Has Tragedy or Scandal Crushed Your Faith?

In the course of my 33 years in ministry, I have met or heard of many people who have become disillusioned by a tragedy in their lives or in the world or have seen scandalous behavior among Christians, especially church workers. This, of course, is a disaster. It is the product of either the sinful nature that is found in every human, the curse, and most likely the work of the Kingdom of Satan. We are also set up to fall from our connection with Christ by a false set of expectations. I would like to address these first.

Jesus’ first set of disciples shared a false set of expectations that Jesus had to blow up if they would ever survive in the world after Jesus’ ascension. You can infer that they thought the arrival of the Messiah (Jesus) and their relationship to Him would result in a life of honor, luxury and ease. Wow, how wrong can you get? Jesus sets them straight in Matthew 24:

⁴ And Jesus answered them, “See that no one leads you astray. ⁵ For many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and they will lead many astray. ⁶ And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet. ⁷ For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places. ⁸ All these are but the beginning of the birth pains.

⁹ “Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and put you to death, and you will be hated by all nations for my name’s sake. ¹⁰ And then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another. ¹¹ And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. ¹² And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold. ¹³ But the one who endures to the end will be saved.

Matthew 24:4-13 (ESV)

Jesus is not foretelling an easy world. He is foretelling that many will fall away and their love grow cold. Don’t let this be you! It is natural to expect that the world be a fair and kind place. That is what we want. We find it logical to think that God will at least make that true around us, but there is no such promise. Actually, we should expect association with Jesus to make it slightly worse, because the world hates God and we are a soft target.

Sometimes we can get a run of good circumstances, and that makes us expect more. To “endure” to the end, you need a realistic theology of the troubles in this world and the behavior of human beings. Let’s start with people–all people.

We are the product and the possessors of sinful nature. That means we are all capable of sinful transgressions given the right temptations and capitulation to our weakness. This applies also to church workers. God and people do and should hold this group (which includes me) to a higher standard. But please never forget that we are humans. Making it worse, some who work in the church may only be cultural Christians. They have no real connection to Christ and the Holy Spirit. Such people are easy targets for Satan to use to discredit Christianity and the Church. That said, put legitimate Christian leaders on a pedestal but a short one. We mess up.

This is also true and even more true of ordinary Christians. We are all sinners saved by grace. We are all in a process of being made into Christ-like people. We won’t arrive at it until after death. The result is that normal human failings still happen. Parents can be a common source of disillusionment. Sometimes children come with an expectation that parents are superhuman. Your parents could be people formed and scarred by genes and bad parenting that has been passed down for generations. Don’t judge Jesus based on people who desperately need forgiveness and have a long way to go in their transformation, even if they put on the face of a Christian.

You may also be scandalized by illness, disaster and death. You must understand that you live in a world where these are the norms. “The curse” which is initiated in the Garden of Eden and won’t end until Jesus’ return is God not controlling the cause and effect of this out-of-balance world to a limit. God will not let the world and the inhabitants of the world completely destroy life until He is ready to do it Himself. God will often intervene when asked for help through prayer. But there are conditions. We must ask with faith and not as an experiment. We must be trying to live in a repentant way and not in full blown defiance. Finally, God must see that this is the best route to take. Here, it can be hard to accept a “no” answer. God sees more that we do. He sees a person’s inner thoughts and knows their history. He can see their conditional future if He changes their current circumstances. He can see the cause and effect of His intervention in the world. We can’t. Consequently, there can be some sincerely sought, seemingly obvious prayer requests that will get a considered “no” answer. It is easy to feel ignored, unloved, or that God doesn’t exist in those moments. To endure to the end, one must sadly accept the answer and seek insight and comfort from God.

Then there is the problem of Satan’s kingdom. Satan was defeated by Jesus’ victory on the cross. Satan will end up in Hell. For now, I don’t know why, Satan has an appointed period of time where he can play a spoiler role. He has no other objectives that to keep people from benefitting from the Gospel and making humans miserable (because God loves people). Satan is good at what he does. He works under the radar influencing already sinful people to create monstrous situations. You should expect no less.

A connection to Jesus is a tremendously valuable thing. When connected to Jesus through baptism, we have a righteous standing before God, the eternal punishment for our sins is already paid for on the cross, and we have before us an eternal life that will be without suffering or sin. It is our greatest asset by far. When we allow ourselves to be scandalized or disillusioned and abandon Christ, we are not giving up just a culture or a worldview. We are abandoning eternal life.

In several places in the Bible, Jesus expresses the need to “overcome”. It is not a pre-condition to being forgiven or being made a member of God’s family, that is given as a gift. To overcome is to hang on to that gift through all the difficulties until we make through our physical death. God gives strength and renewal enough to do so. The shelter and support of true brothers and sisters in Christ help can as well. If you are now a skeptic and have abandoned or are near to abandoning Christ, reconsider why that is and what you will lose.