It's their fault. Really. Let's talk about it on this edition of Key Life. Hi, I'm Christy Ron, and I'm my killer. You're listening to Key Life, practical Bible principles for daily living. I'll hear with Bible in hand Easter. Thanks, Mike. If you have your Bible, you might want to keep it open. We're talking about pain and suffering when you go through really hard times. These are not my ideas, by the way. I have wonderful ideas, but God told me to not share them with you on this broadcast. This is stuff from the scriptures. I'm a Bible teacher, and we're doing subject-oriented Bible study as we go through this series. And when we finish in another two, three, maybe four weeks, we'll return to our Old Testament survey. But keep your Bible open because I'm going to be referring to the scripture in various places as we go along. Now, if you were listening yesterday, and all last week, and most of the week before, we talked about the problem of correlating your sin with the bad stuff that happens to you. We all do that, and no matter how much you know the truth, no matter how much I teach doctrine to you, and no matter how much doctrine I teach to myself, there's still the time when something bad happens. When you almost instinctively say, I must have done something wrong. We saw that that's the doctrine of divine earthly retribution, and it's not a biblical doctrine in the New Testament sentence. Now, what I want to do the rest of this week, and maybe a little bit into next week, is to talk about another question. Before it is, what did I do wrong? But I want to talk about where did they go wrong. I've said, and I want you to keep this chiseled and concrete, there is no absolute correlation between your breaking ropes and your breaking God's law. It's an important truth for you to remember. Let me give you another one. There is no direct absolute correlation between other people's pain, broken ropes, and their breaking God's law. As they were talking, Jesus and His disciples saw a man who had been blind from birth. You remember that? You flip over to John 9, if you had the Bible. And His disciples said to Jesus, Rabbi, who sinned this man or his parents that he was born blind? And Jesus said, listen, he was gay. That's not in the text. Hey, he was an adulterer. It's not in the text. He lied all the time. He was a gossip. And that's why he's blind. Jesus didn't say that Jesus answered neither this man nor his parents sinned, but that the works of God should be revealed in him. That's John 9, 2, 3. Over the years, I've often ministered to people who were suffering from cancer. So just the word cancer solicits interesting responses. We have on our staff here at key life, a young lady whose mother had a cancer scare. And just yesterday we heard that everything was fine, that it was clear, it was nothing. And man, we were had dancing around here. Everybody was jumping up and down because we were so pleased. Dr. David CEO, he's in the States now, but he was in Korea, dear friend, medical missionary to Korea. And he dealt primarily with cancer. He made an interesting observation about the similarities between cancer and Satan himself. Let me quote from his book, a cancer surgeon worthy of the term will develop a belligerent sense of outrage toward his enemy. Cancer has indeed come to signify to me the embodiment of evil, a prototype of Satan. And as observation does not differ greatly from most of our observations, we would rather deal with anything than with cancer. Just the use of the word cancer, the term the big C rouses in us feelings of dread and anxiety. It's interesting to know how people deal with the information that they have cancer. But it's far more interesting to see how people deal with someone else's cancer. In the early stages, the friends of the cancer victim give support and encouragement. But as the cancer develops, the friends start disappearing, they visit less often. They avoid any discussion of the disease. There's almost a neurotic avoidance of the word and the person who has it. If the victim of cancer is terminal, then it's not enough subject either. And in that is an illustration of what I'm talking about. You know, it's a pastor. Sometimes you would be the only one who would sit down with somebody and talk to them about the reality of the stuff they were going through. Doctors would start avoiding the room. Friends wouldn't come anymore. Because nobody knew what to say or how to deal with it. And man, I've gone into so many hospital rooms and said, listen, Joe, it's bad. And you're scared to death. And I'd be scared to. And they told you that this isn't very good. Nobody's talking to you. And I thought maybe you'd like to have somebody to talk to. And I met people saying to me, over and over again, oh, Steve, finally, I can talk to somebody about this. Now, if a person who has cancer is terminal, he or she's often forced to deal with a harsh reality alone. As I said, nurses and doctors even find excuses not to visit the patients room. The way most