Latest / The Living Waters Podcast / Ep. 175 - How to Strike Back When Tragedy Strikes

Transcript

Ep. 175 - How to Strike Back When Tragedy Strikes · The Living Waters Podcast

• 1:04
  Emeal Zwayne: And so, pat, this book gets down to the nitty gritty of the tragedies that sometimes strike, and what we want to talk about today is how do we strike back?
• 1:12
  Emeal Zwayne: How do we, as believers, get to a place where, when the tragedies strike, we can actually cling to the Lord and not just survive but thrive in a way that honors the Lord in it, even in the midst of pain, even in the midst of lament and brokenness, how can we persevere through that?
• 1:33
  Emeal Zwayne: And so I'd love you to open that up for us and just kind of hit some of the highlights from your book on that.
• 1:38
  Pat Nemmers: Well, you're alluding to a chapter that I wrote titled How to See in the Dark, and that's not just a clever title of a chapter.
• 1:47
  Pat Nemmers: it really was me.
• 1:49
  Pat Nemmers: I mean, some things are just never seen, spiritually speaking, until we're in a dark place.
• 1:57
  Pat Nemmers: We're in that dark night of the soul, so to speak.
• 2:00
  Pat Nemmers: whatever it may be, for me it was the day my wife of 16 years, who gave me seven children her name was Nina had a heart attack and literally died in my arms.
• 2:17
  Emeal Zwayne: We knew, friends, that you couldn't get enough of him last time.
• 2:19
  Emeal Zwayne: So back by popular demand is the one, the only, the frozen chosen, patrick Nemmers.
• 2:29
  Emeal Zwayne: Pat, you're back.
• 2:31
  Emeal Zwayne: It's great to be back with you guys.
• 2:33
  Emeal Zwayne: Now you know why I called you the frozen chosen.
• 2:35
  Emeal Zwayne: Yeah, why was that?
• 2:36
  Emeal Zwayne: Because you come from the land of the frozen.
• 2:38
  Emeal Zwayne: You come from Des Moines, iowa, which I went to, as I mentioned in the last podcast where I spoke for you, and it was crazy to leave the coffee shop with a hot tea in my hand and it's iced tea by the time I reached my car.
• 2:56
  Emeal Zwayne: You know you're in a cold place.
• 2:58
  Pat Nemmers: That was a brutal February, as I recall, but right now, as we speak, it's like 80 degrees, beautiful, sunny, everything's blooming in Iowa.
• 3:07
  Pat Nemmers: You need to come visit us.
• 3:08
  Emeal Zwayne: Oh, pat, i gotta show these guys the videos we sent each other, remember, after Rachel and I came back.
• 3:12
  Emeal Zwayne: He sends me a video of himself sitting out on his lawn chair with like a foot of snow and snow coming down.
• 3:19
  Emeal Zwayne: He's in like a tank top or t-shirt.
• 3:22
  Ray Comfort: I think he showed me that.
• 3:23
  Emeal Zwayne: Oh, yeah, it's snowing to beat the band.
• 3:25
  Emeal Zwayne: And remember I sent you mine.
• 3:26
  Emeal Zwayne: I had like this coat on and you know, like a beanie on my head.
• 3:31
  Pat Nemmers: Palm trees in the back.
• 3:32
  Pat Nemmers: Oh, it's the whole paddle freezing.
• 3:33
  Emeal Zwayne: It's like a sunny day and nice palm trees.
• 3:35
  Emeal Zwayne: Yeah, that was fun.
• 3:37
  Emeal Zwayne: That was fun.
• 3:37
  Emeal Zwayne: But, friends, if you didn't listen to the last podcast and if you didn't repent, we had Pat Nemmers on And we talked about his fabulous book Retractions Cultivating Humility After Humiliation.
• 3:49
  Emeal Zwayne: We're gonna talk more about the book today And we're gonna talk today about how to strike back when tragedy strikes.
• 3:54
  Emeal Zwayne: We're gonna talk about some tragic things that happened in your life and how we can press on through those, and I'm really excited to do that.
• 4:01
  Emeal Zwayne: But, by the way, friends, if you don't know where to get this, Amazon you can find it there right back Amazon, really good book.
• 4:08
  Ray Comfort: All were ever good books to solve.
• 4:09
  Ray Comfort: That's for other poor folks that are Amazon shadow.
• 4:13
  Emeal Zwayne: Yeah, so we're gonna get into at this time.
• 4:15
  Emeal Zwayne: I'm gonna do it.
• 4:15
  Oscar Navarro: Your local bookstore is the answer to that question What local bookstores?
• 4:19
  Emeal Zwayne: Yeah, hardly any left anymore, but we're gonna get into comments and everything, but before that, ray Comfort has a story about our good friend.
• 4:27
  Ray Comfort: Mark Lloyd.
• 4:28
  Ray Comfort: Mark Lloyd is in Ireland at the moment and he just sent me a picture of a restaurant, a Thai food restaurant, and the restaurant is called Thai.
• 4:39
  Emeal Zwayne: Tanak.
• 4:39
  Emeal Zwayne: Oh, you know what I was-.
• 4:41
  Pat Nemmers: It's a real dive.
• 4:43
  Ray Comfort: Yeah, yeah, yeah, the food goes down well.
• 4:46
  Emeal Zwayne: Thai Tanak.
• 4:47
  Emeal Zwayne: Yeah, I was at in Texas, the San Antonio area, and there was a tea shop called Nobile Tea.
• 4:54
  Ray Comfort: No, not smart, Yeah, really smart I like retractions has the word tracked right in the middle.
• 5:00
  Ray Comfort: Ooh, it's an evangelism book.
• 5:03
  Pat Nemmers: It's an evangelism book That's very subtle.
• 5:05
  Emeal Zwayne: Yeah, yeah.
• 5:06
  Emeal Zwayne: So, pat, before we.
• 5:07
  Emeal Zwayne: Oh well, i'm gonna read a comment.
• 5:08
  Emeal Zwayne: I better do that real quick.
• 5:09
  Emeal Zwayne: This is from Bubba one two, one, zero, zero.
• 5:13
  Emeal Zwayne: Powerful and motivating podcasts.
• 5:15
  Emeal Zwayne: I fallen in love with this gem of a podcast after stumbling upon it a few months ago.
• 5:19
  Emeal Zwayne: God has used it to immensely grow my evangelism and prayer life.
• 5:23
  Emeal Zwayne: For a couple of years I've been using Living Waters Tract and Biblical Evangelism Methods and have been greatly inspired by your witnessing videos.
• 5:30
  Emeal Zwayne: I've always been amazed by all you guys do, but by listening to this podcast I came to realize the humility, prayer, passion, servitude and biblical truth that powers the Living Waters machine.
• 5:41
  Emeal Zwayne: Such a blessing to have great perspectives on all these moving and vital topics.
• 5:46
  Emeal Zwayne: I also love how you guys keep it fun but are always reverent and in awe of God, like when you guys bring up lightning and how it displays God's frightening power.
• 5:54
  Emeal Zwayne: Lightning is my favorite natural phenomenon, closely followed by thunder.
• 5:58
  Emeal Zwayne: In conclusion, i always know I'll have a laugh when I tune in, but, more importantly, every podcast leaves me convicted, motivated and to motivate and motivate, to serve and yearn to pray.
• 6:10
  Ray Comfort: I'm proud he mentions our humility.
• 6:11
  Ray Comfort: That was lovely.
• 6:12
  Emeal Zwayne: I know, after this book I feel so so Great segue.
• 6:16
  Oscar Navarro: Yeah.
• 6:17
  Emeal Zwayne: EOR The Tank is how we side EOR The Tank listen EOR.
• 6:21
  Oscar Navarro: Thank you for that, but also to our listeners.
• 6:23
  Oscar Navarro: Thank you because, if you noticed the beginning of that comment, he said he stumbled upon this podcast.
