In the sermon 'When Bad Things Happen,' Peter Allison explores the human tendency to attribute tragic events to personal sin, using biblical narratives such as Jesus' response to the Galileans' deaths and the collapse of the tower in Siloam. He emphasizes that these events are not necessarily linked to the victims' sinfulness, as Jesus taught that all are sinners and must repent. Allison reflects on God's justice and mercy, using examples like Job and Ananias and Sapphira to illustrate that while some tragedies may be divine chastisement, they should prompt introspection rather than judgment of others. The sermon further delves into God's sovereignty, as seen in the tragic flooding in Zhengzhou, asserting that such events remind us of our own sinfulness and the need for repentance. Allison highlights the parable of the barren fig tree to illustrate that God's forbearance is an opportunity for repentance, not a sign of righteousness. Ultimately, the sermon underscores that God's grace is evident in His mercy and the sacrifice of Christ, who bore the wrath due to humanity, affirming the necessity of repentance and faith in God's grace.

Please turn in your copy of God's Word to Luke 13. Beginning at verse 1, Hear God's word. There were present at that season some who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And Jesus answered and said to them, Do you suppose that these Galileans were worth worse sinners than all other Galileans because they suffered such things? I tell you no, but unless you repent you will all likewise perish.

Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them, do you think they were worse sinners than all other men who dwelt in Jerusalem? I tell you no. But unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. He also spoke this parable. A certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard and he came seeking fruit on it and found none.

Then he said to the keeper of his vineyard, Look, for these three years I have come seeking fruit on this fig tree and find none. Cut it down. Why does it use up the ground? But he answered and said to him, Sir, let it alone this year also, until I dig around it and fertilize it, and if it bears fruit well. But if not, after that you can cut it down.

May we love and treasure His commandments more than the finest gold. Almighty Father in heaven, I ask that Your Word may come to us now in power and with the Holy Spirit and much assurance. I pray that you would sanctify my sinful lips, that they might proclaim the riches of your grace, that Christ died for sinners according to the scriptures. We ask this in Jesus name, amen. When bad things happen, Last month you may have seen in the news especially if you get the epic times a focus on things that happen in China being based out of China and also being persecuted by China, by the Chinese government.

Some of their journalists are still in jail so they do cover these things and last month they covered the report of an expressway tunnel in the city of Zhengzhou that was flooded after heavy rains had hit China's central Henan province. This was a two-mile long tunnel that was packed with some 3, 000 cars at a complete standstill, a traffic jam. And while they were stuck in this tunnel, two mile long tunnel, the tunnel was flooded. In a mere five minutes the tunnel completely filled up and thousands have perished. Exact numbers are hard to come by since the Communist Party controlled media is covering up the event.

But some eyewitnesses have said that the entrance was blocked by police or other government officials so people couldn't get out even. And this is of course part of a bigger catastrophe ongoing flooding and heavy rains, dam breaches, and failures as well as controlled releases of water from from reservoirs have all apparently contributed. But there was no no advance notice. They didn't close the tunnel before doing some of these releases. Some of the people that did escape were trying to work their way back when the water rose so quickly, but they in God's providence happened to be near an exit and so they were able to wait as the water rose.

It took them right up to this porthole at the top of the tunnel and they were able to climb out. But in the wake of these kind of tragic accidents or other events that are caused by humans that some might say are senseless, Broad evangelical America often asks, commonly asks questions such as, where was God when this happened? Where was God? When my family was caught in this tunnel. Could He have not prevented this accident?

Why didn't He? If He's a loving God, why wouldn't He prevent this calamity, this tragedy from taking thousands of lives. Why do these bad things happen to good people? Your mother, your spouse, your child. People say, why do these bad things happen?

These were good people. But among knowledgeable, self-righteous, reformed Christians, it's not uncommon to find people pointing out some real or supposed sin in the victim's life as the reason for their calamity. I'm sure you've seen that sort of response as well. And This was also apparently the case with the self-righteous Jews in Jesus' day. While Jesus is preaching here on the need to repent, some Galileans who had made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and were in the process of offering some sacrifices, were suddenly killed by Pilate's orders.

We don't know much more about this, no other outside historians mention any event like this, but we know that Pilate was a cruel person. And so it wouldn't be out of character for him to do something like this. And so in some way, the blood of these Galileans who had made this pilgrimage to Jerusalem and were in the middle of offering sacrifices, in some way Their blood was mingled with the blood of the sacrifices that they were offering. And there were people who had just arrived and they begin to tell this account. And as they relate this, Jesus asks them, do you presume this is because these people were more wicked than other people?

