Gooding, David: 7 - Questions and Answers

To say in the first place, that God has the right to do it. Since he made the universe and our finitude, God has the right to lay down the conditions upon which he gives us life. If therefore God says, don't do that, and if you do, you will die. It is in the right of God. We owe our very life to him. He it is that sets life's conditions. But secondly, uh, it's not merely the penalty of our sin, but its consequence. God is the sum total of all good. If you say no to God, you mustn't expect God to provide an alternative paradise for you. God is the sum total of life. He is all that is good. There is no alternative paradise for those who reject God. There cannot be, by definition. Sin is self-destructive, so that from all those points of view, we have the reason why God sets the penalty of death for sin. Question two: How do you answer those who say, so who created God? Where did he come from? Well, those who ask that question, that's understandable, I suppose, but uh, uh, they uh, fail to realize what is meant by God. God is the uncaused cause of everything else. Uh, he is uh, self-existent. That's what we mean by God. None created him. If you said, uh, well, uh, who created God, and you got an answer to that, you'll then ask who created that creator, and so you will go back indefinitely in what the mathematicians would call an infinite regress. And if you have an infinite regress, you will find it is a logical absurdity in the end. So, yes, God, what we mean by God is one who is self-existent, had no beginning and no end. He is not, to use the philosopher's word, contingent. Our existence is contingent upon God, but God's existence is contingent on nobody. So the question, uh, mistakes really what is meant by God. Dr. Gooding, our daughter says that there is no spirit that is dead in sin, that God dwells in all mankind, and the closer you walk with God, the brighter the light, uh, the brighter the light you will shine, referring to the lamp and the lampstand. She says she thinks the idea of sin carries with it evil and negative connotations, and she doesn't see God in that way. How can we enlighten her? Well, I'm sorry to hear that your daughter thinks thus. First of all, I suppose the, the, the simple answer is that if your daughter says she doesn't believe that there's any spirit dead in sin, uh, then we would, I should want to ask her very kindly where she gets her information from. On what authority does she say this? How does she know? I should say that with all the, uh, graciousness I could command and the sympathy. When people think like that, they feel that sin is such a negative thing, and so forth and so on. I want to say, well, tell me, my dear, how do you know this? For when we read, uh, what God says in, uh, in the Bible, it talks like this. If we say that we have not sinned, we make God a liar, and his word is not in us. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. That's what God says in the Bible. So if, uh, someone is going to say, well, I don't accept that, well, all right, you tell me where do you get your information from. That, uh, sin is negative, that's true enough. But what will you say about the horrors that sin produces in our world? Take the grotesque things. Hitler with his fifty or sixty million killed, and Stalin likewise with even more killed. Where does sin come from? You'll see to say that because it's negative, there is no one dead in trespass and in sin, it seems to me a, a, a, an astonishing thing to say, if you're going to deny that there is sin. So perhaps your daughter would then say, I don't deny that there is sin, but there's no one completely dead in it. Well, that may depend, uh, upon her misunderstanding what the Bible means by dead in trespasses and in sins. The Bible doesn't mean that people who, uh, uh, don't believe in God are ah hundred percent evil through and through and can do nothing that's good. Our Lord said, for instance, if you, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give Holy Spirit to them? Let's, uh, ask him. The Bible doesn't say that people that are not believers in God are 100% evil in everything they do. When it says they're dead in trespasses and in sins, it's using the word dead in a special sense. Let me, uh, uh, quote, for instance, our Lord's parable of the prodigal son. He went away from home, then he came back, and his father said to the older brother, look, it was right for us to rejoice at your brother's homecoming, for he was dead and is alive again, is lost, was lost and is found. That is, so long as the boy, the prodigal, was away in the far country, he was dead to his father. Like somebody in another town, uh, and when you pick up the telephone to ring them, the telephone's dead, there's no answer. So sin had become a barrier between God and men and cut men off from God. That's what the Bible means by dead. Doesn't mean that they are one hundred percent evil in everything they do, but dead towards God. And for that to be removed is need, there is needed for repentance and faith and forgiveness and new birth, you see. That is God's recipe for it. But to say that there is nobody dead in sin, and the nearer you get to God, the brighter you'll shine, uh, seems to me to to be, I I would have to ask your daughter. I can only wonder what she would say. Seems to me to say, yes, the nearer you get to