...from the desk of Rande Wayne Smith D.Min., Th.M., M.Div.

20 January 2008
#311

Faith Questions - 3

Why Does God Allow Suffering?

Job 2:9
His wife said to him, “You are still as faithful as ever, aren’t you? Why don’t you curse God and die?” 

May the Lord grant that we may engage in contemplating the mysteries of His Heavenly wisdom with really increasing devotion to His glory and our edification.  Amen.

I know I’m not supposed to share personal things about my life with Kathy, but let me tell you of one (notice I just said one) of the things that frustrates her about me.

It’s when we sit down to watch a movie. It drives her crazy because I rarely see a movie beginning to end. The movie starts and I often have a magazine which I’m just finishing an article, so I’m only half paying attention and therefore miss what’s going on at the beginning.

And then, about an hour and half into the movie, when it’s reaching its’ climax, Kathy looks over and there I am … zzzzzz.

She wonders, “How can you enjoy a movie if you don’t see the beginning of it, and you don’t see the end of it?”
A story doesn’t make any sense without a beginning and an ending. Now, I want you to file that away. A story doesn’t make any sense without a beginning and an ending … because suffering is just like that.

Suffering is like a 3-act play. If you miss Act 1, which describes sufferings’ origin, and if you miss Act 3, which lets you know about sufferings’ resolution … if all you experience is Act 2, the suffering itself, the story is going to make no sense at all.

Now we’re in the 3rd week of a 4-part series called “Faith Questions” and we have been dealing with the spiritual questions that people have been wrestling with for centuries. We began with, “Is God Real?”
I think we made a pretty good case for God’s existence. Last week we asked the question, “Can The Bible Be Trusted?” And we gave all sorts of evidence for the reliability of the Bible … for its’ historical accuracy, for its’ written transmission, for its’ depiction of miracles, for its’ moral standards … this is a reliable book.

Now today we get to the big question … why does God allow suffering? Surveys have shown that this is the #1 contention people have with God. If we could put God on a hot seat, if we could ask God just one question, I suspect it would have something to do with this issue.

“Why do you allow suffering? What purpose can suffering accomplish? God, how can you stand idly by and watch suffering take place?”
So what I’m going to do today is suggest that suffering is a 3-act play. You’ve got to get Act 1, and you’ve got to get Act 3, or Act 2, the suffering itself, won’t make any sense.

Now let me make one more introductory comment about the problem of suffering. This is an issue that has 2 sides to it. It has an intellectual side, and it has an emotional side.

And if all we do today is address the intellectual questions, some of you who are in the midst of suffering right now, (illness, financial debt, relational issues, depression, etc.), and if we only deal with suffering from an intellectual perspective, you’ll walk out of here thinking “that was cold, that was heartless, that didn’t alleviate my emotional pain.”
On the other hand, if we just treat this issue from an emotional perspective, if we just try to bring comfort to those of you who are suffering, those of you who have honest questions will walk out saying, “well, that was just one big pity party; I didn’t get my questions answered.”

So we want to deal this morning with both the intellectual and the emotional sides of suffering.

So, it’s going to be a 3-act play. Act 1 is the intellectual perspective of suffering. Act 2 is the emotional side of suffering. And Act 3 is the most important act of all because that’s the resolution, the end of the story.

We begin with Act 1 … understanding suffering’s origin.
Skeptics love to needle Christians with an argument that goes something like this. “You Christians say that God is all good, all powerful, and all knowing, right? Well, the presence of evil in the world proves that such a God can’t exist.”

Then they’ll throw an example at us. They’ll take a 4-year-old child with leukemia and ask, “How do you explain that child? If God is all good, all powerful, all knowing, how do you explain this child with leukemia? Maybe your God is 2 out of 3. Maybe He is all good and all powerful, He just isn’t all knowing. He doesn’t know about that 4-year-old. I mean, He’s got a lot on His plate. There are earthquakes in Indonesia, there’s famine in Africa, there’s war in the Middle East, so maybe He just didn’t notice that 4-year-old child with leukemia.
“Or possibly your God is all good and all knowing, He’s just not all powerful. Leukemia is serious stuff. And in some cases incurable, and if it’s incurable it’s incurable, and God can’t do anything about it. Maybe your God just lacks power.