• 6:30
  Oscar Navarro: That stumbling upon the podcast happens because of you listeners, which faithfully download and listen, which faithfully subscribe to the podcast and leave comments and reviews and forward and share them on your social media profiles.
• 6:43
  Oscar Navarro: Every time you do that, You trigger the algorithms to make it possible that more and more people can listen to gospel saturated Conversations.
• 6:52
  Oscar Navarro: And so, thank you.
• 6:53
  Oscar Navarro: And if you haven't already, one of the best ways you can bless us is by hitting the subscribe button on whatever area You know, whether you're on Spotify or apple podcast or one of the other ones.
• 7:04
  Oscar Navarro: Subscribe and Leave a comment for us.
• 7:07
  Oscar Navarro: Uh, it'll, it'll bless us and it'll certainly bless, make people stumble.
• 7:11
  Ray Comfort: I love that.
• 7:12
  Oscar Navarro: Yeah, friends stumbling block, block of grace.
• 7:15
  Emeal Zwayne: Yeah, and again you are by listening to the podcast.
• 7:18
  Emeal Zwayne: You're, you're keeping us at at, you know, one of the top spots of all podcasts in the world, not not just at a christian podcast or spirituality and religion, but but like of all podcasts.
• 7:30
  Oscar Navarro: So we're, we're so grateful for that and shout out real quick to you know, we were just in London and I met podcast listeners from Ireland, from Finland, from Africa, from Canada, and so just a shout out to all of you who are downloading and listening in all of these countries all around the world.
• 7:50
  Oscar Navarro: We are so humbled and blessed that you would listen to us silly goofballs here in southern California.
• 7:56
  Emeal Zwayne: Hey, by the way, a shout out to my peeps in Lebanon.
• 8:00
  Emeal Zwayne: The podcast recently hit number 16 Of all christian podcast and let on number 30 out of all religions and all spirituality stuff, which includes everything.
• 8:09
  Emeal Zwayne: So we are so humbled.
• 8:11
  Emeal Zwayne: Thank you for listening and send me some tabooly.
• 8:14
  Emeal Zwayne: Please Buy the crate loads.
• 8:17
  Emeal Zwayne: Yeah, no, not for oscar.
• 8:18
  Emeal Zwayne: I banned you from baklava.
• 8:19
  Emeal Zwayne: You know that.
• 8:20
  Emeal Zwayne: All right, friends, make sure to check out the vault.
• 8:23
  Emeal Zwayne: The vault contains a hundred copies of a unique, conveniently sized gospel of john that uses a very eye catching cover to stir Curiosity.
• 8:32
  Emeal Zwayne: I don't know who wrote that on our staff, but it's nice.
• 8:35
  Emeal Zwayne: Ray Um, we're so glad we did this.
• 8:38
  Emeal Zwayne: In fact, last night I was watching the video that we did when we went out and we threw him out of the car And we're in the warehouse and packing them up.
• 8:44
  Emeal Zwayne: A million of these were distributed to people all over the world.
• 8:49
  Ray Comfort: Pat, you know we'll be talking about yes, i do, i do.
• 8:52
  Pat Nemmers: That's amazing.
• 8:52
  Ray Comfort: Yeah, gospel of john, make sure you revolt be revolting, yeah, um revolt.
• 8:58
  Emeal Zwayne: Yeah, it's got.
• 8:58
  Emeal Zwayne: It looks like a stack of money, uh, with a band around, type of thing.
• 9:02
  Emeal Zwayne: We are brad, snow did an amazing job with that and uh, so, friends, get those.
• 9:07
  Emeal Zwayne: It's, it's a big thing.
• 9:08
  Emeal Zwayne: It looks like a vault the box and uh, oh, we have, oh, and if you're watching it's back there, if you're listening, it's still back.
• 9:15
  Emeal Zwayne: Yeah, it's still back there too.
• 9:16
  Emeal Zwayne: So make sure to check it out.
• 9:17
  Emeal Zwayne: And don't forget the living waters podcast.
• 9:19
  Emeal Zwayne: Yeah, we have them, friends, you can drink out of them.
• 9:22
  Emeal Zwayne: Oscar is about to take a sip.
• 9:23
  Emeal Zwayne: He's a hand model right now.
• 9:24
  Emeal Zwayne: Pat's about to take a sip.
• 9:26
  Ray Comfort: We should watch those, that one.
• 9:30
  Oscar Navarro: The water tastes better coming off.
• 9:31
  Emeal Zwayne: of course, yes, and don't forget the evidence study bible all at makewaters dot com.
• 9:38
  Ray Comfort: Pat, you didn't laugh at yourself, he was delayed time release laughter.
• 9:44
  Emeal Zwayne: So, pat, um, i'd love for you to tell us, before we jump into the book and uh talk about tragedy and how to strike back.
• 9:51
  Emeal Zwayne: Uh, tell us about how you encountered ray, comfort and living waters and found out about our ministry.
• 9:58
  Pat Nemmers: Well, living waters wasn't going at the time, but it would be like 1991 92.
• 10:03
  Pat Nemmers: I was a younger pastor in those days.
• 10:05
  Emeal Zwayne: Obviously Yeah, it was going.
• 10:06
  Emeal Zwayne: By the way, ray started it in new zealand in the 70s, was it really?
• 10:09
  Pat Nemmers: going then 1974.
• 10:11
  Pat Nemmers: Did it have any traction?
• 10:14
  Ray Comfort: It actually started, you know, way back in the time of christ actually.
• 10:18
  Ray Comfort: Oh well there you go.
• 10:19
  Pat Nemmers: That's true.
• 10:20
  Pat Nemmers: I was actually at a pastors event, for all pastors and all day pastors Seminar.
• 10:26
  Pat Nemmers: It was up in, uh, san Jose Yeah, it was it, no, it was in minnesota, oh, wow.
• 10:30
  Pat Nemmers: And uh, in the middle of the seminar, uh, talking about this new, creative way to present the gospel, suddenly up comes this new zealander And I was introduced for the first time to a younger version, but not much Like I was ugly in those days You age so well.
• 10:48
  Ray Comfort: Things have got much better These are white suits or jacks?
• 10:51
  Ray Comfort: No no, it was a white jacket, but I didn't wear a white suit.
• 10:53
  Ray Comfort: That's like Benny Hinn.
• 10:54
  Oscar Navarro: I do miss the uh Tom Selleck must have.
• 10:58
  Pat Nemmers: But, we, i heard, hell's best kept secret.
• 11:00
  Pat Nemmers: Then it was.
• 11:00
  Pat Nemmers: I don't know what venue you were sharing.
• 11:02
  Pat Nemmers: In fact, i I haven't been able to find that venue, that it was shown that day, because it was it was a hotel.
• 11:07
  Ray Comfort: I think it was a hotel It was fantastic.
• 11:10
  Pat Nemmers: I was absolutely enamored with your speaking, your presentation of the gospel, the importance of the law as it pertains to the gospel message, and bringing conviction and that illustration, that plain illustration, that's one of the best conjured up illustrations I have ever heard, and I'm not saying that facetiously.
• 11:27
  Pat Nemmers: That was very powerful me.
• 11:29
  Pat Nemmers: I went right back to the church I pastored in those days and shared it.
• 11:33
  Ray Comfort: So thank you very much.
• 11:34
  Ray Comfort: Thank you for the encouragement.
• 11:35
  Emeal Zwayne: Yeah, we've been blown away by how many people that message has reached.
• 11:40
  Emeal Zwayne: I mean, there was a time when an organization called firefighters for christ.
• 11:43
  Emeal Zwayne: They were big on duplicating back then cassette tapes and then cds.
• 11:47
  Pat Nemmers: But I believe our friend, charlie, who we talked about in the last podcast, came to christ listening to that cassette tape.
• 11:54
  Pat Nemmers: he did Wow.
• 11:55
  Emeal Zwayne: Yeah, yeah.
