October 6, 2017 Show with William F. Hill Jr. on “Where Was God During the Massacre in Las Vegas?”

Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century Gospel Minister George Norcross in downtown

Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio

platform on which pastors, Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues

facing the church and the world today.

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It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next hour, and we hope to hear

from you, the listener, with your own questions.

Now here's our host, Chris Arntzen.

Good afternoon, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet

Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com.

This is Chris Arntzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Friday on this sixth day

of October 2017.

And I am delighted to have back on the program someone who I really enjoyed interviewing

the first time.

Of course, I wish the circumstances were better, that our guest is returning to the program because

they involve one of the most horrific occurrences in the United States history.

But we have William F. Hill Jr. on the program again.

He is former host of the Confessing Our Hope podcast of Greenville Presbyterian Theological

Seminary in Taylors, South Carolina, and he's the pastor of Fellowship Presbyterian Church

in Newport, Tennessee.

And today we are going to be addressing where was God during the massacre in Las Vegas?

And it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Pastor William F. Hill.

Yeah, Chris, good. Thank you.

And I just realized what the problem was.

I had a mute button where it shouldn't have been on when it came to the theme music of the show.

Well, before we get into our main topic at hand, tell our listeners

about this new church that you are pastoring.

You haven't been pastoring this specific congregation very long, but it is Fellowship Presbyterian

Church, which is a congregation in the PCA, also known as the Presbyterian Church in

America, in Newport, Tennessee.

Tell us about this congregation.

Yeah, it's a...

Well, praise God.

I'm sure the congregation there is very blessed to have you.

Well, we have, as most people know, at least in the United States, most people

know there was a horrific occurrence that took place in Las Vegas.

I believe it was just this past Monday, was it not?

Was it on Monday?

Yeah, Sunday night.

Sunday night, yeah.

And a crazed gunman, or just purely an evil gunman,

murdered 59 people and injured, seriously injured, 527

others at a Las Vegas hotel during a country -western concert.

And whenever things like this occur, usually the majority of the media, which would be

left -leaning, would jump to the culprit being

all those American citizens who are strong adherents to the Second Amendment

of the Constitution.

And even you would have many in the pulpits of America and throughout the world

trying to distance God's involvement in things like this in any way.

Many times Christians, although they wouldn't spell it out exactly like this, but

the words that they say would strongly imply they think that God

was just calmly sitting by and observing like a sentry or

something, or a voyeur, just watching things happening

and not doing anything to lift a finger about it.

Or you have, on the other extreme perhaps, people who believe that

God is all -loving and merciful, but he is not omnipotent, he is not all

-powerful.

They would believe like, I don't know if you recall, Rabbi Kushner's

book, Why Bad Things Happen to Good People.

Well, I think that that heretical notion of Rabbi Kushner still exists today where people,

in their efforts to defend the good character of God, his kindness,

his love, his patience, his mercy, they go overboard in trying to

defend God and they wind up painting a picture of God that is not the God of the Scriptures.

But if you could tell us something about what perhaps was first going through your mind

when you heard about this horrible event and perhaps what you have been telling others about it

as a Christian pastor ever since.

Sadly, until Monday morning when I got up and...

The Tower of Siloam, the collapse of the Tower of Siloam.

Yes, and people

were

asking,

in

reigning

his creation

as

he does.

Yeah, this is the...

Go ahead.

Sorry, go ahead.

No, you can go ahead.

Well, I probably answered...

It hurts

you and you...

Well, let me just...

You were obviously citing from Romans 8 .28 there.

But I'm assuming that you would agree with me being theologically reformed that that

promise that Paul is making or that he is conveying to his

readers that God has made that all things will work together for the good.

That's not a blanket statement or blanket promise for all of humanity.

It's for those who are the called according to his purpose.

For those who love God and are the called according to his purpose.

So, not everything is going to work together for the good for every single person.

Obviously, hell would be empty if that was the case.

That's true.

Well, it seems that when you have people who are theists discussing this

publicly, the theodicy is the nickname or the word describing how

people who believe in God defend his goodness and mercy in the

midst of not only horrible calamity in regard to

earthquakes and tornadoes and floods and hurricanes, but also in the midst of a very sinful and

wicked world.

There are people who take very different approaches who are theists, those who believe in God.

You have the aforementioned folks in Rabbi Kushner's camp who will say,

yes, God is all -loving, but he's not all -powerful.

