When God Says "No" to Something He Could Easily Have Said "Yes" To

I well remember the morning of September 15th, 2004. It was the day that I heard the words, "His heart is dead. He's not coming back."

Except it wasn't about a seventy-year old man or something like that. The doctor was talking about my ten-day-old son. His open-heart surgery had been a failure. The bypass machine was the only thing keeping him alive.

My son, Jacob Benjamin Kibler, had HLHS (Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome) which meant that his left ventricle didn't develop en utero. The corrective surgery failed, meaning that a heart transplant was our only option. The likelihood of finding an infant's heart was very minuscule.

I looked at this little infant, my third child, which I could barely see under the mass of wires and tubes and monitors, and my wife and I both shook our heads. We weren't going to try to put him through a heart transplant. He'd been through enough in his short ten days. It was time to let him go.

We knew that Jacob had HLHS since his 20-week ultrasound. We knew his chances of survival weren't good. We spent the entire rest of the pregnancy praying that God would heal him. He didn't.

We went through all of the things the Bible said to do. We prayed as a church. We prayed as individuals. We asked God to spare his life. Jesus said, "Where two or three agree in prayer, it will be done." He also said, "If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can tell this mountain, "Cast yourself into the sea," and it will be done." If God could cast a mountain into the sea, He could heal an infant, couldn't He?

God didn't. Jacob was born on 9/5/04 and died 9/15/04.

We asked God to heal Jacob. God said no.

It was perfectly within His power to heal him. So why didn't He?

Answer: I don't know.

I will never fully understand God. I've come to that conclusion after many, many years of study and reflection and pondering and wrestling. There will just be some things about God that I will never understand. I don't understand why God allowed Jacob to die. I don't know why God allows a lot of the stuff that goes on in this world. However, I've come to peace with that. I no longer have a PROBLEM with that.

One of the reasons why is that God hasn't broken any promises. He never promised to heal Jacob, He never promised to keep everything going well down here on earth. In fact, His word specifically says that "In this world, you will have trouble." Many people act like God is breaking a promise when bad things happen. He's not. He told us we will have trouble. But the second part of that statement is, "But take heart, I have overcome the world."

What sticks out in my mind, however, is the ride home from the hospital. I remember it like it was yesterday, and this is what I wanted to share with you all today.

We had just made the painful decision to remove my son from life support. I was holding him, then placed him on the table where the tech turned the machine off. My wife and I, through tears, walked to our car and drove home.

We had about a twenty-minute ride back to our home from Vanderbilt hospital. All of a sudden, it hit me. After experiencing something like that:
       
          -Did it matter what kind of car I was driving?
          -Did it matter the size of house I was going back to?
          -Did it matter how much money was in my bank account?
          -Did it matter if I had six-pack abs?
          -Did it matter how successful professionally I had been?

None of those things, so important it seemed just a little while ago, were of any comfort or importance at all. In fact, it was like sitting in a room full of $100 bills and realizing they were Monopoly money. Everything you thought was valuable turned out to be worthless pieces of paper. Monopoly money. That's all it is. Everything in the world, everything shouting for your attention, anything this world has- it's Monopoly money. It looks real, but when the test comes, when life comes crashing down, like it does when you as a parent outlive your child, it all falls apart. Monopoly money. That's all it is.

All of the things that this world constantly screamed to me, "THIS IS IMPORTANT!" were shown in one instant for the bullcrap that they were. None of it mattered. Advertisers spend billions per year to convince us of the importance of hairstyle, clothing style, etc. And we buy it. We form our entire lives around them.

When God said, "No" He pulled back the curtain. He destroyed the delusion that I had fallen into like so many Americans have today. He showed me in one instant the stupidity and uselessness and falsehood I and so many had fallen for.

Because in that instant, when you have held your baby son in your arms and watched him die, there was only one thing that was real: the resurrection of Jesus.

That was the only comfort, the only thing that could possibly make sense of this senseless thing. The reality of Jesus' final action on earth was the answer to my son's death. It was the answer to all suffering we will face in this world. It was the only thing, the ONLY THING, that was even real.

My car meant nothing. My fitness meant nothing. My house meant nothing. My bank account meant nothing. All the things that I thought were so very important five hours ago were shown for the shallowness that they were. The resurrection of Jesus and His command to "love one another" were the only things that made sense- they were the only things that were real.

When God says "No" to something He could have perfectly well said "Yes" to, He shows us what is real and what isn't. I vowed to spend the rest of my life telling that truth to as many people as I could. God also showed me the brevity of life. I have been inspired to stop playing it safe- to not fear losing things I will lose anyway. Go for it. It's all Monopoly money anyway. My son only had ten days- we aren't guaranteed anything in this life.

I pray that this is helpful to you. Don't fall into the trap of thinking that the things that scream at you from your tv set are important. They aren't. Some of us learn that the easy way. Some of us learn that the hard way. However you learn it, I will tell you this- when life falls apart and everything you thought was important is shown for the bunk that it is, you can rest in the assurance of the resurrection of Jesus.

That's one thing I know for sure. In fact, that's about the ONLY thing I know for sure.

Christian Sexual Ethic Has Never Failed Any Society That Has Adopted It

Throughout history, we've seen many civilizations come and go.