people deal with another's cancer is symbolic of the way most people deal with any tragedy in somebody else's life. Christians have got to learn to relate to one another in tragedy as well as good times. God has given us to each other. Now, if you have your Bible, turn to 1 Corinthians 12, 12. I'm going to read verses 12 through 13 and verses 26 through 27. Whereas the body is one and has many members, but all the members of that one body being many are one body so also is Christ. For by one spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and have all been made to drink into one spirit. And if one member suffers, all members suffer with it, or if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it. Now you are the body of Christ and members individually of the body of Christ. Back to old Job, we can observe Job and his friends, though, are in better ways to help each other. Job suffered, but not because he had done anything wrong. His godliness and integrity made accusation almost impossible. But notice the way Job's friends related to him, first they were there. I know, we criticize those friends all the time, but they were there. They didn't leave. They didn't say everything's all right. They didn't start pontificating until later. They were sometimes harsh later on, but they were there. This is Job 211. Now when Job's three friends heard of all of his adversity, that had come upon him, each one came from his own place. Elias, the Timonite, Bill Dad, the Shuite, and Zovara, the Namethite, and they had made an appointment together to come and mourn with him and to comfort him. I remember the first time I had to deal with a death in my congregation. I'd gone to seminary. I knew the right things to say. I'd been trained in dealing with grief. I had had pastoral psychology. I'd gotten my clinical training at Harvard, experimental hospital. I was pretty articulate. I'd prepared what I was going to say to the grieving widow and I'd drove to her house and I went over what I was going to say in my mind. You know what happened when I got there? I lost it all. I tried to say some comforting things and made such a mess out of it. I decided to shut up and sit on the couch. I mean, those who are watching this on television and our television audience can see that I'm blessing. I mean, I even think about it and I feel horrible. When I drove away from that house, I was so ashamed, so humiliated. I said, I'm supposed to be the pastor of this plot and this pastor didn't do anything except sit and watch after the funeral two or three days later that widow came to my study. I started to apologize to her, but before I could speak, she said, Steve, I want to thank you for all you've done for me. I don't know how I could have gotten through this without you. I couldn't believe my, but I said, I didn't do anything. I'll never forget what she said. She smiled and said, I know. You didn't know what to say, did you? Then she said, but you were there and I love you for it. Never underestimate the value of being there. Too often when our friends are going through tough times, we do everything and our power to avoid them. Perhaps we think their tragedy will be contagious. Maybe we don't know what to say. It could be that our being with people who are hurting reminds us of our own vulnerability. Whatever the reason, avoidance is wrong so for God's sake be there. I love the old Sermon illustration about the two buddies who fought together. World War II, they'd grown up together, they'd joined the army together, they'd served together. During a battle, one of the young men was shot and he was dying in no man's land and you could hear his cries and coming from the trenches. His friend went to the sergeant and asked if he could go and get his buddy. Sargent refused, saying, son, I know you two were close, but I don't want to lose two of you. Your buddy's going to die. It's no use for you to go and die too. And man persisted, however, finally the sergeant just gave up. Against his better judgment, he allowed the young man to retrieve his buddy. Our later young man came climbing back into the trenches carrying the body of his buddy. One did soldier was obviously dead. I told you he shouldn't have gone. The sergeant said he's dead and it wasn't worth it. Oh yeah, it was worth it. The dead soldier's friend replied, when I got to him it was still alive. And serge, do you know what he said to me? He said to me, Jim, I knew you'd come. I knew you'd come. It was worth it. Listen, you don't have to be so smart. You don't have to quote scripture. You don't have to give those simple clichés. You know, remember, Romans 8, 28 is true. Everything's, don't do that. Think of your friends that are going through a difficult time who've gone through loss, who are suffering, who may be being a hospice. Let's go there. For God's sake, just be there. Think about that. Listen, if you're not a part of our key life state family, I'd love for you to do it. It's free. 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