harm
(57:33):
others, um, you need.
You need to come forward too.
And if you're if you're part ofour ministry, our church, you
come, talk to us.
We'll get you the healing andthe help you need.
But come forward too.
And if you're part of ourministry, our church, you come
talk to us.
We'll get you the healing andthe help you need.
But we'll get you in asituation where you can't hurt
anybody.
And if you're a person that'sdone terrible things, you need
to make amends.
You need to first take itbefore the Lord and ask
forgiveness, and then you needto face the consequences of your
(57:55):
actions, whatever that lookslike.
And so we would call you torepent and to accept
responsibility for your actions,whether that's before the
church or a court of law,whatever.
Do what's right, get this offyour conscience and start your
own journey towards peace andhealing for the wrong you've
done.
Nobody's righteous in their ownstrength, nobody's perfect, but
(58:18):
through the blood of Jesusthere's healing for everybody
and for those that refuse that.
Wrath and fury is coming, andsome days that makes me sleep
real good at night, and I'm okaywith that.
So thanks for listening.
It's heavy content and I hopeit's encouragement to you this
(58:39):
week and we'll see you next weekon no Sanity Required.
Speaker 2 (58:46):
Thanks for listening to no Sanity Required.
Please take a moment tosubscribe and leave a rating.
It really helps.
Visit us at SWOutfitterscom tosee all of our programming and
resources, and we'll see younext week on no Sanity Required.
One of the hardest things for me as a pastor, or
even as a dad, to answer inpeople's lives, uh, or to speak
into people's lives, I guess toadd the questions that are
hardest to answer.
When people have questions andthis comes up a lot about the
problem of evil when is God inthe midst of injustice?
(00:22):
Why do bad things happen togood people?
Something like that and it's ahard question to answer and it's
even I want to say that evenfor a solid, mature believer
it's something that you'll beshook.
If you wrestle through that atany point in your life, it's not
like you're going to get to apoint where the injustice around
(00:44):
you that you see in the worlddoesn't affect you anymore.
You're just like, oh, God's gotit.
It's never like that.
You're going to wrestle withthis the rest of your life.
But there are some, some toolsin your kit, some weapons in
your kit that I think you canuse and utilize from scripture,
from common sense, to help youat least be able to navigate
(01:06):
that, that internal conversationor that conversation with
somebody else when it comes up.
That's what we're going to betalking about today when is God
in the midst of injustice?
Uh, thanks for listening.
Welcome to no sanity required.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
Welcome to no Required from the Ministry of
Snowbird Wilderness Outfitters.
A podcast about the Bibleculture and stories from around
the globe.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
I want to start off with not a joke, but a funny
scene.
There's a movie and I don'tremember what the movie is
called and it's a 20-year-oldmovie, and it's one of those
movies where you watch thetrailer.
The trailer's funny, themovie's stupid, the movie's not
very good, um, but there's ascene in the movie where this
(01:56):
guy is in a phone booth.
Now, for younger folks, a phonebooth is maybe obsolete now,
but this is a place where youcould make a phone call before
people had cell phones.
So maybe you're out and about,you need to call 911 or you need
to call home.
You would go into a littlebooth, little glass or metal tin
(02:16):
booth outside of a gas stationor something like that.
There'd be a phone.
If it's a local call, you couldput 25 cents in it.
That's a quarter.
I'm being a little facetious,but you drop that in there.
You make your call.
If it's a long distance call,you would dial zero.
An operator would pick up andthen you would say I need to
make a collect call and youwould give her the number and uh
(02:39):
, and then she would call that.
Someone on the other end of theline would pick up and say
hello and she would say I have acollect call from.
She would say that Someone onthe other end of the line would
pick up and say hello, and shewould say I have a collect call
from.
She would say the caller's name, that person, and she'd say
will you accept the charges,because a call outside of your
area costs money.
It's crazy for young people tothink about now, but that's how
we used to have to make phonecalls.
So in this old movie there's ascene where a guy's in a phone
(03:02):
booth.
And old movie there's a scenewhere a guy's in a phone booth
and he's caught and I don'tremember the, I don't remember
the storyline, it's kind of likea spoof comedy, but it's about
organized crime.
And he's calling and he's goingto make a threat, uh, to this
mob boss.
And this, this little asian guywith a thick accent, answers
the phone and the guy on thephone and the phone booth says
(03:25):
at the end of the call he saystell him, justice will be
waiting.
And the little guy goes okay,thank you Justin, I tell him bye
.
And he hangs up.
And I always thought it was sofunny, cause as he hangs up, the
guy in the phone booth goes no,no, no, I said justice.
And it's like the whole, thewhole spoof of the thing is in
(03:47):
my mind is like, oh, you can'teven get your point across.
That justice is coming, youknow like, and I feel like
that's kind of.
That scene is stupid and funnyas it is.
It sort of encapsulates how alot of us feel when it comes to
where's, where's the justice incrazy situations and
circumstances, and so I want totalk about that today.
(04:08):
I want to talk about justice,injustice.
Where's God when bad thingshappen?
Why do bad things happen toseemingly good people?
And I want to drill into just afew places in Scripture where
we can find hope.
That'll help us navigate thosewaters.
And let me say, before I startand get into this, I know that
(04:31):
percentage wise, um, the statstell us that one in eight people
are the victim of some sort ofabuse.
My experience in 30 years ofministry is that that that
number is much closer to one andfour.
I know that in in the Countythat I live in, cherokee County,
(04:54):
north Carolina, uh, we just hadmeetings with our sheriff's
department, um to discuss umoperating procedures for any
event that we have crime beingcommitted at SWO, active shooter
scenarios, stuff like that.
But in a sidebar conversationI'm sitting talking with the
(05:17):
narcotics officers for ourcounty department and we ended
up talking for an hour and ahalf and I was shocked to find
that the county I live in,cherokee County, north Carolina,
which is a rural county, it's amassive county.
It takes an hour plus to drivefrom one end to the other.
If you drive from corner tocorner and in that county
there's 30,000 people so youcould take, you, move into a
(05:41):
suburb of Atlanta.
You got 30,000 people in just afew subdivisions.
That you cover really quick.
This massive land area county,30,000 people, it's not a lot.
Just east of us is a countycalled Buncombe County.
The seat of that county is thecity of Asheville.
Asheville is 100,000 people inthe greater Asheville area.
(06:02):
Buncombe County is many morepeople than that.
Our county last year had moremurders than any county in
western North Carolina.
