Be there, but be quiet, too. Let's talk about it on this edition of Key Life. That was Steve Brown, and this is Key Life, a no-nonsense approach to God's work. If you have a Bible, get it, and let's see how it applies to real life. Steve? Thanks, Mike. If you're joining us now for the first time this week, we're talking about a last week we talked about it isn't that you went wrong, and we're talking about those others, how you minister to somebody, who's going through a really tough time. It isn't where they went wrong, either. We looked at John 9, where that specific question is asked specifically by the disciples of Jesus. They saw this blind man and he said, oh man, he must be a horrible sinner. Maybe his parents sent. Jesus said, and this isn't in the text, but Jesus is a friend of mine, and in the original language Jesus said, what are you crazy? Have you been listening to the stuff I've been teaching you, and then he said, it was so that God should be revealed in him. That's John 9, 2, 3, and then we talked about how often those of us who encounter others who are suffering avoid them, stay away from them. Don't have anything to do with them. You get people, and I'm sort of cramming for finals myself. You know, if you're young and you're viled, you don't want to be around old people. Somebody sent me some hymns for the over 50 crowd. Pressure's Lord, take my hand, and help me up. It's well with my soul, but my knees hurt. Nobody knows the trouble I have seeing. Just a slower walk with the... Counts your many birthdays, name them one by one, or go tell it on the mountain, but speak up. Give me the old timers' religion. Bless it, insurance. Or how about this one? Guide me, old Al, great Jova. I've forgotten where I've parked. We have this tendency sometimes to just avoid people who are going through difficult times, to stay away from them. Don't do that. Visit some nursing homes. Be there, and we talk yesterday about being there. Now, today I got another point I want to share with you in terms of ministering to other people. Listen, when you're going to be there, that's good. But don't think I'm God's servant, and I'm going to speak the right word at the appointed time to bring healing to this horrible situation. Nothing worse than do gooders. So be there, but be quiet. Let me show you a verse in Job 2.13. Job's friends are, you know, Job's lost his everything. I mean, it's really bad. And everybody else is in void, but these three guys come up. And listen to what it says in the 13th verse of the second chapter of Job. So they sat down with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his grief was very great. Now they blew it later on. Boy, did they blow it? But for seven days they did it right. And most of us can't do it for one day. Often people who want to help somebody going through a difficult time will come to me and say something like, I want to help you, or I want to help Sam, but I don't know what to say. On those occasions I generally feel relieved because not knowing what to say in the presence of a friend's suffering is a tremendous asset. If you don't know what to say, then don't say it. If you don't know what to say, that's from the Bible. Then don't say it. If you ever suffered, you found that those who taught the most usually helped the least. Job's friends had enough sense, at least in the beginning, not to say anything. When my brother died, a number of close friends without my knowledge flew to North Carolina. That was an awful time in my life. In fact, when I look back, I am at a lot of pain, but that was big time. That was hard. I love my brother. Those of you who are listening on the stations in Asheville or in the mountains there know he was a district attorney, he was articulate, he was young. You know, it was just something he was a Democrat. The only good thing about his death is he learned the truth. It's a joke. Don't write me letters anyway. Let me tell you one of the things that made all the difference in the world. The funeral, they closed down the streets of my brother's funeral in Asheville on the route that the hers went and the church was packed and there were a lot of people there. I was my family and my mother and our kids and Kitty and everybody who was on the front row. We didn't know who was by. I turned around and I realized that a lot of close friends from around the country had flown into Asheville just to be there. They didn't speak word. They went with us to the cemetery and they cried. They didn't even know my brother. They just cried. Let's know that they were suffering too. Not once did they give me a cliche or a pious platitude. They didn't give me theological truths. I already knew or tried to explain my God-a-wild such a tragedy. They just said anything. They just said they didn't cry. The memory of their silent loving support. Listen to me. We'll minister to me for the rest of my life. When people are suffering, don't blabber. You don't know why they're suffering any more than they do. Just be quiet. It can make all the difference in the world. You think about them. I mean... Well, on Wednesdays, generally, and I'm going to do that today, take some time at the end of the broadcast to catch up on some of the thousands of questions that we get. We'd love to get your questions. You got to write them down, though. Send them to Key Life Post Office Box 5,000, Madeleine, Florida. 