R.C. Sproul

They weren't any worse.

They weren't any better.

Eighteen innocent people in a building, and the building collapses.

It's not like they were standing there outside the construction of this temple playing sidewalk superintendent and harassing the construction workers.

And so as a result, God judged them and had the tower fall on their heads.

No.

They're walking down the street minding their own business.

The tower collapsed.

Boom.

They're killed.

The question is, how can God allow that to happen?

Jesus answered his heart.

He's saying, why shouldn't God allow that to happen?

And the question you should be asking is why that temple doesn't fall on your head.

If you really believe that we live by grace, that's the response you have to have.

And sometimes it takes the hard saying of Jesus in a question and in a situation like this to get us to remember that, that we are not exempt from tragedy or suffering

or calamity or injustice from the hands of people.

As I've said over and over and over again, it's very possible for me to commit an injustice against you and for you to commit an injustice against me because in terms of our relationship, we may be innocent with respect to one another, but anything that befalls me that is painful or sorrowful or grievous that comes to me from the hand of God, I can never see.

as an act of injustice, because God does not owe me freedom from tragedies.

God does not owe me freedom from temples falling on my head or towers burying me beneath their rubble, because I am a debtor before God who cannot repay.