On the last day of the yearthere was a double homicide in
Asheville that either tied themwith us or bumped them one ahead
(06:23):
of us.
So in a rural county we hadnine homicides last year.
It's a pretty staggering number, but the more staggering number
that came out of thatconversation that I had
yesterday was that one in fourpeople in this county are
victims of some sort of abuse orviolent crime.
(06:43):
Abuse or violent crime.
That's staggering.
And then take into account thatwe have, on average, three to
five officers on patrol in thecounty trying to cover all that
area and all those people, andreal quick you realize that if
you live in a healthy householdwhere people are nice to each
(07:05):
other, nobody gets hit, nobodygets sexually touched or
assaulted, nobody gets yelled at.
If you live in a subdivisionwhere you don't see crime in the
street, you don't hear peoplebeing harmed or hurt, you are in
the minority in history andeven in the minority today.
(07:27):
I believe that the majority ofour listeners live in a very
safe upper middle class probablyenvironment.
And the reality is that even inthose environments the same
types of things happen, but theyoften happen in the dark or in
silence.
So, saying all that to say, welive in a world regardless of
(07:49):
where you live.
But for me, even just put it inthe context of my local
community we live in a worldwhere bad things happen to
people I'm careful to say goodpeople, because the scripture
says no one's good.
Romans 3, verse 10 saysnobody's good.
Romans 3, 12 no one's good.
Romans 3, verse 10 saysnobody's good.
Romans 3, verse 12 saysnobody's righteous.
(08:10):
The next verse says humans, ourthroats are like open graves
just consuming death.
So that's the natural state orcondition of a man's heart, a
woman's heart.
So we can say bad things happento people, but I do think we
can say bad things happen topeople.
But I do think we can.
We can say bad things happen togood or innocent people.
When we're talking about thestrong hurting the weak, the
(08:34):
strong oppressing the weak and Icould tell stories.
I thought about this.
I could literally tell storiesfor sure for hours on, hours on
hours on end, if not for days onend, of, in 30 years of
ministry, the conversations I'vehad with law enforcement, with
(08:56):
counselors, with fathers,husbands, mothers, daughters,
brothers, like people that havebeen hurt by people close to
them, as well as people thathave been been victimized by
strangers.
We had a girl on staff here, um, and she, while she was serving
here, we had to work throughher coming to terms with being
(09:17):
raped in a scenario that was acrime of opportunity, where she
was a teenage girl with herfriends at the beach and they're
walking down the beach on kindof this boardwalk area and she
gets literally grabbed andpulled into a dark room in an
abandoned building that used tobe a restaurant or something.
Somebody grabs her, pulls herin there, sexually assaults and
(09:38):
rapes her and then they justleave.
She has no idea who it was.
There's another scenario where aclose friend of the ministry
this lady has brought studentsand she was on I don't remember
if it was like a cruise or amission trip, but she was in an
international context.
She was in another country.
(09:59):
They had a day where they weregoing to go on an excursion and
I think they went.
It was something like they wentsnorkeling or they went riding
around in a boat doing something.
Anyway, she ends up there's notenough people to all get in one
boat to get transported back towhere they were staying.
They'd gone out, maybe to anisland.
(10:20):
I think they'd gone out to anisland or something to just do
some exploration.
So she's like I'll hang back.
She hangs back.
There's there's two or threeguys that are guiding this
outing and they rape her.
This is a woman that's thatbrings students to SWO and um,
and then they say, if you tellanybody, they're not going to
(10:41):
believe you, cause nobody evenknows who we are, cause these
are just some obscure dudes in athird world context that like.
And so what I learned fromtalking with her and other
ladies is a lot of times womenthat get assaulted like that,
they don't end up even tellinganybody because they think who's
going to listen?
Who am I going to tell?
I'm ashamed, I'm scared, I'mfor it's so traumatizing that
(11:04):
for me.
I think.
Tell your dad, tell yourhusband, tell your brother, tell
me, like, if it's one of mygirls or one of my sisters or
any girl that works at SWO or asa part of Red Oak, tell me,
we'll go deal with it, you knowwe'll it.
Whether that's, we physicallydeal with it or we'll get the
law enforcement that needs to beinvolved involved.
But typically in many of youthat have been sexually or
(11:25):
physically assaulted, you knowit's so traumatizes you
psychologically and emotionally.
It confuses and disruptseverything about the way you
even process what happened.
A lot of times it doesn't getreported and so then a person is
left to carry this the rest oftheir life and as they
internalize it they end upsaying, well, I got nobody else
to blame.
I blame God, or why did God letthis happen?
(11:45):
It's really difficult, and sowhat will end up happening is
we'll end up in conversationswith people at SWO because they
get away from home, they get toan event here and I think
there's something to be said foroftentimes the longevity of our
ministry SWO has been faithfulfor three decades.
(12:06):
I had someone call me two weeksago and say can I talk to you?
And this was a60-something-year-old lady who
sits on a board of directors fora nonprofit Christian ministry
and there's some stuff going onthere and she's reaching out to
me.
And I was having a conversationwith Rob Conte about it and I
said it's crazy, people likethat will call us.
And he said it's crazy, peoplelike that will call us.
(12:31):
And he said it's because we'veproven faithful and I'm really
grateful for that and I want tosteward that and manage that
Well.
People feel like they can trustus enough to tell us things.
But what gets difficult is I'mnot a counselor, I'm not a
psychiatrist, I'm not apsychologist.
I have no certifications orlicenses.
My degree was in government.
You know, I've got a ministryexperience, but what I've
learned is the wisdom and thewisdom that the scripture
(12:53):
provides, along with the commonsense of working through things
with people.
A lot of times, what people needto hear is just it's, it's okay
, we can work through this andhelp you kind of land on some
solid footing, and that's whatI'm hoping this episode today
will do.
This may turn into multipleepisodes, because I'm sure we're
going to get feedback from this.
I want to tell a couple morestories because I really want to
(13:15):
set this up.
I want to hopefully get a holdof your heart and your mind and
your emotions.
This is a weightier than normalepisode.
There was a girl We'll callyour emotions.
This is a weightier than normalepisode.
There was a girl.
We'll call her Lauren.
That is not her name.
We'll call her Lauren.
Lauren came to SWO as a younglady, probably, I think, 14.
(13:36):
And Little and I had theopportunity to minister to her
over the next few years.
She came to SWO several yearsin a row, I believe.
