In this episode, we navigate the complex landscape of faith, guided by the insightful discourse between our hosts. With references from the books of Job, Daniel, and 1 Peter, the conversation tackles the existential questions of why we believe and follow a divine path despite worldly struggles. Through scriptural exploration, the show offers a fresh understanding of how faith transcends immediate gratification and how believers can manifest a steadfast belief that withstands the test of life’s adversities.
This is Liz Franzel with Crawford Media Group, and today we’re doing a scripture commentary with Andy Pate, one of our hosts here at the station. The title of this commentary is When God Fails Us, and we’ll be covering passages in Job, Daniel, and Peter. First Peter. Andy, why don’t you get us started with some of the scriptures you want to read and tell us about the premise of the topic that you want to share.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah, you bet. First of all, I’m going to ask a quick question here. What is true faith? Now, that’s a broad thing. You can give a lot of different answers to it. And by the way, they’re probably all correct, right? A lot of different Christians have different answers. I’m just going to give one. Yeah, go ahead. Take a shot. Wait a minute. The question was to me. No, I was asking in general. But you go ahead and take it to you. Me, me, me. You, you, you.
SPEAKER 01 :
Okay, true faith.
SPEAKER 02 :
Wait, you in the back. Go.
SPEAKER 01 :
Let’s go with faith comes by hearing and hearing the word of God. And that word hearing is, or the word rhema, or word is rhema. So that is actually what God tells you. It’s not about mustering up as much as we can, struggling to really, really, really have faith. It’s when God tells you something, he imparts that faith to you for that whatever topic or situation that is.
SPEAKER 02 :
So it’s not like flexing when you work out. I got to be faithful. That’s right. You know, force my faith.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah. But how many times have we how much have we learned that in growing up in church?
SPEAKER 02 :
I know you’re not faithful enough.
SPEAKER 01 :
Exactly.
SPEAKER 02 :
Only in the faith of a mustard seed. I’ve never known a faithful mustard seed. But anyway, what is true faith? Here’s what it is. It’s knowing that God is real and that you have life eternally with him. That’s one simple way to look at it. But there’s a perspective that comes with faith, and that is an eternal perspective. And this is one thing that sets us apart from all the people around us. James 4.14 says, In other words, When you have true, absolute faith in Christ, in God, and you know you are his, then you look around at this world and you suddenly realize something. All the good and bad things in my life, the highs, the lows, the persecutions, the victories – they’re not nearly as important, okay? Because this entire life is this long. Right. Versus eternity. I have eternity, literal eternity with Christ. And here I’m freaking out about every good or bad thing that happens in this world. People who have real faith in Christ, I’m just going to say it, there’s a calm that comes with that. And there’s also an excitement that comes with that and a real hope that comes with that. And we’re going to talk about this today because… The world looks at our faith, and they have a real accusation, okay? And over the next month or two, we’re going to be talking a lot about Job, but I want to take a piece out of it today and talk about the accusation that comes against our faith. You ready? Right. Okay. Let me read Job 1, 6 through 12. One day the angels came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan, that’s Hasatan, the accuser in Hebrew, also came with them. The Lord said to Satan, where have you come from? Satan answered the Lord, from roaming throughout the world, going back and forth in it. Then the Lord said to Satan, get a job. No, he should have, though. I mean, come on, what are you doing? He sounds homeless. Have you considered my servant Job? There’s no one on earth like him. He is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil. Satan responds, does Job fear God for nothing? Have you not put a hedge around him and his household and everything he has? You’ve blessed the work of his hands so that his flocks and herds are spread throughout the land. But now stretch out your hand and strike everything he has and he will surely curse you to your face. The Lord said to Satan, very well then, everything he has is in your power, but on the man himself, do not lay a finger. Now, first of all, let this be a warning to all Christians. Don’t be too faithful. God might bring you up to. Okay, so don’t know. If somebody asks me if I’m a good Christian, I go, maybe. I don’t know. I’m kidding. Look, it is kind of frightening, though, right? Here he’s the best believer in the world, literally, and God brings him up to Satan. And you know all that comes after that, a lot of bad stuff. What is the accusation? The accusation is this. You only follow God because it works for you. And that is the accusation that is in the heart and mind of every unbeliever around you when they look at you, even the nice ones, okay? They may like you. You’re a good friend. They get along. It’s not a mean accusation, but they’re looking at you and basically thinking, you know, you don’t follow God because he’s real, because he’s true, right? You follow him because he works for you, or maybe he’s a crutch, an emotional crutch. He gets you through your hard times. You follow him because you had a mountaintop experience at a youth camp. You follow him because you enjoy the church and churchianity and koinonia and the fellowship of the saints or the music group or all these things, the youth group, whatever. You follow him for all these things that work for you. But what if all of those things didn’t exist? You know, when I was young, as you know, I became a Christian coming out of atheism. So I came from the other side. And after I became a Christian, One thing bothered me, and that was I was too happy. I was enjoying this too much. The Christians, I was enjoying the church too much and everything around me. After a while, I took a step back and I was like, would I follow God if all of this was taken away and it was just me and a Bible and just him on an empty planet? Would I still believe in him? Because sometimes I wonder, is this too easy? It’s too good at times. Would I follow him if it were taken away? Go ahead. You were going to say something.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah, well, because your title is When God Fails Us. So, you know, just in that statement alone is putting the blame on God.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah, that’s why I put fails in quotation marks.