• 11:55
  Emeal Zwayne: charlie, our good, dear friend, who I got to know, uh wanted to go to dinner one night and we went to dinner and that's where he said to me You know, hey, i'm starting a church and it's going to be about friendship and food and fellowship and fitness and whatever the f's were.
• 12:09
  Ray Comfort: Bluffles, yeah.
• 12:10
  Ray Comfort: Finance.
• 12:11
  Emeal Zwayne: He had all this Bluffle, bluffle Yeah and I go, man houston, we got a problem.
• 12:16
  Emeal Zwayne: Does this guy know the lord?
• 12:18
  Emeal Zwayne: So I go.
• 12:19
  Emeal Zwayne: You know, charlie, church is supposed to be christocentric and about g, you know, he's like, oh, he got kind of offended when he you laugh, i mean he shares his testimony.
• 12:26
  Emeal Zwayne: So i'm like, all right, i got to get this guy some stuff.
• 12:29
  Emeal Zwayne: So I started out with house mess, kept secret and, lo and behold, charlie realized, oh, i'm not saved.
• 12:34
  Emeal Zwayne: And so he, he got saved and that's such a healthy, sound, wonderful church.
• 12:40
  Emeal Zwayne: Yeah, it's called lakeshore city church.
• 12:41
  Emeal Zwayne: By the way, friends, it's out there in corona, so check it out if you're in that area.
• 12:45
  Emeal Zwayne: He can't go wrong there.
• 12:46
  Emeal Zwayne: So, yeah, so, um, what was I saying?
• 12:49
  Emeal Zwayne: I have no idea.
• 12:50
  Emeal Zwayne: I don't remember.
• 12:50
  Emeal Zwayne: I was going to say something, whatever.
• 12:52
  Ray Comfort: All right, no idea what you're doing anyway.
• 12:54
  Emeal Zwayne: Yeah, we don't, do he?
• 12:55
  Emeal Zwayne: um, by the way, do you see that pat on the mug?
• 12:57
  Emeal Zwayne: Yeah, there it is.
• 12:58
  Emeal Zwayne: We have no idea what we're doing.
• 13:00
  Ray Comfort: Oh, we also have someone else in stereo.
• 13:02
  Ray Comfort: It's very, very special, but mcuddy's dropped and he's right behind you.
• 13:05
  Emeal Zwayne: Oh, yeah, bartholomew is here.
• 13:08
  Emeal Zwayne: Welcome, bart Oscar.
• 13:10
  Emeal Zwayne: Tell the people about bart.
• 13:12
  Oscar Navarro: Uh, his name is bart.
• 13:13
  Oscar Navarro: Yeah, bart's out here from Nashville, tennessee.
• 13:18
  Oscar Navarro: Um, he's our newest employee here for living waters.
• 13:22
  Oscar Navarro: He's a development officer.
• 13:23
  Oscar Navarro: We're super excited.
• 13:24
  Oscar Navarro: One of the great things about bart that we recognize right off the bat is that, uh, he loves this ministry.
• 13:31
  Oscar Navarro: He goes back along.
• 13:32
  Oscar Navarro: He's a new employee of this ministry No more than a week, but he goes back as a faithful servant at ambassadors academies and I talked to bart and it's like he knows everybody, you know.
• 13:43
  Oscar Navarro: He's like, oh, yeah, todd freel and this guy and joe bob, and And so we're really excited for him to be here with us, to be employed And uh, maybe one day, listener, you'll be able to meet the famous bart mcuddy.
• 13:55
  Pat Nemmers: Yeah, you say joe bob.
• 13:57
  Pat Nemmers: I mean, does he know the waltons?
• 13:59
  Ray Comfort: I think so pretty close with the waltons.
• 14:01
  Oscar Navarro: Yeah, billy bob and joe bob.
• 14:05
  Emeal Zwayne: All right friends, time to jump into it.
• 14:07
  Emeal Zwayne: Uh, this is going to be, i think, a much needed heavy episode, because sometimes we need to face realities, believers, and, uh, we need to get real about the things that are real.
• 14:20
  Emeal Zwayne: And Tragedy is a real part of the christian faith.
• 14:24
  Emeal Zwayne: We've talked about it before in the podcast, you know we have the word faith preachers the prosperity preachers the name it claim it.
• 14:32
  Emeal Zwayne: Preachers who tell us that, no, the christian life should be one of affluence and of blessings and of favorable circumstances, that those are really the signs of God's blessings on your life, his favor on your life.
• 14:48
  Emeal Zwayne: But that's a bunch of hogwash.
• 14:50
  Emeal Zwayne: If you want to really look at scripture, you're gonna see that those that were often most used by the lord Were those that went through some of the most difficult circumstances.
• 14:59
  Emeal Zwayne: Just read Hebrews 11 and read the end of Hebrews 11 And see what they went through, but through faith, real faith in christ, not faith and faith.
• 15:08
  Emeal Zwayne: God did great things, and so pat this book.
• 15:12
  Emeal Zwayne: It gets down to the nitty gritty of the tragedies that sometimes strike, and what we want to talk about today is how do we strike back?
• 15:19
  Emeal Zwayne: How do we, as believers, get to a place where, when the tragedies strike, we can actually Cling to the lord and not just survive But thrive in a way that honors the lord in it, even in the midst of pain, even in the midst of lament And brokenness.
• 15:37
  Emeal Zwayne: How can we persevere through that?
• 15:39
  Emeal Zwayne: And so I'd love you to open that up for us and just kind of hit some of the highlights From your book on that.
• 15:45
  Pat Nemmers: Well, you're alluding to a chapter that I I wrote, titled how to see in the dark, and that that's not just a clever title of a chapter.
• 15:54
  Pat Nemmers: It really was me, i mean I.
• 15:56
  Pat Nemmers: Some things are just never seen, spiritually speaking, until we're in a dark place.
• 16:03
  Pat Nemmers: We're, we're in that dark night of the soul, so to speak, wherever it may be.
• 16:07
  Pat Nemmers: For me, it was the, the day my wife of 16 years, who gave me seven children Her name was Nina had a heart attack and literally died in my arms.
• 16:17
  Pat Nemmers: We were in the middle of our very first ministry.
• 16:20
  Pat Nemmers: We were about 10 years in and our church had quadrupled in size.
• 16:26
  Pat Nemmers: Now, the first week, there were only 27 people.
• 16:30
  Ray Comfort: So I don't want you to get any exuberant amounts, you know.
• 16:32
  Pat Nemmers: in fact, the second week there was 21 people.
• 16:35
  Pat Nemmers: I called my brothers and said Hey, this thing's going backwards.
• 16:38
  Ray Comfort: I feel your pain.
• 16:38
  Ray Comfort: Get in there.
• 16:39
  Ray Comfort: I feel your pain.
• 16:39
  Ray Comfort: I was in the church that went down to nine on a Sunday night and the pianist was sick.
• 16:43
  Ray Comfort: It was awful You had to play the piano.
• 16:46
  Ray Comfort: No, we went without piano.
• 16:47
  Ray Comfort: Yeah, but I feel your pain.
• 16:50
  Pat Nemmers: So, but as we faithfully preached the gospel, as God did bless, the church did start to grow and we were out in the middle of.
• 16:57
  Pat Nemmers: No, we weren't at the end of the world, but you could pretty much see the end of the world from where I pastored a very rural area And we were running over 100 people, which was just unbelievable in those days And we were rejoicing.
• 17:11
  Pat Nemmers: We were building a brand new facility.
• 17:13
  Pat Nemmers: We hadn't borrowed any money for it.
• 17:14
  Pat Nemmers: It was really a cool.
• 17:16
  Pat Nemmers: Even the community was taking note of what was going on And my wife saw the foundation of that building that we were about to erect.
• 17:26
  Pat Nemmers: And then what happened was I got back from a speaking at a high school retreat I'd been gone for four days in Northern Minnesota came back and it was just chatting it up with my wife.
