SPECIAL INTERLUDE "Responding To Our Local And National Stressful Crises" (Luke 13:1-9)
Introduction: (To show the need . . . )

As many in the Church Family have noted, at the personal, Church and national levels, we as a body have recently faced many crises! I've heard it described as "emotional overload" (as follows):

(1) On the Monday, August 27th before our summer vacation, Nadine and I attended the funeral of the mother of one in our Church.

(2) Also before that vacation, several of our Church's teens faced steep personal crises only end with Jeff Terwilliger's stunt bike accident and Lauren Baldwin's critical hospitalization following foot surgery. Thankfully, God graciously delivered us from what could have been much worse in either case, but these events really got people thinking! One Church member voiced it well by saying, "Whatever is going on, God sure has my attention!"

(3) Last Sunday, after vacation, someone in our church who wishes to remain anonymous approached me with a personal request. His job is going to put him in a potentially life-threatening position this next month, and he wanted me to remember him in prayer.

(4) Then last Tuesday, September 11th, as I sat in my office speaking with a believer in our Church regarding pressing issues he is facing in his life, my answering machine sparked alive with my wife telling me two passenger jets had crashed into the World Trade Center towers. She reported another plane had been hijacked and had possibly crashed in Pennsylvania, and that another jet had hit the Pentagon.

I didn't find out until I later got onto the Internet and read the World Trade Center towers had actually collapsed, so I drove home and stared in shock like everyone else when I saw what was on TV.

(5) One young woman interviewed on television asked the pointed question: "Why did God allow so many wonderful, innocent people to die like that? I just don't understand it -- it's so sad!"



Well, WHY DID God allow these things to come about? Is God somehow trying to get our attention? IF so, WHAT is He trying to SAY and get us to DO so we can respond with BLESSING in our lives?!



(We turn to the sermon "Need" section . . . )



Need: "Anyone can tell that recently, both at the personal as well as Church and NATIONAL levels, we have been hit with a variety of STRESSFUL crises. WHY did our God ALLOW all of these things -- IF He IS trying to TELL us something, WHAT IS it, and WHY?!"

1. Jesus was told of an horrific atrocity conducted against fellow Galilean Hebrews of His day to test His RESPONSE to it, Lk. 13:1.
2. Jesus' answer to them reveals a CLEAR DIVINE AGENDA in God's ALLOWING horrific atrocities and tragedies that stun us:
1. Jesus realized such atrocities were understood by His Hebrew audience to mean God's judgment had fallen on the Galilean victims for some great sin in accord with the Mosaic Covenant, Dt. 28:15-68.
2. Though He never denied the victims were sinners, Jesus claimed God allowed this atrocity to occur as a sample to warn others to repent!
1. Jesus voiced His awareness that His informers thought the victims were judged of God for being greater sinners than others, Lk. 13:2.
2. However, He explained the Galileans were not worse sinners than others: rather, God had allowed the atrocity to serve as a sample of what would happen to others if they did not repent re: faith in Him as the Messiah, Luke 13:3 with Luke 19:41-44.
3. In making His point, Jesus applied it at the PERSONAL level: His listeners themselves would likewise PERISH if they THEMSELVES failed to repent, Luke 13:3!
3. Then, as though anticipating the fall of the World Trade Center towers in our day, Jesus spoke of another tragedy involving a TOWER:
1. He added a reference to the fall of a tower in Siloam on eighteen unsuspecting Hebrews, noting how other Hebrews considered these victims to have been worse sinners than other people, Luke 13:4.
2. However, Jesus explained these tower victims were no worse sinners than other Hebrews, but this kind of tragedy would occur in their own fates if they did not also likewise repent, Luke 13:5.
4. Jesus then depicted by a parable God's agenda in such events, 13:6-9:
1. God the Father, like a farmer who plants a fig tree in his vineyard, had planted the Hebrew nation among the Gentiles to bear witness regarding faith in Jesus Christ for eternal life, Luke 13:6a; Jn. 3:16.
2. After three years of Christ's earthly ministry, Israel had still not even accepted Christ as her Messiah (seen in the 3 year barrenness of the fig tree), Lk. 13:6a. Hence, the Father desired to judge Israel typified in the farmer's order to cut down the fig tree, Lk. 13:6b-7.
3. The vine dresser, Jesus, urged the Father to allow for another year to work the soil and fertilize the tree, urging Israel to repent, 13:8f.
4. From this effort by the vine dresser, we conclude the atrocity against the Galileans and the Siloam tower fall coupled with Christ's comments on these events comprise the "digging" and "fertilizing" activity pictured in this parable: hence, God in grace had allowed these horrific events to occur as "wake-up calls" to the rest of the nation to repent or suffer the same kind of judgment! (cf. Edersheim, Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, v. ii, p. 246ff.