32794. Key Life Canada Post Office Box 321-50, Cambridge, Ontario. In 3H, 5 in 3, or you can email us. It's Steve at keylife.org with your regular mailing address. And don't use the 1-800 key life number for questions. You can get the booklet we're offering free. You can become a part of key life tapes free. You can get the magazine free. You can make contribution free. Well, that'll cost you something. But you got to write your questions down. We'd love to get your questions and you always get an answer from me or a staff person or on the broadcast. And we do this on Wednesdays, and then on Friday, my pastor comes in and we answer questions. Well, enough to chat. Oh, yes. Don't forget to check out our website. It's www.keylife.org. And you can learn about key life. Be blessed with some of the material on the website and go to a lot of other places. You can listen to the day's broadcast and the previous 30 that are archive there. And one other thing, sure would appreciate your prayers. This Saturday, March the 12th, a number of us, key life is going to be in Tallahassee. On Sunday, I'll be speaking at the Wildwood Presbyterian Church. Then on Saturday, that's the Saturday before that. So as March the 2nd, we're going to have a key life radio rally in Tallahassee. The capital of our fair state enough. Let's turn to some of these questions. This is an email. How do we know what religion would be proper one for us to be involved in? I will restrain myself from correcting the grammar on that particular question and tell you, look, for anything that is spelled P-R-E-S-B-Y-T-E-R-I-A-N. No, I'm kidding. I'll tell you first, if you're talking about religions of the world, use your mind. Check it out. See the results and the fruit. Check out whether what is said is true. See if it balances with reality. Talk to people in those religions. You know that I studied world religions from a Hindu professor at Boston University at a graduate school there. And I want you to know I loved him. But I came out of there saying I'm not going to be a Hindu. I'm going to be a Christian. Because I use the mind that God has given me. So I would say make sure that you're rationally check it out. Talk to people who are involved if you're talking about going to a particular manifestation of the Christian faith, a particular church. Find a church where you find God's people, where the scriptures are taught, where the sacraments are practiced, where people love each other, where Christ is exalted, and then become a part of it. You ought to be a part of it. Alright, let me see. This from North Carolina, what do you think happened to the people who are resurrected at the time of Jesus? I have such a profound answer to that question. I have no earthly idea. That's one of the passages or scriptures that I mean you don't even expect it. You're reading it and then you're reading about the resurrection and you're saying great man. And then you read and a bunch of others got up and showed them and you think, whoa, what is that? Explain that to me. And God didn't use it to explain it to us. What makes you think I'm going to try? So I don't know. It's a good question. I've often wondered myself, but I don't have an answer to that. This is from Ontario, Canada, or the saying God helps those who help themselves and let go and let God biblical or not. Well, there's some truth to them but they're not in the Bible. There are those kinds of phrases that kind of creep into our culture and everybody just assumes it's in the Bible. I went to him was having a congregational meeting when I was a pastor about a building program. And we were talking about having to borrow some money from him. There's a lot of money in it. And I wasn't too happy with the building program anyway. And somebody got up and said, Pastor, we've got to be careful here. The Bible says neither a borrower or a lender be. And I went, whoa. We're trouble, man. And then I changed the subject because I didn't want to get off on that. I went back to my study, started looking for it in the Bible. It's not in the Bible. It's in Shakespeare. And these two phrases that you bring up are not in the Bible. But there is some truth to that. God does help those who help themselves. But mostly he helps those who can't help themselves and who know it. And I've taught you the principle a number of times you take the first step. God will take the second step. But the time you get to the third step, you'll know it was God who took the first step. And that is biblical. Let go and let God. Yeah, but that has kind of a passivity to it that's not biblical. I press on. It doesn't sound like let go and let God. And so the Bible is never passive. And the formal name of that heresy is quietism by a Spanish monk by the name of Molinas. But it means just let go and let God. It's cool. No, that's not biblical. But there's a sense in which you do have to let go. You have to let go of the steering wheel and the moving car and let God drive it. And that's a very hard thing to do. As a matter of fact, the trouble with a living sacrifice is that it keeps crawling off the altar. So yeah, there's sort of biblical, but there's sort of not biblical, too. I just don't notice that I'm out of time and I need to get out of here. Listen, let me say again that whenever you're right or call, would you give us the call letters of this great station? A lot of wonderful people make this broadcast possible. When you tell us who they are, we're able to embark that down in our books and keep track of it. So do it. Though you ask Eli is a listener supported production of Eli's network.