• 17:40
  Pat Nemmers: We were just spending some time together.
• 17:42
  Pat Nemmers: In fact, just a few weeks earlier, we were sitting in bed talking about all the tragedies that occurred in different people's lives And we just sort of we were sort of arrested by the fact that neither one of us had ever had a tragedy in our lives And you know, unbeknownst to me, i had one coming right around the corner.
• 18:01
  Pat Nemmers: And so on February or rather February, it was actually July 15th 1995, i got a phone call from a gal on our who had just become a Christian a few weeks earlier.
• 18:12
  Pat Nemmers: She asked me if I would pray for her dad who was in the hospital with a heart condition.
• 18:17
  Pat Nemmers: I said I would and I will.
• 18:20
  Pat Nemmers: But I asked her.
• 18:20
  Pat Nemmers: I said.
• 18:21
  Pat Nemmers: I said, brenda, is your dad a Christian?
• 18:23
  Pat Nemmers: She said no, i don't believe he is.
• 18:26
  Pat Nemmers: And I said, brenda, you know the scriptures is.
• 18:28
  Pat Nemmers: You know, don't boast about tomorrow.
• 18:30
  Pat Nemmers: You don't know what a day will bring forth.
• 18:31
  Pat Nemmers: You need to tell your dad about Jesus.
• 18:33
  Pat Nemmers: And I share the gospel with him.
• 18:35
  Pat Nemmers: And I don't think what I said was harsh or unloving.
• 18:42
  Pat Nemmers: It was certainly true.
• 18:43
  Pat Nemmers: But I hung up the phone that night And that there was about six o'clock at night and it was four and a half.
• 18:50
  Pat Nemmers: Five and a half hours later.
• 18:51
  Pat Nemmers: That very verse would come to roost upon me When my wife of 16 years, who gave me seven children, literally died in my arms And so she had a heart attack.
• 19:01
  Pat Nemmers: It was there was no precursor, there was no family history, it was just absolute in a heartbeat, literally our life, our lives returned upside down.
• 19:11
  Pat Nemmers: So when that happened, the moment there was just so many things I could talk about at this point.
• 19:19
  Pat Nemmers: I mean, probably the hardest thing I've ever had to do in my life was to tell my children We had seven children.
• 19:25
  Oscar Navarro: That's the part that I wanted you to tell the listeners, because the moment in the book when you have to wake up, i think your daughter was like 13 years old.
• 19:33
  Oscar Navarro: I'm getting emotional thinking about it right now.
• 19:35
  Oscar Navarro: Could you, if you feel comfortable, could you share sort of that process in that moment?
• 19:40
  Pat Nemmers: Yeah, that's the part of the book that very few people have been able to read without shedding a tear.
• 19:44
  Pat Nemmers: And she was 14 and she's obviously a mother today with several children.
• 19:51
  Pat Nemmers: But she was 14, my oldest, and I had to start with her about three in the morning.
• 19:55
  Pat Nemmers: Her mother had just died a few hours earlier.
• 19:58
  Pat Nemmers: I just returned from the hospital And now that was the task before me.
• 20:03
  Pat Nemmers: I didn't know what to do.
• 20:04
  Pat Nemmers: I thought I don't dare wait till morning.
• 20:06
  Pat Nemmers: The last words they ever heard from their mother was I love you That night, that night I mean, this is what parents say to their children before they kiss them goodnight And that's the last word they ever heard from their mom.
• 20:17
  Pat Nemmers: And the first word she heard from me was I actually went into her room.
• 20:25
  Pat Nemmers: Her bedroom was a closet I mean, this was a small farmhouse we lived in, but it wasn't, when you think closet, it was a large closet, but for a 14 year old it was a mansion because she had her own room finally And I went into her room and the hall room light was on and I just left the door open So you could just the shaft of light was coming in.
• 20:43
  Pat Nemmers: I didn't want to alarm her.
• 20:45
  Pat Nemmers: I sat next to her and I just sort of stroked her hair And I said, sarah, she was just slowly waking her up.
• 20:54
  Pat Nemmers: And of course then she woke up, she was startled, but I didn't know what to say.
• 21:00
  Pat Nemmers: I mean, i'm a pastor, love theology, love the word of God, love God, want to say the right things at the right time.
• 21:11
  Pat Nemmers: I just didn't know how to put it.
• 21:12
  Pat Nemmers: And I mean, i just said, honey, i have some very, very sad news to share with you.
• 21:20
  Pat Nemmers: And now she's starting to wake up.
• 21:23
  Pat Nemmers: I can go there.
• 21:24
  Pat Nemmers: This is why it's very emotional for me, because I sort of put myself there And she's sitting up and I said, honey, your mommy just went to heaven And now she's like what?
• 21:38
  Pat Nemmers: And I said, honey, i don't know how to say this, but I told her what happened and how her mommy had died.
• 21:45
  Pat Nemmers: And I could just hear her pathetic line oh mommy, oh mommy.
• 21:51
  Pat Nemmers: You know, and that was very hard.
• 21:53
  Pat Nemmers: It was hard to tell the other kids, but to tell a 14 year old who loved her mom and was very, very close to her is very hard, very difficult.
• 22:02
  Pat Nemmers: To tell my next oldest as well, but that was difficult And it was a very, very, very long night, and so we I laid next to her, we got through the night.
• 22:12
  Pat Nemmers: I told the rest of the little ones earlier.
• 22:14
  Pat Nemmers: I didn't wake them up in the middle of the night.
• 22:17
  Pat Nemmers: I told the rest of the little ones earlier.
• 22:18
  Pat Nemmers: I didn't wake them up in the middle of the night.
• 22:21
  Pat Nemmers: But just to tell you.
• 22:23
  Pat Nemmers: I mean to get to the question itself.
• 22:25
  Pat Nemmers: So a couple of things took place.
• 22:26
  Pat Nemmers: I mean, can I ask you before?
• 22:28
  Pat Nemmers: Yes, please.
• 22:30
  Oscar Navarro: Just because we're talking about tragedy and sort of in the storm of it, tragedy rocks people in so many different ways.
• 22:36
  Oscar Navarro: Can you recall what your prayers sounded like that night, just as you're, as you're going to bed?
• 22:41
  Oscar Navarro: I mean, what was that like?
• 22:44
  Pat Nemmers: Oscar, i wish I could answer that question definitively.
• 22:47
  Pat Nemmers: I think I was in an absolute days.
• 22:51
  Pat Nemmers: I mean I was talking with God throughout the night, but Probably relatively incoherently.
• 22:58
  Pat Nemmers: I probably was relying on that.
• 23:00
  Pat Nemmers: You know Romans, romans 8, you know the Holy Spirit Making intercession we cannot be at, which cannot be uttered, and so, but I can tell you this, at about 8 o'clock in the morning.
• 23:11
  Pat Nemmers: I say this because I know what I would be like without it.
• 23:16
  Pat Nemmers: I I've read my Bible every day since since September 6, 1982, every.
• 23:21
  Pat Nemmers: There's never been.
• 23:22
  Pat Nemmers: I don't leave the home without reading my Bible.
• 23:24
  Pat Nemmers: That sounds legalistic.
• 23:25
  Pat Nemmers: I don't mean it to be legalistic, i just know myself and I have to hear from God.
• 23:30
  Pat Nemmers: So I tell you that at 8 in the morning I opened my Bible to Psalm 69.
• 23:34
  Pat Nemmers: I was in Psalm 68 the day before and I read the very beginning save me, oh God, for the waters have come up to my neck.
• 23:41
  Pat Nemmers: I'm weary from my crying.
• 23:42
  Pat Nemmers: He's like totally describing me in the moment.
• 23:44
  Pat Nemmers: And Then I read verse 6 and I'm telling you, oscar, easy, ray, you talk about being arrested.
• 23:53
  Pat Nemmers: Verse 6 says David writes let not those he said, let not those who wait upon you Become ashamed because of me.
