Gooding, David: 1 - Why Does God Allow Suffering?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, sir, for that warm welcome and for your generous words of introduction. It is for me a genuine pleasure to be with you, and I thank you for the invitation to come and join you tonight and in the evenings of the coming week, God willing. You have asked me to speak on a topic that I've never been asked to speak on before. So it's a matter full of interest for me, for I've been preaching, I think, ever since I was about sixteen years of old, and you can see how old I am now, you'll see. But for the first time ever, your request came to me with a number of possible topics and included in them the topic of the Blessed and Holy Trinity. So that in this coming week, I propose to speak about some of these topics you have suggested and to take our rise from this all important topic, the holy, blessed and holy and undivided Trinity. It is the most awesome topic that you could possibly talk about. As you imagine for a moment this vast universe and the whole question of its meaning and where this universe is going to, if it's going anywhere. I had to attend a meeting of the Irish Academy just the other week with a lecturer who is the director of one of the great astronomical institutions in the States, and her topic was this runaway universe, and she adduced the evidence and gave her view of it that other astronomers, some of them hold at least, that this universe, as far as we can measure it, is now speeding up, and in her words, it is a runaway universe. We can't live in this world, can we, without wondering where it all comes from and where it is going to. And start thinking like that, and it won't be long before, before we're thinking of ourselves. And what about us? What is our significance in this vast universe? How can we know? The marvelous thing that our blessed Lord Jesus has brought to us is this. He's come to tell us not merely that God made the world. He's come to let us know what God himself is like. Not merely what he has said, not merely what he has done, but what God is like in himself. A marvelous condescension of God, isn't it, to allow us little mortals to peer into his own inner being and to know what God is like. It is the biggest subject that any human being could ever possibly give himself to contemplate. For he, of course, is our creator. And it is important that we get to know him, isn't it? For one day, we must stand before him. And the question arises, this God that one day we must meet and stand before, what is he like? And what will we say about us? What will he do with us? So this week we are to give ourselves to thinking about the Holy Trinity, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, and their relations one with another. Tomorrow, therefore, we shall begin to think about our Lord Jesus, because it is only through him that God has shown us what God is like in himself. We shall think of his deity and what Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was before he became incarnate, before he came to our world. And then on Tuesday, God willing, we shall think of his deity, the deity of Christ in his incarnation here in this world. How, according to the Bible, the Word of God that eternally was with God and was God, wonder of wonders, the Word became flesh and tabernacled among us. And not that the Word ceased to be God and became a man, but marvel of marvel, the eternal God took on manhood and became what God never was before. God become man. And the wonder of it. We shall think of him in his work here, his life here on earth, in his death for our sakes. What he is in resurrection, what he will be for all eternity. And on Wednesday night, God willing, we shall talk about our Lord's humanity, that being God, he was truly human. And that will be a vastly moving topic, to think that God has become like one of us, in all things like his brethren, yet without sin. That he might not merely tell us about God, but tell God about us, and be our representative before God. So that the Bible says that he was sinless and we are sinful, but he bore our sins as the perfect man, perfect God, our redeemer, mediator between God and man, and representing us bore our sins in his body on the tree. And on Thursday, God willing, we shall turn to think of the other member of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit. I don't know about you, but sometimes we are inclined to think about the Holy Spirit as though he were some force, maybe, some power. And we forget that the Holy Spirit is a person. He is God as much as the Father is God, as the Son is God. And the marvelous thing is this, for the Bible is never ceased telling us marvels, you know, astounding, extraordinary things does the gospel tell us, that not only in Christ did God become human, and the Savior died for us. But God the Holy Spirit, so we are told, being a person, comes to dwell in the hearts, in the lives of those who have trusted the Savior. So we're not left to find our way to heaven the best we can. We who trust the Savior have within us that blessed guide and comforter whom the Lord Jesus said he would send to us to be our intercessor with God and to guide us and strengthen us as we pass our pilgrimage life home to glory. And on Friday night, God willing, we shall try to put all those things together and come to think about the Holy Trinity and the relations of the divine persons to each other and to us. Now, I don't pretend, but