She ended up serving on ourelement team, which at the time
was called servant team, and shehad been, uh, repeatedly
sexually assaulted by herstepfather, a guy that we'll
(13:57):
call, uh, bob that's a prettygeneric name, no offense to the
Bobs out there, but we'll callhim Bob, also not his name, um,
and he had.
He had sexually assaulted herrepeatedly and she had um.
She had finally had the courageto tell somebody and things
went to litigation, went to herprosecution and Bob went to
(14:20):
prison.
Now I want to address aterrible injustice that happens
to people like Lauren byexplaining something that
happened when Bob went to prison.
Bob goes to prison.
Lauren gets, I think, one or twosessions of counseling with
probably a dime store counselor.
(14:42):
No offense to good counselorsout there, but there's some
idiots in the counseling world,some complete idiots who just
want their $150 an hour fee.
And the reason I trust ourcounseling so much is because we
don't get paid to do it andwe're doing it out of the
calling God's placed on ourlives.
The reason I trust Nikki Smithto sit down with a girl and help
(15:04):
her navigate this is becauseNikki's heart is proven for the
Lord and for people and shedoesn't get paid bonus hours to
counsel.
Nikki Smith earned her master'sdegree in biblical counseling
on her own time and partially onher own dime, and we helped her
with that.
But she put in the blood, sweat, tears, money, money and equity
(15:24):
, to sit across from girls andhelp them navigate this, and
part of it was because oflauren's story, because nikki
walked through this with laurenas well.
Nikki's uh, someone that if you, if you're a person, you know,
nikki smith, she's, she'sincredible, oversees our element
program and is our in-housesort of our in-house counselor.
But, but a lot of counselorsagain, I'm not throwing
(15:46):
everybody under the bus here.
There's some good counselorsout there, but good counselors
are not doing it for the money,um, and that's why I really
trust pastoral counseling morethan anything.
So that's another conversation.
Maybe that needs to be anepisode where we talk about
biblical counseling.
That being said, lauren wassent to a counselor.
(16:09):
I think two sessions is whatshe got.
When it was over, everyoneassumed Lauren's going to be
fine.
The stepdad's gone to prison,she got some counseling.
Let's leave it be.
Well, she's like this 16 yearold broken kid.
So when she gets to us, byGod's grace, we start to help
her navigate how to deal withher emotions, how to deal with
(16:29):
the feelings of of, you know,resentment towards people and
distrust.
I mean it's just so cognitivelyit disrupts even a person's
development.
It's very statistically proven,scientifically proven,
medically proven in the world ofpsychology and psychiatry
(16:50):
Because there is some credenceand credibility there that when
a person is sexually abused at ayoung age, there's a cognitive
arrest in their development.
They sort of freeze up in thatstage in their life and so
you'll have 30, 40, 50 year oldwomen that will.
There'll be parts of them, andI'm not being scientific here
because I don't even know theterminology for this.
I'm just telling you I'veobserved it.
(17:10):
Science, by the way, is partobservation, observation of fact
.
And so I've observed thatpeople will sort of have this,
they'll be sort of cognitivelyarrested in in this 16 year old
moment, even though they're a 35year old mom, and they'll have
these.
They'll revert back to thismoment.
That's where a lot of thestruggle will be.
(17:32):
So she's wrestling with thingsthat had happened and and and is
graphically described.
This to little enough, and sowe're trying to help her, we're
trying to counsel her throughthis, help her navigate this.
Well then, the guy only doeslike three years.
I don't know how many timesI've had this happen, where a
sex offender only does threeyears.
(17:54):
I don't.
I don't know who's in charge ofthat.
I don't know who's in charge ofthat we had another gal that
served on full-time.
It's a story in a story here.
Real quick Side note a veryfaithful lady that has been on
NSR.
If you go back and you listento the Courtney Seifert episode
um, now Courtney Williams, shemarried, she married and and, uh
(18:14):
, her last name's Williams yougo back and listen to that
episode uh think season two, Idon't remember now, but you can
look it up and the story of herdad who brutalized little boys
in a Boy Scout troop for severalyears and did, I think, three
years in prison.
Like I don't understand thesystem, and so it's infuriating
(18:35):
and you end up very pissed offmost days if you let yourself
think about this stuff.
And so how did this guy onlyserve three years in prison?
I don't know, but that's whathe got, so he's getting out.
So we've walked through withthis young lady.
Hey, we're going to go sit down.
You're going to sit down andwe're going to support you and
you're going to confront himover this, but you're going to
tell him you forgive him, thatwas what she wanted to do.
(18:57):
She needed for her closure.
She needed to say to him Iforgive him, that was what she
wanted to do she needed for herclosure.
She needed to say to him Iforgive you, but I don't ever
want to see you again, and thatwas how she was going to deal
with it.
And the dude gets out of prisonand hangs himself in his closet
at his house, so she doesn'tget that closure.
He does that before she can gosit down and talk with him, and
(19:20):
so we watched her life kind ofgo off the rails over the next
few years.
She ended up in a reallyunhealthy relationship.
Stories like that are thestories I could literally tell
for if not hours, maybe days.
There's a girl named Tara thatcame here with an FBI agent that
escorted her and her counselorto SWO for a week because she
was at the center of a sextrafficking investigation not
(19:43):
investigation, it was a trial.
They already had a case file onthe on the Kingpin of this
operation.
It was about that thick.
And this 15 year old girl comesto camp from 12 to 14.
She was pimped out.
Sit and talk with this girl andrealize she's she's so confused
about just reality.
You know why did that happen toher?
She's so confused about justreality.
You know why did that happen toher?
That's the question you wrestlewith.
(20:03):
I've had so many conversationslike that on the other sort of
sort of a different side to thiscoin, a different side to the
Rubik's cube.
You know so many sides to thiswould be talking to combat
veterans of you.
Uh, listen to episodes with garbozeman, who we're going to
have.
(20:23):
Uh, gar will be featured in theno sanity book, that no sanity
stories book that's coming outin 2026.
But part of gar's testimony iswrestling with the atrocities of
war things not that he saw butthat he and then dealing with
his own conscience over.
I remember talking with aveteran who had killed a man
(20:44):
with his bare hands that theywere interrogating.
He picked the guy up anddropped him on his head on a
stone floor and the guy diedfrom it.
I remember this guy was analcoholic, he was suicidal, he
was using pills to medicatebecause he couldn't cope with
the fact that he had done this.
So now you've got this cloudedview of justice, injustice,
(21:04):
where you're like well, we fightin a just war.
