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We live in a world that experiences suffering.
If we were to cast our eyes across the globe
on any given day, we would see an immense
amount of pain and suffering that is
experienced by people in the world.
Just recently in the southeastern part of
the United States, F5 tornados struck an
entire section of the state and killed over
200 people. Earthquakes on a regular basis
around the globe, hurricanes, tsunamis,
plane crashes, car wrecks, disease, sickness.
And, many times those end ultimately in death.
When we survey the situation, and we see
the pain and suffering that goes on,
sometimes the weight of all that pain and
human suffering makes us question,
"Where is God?" "Why have all these
bad things happened to us?"
"If God is so powerful and He loves us so much,
why hasn't He done something to ease
our pain and to ease our suffering?"
"If He loves us, why doesn't He stop the suffering?"
You know, the skeptic has used that argument
to attempt to militate against the idea that
God even exists. They have said that if God
really exists, Who loves us, and Who has
the power to stop this pain and suffering,
then He would do that. They've been unsuccessful.
They can't use that argument to show that
God doesn't exist. But, that doesn't
change the fact that we experience
pain and suffering in our lives.
And, we do wonder why God allows
this to happen. Why does God allow
a child to be diagnosed with terminal cancer?
Why does God allow a young mother to be
tragically taken from her family?
Gideon, in the Bible, had a very similar question
in his mind. He was assured that God was
with him and he said that if God is with us,
then why have all of these bad things
happened to us? And that's a great question.
Why have all of these bad things happened to us?
We're going to explore that question.
We're going to answer some of that aspect
of the problem of pain and suffering.
And, what we're going to do is give some
reasons why an all loving God,
Who is all powerful, could allow the
suffering and pain that we see in our lives.
And, we'll see that not only does suffering
and pain not militate against God,
but we will be able to see God's presence
in the pain and the suffering.
When we start to look at the question
of why does God allow the suffering
and pain that He does, we need to
go to the Bible for the answer.
You say, why would we go to the Bible
for the answer, there's a very good reason
for that. You go to the Bible for the
answer because that's where we learn that
there is even a problem. And what I mean by
"problem" when we discuss the problem
of evil, pain and suffering, we're
asking why a loving God, Who's all powerful,
would allow suffering and pain.
Well, where did we get the idea that
God is a loving God? We got that from the Bible.
Numerous passages tell us that, but in
1 John 4:8, we read that God IS love.
But, where did we get the idea that
God is all powerful? We got that from the
Bible just as well. In several passages we
read that God is all powerful, that
He's omnipotent, that He can do anything that
He desires to do that would take power to do.
So, we see that God is love from the Bible.
We see that God is all powerful from the Bible.
And, we also see throughout the Bible
and throughout our human experience,
that God does allow suffering.
Why is that? One reason that
God allows suffering is because His love
values freedom. What do I mean by
"His love values freedom?" I mean that when He
created humans, He made them in His image.
He made humans with the ability to
be able to speak, to be able to think,
to be able to decide what those humans
want to do or don't want to do.
And, with the freedom to decide,
with the freedom of choice comes
the responsibility of consequences.
You see, God has the power to
create a group of beings that couldn't
decide for themselves. Robotic creatures that
would always do exactly what He wanted
them to do. Creatures that wouldn't have
the freedom to choose. But, if He
gives His creatures, humans, the freedom
to choose because He loves them,
then that freedom has to come with consequences.
One of the main reasons that people suffer
is because we have the freedom to choose
and we suffer because of our own consequences.
Can you imagine a world where all of
the consequences were the same?
Imagine a world where a person
went and worked hard all day to earn
money to live, and another person stole
to live and every consequence was
the exact same, to the person who worked
hard and to the person who stole.
Imagine a world where consequences
were the exact same if you decided that
you were going to take care of the poor
and feed the hungry, and you were going
to do the best that you could to help
others and the consequences were
the same for that as if you decided you'd
walk down the street and ***
anybody that you didn't want to have
deal with, or you wanted their things.
You wanted to take their material possessions.
What if the consequences were all the same.
Could we ever learn from a world like that?