Is that what you're thinking? This passage doesn't say explicitly that the people presumed this, but because Jesus is asking the question, it seems clear that this is how they were thinking. People must have supposed that the Galileans who were killed this way were in some way worse sinners than everybody else and or had received their just punishment for some sin that they had committed. It's a common notion even among unbelievers. Remember when Paul was shipwrecked on the island of Malta and they made its fire a bonfire on being rescued and Paul is is putting wood on the fire a snake a viper comes out of the wood and attaches itself to his arm.

And all the natives saw that, and they immediately assume what? Well, Paul must be a wicked man. He must be some murderer. And he's escaped the sea, but he can't escape justice. And that's why this snake is attached to him.

Of course he shook it off into the fire and then they thought he was a god. But Jesus directly refutes this idea. He even refers to another incident where a tower in Siloam collapsed and fell on 18 people and killed them and he says the same thing about it. Don't presume that these people were worse sinners than anyone else just because a sudden tragedy has overtaken them. Now some tragedies admittedly are, Some horrible events admittedly are because God is chastening people for specific sins.

God said that the death of David's first son with Bathsheba was the result of his adultery with her. Now he took that child. God said that the gruesome death that Jezebel and Ahab endured was a direct result of their abominations, their demonic worship and human sacrifices, which the Bible calls making children pass through fire. God said that the destruction of Jehoshaphat's ships at Ezion Gieber, which were going to bring back the gold of Ophir, you know the gold that Solomon got, said that those ships were all destroyed and they could never sail. God said that was a result that was chasing because of his ungodly friendship and alliance with King Ahaziah, who was the son of Ahab.

God said that the death of Ananias and Sapphira was because they lied to the apostle Peter about the money they had received from the sale of their property. But you see, the grace of humility and repentance, while attributing our own trials to God's chastening for our sin, doesn't do that for other people. Charity does not assume, love does not assume evil about other people. It doesn't assume the worst in other people. It assumes, it makes that connection for us and our own sins, but Jesus is saying we're not to do that.

We're not to be other people's conscience and bring an accusation against them because a calamity has come upon them. That might be something that Those in a counseling position may ask in the right circumstances, maybe not though. But in general, that's not our place to make those connections. It's not only unloving, it's assuming bad about somebody, it's also unnecessarily curious and unnecessary prying into other people's lives. And why God may have allowed a trial to happen in their life.

If they want to share that with you, that's one thing. That's not something we need to be curious about. There are many, many reasons God allows tragedies to happen to people that are not directly the result of specific sins. There was the man born blind in John 9. I just love that story, how The Jews just cannot accept that this man has been healed by Jesus.

And they keep asking him and asking him, well how did you get better? And he keeps telling them. And finally they said, well why are you asking so much about him? Do you want to believe in him too? But Remember what the disciples first asked when they came across this man.

They said, well, now who sinned? Did his parents sin or did he sin that he was born blind? And Jesus said, neither, neither. This man nor his parents sin. He was born blind so that the works of God might be made might be demonstrated, might be made manifest in your midst that's why he was born blind so that God would be glorified so that God would be glorified through this man's life in some way.

Or Job. We all know the story of Job. A righteous man who was attacked by Satan, By God's express permission and decree. And Satan took all of Job's children. They all died.

He took all of his property, all of his camels, all of his flocks, all of his herds. He took his health and all of his servants. All the people in his life except his wife and one servant who came back from each event to report to Job the tragedies that were happening. A bearer of bad news. You remember Job's friends thought that all his troubles must certainly be the direct result of some big secret sin in his life and they were going to find it out and they were going to press him until he admitted it.

But God rebuked them for their attack on Job. And when Job prayed for them, God healed them. You See, sudden tragedy should not cause us to look at other people and say, well, they must be some worse sinners. Sudden tragedy should cause us to say to ourselves, we are sinners, I'm a sinner. Because these people on whom this tower fell were not unjustly treated.

They weren't unjustly treated by God. These people whose blood was sacrificed or mingled with their sacrifices were unjustly treated by Pilate, but they were not unjustly treated by God. God was not unjust in bringing that to pass, because the scriptures tell us that all people are sinners. As it is written, there is none righteous, no, not one. There is none that understands.

There is none that seeks after God. They are all gone out of the way. They are together become unprofitable. There is none that does good, no, not one. And The Bible goes on, their throat is an open sepulchre.

Who is it talking about? It's talking about all men descended from Adam by ordinary generation. It's talking about us. With their tongues they use deceit. The poison of asps is under their lips, whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness.

Their feet are swift to shed blood. Destruction and misery are in their ways, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. And Jesus is saying here that when we see these kinds of tragedies happen, we shouldn't be worried about the other people and what they might have done. We should think of ourselves. We should be worried about what we have done.