I was there in service to mycountry but I went too far.
But it was the fog of war andit's just confusing.
I've had a lot of those kindsof conversations.
I had conversations withrepentant abusers, men that say,
yeah, I was abusive, maybe it'sphysical abuse, maybe it's
sexual abuse.
(21:24):
Um, can God forgive me?
I now have put my faith andtrust in Jesus.
Can the Lord forgive me forthis?
And I can tell you, it's hardas a dad and a and a, as a
pastor, a dad, a protector, aprovider.
It's hard to talk to a dudelike that and try to help him
navigate grace Cause I don'twant to give it to him, you know
(21:46):
.
And so these are things that Ithink every Christian has to
wrestle through, has to, has towrestle with.
And you've got to land on solidfooting.
Because if you haven't had todeal with this, if you've lived
in a really sterile, safeenvironment, good for you, good
on you.
But it ain't always going to belike that.
(22:08):
You're going to have agranddaughter or a or a nephew
or somebody that's going to havesome atrocity committed against
them and you're going to haveto wrestle with that.
And it's not like you don'tjust, you don't just tell a
person that's been abused oh,god is enough.
The Lord will heal you, theLord will get you through this.
(22:28):
It doesn't, it's not like thatI remember.
I remember, uh, mybrother-in-law getting killed
and my mom well-intentioned Ilove my mom so much, she's such
an amazing lady.
But I remember she's talking tomy nephew and she's trying to
help him understand why hisfather died in this horrible
(22:49):
accident and she said Jesuswanted your dad to come be with
him.
And I saw this switch flip inthis little boy where he started
immediately to go.
I could see, oh, he's going togo down a path of hating Jesus
because he said, well, but he'smy dad, he's not Jesus' dad.
Why did Jesus take my dad awayfrom me?
(23:10):
So now we've dug the holedeeper Again.
I'm not blaming.
I mean, my mom meant well, andthe Lord let me hear that and I
jumped in and intervened andsaid well, let's back up, this
is not Jesus' fault.
We live in a fallen, brokenworld and so we're able to then
unpack.
Death is real, catastrophe,calamity, atrocity is real.
(23:32):
What Jesus has done is give ushope so that when bad things
happen, we can rest in and fallback into the promises of Jesus.
So I want to look at somethings to help navigate
specifically what happens wheninjustice occurs, when the
(23:58):
strong harm the weak, when thepowerful and evil do damage and
harm to the innocent and theweak.
I want to look at that, okay,and I want to go to Ecclesiastes
, where questions are asked.
And Ecclesiastes is a book thatwill spin you out, by the way,
(24:21):
because it asks these questionsand you got and it asks them in
like high volume, but you got toreally drill into the to the
book to find the answers, causethere's only a couple of answers
.
He asks a million questions inthe book and only gives you a
couple answers.
The beauty is we'll get to theanswers.
One answer is enough, like whenJesus answers and he gives one
(24:45):
answer.
It's enough.
But the guy in Ecclesiastes iswrestling with this.
So anyway, this is Ecclesiastes4.
He says this, just three versesAgain.
I saw all the oppressions thatare done under the sun and
behold the tears of theoppressed, and they had no one
(25:05):
to comfort them.
On the side of their oppressors, there was power and there was
no one to comfort them.
And I thought the dead, who arealready dead, more fortunate
than the living who are stillalive, but better than both is
he who has not yet been and hasnot seen the evil deeds that are
done under the sun.
So he's he's.
He's in verse one.
(25:26):
He's saying I saw oppressionsdone under the sun and the
people that were oppressed hadno one to comfort them.
On the side of the oppressors,there was power and there was no
one to comfort them.
So the picture he's painting isvery much the picture that
we're describing here, which isthe oppressed being weak and
(25:48):
powerless against the oppressor.
And what ends up happeningoftentimes and maybe you, as a
listener, this has happened andyou've wrestled with this If
you're watching this orlistening to it is that it
causes you to question one oftwo things you either question
the goodness of the Lord or youquestion the power of the Lord,
(26:08):
like the might and the strengthof the Lord.
Because, okay, when we say Godis sovereign, we say that he is
all.
What we're saying is he's allpowerful and he has complete and
total freedom to do as hepleases Psalm 115.3,.
The Lord is in his heavens, hedoes whatever he pleases, so he
has the power and the freedom todo what he pleases.
So when we wrestle with thisand we go, you know, on behalf
(26:32):
of the oppressed, or if you arethe oppressed, you go where is
God when this happens?
Why didn't he stop it?
We then question is he just notgood enough?
Because if he's powerful enoughand he has the freedom and the
power to do it because I thinkhe's sovereign but he doesn't do
it, it must mean he's not good,he's not completely benevolent,
(26:56):
or maybe he's benevolent buthe's out of touch because he's
God and he can't be oppressed.
So he can't understand.
Listen, this is where thegospel gets so real.
In this, in this subject.
We wrestle with this and we goGod.
Maybe God is not good enough orhe can't identify with this
because he's never feltoppression.
(27:17):
No one can hurt him, no one canbeat him, no one can abuse him.
No one can beat him.
No one can abuse him.
No one can sexually assault him.
Nobody can can demoralize ordemean him.
He's God, he's sovereign, he'sall powerful.
But the thing is, when Jesushumbled himself and endured the
cross, not only in his life butin his death, he endured abuse.
(27:41):
He endured injustice like noone will ever endure injustice.
Because he didn't only endureinjustice in the beating that he
took, he didn't only endureinjustice in the, in the wrong
that was done against him or theillegal trials where he was
stood before people and wronglyaccused and unjustly condemned,
(28:04):
but when he was actually on thecross and he was hanging there
with the sin of the world, thatthat he was atoning for is laid
on his back, laid on hisshoulders.
He's dying under the sin ofsexual abuse, physical abuse,
emotional abuse.
He's dying under the sin ofsexual abuse, physical abuse,
emotional abuse.
He's dying for those and it'snot just he's dying for people
(28:27):
that would be abusers who wouldthen, through repentance, cry
out to him for salvation.
But he's dying not just as apropitiation for our sin, which
means he's dying in our place.
He's also dying as an expiationfor our sin, which means he's
dying in our place.
He's also dying as an expiationfor our sin.
In other words, he'll take thesin that's been committed
against you and he'll take thatunto himself and put it to death
(28:49):
on the cross.
So, first off, theologically,where your freedom from this
abuse lies is recognizing thatJesus will put the sin that's
been committed against you.
