Why Do Good People Suffer

[00:00:00] This audio sermon is provided by AnabaptistSermons.com and may be freely copied and distributed. You may not sell or edit this sermon. Our prayer is that you would be blessed by this ministry. I'd like to bring you greetings in Christ's name. It's good to be with you again this morning and see many people that I know. and I will say this though, I'm not sure I've ever been given a topic that maybe has made me wonder myself [00:00:36] and really search my own heart and look at this subject as why do good people suffer? And I would think that probably many of you, if you were up here where I am at this morning, You might take a different approach to this subject. You may have your own answers, your own ideas, your own thinking, or your own questions. And I would say that it is with this whole subject that we're looking at this morning [00:01:06] that many people in times of crises and difficulties, they form their opinions and their ideas about God and who He is and who is in control and all of that. and so it is important that we have a good understanding and a good basis of why do good people suffer. Now I don't know that I will be able to give you the type of answers you want to hear this morning that will just smooth everything over for you, especially if you are in the midst of suffering right now [00:01:37] or someone in your family or someone that you are very close to is going through a time of difficulty and suffering. I don't know if I can give you answers that will soothe everything over and make you go home and say Okay, I understand it all now and so I just feel all better about it I would say this though If Job had known why he was going through his suffering when he was going through it If he would have had a glimpse of what had happened between God and Satan [00:02:13] What had taken place and how God had pulled back and allowed Satan to tempt him in certain areas and all of that And we'll look at Job just a little more later Do you really think that Job would have felt a whole lot better about his suffering? Probably not As a matter of fact, he might have gotten downright angry about it, I don't know But in the time of that crisis, had he known exactly why he was going through what he was going through I don't know that he would have felt any better about it [00:02:45] and I might suggest that when we go through particular times of suffering and we'll look at some different reasons why we maybe go through suffering you may never be able to pinpoint exactly why it is that you are facing a particular trial or temptation or suffering or a crisis in your life and so with that though We still have to come back as our understanding of God and who He is and where that places Him and us and base our responses off of that. [00:03:18] The other thing I would like to say at the onset here is that I'm probably not going to talk about a lot of ways of dealing with suffering. That's not the subject this morning. I would say this. This really this morning is somewhat of an overview of this subject. If you want to really get into this subject, it would take more than one message. Now, I said it's an overview. I didn't say a brief overview. The word brief is very subjective, and I don't want to be accused of taking brief and stretching it out into a long sermon, because it may not be brief, but it is indeed an overview of this subject, and probably not going to get into all the areas of how we deal with suffering, our responses to suffering, and all of that. [00:04:05] Now, I would also say to avoid giving reasons for your suffering as we go through this message this morning. And if you're going through a difficult time, or someone else is, or has, or whatever, be careful that you don't begin to label, Oh, that's why, or that's why they're going through it, or that type of thing. I don't want you to do that, even though we will look at some of those things this morning. Good people suffering. Why do good people suffer? [00:04:39] I thought that is a little bit of our human mindset, even in the way we approach this and with the title of the message. Let me ask you this. Would it have made any difference to you on this subject this morning if we would look at it as why do good people suffer or why do bad people suffer? Do you already have in your mind why bad people suffer? [00:05:11] They deserve it, don't they? Isn't that sort of our thinking? And so we kind of take people and we put some in a group that we say, well, they probably deserve to suffer. And then we'll take a few others and we'll put them in a group that, well, if they get some suffering, I guess, you know. And then we put a group over here that say, these people are too good to suffer. Why in the world would they suffer? And so really the message this morning is not only to why do good people suffer, but why is there suffering in the world for good people, bad people, and children? [00:05:48] As we think about suffering, probably the most difficult one is children. And part of that I think is just our instincts of wanting to protect children and their innocency and their helplessness. And so we sometimes see that one as maybe the overwhelming one. This idea of people suffering, I would say, is also the skeptic's ace in his hand, if you will. If you talk to someone who is really skeptical about Christianity and wants to make an argument about it, [00:06:22] it's one of the first things they'll come to. Well, if your God is so loving and so merciful and so great and he is so powerful, as