what this will be a detailed study. So do come by all means. And where I get it wrong or don't explain as I should, well, do collar me afterwards and tell me frankly that didn't make sense what you said just then, and is that really right? And all that kind of question, you'll see. And you'll find my skin is fairly thick, my manners, I hope, are moderately polite. You see, but um, we shall need to be studying a Bible. How else could we know what God is like in himself? And we shall have to turn to a number of passages, so do bring your Bibles, if you will, because we shall be, I shall not be preaching so much as talking, but turning to various scriptures on this exalted theme. Above all, this is such an awesome thing that we must be become prepared to take the shoes off our feet, so to speak, for the ground we shall be standing on is holy ground, and the true attitude that we should bring with us is an attitude of worship to Almighty God for his grace in making himself known to us. Next Sunday, God willing, if God leaves us here to then, I shall be talking about God again, but this time God and the problem of pain. There are many folks that I meet around this world, atheists, some of them agnostics, and they have a difficulty. They say to me, you talk about God, but how can you believe in God when you consider all the pain that there is in this world? People dying in their midlife with cancer, little children with cancer. All the difficult things, the floods, the tempests, the volcanoes, the epidemics, and you say this is God's world, and there is a God, and he's a loving God? How do you square it, they say to me? You possibly believe in the existence of a God who created everything and is supposed to be a God of love. Many of the people I talk to here and in Russia, erstwhile atheists, of course, they're not trying to be funny or difficult. This is a real problem. We shall think what God's word has to say about this problem that all of us from time to time have met or will meet. The problem of pain. So these things will be a trifle complicated. Come prepared, as you normally do, to think and to think hard with me. But tonight we're to talk not about something complicated, but about the gospel by which we are saved. And it is a marvel of the grace and wisdom of God that when it comes to the gospel by which we may be saved, then the gospel is so simple that a child could follow it. It can be condensed, as we know it is, as stated by Paul in his epistle to the Corinthians, and he writes like this, chapter fifteen it is. For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that the Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures, and that he was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve, and after that he was seen of about five brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain unto this present, but some are fallen asleep. This is the gospel, therefore, in all its directness and simplicity. How the Christ died for our sins. Not so much that he lived as an example for us to try and follow, though he did provide us with an example to follow. But when it comes to salvation, it's not Christ's life that saves us, it is his death at Calvary that saves us. The gospel is that Christ died for our sins and that he was buried. That's gospel too. Buried, as literally as many of us will be one day. And we want to know what the gospel says about this. And the good news that is that he who died for our sins, that we might be forgiven, and was buried, he rose again the third day, according to the scriptures, the first fruits of the mighty harvest that all who trust him will be raised, and those that are alive when he is, when he comes, will be caught up together with him to spend an eternity in God's heaven. Simple then. But when it comes to how we come into the good of this gospel, if the fact is that Jesus died, was buried, and is risen, very good, but how does a person come into the good of it? What have you got to do? And here the Bible is even more simple and direct. I read you, uh, one or two verses here from what Paul wrote in Romans chapter eleven. The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth and in thy heart. Oh, how near is the word that you must speak if ever you would be saved. Not something far off. You don't have to climb up to heaven to make sure, you don't have to go down to hell to make sure. There's a someone who has died and come back again. He assures us there is a heaven, and there is, of course, a hell. And this is Jesus Christ, our Lord. The gospel is this. The word is nigh thee even in thy mouth and in thy heart. The word of faith which we preach, that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. Magnificent simplicity, isn't it? If thou shalt confess with thy mouth Jesus as Lord and believe in thy heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. And I bear my public testimony to it. As a boy of ten, with my boyish mind, with what little I understood at that early age, yet God illuminated that verse in my mind, and I trusted the Savior, believed him, and have lived a further sixty eight years through many experiences in life, and proved that the Savior who gives us his word, that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, that Savior is real, and faith is put in him, will never let you down. But perhaps you say to me, yes, but yes, you say we have to, uh, believe in our hearts that God has raised him from the dead, and then we shall be