“Or possibly your God is all powerful and all knowing, He’s just not all good. He’s like one of those fickle Greek gods. Some days they like you and some days they don’t. Some days they care about what’s going on in your life. Some days they just thumb their noses at you. So maybe that’s what your God is like.

“But a God who’s all good, all powerful, and all knowing, is an impossibility … the presence of evil/suffering in this world proves that.” How does a Christian respond to such an argument?
Let me say 1st of all that God is all good, all powerful, and all knowing. But let me hasten to add that on some occasions, for reasons known only to God, God allows evil to persist. On some occasions, for reasons known only to God, God allows suffering to run its’ course.

Now this really bugs the skeptic. He says, “If God allows suffering, then He is in someway, even if indirectly, responsible for it, and such a God is contemptible.”

Well, I think Mrs. Job would agree with the skeptics. Mrs. Job watches her husband lose everything and she is stunned. She’s also furious. She’s furious with a God who would allow this to happen. She says to her husband, “You are still as faithful as ever, aren’t you? Why don’t you curse God and die?”
Mrs. Job knew exactly who was to blame for the evil, the suffering in her husband’s life. It was God’s fault. But is that fair? Does evil originate with God?

Sometimes people will wistfully pose the question, “why couldn’t God have created a perfect world? Why couldn’t God have created a world with no evil or suffering in it?”

What’s the answer to that question? … He did!

Go back to the opening chapter of the Bible, Genesis 1, and read of God’s creation of the heavens and the earth, and it says “God looked at everything he had made, and he was very pleased.”

It was very good. It was perfect.
But you know how the story goes, the 1st man and woman were given the opportunity to obey or disobey … and they chose to disobey, and that introduced the world to sin. And with sin comes evil. And the result of evil is suffering. We can’t trace suffering back to God; we can trace suffering back to us, to our sin.

Back to Job … so here he is in the midst of all this tragedy, and 3 of his friends arrive on the scene. Now initially they sit quietly and empathize with him.
But then one of them, Eliphaz, opens his mouth (probably should have kept quiet), and tries to put his finger on the source of what Job’s suffering is.

“Think back now. Name a single case where someone righteous met with disaster. I have seen people plow fields of evil and plant wickedness like seed; now they harvest wickedness and evil.”

Now Eliphaz is partially right and he is partially wrong. Let me start with what he gets right. He says that those who plow evil, those who plant evil, end up harvesting suffering. In other words, sometimes a person’s suffering can be traced back to their sin.

That makes sense to us doesn’t it? If a person smokes 3 packs a day, and one day the Dr. shows them a chest x-ray, which says lung cancer … don’t blame God. Don’t say, “God, how could you have allowed this to happen?” It’s their fault.
Or, if they’re verbally abusive to their spouse, or to their friends, don’t blame God if at some point the spouse or friends choose to leave.

If they go to work each day, and they’re not giving an honest days’ work, if they’re goofing off, and their boss hands them a pink slip. Don’t blame God.

That’s what Eliphaz is saying. Suffering can be traced back to our sin. That’s what he gets right.

Now what Eliphaz gets wrong is that he assumes that suffering can always be traced back to personal sin.

“Think back now. Name a single case where someone righteous met with disaster.”

In other words, bad things never happen to good people. … They don’t? They happen to good people all the time. Not because of their personal sin … but because of other people’s sin. Eliphaz misses this point.

The drunk driver who runs over a little girl; a dishonest business competitor who steals other people’s clients … often suffering can be traced back to someone else’s misbehavior.

The skeptic responds, “wait just a moment, drunk drivers, dishonest competitors, certainly they can be blamed for some suffering, but how can we blame tornados, how can we blame famines, or birth defects, or breast cancer, or freak accidents on sinful people? Sinful people had nothing to do with those things.”
Yes they did, or I should say, yes we did, and include myself in the group. Again we go back to what Scripture teaches in the opening chapters of the Bible. This human couple, Adam and Eve, introduced sin into the world, and sin brings with it evil, and evil brings suffering.

Now sometimes the suffering is because sin-corrupted people misbehaved; but sometimes the suffering, Scripture teaches, is because sin-corrupted nature misbehaved.

That’s right; God’s Word teaches that our sin actually introduced evil and suffering into the environment itself. It’s contaminated, as it were. Disasters, diseases, disabilities … they were not part of God’s original design. We introduced them to the planet.
The Apostle Paul puts it this way, “for creation was condemned to lose its purpose, not of its own will … for we know that up to the present time all of creation groans with pain, like the pain of childbirth.” Paul says, even nature has been impacted by our sin.

