<\/p>\n
God\u2019s Answer for a Hopeless World<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n \u201cGod so loved the world that He gave you\u200b His only begotten Son so that all who believe in him should not perish but have eternal life.\u201d<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n John\u00a03:16<\/span><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n On a recent trip to Yellowstone National Park, I met and talked with a young man, an employee of the park. \u00a0 During our conversation, he made a comment that impressed me.\u00a0 I asked him if he\u2019d be leaving at the summer\u2019s end to return home, as many park employees do each year, and he told me that he lives in the area year-round.\u00a0 Then he added, \u201cI don\u2019t know about anything that goes on outside the park anymore.\u201d\u00a0 His meaning was perfectly clear.\u00a0 He didn\u2019t care to know about what goes on in this world beyond the park\u2019s borders.\u00a0 He had abandoned interest in this world, its politics, its sports, its entire society and culture, and he was content with life as it is in Yellowstone Park, and nothing else.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n There are some reasonable arguments against living a completely closed-in lifestyle, of course, but the Lord had a lesson for me in that young man\u2019s words.\u00a0 After my conversation with the park employee, I had to ask myself, \u201cAm I as dedicated to my calling in Christ, and free from interest in this world\u2019s vanities, as that young man was?\u201d\u00a0 He was not in the least attracted to or interested in the latest political scandal, or \u201cimportant\u201d sporting event, or rumors of war, no matter what countries it involved.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n This young man\u2019s attitude reminded me of a replica I once saw of Jerusalem as it was in Jesus\u2019 time. \u00a0 In that model, I saw that there was a three-storied theater located near the temple, and in another part of town, I saw a large hippodrome for chariot and horse races.\u00a0 When I saw those things, I suddenly realized that, although these two places must have been popular attractions in Jesus\u2019 time,\u00a0there is no mention of these places in any of the four Gospels or in the book of Acts.<\/strong>\u00a0 Those worldly intrusions into the holy city were completely irrelevant to the story of salvation, and in truth, they still are.\u00a0 As with the social issues of the world to the young man I met at Yellowstone, whatever happened in Jerusalem\u2019s places of entertainment appear to have been utterly meaningless to Jesus and to those who followed him.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n God sent His dear Son to suffer and die because there was no human fix for this world.\u00a0 It was only because there was no hope\u00a0in\u00a0<\/strong>this world\u00a0for\u00a0<\/strong>this world that God sent His Son here to die for us and make a way for us to live forever.\u00a0 That is the difference between God and the young man in the park.\u00a0 When God saw that there was no human answer for man\u2019s sin, He still had the power to do something about it.\u00a0 The best that my park friend could do was to withdraw from humans and try to live in peace with God\u2019s non-human creation.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" God\u2019s Answer for a Hopeless World \u201cGod so loved the world that He gave you\u200b His only begotten Son so that all who believe in him should not perish but have eternal life.\u201d John\u00a03:16 On a recent trip to Yellowstone National Park, I met and talked with a young man, an employee of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4817","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-netmail"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4817"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4817"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4817\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}