Once again I want to look with you at what I have called one of the great texts of the Bible: "If you have raced with men on foot and they have worn you out, how can you compete with horses? If you stumble in safe country, how will you manage in the thickets by the Jordan?" (Jer. 12:5). It is a question God asks of the prophet Jeremiah, but it is a question he would ask of every one of us.

We ask our questions of God: "God, why, if you are a good God and a loving God, do you allow bad things to happen to good people? Why has this happened to me, God, if you love me?"

Last year we hosted a young singer, Tim Kaufman, and Tim shared with us the news he and his wife had just heard, that they were going to be parents. I got a call from Tim at the end of last week, and he shared that just a while ago they became the parents of twin girls. But he called specifically to ask me to pray and to ask you all to pray for them. One of the little girls was born blind and the other faces crib death syndrome. They have her on a monitor and have to watch her constantly. She's already stopped breathing once or twice. He's asked us to pray because the little blind girl is to have surgery.

We can ask so many questions of God. Yet we find in Scripture that God does not seem to answer our questions. Rather, he faces us with a question, such as here in Jeremiah 12:5: "If you have raced with men on foot and they have worn you out, how can you compete with horses? If you stumble in safe country, how will you manage in the thickets by the Jordan?"

God does not ask this question to discourage or frighten us, but rather to strengthen and encourage us. So, as you study this question, you see the good news that God is active, walking in our life. He is training each one of us, in the face of a troubled world and of all sorts of difficulties, to triumph in holiness. We see that he has us competing against footmen, for someday, in his perfect plan, he is going to call us to compete against the horses. He's teaching us to walk, not to stumble, and then to run on the level plains of the Jordan, because someday he's going to call upon us to face the Jordan in flood stage.

The Jordan isn't much of a river. It's only about 200 miles long. It starts in the high country of Mount Hermon, which is always in snow and is some 9,000 feet high, the highest point in all of Israel. It flows sort of sluggishly through overgrowth and thickets until it arrives at the Dead Sea, some 1,200 feet below sea level, the lowest point in all of the world. The Jordan wasn't much of a river, but every once in a while, the snows of Mount Hermon would begin to melt quickly in the spring, or there would be rain in Galilee and the water would come rushing down the river, and it would overflow its banks.

In the thickets along the Jordan were wild beasts that would be driven out by the flood into the villages. And God says, "I'm teaching you to walk on the level ground, because someday I'm going to call you to stand for me and face the consequences of a flooded Jordan."

Most of us do not accept this as something to frighten us, for many people in our congregation do not want to live a life that is dull and unchallenging. They want a sense that their life has counted for something. They want to compete against the horses. They want to be able to stand in the flood of the Jordan.

So, do you see what God is teaching us in this verse? God is teaching Jeremiah and you and me that he has each Christian in a training program to triumph in holiness in order that we might be used of him in a troubled world. Now, that's the theme I want to show you this morning as we study this verse.

We begin with a conclusion: God is good.

Once again I want to remind you that you cannot take a verse in the Bible and study it in isolation, apart from its context. So, once again, let's take this verse and let's study it in the context of the six verses all around it.

Begin with me in Jeremiah 12:1 and see that Jeremiah begins with a conclusion: "You are always righteous, O Lord, when I bring a case before you." The psalmist says the same thing. It happens over and over again in the Bible that people begin with a conclusion. In Psalm 73, the psalmist says, "You are always good, O Lord, to Israel, to those who are of a pure heart." This is what I've learned. God is always good.

We may feel that in writing a paper at college or in writing a letter we should begin with an introduction, move on through the body of the letter, and then finally come to a conclusion. But Jeremiah begins with a conclusion: "You are always righteous, O Lord. You are always good."

Oh, how thankful we are that someone shared the gospel of Jesus Christ with us and we came to know that there is a God in this universe who cares about us and is our heavenly Father! So a Christian is someone who always starts with a conclusion. We do not start with confusion, or with a question. We always start with an answer. And that answer is that God is, and God is worthy of all of our praise and service. Is this not why we're here this morning in a worship service on the first day of the week, on this Lord's Day, this day of resurrection? For we have come to that conclusion. He is worthy of all of our praise and service. And so Jeremiah begins with a conclusion: "You are always righteous, O Lord, when I bring a case before you."

Our complaints are based on false premises.

Having begun with this conclusion, he then goes on to a complaint. And as he begins to think of his problems, of injustice in the world, of the challenges facing him, this complaint leads him to a wrong premise. Let's look at the complaint. It begins at the end of verse one. "Why does the way of the wicked prosper? Why do all the faithless live at ease? You have planted them, and they have taken root; they grow and bear fruit. You are always on their lips but far from their hearts."

Why, God, do the wicked prosper? Why do I see these things going on all about me, and you seem to do nothing about it? Rather it seems that you've planted these people and caused them to prosper.

Do you see his wrong premise? God has not planted the wicked. The wicked can never have a sense of assurance that around the corner doom and judgment are not waiting for them.