God, the better you'll shine. Of course so. But God in the Bible lays down the condition. If part of us want to come home, if people want to get near to God, then the pathway is through Jesus Christ. I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but by me. And our Lord will, uh, say that to come to God, we need repentance and faith in the Savior. Why was sin punished by physical death? And can you explain the difference between physical death and spiritual death? That... why was, uh, sin punished by physical death? Because when man sinned and disobeyed God and believed the lie of the tempter, he, uh, ruined himself, as God warned he would. God was not prepared to maintain forever what had now become a freak. God didn't destroy Adam physically at once. The Bible says he lived nine hundred odd years, but God wasn't prepared to maintain physically forever what was now a fallen creature. What God did in his mercy was to bring in death, but then to, to, uh, to, um, hold out a way of salvation, and that is still valid. Uh, the wages of sin is death. That is the, uh, the, uh, consequence that sin has, it destroys. But now there is a way back to God, and that way back starts at the spiritual level of being reconciled to God, forgiven, to be born again, to be given eternal life. And that put right, then the physical is going to be put right eventually. And when the Lord Jesus comes, all who trust him will be given new bodies. Our very bodies shall be redeemed, and creation delivers her from her bondage of corruption. What is the difference between physical death and spiritual death? Well, physical death concerns our bodies, but there is a deeper life to it, isn't there? As our soul and our spirit. And spiritual death is when that connection of fellowship between us and God is broken because of sin. God's way of putting us right is to deal with the spiritual first, and through faith in Christ, repentance and faith, we are reconciled to God and brought back into harmony with God and made spiritually alive. God doesn't immediately remove physical death, but for the believer, physical death is no longer the penalty, it is but the gateway into God's heaven. You'll see. So that is the difference between the two. And, uh, when, uh, the Lord comes, then, uh, a believer, when a believer dies, he or she is immediately in spirit with the Lord. But when the Lord comes and the resurrection takes place, all would be given a risen glorified body as well. In Revelation chapter two verse fifteen, quote, thus you also have those who hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, which thing I hate. What is the doctrine of the Nicolaitans? Oh, I wish I knew. Uh, you couldn't, ladies and gentlemen, exaggerate the extent of my ignorance. That would be impossible. You'll see, I don't know. I hear some people, and they say, uh, Nick- Nicholas was the leader of a sect that, uh, recommended permissiveness. I don't know whether they can prove it. Others have said, uh, oh, uh, uh, the name, uh, Nicolaos means the conqueror of the people. And, uh, they say that, that is, I don't know how they arrived around at that, that was the incipient, uh, heresy in which they developed in the church, uh, a, a, a special order of priests and things that, uh, took away the rights of the, uh, laity, you see. I don't know how they could prove that either. I think the, uh, first and foremost lesson that we learn from our Lord's remark is this. He made it in his, uh, letter to the church at Ephesus. He, he, the trouble with the church at Ephesus was that they ha- that they had lost their first love. Before the Lord criticizes them for that, he commends them for their hate. You hate what I hate, says he. You hate the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, whatever that was, which I also hate. Now, some folks are full of love and kindness, a little bit like one of the early questions we've had. They like to think of God as loving, who has no hate in him whatsoever. That isn't true. Our blessed Lord hated evil, and I'm glad God does too, actually. God doesn't approve of child molesters. He hates the sin. I'm glad God hates my sin too. You're not going to let me into heaven with my sin still upon me, you know, because heaven would become another hell. Great God, God hates sin. And the Lord Jesus hates sin. He loves sinners. That's why he died to save us, but he hates sin and will fight an interminable war against sin. It is therefore a good characteristic when God's people learn to hate the things that God hates. The danger is that we become unbalanced. And these folks at, uh, Ephesus had, they hated what Christ had, but they were so keen on rooting out evil and hating it that they let go of their love. They lost their first love. And to be all hate and no love is a utterly unbalanced character, isn't it? And because of that, our Lord said he was not prepared to maintain a church forever like that, that that would be a misrepresentation of his character. If they didn't repent and seek back their first love, then he would remove their church out of its place. Thank you. The next question, how can we measure the level of maturity in our lives, and is maturity the same as bearing fruit? John fifteen five? Well, that's a su- suggestion, it's an excellent suggestion, isn't it? Because, um, uh, plants and trees that are fruit bearing only bear the fruit when