you say he is, Then why are there people suffering in the world? Why did the tsunami wipe out hundreds of thousands of people? Your reply to them at that point might be, Well, why do we, through abortion, wipe out just as many in a day? You see, sometimes we want to look at God and we say, Well, God, why did you do this? And we look at man and we don't look at what man brings upon people. [00:06:57] But that is one of the things the skeptics will look at quickly and they will say if your God will allow that kind of suffering then I don't want to have anything to do with him and we do sometimes we see in the midst of our lives we see all kinds of suffering I was just down to Riley's Children's Hospital this week to visit, we have two families in our church with children there right now just recently many of you heard about the incident in Wisconsin where a young man was shot to death [00:07:28] by someone who was attending his church that he had been praying for. We hear about cases where, like the man in Indiana there, where he and two of his grandchildren taken in an accident and leaving a mother and a grandmother, and if you understand the whole situation, all the dynamics of that, we might ask, well, God, why? And then it may come down to even little things sometimes. It's not always the big things we question God about. In our area, we've been praying for rain all summer, it seems like, and we've gotten some now, a couple different times, and we've been praying for it, and it seemed like we couldn't get it, and we couldn't get it, and we couldn't get it. [00:08:12] Yesterday, we prayed that we wouldn't have rain, and we got it. And so here was a young couple that had a beautiful setup for an outdoor wedding, and it was so nice at rehearsal Friday evening, it was beautiful. and we crammed around and tried to get that thing into the church at the last minute and then the electric went out. So we went after generators and we started late and we did things different and it just seemed like one thing after another. [00:08:44] And we could ask God, why? What's the deal? Just let things go smoothly. If you're going to rain it out, at least let the electricity on. But God is still in control and God has reasons that we don't understand And I'm sure that that young couple already knows what is in those vows in times of difficulty or times of joy and times of sorrows They've already experienced those things of working together [00:09:14] But God is still in control Well, so much for the introduction I would like to now look at some basic or beginning premises that I would like to lay forth and again we'll not go into all of these in detail but some things that I believe have to be the foundation of our understanding on this or we'll get way off some place and the first one of those is the Bible is our only true source of answers we can think about it, we can analyze it [00:09:48] I'm not suggesting there aren't books out there that you can read to help you through these things of suffering, but if they do not go back to the scripture and have a scriptural understanding of God and man, you will not come up with the right answers. That's our only true source. You cannot base your beliefs on this subject on your experiences or your feelings. If you do, you will also come out at the wrong place. Because man looks at this in a different way than God does. [00:10:22] And so if you begin to base it on experience or feelings or what somebody else thinks, rather than what the scripture says, you will come out at the wrong place. So that is number one, the Bible is our only source of answers Number two, God is good all the time Psalm 73, 1 and 2 says Truly God is good to Israel, even to such as are of a clean heart [00:10:54] But as for me, my feet were almost gone My steps had well nigh slipped and that comes at the beginning of the chapter that goes on to say why do the people who are evil prosper? Why does this person who isn't serving God? They seem to be getting along okay and this person seems to be prospering and isn't that many times how we look at the whole thing? Like I said in the beginning, we're not so shook up about why evil people suffer but why do the good people suffer? And so we begin to look around us and those are the questions we ask [00:11:25] but at the beginning of that psalm it says God is good. Exodus 34, 6 says, And the Lord passed by before him and proclaimed, The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering and abundant in goodness and truth. Psalm 27, 13 says, I had fainted unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. And that reminds me of a little reading that I had come across on when I was looking at this. [00:11:57] It was talking about people in about every town who don't suffer, they don't have problems. People in the town, there probably are here in Sturgis, people that don't have any problems. And they usually are together in little communities, and they're called cemeteries. But the psalmist said, I saw the goodness of God in the land of the living [00:12:28] And that's among us The next one is, God is love Not only is he good, God is love Again, 1 John 4, 7 and 8 says Beloved, let us love one another For love is of God And everyone that loveth is born of God and knoweth God He that loveth not knoweth not God, for God is love. The next one I would like to look at comes back to the idea of why with this idea of evil in the world [00:13:03] and suffering and evil are very closely related. Suffering comes from evil in a sense, although