We've seen the empires of Rome, Byzantia, Persia, Assyria, Babylonia, and the Ottomans. We've seen third-world banana republics and military dictatorships and thriving republics. We've seen them rise and fall, come and go, appear and disappear.

Most civilizations aren't destroyed through invasion. Some are, to be sure. Most aren't. Most societies that fall do so because they rot from within. By the time a conquering army arrives, there is very little left to conquer- kind of like a lumberjack arriving in a forest full of rotted trees that takes a few swings of the axe to topple.

One of the most notable features of societies that fall has been rampant sexuality.

If you look at the last days of the nation of Israel, for example, temple prostitution, adultery, and homosexuality were extremely common. The prophets who warned Israel repeatedly about God's coming judgment talked of these repeatedly. No one listened.

The same is true of the Roman Empire. Before the Goths and the Visigoths and the Vandals raided from the north, Rome committed cultural suicide by adopting hedonism as a national pastime. Orgies, adultery, free sex, and homosexuality were hallmarks of the culture before it fell.

Why is rampant sexuality so prevalent in the last days of a society, empire, or culture?

Simple.

The family unit is the glue that holds a society together. When sex is commonly expressed outside of marriage, society breaks down. This isn't front-page news. We all know that the breakdown of the family is a major cause of most of societal problems. Divorce, single parenthood, children growing up without fathers, etc is highly correlated with poverty, crime, being a victim of crime, and dropping out of school.

In contrast, the Christian sexual ethic of "celibacy in singleness, fidelity in marriage" preps a society for optimal performance. No society that has adopted and practiced this ethic has ever suffered because of it.

If a society has the overwhelming vast majority of children growing up in married-for-life two-parent households; if out-of-wedlock births hover between 5-10% (we will never have 0%, just won't happen), if entire neighborhoods have fathers in homes disciplining their children before the police have to- the society will be strong. Christian sexual ethic leads to strong families and therefore a strong society.

Just as the cell is the fundamental unit of the human body, so is the family to the society. A tiny virus, smaller than the head of a pin, can kill an entire human by taking out the body at the cellular level. In the same way, an entire society can be taken out at the "cellular level" by the breakdown of the family.

When sex is reserved for marriage, marriage becomes more attractive. If men and women have the personal belief that sex should only be expressed in marriage, marriage rates increase. If sex is completely fine outside of marriage, marriage rates decrease and the instability of the society ensues.

Right now in America the concept of Christian sexual ethic has almost completely disappeared. As a pastor, I am astounded when a couple asks me to marry them and they are NOT living together. Even Christian teenagers seem to have lost the moral of "sex in marriage only." It is a very rare person that loses his or her virginity on the wedding night.

As the Christian sexual ethic disappears from America, we see more and more problems associated with the breakdown of the family. We are seeing riots almost weekly- mostly by young men. I would imagine that their fathers are nowhere to be found. I know that in the neighborhood I grew up in, where fathers were in every home, the fathers would have put a stop to that quickly. Without fathers, children who run wild turn into young men who run wild.

We are seeing an epidemic of drug use right now. Without a strong family unit to connect with, men and women are turning to heroin in record numbers. Research has shown that addiction is driven by isolation. One cannot become a full-blown addict until he or she is completely isolated from human connection. The current heroin epidemic is a direct result of the breakdown of the family. Connection is the only cure for addiction. Human connection. The family is the only cure for drug addiction.

We are beginning to see that there really are two Americas. One group is doing very well. One is having a rough time. The determining factors of which America you belong are not skin color, ethnicity, or creed. The factors are these"

           1) Finishing high school/college
           2) Waiting until marriage to have children
           3) Getting a job and keeping that job

That's it. The people who do those three things are doing fairly well in this country. Finishing school is key. Waiting until marriage to have children is a no-brainer- of course we know single parenthood is tough and leads to all kinds of stress (raising children with two-parents is hard enough; single parenthood is even tougher). Getting a job and keeping that job ensures a steady income, as raises and promotions are the norm, not the exception.

The folks who don't do these things- don't finish school, have children before marriage, and move from job to job are having a tough time in this country. Christian sexual ethic primes a person to accomplish all three of these things, therefore ensuring a good life for the person practicing it.

It is time, Christians and non-Christians, to admit that our problems in this country are largely the result of our defiance of Christian sexual ethics. Every society that has adopted Christian sexual ethics has thrived. Every society that has rejected it has rotted from within and fallen. America is no different. If we do not move back to "celibacy in singleness, fidelity in marriage" as the cultural norm, we are finished as a country and as a society.

Some parts of society are already there. You can see the preview of coming attractions in the inner cities where out-of-wedlock birthrates are near 75%. Poverty rates are sky-high, crime is high, incarceration rates are high. As the rest of the country adopts the sexual ethic of the inner city, the poverty rates, incarceration rates, and crime will follow. Soon, there won't be an "inner-city." It will just be the norm in our country.

Christian sexual ethic has never failed any society that has adopted it. It leads to stable two-parent households, present fathers, decreased poverty, decreased crime rates, decreased depression/suicide. It leads to increased performance in school, increased graduation rates, increased wealth, increased sense of community, and increased blessing as the society is strengthened at the cellular level.

I hope we can turn back before it is too late. It is time for churches and Christians to begin talking about the benefits to society that Christian sexual ethics brings.