Pastor's Columns

Learn from the different people in your life
By David Roach

 

      Did you ever set out to impact someone else only to realize later that you were actually the one most impacted?
      As I come to the end of my first year as a pastor, I realize that's happened to me. I hope that weekly sermons have taught the attendees at Emmanuel Baptist Church something, but I suspect I have learned more than anyone else in the church.

      The lessons I have learned came from several different types of people in the church. If you look over this list, I suspect you will think of people in your life that fall into each of these categories. And if you will pay close attention to the people you think of, I suspect that you too will discover some valuable lessons to be learned.
     -- Senior adults who are finishing life well.
     It is easy for a person in his twenties like me to believe Paul's statement in 1 Corinthians 9:24, "Do you not know that the runners in a stadium all race, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win." But it is much more difficult for a person at the end of life to say with Paul, "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith."
      As I look at some older Christians who have persevered in their faith for decades despite difficulties and trials, I see heroes to be imitated. Watching these precious saints teaches me how youthful enthusiasm is worth very little unless it translates into consistent faithfulness.
      -- People who are new to Christianity.
      With church, as with almost any endeavor in life, new people tend to have a contagious zeal and notice things that insiders may overlook. Watching new believers in Jesus Christ dive into church with enthusiasm and tell their friends and family what God has done for them reminds me that we are all called to maintain that type of enthusiasm throughout life.
      -- Children.
      If my sermon is boring, adults may keep listening politely. But children aren't afraid let their expressions tell what they think. While a little adult restraint is a good thing for us all, childlike honesty at the right times could go a long way in our world.
      -- Consistent people.
      Some people attend church every time the doors are open and complete their assigned responsibilities without ever being asked twice. As an average church member, I took those kind of consistent people for granted too often. But as a pastor, such people make me incredibly thankful each week and I depend on them. Watching consistent people in every area of life can teach us the value of discipline and dependability.
      -- People with different jobs than mine.
      When I need to be reminded just how much I still have to learn and even how much I will never know, I don't have to look far. Farmers, teachers, medical professionals, factory workers and mothers remind me of my limitations and need for others every week. For a healthy dose of humility, just consider people who excel in things that you don't begin to understand.
      I could go on and on with this list, but you get the idea. Taking note of the different people around me and what they can teach me has been a highlight of this first year of pastoring. Take time to reflect on the people around you, and you might discover that there are counselors everywhere who can impart a multitude of wisdom.
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Why I'm glad to be a Southern Baptist
By David Roach

 

      After returning from the annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention in Greensboro, N.C., last week, I saw an event in the news that reminded me why I'm glad to be a Southern Baptist.
      Last Sunday the Episcopal Church elected Nevada Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori as the denomination's presiding bishop. Jefferts Schori is the first woman to lead a church in the global Anglican Communion and says she does not believe homosexuality is a sin.
      When asked on CNN whether she believes homosexuality is a sin, Jefferts Schori responded, "I don't believe so. I believe that God creates us with different gifts. Each one of us comes into this world with a different collection of things that challenge us and things that give us joy and allow us to bless the world around us."
       When asked how she reconciles her position with specific Bible passages calling sexual relations between people of the same gender an abomination, she dismissed the Bible's teachings on sexuality as written in a different historical context.
      "The Bible has a great deal to teach us about how to live as human beings," she said, according to Reuters. "The Bible does not have so much to teach us about what sorts of food to eat, what sorts of clothes to wear -- there are rules in the Bible about those that we don't observe today. The Bible tells us about how to treat other human beings, and that's certainly the great message of Jesus -- to include the unincluded."
      Compare Jefferts Schori's denial of the Bible's teachings with the happenings at the SBC annual meeting. Though Southern Baptists disagreed over minor issues and had their first highly contested presidential election since 1994, messengers never disagreed on the authority of the Bible, the need for all people to repent of their sins and follow Jesus Christ, and the binding nature of the Bible's moral commands.
      Southern Baptists' confession of faith, "The Baptist Faith and Message," says the Bible is "divinely inspired" and "a perfect treasure of divine instruction," which has "truth, without any mixture of error for its matter." The confession adds, "[The Bible] reveals the principles by which God judges us, and therefore is, and will remain to the end of the world, the true center of Christian union, and the supreme standard by which all human conduct, creeds and religious opinions should be tried."
      Michael Nazir-Ali, the Bishop of Rochester in England, rightly observed that churches and denominations have to make a choice between following the Bible -- as the SBC has done in recent decades -- and making up their own rules to accommodate the prevailing moral decay of our world -- as the Episcopal Church has done.
      "Sometimes you have to recognize that there are two irreconcilable positions and you have to choose between them," Nazir-Ali told The Daily Telegraph. "The right choice is the line with the Bible and the Church's teachings down the ages, not some new-fangled religion we have invented to respond to the 21st century."
      These two recent denominational meetings illustrate the choice that all church-going Americans must make: They can either choose a denomination that honors the Bible or a denomination that ignores and distorts scriptural commands in order to accommodate culture.
      So let me encourage you to find a denomination, like the SBC, that chooses to follow the unchanging teachings of the Bible and not invent a new religion for the changing world -- because holding to the truth really does matter.
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Why men don’t go to church and how to get them back
By David Roach