He'll put that to death on yourbehalf, so that it no longer
controls you and hold you inbondage.
And so, where you know, when wewrestle with that question of
(29:10):
where's God is, is there nogoodness?
Oh, no, jesus is on the cross,dying to free you from this pain
, and he'll do it.
Now I know we need to go a fewmore layers because that sounds
theologically so good and it isgood for me because I'm there, I
accept it and see it.
But maybe you're wrestling tosee how, how that's a reality
(29:31):
and how that's good, jesus asyour expiation, setting you free
from the sin that's beencommitted against you.
That's one of the greatestfacets of the cross of Christ.
We've just recently celebratedthe resurrection of Jesus on
Easter Sunday, and we celebratethe fact that he died in our
(29:54):
place.
But I want you, if you're one ofthose who's been oppressed or
victimized or abused, to see healso died to set you free from
your abuser.
That's a deep, powerful truthof the cross and where that
scene in the Old Testament was,when they would take the
scapegoat.
If you know this story, youfind it in Leviticus, I think
(30:17):
Leviticus 16 and they would takethis animal and they would lay
the sins on that animal that hadbeen committed against people.
And they kill the one goat andit's like hey, here we're going
to take this animal, we're goingto slay this animal, we're
going to take its blood andcover your sin.
They would take the other oneand they would take that animal
out in the wilderness andrelease it, and and the picture
(30:39):
is it's taken the wrong that'sbeen done to you and it's
removing that from you.
So you're free from that.
So your oppressors don'tcontrol you anymore.
So Jesus, he's the scapegoat,he takes that away from us, and
that's very important.
So, as Solomon's asking thisquestion in Ecclesiastes 4, I've
(30:59):
seen the oppressed and I'veseen the oppressor, and there's
no one to hear the cries of theoppressed.
Jesus hears the cry of theoppressed.
There are those of us thatJesus has put in this world that
hear the cries of the oppressed.
Some of us were the oppressedand we've been set free from
that, and so that's the firstsort of message of hope.
(31:20):
Um, I've, I've often said thatthe you know, you talk to people
that work in law enforcementand a lot of times they have
sort of a warped sense of humor.
Um, same with people that workin, uh, like paramedics, because
I think it's like a copingmechanism.
They'll, they'll laugh atthings that make you a little
(31:42):
uncomfortable, you know.
Um same with police officers,and I get it.
I think it's partially, becauseif you live in that world where
you're dealing with trauma orcrime or death, you almost got
to come up with a way to sort oflike cope with that.
You know, and so you see that alot.
(32:02):
But I've often said, the twovocations or jobs that will
completely distort your view ofhumanity more than anything else
are law enforcement or ministry.
(32:23):
By being in full-time ministryministry I become so cynical
towards people.
I have to fight, not looking atpeople and thinking I wonder
what that dude's doing at home.
I wonder how he treats hisdaughter, I wonder how he?
You know, like I did ityesterday, literally yesterday I
saw a guy interacting with somepeople and I know, and I and
(32:44):
this guy's got a kid interactingwith some people.
And I know, and I and thisguy's got a kid, um, I don't
know the guy.
I spoke to him.
I was actually, um, he was inhis yard.
I was walking, I was on a longwalk.
It was two days ago.
I was on a long walk.
This guy's out in his yard, Ithink he's drunk, he's got a
beer in his hand and he yells atme and his speech is pretty
(33:04):
slurred.
He's got a beer in his hand andhe yells at me and his speech
is pretty slurred and, uh, Imean he got a.
He looked like Joe dirt, whichthat's my people.
So I'm trying to be judgmental.
But my man's out there, it'srebel flags for curtains in two
of the bedrooms on the trailerand then he's, he's got a beer
(33:26):
and there's two little girls inthe yard.
And I'm sorry, man, I know thisis wrong, but I listened to him
yell at those kids and Ithought I wonder, you know, I
just wonder what goes on thereand and I like that's probably
super condescending but I can'thelp it, like I've been, because
it just so happens that I'vebeen into that same exact
(33:47):
trailer to intervene.
The previous people that rentedthat trailer, we went into that
trailer to intervene in adomestic abuse situation.
I want to tell that story, butI'll come back to it Because I
want you to hear that there arepeople who will fight for you
and who will do what's right byyou.
So anyway, the point I'm makingis I walk around and I see a
(34:10):
guy just in the yard with hiskids.
I don't have any right to judgethat dude, but I've just had so
many of these situations thatI've been confronted with that,
I've become very jaded and justassumed the worst and people you
know a lot of times.
So I have to.
Not, I don't just live thereand dwell there, I take that to
the Lord.
I ask God to give mesensitivity and mercy and grace
towards people, and he does, butit's.
(34:31):
It gives you sort of like thisskewed view when you start to
face this stuff.
And so a lot of people who arethe victims, who are what
Solomon and Ecclesiastes iscalling the oppressed, they just
don't look at anybodytrustingly.
You know if that's a word.
So I want to give you I'm onlygoing to look at two passages.
(34:55):
There's a lot in scripture wecould look at.
I mean, this is spoken to a lot.
But to wrap our time up here,I'm at 36 minutes.
I think we're over half an hour, so I want to.
I want to spend the rest of ourtime, cause this has been heavy
.
I want to.
I want to give you a couple ofthings to point out in scripture
(35:16):
that you can look to.
The first one is I want to goto Romans, chapter two.
Let me back up, let me go.
Chapter two, 2, verse 4.
Verse 4.
Or do you presume on the richesof his kindness and forbearance
and patience, not knowing thatGod's kindness is meant to lead
(35:37):
you to repentance, but becauseof your hard and impenitent
heart, you're storing up wrathfor yourself.
On the day of wrath, when God'srighteous judgment will be
revealed, he will render to eachone according to his works.
Now it's a statement.
You'll see in scripture a lot.
Jesus speaks to it, I thinkPsalm one.
(35:57):
Uh, let's see Psalm 62, 12, Ithink I think it's in Psalm 62
that that uh, same phrase isused.
Uh, job, it's spoken of in Job.
So you'll see throughoutscripture this idea that God's
going to render according toeach one of us.
He's going to render judgmentaccording to our works.
(36:18):
And so here he says he willrender to each one according to
his works.
And he say it in the context ofGod's wrath and judgment being
revealed.
So God's righteous that wordrighteous means just.
We're talking about injustice.