be a little careful about that. Sometimes, and we'll look at this a little more later, sometimes it is allowed or brought into our lives by God. But if we look at evil and suffering and we relate those closely, we say, well, it must really come from God, evil. Because after all, God created man, and God made Satan, and so then God made evil. [00:13:37] And that's really a wrong approach. Evil is not so much a thing as it is a lack of righteousness and holiness and godliness and God's love. Evil is not something God made, rather it is the beings that God made turning away from what he made that was pure and right and holy. [00:14:09] and making a choice to do differently and to remove, if you will, the righteousness and holiness and so forth of God. And so God did not make evil. And we'll look a little more as we go through on that. So evil is the lack of good. That's one of the things I'd like to set forth. Evil is the lack of good, the lack of righteousness and holiness and so forth. It is a choice to do what is not right. Next is God is sovereign. Sovereign. God is sovereign. Now that term bothers some people. And if you take sovereignty, and I'm assuming this has already been dealt with here this evening, or this weekend, and so I don't want to get into it a great deal, but God is sovereign, but that does not mean that he is controlling every detail that happens outside of the fact that he has given man a choice. [00:15:04] He has given us a free will and that's what we want to look at considerably this morning. God is sovereign. In his sovereignty he gave man free will and man chose evil and we'll look at that a little more too. The next one is that I would like for us to consider is Satan is the one to be blamed for evil and suffering, not God. If you're going through a time in your life of suffering and you want to cry out and blame God [00:15:36] Now yes, God can limit that God can allow or not allow us to go through those things But suffering still comes from Satan, not God It was not God's desire that we should suffer in life That wasn't how he created us Man was created, and this is the next one I'd like to look at Man was created not to suffer, or to not suffer [00:16:07] That was the way God made us That is why suffering is so repulsive to you That is why suffering bothers us That's why we don't like to suffer We were not made, God did not create us as some kind of a being to suffer That wasn't how the Garden of Eden was That was not how he created us. We are not created to suffer. And that is why our bodies, that's basically why we look at suffering as difficulty and crisis and so forth. [00:16:42] Another thing I would like for us to consider is God's ways are higher than ours. We cannot fully comprehend and understand God and even ourselves for that matter. And it is because, as Isaiah 55, 9 says, For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. We must remember that in times of difficulty and suffering. God's ways are higher than ours. God did not plan or create evil. [00:17:16] And the last one I'd like to look at is, evil did not take God by surprise. There are those, and I don't know if you've heard this term at all this weekend or not, but open theism or open theist. But there are those who would espouse that view and would say that God really didn't expect this all to happen this way. That God had made things so good that really the odds were pretty good that man was not going to fall. And so, when all this suffering and evil came upon mankind, it somewhat surprised God as much as it would have anyone of us. [00:17:56] No, it didn't take God by surprise, nor does anything in your life take God by surprise. It is no comfort to believe that God is unaware of what is going to happen in your life. Some would say, well that's better If you read some of the articles in the Informer that have been in there the last couple of issues And I think one in this issue relates to this [00:18:27] That there are those who would like for us to think that If God does not know what's going to happen to you And when it does happen to you, then God says, well I'm so sorry that happened too He didn't know it was coming either Somehow, that's comforting to some people that God didn't know what was going to happen either. That's no comfort to me, and I don't think it should be to anyone. Our God knows what is in store for us. That's why many times He allows suffering to shape us and to mold us the way He wants us. [00:19:01] To help us through those times, and He can prepare us for those times. Well I'd like to look now at some types of suffering There are basically three types of suffering Job experienced all of these There are natural disasters And we've been aware of some of those in the last year or so Natural disasters that can wipe out hundreds of people Thousands of people And even hundreds of thousands of people at one time Natural disasters And perhaps those are the ones that bring the greatest questions to the skeptic [00:19:35] How many times did you hear it over the time of the tsunami? Well, if God is so great, why would he allow something like that? Why in the world would he do that? Why would he allow that? I'm not sure very many people that really cry out and ask that question at a time like that really want to know the answers anyway. Rather, it is almost a way of saying, we don't believe in a God. We don't believe in a good God because this happened. And so there's natural disasters. Natural disasters can happen so quickly, little warning, and they are