 

      The U.S. Congregational Life Survey tells us that while the U.S. population is split almost evenly between men and women, only 39 percent of all churchgoers are men.
      Why the lack of men in church?
      Consider what goes on at the average evangelical church on the average Sunday morning. Worshippers sing songs with lyrics such as “Hold me close, let your love surround me,” “Jesus I am so in love with you” and “I’m desperate for you, I’m lost without you.” Then they hold hands for prayer and hear a sermon emphasizing concepts such as a “personal relationship” with Jesus, having “intimacy” with God and “sharing” their feelings with other Christians.
      It’s no wonder why men shy away from most churches. None of the elements I listed above are wrong or unhealthy in themselves, but they contribute to an overall feminization of Christianity that can make men think church is a women’s thing. And that is both wrong and unhealthy.
       According to “Why Men Hate Going to Church,” a recent book by journalist David Murrow, there is a feminine atmosphere at evangelical churches that scares men away.
      “Can you see why it’s so hard for men to go to church?” Murrow writes. “If a man (or his friends) sees church as a woman’s thing, then it’s something he just can’t do. It’s emasculating.”
      Examining the jobs an average church needs to fill demonstrates that there are few opportunities for church service that cater to men’s talents. Working in the nursery, providing childcare and elder care, teaching children, visiting hospitals, decorating the church and coordinating potlucks are typical of jobs churches ask members to fill -- and they all require gifts that are more typical of women.
      But Jesus adopted a very different philosophy of ministry. He devoted himself to twelve men, involved them in ministry and offered them intensive training. We would do well to follow Jesus’ example. Here are a few ideas from Murrow for reaching men more effectively.
      -- Challenge men with high standards.
      Churches that attract men have high expectations for their members.
      Pastor Rick Warren writes, “Ask confidently for big commitment. Jesus always asked for commitment clearly and confidently. He was not at all reluctant to ask men and women to drop everything and follow him.”
      Men do not resent being asked for commitment if there is a great vision and purpose behind it.
      -- Plan elements in worship services that appeal to men.
      Churches don’t need to completely rethink they way they do worship, but making small changes can make a big difference for men. Try things like increasing the quality of music, making sure the service moves at a fast pace without dead space between proceedings, using object lessons in sermons and decorating with men’s tastes in mind.
      -- Give men opportunities to use their skills and gifts.
      Think about ministries like providing automotive care for widows, providing carpentry and electrical upgrades to seniors’ home, taking mission trips and ministering to children through sports.
      -- Give men big projects that capture their imaginations.
      -- Give men opportunities for risk and adventure.
      I’m not advocating that churches focus less on women’s needs. On the contrary, ministering to women is a crucial task for every church. But I am calling Christians to engage men as warriors in the spiritual battle that is raging in our world today.
      Murrow rightly concludes, “Men have no idea how vital Christ is to the future of mankind. Nor do they realize how needed they are. Without men and their warrior spirit in the church, all is lost.”
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Pray at graduation, but don't organize official Christian prayer
By David Roach

 