they are mature, don't they, Watson? Remember our Lord's parable about the seed fell into stony ground, and some of them, uh, fell on the rocks, and forthwith they grew up, you see. But when the sun came up, they withered, uh, and brought forth no fruit. The reason was they had no root in themselves. The only way a plant has of bearing fruit is, first of all, to sprout and to grow and to grow and to grow and bring forth fruit with endurance. So yes, that's a good parable for us too, isn't it? Uh, we go mature and begin to bring forth fruit, if you like. And uh, your questioner cites John fifteen, you'll see, and that's a very good example. Christ is the vine, we are the branches, and his father tends us because he's the gardener, and he deals with us to make us, uh, bear fruit, and that is a mark of maturity. Want another mark of maturity? Uh, the passage we were thinking about last night, two Peter chapter one, um tells us about maturity, adding to our faith these several virtues, you see, growth and maturity. Or if you like to take Ephesians chapter four, eh, we need to be mature in Christian doctrine, that we no longer be babes tossed to and fro with every kind of idea and false notion and specious heresy that comes along the show. We need to grow up in our doctrine. So there are several, uh, tests of maturity in scripture, and that would make a very good study, uh, if you, um, care to do it, get a concordance or something and look up things like babies in the New Testament, you see, as newborn babes, and then, uh, how to grow and become adult unto the full measure of the stature of Christ. Thank you. Now, this is from a senior lady, a senior sister. Dr. Gooding, I was led to visit a believer who was not well. In the course of conversation, she said to me, Jesus claims to be God. I cannot understand what is meant when our Lord said, Father, forgive them, they know not what they do. I found it difficult to answer this question. Can you please explain? Well, I'm not quite sure what the dear old, dear lady, uh, meant, uh, and where the problem lies. Uh, perhaps he meant that if Jesus is God, he could, of his own authority, have forgiven the people. For elsewhere in the Gospels, we read that the Son of Man had authority on earth to forgive sins, you see. That is perfectly true. But here he was being, uh, crucified. And the Bible tells us in that moment when he was crucified, he didn't threaten, he didn't retaliate, he committed himself to him that judges righteously. Christ, instead of using his authority, like he could have done if he pleased, he could have called for twelve legions of angels, each with a shining sword, and have destroyed the people that were crucifying him. And the Lord told his disciples it was the authority to do it, if he'd have asked his father, that God would have sent the angels. But where would we sinners have been if he had used the angelic sword to, to s- uh, prevent his being crucified? So he didn't retaliate. He didn't, uh, mean by that that he thought it was perfectly a nice thing to do for them to crucify him. It was a ghastly sin for a creature to crucify the Messiah. But instead of retaliating himself, he committed himself to him that judges righteously, left the whole thing for God to deal with, while he, in his mercy, was prepared to take the persecution and to die at Calvary, and what is more, suffer the judgment of God against our sin, so that his very murderers might be forgiven. But you should also notice, perhaps, the people about whom he was talking when he said, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. He wasn't talking at that moment for the high priests or Pilate, for that matter. He was talking about the soldiers that were driving the nails through his hands. And he asked God, please forgive them, for they don't know what they're doing. They were just carrying out their duties. They didn't know who he was. They were acting on command if they had refused to do it, they would have been executed by the governor, Dulce, and they were doing it in ignorance, and Christ recognized they didn't know what they were doing, and he was saying to his father, look, I forgive them, please forgive them, don't judge them. But for the men who crucified him, knowing what they did, yes, there would have been mercy for them if they repented. Christ had his apostles at Pentecost and onwards tell the crowd so. There was mercy even for those who perpetrated his crucifixion. But if those men persist in that attitude, then God will eventually judge them. When God rises up to judge theirs because they are unrepentant, Christ will not pray for them, please forgive. Indeed, the time will come when God will commit all the judgment to the Son, and the Son who died to save us, when people refuse to be saved and still reject him, the Son himself shall pronounce the judgment upon. Elijah was a great prophet. Elisha received a double portion of Elijah's spirit and was able to give the widow oil, the woman her child back to life, etc., being greater still. Christ is much greater and has done many miracles. Does that mean that we are able to do anything like these things in this, in his name? John fourteen twelve. What does no servant is greater than his master mean? John thirteen sixteen. Let's ask the answer the easy one first, or have a go at it. No man is greater, no servant is greater than his master. I think