saved. But what does it mean? And how does that affect me at all, that the fact that he was raised from the dead? Difference does it make? How does it affect me? Well, of course, I can't exactly tell you how it affects you, but what I am proposing to do here for a few moments now is to call some witnesses. And the witnesses I'm going to call for what the resurrection means are some of the people that actually saw Christ when he was risen from the dead. And I'm going to ask them in your presence what it meant to them, this resurrection of the Lord Jesus. What did it do to them? How did it change them, coming in contact with the risen Lord? Now, I wish I could call them down back from heaven. They won't come even if I called them, you know. No, not to Ballyduff, they wouldn't, nor anywhere else. They're in heaven with the Lord. So I shall have to rely, as I interview them in your presence, I shall have to rely on the written record about them. But I want to put some questions to them. And the first one I'm going to call is the one that we call Paul the Apostle. He began life as Saul of Tarsus, and a very clever and learned man was Saul of Tarsus, and very religious. So we're going to call him. And we say, hello, good evening, sir. You are Paul the Apostle? Yes. Ah, and you believe and preach that Jesus rose from the dead? Yes, that's so, yes. Well, what does it mean to you, sir? We understand that, um, perhaps it was because of the resurrection you, you changed your religion, didn't you? Because you were a Jew, and then you became a Christian. And I think if we said that to Paul, he would smile graciously and said, well, that's a bad, not a too bad a shot at it, but actually it isn't really true, you see. I didn't change my religion. I, before I trusted Christ, I was a Jew, of course, and I'm still a Jew. And well, before I trusted Christ, I believed there's only one God creator. I still believe that, says Paul. Now I trusted Christ, and I tell you assuredly and definitely and dogmatically, there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. So it wasn't so much a question of changing my religion. Well, I say, what, what Paul will tell us what, what did happen then? But obviously it made a colossal change. What was that change? And he would say, yes, yes, indeed it did. It made a revolution in my attitude towards God. And he would say, let me explain. He said, you see, I was brought up a Jew, a Pharisee. I believed in God with all my heart, mind, soul, and strength, as I thought. And I thought the way that you please God and gained acceptance with God was to do the best you possibly could to keep God's holy law. And to be honest with you, he says, I thought really I had succeeded, and I was better at it than a lot of people, and my neighbors in particular, that I had really done very good and got a good score in keeping God's holy law. And that was the thing that troubled me when I heard these Christians. Not make head and a tail of them. They seem to me to be utterly wrong. Here they were going around saying that you can't be saved by doing the best you can. You have to be saved by faith and not by works. And it seemed to me that they were denying God's holy law and telling people they can live as they like and still be saved if only they say they believe. Worse than that, he said, they started to say that this Jesus of theirs was God. That to me was hideous blasphemy. How could he be God? And then worse still, this Jesus of theirs was hung upon a cross. Our Old Testament tells us straight, whoever hangs upon a tree is cursed of God. And here were these Christians turning around to me, they surely didn't know their Old Testament, and telling me that someone who died under the curse of God's holy law was the savior of the world. It seemed absolutely hideous to me, and I was doing my best to blot out the name of this Jesus and all who followed him. And I was on my way to Damascus to arrest and to torture some of them. Well, he'll say, you know my story, but it's I ha- uh, Luke wrote it in the Acts of the Apostles. Traveling up the Damascus road when all of a sudden there shone a light out of heaven above the very brightness of the sun. And a voice out of the heaven said, Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? And he says, I knew it instinctively. This wasn't ordinary sunlight. No one needed to tell me, but this was the very Shekinah glory of God Almighty. Come down to meet me. And I said instinctively, Lord. That is the word that they would use in Judaism for Jehovah. Lord, who are you? And the voice said, I am Jesus, whom you persecute. It had me prostrate on the ground, says Paul, but it absolutely turned my life upside down and inside out. Well, now I was faced with this. This is Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, demonstrated to be the Son of God by the resurrection of the dead. How then can I account from the fact that he died on a cross under the curse of God's law? There's me having tried to do the best I can to keep God's law to earn salvation. And this Jesus... dying under the curse of that law. Why? And if he be God's son, why was he there? I came to see, says Paul, he was there. Because for all my effort to keep God's law for salvation, I had broken that law and deserved its curse. Jesus was bearing the curse for me. That put pay to all my boasting about my efforts to do the best I can. I do the best I can still, yes, but not to be saved. For if when I'd done the best, God's Son