      You might not expect this from a conservative Baptist preacher, but I believe Shelby County High School's decision not to schedule formal prayers at graduation is in the best interest of the Christian church.
      Don't get me wrong. I believe students should be allowed to pray at graduation. In fact, there is no way the government can stop students from praying. If students choose on their own to pray -- as they did in Russell County -- their prayer can add to the ceremony and honor God.
      But when the government schedules and sponsors Christian prayer, it poses at least two problems for Christians.
      -- Government-sponsored Christian prayer opens the door for government-sponsored prayers from other religions.
      Although I would welcome the opportunity to pray at a government ceremony to the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, my conscience would be violated if I participated in a government ceremony where we prayed to Allah or any other god.
      I am convinced that anyone who depends on any god other than the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ will spend eternity in hell. I want everyone in Shelby County -- including those who are now Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Mormons, atheists and all other religions -- to change their minds and pray to the one true God.
      But because I cannot in good conscience participate in a graduation ceremony where the school directs the crowd to pray to Allah, I will not ask a Muslim to participate in a graduation ceremony where the school directs the crowd to pray to the Christian God.
      If Muslims ever controlled our government, I would not want them to follow the precedent of state-sanctioned Christian prayer at graduations and sanction Muslim prayer at a government ceremony.
      -- Government-sponsored Christian prayer confuses the Christian gospel.
      The message of Christianity is a difficult one. The Bible commands us to turn away from our sins and completely dedicate our lives to following Jesus Christ. In Luke 9:23-24 Jesus told us, "If anyone wants to come with Me, he must deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow Me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life because of Me will save it."
      If a person has anything less than full commitment to Jesus, that person is not a follower of Christ. But when the government sponsors a Christian prayer, it runs the risk of reducing Christianity to rote recitation of prayers not necessarily accompanied by life commitment. People who are in favor of Christian prayer at graduation might come away from the ceremony falsely believing that they are true followers of Jesus because they participated in a prayer when their lives are not committed to him. Fostering this wrong belief is dangerous and a disservice to citizens.
      When government-sanctioned prayers use language that makes them acceptable to people of all religions, the prayers fail to mention Jesus and propagate the additional untrue message that prayer can be effective without acknowledging the Son of God.
      My earnest desire is for every person in Shelby County to understand exactly what it means to follow Jesus. My fear is that government-sponsored prayers can cause citizens to misunderstand the Bible's message.
      The bottom line is that our county, our state, our nation and our world have no hope unless they turn to the one true God and cry out to him in prayer. I urge all Christians, including the graduates of Shelby County High School, to pray. But let's make sure that the policies our government advocates help the spread of true faith and do not hinder it.
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National Day of Prayer should remind us why we pray
By David Roach

 

     On May 4 millions of Americans gathered at churches, businesses, school campuses, government buildings and even the White House to celebrate the 55th National Day of Prayer.
     At a Washington observance of National Day of Prayer President Bush reminded Americans how important prayer has been in our nation's history.
     "It's impossible to tell the story of our nation without telling the story of people who pray," the president said. "[The first pilgrims] stepped boldly onto the shores of a new world, and many of them fell to their knees to give thanks.
     "At decisive moments in our history and in quiet times around family tables, we are a people humbled and strengthened and blessed by prayer," he said.
     The President is exactly right about prayer being important in America's history, and reflecting back on National Day of Prayer gives us an opportunity to reflect on why prayer is important.
     Here are several reasons, pointed out by theologian Wayne Grudem, why God wants us to pray.
     --Prayer changes the way God acts.
      The biblical book of James tells us, "You do not have, because you do not ask," implying that our failure to ask deprives us of some things God would have otherwise given to us.
     In Luke 11:9-10, Jesus made a similar point: "Ask, and it will be given you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For every one who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened." The biblical pattern is clear. God will not necessarily give us everything we ask, but many times he responds to our prayers by giving us good gifts.
     --Prayer expresses our trust in God and helps our trust increase.
      Jesus used the analogy of a father and his children to describe prayer. In Luke 11, he compared our praying to a son asking his father for a fish or an egg. Then he concluded, "If you then, who are evil, know who to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!"
      Just as children look to their fathers to provide for their needs, we are to look to our heavenly Father in prayer. We don't pray so that God can learn what we need. He already knows. We pray because in expressing our needs to God, we learn to trust him.
     --Prayer brings us into deeper fellowship with God.
      God wants a loving relationship with the humans he created. In prayer, we have the opportunity to express our love to God. The first words of the Lord's Prayer, "Our Father who art in heaven," express our relationship to God as the loving and wise Father. Every prayer should similarly express a relationship with God and a desire for interaction with him.
     --Prayer allows us to be involved in activities that are eternally important.
      At times our lives may become wrapped up in mundane and trivial details. But when we pray, God gives us a chance to be involved in his work in a meaningful way. By praying we can play a part in seeing God's kingdom eternally advanced.
      So as you reflect on National Day of Prayer, remember how important prayer is and consider making every day a day of prayer.
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NKU episode illustrates common misunderstanding of freedom
By David Roach

 