No, we certainly couldn't.
In fact, in the very beginning
when God put Adam and Eve in the garden
of paradise, He designed that garden
for them to be able to live forever.
He never wanted them to have to experience
suffering and pain and death.
But, He allowed them to freely
choose to disobey Him.
And, when they freely chose to
disobey Him, those consequences of
their free choice, hit their lives very heavily.
Do you know that sometimes what
occurs in our lives, the suffering and the
pain, it's because of our own poor decisions.
But, there are other reasons for
the suffering and pain that goes
on in the world today.
We understand that much of the pain
and suffering that comes into our
lives is because God allows us
to have the freedom to choose.
And sometimes we choose wrongly.
Think about a person who decides
to drink alcohol. They take in
more alcohol than their body can handle.
They are passed the level of intoxicated.
They get behind the wheel of a car.
They drive down the road, they lose control,
smash into a telephone pole
and they're paralyzed for the rest of their
life on this earth, whose fault is that?
Can you blame God for wrong decisions
that a person makes that cause pain and
suffering in his or her life?
Certainly that's not God's fault.
But, you and I both know that some
pain and suffering that comes into
our lives is not because we made
wrong decisions. No, sometimes
innocent people suffer.
Imagine that same scenario with the
person who has taken in too much alcohol,
they're drunk, they're behind the wheel,
except this time they don't smash
into a telephone pole. This time they swerve
into the middle of the road and an
oncoming car that has an innocent
two-year-old. That drunk driver smashes
into that oncoming car, that 18-month-old
loses his life because of the wrong decisions
of that drunk driver. Does that seem fair?
Why didn't God stop that?
Why would God create a world where
we are impacted so devastatingly
by the wrong decisions of others?
The answer to that is fairly simple.
The answer to that is that God is no
respecter of persons. God doesn't decide who
gets the freedom to choose and who doesn't.
In fact, when God created humans He
endowed them with the ability to make
decisions that had consequences.
But those consequences, they didn't just impact
the person making the decisions, but those
consequences impact other people around them.
You know, it might be tempting to say
"God, I would use my freedom of
choice correctly so give me the freedom
to choose. But God, there are some
people out there that wouldn't.
Some people out there that would
choose to do wrong, that would choose
to make decisions that would cause
pain in my life. God, I don't think
you should let them have the
freedom to choose. I don't think you
should allow the situation to be such
that their choices would have
consequences like my choices have."
Now you see, that's just not
the way that God operates.
When God created humans, he endowed
them with the ability to choose.
And sometimes those choices bring about
consequences that cause pain and
suffering in the lives of even the innocent.
Is that unfair of God to give everyone
the freedom to choose? No, it's not.
Since He's no respecter of persons,
we all have the ability to
impact those around us. There are other
reasons why God allows the pain and
suffering that go on in this world.
We understand that some of the pain
and suffering that comes into our life
is because of our own wrong decisions.
We also understand that since God doesn't
respect one person over another, He
allows everyone to make decisions that
impact those around them. And, some of
the pain and suffering that comes into our
life is because of the wrong decisions
of others who are living around us.
There's another reason why we experience pain
and suffering. And that's because sometimes
past generations have made decisions that
impact the present generation.
We can thing of all kinds of examples
of this, but one good example is the idea
and use of asbestos. For many years,
people thought that using asbestos was
a great idea. They mined it and they
put it in insulating fibers that they
used to insulate military vehicles.
They used to insulate factories
and it was very effective.
It was fire proof, virtually, and they
thought it was a great idea. And
then they started seeing that the people
who were mining asbestos were dying
prematurely of lung disease. They started
seeing an increase in lung cancer and
other medical problems that were due to an
association with asbestos.
Hundreds of thousands of
people died because people in past
generations didn't understand that
asbestos was not a good idea and
harms people when they breathe it in.
There again, are we to blame God for
the deaths of those hundreds of thousands
of people? No. God allowed past
generations to make decisions and those
decisions affected and impacted not only
people in their generation, but
future generations. We might try to
protest and say that well, that just doesn't
seem fair. But there are lots of
things from the past generations
that we accept and that we enjoy and
that we are very glad that we have.