For instance, what I'm trying to say is made most clear in Psalm 1. Remember, there's a contrast there between the godly person and the ungodly person. We're told that the godly person's delight and excitement are in the law of the Lord, and in his word "doth he meditate day and night." A godly person, excited by the Word of God, is looking day by day, as he begins the day in a quiet time, just to see how that verse of Scripture that he's studying may apply to the opportunities, challenges, decisions, or problems of the day. He delights in the Word of God in the sense that he's always looking for ways to apply his faith to the challenges of life.

Now, the contrast is, the ungodly are not like that. They can never be certain. There are never any roots. The ungodly are like the chaff, which the wind is driving away. But a godly person is like a person planted by the rivers of water.

When I first moved to Wheaton, I noticed that the sun in the summertime seemed to be a lot more intense around here than it was out on the New England seacoast. Our home was built for air conditioning, but it wasn't air-conditioned. At that time, we couldn't afford it. So I decided I was going to go out and buy some trees and plant them around my house. At the nursery I saw just exactly the tree I needed in my backyard. So I walked over to that tree and looked at the price tag. Wow, $600 for a dumb tree! And I wasn't going to buy one; I was going to buy a whole forest of them! So I bought a tree for ten dollars.

Now, it was only a stick about the size of my finger with four or five leaves on the top of it. But I planted that tree with my own hands. I watered it. I made sure it was fertilized. I picked the caterpillars off the leaves with my own hands. I have planted and cared for that tree, and 14 years have passed, and it is far more beautiful than that tree I saw in the nursery for $600 so many years ago.

Do you see the wrong premise that Jeremiah has come to? He's been asking God the questions with his complaint: "Why does the way of the wicked prosper? Why do all the faithless live at ease? It seems as if they are planted." No, they're not planted, Jeremiah. You are planted by the good hand of God your Father. God is watching over you and caring for you. It may seem that they prosper, but they're just like the chaff, which the wind drives away. But wherever you are, whatever the circumstances, whatever the difficulty, even when the Jordan is overflowing, Jeremiah, you're planted by the hand of God.

Paul knew that. Remember, Paul wrote to the Philippian church. If Paul had taken his shirt off, his back would have looked like a Rand McNally road map of the Roman Empire, because he had been beaten so many times. And now he had been in prison for a number of years, and the question was whether he would be released, or whether he would be executed. But remember what he wrote to the church at Philippi? He said he was there in that prison cell set for the defense of the gospel.

Do you see one of the joys of knowing God through Jesus Christ, of knowing that God is your Father? Whatever the difficulty, whatever the challenge, whatever the circumstance, you know you're not like the chaff, which the winds of circumstance and chains and chance blow away. You're like the tree planted by rivers of water.

Our Call Is to Be Salt and Light

After he gives us his complaint, which is based on a wrong premise, notice that Jeremiah now moves on to a call, for he's still concerned about all of the injustice and all of the hurts. In verse four he says: Because of these wicked people, we've got an ecological imbalance. They're polluting the earth. The animals and the birds have perished. These people are defaming your name. They say that God will not see what happens to us, or if he sees, he certainly doesn't care, or if he cares there's nothing he can do about it." So there's the call in verse three: "Drag them off like sheep to be butchered! Set them apart for the day of slaughter!

Have you ever come to the place where you give marching orders to God? "God, why don't you act more like God? If I were God, I'd take all of my enemies and be rid of them once and for all." Look back in your own life. I know many of you came to know Jesus Christ when you were just little children in godly Christian homes. How much you have to thank God for!

But that's not true of all of us. Some of us can look back to years of living our own life in rebellion against God and rebellion against society. What if there were people who were praying against us then? "Wipe them out, God! Have nothing to do with them, God!" But we're Christians today because there was someone who wasn't ordering God to wipe us out. There was someone praying for us.

One of my best friends, an all-American in soccer at Wheaton College, told me the story of how he came to know Christ as his Savior. Mike's in Christian work today. But he was on a championship basketball team in the state of Texas, and a group of Christian men in Dallas banded together to offer the young men of that team a scholarship to Young Life Ranch in Colorado. Mike received the invitation, and all he thought of was horseback riding in the mountains, climbing, all the fun of being in Colorado. He accepted. These men had also banded together to pray that some of the young high school students would come to know Jesus Christ as their Savior. Mike got to Colorado. Nobody had told him about Bible studies! He was ready to turn around and go home at first. But during those two weeks he came to know Christ as his Savior.

When Mike got back to Dallas, he felt he wanted to tell somebody about what had happened to him, about the commitment he had made. He couldn't think of anybody to tell, except a little lady whom, every morning on his way to high school, he would pass. She would be out fixing her fence or doing something with the lawn or taking care of the roses, and she always greeted him. So he went one morning to tell her how he had come to know Jesus Christ as his Savior.

