Sermon Tone Analysis

BY PASTOR GLENN PEASE

The Cruel Sea is the title of a World War II story about a German U-Boat loose in an American convoy.

It had already sunk several ships, but a destroyer escort had finally picked it up on the sonar.

As the destroyer prepared to launch its depth bombs, the captain saw that the U-Boat was taking a course where dozens of American men were in the water as survivors of one of the sunken ships.

It was a clever maneuver and the captain of the destroyer had to make an agonizing decision.

Should he plow ahead and kill his own men and get that U-Boat, or should he veer off, saving the men in the water, but loose the U-Boat which would be free to sink other ships.

He decides to go ahead, killing the men in the water, but destroying the U-Boat.

He choose what he thought was the lesser of two evils.

It was not good those men had to be sacrificed, but he felt it was better that they die than have the U-Boat free to kill others.

This story represents the actual decisions that men must often make that determines the life and death of other people.

There is a popular theory that says God in His sovereign will determines the precise time of every man's death.

If this is true, it takes a great burden off men, for it relieves them of the responsibility of their decisions.

This theory is also a great comfort to those who loose loved ones in tragic ways, for it gives some meaning to what otherwise seems so meaningless.

If God willed their death, then even as tragic as it is, the will of God is being fulfilled.

The important question, however, is not, is it a comforting concept.

The doctrine of reincarnation is a comfort to millions.

Is that the basis on which we are to determine truth?

Is anything true because it is a great comfort?

Almost all illusions are comforting, and people follow false prophets because they offer what is comfortable.

No, the question is not, is the concept comforting, but for the Christian, the question must always be, is it true.

Or put another way, is it Biblical.

To answer this question, I want to look at Dr. Luke's account of the death of Stephen-the first Christian martyr.

It is of interest to note that this first Christian to die in the New Testament died as did the first man to ever die, namely Able.

Able and Stephen were both Godly men, and both died by violence at the hands of angry men who were jealous of them.

Murder and mob violence were the means by which their lives were ended.

One's immediate impression is that murder and mob violence do not sound much like the will of God.

In fact, they sound very definitely like things out of His will.

As we look at the details of Stephen's death, it is confirmed that the entire proceeding was contrary to the revealed will of God.

In chapter 6 verse 11, we are told that the Jewish leaders secretly instigated men to lie and bare false witness against Stephen by charging him with blasphemy.

In verse 13 it says again that they found other false witnesses to lie before the council.

It is clear that men are making decisions to eliminate a life they do not want in total disregard for the laws of God.

In his defense speech, Stephen is brutally frank in his denunciation of their injustice.

He charges them with the same crimes as their fathers who murdered the prophets, and they now have murdered the Prophet of all prophets-the Messiah.

You would have a hard time convincing Stephen that the Lord called his prophets home.

The Jewish leaders would like that theory, for it would take them off the hook.

But Stephen tells it like it is, and says, not that the Lord called them home, but that hardened and blind leaders thrust them out of this world by violent murder, contrary to the will of God.

In other words, the prophets did not die because God had appointed a certain time for them to die, or because they have fulfilled their purpose in life.

They died because evil men made decisions to take their lives, just as Cain decided to kill Able.

It may not be a pleasant thought that evil can be so powerful, but Jesus did not say that pleasantness shall set us free, but that the truth shall set us free.

It is always better to know the truth about death than to cover it over with pleasant illusions.

I am convinced that the idea that you can only die when it is your appointed time is just such an illusion.

Jesus taught the very same thing that Stephen said in his defense.

He taught that Godly men die because of the wicked decisions of others to resist the will of God.

Jesus told the parable of the man who rented out his vineyard and went to a far country when the harvest came he sent his servants to collect the rent.

The wicked tenants beat them, stoned them, and killed them.

Other servants were sent, and they were treated just the same.

He finally sent his son, for he thought they would respect him, but they even killed the son.

So evil and unjust were these men that the owner had no choice but to come and put these wretches to a miserable death, and rent his vineyard to those who would be honest.

When the chief priests and Pharisees heard this parable they knew Jesus was speaking about them, and they hated Him, just as Stephen was hated for saying the same thing to the Jews in his day.

The point is, we are kidding ourselves if we think God in any way approved of the death of His servants.

He held men accountable for their decisions to kill them, and the idea that the Lord called them home because He had appointed the day of their death is repulsive, for if true, it would make God the author of the very evil He condemns.