Right now, I'm speaking to you
and I'm wearing contact lenses.
I think contact lenses are one
of the most amazing inventions
that have come down the pike in
the last twenty, thirty, forty years.
I have terrible vision, but with
my contact lenses in, I can see 20/20.
Now why is that? Well, that's because
very smart people in past generations
studied how light comes into the eye
and they invented tiny pieces of
plastic that you can put into
your eye and you can see.
We walk into houses, many of us, and turn
on water faucets and we drink clean, pure
water out of those faucets. Not that we
came up with the technology that would
do that. We have a cell phone that we
can dial a number and reach someone
in Ireland. We have a computer that we
can get on and we can type in
something in the search engine and
pull up information. Not that we came up
with that technology, that has been passed
down to us for many, many years.
What are we to do? Accept the
benefits of the decisions of
the past generations, but not accept the
consequences? No. There again, we
see exactly what is going on. God allows
people to choose, they make decisions
and those decisions impact others.
We're impacted by the decisions of
past generations. And, our decisions
will impact future generations.
Is God unfair for allowing humans to
freely choose and for their choices to have
an impact on future generations, for the
good or for the bad? Certainly not.
We can't blame God for the pain and suffering
that comes into our lives because of the
wrong decisions of past generations.
There are other reasons, other ways
that our lives come into pain and suffering
because of certain things that are at
play in this universe. We'll explore some
of those as we continue.
God designed a universe that's regulated
by natural laws. We understand that.
Natural laws we study, we use them
on a regular basis to benefit us.
We understand the law of gravity and
we study it so we can determine what
we need to do to create an airplane
that would take us from one city to
another city. We understand what
our bodies need in order to survive...
they need water, they need food.
And so we find places where there
are sources of clean water and we drink
that water. But, the same chemical properties
of water that allow us to live, can
cause us pain and suffering.
The same chemical properties of water
that allow us to live, that water can drown us.
The same properties of gravity that we use
to study to our benefit, if we find
ourselves in the wrong position, falling from
a building, those laws of gravity and other
physical laws, cause pain and suffering
in our lives. That's how God designed
the world. Can you imagine a world
where there were not physical laws that
you could study and understand and know
how they operated. Imagine a world where
the physical laws did not stay the same.
Sometimes, the skeptic says,
"Why didn't God design a place where physical
laws don't cause us pain and suffering?"
If we were to ask that question, we
would have to then ask,
"What would a world be like where you
didn't have regular, physical laws that
always acted in the same way?"
Suppose in the middle of a baseball game
the pitcher was throwing the baseball
and it was going to hit the batter.
And, so God adjusted that physical law
of gravity so that that ball did not
strike the batter. Suppose that a plane
was going to be falling from the
sky and was going to crash and so
God adjusted the law of gravity.
Can you imagine a world like that?
That would be a world of chaos.
That wouldn't be a world that we would
understand to be regulated by an
intelligent God and Designer.
In fact, a world like that would speak
more for atheism than it would for a world
that was created by a loving Designer.
Natural laws are at play that cause
pain and suffering in our lives.
When we think of things like tornados,
earthquakes, hurricanes, tsunamis, those are
caused because of the natural laws that
are at play. We know sometimes we look
at those natural laws and we ignore them.
Sometimes a person will understand that if they
will put their house, or if they build a city
in a certain place, there is a high probability
that there is going to be an earthquake.
And, yet they will still build their house
or that city by that particular location.
And when an earthquake occurs and causes death
or pain and suffering in that particular
instance, what are we to do? Are we to
blame God for creating a world that has
natural laws that we can study and that
we can know how things will react to
other things? Is it God's fault that He
created a world that natural laws will bring
about, sometimes, pain and suffering in
our lives, especially if we decide to ignore
certain things that we could avoid?
No, you can't blame God for that.
When we look at the universe, we
understand that there are natural laws at play.
And those natural laws can be used
to our great benefit. But, sometimes, because
of the way those natural laws are set up, they
bring about pain and suffering in our lives.