She said, "Mike, I want you to know I have been praying every day for the last three years for that."

Do you see the call of Jeremiah? He's so disgusted and discouraged that he comes before God and says, "Drag them off like sheep to be butchered! Set them apart for the slaughter!" That's not what God called you and me for. He calls us to be people to pray, to be light in a dark world, to be salt in a world that's poisoning itself, that needs preserving.

Our challenge is to be trained in holiness.

We've seen the conclusion, the complaint, and the call. Now I want you to see that in the light of all of this, verse five is a challenge. "Jeremiah, you have been questioning me. You have been asking me why. Why do bad things happen to good people? I'm going to ask you a question."

It's interesting, by the way. Throughout all the Bible you find Jeremiah's question over and over again. "Why, God? Why do you allow this to happen?" Over and over again that question is asked, but it's never answered. Have you ever asked your parents a question, and had them frustrate you by asking you a question by way of answer? This is exactly what God does here in Jeremiah 12.

In fact, that's what he does in the Book of Job. Job has lost everything: his health, his property, all of his sheep and cattle, all of his sons and daughters. The only thing that he has left is a nagging, complaining wife. And all through the book the question of Job and the question of his friends is "Why, God? Why has God allowed this to happen?" Finally, as we come to Job 38, the silence of heaven is broken. Do you notice how God speaks? He doesn't answer the question why. That question is never answered anywhere in the Bible.

God just says, "Job, I'm going to ask you a question. Who is this that darkens my counsel with words without knowledge? Brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer me. Where were you when I laid the earth's foundation? Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you. Job, with all of your wisdom and knowledge, surely you know. You can answer the question." We can go right through the chapter as question after question is asked of Job by God. "You tell me, Job, since you're so wise." No, the question why is never answered in Scripture.

What does God say in those moments of confusion, when with tears in your eyes, you want to cry out, "Why?" "Trust me." "Why?" "Because I'm doing something in your life." Verse five is the challenge. "If you have raced with men on foot and they have worn you out, how can you compete with horses? If you stumble in safe country, how will you manage in the thickets by the Jordan?"

"Job, you talk about injustice, problems, sickness, and you wonder what I'm doing about all of this? Jeremiah, don't you understand that my answer to all of this is you? I'm working in your life to stand against injustice, to stand with those who are hurting. Jeremiah, don't you see that I'm training you to triumph in holiness in order that you might stand before a needy world? You are my answer, and this is why I am working in your life."

Think of that fact: Only God is holy. You cannot make anything holy. The church cannot make anything holy. Only God can do that. What does it mean to be holy? Holy means separate. Holy means different. God is absolutely separate and different from anything in this world. And God wants to make you and me holy. How can we have any impact upon our world when we are under its confusion, following its ways and its philosophy? No matter how we wish, we can't make a difference. But God is training you and me to triumph in holiness, to be so separate and different from the world and its ways that he can use us to be part of the solution instead of part of the confusion. And so God says to Jeremiah, "I'm training you so that you might learn to run with the footmen, because someday I'm going to use you to compete with the horses."

That's not discouraging to me; I trust it's not to you. God wants to make you and me holy. Only God can do that. Your church, your background, your parents, your friends, cannot do that. It's only as God works in someone's life that that person becomes so different, so separate from the world and its confusion, that God can use his life to make an impact upon his times. And that's what God wants to do with you and me. It's only as we obey his teaching and dare to stay close to him that he can keep his hand of blessing upon our lives and make us holy.

So do you see the challenge of this verse? God says, "I'm training you." Now if that's true, though, if we're talking about a training program, do you see how absolutely important obedience is? "Oh, I'm running against footmen. What difference does it make if I report for duty or not? What difference does it make if I take the training program seriously? Doesn't the church teach grace?"

We fall into that "cheap grace" type of theology: "I can go out on Saturday night and do anything I want to do, because I know God will forgive me. I always thought that maybe if I cheated on my wife, God would zap me with lightning. But I was unfaithful to my wife, and I got away with it. What difference does it make?" Do you see that it makes all the difference in the world? God has you in a training program, and if you will not run with a footman, do you ever expect you will compete with the horses?

Why is it you meet so many Christians who are dissatisfied with their Christian life? They're bored by Bible study. It all seems so unimportant to them. But do you want to live your life running against the footmen? There's not a footman that you've ever met that you couldn't outdistance if only you'd let God make you holy.

How many of us, for years now, have been walking on this plain of the Jordan? It's so dull and flat, so topographically unchallenging. I want to stand in the flood. I want to stand against those wild beasts that seem to make everybody else so frightened, the wild beasts of the challenge of the day in which I live.

Do you see why I called this one of the great texts of the Bible? God has you and me in a training program to triumph in holiness, in order that he might use us to stand in the face of the troubles and challenges of our age. "If you have raced with men on foot and they have worn you out, how will you ever compete against the horses? If you stumble in a safe country, how will you ever manage when the Jordan overflows?"