Betting on God

Well here we are on a crisp spring blue sky morning in Colorado I am outside and you can hear the traffic in the background the train off in the distance birds calling to each other and to the sky and it's just a wonderful day to be alive this is Dick Both with stories from the road and somebody's on the road you can hear the train whistle in the background what a time mid-April is just sports wise right we've just finished men and women's NCAA basketball March Madness and today this is a Thursday in which I'm recording this starts this thing called the Master's Golf Tournament in Augusta, Georgia there are all other kinds of things going on sports wise NBA and HL all of that all around the world and one of the things that struck me got my attention recently was this my tendency is to say well the Masters have started today for you golfers and what do you want to bet it's going to come down to the final day or perhaps the final hour or perhaps the final hole and the operative phrase there is what do you want to bet it's just I find this fascinating we've just come through Easter a couple of weeks back and there's a phrase in all four accounts of the crucifixion that says this that soldiers and it's not exact quote but that soldiers gambled for Jesus clothing at the foot of the cross here is someone profusely pouring out blood they've got three people being crucified you've got all of the mayhem and all of the stuff that's recounted in the gospels about that day and then this phrase is dropped in there that some guys who were responsible for the actual execution are gambling for clothes what's this deal about gambling I am when I was 17 I went through Reno and Nevada and they've got slot machines everywhere and they had one of the gas station I said well I got two nickels here I'll take my chances and I put it in there the slot and I won 25 cents and I thought man that's good I think I'm on a roll win and bought a two-dollar roll of nickels and lost it all and I believe that's the last coin or dollar that I've gambled or bet in that way over the years and even though scripture doesn't say thou shalt not gamble what it does say in a hundred different ways is God of saying I've given you one life invest it well be a good steward that sort of thing but I've been amazed how much sports betting has taken off it's just everywhere right there are articles about this in major newspapers all the time what's interesting to me is that legal betting or betting has become legal in 38 states since the Supreme Court ruling to that effect so on March Madness just a little factoid on in March Madness 2.7 billion dollars was bet legally and the other kinds of things office pools and all kinds of other side things have took it up to 15 billion dollars some of you listening you know you put five dollars on the Super Bowl back in February and 67 million Americans bet 23 billion dollars on Super Bowl I just I just think it's it's a fascinating thing that we humans do we tend to be bears we tend to be gamblers who say come on don't include me in that big swath of painting the canvas with here no I it's it's it's our I don't know if it's a gift but it's in it innate in us to compete and it's innate in us to sort of bet on who's gonna win in that whether it's just verbal or whether it's monetary or it's gonna be a dinner I have a friend who's now gone on who was a tremendous golfer and he was a believer in Jesus and and he used to bet guys on the third or four whole let's see who can be closest to the pin as we come in to the to the green here in golfing and he was very good and he had a lot of time 75% of the time who would win these kind of competitive betting things and he said if if you win and usually he's playing with somebody who doesn't think about God very much or use his name unless it's in the cursing environment he'd say if if you win I'll buy you the best steak dinner in town you you picked a restaurant I'm up for it if I win I want you to memorize just a couple of sentences or maybe a sentence of what he called ancient writing and that ancient sentence would turn out to be something like for God so love the world he gave his only but God's son that whoever believes in him will not perish but every turn life so I got a lot of guys who otherwise wouldn't be looking at a Bible at all who lost the bet and there you go the reason I want to talk about this it's in our nature in some way to take a chance and I mean go back to the Garden of Eden here's even Adam who have been told you got the whole guard you know if you believe the story if you think it's a myth whatever fascinating right and God says here's the whole garden there's just one tree don't want you to eat from that one because they're a great consequences the enemy of their souls comes along and whispers and as the story goes in her ear and says really he wouldn't do that and Eve apparently says well I'll play the odds I'll take my chances and I didn't work out so well I don't think well for sure I know it didn't work out well so my point is there are lots of phrases we use about betting or using competitive language that includes things like that I got an ace up one sleeve all bets are off I'm gonna break the bank I'm gonna cash in my chips I'm gonna double down wow I hit the jackpot I think I'll play the percentages hey put your money where your mouth is we go okay how about this one what are the odds there's a fellow back in the 16th century by the name of Blaze Pascal he was a French mathematician a physicist an inventor philosopher and his child prodigy very strong in math and science and if you're scientist you work with language like probabilities not absolutes right and a probability is the ability to measure the likelihood of a certain result ability to measure the likelihood of a certain result so scientists people who are experimenting and have theories and ideas use probability language I'll do this and that and the likelihood it is it will turn out this way Pascal this French fellow had a thing that came to be known or has come to be known as Pascal's wager this is what he said let us weigh the gain and the loss in wagering are you waiting for in wagering that God is that God exists Pascal would make a case for believing in that God in it both paraphrase of that if God is and you believe he is then you win if he is and you don't believe he is then there's a lot to be lost if he's not and you believe or don't believe doesn't make any difference but here's my thesis my thesis is that when we follow Jesus the odds of experiencing wonders increase or surprises that are good we all have surprises good bad ugly right or what really counts or experiencing joy or having meaning or purpose recognizing truth I just think that there's such a powerful case to be made is I sit here looking out toward the Rocky Mountains and I'm listening to the birds and I'm seeing just the magnificence of the creation I just have a great difficulty believing well I this just kind of happened I think that kind of happened it did happen but I believe there's a reason and I believe there's a person behind it I love telling the story of a friend I met years ago who turned out to to be a mathematician PhD from Yale in algebraic geometry which is well I can hardly spell that but it's a very esoteric part of the mathematical world and he ended up years later becoming a pastor in a local congregation and I said how did that come to happen and he told me the story of how his wife had visited a little congregation when they were having trouble as a not the congregation but he and his wife were having trouble in their marriage that I was a great math professor but a terrible husband and they would have these fights and long story short this pastor would come to visit them show up at an unlikely times over a three or four-month period knock on the doors that are just in the neighborhood thought I'd stop by and see how you're doing and one time it was a midnight when she I think was about ready to leave and knock on the door and here stands this this pastor saying I was in prayer and I thought I should swing over see if there's anything I could do anyway they shoot him off the porch and all those times that he can be never gotten off in the house he was always just sort of shoot off the porches plightly as they could the F-shot was that the couple were standing the next day he had gone out of the argument they were standing in the kitchen laughing and the man the PhD for Yale and math were standing the same that guy's an idiot that's he's crazy he just shows up here at the craze it but any but he always shows up in here when we're having a fight and then he paused and said I wonder what the mathematical odds are and he said that's all the further I got in that moment I knew there was a God we come to him in a hundred a thousand or multiplied thousands of different ways I think the one where the PhD for Yale standing in his kitchen and says I wonder what the mathematical odds are that God is is a very cool one that's all I have for this spring day but I hope that you're having a wonderful day and we pray God best on you going forward I think I'm just going to sit out here for a while and listen to the birds sounds like him in a baby area out here God bless both signing off from stories from the road we'll catch you later bye