There are certain limitations to what God can do.

I can even remember as a teenager, probably not a very good thing to admit this,

but when I was a teenager, I was a George Carlin junkie, and I can even remember

George Carlin before he became an out -and -out open atheist.

He was actually trying to defend God in some of his comedy routines, and he was basically saying God was

subject to the natural order of things, the physics and so on.

But then if you're talking about just primarily those from

conservative, evangelical, Bible -believing backgrounds, you have

even different views amongst us, but they typically would not involve God being

impotent in the midst of something like this.

They would either say, as we do, God is in control over all things, and

all things that happen are according to his ordained plan, and

therefore everything that occurs in history, whether in heaven

or on earth, is a part of his decree, and we have things to

explain when we use that defense because of the fact that people immediately

accuse us of teaching that God is the author of evil, that God, as you were saying before, in

defending the goodness of God, you were saying that God did not tempt anyone

to do these horrific things like the massacre in Las Vegas or 9 -11 or any other

horrible tragedy.

But then you have the other folks that would predominantly be from

Arminian or non -Calvinistic backgrounds, and even, believe it or not, the primitive Baptists, even though they are hyper

-Calvinists predominantly in their soteriology, when it comes to Providence, they are hypo

-Calvinists, they are sub -Calvinists, they do not really live up to the

historic teachings of Calvinism because they don't believe God is in control of every single thing that happens

on heaven and on earth, that things just happen through his permission but not necessarily because of his

decree.

But you will have people who will try to defend God, and somehow

they do so by elevating as this idol, really, this concept of

man's unfettered free will.

And the Arminian or the non -Calvinist will say, well, the reason why things like the massacre

in Las Vegas happen is because God does not wish us to be robots,

we cannot truly love God if he decrees all things,

and we have to be acting out of our own innate ability to

love him in order for it to be really love.

So therefore, if that is the case, the flip side of the coin is true for the non -Calvinist, you have people

purely out of their unfettered free will doing these horrific

acts.

Now, I think that on that latter part, they are partially true.

I think that mankind, as you even just said, we would kill each other out of existence

as a race if God did not restrain each and every human being from the evil they

are capable of.

So people are freely choosing to commit these acts of murder like the

evil man in Las Vegas did.

But at the same time, there is a plan and a purpose that may be known only to God,

this side of glory.

We can't totally remove God from the equation, can we?

No, and I

think it is,

then how can

we

truly

trust him?

And of course, a vivid example of that very thing is the murder of the Son

of God on Calvary's cross.

Absolutely, chapter 2.

It was something that was a plan of the Father and a plan of the Trinity

from the beginning, and the Son laid down his life willingly.

But at the same time, there were people, there were very evil people, both

Jews and Romans, who brought that murder of the only

truly, completely innocent man in history on that cross at Golgotha.

Yep,

the

redeemed Son which

annihilates

any

atrocity that

we've witnessed in

our lifetime.

Our salvation is in

if we really come and realize

that

we

nailed Christ

in Las

Vegas, the hurt, and on

and on, and explain

what we just saw.

You know, he

anticipates, who

are you?

We must come to

him.

We would be God ourselves if we could do that.

Well, that's exactly the problem, and I think, you know,

what happened in

the world when

Satan came to accuse him, and

God

in his

decree, yet

I

am

God.

Well, we have to go to our first break right now, and we can pick up right where you left off there with Job.

If anybody would like to join us on the air, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com if you have a question of your own.

Chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

Please give us your first name, at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside the USA.

And a subject like this, I can readily understand it lending itself to someone having a personal and

intimately private question that they want to ask.

So if you prefer to remain anonymous about that, we completely understand and will grant your request to remain anonymous.

But other than a personal or private question, please give us at least your first name, your city and state, and your

country of residence.

Don't go away.

We'll be right back with William F. Hill on the question, Where was God

during the Las Vegas Massacre?

Right after these messages.

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Join us this Saturday at 12 noon Eastern Time for A Visit to the Pastors Study because everyone needs

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Welcome back, and that very voice that you just heard, the voice of Pastor Bill Shishko, well,

you can hear that voice in person as he opens up the Word of God at the next Iron Sharpens

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This is a free event from beginning to end.

There will be nothing sold there.

There is no registration or admission fee.

This is a free event that has been going on since the 1990s.

The brainchild of my precious late wife, Julie, now in eternity with Christ, who came

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That just carried on over the years and grew to such a large event that we had to get corporate sponsorship for it.