Injustice God's just orrighteous wrath is going to be
revealed as he renders judgmentaccording to people's works.
(36:42):
To those who, by patience andwell-doing, seek for glory and
honor and immortality, he willgive eternal life.
So it takes me to Romans eightone.
There's therefore now nocondemnation for those who are
in Christ Jesus, for those of usthat seek the Lord, notice he
doesn't say for those who liveperfectly.
He says let me read it again.
He says um to those who buypatience.
(37:06):
So, as you live your life,you're going to make mistakes,
you're going to mess up.
You got to be patient with theprocess of pursuing Christ
because you're going to makemistakes, you're going to falter
, you're going to fail, but Godis going to grow us in who, by
patience and well-doing, seekfor glory, honor, immortality.
So if the if, the desire ofyour heart and what you fix your
(37:28):
eyes on, what you put your handto, what you pursue after, is
glory, honor, immortality, thinkof the doxology in Jude where
he says to the only true God, tohim who is able to keep you
from stumbling, in that doxology, where God's going to keep me
(37:49):
from stumbling, he's going tocarry me through.
He says to him belong um, glory, honor, majesty, dominion, for
now and for all time,forevermore.
So if my if, the goal and thepursuit of my life is to seek
Christ, to pursue Christ, whenbad things happen to me or
whatever, I'm going to continueto pursue him, knowing there's
coming a day where all pain isgoing to be gone.
(38:11):
Tears are going to be wipedaway.
Jesus reveals to us this in thebook of Revelation.
He says I'm going to wipe yourtears away.
Those tears will never returnand separate you from the pain
that's been caused to you.
So in this life we got towrestle with the trauma, the
PTSD, the past.
You know the feeling of.
You know you're around thatperson that was your abuser, the
(38:33):
feeling you get.
We got to wrestle with that.
But when we're with Christ,eternally, we won't have to
wrestle with that anymore.
There's coming a day whenyou're not going to have to deal
with this anymore, but rightnow the Lord will use it to
refine and grow you, but also toto to fix your eyes on that
which is immortal.
This is mortal.
One day, that which is mortalis going to give way to that
(38:54):
which is immortal.
We're going to be eternal.
And so he says for those of usthat are seeking the glory of
the Lord, seeking the honor ofthe Lord, judgment is going to
be found in Christ.
He will have received ourjudgment for our sin, and what
we'll receive and inherit is notonly his righteousness but
eternal life.
There's therefore now nocondemnation for those who are
(39:16):
in Christ Jesus, but for thosewho are self-seeking.
An abuser is self-seekingSomeone who uses a child or a
woman for sexual pleasureagainst their will.
A woman against her will achild doesn't even have the
option of having a will.
That's just sheer aggression,oppression and abuse.
(39:37):
I remember talking to a girl onetime who and I don't remember
her name but I do remember herface and she had been so
sexually abused.
This girl was one of the one ofthe success stories of the
gospel.
She had come out of it andfound her hope in Christ and she
(39:58):
was living a victorious life.
She went on, she got married,um, they're plugged into their
church like.
I'm really thankful for hertestimony.
I can can't remember her name,but I've seen her from time to
time at camp.
But when she was a kid, mom'sboyfriend was sexually abusing
her, raping her.
It started off when she was 12or 13.
(40:18):
When she was about 16, shestarted to consent to having
sexual relations with him sothat he would be satisfied to
not mess with her younger sister.
So when they would get off thebus and come through the door,
cause the guy was a sucker and adeadbeat who didn't work.
So he's at home in theafternoon cause he's a complete
(40:38):
piece of trash and doesn't work.
So while their mom's offworking and he's bumming living
in their government housingapartment, the two girls would
get off the bus.
When they would come in, the 16year old would take him and go
into the bedroom and have sexualacts with him so that the
younger sister wouldn't beexposed to it, and she would say
go to the neighbor's house andplay so, so, wrestling through
(41:01):
that, that, that man, what he'sdoing is what it says.
Uh, in verse seven, eight he'sself-seeking.
He's for those who areself-seeking, he's purely
pleasing his twisted, perverted,disgusting flesh.
(41:22):
That is as disgusting a storyas I've ever heard or told, and
I've only ever told it righthere, right now.
It's not one I bring up, evenwith our staff.
I don't bring that up in stafftraining because it'll our staff
would be so shook if we walkthrough that in our training and
a lot of them will listen tothis.
But in the when we're trainingwe're talking about hard
situations that you might face.
I don't want to freak them outany.
(41:44):
They're already freaked out,knowing they're going to be
having conversations withstudents that are dealing with
stuff.
That young lady, we got herhelp, we got him prosecuted.
We got her plugged intodiscipleship.
She experienced healing andgrace and God has used her in
other people's lives.
But that dude was self-seeking.
(42:04):
And so he says for those who areself-seeking and do not obey
the truth but obeyunrighteousness, what does that
mean?
They obey the demands anddesires of the flesh and the
devil.
Like Romans 8, if you put todeath the deeds of the flesh,
you will live.
But those who live according tothe flesh cannot please God,
(42:28):
they're hostile to God and theywill die.
So you're going to die in yoursin if you live according to the
flesh.
So he obeys unrighteousness.
There will be listen to thisand I am perfectly content and
satisfied that it's okay to feelthis way, to take joy in
knowing this.
There will be wrath and fury.
(42:51):
Do I pray for men like the guy Ijust described that did that?
I will be completelytransparent.
I have a hard time praying forthat guy, for his soul, for his
salvation, and I wrestle.
I'm not preaching a sermonright now.
It's the beauty of a podcast.
I can say things here that Imight be scared to say in the
pulpit, to make sure it's not.
I don't know if that makessense to you, but but but I'm
(43:14):
just being transparent.
I think one of the thingsthat's made NSR effective is
people feel the transparency andthe real and raw nature of how
we communicate with you.
I have a hard time, as a dad anda pastor who's dealt with abuse
victims, praying for a guy likethat.
I just want him, I just wanthim to get what's coming.
But here's, here's where I hide, here's where I bury that
(43:37):
thought and that emotion.
I bury it in confidence thatGod can handle that.
If God chooses to save that man, I trust the Lord with that and
how he's going to deal withthat.
But if he doesn't save him,then I take hope in Romans 2.7.
What awaits him Romans 2.7,romans 2.8, is wrath and fury,
(44:01):
the fury of a righteous God whois capable of judging that kind
of evil.
I trust that.
I trust that wrath, vengeanceis mine.