Application: (1) If we are STUNNED by an atrocity or horrific event, or by a SERIES of stressful crises at any or various levels of life, GOD is seeking in GRACE to WARN us as follows: (a) if we have not yet done so, we must heed God's urgings by such events to believe in Christ to be saved from hell, John 3:16 with Acts 17:30. (b) As BELIEVERS, we must check our PATHS in life in light of what SCRIPTURE teaches (Isa. 8:20) to see if God is calling us through such events to repent in any area(s): after all, when God disciplines, it STARTS with God's people, 1 Peter 4:17. (c) Then we must adjust to be sure our agendas are ONLY submissive to GOD'S agenda for our lives as revealed in God's written Word, cf. Rom. 14:10c; 2 Cor. 5:10-11; 1 Cor. 3:10-15. (2) Since horrific, tragic events that capture the attention of people mean GOD is seeking to COMMUNICATE a WARNING, when OTHERS around us WONDER just WHAT is going on, we, like Jesus in Luke 13:1-9, as His messengers, must GET HIS message out to them, cf. Matthew 28:19-20; Acts 1:8. In very PRACTICAL terms, (a) this means NOT INSENSITIVELY PREACHING on judgment to traumatized people, but WAITING as did JESUS for THEM to OPEN UP with their QUESTIONS BEFORE we supply them the truth. (b) It also means using the spiritual enabling God has given each of us to minister in the Local Church for IT to be a godly group witness, Rom. 12:1-8, and (c) living godly lives before the onlooking world, 12:9-16:27.

Lesson: When various, stressful crises arise that especially are marked by horror and/or atrocities, GOD is PERMITTING these events to occur to COMMUNICATE His WARNINGS for those affected to REPENT! >

Conclusion: (To illustrate the sermon lesson . . . )

After our recent summer vacation, my wife, Nadine was talking on the phone with Kathy Brunetti about the Church service on August 26th. That was the day Nadine and I were first absent on our vacation. That was also the day that Don Ereminas had asked Todd Baldwin and then Mike Terwilliger to give update testimonies on the conditions of Lauren and Jeff respectively.

Kathy reported their testimonies were very moving, that the whole body seemed to compact together in greater unity together as a result of these events.

Additionally, Marshall Klimasewiski later reported to me his appreciation of Jim Orie's ministry at the piano in Nadine's absence, how glad he was to see the Lord raising Jim up to minister so effectively in the realm of music this way!

What the Church Family may NOT know is that, on Sunday, August 19, in Fellowship Hall, before our vacation, Lauren Baldwin's surgery and Jeff Terwilliger's fall, Todd Baldwin and Mike Terwilliger had talked with me about trials in the last year or so I and we as a Church have faced in various forms. Both men had shared of their support for me in a personal way in my pastoral ministry.

So, as soon as Jeff's and then Lauren's crises had occurred, I recalled my conversation with these two men who were fathers of these teens. It was as though the Lord was indicating He had been an avid Listener to that conversation, and He had wanted us all -- Mike, Todd and me -- to take our lives and ministries very SERIOUSLY!



So, God has MY attention just like He has YOURS.

I'm checking MY life in light of His Word as I hope YOU are also. I am also more dedicated than ever to minister the TRUTH of His Word to you as a Body and to ANY and ALL unbelievers our Church may touch both on a personal level as well as through our Church web site.