seemingly something that must come from God or can only be prevented by God. [00:20:19] And that's, I think, why some people have such a difficulty with that. The other type of suffering is our own physical frailty, our bodies of just disease, illness, injury, those kind of things that come upon us. And the other comes from the depravity of man, the type of suffering that is inflicted on others. If you could somehow see, standing together, just in the last hundred years, see standing together the people in the last 100 years that have been murdered or killed through war or starved because of someone not allowing food to get to people who need it. [00:21:07] basically people that have died at the hands of others genocide and just wiping out of nations and peoples think of the holocaust if we could somehow see all the people and I would include in that abortion see all the people that have been killed at the hands of others in the last 100 years standing out in I don't know how big of an area it would take Acres and acres and acres of people packed in even tighter than we are here [00:21:40] That is probably one of the most difficult ones to really deal with Especially if it happens to you, someone in your family Because it is something that we look at as could have been prevented Someone else, one human being, inflicting suffering on another And it's sometimes not easy to answer again those questions of why does God allow those things. [00:22:11] But again, let's go on through this and see if we can understand it a little better. I would also say that in each time of suffering, there are maybe three different ways that we can see how God works. Sometimes God brings the suffering. Since there is suffering in our world, God brings it into our lives sometimes for his purpose Or he brings it upon a nation, as he did Israel many times [00:22:42] There's another type of suffering that God allows to happen Not that he necessarily brings it, but he allows it Pulls back his hands, if you will, and allows suffering and pain and so forth to come And then there are times when God definitely limits our suffering I think there are many times that we don't have a clue Of the things that we could be going through If Satan would have his way [00:23:14] And God limits or God holds back and says no, no You cannot do that We don't see that The only thing we see is when we do suffer or when others do suffer. That's all we see. We don't see the times when God says no. That's enough. That's enough. Well, God is perfect. [00:23:46] And God, in his perfect sovereignty and wisdom, decided. I say decided. I don't fully understand how to explain that maybe. Decided or chose to create man He created the angels That includes the fallen angels He created the universe He created the earth And he put it all here And I would say this about that It must have been the best thing for him to do [00:24:17] Or he would not have done it Okay? If you look at this and you say Well, if there was going to be suffering Why did God just not create it to begin with? If that would have been better, that's what God would have done. But God is always right. And God knows best. And so God created the earth. And he created beings. Both angelic and human beings. And of course all of the other life that is on the planet. [00:24:50] And it must have been the best thing to do because God did it. He also, in doing that, decided that he would give man free will. Now, that is because he has perfect love. And we say, now wait a minute, what's this thing about love? And if there's anything I want you to get out of this message this morning, is the fact that we are experiencing suffering because of God's perfect love. [00:25:22] Now that sounds a little like a paradox to start with, but that is what it really boils down to. If we want to bring this down to the basics, and that's where we're at right now, and that's what I want to look at. God created man. Because of his perfect love, he gave us a free will to choose. And for there to be a choice, that means there is to choose God or to not choose God. We can choose God or we can choose evil, basically. [00:25:56] But God gave man a free will and God gave man a choice. Why did he do that? First of all, if he would have made us all just robots to do what was right, that we just do what is perfectly right, would that be a way of him showing us perfect love and us showing him perfect love? You can program your computer to come into, when you walk into your office, you can even set it up with a motion sensor and the whole works. [00:26:29] When you walk into your office or wherever you have your computer set up, your computer can tell you, I love you. Maybe some of you are going to go home and do that. Now, I say, well, if nobody else tells me that, I'll have my computer do it. But you want to know something? You won't feel a bit better because you'll know that you programmed that computer to tell you that and there's no love there at all. Had God set us up as robots that could not make a choice, we could not show God perfect love. [00:27:02] He could not show us perfect love through redemption. There would be no perfect love. There would simply be a bunch of people on the earth Doing what we were just instinctively told to do and going about like robots, being good to each other and being good, but there would be no perfect love as God desired and as God created. And so we are given a choice out of God's perfect love. Let's not forget that. In that choice, man chose evil. Adam and Eve chose