what our Lord meant, he then explained. The world hated me, it will hate you. You'll see. It won't, uh, if it hated me, it won't treat you better than it treated me. For if they hate the master, they will hate the master's servants. They won't treat the servant better than they treated the master. So our Lord was warning his disciples that the world hated him and would crucify him. They must expect, not expect the world to treat them any better than they treated their master. Is that, you see, that that. The second question, John fourteen twelve, where our Lord says, verily, verily, I say unto you, he that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also, and greater works than these shall he do, because I go unto the Father. And the question naturally arises, how could believers do greater works than the Lord Jesus did? For when he was here on earth, for instance, he raised the dead, he raised Lazarus, he raised Jairus' daughter. How could believers do greater works than the Lord Jesus did? For myself, I find the answer in the very next phrase our Lord used, he shall do greater works than these shall he do, because I go to the Father. That is the explanation how they were able to do greater works. How is that a reason why they would be able to do greater works? Well, for s- to start with, when he went to the Father, he sent the Holy Spirit down, did he not, to our Lord, into this world. And then there began a work such had never been done before in the whole of history, a work that was not done when our Lord Jesus was here on earth. When the Holy Spirit came down from heaven, uh, uh, uh, and the thing was explained through the preaching of the apostles, the risen Christ baptized his people in the Holy Spirit, and there was formed for the first time what the Bible calls the body of Christ. Through the preaching of the apostles, men and women repented, trusted Christ, and were baptized into one body through that one spirit. That is the big thing that happened since Pentecost, the like of which had never happened before. You can read all the books of the Old Testament, you'll never come across the idea of the body of Christ anywhere in it. Didn't exist anyway. There were believers justified by faith, like Abraham. You'll never read there of the body of Christ. But with Christ going to the Father and the coming of the Holy Spirit, this great new marvelous thing was brought into being, the, uh, the body of Christ through baptism in the Holy Spirit. And this still goes on, and God uses the instrumentality of his people in preaching to bring sinners to repentance and authorizes them to say that whosoever believes shall receive the Holy Spirit, and when people believe and are born again, they are baptized into the one great body of Christ. There is a bigger work than even our Lord did when he was here on earth. What was the significance of the laying on of hands, as we would read in the New Testament? Is there an application for such today? The laying on of hands, eh, the doctrine of it, the teaching of it, is for identification. When a man brought his sin offering before God in the Old Testament, because he'd sinned, he was asked to lay his hand on the animal's head, thus identifying himself with this animal, claiming it as his. This was his substitutionary sacrifice, and then he killed it in the presence of God. Identification, therefore. Similarly, when the apostles laid their hands upon people, they were identifying with them. For instance, we're told Acts chapter eight, that Philip the Evangelist went to Samaria, and he preached the gospel, and many people believed, and they were baptized. But Luke tells us they didn't receive the Holy Spirit, nor did they receive the Holy Spirit until the apostles in Jerusalem heard of it, and they sent down two of their number to Samaria. And when they were come, they laid their hands upon the Samaritans, and the Samaritans received the Holy Spirit. Why did God make the Samaritans wait until the apostles from Jerusalem had laid their hands on them. For instance, when Peter went to the house of Cornelius, and, uh, God didn't wait till anybody laid hands on those Gentiles. Peter just stood there and preached, and he was halfway through his sermon when Cornelius and co believed that the Holy Spirit was given them there and then. That embarrassed Peter. He was a little bit, uh, in a difficulty when he got to Jerusalem, and the, uh, brother said, what, what on earth are you doing going to Gentiles and preaching and drinking coffee in our houses? Never heard of such a thing. And Peter said, it wasn't my fault, brethren. I couldn't help it. I just stood there preaching. I, I, I mean, I couldn't give them Holy Spirit. I just will preach, and God went and gave them the Holy Spirit. Well, you can't blame me, he said. I, I mean, it's not me, you'll see. Didn't require any laying on the hands. Why then did God make the Samaritans wait till the apostles from Jerusalem laid their hands on them? Because there had been a colossal great argument down the centuries between the Samaritans and the Jews. God had ordained that the temple be built in Jerusalem. The Samaritans wouldn't have it. Their own temple on Mount Gerizim. You remember the long talk between our Lord and the Samaritan woman, and she said, huh, you Jews, you say that Jerusalem is the place where you ought to worship. Well, our fathers