needed to die on a cross to save me, then it's time I started, I stopped talking about my goodness and looking to Christ for salvation. And this was what I'd come to, says Paul. That's what it means now. I, through the law, died to the law. That is, I came to see that I came short, and it mattered. You see. The law said, cursed is everyone that doesn't continue in everything the law says and does it. Are good enough to do 90% and hope in God's mercy for the rest. God's law demanded a hundred percent or it curses us. Years and years and years ago, more than I need, I, I like to remember, I was a student just after the war, and we had to get our own tea and things, and some kind persons had given me a few cups and plates and a jug. I rather liked the jug. It was a nice sort of china-y jug, and it had a certain style about it, you see. And since things were very difficult to come by just after the war over in England, I was very proud of this jug. And one day I went to get it down from the cupboard, you see, and it hit against the side of a plate or something, and there was a dull note that came out. I thought to myself, wait a minute, it's not cracked, I hope. I took it down and lifted it to the light, and there right down the side of it, was a crack. Pity, I said to myself, nice jug like that. And I put it back on the shelf. And then I said, Gooding, don't be such a fool. Do be a realist. It ain't any good. It's got one crack. You'd never use it as a jug again, would you? I took it down and pulled it apart and put it in the bin. And if we keep the whole of God's law and we offend in one point, that's the law broken and brings us under the curse of a broken law. Oh, the marvel of God's salvation, that God, the very lawgiver who gave the law, saw us in our impossible struggles to try to keep it perfectly. Sent his son to take our place and die on the Calvary, on Calvary, bearing the curse of that broken law. And this is my principle of living now, says Paul, if you want to know. The life I now live, I live by faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. That's what the resurrection of Christ did for me, says Ball, when I discovered it. Have we discovered it? God's declaration of the significance of the cross of Christ, in that he's raised him from the dead and shown him to be the Son of God, hanging there on that cross, whatever for. Well, if righteousness could have been achieved by our keeping the law, then he had no need to die. But we couldn't save ourselves, and God's son suffered to save us. You know, if you shall confess Jesus as Lord, like Saul did, and believe in thine heart that God has raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. Oh, but here comes another witness. I must call him, his name is Peter. Yes, and if I may, I address him and I say, now you are Peter? Yes, indeed. The Apostle Peter? Yes, the Apostle Peter. Ah, so let's ask you, what, what, what did the resurrection of Christ mean for you? What did it do for you? You, I believe, were a believer in Christ even before Christ died. Yes, he says, that's true. What did the resurrection do for you? I think Peter would say, well, I expect you've heard the story, haven't you? I was a believer in Christ before he died, and I thought I was so strong, for I really loved the Lord. And I left home, and I, I gave up my job, and I followed him, and I preached for him, and I served him, and I loved him. And as I thought, I would have given my life for him. But I messed it all up. When Jesus Christ was arre- uh, uh, arrested and was in court, I went to see it, and the people standing around began to question me. I lost my nerve, and I denied the Lord, messed it all up. Yes. We say it must have been embarrassing for you to have to meet the Lord then after he rose from the dead. What was he like when you met him? Did he face you with it? How well, says Peter, you know, even before he died, he warned me, but I wouldn't listen. He said, Peter, you're going to deny me three times. And I said, Lord, you've got it wrong there, Lord. You see, some of these others might, but I, I wouldn't, you see. I'm ready to go to prison and to death for you. I've never deny you. He said, Peter, I'm telling you now that before the cock crows thri- twice, thou shalt deny me thrice. I wouldn't believe him. But it happened. And you see, that night when I denied him for the third time, the cockle crew. Jesus turned from his accusers and looked at me in the face. He said nothing, but I knew what he was thinking. And now I believed him. Had no choice whether I believed him or not. It had come true. What a fool I was not to have believed him before. But then I remembered something else he said. On that occasion, he said, Peter, Satan has desired to have you, all fo- twelve of you, to sift you as wheat. I pray for you, Peter, that your faith should not fail. And when you're restored, Peter, strengthen your brethren. And in that moment, says Peter, in all the confusion of my emotions, I'd made a mess of my Christian testimony. And I remembered his word. It had come true. I had denied him. The cockle crew. But he said, Peter, when you are restored, not if ever you are, but when? For I prayed for you, you see, that your faith shouldn't fail. I made a mess of everything else. My testimony was spoiled. My courage went. Thank God for a savior who interceded and prayed for me, that my faith was not destroyed, and he brought me through. And when I saw him in resurrection, he talked privately