What are we to do? What we're to do
in those cases is to understand that God
loves us... to understand that God created these
natural laws, and to, as much as possible,
be aware of how they operate so that
we can use them to our benefit.
Those are some of the reasons for
pain and suffering:
our own wrong decisions;
the wrong decisions of others;
the wrong decisions of previous generations;
and, the natural laws that are at play.
But, we've been looking at this
idea of pain and suffering, asking
ourselves why God allows it to happen.
We've looked at some of those reasons.
But, maybe there's something else we
should consider. Maybe we should consider
and understand that sometimes,
sometimes there are great benefits
to suffering. Let's explore
some of those benefits.
You say, "How can suffering, how can
pain be beneficial?" Let's just analyze
that question on a physical
level for just a moment.
Is it the case that sometimes a
physical pain can cause us to look
for a cure to something?
Is it the case that sometimes physical
suffering can show us that there is a
greater problem that needs to be taken care of?
Certainly. That happens all the time.
In fact, I'm thinking about one of my
friend's father who was in a board meeting.
And, in that meeting he started having
some problems with his chest.
He started feeling an ache and a pain.
And he didn't think much about it.
He thought it might have been
indigestion, so he excused himself
from the meeting. One of his friends
thankfully, saw what was going on and
followed him out of that meeting.
And my friend's father started to sweat, and
he started to have severe chest pain.
His friend quickly loaded him into
a car, drove him to the hospital.
At the hospital they said that he had
just a few minutes to live.
He had had a heart attack.
A heart attack in a certain artery
that was called the "widow maker."
That if he had not gone to the hospital
and had not received treatment for that
heart attack, he would have died
within minutes. What sent him
to the hospital? The physical pain
that he was experiencing alerted him to the fact
that there was something that was even more
important going on. Is it the case that
on a fairly regular basis, physical
pain can tell us something needs
to be checked out? That there is something
greater at play that needs to be considered?
Certainly it happens all the time.
Thinking of a young man who had
severe pain in his side. He didn't
know what it was, he didn't know why
he was hurting, but that pain continued.
So he went to the hospital. And, at
the hospital they informed him that
his appendix was about to rupture.
If he hadn't had that pain, he wouldn't
have gone to the hospital.
If his appendix had ruptured, there's
a good chance that he would have died.
Why did he go to the hospital?
Well, he went because of the pain that he
was experiencing. Is it true that pain
in this life can have physical benefits and
help us see something that's going on that
is even greater than that pain, that
needs attention and that alerts us to a
severe danger? Yes.
Not only can pain and suffering on a physical
level have benefits and cause us to look for
greater dangers, but pain and suffering
can have benefits on a spiritual, emotional,
psychological level. In fact, when we
see a person going through severe
trials and struggles, often that is where
the real character of a person is built.
The "metal" of a person's character is forged in the
fire of trials. After all, where only the
sun shines, it's always a desert.
Many times in the storms of life,
that's where we really see what we're made of.
That's where we really form our character.
James, in the Bible, told us that this
would be the case. In James 1:1-3, he said:
"My brethren, count it all joy when you go
through various trials, knowing that the
testing of your faith produces endurance."
The writer of Hebrews said that Jesus Christ,
"... though He were a Son, yet He learned
obedience by the things which He suffered."
The psalmist writer in Psalm 1:19 said:
Before I was afflicted I went astray,
But now I seek Your will."
What are these verses trying to tell us?
They're trying to tell us that in the
middle of our suffering that's
where much of our character is built.
And, that's where we see human
character at its finest.
I'm thinking of a young man, right now.
Many years ago he was at a camp and
he was blind. And, at this camp they
were going around the circle and they
were asking what each one of the
campers were thankful for. When it came
time for this young man to answer,
the other campers wondered what he
would say. He was blind, he
didn't have the abilities that the
others had. When it came time for him
to say what he was thankful for, he said,
"I am thankful that I am blind, because I can
see things that those who have sight cannot see."
I contacted him just recently to ask about
that particular time in his life.
And he said yes, he had said that.