The scripture says later inRomans Vengeance is mine, I will
repay.
That's what the Lord says.
I'm going to trust God to dealwith that.
So if you're a victim and you'rethe oppressed and you're asking
(44:22):
the question that Solomon'sasking in Ecclesiastes 4,
where's like I've seen theoppressor have power over the
oppressed and nothing comes ofit.
Oh, something's coming of itFor those people Solomon saw
doing that 3,000, 4,000 yearsago, whenever that was.
Oh, they got their wrath andfury and they got more coming.
They got more coming.
And I would have had wrath andfury coming but for the grace of
(44:44):
Jesus and the cleansing of hisblood and the atoning work that
he did on the cross.
I'm not.
I ain't getting wrath and fury.
I'm going to give an account.
I'm going to be judged for mythoughts, words and deeds.
Scripture's clear on that.
But the wrath and fury of ajust and righteous and holy God
has already been satisfied forme in Christ.
(45:06):
Righteous and holy God hasalready been satisfied for me in
Christ.
But not all of God's wrath andfury was satisfied at the cross.
That which is not under theblood of Jesus will be judged
and God's going to deal with it.
There will be tribulation.
Listen to how he describes itin verse 9.
(45:26):
There will be tribulation anddistress.
This is Romans two.
Now.
There'll be tribulation anddistress for every human being
who does evil, the Jew first andalso the Greek, but glory and
honor and peace for everyone whodoes good.
He's painting a contrast for theoppressed who then turns to
Jesus for that expiation, thathealing, that freedom from their
.
The oppressed who then turns toJesus for that expiation, that
(45:47):
healing, that freedom from their, the wrong has been done to
them.
Jesus frees you from that andthen he promises you eternal
peace.
But for the one who does eviland locks into that evil and
doesn't, doesn't, doesn't backout of that, there's going to be
tribulation and distress.
And that word tribulation meansto squeeze something till the
guts come out of that.
There's going to be tribulationand distress.
(46:07):
And that word tribulation meansto squeeze something till the
guts come out of it.
It's a violent graphic.
It's it's the Greek wordthalipsis, and it means to
squeeze something tilleverything on the inside
squishes out of it.
That's a violent picture.
That's a violent picture of Godsqueezing and bringing distress
and judgment on those who dothis kind of evil.
(46:31):
He says to the Jew first andalso to the Greek God shows no
partiality.
God don't care if you're apastor, a police officer, a
school teacher, a daddy, a mama.
If you do that which needs tobe brought under wrath and fury,
there's no partiality and God'sgoing to deal with it.
So I find hope in that.
So I find hope in that.
(46:54):
The last thing that I want tolook at, then, is Ecclesiastes
four.
Solomon does, at the end of hislife, come to a place where he
sees, he sees this same kind ofhope, and he says the end of the
matter, all has been heard.
So all of those questions youask, god hears them.
(47:18):
You might not get an immediateanswer, but God hears them.
All has been heard.
Fear God and love hiscommandments, keep his
commandments.
For me, what I can do is fearthe Lord and keep his
commandments.
I can.
I can, I can worry about me,for this is the whole duty of
man.
My duty is not to go on a witchhunt for every guy Like I could
(47:42):
never track down.
Here's the thing.
As a pastor and a friend pastorand a friend and someone who
hears these stories, I couldstart a vigilante law.
You know, I remember when I wasin school, I remember studying
about different vigilante groupswhere you know they take the
law into their own hands,they're going to go and they're
(48:04):
going to.
You know, one that I think ofwas, uh, the this.
There was an abolitionist name.
I think his name was John Brown, but I might be wrong.
There was a.
There was an abolitionistduring the time of American
slavery and he set out to setslaves free, but in the process
(48:26):
he ended up committing somepretty horrible crimes.
It's like someone who goes towar and in the act of war they
kill children on purpose.
You know, like, like, like,maliciously, and I want to be
careful even with that Cause.
I remember having aconversation with a combat
veteran where his unit had toshoot several eight, nine, 10
(48:47):
year old boys because they hadsuicide vests and RPGs and they
were getting ready to wipe outan entire battalion, like, like,
like part of the third infantrydivision and they had to shoot
these kids.
That's different.
That's not what I'm talkingabout.
I'm not saying it's good,that's another atrocity of war
and humanity.
But someone who kills andmurders innocent people, that's
(49:11):
what I'm talking about.
When you think about that typeor that level of depravity,
wrestle with that stuff.
I really wrestle with thatstuff.
I, I, I, I really wrestle withthat stuff and I know that.
That when I, when we thinkabout, like, when I think about,
(49:32):
I wish I could go practicevigilante law like these guys
did.
But what ended up happening isthese guys in practicing
vigilante.
Vigilante just means take thelaw into your own hands, and in
doing that they ended up notjust attacking those
slaveholders and slave traders,they ended up killing innocent
people by association.
(49:53):
They don't have therighteousness to handle bringing
the law into their own hands,so you can't do that.
There's a part of me I rememberin school watching uh, we had
to watch a movie.
It came out in the eighties andI I forget the name of the
movie, but it was this group ofjudges that said they were tired
of seeing criminals walkbecause of little hiccups in the
law.
(50:13):
So they formed this sort ofsecret society where they would
hire, hit men to go out and killpeople that had gotten, you
know, off the hook.
And if I remember the twist inthe, but you're watching the
movie and you're like yeah,right on Heck.
Yeah, we need some judges likethat.
You know you kind of.
It kind of resonates with theRobin hood mentality, but then
(50:34):
there's a point where they killsomeone innocently.
I think is how it went down.
So you can never, we can never,take the law into our own hands
.
Even if we did, we could nevereradicate the world of this kind
of oppression, abuse andinjustice.
But what we can do is trustthat God is going to do that one
day and that we can fear Godand keep his commandments, live
(50:56):
just and upright lives, trustingthe Lord.
Now, here's, here's, here's thefinal thought.
For God will bring every deedinto judgment, with every secret
thing, whether good or evil.
God's going to bring every oneof your good deeds into judgment
, unto reward.
(51:17):
He's going to bring every evildeed and wrongdoing of the
oppressor, the abuser, intojudgment, to wrath and fury and
condemnation and justice.
So we can rest knowing thatwhen, when Paul writes in Romans
, vengeance is mine, I willrepay, and he says leave it in
the hands of God.
(51:37):
Sometimes it's not like, oh,just leave that in the hands of
God.
That doesn't mean don't pursueor seek justice.