to me, and nobody ever knows what he said. But he said, Peter, do you really love me? And I said, Lord, well, Lord, you know really. He said, feed my sheep, Peter. All the marvel of a savior, says Peter. That's what it meant for me. A Savior who rose again from the dead and ever lives to make intercession for me, that my faith shall not fail. Who knows, but in a congregation of this size, there might be somebody, and some years ago you made a profession of faith, and you really meant it, and you wanted to please the Lord. But somehow life has been difficult. And you wandered and made a mess of your Christian profession. And your mind nowadays is in a turmoil. You feel there's no way back. And you've had it. Now listen to Peter's experience. He found a Savior who rose again from the dead and ever lives to make intercession for us. And the Bible puts it this way, because he makes intercession, he is able to save to the uttermost them that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for us. Shall we not grasp it tonight? A savior who not only died for us, but lives to intercede for us, and for those that have genuinely repented and put their faith in him, lives to maintain their faith. You will say, Mr. Preacher, you don't know much about the temptations of real life. You've lived in an ivory castle of a university all your days. You don't know what it is in the rough and ru- uh, rough and tumble of everyday life. No, may, may not. I know what spiritual battles are. And battles for the mind and battle for the heart. Yes. But I thank God that I know a savior, who when my faith gets wobbly, and when I have come across intellectual difficulties, I've been able to say, please, Lord, over to you. You know the evidence I need. Please give me the evidence to establish my faith. And so he does, as he did for Peter. I must call another witness of a very different kind. This time it's a dear lady. Her name was, uh, Magdalene, Mary Magdalene. And she came to the tomb on the morning of the resurrection. And like a lot of other of the Christian women that came to that tomb, they came with their spices. Do you see, our Lord had been crucified. He'd been now in the grave during the Sabbath day, and they could do nothing, but the first day of the week, when they were free as Jews to come, they brought their spices because they were going to embalm the body. They couldn't let him go, you know. Now, I'm no expert on female psychology, so, uh, ladies, if I say inappropriate things now, uh, that you'll have to forgive me, you'll see. But that is a charming feature about many ladies, that they like to cling. I've known them, but then I was brought up after Queen Victoria died, and that's a long while ago, you'll see. And I've been shown by some now ladies in their middle and late life, you'll see, and they'll, uh, undo an envelope or piece of paper, tissue paper, and in it is a golden lock of hair, do you see? And that's my Albert. When he was two. he had a lovely head of hair, and her Albert now is about fifty-two and as bald as they come. But you'll say, this is Mama. Yes, that wanting to cling. Natural, isn't it? And when it gets allied to religion, it's been responsible for making shrines by the thousands and the hundreds of thousands, if not the millions, all around this world. Shrines to dead, loved religious leaders. And people will go in their thousands still to their graves, or they think there's some power in their graves or in the relics they have. I was in Italy the other month and went to the great, uh, uh, treasury in one of the big, uh, cathedrals there of the, uh, Medici, the rulers. They had magnificent vessels, silver, poor, most elaborately made, and the glass in the middle are monstrance to show relics, and they had bits of toenails and bones of saints or something. How the heart does cling. And these women and Mary Magdalene, Christ had meant so much to her, he cast out seven demons from her, that she was going to perpetuate his memory, and had nothing happened, she would have built a shrine there with the other women, and they would have beautified it and put spices around the body to stop the body going to corruption if they could, and they would have come there frequently to pray because they felt it was holy. What happened? We know the fact is that the who- the women, not just Mary, all abandoned the place and never did turn it into a shrine. Uh, uh, and never made pilgrimages to it. And you will read the whole of the New Testament and the letters that were written to young converts, and never will you find any advice from the apostles. Now, what you converts need to do at least once in a lifetime is to go to Jerusalem and seek out the garden and visit the tomb of Christ and pray there. Never once. Why not? What changed these women? And Mary in particular? Ah, she'll tell you. When she got there, the body was gone, and it was very distressing. She thought someone had come to steal the body away. And then she turned and saw a, a gardener, what looked like a gardener, and she said, sir, if, if you've taken him away, tell me where you've laid him, and I will come and fetch him and take him away. And she would have buried him and, and embalmed him and made a shrine of it. But the stranger said, Mary. And in that moment, she recognized the voice. For it is said by the Lord himself that his sheep know his voice. And she realized it was the Lord and started to cling hold of him so as never to lose him again. And gently