• 24:01
  Pat Nemmers: Let not those who seek you become ashamed because of me.
• 24:06
  Pat Nemmers: And I literally pulled myself back from the kitchen counter where I was reading that and I said, god, are you challenging me in the early moments of my bereavement?
• 24:17
  Pat Nemmers: That's that prayer I remember distinctly Because it, you know.
• 24:21
  Pat Nemmers: David is saying People are watching him.
• 24:25
  Pat Nemmers: And it was almost as if God was saying to me Pat, there's gonna be a lot of sympathetic eyes out there.
• 24:31
  Pat Nemmers: You're 37 years old.
• 24:33
  Pat Nemmers: You got seven kids, ages 14 down to one.
• 24:35
  Pat Nemmers: Our one year old had just been weaned from his mother one week earlier.
• 24:40
  Pat Nemmers: Yeah, she just saw him walk a couple days earlier.
• 24:43
  Pat Nemmers: Before that, maybe I was gonna be an instant novelty.
• 24:46
  Pat Nemmers: It was almost like God was saying You're gonna have a lot of sympathetic eyes, but they're gonna be watchful eyes.
• 24:51
  Pat Nemmers: They're gonna want to see if this gray stuff you've been preaching really works.
• 24:56
  Pat Nemmers: Wow, and of course it does.
• 24:58
  Pat Nemmers: But I was challenged in the early moments of my bereavement, right then.
• 25:04
  Emeal Zwayne: Wow, ray.
• 25:05
  Emeal Zwayne: As I looked across and you know tears were streaming down my eyes I saw the same was happening with you.
• 25:11
  Emeal Zwayne: I mean, you've gone through difficulty and ministry, but that takes it to a whole other level.
• 25:17
  Ray Comfort: Yeah, i.
• 25:18
  Ray Comfort: I just thinking about how, when you, when I get arrived at a hotel room, one of the first things I look at and it's against my nature to do this, because I'm so sort of shallow and flippant I go to the door and find out where the exit is during a fire.
• 25:29
  Ray Comfort: Because knowledge is incredibly powerful in such a situation.
• 25:33
  Ray Comfort: Because if you're in a fire in a hotel and it there's just been one in New Zealand were about a dozen people died.
• 25:38
  Ray Comfort: They were trapped in there, couldn't get out, and it's because of the fact that when there's a Fire in an upper story, it fills with smoke and if you take one breath of that smoke it's full of carcinogens.
• 25:49
  Ray Comfort: You're gonna die.
• 25:50
  Ray Comfort: So the first thing you have to do in your darkness is hit the floor, because that's where the oxygen is, and when we find ourselves in the darkness of tragedy, that's where you've got to do hit the floor because, that's where the oxygen is.
• 26:03
  Ray Comfort: Get close to God on your knees.
• 26:04
  Ray Comfort: And I was thinking of that because you look at the word tragedy and right in the middle of it is the word age, and it's just.
• 26:11
  Ray Comfort: It's gonna come to all of us, no matter what age we are.
• 26:13
  Ray Comfort: There's gonna be tragedy, hit us and if you've either got your house built on rock or your house built on sand, and this world Collapses all around us because they haven't built their lives on the teachings of Jesus, yeah, amen.
• 26:25
  Emeal Zwayne: You know, pat, i did want to read this portion and I'd like you to Kind of get into it a little bit.
• 26:31
  Emeal Zwayne: You highlighted it.
• 26:32
  Oscar Navarro: I think it's the same exact one I have highlighted.
• 26:34
  Oscar Navarro: Is it yeah?
• 26:35
  Emeal Zwayne: okay, i like you no, i'm excited, but, but this is where you're describing what happened with your daughter, and You said Her sorrow was indescribable Oh mommy, oh mommy.
• 26:47
  Emeal Zwayne: She repeated over and over for how long, i can't remember.
• 26:51
  Emeal Zwayne: I only recall holding her and weeping with her for a long time.
• 26:54
  Emeal Zwayne: To this day, i weep every time.
• 26:56
  Emeal Zwayne: I recall the heart Rending moment, which I avoid doing any more often than I need to.
• 27:02
  Emeal Zwayne: The reality is, though, that I do need to.
• 27:06
  Emeal Zwayne: The death of Nina produced a number of retractions in my life, and almost all of them had to do with my own lack of compassion.
• 27:12
  Emeal Zwayne: There, i've said it I was not a very compassionate Christian, much less Pastor.
• 27:18
  Emeal Zwayne: Don't misunderstand, i thought I was compassionate.
• 27:21
  Emeal Zwayne: If you had asked me, before the day my wife died, whether I was compassionate, i would have replied in the affirmative.
• 27:27
  Emeal Zwayne: I could easily have supplied a list of situations and circumstances in which I had demonstrated some semblance of compassion multiple hospital calls and upholding those experiencing broken relationships, deaths of loved ones, even births gone tragically wrong.
• 27:40
  Emeal Zwayne: In each case, i brought God's word and its answer, his answers to the moment, and then you go on from there, but I'd love for you to speak to that, the, the growth of Compassion in your heart through what you went through and how you realized you weren't that compassionate person before.
• 27:58
  Pat Nemmers: Well, that is Thanks for asking that, because the beginning of the title is how to see in the dark.
• 28:04
  Pat Nemmers: This is how.
• 28:04
  Pat Nemmers: This is how God revealed some of those character flaws in my life through Nothing less than the death of my wife.
• 28:12
  Pat Nemmers: What you just read is exactly the truth.
• 28:15
  Pat Nemmers: I mean, i, i did all of those things.
• 28:17
  Pat Nemmers: But remember what I said just before hours before my wife died, i had had a conversation with this young lady whose father was in trouble, his heart was in trouble, and I gave him that quote from Proverbs 27,.
• 28:30
  Pat Nemmers: You know, you know, don't boast about tomorrow, because you don't know what a day will bring forth.
• 28:34
  Pat Nemmers: That was a true statement, but I can't honestly say it was a heartfelt statement and I think that the death of my wife Allowed me to see some of my own darkness and my the necessity of becoming a compassionate man.
• 28:53
  Pat Nemmers: That was the big in.
• 28:55
  Pat Nemmers: There are other areas that God dealt with with me intolerance and things like that but The compassion part was huge and you know, one of the things he did to kind of rectify it was He allowed me to remarry a few years later to Marilyn, my wife, who's in studio and she's watching this, but she is one of the most compassionate people you'll ever know.
• 29:18
  Pat Nemmers: You already know?
• 29:19
  Pat Nemmers: Oh, yeah, absolutely, but I I feed off of her compassion and I think it got so.
• 29:25
  Pat Nemmers: In other words, god doesn't just reveal to you your need, in this case, for to be more compassionate, but then he I love God then supplies the, the ability to be able to, not just internally, through the spirit of God and the word of God, but he puts the people in your life that will help you to become more like Jesus in this particular area.
• 29:46
  Pat Nemmers: Jesus who saw the multitudes and was full of compassion.
• 29:49
  Pat Nemmers: Right.
• 29:49
  Oscar Navarro: Yeah, you know, cs Lewis is one of my favorite authors.
• 29:52
  Oscar Navarro: He wrote a book called a grief observed.
• 29:54
  Oscar Navarro: He lost his wife as well.
• 29:56
  Oscar Navarro: Yes, and man, he writes quite a bit about it.
• 29:59
  Oscar Navarro: One of the things that he says later on is that one thing that he didn't realize about grief is that he would be grieving Every day for the rest of his life.
• 30:07
  Oscar Navarro: And at some point he says like grief, the grief today reminds me that the grief will be here again tomorrow.
• 30:12
  Oscar Navarro: But before but in addition to that, he says something that you're kind of suggesting, which is, i Suggest to you, that it is because God loves us that he gives us the gift of suffering.
• 30:24
  Oscar Navarro: Pain is God's megaphone to rouse a deaf world.
