Why is This World the Way That It Is? - Tim Conway

What is the explanation for
why death eventually comes?

Here it is.

This fits the facts, folks.

People are as they are

and they die like they do

for reasons that can be traced back

to historical events -

real historical events recorded for us

in Genesis 3

where a certain thing happened.

What was that thing that happened?

Our first parents rebelled against God.

They spurned the divine voice

and this is history.

And we see what happened.

And I find that the answer

to two fundamental questions

is found in this book.

Two questions.

Two questions that we all
ought to be asking.

The first question is:

Why are things the way they are?

And then the second question is:

What's the remedy?

How do we fix it?

Brethren, for 15 years,

I struggled to be an engineer.

I recognize this,

you didn't have a problem with a machine

and run out and just start fixing it.

You first determined what's wrong with it.

Why is it like it is?

And then, only then -

you diagnose the problem first,

then you fix it.

Diagnosis, then remedy.

But have you ever noticed?

The world doesn't want to
consider the first question.

What's wrong? Why is it all broken?

They just want the remedy!

Make the pain stop!

Take the fear away!

Just give me something to
make me forget my problems.

That's what the world wants.

Sedate me.

Amuse me. Intoxicate me.

Make the symptoms go away.

I don't want to die.
The world doesn't want to die.

They don't want to face death.
They want to forget death.

They want to just put
it out of their minds.

It's coming up behind them,
and you know what they do?

They just don't look behind them.

They just want to ignore it.

I don't want to think about it.
I don't want to go there.

Make me forget I'm going to die.

Try to convince me there's no death.

Or try to convince me that
if you freeze my brain,

somehow I'm going to come back later

when scientists have it all figured out

and I can live forever.

But you and I know that any good doctor

is not going to simply
address the symptoms.

He wants to know what is the disease

at the root of the matter.

That's always the case.

He wants to heal the patient
at the deepest level.

Listen, is it uncomfortable
to go to the doctor

and find out you've got cancer?

Yes. People don't want to hear that.

But would it be wise to
stay away from the doctor

because you don't want to hear that

because you're afraid to hear that

because you don't like the diagnosis?

The Bible makes us uncomfortable.

Because it does what a
good doctor's going to do.

It's going to be truthful with us

and it's going to tell
us what the problem is.

And it says that we
cannot have the treatment

until we've submitted
ourselves to the diagnosis.

And that's what Jesus says.

He comes along and He says,

"Those who are well have
no need of a physician,

but those who are sick."

No remedy until we recognize the sickness.

But the world hates the
diagnosis of Genesis 3.

Man hates the first part of the Gospel.

And this is the first part.

Why do you think the law came in?

You see, that is the first
part of the Gospel, is it not?

I mean, who was it - Wesley?

He said if you had an
hour to preach to a man,

he'd spend an how much?

45 minutes on the law?

15 on the Gospel?

You see? The first part
and the second part.

Why 15?

You know what the difficult thing is?

The difficult thing isn't to say:

Here's paradise over here. Do you want it?

Everybody says line up!

No, the difficulty is when you say:

Listen, God isn't going
to give you the remedy

until you deal with the sickness.

What's the sickness?

You preach the law to them

because you're showing
them is that they're lawless.

They're rebels against God.

Men are wicked

and they don't like that.

He wants the cure immediately.

You know what they want?

Just tell me that when I die,

I'm going to go to a better place.

I don't need some fairy tale

about a naked man and woman

in some mythical garden.

That's not what I need.

I need something real.

Seriously?

Way back there in that chapter

you're going to tell me it applies...?

Come on. I live in the real world.

I need something practical.

I need something real.

I need something that applies to me,

something that meets me and my problems

right where I am.

And you know as well as I do,

that as much as they talk like that

in all the places they look for a remedy,

they never find it.

And I've looked at people
on their death bed -

people that scoffed.

I have a picture in my mind

so indelibly written there

of my aunt dying in her last days.

She was pleading.

She was calling out like a little girl,

"Mama, Mama!"

She was like 50 years old.

She was terrified.

Absolutely terrified.

They don't find.

They just go on looking and looking

and never finding.

Scripture says, "always learning

and never able to arrive
at a knowledge of the truth."

This excerpt was taken
from the full sermon:

Dying You Shall Die