God is not to be blamed for our suffering, the suffering we endure has its’ origin either in our own sinful choices, or in the sinful behavior of others, or in the sin twisted activity of nature.

But the skeptic isn’t through with us yet. “Well, then, why didn’t God make people who never sin? Or, why doesn’t God, somehow cushion their sinfulness, so that it never does any damage to anyone else or their environment? God can do anything, right?”
Wrong. Can God do anything? God cannot do something that is logically inconsistent. For example, God can’t create a square circle. By definition, a circle is round. Take away a circle’s roundness and it’s no longer a circle. A circle has to be round, it can’t be square. God can’t create a square circle. (But what in the world does this have to do with God keeping people from sinning?)

God created people with free will. By definition, people are free-willed creatures. Take away free will and we are no longer people … what are we? We’re robots. So God, by definition, has to hotwire people with free will. Unfortunately, what do we use that free will to do? We use it to sin. We use it to disobey God. Sin brings evil into the world. Evil results in suffering.
So God is not to be blamed … we’re to blame. It’s not God’s fault … it’s our fault. This is Act 1 of the story. This is addressing the problem of evil from an intellectual perspective.

Now let’s take a look at it from an emotional perspective … which is Act 2, enduring evil’s assault.

Sometimes it’s best to answer a skeptic/atheist with a question. They ask, “How do you explain God to a couple who have just discovered that their little child has cystic fibrosis? It’s a hereditary disease. It’s incurable, it’s deadly. How do you explain God to a couple like that?”

Sometimes it’s best not to try to answer … it’s best just to turn the tables and pose a question of your own.
And in this case, you look the skeptic in the eye, and ask, “So, what would you say to this couple?”

Richard Dawkins, the popular atheist, has written a book, “The God Delusion.” His book was at the top of the best seller list for almost a year. In his book he gives an explanation of what’s behind hereditary illness. “In the universe of blind physical forces and genetic replication some people are going to get hurt and other people are going to get lucky. And you won’t find any rhythm or reason to it. Nor any justice. Nothing but blind pitiless indifference. DNA neither knows nor cares. DNA just is, and we dance to its’ music.”

That’s comforting. Now I’m sure that Dr. Dawkins wouldn’t say that to grieving parents, at least I hope he wouldn’t.
But my question is … what would he say? What hope could he possibly give?

Or what about Sam Harris? He’s another popular atheist who has written a book, “A Letter To A Christian Nation.” What would Sam Harris say to the victims of a tornado? People who just lost all their possessions, people who have just lost loved ones … what would Sam Harris say to them?

If God doesn’t exist, what words of hope does Mr. Harris have to offer?

Let’s go back to Job. For 37 chapters Job and his buddies debate the question, “why does God allow suffering?” And finally in chapter 38 God Himself shows up. How does the Lord answer the question, “why does God allow suffering?” He doesn’t. But beginning in 38:1 and going on for 4 chapters God gives Job an extended description of His own greatness. (You need to read this for yourselves, but let me just give you a sample.)

Then out of the storm the LORD spoke to Job.

“Who are you to question my wisdom with your ignorant, empty words?
Now stand up straight and answer the questions I ask you. Were you there when I made the world? If you know so much, tell me about it. (God is using a little sarcasm.) Who decided how large it would be? Who stretched the measuring line over it? Do you know all the answers? What holds up the pillars that support the earth? Who laid the cornerstone of the world?”

Job wants an explanation for his suffering. Well, God doesn’t give him an explanation … He gives Job Himself. And that’s what we need more than anything else when we are enduring evil’s assault. We don’t need intellectual explanations … we need a Supernatural Companion.

Over the years I’ve counseled people who are going through difficult issues.
I have counseled families where a husband/father took his life; families where 3 children under 5 were killed in a fire; families where a young girl was attacked and raped. And I’ve come to realize that no intellectual answer, no matter how good it is, is going to suffice in situations like that. These are emotional issues.

What it really comes down to … if we are going to go through something like this, better to go through it with God than without Him. That’s our hope.

What does God provide for us that enables us to endure evil’s assault? The list could include a number of things, but let me just suggest a few.

