 | Pastor Dave grew up in northern New Jersey in a very diverse cultural area. He attended Central College in Pella, Iowa received a BA in sociology and psychology. He was an offensive guard for their NCAA Div III National Championship team in 1974. In speaking for the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, he sensed a call to full time ministry. Meeting is future wife Sandy at Central, went to Michigan to finish her college while Dave started Western Seminary in Holland, Michigan. Dave married Sandy in 77 and completed his Masters of Divinity degree in 78. Pastor Dave’s first church was in Fort Lee, New Jersey, home of the George Washington Bridge. Their three children were born there and he also served as a Police and Fire Chaplain for the city. In February 1991, they came to Wichita to start Harvest Community Church. In 2006, he received his Doctor of Ministry degree from Covenant Theological (Presbyterian) Seminary in St Louis. During that year he gained a daughter-in-law with now 2 grandsons of 3 years and 6 months old. Besides Pastoring at HCC for the past 20 years, he has been Director of the SCSD & WPD Police Chaplains for 11.
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Religion
2012-08-02 08:48:51
God's Plan
Q- I understand that God is all-knowing, which means that: at the time He created man, He knew He was going to send His Son several thousand years later to save believers. My questions are two: If He knew He was going to send His Son anyway, why didn't He do it initially? Since He did not, why did He wait so long to do it?
A- It is with questions like this, we along with Paul who was contemplating God’s plan for the Jews, quotes the Prophet Isaiah, “For who can know the Lord’s thoughts? Who knows enough to give him advice?”
{Romans 11:34; Isaiah 40:13} How many times have we questioned God about His timing and actions that have asked the puzzling question as we go through the trial or difficulty, “Why?” or “Why now?” We are puzzled and even doubt His love and yet we realize He is God and we are not. That He knows every intricate and minute detail that we have no clue as a Omniscient (All Knowing) and Sovereign God. Even in the midst of cluelessness we can claim by faith and assurance, “And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.”{Romans 8:28} That is because we know by faith that He loves us and acts according to His purpose as Job said, “though He slay me, yet will I trust Him” {Job 13:15} Even though Job was a Godly man and did nothing deserving of his crisis but only to be an example to Satan and us of true faith. Read Job chapter 1 and see for yourself.
Now in the account of the fall in Genesis, it doesn’t say why God put them in temptation garden. Why He took so long to send Jesus Christ even though the promise is there already in Genesis 3:15. Were they set up in the context of a choice not to eat or eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil.{2:17} Obedience vs disobedience? Did God do this to show man’s free choice as a reflection of God’s image to choose? Did God know man would fall by giving free choice to man labeled by theologians as “Infralapsarianism?” Or did God cause man to give into his selfish way and fall for a deeper purpose known a “Supralapsarianism”? Some speculate that God did this to resolve the problem of rebellion and sin that had already begun when Satan rebelled against God in heaven (Isaiah 14). That this was God’s way of getting it right. All these sound palatable and are proclaimed from many pulpits around the world or is there something more here?
First we have to ask why God created the world. Did He create it for man and man’s benefit or did He create it for His glory to be display? Creation declares His glory. {Psalm 19:1} Would it have been better if man had not fallen into sin? The Bible gives us reason to change our perspective from a man centered approach to a God-centered approach. That history is His Story. It is to reveal God’s character of love, justice, mercy and grace in the most sweetest and extreme forms because of man’s fall. If man had not sinned would we know the aspects of His character like His power in the deepest sense within the darkness of death comes the resurrection? Does not God show us His loving-kindness in His dealing with faithless Israel as Paul says in Romans 9:22-23? “In the same way, even though God has the right to show his anger and his power, he is very patient with those on whom his anger falls, who were made for destruction. {23}He does this to make the riches of his glory shine even brighter on those to whom he shows mercy, who were prepared in advance for glory.” Do you see what God does? Both His wrath and grace show His glory.
Before the fall did Adam and Eve have the perspective of the difference between good and evil? Did they praise God before they sinned? Could they appreciate the magnificence of the Garden without ever knowing anything different? If they never were sick, how could they appreciate the health they had from the perspective of never experiencing sickness? Is it only as humans when we experience evil that we understand what good is? How many heard the word “evil” without a condescending smirk by the world until we experienced 911. Then that mythical Bible word was the hot topic on all the media outlets.
Many times we don’t appreciate what we have or need to change until we experience the negative, the loss or when things get really difficult. Growth and change often begin to happen then. For us to understand the beauty of God’s character, to see the beauty of God’s love and His power over sin and rebellion to be forgiven comes in God’s plan through “the Lamb was slain from the foundation of the world.” {Revelations 13:8} We may not understand all the ways of God, {Isaiah 55:9} It’s a mystery.{Deuteronomy 29:29}Why did God send Jesus when He did? Because He’s God and I’m not! {Isaiah 45:18-19; 48:9-1} What we do know is that the word of God says that it was the perfect and right time.” But when the right time came, God sent his Son, born of a woman, subject to the law. {Galatians 4:4} Trusting Him fully with you, Pastor Dave
