The Testing of Faith

Earl Gillespie

The Testing of Faith

A question that is often framed and asked, is why does a God of mercy allow bad things to happen to good people.”  The logic and validation of this question are in the same venue as asking a stranger, “do you still beat your wife.”  To ask the question or to entertain a detail study and attempt to answer merely seeks to dignify a question that the religious community should have debunked long ago.  It shows a lack of knowledge of the scripture and of God. It is a testimony of our failure to rightly divide the word of truth.  Christianity is compassed about with a host of made up the gospels, each one catering to a specific need. 

 Through a series of indoctrination processes  we created a faith that is easy to sustain and celebrate when things are good, but when tragedy strikes many find themselves wrestling with the God concept and how could any good come from such painful situations.  This fallacy has proven to be more detrimental to the continued spread of Christianity than any other scheme devised by the Devil.   Look at Romans 8:28, “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.”   Eliminate the two verses preceding this verse and the verse after, we can shift the context, thereby shifting the meaning from a spiritual to a natural, we can apply it to a person winning the sweepstakes or getting run over by a car.  Neither was the intent of the scripture.

The sinful nature of humanity is easily reconciled if there is someone or something to blame our faults or short falls on.  We never want to blame ourselves for the accident that happens, we blame the other person, the weather, or even God.  The relationship between God, man an the earth was set forth in Genesis 1:26-28  And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.”  If we are having a problem understanding this verse then we should be studying the meaning of the words, dominion, replenish, and subdue.

Common sense dictates that a father giving his adult son a car is no more responsible for the accident that the son caused,  then  God is responsible for the death and pollution that prevails in our world.  The father could have prevented the accident by extraordinary means, but a loving father doesn’t act that way.  It began this way, God gave man dominion over the earth and man allowed the devil to take control.   Paul tried to shed light on the subject in Ephesians 2:2  “Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience:”  God made an attempt to establish a pure blood line and establish his Kingdom here on earth through the children of Israel.  For around 4,000 years God directed and prodded mankind under the The dispensation of the Law to establish his Kingdom.  The children of Israel failed to implement the plan of God, then for a predetermined amount of time, about 400 years God was silent.  

During the Dispensation of the Law, God the Father dealt with his children on a personal level.  When the Gospel of the Kingdom was preached the Son of God dealt with mankind on an evangelistical level.  Under the Gospel of Grace, the Holy Spirit deals with man on a spiritual level. 

For 2,000 years God has not interfered with the Governments of the world.  His Son came unto his own and they received him not  The visible The church has pushed Him out. The world is a colossal wreck.  The Devil has convinced humanity that it is God's fault. The letters that Jesus sent to the churchesd is over looked and God has put up with man’s insults long enough. Man has had his chance; governments of the earth have had their chance; the visible church has had its chance.  When the book is open the debt that Adam incurred must be paid.  When God grows weary there can be no further delay. The day of Judgement will be at hand.

The question that should be at the forefront of our thought process is why is there so much confusion as to what God is doing?  Why is there so much confusion centered around the word of God.  Why is it that the so called messengers of God cannot agree upon the message of God?  To put it in a different prospective, why has God began to change his message.  Is it because we are trying to prove that God exist?  There are things that God ordained from the beginning of time such as the rising and setting of the sun.  If we were concerned about the Kingdom then we would not place such emphasis on the rising and setting of the sun.  Jesus said Matthew 5:45  “That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.”  Now what he is saying is the same shows his love for the just as well as the unjust.  If we are Kingdom people our prayer would  be, “Lord let your Kingdom come,” and we would not be concerned about whether the sun rose this morning because in the Kingdom we don’t need the sun.  If the sun did rise according to Jesus our response should be, "Give us this day our daily bread."

 If we followed the rule set forth in  2 Timothy 2:15  “Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.”  There would not be so much confusing when it come to understanding the Word of God.  To study is an action that  most of us become familiar with in, or  before entering grade school.   In school we studied to show our self capable of performing certain tasks, whether it was adding or dissecting a frog. Studying in school was to gain the approval of the teacher who would certify us through testing that we were acceptable to perform.   The passing or failure  of a subject determined our ability to teach. 

The admonishment of Paul placed emphasis on rightly dividing or separating the Word of truth.  This admonishment was to insure that Timothy did not preach the Gospel of the Law, nor the Gospel of the Kingdom, but the Gospel of Grace.  On several occasions Paul referred to this as his Gospel.  Romans 16:25  Now to him that is of power to establish you according to my gospel, and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery, which was kept secret since the world began.  Paul stated in  1 Corinthians 2:2,  “For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified.”   He knew in 1 Corinthians 1:23,   “But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling-block, and unto the Greeks foolishness;”  It is clear that Paul understood that the teaching of the Gospel of Grace was contrary to the reaching of the Jews, who was determined to teach the Law, and to the Greek it was just plain foolishness.  To accommodate this great divide, men of learning began to fashion or pollute the Gospel to accommodate an acceptable thought Pattern. 

Now we know from reading the scripture Paul was preaching the message of the cross.  At no time did Paul preach, “Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.”  Paul spoke of in Ephesians 3:2,  “If ye have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God which is given me to you-ward:”  The question that is important to all Bible students is when did the Dispensation of The Law end and when did the Dispensation of Grace began?  Failure to understand or answer the question will impair our ability to teach.

To accommodate the blurring of the lines between ages and dispensations, denominations and cults are created using the same Bible, they teach different opinions.  This should easily be seen as a trick of the Devil to pollute the word of God, but often it is looked upon as advancing the word of God.  There are new gospels being created and preached today because they bring peace to the inner longing of many,  and these gospels are attracting many followers.  

Often, the need for these different gospels are manifested in the need for one to glory in their successes.  The earthly acheivers can be looked upon as highly faviored by God.  The successful person can now testify of how God is blessing them, causing the poor, the sick and the lame to regress into self pity wondering why God has forsaken them.   Then the Gospel of Prosperity and shaped truth is preached, if you want to be blessed like your sister or brother, you got to sow a seed of faith.   Often the Gospel of faith is preached, Matthew 17:20, “And Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.”  Matthew 7:7  “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you:”  Now if you have followed my teaching of the Bible you will know the direction I am headed, but for the time being I am going to let you deal with those questions that are forming in your mind.  These are the questions that you are afraid to ask as you suffer through your misfortunes in fear of being looked upon as a heathen.  These are the question you should ask God to provide you with the answers.  If I follow the teaching of the Hollywood scripted preacher and teachers, I end up with a fairy tale concept of Christianity. Christians are rich and sinners are poor."

My faith and others were severely tested when my father was hospitalized.  Being self-employed I took off from work and sat with my father almost daily.  At first I would take my mother to visit daily, but as the hospitalization became lengthy I would just go by myself and report to her on his condition.  My father was an active deacon in his local church and it would be hard for me to find a person more faithful to his faith.  During the first few weeks of his hospitalization preachers and prayer warriors would  line up to come in his room to pray for him.  These people could really pray, many times I would look for the Heavens to open up and God would shower his blessings down on this poor man and suffering family.  As his condition continued to deteriorate the prayer warriors and preachers visit became far and few.   In preparation for our father’s funeral a prayer warrior told me she could have healed my father.  

At the onset of my cancer treatment I found a CD of a famous Bishop that was suffering from my type of cancer.  I would begin my day listening to this preacher pray for deliverance.  He would rebuke cancer, bind it up and cast it out.  This was a praying preacher.  One day after listening to his prayer I received word that he had passed on.   My world of faith came crashing down around me.  The leader of a great church, a great denomination, a man who extolled the power of prayer just died of cancer.   In a Bible Study I asked my pastor to explain this, his answer was, “God know what he is doing.”  One of the faithful intoned , “all we can do is pray, and he might not come when we want him but he is always on time.”   Based upon the acclamation from the church I knew that further discussion of this subject was taboo.  That night I resolved not to pray for healing, but pray for wisdom and understanding.  I would not tempt my God by asking for trivial things.    Thus began my search for the real God.

To be continued