We should remember, should be a reminder for us that we are sinners. And the scripture tells us that the wages of Sin is death. And those wages must be paid. That's why there can be no remission of sin without the shedding of blood. Which is saying that there can be no forgiveness of sin without death.

To overlook this and to allow the wicked to go unpunished would be unjust. But God, remember, is a just God, and He cannot overlook sin. If God were unjust, He would be denying Himself. And The Bible says that he cannot do it. He cannot deny himself.

God is just and there is not one person in all the world who has ever died other than Jesus Christ who did not deserve to die. Those Galilean people were sinners who deserved to die. Jesus point is they're not any worse sinners than you and I or anyone else. Sudden tragedy, whether it is in Jesus' day or our day, ought to be a reminder to us, a reminder to us, a sobering reminder to us that all mankind are sinners and under God's condemnation. Sudden tragedy then should bring us and prompt us to repentance.

Jesus' application of this event as it was reported to him is that This should remind us that we are sinners and move us to repentance. He said, I tell you unless you repent, you will all likewise perish in the same way. When Ananias and Sapphira died, great fear came upon all the church, all the people. They realized that they too were sinners, just like Ananias and Sapphira, and every bit as worthy of death as Ananias and Sapphira were. Every time we see death, whether it's a funeral or whether it's a sudden tragedy that takes one person or hundreds of people.

It should remind us of our sinfulness. The wages of sin is death. And God is a just judge. He will not allow the wicked to not be punished. He will not allow the sin to go unpunished.

Every time we see these tragedies, we should realize that we deserve to die. And apart from the grace of God, apart from repenting and calling out in face to God to deliver us from His wrath and to turn us away from our sins that we too will die. Jesus then tells another parable to illustrate a corollary. The corollary is that forbearance in judgment does not mean that people are righteous. Just because no calamity has happened to us should not lead us to presume that we're good, that we're okay, that we're safe.

Jesus tells a story as we read about a landlord who had planted a fig tree in his vineyard. And when the season came for it to bear fruit because some trees take a while to grow and to get to a fruit-bearing age to come to maturity, he came looking for fruit on this fig tree, and he couldn't find any. Now, a fig tree, you know, those are big leaves, if you've seen them. They're what Adam and Eve used to cover their nakedness, because they're big. They're scratchy too.

And the fruit can hang behind the leaves. It can be hard. Sometimes you have to look hard for that it's concealed. Now sometimes I remember a neighbor, and we lived in San Jose, California, that had this big black mission fig tree, and it was just so fully loaded, you could see the fruit from our side of the house. He didn't want it, so he'd always let us come over and take it all.

He was a nuisance to him. But that tree was so fruitful you could even see it. But oftentimes it's often hidden and you got to really look among the leaves to find the fruit. So this Vineyard owner came and looked for the fruit and he couldn't find any and three years He came back year after year looking for fruit and he couldn't find it and after the third year He told the vineyard keeper cut it down get rid of it Put something else there. That's going to be fruitful And remember the keeper of the vineyard.

So we'll wait. I understand it's not fruitful. But just give me one more year. And let me fertilize it. Let me put manure around.

Let me work up the ground and water it, and maybe then it'll bear fruit. Maybe it just needs another year. Maybe it needs a little bit more care. He begged for mercy. Now we're not told what happens because the point of this parable is that God is merciful.

Three years this person waited. And then They were willing to wait one more year because The keeper of the farm asked for it you see Forbearance in judgment doesn't mean That we're scot-free That we're okay Forbearance in judgment simply means that God is merciful. The scriptures tell us that God is good, merciful, and abounding in love. Given that all have sinned, and that the wages of sin is death, the real wonder is that any of us are still alive. And that any of us enjoy moments that are free from pain and anguish and tragedy.

We all deserve to die. The fact that some people have died and we didn't is only the mere grace of God in extending the life of those who deserve to die. The fact that God causes some to live into their 80s, 90s, 100s, and even further, while others only live to one or two years of age, doesn't make God unjust. Because if it's pure justice that we wanted, no one would be alive. But praise God for His mercy.

Praise God for His grace to us. He is patient and He is slow to anger And He waits year after year. Exodus 34 says, The Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there, that's with Moses, and proclaimed the name of the Lord. And the Lord passed before him and proclaimed the Lord the Lord a God merciful and gracious Slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness keeping steadfast love for thousands forgiving iniquity and Transgression and sin but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children to the third and fourth generation. That's God's own description of himself as he spoke to Moses, as he descended from heaven in a cloud, slow to anger, merciful and gracious, abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.