that. [00:27:41] and with that they chose death. God said, in the day that you eat of that fruit, you will surely die. He didn't say you might. He didn't say there's going to be some consequences. You know, sometimes we do that as parents. Now listen, if you do that, there's going to be some consequences. Usually we say it that way because we haven't figured out ourselves for sure what it's going to be. And so we kind of leave it a little vague so we can kind of decide if they do it exactly how we want to deal with it. [00:28:13] But God knows what he's going to do and God says when you eat of the fruit, you will die. Man chose to die. 1 Corinthians 15, 21 and 22 says, For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. Romans 5.12 says, Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, so death passed upon all men, for all have sinned. [00:28:46] And also Romans 5.17 says, For if by one man's offense death reigned by one, much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ. So, man chose evil, and with it he chose death, and with death comes suffering. So God, out of his love, gave us the ability to choose. We chose evil, and we got death, and with that comes suffering. [00:29:21] Now then, why did there have to be death? Why did there have to be suffering? Why couldn't have God made some other penalty? Well, let me suggest to you that in God's, again, in God's perfect love and his mercy, he pronounced death upon the race if man would sin. Would you want to live forever in a world with the pain and evil and everything that's going on? No. [00:29:56] So, death is actually a merciful, a merciful thing that God gave us when we sin. And when I say we, we have all sinned and come short. So we can put ourselves all in that category. And so God, out of his mercy, said, look, you have chosen to sin, so I will pronounce death upon the race so that you will not live in evil forever. [00:30:30] As a matter of fact, remember, he put a guard at the Garden of Eden so they couldn't get into the Tree of Life. He said, nope, nope, nope. I don't want them to live forever like that. Again, it comes out of God's mercy and his love. Through that, then, God brought redemption. And how did he bring redemption? Let's look at that a little bit. Redemption came through suffering. Isn't it interesting that when man fell, came death, and with death, suffering, and so when redemption comes, it comes through suffering. [00:31:09] And we'll look at some verses on that It says in 1 Peter 3.18 For Christ also hath once suffered for sins The just for the unjust That he might bring us to God Being put to death in the flesh But quickened by the Spirit Turn with me to Hebrews chapter 2 I'd like for you to turn there if you have your Bibles Hebrews chapter 2 and we're going to read some verses there and I should have said maybe on the [00:31:42] onset of the message that we're not going to exegete a lot of scriptures in particular but but we will look at some we've looked at some already and I'd like to look at some more but not necessarily go in depth on any of these but just to help us form our understanding of this subject. Hebrews chapter 2, starting at verse 6. But one in a certain place testified, saying, What is man, that thou art mindful of him? Or the son of man, that thou visitest him? Thou madest him a little lower than the angels. [00:32:16] Thou crownest him with glory and honor, and didst set him over the works of thy hands. Thou hast put all things in subjection under his feet. Now, we'll stop there for a second. You You might say, well, if all things are in subjection under his feet, then why are we still suffering? But let's read on. For in that he put all in subjection under him, he left nothing that is not put under him. But now we see not yet all things put under him. But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, [00:32:50] crowned with glory and honor, that he, by the grace of God, should taste death for every man. For it became him for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons into glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings. For both he that sanctifieth, and they that are sanctified, are all of one. For which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren, saying, I will declare thy name unto my brethren, and in the midst of the church will I sing praise unto thee. [00:33:25] I think we'll stop reading there. Well, let's go on and read to the end of the chapter. Verse 13, And again I will put my trust in him, and again, behold, I and the children which God hath given me. For as much then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same, that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver them whom through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage [00:33:56] for verily he took not on him the nature of angels but he took on him the seed of Abraham wherefore in all things it behooved him to be made like unto his brethren that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God to make reconciliation for the sins of the people for in that he himself hath suffered Lord, being tempted, he is able to succor them that are tempted. There we see a picture of God, through Jesus Christ, allowing himself to die, suffer, and go through things that he did not deserve, but we did. [00:34:38] For our sake, again, out of his perfect love. and so God brings redemption through his own suffering, through his own suffering and then he can understand even better, if you will, our suffering. When I say understand even