Why Would God Create a Baby to Live for Two Minutes?
Chapters
0:02:20 Why Would God Create a Child To Live Two Minutes
2:51 Marshall Shelley
7:49 The Providence of God
00:00:00.000 | Well, why would God design a baby to live for just two minutes?
00:00:11.080 | That's not a hypothetical question, even for some of you listening right now to the podcast.
00:00:15.280 | And it was certainly no hypothetical question when it was asked in a 1994 article published
00:00:21.160 | in Christianity Today, written by a grieving dad named Marshall Shelley.
00:00:27.320 | Marshall had lost two children to genetic defects.
00:00:30.280 | He and his wife, Susan, lost a daughter just shy of her second birthday, and they lost
00:00:35.160 | a son who lived for just two minutes.
00:00:39.200 | Their children passed away within three months of one another.
00:00:43.460 | Their son, born with the rare genetic disorder called trisomy 13, lived for only seconds,
00:00:48.960 | as was medically expected.
00:00:51.480 | The doctor cut the cord and gently placed him on Susan's chest, Marshall recounted.
00:00:56.920 | He was a healthy pink, and we saw his chest rise and fall, the breath of life.
00:01:01.960 | Thank you, God.
00:01:03.720 | And then almost immediately, he began to turn blue.
00:01:08.740 | We stroked his face and whispered words of welcome, of love, of farewell.
00:01:16.800 | And all too soon, the doctor told us he was gone.
00:01:22.640 | Dr. Marshall reflected on the experience and wrote this, "I was with my son his entire
00:01:29.200 | life, two minutes.
00:01:31.880 | He entered the world of light and air at 8.20pm on November 22, 1991, and he departed," the
00:01:39.920 | doctor said, "at 8.22.
00:01:42.720 | It seemed a very short time, too short.
00:01:45.400 | My wife Susan and I never got to see him take his first steps.
00:01:48.560 | We barely got to see him take his first breath.
00:01:51.240 | I don't know if he would have enjoyed softball or software, dinosaurs or dragonflies.
00:01:56.760 | We never got to wrestle, race, or read.
00:02:00.320 | Would he have enjoyed those things like his older sisters do?
00:02:03.520 | What would have made him laugh, made him scared, made him angry?
00:02:07.480 | Those questions swarmed around my soul in the days following my son's arrival and hurried
00:02:12.160 | departure.
00:02:13.760 | So many things I wondered.
00:02:15.600 | But one question loomed larger than all the rest, haunting me for months.
00:02:21.120 | Why would God create a child to live two minutes?
00:02:27.520 | This question is very pointed.
00:02:29.280 | Following the season of pain after the loss of two children, Marshall Shelley attended
00:02:33.480 | his high school class reunion and he was asked to stand up and share what he had learned
00:02:38.200 | about life.
00:02:39.200 | The story got back to Pastor John, who recounted it in a 1995 seminar on God's providence.
00:02:45.000 | Here he is.
00:02:46.640 | He said that he was at this meeting and one of his classmates is Marshall Shelley.
00:02:53.720 | Marshall Shelley is now one of the vice presidents for Christianity Today, an overseas leadership
00:02:59.240 | magazine and partnership magazine, and Christianity Today, and the new one that they're putting
00:03:04.400 | out now, Books and Culture, and his big wig down there.
00:03:09.080 | And Marshall has suffered a lot.
00:03:13.520 | He had a child born who was profoundly disabled and lived two years and died.
00:03:21.520 | And then he had a child that lived two minutes and died.
00:03:27.480 | Same as some of the people in this church.
00:03:30.760 | And he was standing up.
00:03:32.440 | They just asked him, "Stand up and tell us a word, Marshall."
00:03:34.840 | And they didn't know what they were going to get.
00:03:36.160 | And Kerry said, "It was the most profound moment at a reunion you've ever been to."
00:03:40.640 | Noelle's told me some profound moments at reunions that she's had.
00:03:44.120 | It's funny that these things that go on in people when they go to 20 and 25 and 30 year
00:03:48.560 | reunions and they're asked to just say something about life.
00:03:52.360 | So different than when you were 18, you know?
00:03:57.240 | But what he said was, "Life is hard.
00:04:01.000 | God is good."
00:04:03.360 | Life is hard.
00:04:04.360 | God is good.
00:04:06.000 | And then he told the story of this little two minute baby.
00:04:09.480 | And I read the article about three years ago and it just came back like a thing.
00:04:12.600 | I said, "I've got to get this article for some families in our church."