I told you I'd tell you a story.
I'll end with this story.
We're we're, we're coming up onan hour here, so let me, let me
wrap up with this story andcome back to this thought Uh, we
had a, we had a girl and Imight've told this story here
before.
We had a lady.
(51:57):
She worked at a couple localbusinesses.
She worked cash register at agas station and she worked at
Subway, and so we would interactwith her.
The gas station that I go intoit's like where I'll go, like if
I need to run a store in theevening or whatever.
It's right down from my house.
She worked in there and shealso lived on that road where
(52:19):
that trailer is that I mentionedearlier, and she lived there
with the guy that never showedhimself.
I never saw him outside, but Iwould see her from time to time.
We'd speak to her and, uh, gotto know her.
She's working at this, this gasstation, and then we went to
subway one day.
She's working in there and like, dang, you work, you quit the
gas station and she said, no,I'm working both places, so
(52:41):
she's keeping, you know, holdingup this bum of a dude that's
with her, and once in a while,you'd see she she'd have, like I
remember one time she had abruise on her cheekbone and I
pressed her.
When I see that, I'm gonnapress it and I said, hey, who
hit you?
And uh, she's like, oh, nothing, nobody it was.
You know.
She had an excuse.
Well, uh, mugs, matts, mattJones, who everybody at SWO
(53:02):
calls Muggs, who's one of myexecutive partners, hank and me,
and Muggs, or the executiveteam, Muggs and his family, I
think they went into Subway andsaw her and she had a tooth
missing in her face.
She had been beat up and it waslike no hiding it, you know.
And he gets to talking to herand says we'll get you out of
the situation.
(53:23):
You know, we can help you.
Come to Red Oak Church.
This was on a Sunday afternoon.
He's like come to Red OakChurch this evening and we'll
talk.
So she came to church, sat downwith her, a lady at the time in
our church named Barbara Bond,who has since moved back home to
Tennessee.
Barbara and Aaron bond, dearfriends and partners in ministry
, and Barbara had come from apretty rough past and there was
(53:45):
a lot of abuse in there.
And and so, uh, barbara metwith her, talked with her,
barbara, super strong lady, anduh, and then me and a couple
other pastors met with her.
Anyway, we ended up.
She said I'll, I'll, I want tobe moved out, I want to get out
of there.
But I can't go back to that, tomy house, or he'll.
(54:05):
He'll beat me again If, if Itell him I'm going to leave, if
I don't just go home and comply.
She said, if I go home andcomply, he's going to be real
nice.
This is how abusers are sorry.
He'll beg me to forgive him,you know.
So I'll go back tonight.
That's what it's going to be.
And she said but I don't wantto go back.
And so we said well, do you havesomewhere you go?
She's from Michigan.
She said, yeah, I could go home.
(54:26):
My family's actually prettyloving.
She was an adopted girl, Ithink.
She came through the fostersystem and had been adopted by
this really loving family.
When she got old enough, sheleft.
She said I can go back to them.
They're, they're, they're,they're kind and gracious and
loving.
So we said all right, uh, wemake arrangements to get you to
Michigan.
And I'm telling you this storyso you know that there are
(54:48):
churches and people that willadvocate for you, because me and
three other dudes, I think, orfour other dudes took her, went
to that house, walked in thatdoor.
That dude was home, I didn'tknow.
The guy Walked in the house andsaid we're moving her out and
(55:09):
my man went in the back room andlocked the door.
You know, he hid.
He never showed his facebecause he's a coward, because
he beat up his girlfriend or akid, and so we moved her out and
sent her to Michigan to be withfamily.
Um, just saying, there arepeople that will advocate, that
will advocate, and so it's notjust that we wait for God's
(55:34):
judgment on this there.
There are things that there aregood people in this world that
will help the victim and theoppressed, and so you need to
believe that, and we've donethat often in our ministry.
But if you're wrestling withwhy did God let this happen?
Where's the healing from this?
The healing is in Christ.
The freedom is in Christ.
There's relationships that canbe cultivated with people that
(55:59):
are loving and trustworthy.
That's why finding a churchthat you can trust, is going to
handle things biblically andthat has accountability for
pastors and leaders there's notsome dude that's just running
roughshod over people whodoesn't have accountability in
his own life.
Stay away from a church likethat.
You want a church where there'scommunity, accountability and
(56:27):
people love one another, andyou'll feel that and you can
find healing and peace in that.
So where's the justice?
The justice has already come,in one sense, for those that are
in Christ Jesus, wherecondemnation is removed and
healing is available to you.
But justice is coming for thosethat are doing this kind of
work, this kind of harm.
(56:47):
Justice is coming.
They may not go down in a lawenforcement sting and go to
prison, but they will one daystand in the ultimate court, the
high court of King Jesus, andthey'll give an account and
wrath and fury is going to comedown on their head.
And you can rest knowing thatif you're a victim, if you're
the oppressed, god's going todeal with it and in the meantime
, find some healing and knowthat the Lord loves you and
(57:10):
he'll bring you through it.
And if you're part of our churchbecause I know most of the Red
Oak community listens to this wereiterate what we talked about
a few sundays ago you come seeus and and we'll do what we need
to do to get you healing, toget you whole, and maybe that
means getting you out of asituation.
And if you're a person thatfeels a propensity to harm
(57:33):
others, um, you need.
You need to come forward too.
And if you're if you're part ofour ministry, our church, you
come, talk to us.
We'll get you the healing andthe help you need.
But come forward too.
And if you're part of ourministry, our church, you come
talk to us.
We'll get you the healing andthe help you need.
But we'll get you in asituation where you can't hurt
anybody.
And if you're a person that'sdone terrible things, you need
to make amends.
You need to first take itbefore the Lord and ask
forgiveness, and then you needto face the consequences of your
(57:55):
actions, whatever that lookslike.
And so we would call you torepent and to accept
responsibility for your actions,whether that's before the
church or a court of law,whatever.
Do what's right, get this offyour conscience and start your
own journey towards peace andhealing for the wrong you've
done.
Nobody's righteous in their ownstrength, nobody's perfect, but
(58:18):
through the blood of Jesusthere's healing for everybody
and for those that refuse that.
Wrath and fury is coming, andsome days that makes me sleep
real good at night, and I'm okaywith that.
So thanks for listening.
It's heavy content and I hopeit's encouragement to you this
(58:39):
week and we'll see you next weekon no Sanity Required.
Speaker 2 (58:46):
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