The next Pastors Luncheon is Thursday, October 26th.

It's going to be held at the Carlisle Fire and Rescue Banquet Hall here in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

It's going to be held from 11 a .m. to 2 p .m. featuring, as I said, Pastor Bill Shishko, a mutual friend of mine, and my

guest, William F. Hill.

Pastor Bill Shishko retired from the pastoral ministry at the Orthodox Presbyterian Church of Franklin Square and

now a regional home missionary for Reformation Metro New York.

He's also an adjunct faculty member at the Greenville Presbyterian Theological

Seminary in Taylor, South Carolina, where our guest, William F. Hill, was at one time

the host of their podcast at that seminary, Confessing Our Hope.

And not only are you going to be fed spiritually by Pastor Bill Shishko and

physically through delicious food all for free, you're also going to be leaving there, if you are attending

this event, if you are a man in ministry attending this event, you're going to be leaving there with a very heavy sack of

brand -new free books donated from major Christian publishers all over the United

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Nearly every major Christian publisher has donated every year to this event, and so I

hope that you can make it if you want to attend the free Pastor's Luncheon in honor of the 500th anniversary of Reformation

Day, featuring a special guest, Stephen Bloom.

Steve Bloom, who is Pennsylvania State Representative now running for Congress, a

true born -again believer in Christ, a man with a truly impressive

and unwavering and unashamed faith in Christ that he brings

with him into the public square even as a politician.

And he's not just spewing out platitudes to appease Christians to get their votes.

This is a true man of God.

I've had him on this program on several occasions.

I look forward to having him back.

I am truly impressed with this brother in Christ.

But anyway, if you'd like to register for the Pastor's Luncheon, send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail .com,

chrisarnson at gmail .com, and put Pastor's Lunch in the subject line.

And you can also send me an email right now if you have a question for William F. Hill Jr. of Fellowship

Presbyterian Church in Newport, Tennessee on the issue, Where Was God During the Massacre in Las

Vegas?

Our email address again is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

Please give us your first name, city and state, and country of residence.

Only remain anonymous if it's about a personal and private matter.

And before the break we were talking, you were mentioning Job and so on, and how Job never

really learned specifically any reasons why God allowed him to go through such

horrible suffering, other than the fact that the devil was

arrogantly telling God that he could make, basically, Job buckle at the

knees and cave in if he were allowed to torment him, and God was progressively giving

him different levels of freedom that were increasing on

how he was tormenting Job.

But if you want to pick up where you left off there...

Yeah,

and I

think I

probably

need to be careful that we

don't run around.

Many came and figured

out what to say.

No, God was not absent.

He defended with great strength.

Oh, sure.

Yeah, and very often,.

When people are callous during horrific events like this that draw

national attention, they're usually,

when you have a fundamentalist, perhaps, or some

self -proclaimed prophet from the Pentecostal background, or whoever it might be, who they

use these tragedies to point the finger at sinners who happen to be

involved in a different sin than they are, and they will say, this is more

often involving things that have been known as natural disasters like hurricanes, tornadoes,

floods, earthquakes.

They will say that this is God punishing the homosexual community of this

particular area, or they might even say, even though this was not a natural disaster in

Vegas, some might say, well, look at all the gambling that goes on and the

prostitution in Las Vegas and people squandering away their livelihoods

gambling and people going there to watch very sexually provocative shows with women

who are barely wearing any clothing at all.

This is why God would permit such a thing to happen.

But, of course, you will never hear them say things like, well, it's because of the

churches in that area that were guilty of the sin of pride and weren't

reaching out to the lost the way they should have.

You'll never hear that kind of a confession, or you'll rarely hear it anyway.

We have to be very careful, don't we?

Even those of us that believe that God is always in control and is personally and intimately

involved in everything that occurs, whether good or bad, we have to be

careful not to be speaking as a spokesperson for God as if we actually know the

specific reasons why a certain calamity or tragedy occurs.

Don't we have to be very leery of that?

Yeah, no, I think you're absolutely right,

and I

think

we've

got

to be

careful.

I know the God of the Bible,

repent of my sin and find hope in Christ.

He will receive any who comes to Him by faith, believing He will never...

You have been hurt.

Will you repent?

We don't try to act as though we actually know.

We know that He's actively involved.

He's still here.