If God wanted His prophets killed, and willed that they die when they did, then the Jewish leaders were not disobedient at all, but fulfilled the will of God.

The theory that God's people only die in His will is great cover-up for the wickedness of men.

I can just imagine the leaders of Israel telling the gullible people that the Lord must have needed the prophets for greater work elsewhere when they were found dead.

It may have been a great comfort to the people, but it was a cover-up of murder.

I can just hear Cain using this theory as he came home and Adam would ask, "Where is your brother?" Cain could say, "I last saw him lying in the field very still.

I think the Lord has called him home.

Apparently his number was up, and he had fulfilled his purpose in life."

Now, if you agree that would be a cover-up of his own wicked deed, why is it any more justified to speak that way today concerning the tragic deaths of God's people?

If a missionary is murdered on the field, by what authority do we dare declare that the Lord called them home, or assume that their work was complete?

In my mind, a modern murder is no different than the ancient murder of the prophets-It is an act of evil contrary to the will of God, and not an act that fulfills His will.

If evil is real, and death is an enemy, then we have to face the facts, and stop the cover-up.

Christians can die in many ways that are not God's will.

They not only can be murdered like Stephen, but they can be killed by less personal means such as cars, airplanes, or cancer.

Is cancer more friendly than Cain?

The only difference I can see between cancer and Cain is that one kills by an act of the will, and the other by impersonal laws of nature.

Both are killers, however, and when they strike there is no more reason to think that cancer does the will of God then Cain.

You might just as well say the Lord called Able home as to say this of a cancer victim.

Nature has fallen just as man has, and there is much in nature, just as in human nature, that is defective, and which does not function as a part of God's perfect harmony.

All of the true comfort is unchanged by facing the reality of evil in both nature and human nature.

The Lord did not call Stephen home, but that is where the Lord took him.

He did not die because God appointed that day, but that day he was with Christ in paradise.

The truth does not alter our hope and victory at all-It just gives us a more realistic view of evil and death.

The believer goes home to be with Christ regardless of how he dies, but to say all death of the believer is the Lord's calling is to make a confused mess out of what otherwise is easy to grasp by common sense.

Common sense tells us death is an enemy, and that is why we rejoice when we or a loved one is spared.

That is why we spend a fortune to fight all the diseases that kill.

That is why we spend a fortune to provide safety equipment to prevent accidents that kill.

All of life is based on the basic idea that death is a foe to be fought, and escaped as often and as long as possible.

The Bible supports this common sense view of death.

It nowhere encourages Christians to court death as if it was a friend.

If the theory is correct that God appoints the day of death, and all His children die in His will, then death must be seen as a friend, and always the best thing for us, for it always does the will of God just when He wants it to.

Death, according to this theory, is the perfect servant of God.

And if this is the case, one can only wonder why God treats it so unjustly, for when history is over God casts death and hell into the lake of fire, and makes sure it has no place in His eternal kingdom.

A very strange judgment indeed, for such a loyal servant.

One can only conclude that death is not a loyal servant, but a rebel power that deserves destruction and damnation because it has done so much evil in the course of history.

This is the logical and the Biblical view.

Some may look at this account of Stephen and say, God certainly wanted him to deliver this scathing speech that lead to his death, and, therefore, he died in the will of God.

It is true that God willed for him to tell the truth even if it cost him his life, but it was not God's will that the Jews respond as they did.

He wanted them to repent, but they chose an evil response, and if you say God willed their evil response that led to murder, you have destroyed the distinction between light and darkness.

John says that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all.

If God willed both Stephen's speech and the hated response, then God is on both sides of the battle, and Jesus said a house divided cannot stand.

The whole theory that God wills all death is a contradiction to the Biblical revelation of the battle of light and darkness.

Stephen, as he was dying, kept this distinction clear.

He saw his death, not as the will of God, but as the result of the sinful wills of men.

In verse 60, he prays that God will not hold this sin against them.

Stephen identifies the cause of his death as sin.

If God willed it, then God willed sin, and you have eliminated all meaning to the Biblical revelation.

The theory that God wills all death is not only not true, it is a dangerous error, for it actually links God to evil, and makes Him the responsible agent behind the greatest tragedies of history.

If the murder of Stephen was a sin, and it was, there is no way you can justify saying the Lord called him home.

He saw Jesus and did go home, but not because his time was up, and not because God willed it, but because evil men chose to disobey the will of God.