worshipped in this mountain, she said, because they had a temple they had had until the Jo- Jews destroyed it on top of Mount Gerizim, you'll see. And they were absolute daggers drawn between each other. Now the Jews weren't, uh, without blame, and our Lord in his grace went to meet and talk with a Samaritan woman to take salvation to her too. But he was very firm with the dear lady, as always, lovingly so. He said, my dear, you worship you know not what. They had had their own ideas, built their temple on Jer- on Mount Gerizim, in defiance of the word of God, the Old Testament, which they didn't accept those bits. They said Jerusalem was the place that God chose. So they'd been worshiping in disobedience to God, actually, with the resultant ignorance. They didn't really know the God whom they profess to worship. You worship, you know not what, said he, salvation is of the Jews. Of course, he was brought to faith. But now, when the gospel went to Samaria, to Philip after Pentecost, and these Samaritans believed, if God had allowed it, they might well have gone on with that old division. Oh, you've got a Christianity from Jerusalem. Well, we've got a Christianity, it's a different kind of Christianity, thank you very much. And our headquarters is, um, here in Samaria, and you'll have your church, and we'll have our church, and you be the Jerusalem church, and we shall be Samaritan Christianity incorporated, you see. No, you won't, says God. You won't. If you want the benefits of the gospel, the gospel begins to be preached, as our Lord said, from Jerusalem. It's all about the Messiah, whose capital city was Jerusalem, who was crucified outside of Jerusalem. And so God made them wait until apostles from Jerusalem came down, laid their hands on them. Now it shows the Samaritans had got converted, because if men from Jerusalem had tried to lay their hands on them before they got converted, they'd have kicked them in the shins or spit in their face. So they got converted. And so God prevented there being a, a breach between Christians right from the start, two different versions of Christianity. The dear Samaritans now accepted the men from Jerusalem, and the church was one. Laying on of hands, therefore, is a question of identity. So Paul tells Timothy, don't lay hands suddenly on anybody when it comes to the Christian ministry. Don't I- don't identify them with- yourself with them. Don't identify the church with anybody as an officer in the church suddenly. Wait till people are tested and shown to be reliable. This is the question you've been waiting for. It's the last one. Ah, yes. Let it be easy. I know an elderly person who says that there are persons or some sort of presence in their room at night which makes her angry. What is the explanation for this? Oh, I wouldn't know. If she's very elderly, I would first ask her doctor. You'll see. When folks get elderly, I know it from my dear father. When he got extremely elderly, imagined all sorts of things. And when people get elderly and their emotions and their nerves are troubled, sometimes they feel their presences in the room that make them angry. I knew a gentleman at one stage who used to visit my room i- i- i- in university, dear believer, but he said in the house where he lodged, next door neighbors had a machine that put rays through the wall and made him feel funny. Because he said, whenever I go and complain and they show me in the room, there's nothing there, but that's because they're hiding it, you see. But there, I saw, he said, there are rays in the room, and they're putting them through the wall just where I sit on the other side, you see. Well, he wasn't all that elderly, but obviously this was, uh, uh, what we should say, imagination. And with the elderly folks, that, uh, can happen sometimes, John. I chose if I could put my arm around the dear and soothe her and, uh, have a word with her doctor, maybe. Thank you. Now, that's all the questions, but I'm just wondering if there's anyone here willing... This is now the last occasion that I shall be with you at this time. So that I would like to thank you once more for having invited me at all, and then having invited me for the warmth of your welcome and the grace of your hospitality. And for the patience with which you have endured extraordinarily long addresses. I'd like to assure you that normal Englishmen don't preach so long as that. So the next time you hear that an Englishman has been invited to preach here, let your hearts be full of confidence. They won't go on anywhere near so long as this extraordinary phenomenon has done. Thank you for not, uh, complaining. At least you didn't complain to me. You probably complained to the elders, and in self-defense I tell you that they didn't pass your complaint on to me. So do you blame them and get at them, uh, if you care. But thank you again. My visit for me has been all too short, as far as I'm concerned, though I know the sermons have been for you too long, but for me the visit has been too short. I go away with happy memories. You have enriched my spirit, and in the dull days of the future, when Ireland is overclouded, as so often it is with dark clouds, I shall remember my visit, and a streak of sunshine will flood my heart and my room. Now, because of the question time, I must once more beg your patience. I ask permission to go on until half past eight of the clock.