See, forbearance in judgment should also prompt us to repent. Because in God's mercy, He has provided a sacrifice for our sins, a scapegoat to bear the wrath of God in our place. That's good news. That's the Gospel. You see, Scripture tells us that on the cross Jesus was afflicted by his own father.

When Jesus suffered on the cross, it was the hand of God that bruised him. God did not merely stand by as Christ was crucified. God certainly didn't look the other way while Jesus suffered on the cross. At the cross it was God Himself who was pouring out His wrath on His Son, His one and only Son. Jesus bore the wrath of God, His Father, on the cross.

He wasn't bearing the wrath of Satan or of the Jews. Isaiah says that Jesus is smitten of God, And that the Lord laid on Jesus our iniquity and the punishment for it. Surely, he has borne our grief and carried our sorrows. Yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God and afflicted, but he was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities.

The chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and with His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth. He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he opened not his mouth.

He was cut off from the land of the living. For the transgression of my people he was stricken. He made his grave with the wicked and with the rich in his death, because he had done no violence, nor was any deceit found in his mouth. Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him, to put him to grief. When you shall make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand." Note what that said.

It pleased the Lord to bruise Christ. It was according to God's plan. This wasn't something that God was forced to do. Because something he was forced to do contrary to his sovereign will, or something that he didn't want. It says it pleased the Lord.

It was according to his will that Christ was bruised, And God Himself was the one who did it. You see, to rightly understand the depth of the love of Christ, it is important to understand that Christ's crucifixion was not an accident that God never intended or hoped would not happen. Neither was it merely permitted by God, as if God reluctantly gave permission to Satan to do something. It was ordained by God. Scripture tells us that God decreed the death of his son because he so loved the world that he sent his only begotten son that whosoever believes on him should not perish.

His love supplies what his justice demands. Of course, At the same time, we need to remember that God's ordaining of the crucifixion or any other tragedy, such as the tunnel that killed thousands of people last month. That does nothing to relieve the responsibility of the wicked people who crucified Christ or crucified an innocent man or in some other way caused the death of innocent people. It does nothing to relieve their responsibility and culpability. God's sovereignty does not diminish the guilt of wicked people whom God uses as an instrument of His wrath.

Both are true at the same time. Peter said in his sermon, You men of Israel, hear these words. Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs, which God did by him in the midst of you, as you yourself know, Him being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, you have taken and by wicked hands crucified and slain." This is the counsel of God that determines all things. This counsel of God, Paul told the Ephesians, that we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things after the counsel of his will. For truly in this city the apostles said later, they were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, Whom you anointed both Herod and Pontius Pilate along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel another example of Wicked people acting by God's decree You see the great wonder of this whole event is that the humiliation, the physical and emotional anguish, the excruciating pain and the death that Christ suffered is what we deserved.

You see, for those who are Christ, Christ bore the wrath of God at the cross. His blood was poured out as a living or vicarious substitution for our blood. For our blood. See, at the cross we see the justice of God in demanding and atoning sacrifice for sin. We also see the grace of God in providing the spotless Lamb for the sacrifice.

We see God pouring out His wrath for our sin on His sinless Son. He who knew no sin became sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God. The only person who has a right to ever complain about God's justice for taking their life is Jesus Christ, his son. But Christ willingly went to the cross. He voluntarily offered himself as a sacrifice.

And so God was not unjust when he poured out his wrath on Christ either, because Christ volunteered and offered his life as a sacrifice. Paul told the Ephesians, walk in love as Christ has loved us and has given himself for us as an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savor. Smelling savor. Jesus said, No man takes my life. I lay my life down and I take it again.

No man takes it from me but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down and power to take again. This is the commandment I have received of the Father. Jesus' message to those Jews who were standing around wondering what sins these people might have committed, that this tragedy fell on them, Jesus rebukes them. He says, no, You're asking the wrong question.

You're pointing the finger at the wrong person. You need to be pointing it back to yourselves. You need to take this as a reminder to repent. And if you haven't suffered tragedies, you need to remember that God is merciful. That the day of grace is now.

And the fact that you haven't suffered a great tragedy is that God is merciful to you, waiting, waiting for you to repent. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you that you are a merciful Father, abounding in loving kindness and tender mercy, that these are from of old. We thank you, Lord, for your mercy to us in Christ. We pray that you would give us a zeal that others might know this mercy and this grace as well.

For you have proclaimed that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. But how can people hear unless someone is sent to proclaim to them? Indeed, how beautiful are the feet of those who proclaim this gospel. Lord, may we be those who are faithful witnesses to your justice and also your grace in Jesus Christ. In Jesus name we ask, Amen.