better, that's a difficult thing perhaps to grasp in the sense that God understands all things but yet he came here showing us that he was willing to suffer and die like we are, like we do [00:35:11] and for our redemption. God brought redemption so that we can see suffering like Job did. One of the things, and I mentioned that this is not necessarily a message on how to deal with suffering, but one of the things that Job said was, God meant it for good. You meant it for evil, when he was talking to his brothers. You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good [00:35:41] And God can use those things for good in our lives Well, let's look at some reasons for suffering We need to move on here Reasons for individual suffering Why might you be suffering in your life or your friend or your family? Well, as I said earlier, you may never understand the reason The first one that I would like to suggest is bad choices Many times we suffer from our own bad choices. [00:36:14] We do something evil, or we live a certain way, or we, whatever it might be, that we do it in contrary to God's word, and then we suffer for it, and then we wonder from God, well, why am I going through this? You may also suffer from other people's bad choices. And I would like to say that one of the difficult things to understand is when we look at pictures of little children and babies [00:36:44] in other countries where they're starving to death and we look at those and we say, God, why? Those nations suffer because of bad choices of fathers, forefathers, and on back. Check it out. Go through and check it out. And there are many times when food could be brought to those children, bad choices by people in authority that won't allow it to happen. And so we suffer from our own bad choices and from others' bad choices. [00:37:18] What about chastening? Oh, sometimes we look at that and we say, oh, chastening. We don't like to think about that one. God uses suffering as a way of discipline and chastening us. Now be careful about that when someone else is going through suffering. It's pretty easy to look at someone else and say, well, they must be going through this because of something they've done wrong or some sin. Where did Job's friends go wrong? They assumed Job had sinned and deserved what he was getting. [00:37:52] Be careful about that. God does use it. In Revelation 3.19 it says, As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten. Be zealous, therefore, and repent. So when we go through suffering, we need to search out our lives and ask God, Is there something I need to repent of? Is there something going on? But again, we must remember that God may not even be bringing it into our lives for that reason. In our area down in Indiana, and I don't know the family, [00:38:24] but I was told that there was a family that was considering moving out of the area. In our plain circles, and I don't know exactly when they said plain circles, they didn't narrow it down for me I don't know if it was, I don't know for sure where it happened But I was told that a young family that had a handicapped child, I believe with Down syndrome maybe Was told that, well you must have done something wrong for God to bring this into your life And I thought, God have mercy on the person who said something like that. [00:39:00] We cannot ever assume those kind of things. We can't do that. Now, I would say this. If a mother, and I have some connection with this. If a mother, for instance, drinks or uses drugs when she's pregnant. And that child is born with handicaps and difficulties stemming from that. Then that was something from bad choices that were made by people But we can't just look at handicapped children or whatever suffering it might be [00:39:33] And just label it as God's chastening someone That's a very dangerous thing to do But that is one of the reasons for suffering That is one of the reasons why we suffer Or God allows it anyway In Deuteronomy 8-2 it says And thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness. And here's what he says, To humble thee, to prove thee, and to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldest keep his commandments or no. [00:40:06] In that passage we see several reasons why God brought suffering to the children of Israel and God brought difficult times. It was to humble them or to shape them. God brings suffering into our lives sometimes to humble us He may bring it into our lives to prove us to see what we really are made of or to see if we will keep His commandments what is in thine heart it's not so much that God doesn't know [00:40:38] but He wants to show us what we're made of whether or not we will remain faithful or not And it's through those times that he can find that out Or shall we say show it to us We have suffering in our lives for growth For growth You've all heard this little idea of a tree You've all heard this analogy of a tree that is never shaken [00:41:09] One that's in the middle of the woods Cut all the trees down around it and it will fall over Its roots are not firm Someone who is 70 or 80 years old and has never experienced very many difficulties in their lives Or maybe even not someone necessarily of that age Someone my age, never went through any difficulties And all of a sudden be hit with a major crisis and look out Look out God strengthens us and we grow through difficulty and through suffering [00:41:41] He uses it to purify us. Job 23.10 says, But he knoweth the way that I take. When he hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold. Tried