Amen, and there are people that will no doubt be bristling, even

conservative, professedly Bible -believing Christians who believe in the inerrancy of

Scripture will be bristling at the very notion of God being actively involved in horrific

events like that and say, this is heresy.

How could this possibly be?

You men are insane, or you're heretics, or you're both.

Well, I always point, and I know that some of my listeners might be weary of me continually going to this

passage because I do go to this passage very often when we are discussing something

like our theme today about the theodicy, about the goodness of God in the midst of

evil.

If you go to 2 Samuel 12, where you have Nathan the

prophet is basically...

God is speaking through Nathan to David after David has committed adultery with Bathsheba

and had her husband Uriah murdered on the battlefield to cover up his

adultery with Bathsheba after she became pregnant from David.

And.

The very words of God speaking through Nathan to

David beginning in verse 9 of 2 Samuel 12.

God says, Why have you despised the word of the Lord by doing evil in his sight?

You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword, have taken his wife to be your wife,

and have killed him with the sword of the sons of Ammon.

Now, therefore, the sword shall never depart from your house, because you have despised me,

and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife.

Thus says the Lord, Behold, I will raise up

evil against you from your own household.

I will even take your wives before your eyes, and give them to your companion,

and he will lie with your wives in broad daylight.

Indeed, you did it secretly, but I will do this before all Israel and

under the sun.

So there you have God saying that he is going to be doing these things that

even involve adultery.

That.

David's wives will lie with his companion, and God is saying, I will do this.

So this is we can't claim that we know all the nuts and bolts of

God's sovereignty over these things, but he is clearly declaring that he is even

sovereign over the chastisement against David for these horrific sins he committed.

And even though the chastisement themselves involve damnable sin,

he has ordained these things.

To happen.

Yeah, that's a tough passage.

I can't imagine how David was feeling that day.

You know, it's God is

declaring to David

that he repented,

he unfolded,

he is not

aloof, he is not inactive, he is working.

And we have to go to our midway break right now.

If anybody else, by the way, we do have several people waiting patiently, at least I hope they're waiting patiently, to have their

questions asked and answered, and we'll get to you as soon as we come back from the break.

But if anybody would like to join them and get in line with a question of your own, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail dot com.

C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail dot com.

Please give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the U .S .A.

And only remain anonymous if it's about a personal and private matter over which you are asking.

Don't go away.

We'll be right back with William F. Hill Jr. right after this.

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Before we return to our discussion with William F. Hill Jr. We have some important announcements to make in regarding

to special events.

First of all, the QuakerTown Conference on Reformed Theology is coming up

this November 17th through the 18th at the Grace Bible Fellowship Church in

QuakerTown, Pennsylvania.

This is going to be on the theme For Still Our Ancient Foe, obviously a line referring to

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Click on Events, and then click on QuakerTown Conference on Reformed Theology.

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Well now we are back to our discussion with William F. Hill Jr.

and as I said earlier, Pastor Hill is not only the former host of the Confessing Our Hope

podcast of Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Taylor's, South Carolina, he's also the pastor

of the Fellowship Presbyterian Church in Newport, Tennessee which is a congregation in the PCA or

Presbyterian Church in America and we are addressing where was God during the massacre in Las Vegas.

Send us an email if you have a question at ChrisArnson at gmail .com.

ChrisArnson at gmail .com give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of

residence, if indeed you live outside of the good old USA.

And we have some listeners who have written in questions and I couldn't help but chuckle

a little bit regarding our first question because we are indeed

guilty of something that our listener in Tuscaloosa, Alabama is bringing up in

his question because he must have written this.

Before.

We brought it up.

He says every time there is a new shooting or natural disaster I set my

stopwatch to see how long it will take for the inevitable Tower of Salome tweets

and Facebook posts to emerge.

It never takes long.

I'm wondering if your guests could comment on the appropriateness or inappropriateness

of this go -to passage.

It bothers me because, number one, none of the people doing the tweeting are Jesus, and number two,

they always seem to miss Jesus' point in invoking that event.

And that is Ted in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

Well, obviously you believed and we believed it was appropriate to bring up because we did but I don't think that it

would be written in the God -breathed pages of Scripture if we were not to

appropriate it and use it for reasons such as this.

I don't think that we misused the passage, but if you could comment.

Yeah, no,

you've already

said it.

We're not

Jesus, but

we do minister under His

proclamation, our declaration.

Here in that text, we do have infected people,

and He

told

them you are alive.