00:04:15.360 | Because I remember he was wrestling with, "Why would God design a baby to live for two
00:04:18.800 | minutes?"
00:04:19.800 | You see, Shelly, Marshall Shelly didn't even ask the question whether God did it.
00:04:24.800 | Marshall is just so saturated with the sovereignty of God, he asked the next question.
00:04:29.720 | "Why would God design a baby to live for two minutes?"
00:04:34.720 | And the answer he gave was, "He didn't."
00:04:39.280 | He designed him to live forever.
00:04:43.000 | And two minutes is not that much different from 70 years when you consider forever.
00:04:48.680 | Now think on that.
00:04:51.040 | Just think on that.
00:04:54.160 | We don't believe in eternity most of the time when we're murmuring about why we lose this
00:04:58.960 | or that.
00:05:02.880 | Two seconds is not much different.
00:05:05.160 | I mean, picture the width of this building as eternity.
00:05:11.640 | This right here is 70 years and this is two seconds.
00:05:19.240 | Just think on it.
00:05:21.600 | God didn't create that baby to live for two seconds.
00:05:25.760 | Well that's one answer and there are others.
00:05:29.840 | There are others.
00:05:31.620 | This life, folks, is not the main thing.
00:05:35.880 | This is not the main thing.
00:05:38.460 | This is preparation, testing ground, laying up.
00:05:43.640 | What did Jesus say?
00:05:44.640 | "Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven."
00:05:48.120 | He talked like you've got a few years to invest.
00:05:52.040 | Invest right because then you spend.
00:05:56.360 | And we've got a totally different mindset.
00:05:58.440 | We've got 70 years to spend and then it's over.
00:06:02.000 | We really need to listen to Marshall.
00:06:03.940 | We need to listen to people like that.
00:06:05.760 | Well, let me pray.
00:06:07.760 | Oh, Father in heaven, I know, I know that when I say this, there's some incredibly raw
00:06:18.800 | nerves that could hear it and feel it and it's very painful.
00:06:25.480 | But Lord, I pray that in all tenderness and in all meekness and with all hugging and all
00:06:32.000 | caring, we might believe the biblical view of life.
00:06:39.440 | I pray that those suffering most among us would become our best teachers as many of
00:06:46.560 | them have.
00:06:48.800 | And I pray that you would sanctify to us our deepest distress and make us ask Marshall's
00:06:56.400 | question even if we can't answer it, rather than asking an atheistic question.
00:07:04.080 | Help us to ask his question.
00:07:06.780 | Why would God design my baby to live for two minutes?
00:07:12.000 | Why would God design my baby to live for two years?
00:07:16.480 | And then look for biblical answers and live with them in peace.
00:07:23.040 | Oh, Lord God, we want to be a biblical people.
00:07:26.600 | We'll be a loving people.
00:07:28.040 | We'll be a strong people.
00:07:30.640 | And we want to commend the supremacy of God in all things for the joy of everybody that
00:07:38.360 | we meet.
00:07:39.360 | Help us up right now in Jesus name.
00:07:41.680 | Amen.
00:07:42.680 | That's a great answer to the question and very motivating for me to not waste my short
00:07:47.440 | life too.
00:07:48.440 | The clip was taken from a seminar titled "The Providence of God."
00:07:52.080 | This was session three.
00:07:53.080 | It was delivered on October 11th, 1995.
00:07:55.800 | It's worth a listen and it's online right now at DesiringGod.org.
00:08:00.320 | Marshall Shelley's article was published under the title "Two Minutes to Eternity in Christianity."
00:08:05.400 | Today is May 16, 1994 issue.
00:08:07.360 | Thank you for listening to today's sermon clip.
00:08:10.120 | If you have one of your own, send it to me.
00:08:11.720 | Give me your name, your location, the sermon title, the timestamp of where the clip happens
00:08:16.560 | in the audio and tell me how it impacted you.
00:08:18.640 | Put the word clip in the subject line of an email and send it to me at AskPastorJohn@DesiringGod.org.
00:08:24.800 | That's an email address, AskPastorJohn@DesiringGod.org.
00:08:27.800 | Well, in the past, we have talked about jealousy in dating relationships.
00:08:32.600 | That was the main theme back in episode 1177.
00:08:36.880 | But we've not really talked about codependency in dating.
00:08:39.600 | It's a common dilemma for dating couples.
00:08:42.080 | And the question is up next time when we return.
00:08:44.400 | I'm your host Tony Reinke, and we're rejoined in studio with Pastor John on Friday.
00:08:48.240 | We'll see you then.
00:08:48.760 | [BLANK_AUDIO]