in the fire. Tried. He uses suffering to stir us up sometimes. To get us back on fire for him. Why is it sometimes it actually takes difficulties and crises in our lives to get back on fire for God? Another thing is so that we long for heaven. I would ask you this question, if we lived in this life, if our bodies would not get old, if we would not get frail, if we would have no pain and suffering, if everything just went honky-dory most of the time, would we even want to go to heaven and be with God? [00:42:27] Or would we say, you know, it's just pretty nice right here? Why do you think that the older people get, the more they look forward to heaven? It's because things here just don't look quite as good as they do when we're about 18 to 25, somewhere in there, and then even 30 and 40, and then when you get over that, things start going downhill, I guess. You wonder if I know that from experience. Anyway, so we long for heaven. [00:42:59] Another thing is so that we help others. When you are going through a trial or a difficulty, who is the person that is the most comforting to you? Someone who has experienced it themselves. If I would be standing up here this morning speaking to you after having went through some horrible crisis in my life, you would probably listen a little bit differently than you do this morning. because that's we we know that when someone goes through difficulties and then they come to [00:43:36] comfort us they know and so sometimes we may be going through a trial because God wants to use us down the road to help some others and in that we can also help others through showing them Jesus Christ through our suffering one excuse me not to use too much personal illustration but when my My father was in the hospital suffering with cancer just a little over a year ago and dying there basically. One of the things that the nurses come and told us and they said you've got to tell him that if there's anything he needs he's got to tell us. [00:44:16] He just seems so content. He's just, he doesn't complain about anything. If he needs something he's got to complain about it and get us on the ball. And I think it was the last day, or no, it was maybe the day before he passed away because he was still able to visit. A male nurse there come in and he told dad, he said, you are such a beautiful person. And it wasn't because dad looked good in that condition. But it must have been his response. [00:44:48] And I didn't think about it so much because I knew dad and I've been with dad and I knew how dad reacted in those situations. But those people saw something there So in our suffering we can show others and point others to Jesus Christ So God may be using you and using suffering in your life to show someone how you can react to God He wants to increase our faith through our sufferings [00:45:18] One of the things as we think about furthering his kingdom in Philippians 1.6 Paul says, being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it unto the day of Jesus Christ. But I would you should understand, brethren, that the things which happened unto me have fallen out rather unto the furtherance of the gospel. Can I look at suffering in my life as God using me to further the kingdom of Jesus Christ, to further it? [00:45:51] He also brings suffering I believe into our lives so that we can appreciate redemption and what Christ did and his sufferings I realize it's getting a little late here but I'd like to look at a couple of other aspects yet of this before we close One is, and we're not going to go into this a lot, but I do want us to understand God and his comfort for us in our sufferings I said I'm not going to go into a lot of how do we deal with suffering and so forth But I do want to look at God in our sufferings. [00:46:27] 1 Corinthians 10.13 says, There hath no temptation taken you, but such as is common to man. But God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that you are able, but will with the temptation make a way to escape that you will be able to bear it. And suffering brings temptation. and I would say that it is not doing injustice to this scripture to say God will not allow you to suffer above what you are able to take and still serve him. [00:47:00] So in our suffering, remember, God is faithful and will not allow more than you can handle through him, of course. 2 Corinthians 1, 3-7 says, Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort who comfort us in all our tribulation that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God [00:47:32] for as the sufferings of Christ abound in us so our consolation also aboundeth by Christ and whether we be afflicted it is for your consolation and salvation which is effectual in the enduring of the same sufferings which we also suffer or whether we be comforted it is your consolation and salvation and our hope of you is steadfast knowing that as you are partakers of the sufferings so shall you be also of the consolation. [00:48:06] Jeremiah 29 11 says for I know the thoughts that I think toward you saith the Lord Thoughts of peace and not of evil to give you an expected end Isaiah 66, 13 As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you, and you shall be comforted in Jerusalem And I realize those last two verses are taken perhaps out of context in the sense that he's speaking to Israel But I believe they are promises to us as well Psalm 103, 13 says Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him [00:48:41] In conclusion, I would like to say as we would