SPEAKER 01 :
And going back to Job, the scripture you quoted, it was the enemy saying, well, you’ve basically put him on a pedestal, God. And so because of that, he’s prospering. The devil was basically saying, you’re favoring him and you are just basically protecting him. But what about everybody else? Of course he’s the most faithful.
SPEAKER 02 :
You made him the richest, the wealthiest. Things are going the best, right? Yeah. Well, that is basically the way people look at Christians. And to be fair, I think that’s the way they look at a lot of people’s religions. You only follow that because it works for you. And it’s true. I don’t have time to go through the religions. It would take too long. But religions are based largely around what works for you. And we don’t really have the time to go through them. Christianity is different. Christianity is not based on what works for you at all. It’s the direct opposite. Now, what should be our response? Okay, when we hear this, and I want to use a couple scriptures really quick here. In the next chapter of Job, at one point, he’s talking to his wife. And he says, shall we accept good from God and not trouble? And this is after he already has a lot of calamity come upon him. But let’s go to Daniel. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Here they are. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego replied to him, King Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. You see, they’re about to get thrown in the fire. If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to deliver us from it, and he will deliver us from your majesty’s hand. But even if he does not… We want you to know you’re managed to see that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold that you have set up. In other words, what were they saying? Even if God doesn’t come through for me, even if he, quote unquote, fails me. By the way, God never fails us. You understand. Right. I’m using that facetiously. Exactly. Right. But even if God doesn’t come through for me, even if things go badly for me in this life, in this world, things go bad. Maybe I’m dying. This is a very quick life. It’s a clicking of the fingers and eternity is before us. And, you know, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, they understood this back then. You don’t understand. We are with God because he’s true, not because he’s about to deliver us from the fire. He may not. We don’t care. Nothing changes. All that matters is the creator, not the created. Make sense?
SPEAKER 01 :
And we have to go back to the verse. I’m going to take you back to Job again, where it’s the God wasn’t inflicting all this on Job. He didn’t do any. God is not the author of evil. It’s the devil that was doing it for him.
SPEAKER 02 :
God just took off the leash.
SPEAKER 01 :
Right. God allowed Satan to do that. And that’s basically, I don’t know if you’re going to get into this this time, but it was Job’s fear that allowed the enemy to come in and wreak havoc. He was operating in major fear. And so basically that was what’s called an idiom of permission, whereas the Hebrew culture has idioms of permission. They’re like sayings, cultural sayings like we have. And so basically because Job was operating in fear because he was all about worried about his kids and doing everything for his kids and everything. And, um, he was just in fear that something was going to happen to his kids. He was outside of God’s, God’s, uh, protection at that moment, because, you know, God gives us free will when we step into the devil’s realm outside of God’s protection. The enemy has free reign. It comes down to free will. So when we make choices, God gave us that. That was a big, huge step on his part to trust us or to say, okay, it’s up to you. What you do is going to affect your life. So, I mean, let’s go back to even Genesis where he said, after they ate the fruit and cast him out of the garden, he said, well, now child labor will be painful. And man, you’re going to toil and sweat and you’ll never gain anything. All these thorns will be coming up. That wasn’t God cursing them and saying, I’m going to do this to you. That was him saying, that’s what’s going to happen. Those are just the natural consequences. This is the natural consequence of what you’ve chosen.