And again, I think as Christians, we

ought not to either.

Again, I think the

man's right.

Yeah, and of course, you're going to have a great portion of professing Christendom

that is never going to bring up.

The.

Challenge and the chastisement to repent.

So,.

Even though people may use a lot of verses in the Bible as placards, as

easy go -to things just to throw out there, repentance is

not the choice or the most often repeated

word within Christendom in the United States or the world, for that matter, in the 21st century.

So, at least we've been bringing up that very important aspect about repentance.

And I know that well, I don't know specifically if Ted in

Tuscaloosa, unless he wants to send another email clarifying, but he says they always

seem to miss Jesus' point in invoking that event.

Ted may be referring to the fact that many hearing Jesus did actually likewise perish when the

temple was destroyed in AD 70.

Perhaps that's what Ted is referring to.

I don't know.

Well, I just brought that up, Ted.

But thank you very much, Ted, for joining us on the air with a question, and keep spreading the word about Iron

Sharpens Iron Radio in Tuscaloosa, Alabama and beyond.

Let's see, we have a listener in Slovenia.

Joe.

In Slovenia has a question for us.

Let's see,.

Here it is.

Dear Brother Chris, one of the great aspects of your show is that you are so adept at addressing a very wide array

of topics.

We are always blessed when you deal with tragic events biblically and compassionately.

Hoping that this question isn't too construed to be uncaring.

I'm curious about how we find ourselves unpacking this biblical theology concept repeatedly.

Any realistic look at the whole of the planet reveals there are disastrous events

happening all over the globe every day.

How is it that as a nation, every time one of these events happens at home, we all

of a sudden get interested in determining God's presence or absence in it again and again and again?

What is it about the human condition that makes this a burning issue that seems novel when in fact it

is the norm of human experience since the fall?

Why do we seem to have collective amnesia between the occurrences of these

atrocities?

Hopefully, I'm not considered heartless.

I hope you understand the dilemma I'm pondering.

That's Joe in.

Slovenia.

Yeah,

it's a

volcano.

We

do

forget

in

our

own

backyard reminds us once again who's in charge.

This event is because it happened.

Well, I could tell you why I might be more likely to do a program on

my show after either a natural disaster or the

atrocity that an atrocity like that which occurred in Las Vegas

here on American soil.

I might be more likely although I don't think I exclusively have done that.

I might be more likely to do a program on it because I know that most of the people listening to my

show are more likely to know people that have been affected personally by those things.

I do have a global audience.

I'm not taking anything away from my listeners all over the world,

but they tend to be obviously in English speaking countries where the

English language is at least common those listeners that I have overseas.

That's the only thing I could say about my personal...

As far as me personally addressing this on my show and other incidents

that occur on American soil, it's because I'm trying to touch the life or lives of people that

may know people or may be personally involved in the

horrific occurrence.

And two, it's also in

some

sense in

the

evening I changed

to them

that they

need to hear it

because people need to deal with it

for thinking these

things.

And one thing I'd like to get back to because it's our theological camp that believes that

God is in sovereign control over all things.

There is that problem we are always faced with, not necessarily when it is a natural

catastrophe like the recent floods and hurricanes and things that we've heard about and some

of our listeners have actually been living through and surviving through.

But when it comes to the evil acts of wicked men like in Las Vegas, how is God

in control over these things or even in regard to the citation I

made from 2 Samuel where you have God saying that I will do these things

and he's referring to David's wives committing adultery in the sight of all of Israel as a

chastisement against David for his own adultery and murder of

Uriah the Hittite.

How do we separate God being guilty of being the author

of evil while at the same time firmly being committed to the

idea that God is every second of the way in control.

In fact, he has ordained everything that has come to pass.

Some non -Calvinists will say, yeah, Romans 8 .28 is true because he's just using

something that was happening apart from his decree.

He was just turning the evil event towards a good direction.

But we who are Calvinists don't believe that God just merely takes

an evil occurrence and throws a lasso on it and then turns it into a

good thing.

We believe that he decrees everything that has come to pass.

How do we separate those things as far as God's sovereignty over horrific

evil acts and his being separate from tempting

the culprits involved in those evil acts from actually doing them?

Why don't you ask.

God?

You know,

he really teaches that man is responsible.

That man is able and I'll say, to do what he's capable

of, he

is the

first cause.

He

wouldn't

be God.