remember that God is all good, God is all powerful, suffering exists, therefore God has a morally sufficient reason to allow suffering to exist. It's by Robert Booth, a quote of his. Let me read that again. God is all good God is all powerful and if we would stop right there [00:49:11] that's where a lot of people would say well then there should be no suffering God is all good God is all powerful suffering exists therefore God has a morally sufficient reason for allowing it to exist one of the things I believe that is so important to understanding all of this is the fact that we understand it through faith We cannot always nail down the answers exactly the way we would like them in difficult times, but it is through faith, it is through faith that we understand it. [00:49:43] God is not surprised by anything that happens to us or for us. We must never blame God for the work of Satan. When we go through difficult times and suffering, we can allow it to either make us better or make us bitter, one of the two. and you'll see that reaction in people but I want to thank God for this there is coming a time when we will live with him forever and there will be no suffering [00:50:15] no suffering that's what redemption is all about we go and we worship God and there will be no suffering for God shall wipe away all tears Suffering does not last forever There is one other passage of scripture I would like for us to read in closing As a way of better understanding this perhaps And that is Romans chapter 8 A chapter that I think we could not overlook on this subject [00:50:47] And as we go through here I would like for you to just think about the fact of what God is saying here And these verses, what we're longing for, and the fact that God is faithful, and he will bring it. Romans chapter 8, verses 14 through 28. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. Let's get that right there, the sons of God. [00:51:19] Are you a son of God, a child of God? Now I'm going to read the last verse that's in this passage I want us to read And then I'm going to go back and we're going to start through this So that you put this verse in context Because a lot of times we read this verse and we don't really think about its context Verse 28, one that most of us can quote by heart And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God To them who are called according to His purpose That's a promise to those that love God [00:51:51] All things work together for good to those that love God Now let's go back and start Verse 15 For you have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear But you have received the spirit of adoption Whereby we cry Abba Father The spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit That we are the children of God And if children then heirs Heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ If so be that we suffer with him that we may be also glorified together [00:52:22] for I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us for the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestations of the sons of God for the creature was made subject to vanity not willingly but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope because the creature itself also shall be delivered From the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God [00:52:53] For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit Even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption to wit, the redemption of our body For we are saved by hope, but hope that is seen is not hope For what a man seeth, why doeth he yet hope for? But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it. [00:53:25] Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities, for we know not what we should pray for as we ought. But the Spirit itself maketh intercession forth with groanings which cannot be uttered. For he that searches the hearts knoweth what is the mind of spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God. For we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are called according to his purpose [00:53:56] Let's bow our heads for prayer Our great God and Heavenly Father, we thank you this morning for your love and for your mercy Thank you, Lord, for your redemption Lord, for the redemption of our bodies Thank you, God, that you are just and you are righteous and you will judge according to your wonderful wisdom. Lord, we thank you that Satan and all his helpers and all those who serve him, Lord, will indeed be put under your feet for all of eternity. [00:54:39] And Lord, we thank you that you will allow us to live in your presence with no suffering throughout all of eternity. Thank you, Lord, for those wonderful promises. Thank you, Lord, that we can have that redemption through Jesus Christ. Lord, I just pray now that if there is anyone here that is going through a special time of suffering, A time of questioning you A Lord that they would understand that your love is greater than anything we can ever understand [00:55:12] Lord help us to realize that it was your great love that allowed us to choose Lord we have that choice Thank you Lord for that Thank you that we can choose to love others and we can choose to love you Help us Lord to get a little glimpse of your greatness and how great you are and how good you are. Lord, I just pray now that you would be with us the rest of this day. We would pray, Lord, that you would be with the evening service as well. [00:55:43] Help us, Lord, to continue to glorify and magnify your name. In Jesus' name I pray.