      "I'm proud to be an American where at least I know I'm free," says the famous Lee Greenwood song. But ironically millions of Americans understand very little about what it means to be truly free.
     Recently a professor and nine graduate students at Northern Kentucky University in Highland Heights demonstrated that they are among the ranks of those who don't understand.
     Sally Jacobsen, a professor of literature and language, is under investigation after some of her students destroyed an anti-abortion display on campus -- apparently as an act of free speech recommended by their professor.
     The students pulled up crosses from a display put up by a student group called Northern Right to Life and threw the crosses in the trash, according to the Associated Press. Jacobsen admits inviting the students to express their freedom of speech by destroying the display.
     "I did, outside of class during the break, invite students to express their freedom of speech rights to destroy the display if they wished to," Jacobsen told AP. She declined to say if she took part in the destruction.
     University president James Votruba said the university is investigating Jacobsen's alleged involvement in the destruction and will turn over any evidence of criminal activity to prosecutors.
     "I don't know if she was pulling up the crosses, but I think she was out there with the students," he said. "If so, as far as I'm concerned, she went outside the conditions of her employment."
     These students thought they were exercising freedom. But it was not true freedom. The only way we can experience true freedom is to unite our lives to Jesus Christ by faith.
     In fact, every act that is committed by a non-Christian is captive to sin.
     The Bible tells us that the human heart is sick with sin. Every act that we do apart from the help and enabling of Jesus Christ is tainted with sinful motives and thoughts.
     Jeremiah 17:9 says, "The heart is more deceitful than anything else and desperately sick -- who can understand it?"
     Non-believers think they are free, but in reality their sinful actions will result in punishment -- either in this world or the world to come. The NKU students demonstrate this principle: Their supposedly free actions will likely be punished.
     Is that true freedom?
     True freedom comes when we commit our lives to Jesus Christ. He frees believers to what is good and worthy of reward.
     If you will surrender your life to Jesus, he will begin to cure your sinful heart and finally let you commit acts that are pleasing to God. God-honoring acts are the only truly free acts, and they are always to our advantage.
     Jesus explained the issue of freedom in John 8:34-36, "Everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed."
     Take a lesson from the supposed "freedom" exercised by the NKU students. Sinful acts aren't free. Only following Christ can free us.
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Confused teen should reconsider importance of marriage
By David Roach

 

      High school senior Danny Nichols has a common but terribly wrong view of marriage, and he expressed his view in a recent letter to the editor of The Columbian in Vancouver, Wash.
      "When people ask me what I think about same-sex marriage, or even marriage in general, I find it hard to answer," Nichols wrote in The Columbian March 13. "On one hand, I think that any two people who want to get married should be able to. But on the other hand, I'm against marriage all together.
      "Gay, straight, I don't care; marriage is an outdated, ancient practice that should have no place in a modern, civilized society. If you truly 'love' somebody, why do you have to get approval from either your government or religious hierarchy? Just love them and be happy."
      Nichols added that the idea of confining sex exclusively to marriage seems ridiculous to him.
      "And what gets me the most is the idea of saving sex until marriage," he wrote. "Why? I seriously don't want to get married, yet I don't plan on being celibate my whole life."
      On one hand, Nichols makes some valid points in the midst of his confusion. He rightly complains that many people refer to marriage as "sacred" but do not treat it as sacred at all.
      "And don't get me started on the sanctity of marriage and how it stands today," he complained. "Look, anything you can get done on a drunken whim, by an overweight Elvis impersonator in Vegas, and only has a 50 percent success rate is not sacred."
      But on the other hand, if Nichols understood the most important thing about marriage, he would never express such views.
      What is the most important thing about marriage?
      It pictures Jesus Christ and his bride, the church.
      Regarding marriage, the Bible tells us in Ephesians 5:32, "This mystery is profound, but I am talking about Christ and the church."
      According to the Bible, when a man and woman make a sacred vow to remain faithful to one another for life, they illustrate the love of a Savior who will be faithful to his followers forever.
      A husband who protects, loves and cares for his wife pictures a Lord who protects us from hell, loves us unconditionally and cares for every need we have. A wife who trusts, loves and follows her husband's godly leadership pictures Christians who trust, love and follow Jesus.
      And most importantly, a husband who is willing to give up his life for the good of his wife pictures the redeemer who gave up his life on a cross so that everyone who believes in him could have eternal life.
      Like Danny Nichols, I am not interested in marriages that treat faithfulness as optional. Neither do I want to see same-sex "marriages" that disregard the Bible's standard of one man and one woman for life.
      What I am passionate about seeing are marriages that so demonstrate faithfulness and love that they make everyone who sees them think of the salvation that is offered in Jesus Christ.
      If our nation were filled with marriages like that, maybe Nichols would know the one to whom marriage points and have no need to question the usefulness of this sacred institution.
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Resignation of Harvard president suggests intolerance toward conservatives
By David Roach