#1 … God provides His presence.
“The LORD is near to those who are discouraged; he saves those who have lost all hope.”

I’ve watched people suffer over the years, and it always strikes me … suffering is a lonely experience. It doesn’t matter if you’re surrounded by loved ones and friends … that’s good. But there are places in your heart that even the love of friends and family can’t touch. And God comes and reaches into the deepest recesses of your being with His presence.

When your world is rocked, you don’t want philosophy or even theology as much as you want the reality of Christ. You see, it’s not so much that God gives an answer but that God is the answer … His presence.
#2 … God provides His comfort. I’m sure you’ve discovered this, but when you’re suffering you want people who have gone through similar circumstances to come and empathize with you. If you’ve lost your job you want somebody who has had that experience. If you’ve miscarried you want to talk to another mom who has gone through that painful experience.

This is why God is such an incredible comforter. Need I remind you, this is a God who lost His own Son to death? And speaking of Jesus … let me remind you that Jesus knows what it’s like to be poor. If you have a mountain of debt that you’re facing … Jesus knows what it feels like to have nothing. Jesus knows what it feels like to be misunderstood and ridiculed. Jesus knows what it feels like to be deserted by friends.
He knows what it’s like to experience physical pain. Jesus knows what it’s like to face death at a relatively early age.

“The Christian’s God,” John Stott says, “is not like a Buddha, arms crossed, legs folded, eyes closed, the ghost of a smile around his mouth, a remote look on his face, detached from the agonies of the world. No, the Christian’s God has experienced the cross.” That’s what qualifies Him to comfort us.”

That’s why Paul writes, “Let us give thanks to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the merciful Father, the God from whom all help comes! He helps us in all our troubles, so that we are able to help others who have all kinds of troubles, using the same help that we ourselves have received from God.”
God brings His presence. God brings His comfort. #3 … He brings His purpose. Now, we may never know what God’s purposes are behind our particular suffering, but we can know that there is purpose.

Paul writes, “We know that in all things God works for good with those who love him.”

Suffering may seem pointless, but we can grab hold of this thought, that even though we may not know what the point of our suffering is … God does.

You may get very, very sick, and have no idea why God allows this, but He has a purpose. Now God’s purpose may be that He plans to heal you in such a miraculous way that other’s sit up and take notice. God’s purpose may be that He wants to get friends and family members praying, who have never prayed before … and now they’re on their knees. God’s purpose may be to send you to Dr.’s offices where you’ll converse with other patients and medical personnel, sharing the love of Jesus Christ. God’s purpose may be to redirect your career so that instead of going this direction you now have to choose some other occupation. It could be any number of things.

I don’t know what the purpose is … but God does. And just the sense that the suffering is not randomly pointless enables us to make it through.

#4 … God offers His community. I’ve seen this happen again and again around this church.
People encounter serious difficulties and they’re immediately surrounded by others who offer encouragement, meals, prayers, companionship … you name it.

I need to say to you, if I wasn’t a Christian, just witnessing what you all do for others in their time of need, would bring me to faith.

#5 … God offers His character. In the middle of Job’s suffering he testifies,
“if (God) tests me, he will
find me pure.”

Job felt confident that the tests would produce God’s character in his life. You’ve heard it said, suffering either makes us better or bitter people. But you take God out of the equation and there’s nothing but resentment.
There’s nothing but “why me?” You add God to the equation and there’s a character transformation that takes place in the midst of your suffering.

That’s Act 2, the emotional side of the issue.

Suffering happens … the question is, do you want to go through it with God, or do you want to go through it without God? And that brings us to Act 3, and here is the culmination of the story.

As Christians, we believe that Jesus died on the cross to bear the penalty of our sins; that He offers forgiveness to all who come and put their hope and trust in Him, all who surrender their lives completely to Him and begin to follow Him … receive forgiveness and eternal life.
And the 2 go hand-in-hand … because it’s impossible to live forever in the presence of a holy God, unless your sin has been dealt with, unless you’ve been forgiven. And Jesus is the only Savior who has paid the penalty and can offer that kind of forgiveness.

People ask the question, “Why doesn’t God do something about evil? Why doesn’t God do something about suffering?” The answer is … He is. Currently what He’s doing is freeing men and women from their own personal evil as they come to faith in Him. And ultimately what He promises to do is to create a new Heaven and a new earth where evil will be banished forever.