He's

going

to

reject

that.

They're going to say, no, I don't need that.

I

work

evil

in

the

man.

Yet he decreed in the secret.

Well, why?

He said that to David.

He used wicked.

And then he punished them after they did it.

Yeah, and I think when we're in eternity, we're going to be experiencing such indescribable bliss

and joy that we're not going to care anymore about these things.

People say that, and it's probably very true.

I mean, we

don't

think he's

told us that, but we do

know.

...of men that God interrupted.

We can't answer that question because it didn't happen.

Merely a creature.

And we bow at his feet.

I don't think I answered

your question.

I don't know if it can be answered.

There are things in Scripture that you read them, you go, huh?

God just commanded ...it seems to what he

commanded in the 10 Commandments.

Well, it's even just like the.

Apostle Paul when he knowing the

response of those that would hate God's decree of election that he, before

Jacob and Esau were born and before they had any opportunity to do anything good or evil,

God loved Jacob and hated Esau, and the response that the Apostle Paul

knew would come out from the hearts of those who hate that concept.

Well, then how can God find fault because who can resist his will?

Paul doesn't go into a step -by -step, intricate and detailed explanation of this.

He says, who do you owe men to talk back to God?

Doesn't the potter have the power of the clay to do whatever he wants?

He doesn't really explain the issue other than that God is.

Sovereign.

And I think because we are rational,

on any news program,

and I

know that there's going to be questions that we're going to want answers

to, and we sometimes have to just write.

God is not obligated

enough to

know.

Many

years

ago, we

may

not

be able to explain it.

We really want to know the answers that God is just not pleased to tell us.

And if he told us everything, we wouldn't need faith.

By the way, a very close friend of mine, Pastor Al Stein, who is actually a

thoroughgoing five -point Calvinist, at the same time a pastor in the Assembly of God denomination,

believe it or not.

Not only was he a pastor, but he was a bishop.

He was an overseer in the Assembly of God.

But he died tragically in the same, nearly the same manner that

your friend died in.

In fact, not far from that area.

And he was driving a convertible and skid on the ice and flipped.

But when we come back to, or should I say, when we come back from our station

break, perhaps we could talk a little bit about Genesis 50 and Joseph and his brothers because I think it

relates to this.

If anybody would like to join us on the air before we run out of time, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail dot com.

Chrisarnson at gmail dot com.

Don't go away.

We'll be right back with William F. Hill after these messages from our sponsors.

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Hi, I'm Pastor Bill Shishko inviting you to tune in to A Visit to the Pastors Study every Saturday

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We are back with William F. Hill Jr., the pastor of Fellowship Presbyterian Church in Newport, Tennessee

which is a congregation in the PCA, Presbyterian Church in America.

We are addressing Where Was God During the Massacre in Las Vegas and our email address if you'd like to

join us on the air with a question before we run out of time is chrisarnzen at gmail dot com.

Chrisarnzen at gmail dot com.

Before I go to a couple more listener questions, I wanted you to address the

story of Joseph.

Many of our listeners may be aware of this where his own brothers out of jealousy beat him.

They throw him in a pit and show their father, his coat of many colors covered

with blood and he thinks that his son Joseph has been killed by a wild animal and they

sell his the siblings sell Joseph into slavery and then he

winds up being ruler over them to make a long story short and then as they see that he is now

in this place of authority, they are terrified of what kind of vengeance he might take upon them

and he says in Genesis 50 verse 20 As for you, you meant evil against me, but

God meant it for good and obviously we have from that

passage a clear indication that God didn't just allow something to happen there.

He meant it and he meant it for good.

This was something that he decreed.

It was something that he planned.

If you could comment.

On this.

Yeah, absolutely.

And there we can see from beginning to end, God unfolding his father of

a people.

God did mean it for man to

occur.

In that story we got to see the main player in the story.

It's not Joseph.

Amen.

He's the main player and at the end of that, Joseph in that

doxological frame in a

sense,

he has

prayed

many, many many years

to

unfold.

He changed

otherwise.

Amen.

Even in that world

of people

who don't

know who's

working

for

the

good will work

for the good of your guests.

I don't know.

Amen.

You know what I find odd is that there are many people who

instead of finding comfort like I personally have.

Now, I don't want to compare the tragedies that I've experienced in my life with

those in other circumstances that whose tragedies and trials may have

been and may still be far more horrific and arduous and nightmarish than mine.