 

      You might not have noticed that last week Harvard President Lawrence Summers resigned under fire from the university's faculty. But you should notice because Summers' resignation reveals an alarming trend among American academics that could leave you as the next one under fire.
      Summers assumed the Harvard presidency in 2001 after serving as U.S. Treasury secretary under Democratic President Bill Clinton. Just months after assuming office, the former cabinet member in a liberal administration began to face criticism from the left.
      The trouble started when Summers questioned popular African-American studies professor Cornel West for recording a rap album that Summers believed was of questionable academic value. West responded in anger by leaving Harvard for a post at Princeton.
      "I said to myself, I will not be at Harvard long," West said in 2002, according the Boston Globe. "I'm a free and self-respecting black man, and I will not put up with that kind of attitude."
      The criticism from liberals continued over the next five years as Summers supported an ROTC on campus and suggested men may excel over women in math and science partly because of genetics. The criticism culminated in a no-confidence vote by the faculty last March -- the first no-confidence vote in a Harvard president in modern history.
      Summers was scheduled to face a second no-confidence vote February 21. But he preempted the vote by resigning effective at the end of the academic year.
 In the wake of his resignation, Summers -- a liberal himself -- continues to face criticism for being too conservative. Even left-wing Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz lamented Summers' resignation as forced by a radically liberal group of the faculty.
      "This is an academic coup d'etat by one small faction ... the die-hard left of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences," Dershowitz said, according to the Wall Street Journal.
      Summers' resignation is particularly troubling because it shows just how far to the left some members of America's academic elite have moved. Criticism of Summers for being too conservative shows that many academics will dismiss as inappropriate any idea that does not reflect a far-leftist ideology.
      The Wall Street Journal pointed out this trend in a Feb. 22 editorial.
      "A Harvard education isn't what it used to be. That's the principal lesson of yesterday's news that Lawrence Summers is resigning as the 27th president of the nation's oldest university," the paper said, noting that Summers cited "rifts" between himself and the faculty as the reason he could not continue to lead the university.
      "Those 'rifts' included quarrels with a largely left-wing faculty that has about as much intellectual diversity as the Pyongyang parliament,'" the editorial continued. "Or, as a group of Harvard protesters so charmingly put it a year or so ago, 'Racist, sexist, anti-gay -- Larry Summers, you must pay.' Only on an American university campus could Mr. Summers, a former Clinton Treasury Secretary, be portrayed as a radical neocon."
      So what does this have to do with you and me?
      If you are a conservative evangelical Christian, you likely hold views on the Bible, the sanctity of marriage, the deity of Jesus Christ and a host of other issues that are far to the right of those held by Lawrence Summers. It is also likely that you have arrived at those views after thoughtful consideration and that you want views like yours to be considered seriously by the students at colleges and universities.
      But if university professors reject Summers' views because they are too conservative, how much more harshly will they reject your views? If Christians want their views to receive serious consideration in America's colleges and universities, we must speak out against Harvard's treatment of Summers. And if Christians send their children to a secular college or university, they should prepare those children to face opposition with a biblical worldview.
      Watch out. It could be your views that are marginalized next.
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Give me that old time Darwinist religion?
By David Roach

 

