Today, in this part of our sermon series about why a loving God allows suffering to take place, we shall try to answer two questions. They are “What causes suffering?” and “Is suffering always a bad thing?”
Last week we established that God did indeed create human beings with free will that we sometimes (or lately it seems oftentimes) use to do evil things, i.e. acts devoid of any good. The evil deeds that people choose to do result in suffering for their victims, and very often suffering for the perpetrator as well. From this we learn that suffering is very often the result of sin.
There are many in this world who look at someone who is going through suffering and immediately believe that person is having the difficulty because of some sin that he or she has committed and not repented. However, while sometimes this is true, this is not always the case. Remember the story in the book of Mark, where Jesus and the disciples are walking down the road and they come upon a man born blind. The disciples immediately ask Jesus if the man was born blind because of some sin that he committed, or because of a sin that his parents had committed? Jesus tells them that it was not because of either of those situations.
So, if it is not necessarily due to our sin, or the sin of others that we suffer, what are some of the other causes of suffering? First and foremost, there is Satan and his demons. I am truly amazed, given the fact that Scripture is filled with accounts describing the existence of Satan and his legion of demons, at how many people refuse to believe that Satan and demons exist.
Well, believe it or not, Satan exists and he is very, very powerful. If you do not believe me, just read the Book of Job and see the kind of suffering that Satan and his legions can bring on human beings. For example:
The answer might surprise you, but throughout Scripture we find instances where God does indeed cause suffering to take place for those who believe in and follow Him. I know that is a hard thing to comprehend, and the idea might initially seem inconceivable – a loving God causing suffering. But we need to understand a couple of things right at the outset.
First – Evil is not the same as suffering. Evil’s original and only intent is to do harm and wrong to someone. There is never any good intention whatsoever with evil. Suffering, however, may at times be caused for some very good reasons. For instance, we might choose to go through a very painful surgery or treatment regimen in order to bring long-term healing to our body. Likewise, suffering for Christ brings eternal rewards. This is true even when the suffering is caused by Satan with a totally evil intent.
Second – We need to understand that God’s intentions are much, much greater than ours, and always for our good. It is very hard for humans to look beyond our current circumstances. But God sees the beginning and the end. He has an eternal perspective and can use our suffering as the catalyst for wonderful things to take place. For instance, God may use our suffering and His grace to bring others to Jesus Christ based on how we respond to our suffering.
As we learned in the past, God is perfectly loving, holy and just. The problem is that in our limited human minds, these attributes of God sometimes seem to conflict with one another. Often, from our viewpoint, it even seems that God sometimes chooses one over the other. Many people believe that followers of Christ are exempt from the ramifications of their ungodly actions. But what does God say about that?
King David is called by God Himself, “A man after My own heart.” Yet David committed adultery with Bathsheba and then had her husband Uriah placed in a position on the battlefield that was certain to get him killed. The result of these actions caused God to strike down David’s firstborn son, and caused calamity and chaos to come to David’s house. God said, “I am going to bring calamity…I will take your wives and give them to one who is close to you.” In this way, God displayed His justice, even though it caused David to suffer.
Look in the Book of Joel and you will see that God planned to send fire and locusts to decimate the crops and land of the Israelites as punishment for their sinful ways (Joel 2:25). The description of what will take place is truly horrifying and God says, “…I sent this great army (of locusts) among you.” This event and others recorded in the Bible show us that God is perfectly righteous and He punishes evil, even when that evil is committed by people who profess belief in Him.
But the good news is that God also is loving and merciful. For when we repent of our sin, He is faithful to forgive us. And if we remain steadfast in our faith through the suffering, He will reward us. Remember Job? He did not turn against God in spite of all of the suffering he went through, and God restored his riches and family to a greater degree than Job had before.
Read the whole passage I mentioned in Joel and we find it says; “I will repay you for the years the locust have eaten – the great locust and the young locust, the other locusts and the locust swarm – My great army that I sent among you. You will have plenty to eat until you are full, and you will praise the name of the Lord, your God.”
What wonderful and awesome news that is. Remain faithful. Be steadfast in your trust of God and no matter what your locust may be: ill health, loss of family or friends, poverty, you name it. God will restore abundant life to you. It may not happen here. You may have to wait until you go home to Heaven. But God promises that it will happen. So God does indeed cause suffering to happen. But He always has a good motive for doing so. When that happens to us we tend to get tunnel vision, see only the suffering, and just wish that the whole thing would be over with. In reality, we need to look for the benefit of the situation.
“What benefit can there be in suffering?” Well, some of the benefits that we may not think of at the time we are going through suffering are that God is using the situation to: