Good morning to you all. Thank you for your welcome. It's good to be back amongst you again physically. We've enjoyed the Zoom gatherings with you over the months that we've been in lockdowns, but it's good to be back and with you in person. It's good to be here yesterday for Barbara's Thanksgiving service, and very kindly many of you said that you missed us. Well, we miss you, we do really. We miss seeing you each Lord's Day and on Thursday evenings. The circumstances are such that it means we've had to make the decision to meet elsewhere because of the long journey that we make each Sunday to be with you. But it's good to be with you this morning and thank you for your welcome. Psalm 100, the psalmist says this, make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands. Serve the Lord with gladness. Come before his presence with singing. Know ye that the Lord, he is God. It is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves. We are his people, and the sheep of his pasture. Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise. Be thankful unto him, and bless his name. For the Lord is good, his mercy is everlasting, and his truth endureth to all generations. Let's pray together. Father God, as we come into your presence, we rejoice in the truth of this lovely psalm together. What a wonderful, gracious God you are. And we do pray, our Father, that this morning you will look kindly upon us gathered here and give us a real blessing as we praise and worship you and give thanks for your lovely son, that lovely man of Calvary who gave his life for each and every one of us. And we do thank you, our Father, that this morning as we're together, we come in his name and we present our petitions to you in his name. We present our praise and our worship in his name through the power of the Holy Spirit. Father, bless us all this morning together we pray. Be with those who are unable to be with us for one reason or another, those joining us by the live stream. We do pray, Father, that they might too receive like blessing that we desire for ourselves here. So we give thanks to you for this coming together this morning and pray that it might be down to the honour of the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, in whose name we ask these things. Amen. Our first hymn please, number seven. Number seven. Give to our God immortal praise, mercy and truth are all his ways, wonders of grace to God belong. Repeat his mercies in your song. Number seven. ♪ Hail to our God, he holds no place ♪ ♪ As we and truth are one in Christ ♪ from little place to lovely land. The King of Kings will all be proud, His mercies ever under the bridge to God below. Bring me His blessings, ♪ When tongues of blue shall join the one ♪ ♪ Each tempest on earth shall pass away ♪ the great founders of praise to God beyond. Repeat his mercy. I'd like to read with you now, please, in Luke's Gospel and chapter 13. Luke's Gospel and chapter 13. Luke's Gospel chapter 13, commencing to read please at verse 1. There were present at that season some that told him, that's the Lord Jesus, of the Galileans, whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And Jesus answering said unto them, suppose ye that these Galileans were sinners above all the Galileans, because they suffered such things? I tell you, nay, but except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish. or those 18 upon whom the tower in Siloam fell, and slew them? Think ye that they were sinners above all men that dwell in Jerusalem? I tell you, nay, but except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish. He spake also this parable. A certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came and sought fruit thereon and found none. Then said he unto the dresser of his vineyard, Behold, these three years I come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and find none. Cut it down, why cumbereth it the ground? And he answering said unto him, Lord, let it alone this year also, till I shall dig about it and dung it, and if it bear fruit, well, and if not, then after that thou shalt cut it down. So reads God's precious word and he will bless the public reading of it to us. Our second hymn please, number 60. God of the covenant, triune Jehovah, marvels of mercy adoring we see, seeker of souls in the councils eternal, binding thy lost ones forever to thee. Number 60. ♪ Above the covenant high and the open ♪ ♪ Humble the mercy and loathing we see ♪ ♪ Trickle our sorrows in the counsels eternal ♪ But now thy words, bringing ne'er the dead's care, ♪ Peace on earth, surety of kinsmen ♪ ♪ Redeemer and Master of His righteousness make ♪ ♪ Blessing on blessing forevermore ♪ God of the covenant, King, blessed art Blessing the green. Thine be the glory, Our weakness confessing. Let's pray together, shall we? Father God, we've reminded ourselves again in the singing of these hymns of the greatness of the one to whom we approach this morning. And whilst it is with trembling and spiritual fear in our hearts that we come before you, it is with confidence that we come before you, for you have bidden us to come been in us to come through the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the power of the Holy Spirit, to bring to you our praise and our worship. And that, Father, primarily is the reason for us gathering together this morning, that this day, the first day of another week, almost the first thing that we would do at the start of another week, we would come before you and we will bring our praise and our worship to you. We look back over a week past since last we met in this way and we rejoice, Our Father, as we've seen your hand of goodness upon us. Certainly, surely, things have come into our lives that have disturbed the equanimity of it. But Our Father, we rejoice that you have brought us through perhaps difficult circumstances, brought us through suffering, and brought us through situations that have defied our own feeble attempts to deal with them. Father, you've brought us to this day. You've brought us to this moment in time. You've given through the power of the Holy Spirit the desire in our hearts to be together on this particular morning. And we praise and thank you for that, our Father. For we recognize how weak and puny we are, how unfaithful we are. We recognize, our Father, how so often we would drift away from Yourself and from the words of Scripture and from that lovely man who died for us there at Calvary's Cross. Father, we would at the very outset of our gathering bring to You our praise and our thanksgiving to You for the provision of the Lord Jesus Christ as Saviour of the world. Father we rejoice in the day when he came into our lives and the Holy Spirit revealed to us the Lord Jesus Christ to be the only way of salvation. revealed to us, our Father, that faith, that God-given faith, awoke it in our hearts, our Father, that caused us, by the power of the Holy Spirit, to respond to the message of the Gospel. Father, we thank you for that day, for the intervention of a holy, righteous God into our sinful lives, through the sinless life of the Lord Jesus Christ, laid down for us there on that cross at Calvary. We thank you for him, our Father, and our one desire today, throughout this meeting, throughout the time presently when we shall remember him in his own appointed way, we desire our Father that he might be made much of and spoken well of amongst us this morning. Help us, Our Father, to gain a fresh vision of Him that shall rejoice our hearts. Shall set us on a coming week, Our Father, confident in the knowledge that we do not set out alone, but we set out with the Lord Jesus Christ as our friend and as our Saviour and as our guide. Father, encourage us together this morning. Lift our eyes, we pray, above this tawdry world in which we live. Lift our eyes to the very courts of heaven and see there a glorified, risen Lord Jesus Christ, seated at the right hand of the Father, the work of salvation completed for all eternity. Father, give us a vision this morning of our Saviour, we pray, that it might encourage us and rejoice our hearts and cause us to flow over in praise and worship for this lovely man. We accept, Our Father, that we are before you this morning and perhaps each and every one of us have those situations and things in our lives that give us grief, give us concern, perhaps give us pain, Our Father, and suffering. We do pray, Our Father, that whilst we're together we might know the touch of a Father God in heaven upon each of our lives, that we might go from this place rejoicing in having been in the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ and the Father God, that we might recognize afresh our Father, that we go not forth into the world alone. We pray, Our Father, for each and every one here present this morning and those on the live stream that we all might know that wonderful touch of power on our lives this morning through the power of the Holy Spirit. We pray for the fellowship here, Father, and we thank you for it. We thank you that it's been maintained over these many years. Faithful men and women have gathered here, Our Father, over many years and have held fast to the truth of the Word of God. held fast to the truth of the gospel. May that continue, Our Father. In difficult times that we live in, might it be, Our Father, that this fellowship here in Gordon Road is seen as a bright and shining light set upon a hill that shall dispense the truth of the Word of God to those who come amongst us and those who gather on the live stream. So our Father, we thank you for the fellowship here and the folks who make up its number. We pray to bless them and to encourage them in their efforts as they seek to promote the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray for the town of Halesham, our father, where this testimony is situated. And thank you for the many places where this morning the word of God will be preached in its fullness and the truth of the gospel expounded. We pray to bless them too in their efforts that this town, our father, might know that there is a God in heaven, that there is a savior who longs to save their souls. We pray for our country, our father, It distresses us to see it in such turmoil, in such unrest, in so many difficulties, in so much crime. It distresses us, Our Father, to see the government seemingly unable, impotent to control the affairs that are going on in this country. We pray, Our Father, that you would raise up men and women into the government who shall rule this land righteously and justly, shall bring to bear, Our Father, The... a word of God upon this country once again, that there might be a turning again from idols to serve the true and the living God. So we pray for our government, pray for our royal family, our father, for our queen particularly. We thank you for her simple faith, perhaps we shouldn't call it simple father, how would we know? But we thank you for her faith, our father, and for her courage in speaking of it, at times. So, Our Father, we pray for her to continue as a figurehead in this land that honours God and His Word. We pray, Our Father, across the world, Our Father, we see so many natural disasters, so many wars and trouble spots. We think of the immigrants seeking to cross the Channel and the many hundreds of them displaced from their countries of origin. We do pray, Our Father, that there might be seen some peace and rest in this world in which we live. We recognize, Our Father, that a day will come when the Lord Jesus Christ will return and that he will rule in absolute righteousness, setting up a kingdom which is absolutely perfect, just and righteous. We long for that day, Our Father, but we long in this day in which we live that there might be a staying of the operations of the evil one, Satan himself, as he seeks to disrupt this world in which we live. We pray, Our Father, particularly for your people scattered across the world seeking to bring help and sustenance, seeking to bring the Gospel to those, Our Father, who are in desperate need. We pray for them to protect them and to provide for them, for their physical needs and spiritual needs to Our Father. And so we return to ourselves and just seek a blessing this morning. Our Father, touch our lives, we pray, as we look into your word, for we ask it in the name and for the sake of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. We'll sing another hymn together, please, number 17. Number 17, my God how wonderful thou art, thy majesty how bright, how beautiful thy mercy seat in depths of burning light. Number 17. ♪ That for our hearts ♪ ♪ Thy majesty abides ♪ ♪ How beautiful thy mercies be ♪ ♪ In depths of burning eyes ♪ ♪ How ever thou art eternally mine ♪ How wonderful, how beautiful the sight of Thee doth be! Oh, how I fear thee, Mary, God, with deep concern. ♪ And God should be with everyone ♪ ♪ At their need and shortness ♪ ♪ When I am called into the world, almighty and true ♪ ♪ The love of my own heart ♪ ♪ The world and me, the world and me, the world and me ♪ ♪ Thou art unfeeling, my sinful child ♪ ♪ Have mercy, O God, have mercy on me, O God, have mercy on me ♪ Just a brief word of prayer. Father God, as we come to thy word, conscious of our own shortcomings and inadequacy in proclaiming it, we just pray that we might hear your voice speaking to us this morning from the pages of scripture, that we might, our Father, rejoice in the God of heaven together. Speak, Lord, in the stillness whilst we wait on thee. Hushed be our hearts to listen in expectancy. We ask it in the name and for the sake of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. If we were to put a title across my message with you this morning, it would be very simple. It would be simply this. Where is God? Where is God? I was caused to reflect on this again recently when, as you will be aware, there was a tremendous interest again in the 20th anniversary of the Twin Towers there in America. It caused me to reflect on how things were at that particular time and what was going on and what was being said, particularly as it related to those of us who believe in God, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, believe the Word of God. It caused me to reflect on how things were in those days. Twenty years ago, I know, but I guess most of us here today will be able to recall exactly what we were doing and where we were when that dreadful news of that awful tragedy came about. And it was a dreadful tragedy. There is no escaping that fact. The Times newspaper at the time said this, the day that changed the world. A tragedy that stretched human powers of understanding to breaking point. The Daily Mail said at the time, the world will never be the same again. And I guess we would agree with that. It changed the world dramatically. I don't know about you if you can remember, but if you were a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ at that time and promoted the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ and believed and sought to share with other folks the Word of God, whether you were challenged as perhaps I was on occasions, where was God when the two towers were attacked, the Twin Towers there in America? Where was God? What was He doing? You can't tell me, folks would have said to us at the time perhaps, you can't tell us that your God, who you say is the creator, who you say is a loving God, you can't tell us that this God that you promote would ever have behaved in such a dreadful way as to allow this awful tragedy to occur. They would attack us on the lines of, your God is all-powerful, you tell us. So surely if your God is all-powerful, he's able to intervene and he's able to stop these terrible happenings. Surely your all-powerful God could have stopped it. They will say, you tell us that your God is a loving God, all-loving God. Well, if he's an all-loving God, wouldn't he want to prevent such tragedies? And they would say, well, if you're telling us that he's all-powerful, if you're telling us that he's all-loving, we've seen this terrible evil and this suffering that has been brought upon the folks in America. The conclusion must be, surely, that your God is impotent. The conclusion must surely be that your God is a loveless God, not a loving God. The conclusion must be that your God is non-existent. Perhaps some of you could remember those sort of challenges going out. I remember on one occasion just after that tragedy that they got Billy Graham's daughter Mary onto a news program in America. And the interviewer asked her this simple question, similar to the one I've posed to you this morning. He said to her, where was your God when this terrible tragedy happened? And as we shall see, she gave a very good answer eventually. But that was the condition we found ourselves in surely as believers. being attacked by those who were prepared to blame God for what had happened because he didn't intervene and stop it. And as I was thinking about it over the last week or so, it occurred to me that over those 20 years, nothing has changed. Tragedies come into everybody's lives. But you will know people who perhaps have said to you, as they have said to me, where was your God then in all of this? Why did God allow COVID-19 to happen? Surely He could have stopped that. You tell me, He's all-powerful. And the challenge is still the same to us today as it was to the folks of that day. we ask ourselves the question, because it's important, I feel, that we can answer that question, where is God? Where is God? So where is our God? There's no doubting, is there, that we live lives that are in thrall to evil and suffering. One wrote on one occasion that we live in a world with ragged edges. It's true, isn't it? We live our lives, we try to be decent people. We try to care for folks, to do the very best we can, to be the very best people, the nicest people that can be, and certainly that's how as Christians we should live. We should be the very best of employees. We should be very best of the fathers and mothers. If we promote the Word of God, then we should be the very best. in these particular things, but we recognize that so often we find, we recognize that these dreadful sufferings and evil comes into our lives and can take us over, bring us down, cause us harm. You think of the world in which we live, the natural disasters. It's unending, isn't it? Every day, every week, there seems to be something new in the news of a natural disaster, a flood, a fire, or something similar, an earthquake, a volcano that erupts. Natural disasters are part of everyday life. Accidents are part of everyday life. Our road at home, I was told the other day, was shut off completely because there was an accident and somebody died. Accidents happen. They happen to you, they happen to me. Hazards. So many hazards in our life. If you've ever tried to write a health and safety hazard document, you'll know how difficult it is if you try and list every hazard that you might meet, for argument's sake, coming into this building here. It's a nightmare trying to write. There are hazards on every hand. Conflicts, we've thought of wars and unrest right across the globe, unceasing it seems. And the more that come, the worse they seem to be. The ravages of time itself. All these things come into our life. Those without Christ as Savior, those who don't believe in God would say to you, they would say to me, How can your God allow His creation? You believe that He created the heavens and the earth. How can your God, who created everything in absolute perfection, let it get so out of control? How can God do that? They will say to you, they will say to me. Surely, your God is to blame. A lady some years ago said to a friend of mine and myself, how could your God let my Bill die? Her husband had died at the age of 59 and she believed that our God, who we believed in, she didn't, would allow her husband to die. How could your God allow that? Surely God is to blame. Perhaps the biggest tragedy that this world has ever seen, I suggest, was the Jewish Holocaust. What a dreadful, evil thing that was, and how it affected so many lives, and down to this very day causes pain and suffering for those who survived it. The story is told of one survivor who came out of those years of concentration camp watching his fellow creatures being exterminated, starved, burned, gassed. He said, if God exists, I want to sue him for negligence. God's to blame for this, he said. Praise God, another came out of it, another survivor, and he said simply this, I never doubted God through all those years. He said, I never doubted God, never blamed Him, never believed in Him less. He said, God owes us nothing. We owe Him our very lives. Where is God today? Where is God today? Do we doubt Him? Do we blame Him? Do we believe in Him less as we see the ravages that cross this world and even enter our own lives? Do we blame Him for that? Do we accept that God owes us nothing? Do we accept that we owe Him our very lives? For that's the truth of it. Can we blame God for these things that come into our lives that cause us pain and suffering? Or have we got our thinking completely reversed? Consider the goodness of God. We've been singing hymns together and you'll recognize that I chose those hymns because they speak of the greatness of God, of the all-sufficiency of God. There's plenty of food in this world for everyone. provided by God, but still millions die. Is that God's fault? Or is it the fault of those who fail to distribute it fairly? You think of human error and incompetence. Can we blame God for that? You think back to the disaster with the Titanic. The dreadful happenings there in Aberfan when all those children died. You think of Chernobyl. You think of 9-11 as we already have. You think of COVID-19. Is it all God's fault? There are many people who would seek to blame God for that. Yet if you question them closely you don't believe in God at all, really. The Times on one occasion, some years ago now, posed this question. Simply this, what's wrong with the world? They were distressed at the way the world was going and the disasters and the awful things that were happening. What's wrong with the world, they asked. And various people wrote back with their answers. One man, G.K. Chesterman, who was an author. You may have read some of his books. He wrote simply this, two words. What's wrong with the world? I am. Thank you, Peter. I am. That's the truth of it, isn't it? I am. No children present today, but When I used to talk to children, I would ask them quite often, what's the center letter? What's the middle letter of the word sin? I. You know, it's true, isn't it? And this is where folks have got their thinking reversed. Instead of looking at themselves as being the problem, they look at God as being the problem. It's God's fault for the way we are, for the things we are going through. Go back to the very beginning of your Bible and in Genesis chapter 1 and verse 31 we read this, and God saw everything that he had made. And not it was good, it was very good. Go back a few verses to verse 27 and you find there the creation of man, you and I, the start of humankind. And God said, after He created the heavens and the earth, and created man, God said, He saw it, and He said, it was very good. No sin, no disasters, no sorrow, no trouble. You move on a few chapters and you come to chapter six and verse five. And it's the next time in our Bible that we read that God saw. And what did he see then? He saw that the imaginations of men was wicked in every respect. That sin had come in and had destroyed everything that was good. The very good had been destroyed. God saw it as very good. Man turned it into something that was repenting God of even creating the heavens and the earth. So people might ask us, did God mess up then? Did he get it wrong? You and I would look at ourselves and say, well is that conceivable? Could it be conceivable that God, the righteous holy God of heaven, could get things so badly wrong that we're in the situation we are today? Is it conceivable? We perhaps look at ourselves and if we were arrogant enough we would think, well we could have done it better than that. We could have made a much better job of creation and keeping it on a level plane, keeping it in a good state. You know, man is arrogant enough to think that, aren't they? How often do you, how often do I turn on our televisions to a news bulletin and hear somebody, somebody, anybody bring God and the Word of God into their deliberations, to their speeches about how they're going to cure the ills of the world. It's just not going to happen, is it? God has been set to one side. But they will say to you, well, again, if your God is so powerful, so loving, why doesn't he intervene? Why doesn't He interfere? We would have done, wouldn't we? If we see something wrong in our lives or a difficulty in our lives or an illness or something, we intervene, we get on and do something about it. So why doesn't God do that? God sits there, your God sits there in heaven, looking down on the world, the world he created. It must break his heart to see it in the condition it is. You remember how the Lord Jesus Christ, moving amongst us here two thousand years ago, wept, wept at the state of creation, wept at the state of the people, God's chosen nation. Well, God sits in heaven. Why doesn't He intervene? Why doesn't He do something about it? Sort it out. We would love to do that. Why doesn't your mighty Creator, why doesn't your mighty Creator God jump when we say jump? Come and sort things out. Do it for us. Why doesn't He? Prophet Isaiah wrote these words in chapter 55 and verse 8. God speaking, and Isaiah records them for us. God speaking says this, my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. He points out to us quite clearly that God is beyond our understanding. We cannot possibly bring him down to our level of intellect, to our level of understanding. It is impossible. His thoughts are not our thoughts. His ways are not our ways. We do not have the mind nor the understanding or intellect of God Himself. It's a move these days quite often in Christian circles. Praise God it doesn't happen here where folks seek to bring God down to their level. Doesn't matter how we approach Him. Doesn't matter how we speak to Him. He's just one of us. We can talk to God as though we were talking to our neighbour over the garden fence. No we can't. there has to be a reverent conversation with God. He invites us into our presence. If we're invited into somebody's house, we don't go into their house, sit down in a chair, put our feet up on the coffee table and chat to them in a disrespectful way, do we? We come into the presence of God with awe and with reverence. We approach Him in that vein. and we speak to him as a higher authority than we ever are, ever will be, ever could be. So, his thoughts are not our thoughts and his ways are not our ways. Think about God intervening into every situation of our lives, every difficulty, every problem, the myriad of situations that we find ourselves in every day. If he were to act immediately like that when we said, sort this problem out for me, if he were to act immediately the way that we wanted him to, he would be denying the very qualities that make him God, make him a superior person, intelligence to us. Imagine. Imagine the million of daily adjustments necessary to keep each and every one of us, let alone the population of the world, to keep each and every one of us safe. Imagine the millions of little adjustments God would have to keep making in your life and my life to keep us on the right track. Imagine the knock-on effect. of making those interventions. Our lives would be continually weaving about, dodging from side to side. All right, you say, that's taking it all a bit far, Robin. Let's just have God interfering in the larger problems of life, in the worst of crimes. Let's have God interfere in those, intervene in the big difficulties. Well, that's all right, isn't it? But where are you going to draw the line? Where are you going to draw the line that says God will interfere to this level, but not below that level? It becomes absurd, doesn't it? We'd all have a different idea of where that line should be. No. An interventional God is a great idea perhaps, but it's just completely and utterly unworkable. So what about this pain and this suffering? Why does God allow it? Well, one of the best illustrations I think I've ever heard was John Blanchard. He wrote a book on this subject of where is God. And his conclusion was that God intervenes when things are so bad, with sorrow and with suffering in our lives. He intervenes as if it were God's megaphone. He wants to get our attention. He wants us to think seriously, not so much about the present, but on into the future. He wants us to understand. So Blanchard said, it's God's megaphone. And he quotes from C.S. Lewis in his book. C.S. Lewis, writing his book, The Problem of Pain, says this, God whispers to us in our pleasures. He speaks to us in our conscience, but he shouts at us in our pain. Interesting thought, isn't it? The pleasant experiences that come into our life, we should be thanking and praising God for them, because he's whispering to us of his love and his care and his concern for us. Our conscience, when that comes into our experience, we get those stabs of conscience. And what are they doing? The stabs of conscience, of course, are bringing us so often to our senses, pulls us up short, causes us to think about the path we are taking. But then the pain and the suffering, why do they come? They come because they remind us of our frailty. They remind us how insignificant we are. They remind us that there's much more to life than physical health and strength. To combat sin, we need outsider systems. We've talked about an intervention that is God. We need outside assistance to deal with sin. We need a divine intervention, something to divert our attention from our present circumstances, however bad they may be, and to cause us to concentrate our thoughts, to focus our thoughts upon the very brevity of time and the vastness of eternity. We were here together yesterday to give thanks for the life of dear Barbara Doust, who was here for many years as a faithful servant of God. And we heard some of the ups and downs of her life, the vicissitudes of the life of dear Barbara. And yet, it was only for a time, 84 years, yes, But when she left this scene, she went into the very presence of her Saviour, for all eternity, bound up in the love of Christ. Our pain and suffering, as Paul tells us, just for a season, then the glory of God. So, what is this plan of God's then for you and I to look beyond our suffering, and our pain. Well the plan of course is that God is going to bring to an end this devastated and degraded world which, and let's make no mistake about it, we've contributed to as humankind. God's plan is to bring it all to an end and replace it with a new heaven and a new earth. That's God's plan. That's the future that he has for us. going to Revelation and chapter 22, we find there the new world, the new earth, the new heaven. We find that there's no more pain, there's no curse, there's no tears, there's no sin, there's no suffering. Everything is absolute perfection. It's a place of righteousness where the old order of things in this world has been replaced by absolute perfection. a place which will demonstrate conclusively that God is all-powerful, that he can bring us back, as it were, from the brink. All these things will be eliminated forever. A place where he's not only all-powerful, but he is all-loving. I love that thought. I love the thought that Paul brings to us as he writes there to the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 13, 13. He says, but now abideth faith, hope, charity, or love. These three, these three. But he doesn't end there. He says, the greatest of these is love. The greatest of faith, hope and charity is love. Why does he say that? Well, I believe it's this, because the day we move into the presence of God and we live in this new heaven and new earth, the day that happens, that faith which we put in the Lord Jesus Christ for our futures, for our sins to be, that faith will be rewarded, for we shall see him face to face. and we shall be taken from all pain, all suffering, as we've been thinking. That hope that we've had throughout those years, that one day God will bring this to fruition, this plan, and that we will find ourselves in heaven itself, that hope that's kept us going has become a reality. We don't need it anymore. We don't need the faith because it's been rewarded. We don't need the hope anymore because it's been realized. It's a reality. But the love will go on for all eternity. God's love will surround us for all eternity. Faith, hope, love. Greatest is love. Evil and suffering will have been dealt with. Our original questions are dealt with. God is seen not to be impotent in that day, not to be loveless, and certainly not to be non-existent. So in conclusion, the existence of evil and suffering doesn't eliminate the possibility of God, does it? It doesn't mean that God doesn't exist, the fact that suffering and pain exists. But the existence of God, the very existence of God, guarantees the elimination of those things. So God exists and He exists because in the day to come He will eliminate all this pain, all this suffering, all this sin. In pain and sin and difficulties the world often turns to God and cries to Him for help. You know that happens, you'll see it. As soon as folks who have no thought for God in their lives, day by day, as soon as they find themselves in a difficult situation, will turn to God. And that's a good thing. They will turn to God because they want a higher divine authority to move in their lives and to give them some comfort. And so they cry for God to intervene. and many others will say that God should intervene. Listen, you and I know full well that God has intervened in the affairs of men. He entered into the affairs of men 2,000 years ago nearly, at indescribable cost, at huge cost, and at great unhappiness to himself as he saw the Lord Jesus Christ moving in this world, rejected. by creature-man and sent to a cross at Calvary. Indescribable. God set in motion when the Lord Jesus Christ came into this world a course of events that points eventually to the eradication of sin and of suffering in this world. God has intervened in the affairs of men. The root cause of sin and suffering, as we've already thought, iron. It's humankind's depravity. It's the depravity of the human heart. Jeremiah, the prophet, writing centuries ago, in chapter 17 and verse 9 it's recorded that the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it? That's you, that's me. Dick Saunders often used to say that don't get the wrong idea. Each and every one of us is capable of horrendous crimes. We have that ability within us, the sin that dwells within us. The fact that we keep it under control through the power of God so often and the power of the Holy Spirit is the only reason we don't fall into serious crime. but we have the propensity to be as evil as anybody in this world. But the Lord Jesus Christ came that we might have that depravity controlled in our lives, that we might have a way of escape from the punishment. The cause of sin then is you, and it's me. no doubt about it, we're all in the same boat in this