      What's the most unlikely thing you can imagine a pastor criticizing from the pulpit?
      If you said creationism, you gave what seems to me like a very good answer. But several hundred pastors across America disagree with you.
      Last Sunday, more than 400 congregations celebrated "Evolution Sunday" by hearing sermons attacking recent criticisms of evolution by conservative Christians, according to a Feb. 13 New York Times article.
     The event commemorated Charles Darwin's 197th birthday and is an outgrowth of the Clergy Letter Project, a project started by academics and ministers in Wisconsin in early 2005 in response to efforts to discredit the teaching of evolutionary theory in public schools, The Times reported.
      "There was a growing need to demonstrate that the loud, shrill voices of fundamentalists claiming that Christians had to choose between modern science and religion were presenting a false dichotomy," said Michael Zimmerman, dean of the College of Letters and Sciences at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh and an organizer of the letter project.
      According to the churches celebrating Evolution Sunday, the Bible tells us God created the world but does not tell us how he created. It does not contradict the Bible to believe God used evolution to create, they say.
      But theologian Wayne Grudem rightly points out at least four reasons why we cannot believe both the Bible and the theory of evolution.
      --The purposefulness of God's creating work in Scripture seems incompatible with the randomness of evolutionary theory.
      A fundamental difference between the biblical view of creation and the theory of evolution is that randomness is the driving force behind evolutionary schemes. Without the random mutation of organisms, you do not have evolution in the modern scientific sense. But the driving force behind the development of organisms in Scripture is God's intelligent design. The Bible depicts the opposite of random mutation when it reports that God said, "Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds: cattle and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kinds" (Genesis 1:24).
      --The Bible pictures God's creating word as having immediate response.
      A believer in theistic evolution would have to argue that God spoke and after millions of years and millions of random mutations, his word brought about the results he called for. But such a belief seems to contradict the clear sense of Psalm 33:6, 9: "By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and all their host by the breath of his mouth. ... For he spoke, and it came to be; he commanded, and it stood forth." In the Bible, God spoke and his purpose was accomplished immediately.
      --Scripture's claim that God created plants and animals to reproduce "according to their kinds" (Genesis 1:11, 24) suggests that there are narrow limits on the kind of change that can occur through genetic mutations.
      --The Bible insists that Adam and Eve were special creations, distinct from all other organisms.
      Evolutionary theory argues that the first human-like life forms were highly developed, nonhuman, apelike creatures. But according to Genesis, the first humans were a special creation of God possessing language skills, moral abilities and spiritual abilities from the moment they came into existence. This picture seems incompatible with evolution's idea of ancient apelike humanoids.
      For all these reasons, Bible-believing people of the world must unite in the belief that God did not use evolution to create the universe. If proponents of Evolution Sunday will examine the biblical evidence closely, they will understand the full meaning of Genesis 1:1: "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth."
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Teen views on the supernatural show need for Christianity
By David Roach

 

Pat Robertson, Ray Nagin & the right way to view tragedies
By David Roach

     Two public figures have gotten themselves in trouble recently by claiming to know God's reasons for allowing specific tragedies to strike human beings.
     The day after Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon suffered a massive stroke, televangelist Pat Robertson suggested the stroke was a punishment from God for giving land in the Gaza Strip to Palestinians.
     "God considers this land to be His," Robertson said of Gaza. "For any prime minister of Israel who decides he will carve it up and give it away, God said, 'No, this is mine.'"
     "I would say woe unto any prime minister of Israel who takes a similar course," he added.
     Ten days after Robertson's comments, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin said in a Martin Luther King Day speech that God sent hurricanes to the Gulf Coast because He is mad at the United States for being in Iraq and mad at African Americans for not taking care of themselves.
     "Surely God is mad at America," Nagin said. "He sent us hurricane after hurricane after hurricane, and it's destroyed and put stress on this country. ... Surely He doesn't approve of us being in Iraq under false pretenses. But surely He is upset at black America also. We're not taking care of ourselves."
     So what should we say when strokes, hurricanes and other tragedies strike us? Can humans ever claim to know precisely why God allowed a tragedy to occur?
     Jesus didn't seem to think so.
     In Luke 13, He addressed two tragedies -- one where a Roman governor ordered a group of Galileans killed and another where a tower fell on 18 people, killing them all. In both situations Jesus warned observers not to claim the tragedies occurred because the victims were more sinful than other people.
     "Do you think that these Galileans were more sinful than all Galileans because they suffered these things?" Jesus asked. "No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish as well! Or those 18 that the tower in Siloam fell on and killed -- do you think they were more sinful than all the people who live in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish as well" (Luke 13:2-5).
     When tragedy took human lives in Jesus' day, He spoke strongly against those who claimed the tragedies were a punishment for specific sins. In our day Pat Robertson, Ray Nagin and anyone else who claims specific tragedies occurred to punish specific sins would be wise to listen to Jesus.
     It is possible that specific tragedies occur to punish specific sins, but we can never know for certain that a tragedy is linked to a sin. Only God knows why tragedies occur. As humans, we must recognize that it is arrogant and prideful to claim knowledge that God alone possesses.
     Instead of blaming the victims for tragedies, Jesus took a more constructive approach. He urged us to look at tragedies and be reminded that we too deserve to die because of our sin. The only way to overcome death and enjoy salvation is to repent and trust Jesus as Lord and Savior, He said.
     So when you think about Ariel Sharon's stroke or the hundreds who died in Hurricane Katrina, don't claim to know that God is punishing these individuals. Instead, remember that you too deserve punishment and death and that your only hope for eternal life is to trust the One who does know why tragedies strike.
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