he said, Mary, stop holding me for the moment. I'm not yet ascended to my Father, but go and tell my brethren I ascend to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God. He not only spoke it, as she listened to him say those words, it formed in her heart a personal living relationship with the living Lord Jesus. They didn't make a shrine to him. You don't make a shrine to somebody that's alive, do you? They abandoned the grave. She had found the living Lord, and he spoke to her heart and satisfied her and made her aware, as only God can, of the reality of a personal relationship with the Savior, with God his Father, so that his God has become our God. Christ's Father has become our Father. Oh, what a wonderful thing that is. It's called eternal life, you know, is to know God in that personal sense. It's one thing to believe that Christ is risen from the dead. May I inquire of us all. Have you heard the voice of Christ? I don't mean voices out of the blue, but in your heart of hearts, have you heard him say, ah, my father is your father, my God is your God. I'm the living Lord, and you have me as a living savior. That's what it meant to Mary. There's one other man I must call briefly to your attention. His name is Thomas. So just let's have a word with Thomas. Won't take us long. Are you Sir Thomas? Yes. And Thomas, being rather a brusque man, is liable to say, hmm. And I expect you've heard the story, haven't you? Everybody around calls me doubting Thomas. Well, we had heard that. You're the man that doubted, aren't you? Yes, I'm the man that doubted. Ah, yes. But I was at least honest, says, says Thomas. Wasn't any lack of courage like Peter. When our Lord at length suggested going to Jerusalem and Judea, and we knew it would spell death for him, I was the one that said, let's go with him that we may die with him. I was prepared to die for the savior, and I didn't duck out. But you see, when they came and told me that Jesus was risen from the dead, that's no good, I just couldn't believe it. I said to the others, well, you, you, you believe it if it gives you comfort, you have that if it comforts you, and that's okay, I shall find forward. You believe it. I can't believe it. I mean, what evidence is there? I should need evidence if I'm going to believe. And you know, the Bible says, yes, of course you need evidence. Faith in Christ is not a leap in the dark, you know. The fourth gospel says this, these signs that Jesus did are here written in this gospel to be evidence for you that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. Evidence first, and then that believing this evidence, you take the next step and believe in his name to get eternal life. Faith in Christ is not a leap in the dark. God offers us evidence. The trouble is many people, they don't believe because they haven't spent any time reading the evidence or thinking about the evidence. They decide without thinking about it or reading it that Jesus couldn't be alive from the dead. But that's not scientific, that isn't, that's prejudice. And uh, being a little bit of an ignoramus. Anyway, I said I, I couldn't believe anyway. Well, I went along with them the next, uh, Sunday, you know, uh, to see. I said to them, look, I couldn't believe unless I see the print of the nails in his hands and the spear thrust in his side, I couldn't believe. That Sunday, just like happened the other Sunday, the first Sunday when I wasn't there, suddenly the Lord appeared without anybody saying anything to him. He said, Thomas, reach here thy finger and put it in my hand, would you? And reach thy hand and put it into my side. And I said to myself, how did he know? How did he know what I said? As the other apostles have gone and told tales about me, I suppose. But wait a minute. If he wasn't risen from the dead, how could they tell him any tales? I dare say they prayed about it, but then you see, because the Lord is alive, he hears our prayers. But if he weren't alive, they couldn't have told him anything, could they? But he knew anyway. What a marvelously gracious thing it was. He didn't say, you foolish man, and you oughtn't to have doubts. He said, Thomas, you wanted evidence, didn't you? Here's evidence. And be not faithless, but believing. In that moment, Christ, uh, Thomas di- discovered a risen Lord who was not only alive, he knew the very thoughts that Thomas had been thinking. And if tonight I think I speak to somebody not yet a Christian, and you say the evidence isn't enough, and you want evidence? Well, be bold enough to say it, would you? And if you must say it, say it into thin air. I would believe if... But be careful what you say. You better be honest and mean it. If I had the evidence, I would believe. Because the Lord hears you right this very moment and knows your thoughts. And if it's honest you are, and wanting genuine evidence, he will supply it. He may not, uh, do it the way you think he'll do it, but he will do it. For they that seek me shall find me, said the Savior. Because you have seen, you believed, Thomas. Blessed are those that haven't seen, yet have believed. If we had to see some great miracle, then blind people would never get saved, would they? There's a something more reliable than sight, and that is the conscience and the heart and the communication of God's spirit to our hearts direct. And when he gives us the evidence, we shall know it. Dare you seek it? Sincerely? For our Lord says, if you seek me, you shall find me. So let us pray.