But at the same time, I know that I have found great peace,

comfort, and solace in knowing that there is a purpose that God had

behind anything that I have gone through or will go through, even if I don't know it on this earth.

Even if I don't specifically the details of that purpose.

There are people that seek to find comfort in purposelessness.

They seem to try to find comfort in haphazardness

and happenstance and it didn't really have any meaning at all.

Like, for instance, someone perhaps whose loved one died in this tragedy in Las Vegas.

There is no known motive yet that I know of that this sick or twisted or evil person

had or all three.

Of those things.

We don't know what plan he had and there are people who are going to be trying to find

solace in there being no purpose at all anywhere.

And to me, that would be even more nightmarish.

You know,.

You make a great point.

The difficulty, of course, is that the unregenerate mind, they

don't have the

and they operate with,

in Christ, there's purpose.

And where you currently sit, you live in a, in your view, at least, you live in a happenstance.

You can't know this until you are, your eyes are open, your heart is open, and you see the glories

and the truths.

And then you can say, you know, I'm here,

I'm doing what I'm doing as now as

a Christian.

Yeah, you're absolutely right.

I mean, it's a conundrum, right?

The unregenerate

pushing it away and unless God is

going to keep

in that act.

To me, the tragedy is greater than just

the, and

it's,

yes,

not to downplay the hurt and pain that's there.

And you're

doing what you were made

to do.

Give ammunition, these events give ammunition to the, and

they'll say,

well, he is good.

Amen.

And the odd thing about those Christians, those professing Christians, who would say that there

are no specific purposes in many of these events.

There are no, there are no purposes in the plan of God, or no plan of God at all involved in these things.

Can you imagine.

Being.

Face -to -face with God that day that we are entering into eternity and if we were to ask

him about a certain circumstance that may have occurred in our own lives or

somebody else's lives that was very horrific or such a trial and you were to ask God, what was

the reason for this to occur?

And having God himself shrug his shoulders and say, well, there really wasn't, wasn't any purpose.

You know, that to me is the ultimate in...

Horrific?

Yeah.

Awful?

I can't contemplate that.

It's too scary to contemplate.

Yeah, no, you're right.

God has accomplished you, whether it's a

personal tragedy at home and

notice that he

has set forth an eternity past

when he decreed to do what he is going to

and can

say amen to that and we can trust it ought to shake the

unregenerate.

It ought to shake them.

That they will die.

Now is the time.

I don't want to keep saying that

or any event.

And we have.

A listener, B .B. in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania who says, I don't know if you had

read what John Piper had to say years ago, but he actually said that he would

do nothing to physically stop those who might be

raping and murdering his family because if he were to kill them they

would be certainly in hell.

How do you respond to such a statement by a man who is so faithful biblically in

so many ways?

Yeah, I read the article

and heard you to do so.

So if I'm walking down the street and some man's beating a woman over the

head with a 1 -1 -1 and

then

I run over

there and

give my life for it.

I know many people, but he is a man.

In fact, he wasn't even being consistent with his reformed convictions because that is a very

Arminian way of thinking.

Yeah, you know, I know he's not bound by the Westminster standards.

I am and I love the confession of faith and I love the larger commandments and

I think it's in my power.

I need to get involved.

Yes,

so

do I.

And we are out of time actually right now and I want to make sure that our listeners have all of the necessary

contact information they will need to get in touch with you.

First of all, the Fellowship Presbyterian Church where our guest pastors in

Newport, Tennessee, their website is fellowship -pca

.org fellowship -pca .org for Presbyterian Church in America .org.

Do you have any other specific contact information that you care to give for our listeners?

Yeah, if they want to contact me, they can just go through the website.

There's a contact form there and I'll receive it pretty quickly.

It will come right to my email.

So that's the easiest way.

Great.

Well, I want to thank you so much Pastor William F. Hill, Jr. for being our guest today in our Sharp.

Design Room.

I've got to get you to stop saying my full name.

Just call me Bill.

Okay.

Well, I was waiting for you to tell me.

And I look forward to you coming back as a guest.

I want to thank everybody who listened, especially those who wrote in questions.

I hope you all have a very safe and blessed weekend and Lord's Day.

If you are not a member of a Bible -believing church, please seek one out to consider

joining this weekend.

Don't let another Lord's Day go by without finding or at least trying to find another biblical church

to attach yourself to.

But I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far

greater Savior than you are a sinner.