• 30:28
  Oscar Navarro: You see, we are like blocks of stone out of which the sculptor carves the forms of men.
• 30:34
  Oscar Navarro: I love his poetic ways of writing.
• 30:37
  Oscar Navarro: The blows of his chisel, which hurt us so much, are what make us perfect, or, how you said it, make us more like his son, jesus.
• 30:47
  Oscar Navarro: And which leads me to the question How do you, having someone who's not lost a wife though, by the way, when you said you were 37, 39, so that hit different to just thinking of, you know, familiar with that time period of your life.
• 31:02
  Oscar Navarro: How does somebody hold on to their faith and see it chiseled into something beautiful Rather than lose their faith?
• 31:11
  Oscar Navarro: in that kind of a moment, what could you say?
• 31:13
  Oscar Navarro: Well, how could you speak into someone's life and who's experiencing something like that?
• 31:17
  Pat Nemmers: Well, i love the question because it brings us back to the elementals.
• 31:20
  Pat Nemmers: By the way, i read that book, that little it's just a little, it is Yeah it's great and.
• 31:25
  Pat Nemmers: But the quote that comes out of it, because it's so experiential, it's almost like he wrote it a couple days after she died.
• 31:32
  Pat Nemmers: And My quote that I remember from that book, oscar, is her absence is like the sky spread over everything.
• 31:42
  Pat Nemmers: Remember that quote Her absence is like the sky spread over everything.
• 31:47
  Pat Nemmers: I underlined it, put the word quote next to it, because that was my experience in the moment.
• 31:51
  Pat Nemmers: I disagree, however, with Lewis, if I dare say so.
• 31:55
  Pat Nemmers: I know I'm not disagreeing with God In that your grief does have a low level of power, but it's not a low level of power.
• 31:55
  Pat Nemmers: It's not a low level of power.
• 31:59
  Pat Nemmers: It's not a low level of power.
• 32:01
  Pat Nemmers: Your grief does have a limit.
• 32:04
  Pat Nemmers: I would say to those who are grieving you can still miss them and miss their life and look forward to seeing them in heaven and all that goes along with it.
• 32:12
  Pat Nemmers: But God does give beauty for ashes.
• 32:15
  Pat Nemmers: He does give the oil of joy for mourning.
• 32:18
  Pat Nemmers: He does give the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness, so that we may be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he may be glorified.
• 32:25
  Pat Nemmers: And he did that through a series of circumstances, not the least of which is my wife Marilyn.
• 32:30
  Pat Nemmers: I don't grieve over my first wife anymore And I'm pretty sure my wife doesn't grieve over her first husband, much as we love them with all of our hearts and look forward to meeting them again.
• 32:42
  Pat Nemmers: But to your question to me it's elemental.
• 32:45
  Pat Nemmers: We get back to the truth, we, you know.
• 32:47
  Pat Nemmers: When tragedy strikes, how do we strike back?
• 32:50
  Pat Nemmers: We strike back, you know, with the truth.
• 32:52
  Pat Nemmers: We have to preach the truth to ourselves.
• 32:55
  Pat Nemmers: We all know that.
• 32:56
  Pat Nemmers: But it's all the more important when tragedy strikes.
• 33:01
  Pat Nemmers: That's when our I mean my first message I preached when I got back in the pulpit was a message titled When Your Theology Comes to Bear.
• 33:08
  Pat Nemmers: So this is when we have to.
• 33:11
  Pat Nemmers: You know you're preaching these things.
• 33:13
  Pat Nemmers: You know we're preaching that God is sovereign, that he has a there's perfect, that this wasn't a mistake.
• 33:19
  Pat Nemmers: And I remember I have to tell you a story two weeks after my wife died, we were supposed to go to a family camp.
• 33:25
  Pat Nemmers: Now, normally we went to a family camp, i was the preacher, but this was a time when my wife and I discussed let's just go to one where you're not actually preaching, honey, can we just enjoy a camp without you preaching?
• 33:36
  Pat Nemmers: I said, okay, we'll do it.
• 33:38
  Pat Nemmers: So we lined up to go to the camp.
• 33:39
  Pat Nemmers: In between the lining up and going, she died.
• 33:43
  Pat Nemmers: And so I thought, well, we're not going to camp.
• 33:46
  Pat Nemmers: But the camp director called and said Pat, we'll pay your way.
• 33:51
  Pat Nemmers: We know what happened.
• 33:53
  Pat Nemmers: Please come bring your kids, it'll be good for them.
• 33:55
  Pat Nemmers: And he was right The kids.
• 33:56
  Pat Nemmers: It was a great distraction.
• 33:59
  Pat Nemmers: But we went to the camp and this preacher got up and he was an older man, about ready to retire.
• 34:07
  Pat Nemmers: He'd been faithful to God all of his life And he was preaching through Luke.
• 34:11
  Pat Nemmers: I mean, luke's gospel is the compassionate gospel, and his opening line, his opening line, was folks, i want you to know something as we get into this series today Jesus anticipates the needs of his children.
• 34:28
  Pat Nemmers: And I'm telling you guys, i lost it right there in the pew.
• 34:32
  Pat Nemmers: I lost it.
• 34:33
  Pat Nemmers: Of course he does.
• 34:35
  Pat Nemmers: Of course he does.
• 34:36
  Pat Nemmers: I just needed to hear that true all over again.
• 34:39
  Pat Nemmers: Jesus anticipates the needs of his children, and so it was that truth, and that goes along with it, that really bolstered me, and I would say the same thing to.
• 34:52
  Pat Nemmers: I would say one more thing before you move on the next question, oscar, experiences are wonderful And I had my share of great experiences when my wife died, that God affirming his love and stuff.
• 35:04
  Pat Nemmers: But so on the day of the funeral true story, i have pictures.
• 35:08
  Pat Nemmers: People sent me pictures from all over the county.
• 35:10
  Pat Nemmers: This is 1995.
• 35:12
  Pat Nemmers: On the day of the funeral really hot day in Iowa I go to the end of the driveway.
• 35:17
  Pat Nemmers: I'm by myself, i don't want let the kids see that I'm weepy.
• 35:20
  Pat Nemmers: And I looked up in the sky and I said God, another prayer.
• 35:25
  Pat Nemmers: I remember, oscar, god, i know that Nina is with you, but would you just confirm that to me.
• 35:31
  Pat Nemmers: I mean, i half thought he was gonna paint her name in the sky.
• 35:34
  Pat Nemmers: I mean, really, i thought I'm this, i'm a man of faith here, right?
• 35:37
  Pat Nemmers: Well, he didn't.
• 35:41
  Pat Nemmers: We got through the funeral, the great day, sad day, and hundreds and hundreds of people, and finally they all left.
• 35:49
  Pat Nemmers: There were just a few people left in our home.
• 35:50
  Pat Nemmers: It was about 7.30 at night and a brief storm goes through My neighbor, my Roman Catholic neighbor, sweet lady who came over a nurse.
• 35:57
  Pat Nemmers: she did mouth to mouth, tried to resuscitate my wife that night.
• 36:00
  Pat Nemmers: She calls me.
• 36:02
  Pat Nemmers: She says Pat, i know this isn't a very appropriate time, but you have got to go outside and see what's outside.
• 36:07
  Pat Nemmers: We've never seen anything like it.
• 36:09
  Pat Nemmers: We went outside, we took pictures, not a little to the left and not a little to the right, in the exact location I was looking up that morning, the exact location There was, to this day, the most powerful double rainbow I have ever laid my eyes on.
• 36:27
  Pat Nemmers: Now let me ask you, gentlemen, do you think God gave me that rainbow?
• 36:35
  Oscar Navarro: He is the sovereign God of the universe?
• 36:37
  Pat Nemmers: He is, and I think the answer is yes.