SPEAKER 02 :
Right. Okay, well, getting back to Job really quick here, his response is very, very obvious. Should we accept good from God and not evil? Or in Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, our response to all the people around us has got to be very clearly this. I do not follow God because it works for me. I don’t care if it works for me. Okay. He may prosper me. He may give me the worst life ever. Guess what? It doesn’t matter. It makes no difference. He’s just as true. Why? Because this life is this long. Okay. And I have eternity with him and I’m trusting in that. I have faith in that. I’m going to demonstrate that to you. Okay. Now, really quick here. Where do we get freedom? Do we get it from good things happening in our life? No. Do we get it from what works for us? No. We get it in truth. All right. John 8, 32. Then you’ll know the truth. The truth will set you free. It’s truth that sets us free, not good things happening in life. Right.
SPEAKER 01 :
Okay. I think of David when you say that in the Psalms, when all the calamity is happening to David and David is mad at God. He’s saying, are you going to let them kill me? But then he always ends with, yet I will praise you.
SPEAKER 02 :
Right. And I like that God lets David get it off his chest.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah, that’s precious.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah, our God can take it, okay? He can take it from Job. He took it for about 37 chapters. 34, actually. Okay, but all this is why I have a problem with the prosperity gospel, where eternal life brings earthly success. I don’t like that. Or the social gospel, where we use Jesus to fix the world. Or servant evangelism, where we bribe people into hearing the gospel with good deeds. Look, folks… We’re selling more of the world to get them to come to eternity with Christ. It doesn’t make any sense. So true. You know, we need to sell the truth and just share the truth. Now, I’m going to close with this. Listen to our eternal nature of our faith, okay? And I want to read from 1 Peter. And while I’m reading this, listen to the eternity of his language and how we trusted eternity, not in things now, and how that creates opportunity. Listen to this. 1 Peter 1, 3 through 7. Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead and into an inheritance, looking forward, that can never perish, spoil, or fade. Eternal, right? This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed at the last time. In all this, you greatly rejoice… Though now, for a little while, you may have to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. God failing you, right? These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith, of greater worth than gold, which perishes, even though refined by fire, may result in praise, glory, and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. Look, these bad things that happen in your life, they are an opportunity. They are an opportunity for all the people around you to see that you do not follow God because he works for you. Right. You follow God because he’s true. And he’s faithful. Right. If you just have, you know, it’s great to have the perfect marriage, the perfect church, the perfect kids, the perfect all this music program, whatever. It’s great to have all the perfect job. You know, hey, I hope you have all those things. I think that’s wonderful. Okay. I don’t wish bad on anyone. But I got news for you. If you have all that, you can’t demonstrate faith in God. Because that accusation from the accuser in Job is in the mind and heart of every person around you. Are you following God because he works for you or because he is true? And you can’t demonstrate that until God, quote unquote, fails you.
SPEAKER 01 :
And you know, what comes to mind is… We don’t need Jesus if we have everything and everything is perfect in our lives. That’s really not faith. I think these, like you were saying earlier, these situations in our life actually make us stronger and run to God.
SPEAKER 02 :
Right. Basically this, when these bad times come, I’m not saying enjoy them. That’s weird. Okay. But I am saying two things. Number one, think with perspective. Remember, this life is that long. Okay. It’s a blink of an eye in eternity. You have eternity with God. And number two, understand you have an opportunity. to demonstrate real faith in Christ. Because guess what? Everybody around you, they have an eternity too. And you want them to share it in the same place you’re going to. Exactly.
SPEAKER 01 :
Andy, thanks for joining us today. That was great. You bet.
Faith Under Fire: Lessons from Biblical Figures
In this episode, we navigate the complex landscape of faith, guided by the insightful discourse between our hosts. With references from the books of Job, Daniel, and 1 Peter, the conversation tackles the existential questions of why we believe and follow a divine path despite worldly struggles. Through scriptural exploration, the show offers a fresh understanding of how faith transcends immediate gratification and how believers can manifest a steadfast belief that withstands the test of life’s adversities.
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