This new Heaven and new earth are described by the Apostle John in the closing book of the Bible.
John says, “I heard a loud voice speaking from the throne: ‘Now God’s home is with people! He will live with them, and they shall be his people. God himself will be with them, and he will be their God. He will wipe away all tears from their eyes. There will be no more death, no more grief or crying or pain. The old things have disappeared.’

“Then the one who sits on the throne said, ‘And now I make all things new!’ He also said to me, ‘Write this, because these words are true and can be trusted!’”

Ultimately, we who follow Christ believe in the demise of evil. And it’s knowing that someday suffering is going to cease, it’s knowing that one day we’ll be in the presence of God forever, that enables us to endure whatever in this life.
Imagine that it is January 1st of a new year, and it turns out to be the very worst day of your life. You go to a Drs.’ appointment the 1st thing in the morning and he tells you that you have cancer. You’re a bit foggy with this as you walk out of his office. Dazed, you arrive late at work, and the boss greets you at the door, saying, “I’m sorry to have to inform you of this, but the company is downsizing, and we had to eliminate your job.”

So, almost in a stupor you clean out your desk, and you head for home, and a hit and run driver plows into you, demolishing your car … and then he drives off. (This is getting to be a really bad day. But it’s not over yet.) When you finally get home you find the garage door wide open … someone has broken into your garage and stolen your golf clubs.
You can’t believe this. What else could possibly go wrong? You walk in the front door and your spouse greets you with, “Honey, our 18-year-old son has run away from home.”

Now, let’s say that is January 1st. But this is how the rest of the year goes. You have chemo for your cancer and it’s wholly successful. The cancer is eliminated. You get a new job, and it ends up being the one you’ve always wanted, and the salary is double of your previous job.

And then a rich relative, you never knew, dies and leaves you a million dollars. You go out and buy a couple of new cars … and new golf clubs! And speaking of golf, you enter a raffle and you win it, and you get to play 18 holes with Tiger Woods … and you beat him!
And then your 18-year-old son gets tired of sowing his wild oats, and comes home, very contrite, offering you a huge apology. He enters Community College, and in his 1st semester gets straight A’s.

Now you come to the end of the year, it’s December 31st, and someone asks you, “How’s your year been?” And you say, “Terrific!” And they ask, “don’t I recall that you had a really bad January 1st?”

You look at them, “did I? I can’t even remember.” You see, one awful day followed by 364 tremendous days is an awesome year. One life, 40, 60, 80 years, that has some suffering in it, compared to all of eternity, lived in the presence of Almighty God is like nothing.

Listen to what Paul writes.
This is a man who has been shipwrecked, stoned, beaten. He says, “This small and temporary trouble we suffer will bring us a tremendous and eternal glory, much greater than the trouble. For we fix our attention, not on things that are seen, but on things that are unseen. What can be seen lasts only for a time, but what cannot be seen lasts forever.”

If you know Jesus, He’s got something awesome in mind for you. Whatever you are going through currently know that one day evil will be banished, suffering will be banished, forever.

I want you to stand with me, and we’re going to do something special as I close in prayer. Some of you have brought a burden with you and you’re suffering.
It’s an illness, it’s a job related problem, it’s a marriage difficulty, it’s a financial struggle, whatever it is, we don’t need to know specifically, but we want to pray for you, and if you’re one of those people, and you’re in the thick of it right now, I want you to sit down, and I want the people around you, to put a hand on your shoulder, and as I pray out loud, we’re all going to pray especially for you. And you’re going to feel the compassion of this congregation interceding before God on your behalf.

I know we’ve never done anything like this before, but please, if you’re in the thick of things, be brave enough to sit down now and allow us to pray for you. Okay, if you’re standing near someone who has taken a seat would you put a hand on their shoulder? Let me pray.
Lord, some of us have immediate need for the application of the truth we’ve learned, and I want to pray in Jesus’ name, that you would meet the needs of those who are sitting, that you would be the God who provides, that you would be the God who makes sense of things, not because you fully explain why we’re going through what we’re going through, but because you communicate to us your presence in such a heartfelt way that we know that we can make it through anything. And I pray that those who are seated will discover a loving family of brothers and sisters who care. And for those of us who are standing, and seem to be at this point in our lives, trouble free, may we file this away for later use for when we are in need of prayer. We ask this in your name. Amen
 

        MARANA THA.