• 36:39
  Pat Nemmers: But let me tell you something I don't trust the fact that my wife is in glory because I saw a rainbow, much as it was God condescending to my weakness When I said would you just show that My wife is in heaven on the basis of truth, to be absent from the bodies, to be present with the Lord?
• 37:00
  Pat Nemmers: And that's what I would say to listeners going through tragedy.
• 37:04
  Pat Nemmers: This is the time to lean into the truth, not look for somebody else to give it to you, even though it'll come from both directions.
• 37:10
  Emeal Zwayne: Amen.
• 37:11
  Emeal Zwayne: Yeah, you know, one of the things that I often say is Lord, please never leave me alone with my own thoughts.
• 37:17
  Emeal Zwayne: That's one of the most dangerous.
• 37:19
  Emeal Zwayne: I thought you were gonna say with Ray, i do.
• 37:21
  Emeal Zwayne: That is one of the most dangerous places to be.
• 37:26
  Emeal Zwayne: And that's what happens.
• 37:28
  Emeal Zwayne: We find ourselves facing tragedy, difficulty, trials, and what begins to happen is our mind, disconnected from God's word, begins to lean on human reasoning, human logic, and that's flawed And it's tainted with all sorts of sinful sort of foundations.
• 37:52
  Emeal Zwayne: And so we have to feed ourselves with truth.
• 37:55
  Emeal Zwayne: We have to go back to what God's word says.
• 37:57
  Emeal Zwayne: We have to determine that we're not gonna let ourselves be blown here and there by the winds of our emotions and our sentiment and our own logic and reasoning and the world's philosophies.
• 38:10
  Emeal Zwayne: All those things come to bear in those moments.
• 38:12
  Emeal Zwayne: And that's why, pat, like you said, you make it a point to not leave your house until you have heard from God.
• 38:19
  Emeal Zwayne: Through his word, he's already given us his divine revelation that speaks to us, and so you inform yourself with truth, and I love the saying that says you know, i need to read God's word first thing in the morning because I'm gonna be lied to throughout the day.
• 38:32
  Emeal Zwayne: Right, right, and so that's key, ray.
• 38:34
  Emeal Zwayne: I wanted to have you comment on this.
• 38:36
  Emeal Zwayne: This is Jerry Bridges.
• 38:37
  Emeal Zwayne: He said trials always change our relationship with God.
• 38:41
  Emeal Zwayne: Either they drive us to him or they drive us away from him.
• 38:45
  Emeal Zwayne: The extent of our fear of him and our awareness of his love for us determine in which direction we will move.
• 38:54
  Ray Comfort: Boy, that's so deep.
• 38:55
  Ray Comfort: I just wanna say I was so interested to hear you say you disagree with CS Lewis because I was thinking I can't disagree with CS Lewis because I'm not one to go down Grief Street.
• 39:04
  Ray Comfort: When I lost my parents, i wept my heart out, absolutely wept my heart out, stood up and said that's it.
• 39:10
  Ray Comfort: And when those feelings of grief would come upon me and just almost swallow me up, i just say I'm not going there.
• 39:16
  Ray Comfort: I've been there, i've wept, i'm moving on.
• 39:18
  Ray Comfort: I'm like David, who lost his child, got up, washed his face, brushed his hair and cleaned his teeth and moved on.
• 39:24
  Ray Comfort: Well, it doesn't say cleaned his teeth.
• 39:25
  Pat Nemmers: That's adding to scripture.
• 39:27
  Ray Comfort: But yeah, when tragedy comes, if we find ourselves in a lion's den, a genuine Christian drops to his knees.
• 39:35
  Ray Comfort: He doesn't lift his fist to the heavens.
• 39:36
  Ray Comfort: What good does that do I mean?
• 39:39
  Ray Comfort: tragedy should drive us closer to the Lord.
• 39:41
  Ray Comfort: The storms of adversity should cause our roots to go in deep searching for moisture, and that's what should happen when tragedy comes.
• 39:48
  Ray Comfort: and when tragedy comes.
• 39:51
  Oscar Navarro: Yeah, yeah, let me so there.
• 39:54
  Oscar Navarro: I think there's there's a few different things that we can probably chop up here.
• 39:58
  Oscar Navarro: First is is that overwhelming grief that's debilitating?
• 40:01
  Oscar Navarro: I think that's what you guys are talking about.
• 40:03
  Oscar Navarro: I'm not sure if CS Lewis was talking specifically about that.
• 40:05
  Oscar Navarro: What we see well, i mean if we think about the here and not yet aspect of where we live the reality is that suffering and joy are a part of this life, always.
• 40:16
  Oscar Navarro: They're two sides of the same coin, if you will.
• 40:20
  Oscar Navarro: And until Jesus' fullness, the fullness of his kingdom is realized here on earth as it is in heaven, we are always going to be living with the pains of sin and death, and so we can have everlasting joy that pushes us through, that gives us hope, that puts a smile on our faith faith.
• 40:40
  Ray Comfort: No, smile on their faith is okay.
• 40:41
  Ray Comfort: That doesn't worry about actually.
• 40:45
  Oscar Navarro: And still feel the pain of suffering.
• 40:48
  Ray Comfort: That's a book title Lasker Put a smile on your face.
• 40:51
  Oscar Navarro: There you go, yeah.
• 40:52
  Oscar Navarro: And so I think, for those who are struggling with suffering and grief right now, in the moment maybe you're in the midst of the storm and you haven't experienced what Pat and Ray are talking about, kind of the other side of it The goal isn't to get you to forget about your suffering.
• 41:07
  Oscar Navarro: What the gospel does is provide us a joy that is set before us.
• 41:13
  Oscar Navarro: Right, jesus didn't say I am joyfully looking to the cross.
• 41:17
  Oscar Navarro: He said I'm joyfully looking for, i'm looking towards the joy set before me.
• 41:21
  Oscar Navarro: The byproduct of this cross is going to be salvation for my people.
• 41:27
  Oscar Navarro: In other words, he was eternally minded leading up to the cross.
• 41:31
  Oscar Navarro: And for us who are experienced suffering, who are in the midst of a great storm, we have the joy set before us.
• 41:38
  Oscar Navarro: We have the knowledge of knowing that loved ones who are in Christ are in heaven.
• 41:43
  Oscar Navarro: We have the knowledge of knowing that one day, god will fulfill His promise, which every tear will be wiped away.
• 41:49
  Ray Comfort: Yeah, amen.
• 41:49
  Ray Comfort: Can I just ask a special prayer, if I can, regarding tragedy?
• 41:53
  Ray Comfort: I've been a Christian, i think 52 years And for those 52 years I've had a friend I used to serve for us.
• 41:59
  Ray Comfort: That's mocked me absolutely, put me down.
• 42:01
  Ray Comfort: I'd write every few years say how you doing, kerry, and he'd always come back with a curse word and take me down by saying, sir, how much money you're making now with your God thing.
• 42:10
  Ray Comfort: And then when there's a big earthquake in our city he says, hey, tell your God to knock it off, and stuff like that.
• 42:15
  Ray Comfort: He was just an absolute marker.
• 42:17
  Ray Comfort: The other day I just once again years have passed by us is how you doing, kerry?
• 42:22
  Ray Comfort: And he wrote back and he was incredibly humble.
• 42:25
  Ray Comfort: He just said how are you doing, how's your family doing, and stuff like that.
• 42:28
  Ray Comfort: I thought what's going on?
• 42:29
  Ray Comfort: And then I wrote back and I said Kerry, do you think there's an afterlife?
• 42:34
  Ray Comfort: What happens when people die?
• 42:35
  Ray Comfort: And he says that's been plaguing me because I just lost my wife and my son.
• 42:40
  Ray Comfort: He lost his wife and his son.
• 42:41
  Ray Comfort: He's not a Christian.
• 42:42
  Ray Comfort: So I sent him a link to one of our videos.
• 42:45
  Ray Comfort: I said, well, don't feel pressured by me.