respect. And sin, God said, has to be punished. There's no escaping punishment. But praise God, He's provided a way to escape that punishment. Showing indescribable love and at immense cost, He sent His Son who was willing to come that he might bear the punishment for you and for me. It's wonderful, isn't it, that the Lord Jesus Christ was prepared to come from heaven's highest glory, come and live amongst us here, born of the Holy Spirit. In other words, he could not sin, and I say it reverently. He was holy in every respect. He wasn't the product of a man and woman in procreation. he was placed in Mary's womb by the power of the Holy Spirit. Because of that he was sinless. Because he was sinless he was able to live that perfect life and lay down that perfect life for your sin and for mine. Give that life a sacrifice for sin. I can't say it any better than the words of the hymn and I know you'll probably say you always quote this, Robin. But I love the words, because the sinless savior died, my sinful soul is counted free. God the just is satisfied to look on him, not me, to look on him and pardon me. Does that cause you to cry out, whoa? What must I do to be saved then? You remember the incident with the jailer there in Philippi, and Paul and Silas singing the hymns that night, and how the jailer came in in that earthquake? What must I do to be saved? You know, that's the cry that you need to make, isn't it? What must I do to be saved? When you look at the state of the world and the state of your own lives, you consider that there's no answer to it, and that you can't blame God, The God in His love and power has sent the Lord Jesus Christ to die for you and for me on the cross at Calvary. What must I do to be saved? So, where is God? We'd better answer the question that we asked half an hour ago. Where is God? Mary Graham, when she was asked that question after 9-11, she gave a simple answer. but very profound. Where is God? They said to her. She said, God is exactly where he always has been. God hasn't moved. You've moved. She said to the interviewer, you've chased God out of your lives. You've excluded him from the schools and the teaching of his word. You've excluded him from your government. You don't have the prayers in the morning to God to guide you. You've excluded Him from your government. You've excluded Him from every aspect of life. You even want to destroy the word Christmas, which has Christ in it, and call it something else. It's you that are the problem. God is where He's ever been. And where is God today? Exactly where He's always been. He's waiting. for you to accept His offer of salvation. It's we who shut Him out and refuse the offer. We read that passage in Luke 13, and whilst we haven't spoken on that passage, we can think about it perhaps on another occasion. But the two verses there that struck me again, as I read it with you this morning, except ye repent, he shall all likewise perish. That's the fact, isn't it? Lest we accept the Lord Jesus Christ as our own and personal saviour, repent of our sins, stop blaming God for everything, get our eyes fixed firmly in heaven, however soon that might come, for each and every one of us, where God will be seen and demonstrated to the world, a wandering world, to be all-powerful, to be all-loving, and very, very not non-existent. Amen. Hymn number 11, please. Hymn number 11 for our final hymn. I'll praise my Maker while I've breath, and when my voice is lost in death, praise shall employ my nobler powers. My days of praise shall ne'er be past, while life and thought and being last, or immortality The last verse says, I'll praise him while he lends me breath. And when my voice is lost in death, praise shall employ my nobler powers. My days of prayers shall ne'er be past, while life and thought and being last, all immortality endures. Number 11. ♪ Or my loneliness ♪ ♪ My days of praise shall ne'er be lost ♪ ♪ While life hath long and meaning lost ♪ ♪ I'll live your time ♪ O'er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming? And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air, He feeds the poor, and loves every man. ♪ Of suppose the fainting wine ♪ ♪ He sends away the unconscious deeds ♪ ♪ He helps the stranger in distress ♪ ♪ And close the bridge that you built ♪ and praise shall evermore be. So then, our Father, we give you our thanks for this time we've been able to spend together this morning. We pray that everything that has been said and done might have been to the honor of the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray that everything we have said and done might have been to the praise and glory of our Father God in heaven. Take us presently on our way, Father, rejoicing in the joy of salvation. keep us in our faith, keep our hope alive, keep the love that is there waiting for us, our Father, at the forefront of our expectations. And we look forward to that day when we shall all be taken to be with you for all eternity and in heaven itself. We pray this, our Father, in the name of the Lord Jesus, and for his sake, amen.