And as he had matured he understood that
if he had a choice, he wouldn't have
picked blindness. If someone had said
to him you could go through life without
being blind or being blind, he said,
"No. I wouldn't have picked blindness.
But, in my blindness I have seen the love
of God. And, I have seen things that I
never would have seen had it not
been for my disability."
I'm thinking of another man right now.
This particular individual was diagnosed with
a debilitating disease. After his diagnosis,
just a few days, I think it was four
days after he was diagnosed with that
disease, his 16-year-old daughter was driving
her car and was killed in a car accident.
Not many months after that, he was
confined to his bed where he stayed,
and has stayed for many, many years.
But, throughout the struggles and trials
that he has been through, they have
forged his character to such a degree
and caused things in his life that he
would never trade for all the money in
the world, for all the comfort in
the world. In his debilitation, he has
written several books. They have been printed
by the thousands and have been distributed
all over the world. Those books are used
to provide comfort and encouragement and
spiritual understanding and edification to people,
thousands and thousands of people all over the
world. And, that might never have happened
if he hadn't been through these
sufferings and trials and struggles.
What else happens in sufferings and struggles?
We see people's character shine in ways that
we never, ever could see their character
shine without the struggles.
We see those victims of earthquakes and
hurricanes and tornados. Those victims being cared
for by the loving and compassionate people
all over the world who are coming to
help in those times of struggles.
Many times when we experience
pain and suffering, we realize we are
not alone. There are others that care
about us, that love us, and that love
and care and compassion shines
brighter than it ever would have
shined had we not been going through
those struggles and those trials.
Do pain and suffering have benefits in our
lives where we grow emotionally, spiritually.
Absolutely. It's important that
we need to consider that we allow that
suffering and pain that comes into our
lives to cause us to be better, not
to cause us to be bitter.
You see, the same sunshine that melts
an ice cube, bakes clay into a hardened
substance that cannot be used for anything
else other than what it has baked into.
We need to made sure that the
suffering and pain that comes into our lives,
we use it to draw closer to God,
to draw closer to others, to make
us better, to melt our hearts, and to
allow us to see the love of God.
But, there's another reason that God allows
pain and suffering. And, that is to
remind us of eternity. You see, this world
was never designed to be our home.
God created this world in order to
be the perfect vale of soul making.
God's purpose in this life for us
is not for us to be comfortable
24-hours a day, 7 days a week.
It's not for us to feel all the physical
comforts and avoid all of the pain.
God's purpose for us in this life is for us
to understand that He's our Creator. And,
that the only thing that can truly set
us free is the truth. And, when we
understand that there is a Creator, and we
build a relationship with Him, then
anything that helps us to draw closer
to Him, well that's something that
can be used to remind us of eternity.
This world is not our home. We are just
passing through. We need to remember that.
C.S. Lewis expressed that thought when he
said pain and suffering are God's megaphone
to rouse a deaf world. Why is it that the
world needs to be roused? Because many
humans are forgetting their purpose here in
this world. They're forgetting their reason
for being on this globe. And it's not
so we can be comfortable. It's
not so we can have everything that we want.
It's so that we can form a relationship
with God. Because after this life, there
is the potential for eternal life. A life
that lasts forever, that has no ending.
It's important for us to remember when
we ask the very legitimate question,
"Where is God when we suffer?"
The answer is very simple.
God is in the exact same place
that He was in when His son
Jesus Christ suffered.
Jesus Christ was perfectly innocent.
Had never done anything that would
cause suffering to come to His life.
Had never made a wrong decision, never
committed a sin. And yet, He suffered
excruciating pain for our sins.
When we think of the suffering that
comes into our lives, and we wonder where
God is, we need to remember Jesus Christ
hanging on that cross. We need to
remember that God had the power to
stop that suffering, but He didn't.
Why? He didn't stop that suffering
because He wanted something better for
all of us. He wanted all of us to be able
to experience eternal life. A life that would
last far longer than the few years that
we'll be here on this earth.
Where is God when we suffer?
He is loving us. And, He's in the exact
same place He was when He allowed His
son to suffer for us.
Let's use our suffering to get better and not to be bitter.