• 42:47
  Ray Comfort: But I said I was in fear and trembling, just to say to you, ask you what happens after someone dies.
• 42:52
  Ray Comfort: I didn't expect them to come back in humility, but it sure has shattered him And I pray that it brings them to the foot of the cross and maybe make a price.
• 42:59
  Ray Comfort: His name's Kerry.
• 42:59
  Emeal Zwayne: Yeah, amen, pray for Kerry.
• 43:01
  Emeal Zwayne: friends, and I love this quote by Mark Devere.
• 43:06
  Emeal Zwayne: He said embracing trials doesn't mean that we're to pretend that they are not trials.
• 43:12
  Emeal Zwayne: It simply means that we are not to let our reaction to them be determined by how they first feel to us.
• 43:19
  Emeal Zwayne: That's good, that's really good.
• 43:21
  Pat Nemmers: That's really good.
• 43:21
  Pat Nemmers: That reminds me of what happened, and probably about a month after my wife died.
• 43:28
  Pat Nemmers: I don't get real cyclanolidical and all of this And I don't get go cycle babble on anybody normally, but when I'd walk into my bedroom, like a paw would just come over me.
• 43:37
  Pat Nemmers: I just every time I'd walk into our bedroom it just like I wanted to be in there only as long as I needed.
• 43:43
  Pat Nemmers: What would come of you?
• 43:44
  Pat Nemmers: Just a paw, just sort of like a heaviness.
• 43:47
  Pat Nemmers: I mean just a I and I just didn't.
• 43:50
  Pat Nemmers: I thought, well, it's my bedroom, i need to go to bed.
• 43:52
  Pat Nemmers: But I slept on the couch for the first three weeks And so I finally said this is silly.
• 43:59
  Pat Nemmers: So I got to go, i got to go to her bed.
• 44:01
  Pat Nemmers: So I went into bed for the first time about three or four weeks after my wife died And I slept on my side of the bed.
• 44:08
  Pat Nemmers: I got in bed and I was.
• 44:11
  Pat Nemmers: I was reading of Job And we all know about Job, job chapter one and then Job chapter two.
• 44:18
  Pat Nemmers: I mean, you know I always tell people, after God allowed Satan to have that Job, the only thing he had left was his life and his wife, and he wasn't particularly excited about either one of them, and so and remember his wife said you should curse God.
• 44:33
  Pat Nemmers: And then he says you speak like the foolish women of the land.
• 44:35
  Pat Nemmers: And then these words were very powerful to me.
• 44:38
  Pat Nemmers: Job said shall we accept good things from God, and shall we not also accept adversity?
• 44:47
  Pat Nemmers: And I sensed in that moment the Lord saying to me accept this.
• 44:54
  Pat Nemmers: I hadn't been bitter, i hadn't been angry, been very, very sad, but I literally got on my knees next to the bed, put my hands in a cup position And I said God, i accept the lot that you've given to me And I'll take whatever you have to put in my hands.
• 45:08
  Pat Nemmers: I surrender that to you.
• 45:10
  Pat Nemmers: That was a big, big deal in terms of embracing And how we accepted.
• 45:15
  Pat Nemmers: Just so most of us know, very recently one of the heroes of the faith of this last generation just died, tim Keller today.
• 45:25
  Pat Nemmers: And so I was thinking about that And just thinking about it.
• 45:30
  Pat Nemmers: My, our staff was going back and forth, the elders, and they were saying this and quoting that, and I just came back with two words.
• 45:37
  Pat Nemmers: I said I'm sad And and I was thinking on this and I this sounds strange, but you know who came to my mind?
• 45:45
  Pat Nemmers: Walter Payton.
• 45:47
  Pat Nemmers: Remember what his nickname was Sweetness, the running back for the Chicago Bears.
• 45:52
  Pat Nemmers: The 1985 world champion Chicago Bears, walter Payton, was one of the greatest running backs of all time.
• 45:57
  Pat Nemmers: He had a liver disease which which did kill my first wife's husband and nearly killed her son, our son from that first marriage with my wife.
• 46:09
  Pat Nemmers: I mean, he lived through it, got a liver transplant.
• 46:12
  Pat Nemmers: He's doing great.
• 46:13
  Pat Nemmers: Walter Payton had a liver disease that was killing him And he went on the media and I can remember how pathetic it was.
• 46:21
  Pat Nemmers: Sad and pathetic.
• 46:22
  Pat Nemmers: He was crying and weeping, crying.
• 46:24
  Pat Nemmers: Please, i need a liver, please.
• 46:26
  Pat Nemmers: It was just, it was so pathetic to look at And he died.
• 46:30
  Pat Nemmers: Today Tim Keller died And one of his final words, registered by his son, were, quote there is no downside for me leaving, not in the slightest, and I thought sad but exalting.
• 46:51
  Pat Nemmers: Not sad and pathetic, but sad and exalting.
• 46:54
  Pat Nemmers: What a difference.
• 46:55
  Pat Nemmers: What a difference a Christian faces tragedy or should, versus those who have no hope.
• 47:02
  Oscar Navarro: I just read that quote this morning in our meeting.
• 47:04
  Emeal Zwayne: Yeah, very powerful.
• 47:05
  Emeal Zwayne: Amen, yeah.
• 47:07
  Emeal Zwayne: And you know, pat, i think back to when my mom passed.
• 47:10
  Emeal Zwayne: I was 18 years old.
• 47:11
  Emeal Zwayne: My mom and I were super close Before I became a Christian.
• 47:15
  Emeal Zwayne: I used to say, if my mom ever dies, i'll commit suicide.
• 47:17
  Emeal Zwayne: That's how so close we were.
• 47:20
  Emeal Zwayne: But after she passed, i had been keeping a recorded journal that I still have on my little tape recorder.
• 47:26
  Emeal Zwayne: And I remember after she passed, when I was holding her in my arms, she took her last breath.
• 47:33
  Emeal Zwayne: I went in my room, i dropped to my knees and I was reminded of it because you mentioned Job and I.
• 47:38
  Emeal Zwayne: I recited the words of Job.
• 47:40
  Emeal Zwayne: The Lord has given, the Lord has taken away.
• 47:42
  Emeal Zwayne: Blessed be the name of the Lord.
• 47:47
  Emeal Zwayne: Amen.
• 47:48
  Emeal Zwayne: And for the believer, in the final analysis, that's what it comes down to Amen, blessing the name of our great and awesome God.
• 47:55
  Emeal Zwayne: And I love the words of John MacArthur the only way out of a trial is through it.
• 48:00
  Emeal Zwayne: The Lord promises no bypass, only that he will always see his people through the trials without their suffering, spiritual harm, and that's how we see in the dark.
• 48:11
  Pat Nemmers: Amen Amen.
• 48:12
  Emeal Zwayne: Yeah, and that, friends, is how we strike back when tragedy strikes.
• 48:16
  Emeal Zwayne: Pat, thanks for just giving us that intimate glimpse into your life.
• 48:20
  Emeal Zwayne: We all got radically emotional through that, but it does us a world of good, because it's one thing to theorize about how to make it through difficult times.
• 48:31
  Emeal Zwayne: It's another thing to actually not only survive it, but to go through one of the most difficult things imaginable not just losing your wife, but unexpectedly while you were holding her in your arms and to make it through in such a way that God has glorified lives are touched, impacted, hearts are transformed.
• 48:52
  Emeal Zwayne: And so, brother, thank you, we love you.
• 48:55
  Emeal Zwayne: Thank you so much for coming on the podcast today And please, friends, get retractions, cultivating humility after humiliation.
• 49:02
  Emeal Zwayne: You'll find a lot more to that story in there and a lot of other examples of how to strike back when tragedy strikes and to be built up in the Lord.
• 49:12
  Emeal Zwayne: So thanks for joining us, friends.
• 49:13
  Emeal Zwayne: No silliness, we'll see you here next time on the Living Waters podcast.