Mr. Ken Martin

Sermon Transcript

September 1, 2001

The Problem of Suffering

Good afternoon everyone. What I'd like to do today is to address an area very much what I would call up close & personal for all of us. It deals with the subject of the problem of suffering. When you study the scriptures, you find that Jesus Christ "was acquainted with grief". He's referred to as the suffering servant in the prophecies of Isaiah. His example is given to us in I Peter, telling us that we should "walk in his steps" with regard to how we deal with the subject of suffering.

Now all of us as human beings, young and old alike, it doesn't matter who you are, you're going to become acquainted with suffering to some degree or another. And what that suffering will do, it will either be mental, it'll be emotional, it'll be physical, sometimes it's just what we call just the plain old aches and pains of… as the years go by. But whatever it is, one of the key things we need to understand is who or what is responsible for the suffering, which apparently God allows. Because nothing can happen without God's specific approval. And yet we live in a world filled with suffering. And then that question drives a lot of people nuts, it really does, because as they try to figure it out they cannot understand why did that happen over here, why did that happen over there. It just doesn't make sense to them. And they say if God is a God of love, why would he allow such a thing to happen to this individual or that individual.

So the problem of suffering is one that has been an enigma in the minds of people down through time as they try to more or less find resolution in their own thought process. Well, what causes this? Well, what has happened here? Why is this happening? And obviously they have to recognize that if there is a God, which obviously there is, and the heavens and the earth declare the glory of God, and we as male and female walk upon this earth as a testimony to the glory of that great God …because we're made in His image, male and female. And we have the capacity to dress and keep and take care of this planet as God ordained in a way no other creature on the face of this earth can.

You know, God didn't say to the shark "dress and keep", He didn't say to the elephant, "dress and keep", He said to Adam and Eve, you "dress and keep". You have the intelligence; I gave it to you. You've got the thought capacity; you take care of this because all of this is necessary for your well being and survival.

So, keeping that in mind, it's very important to ask ourselves, and we want to explore into this area because, again, is it the work of God himself, this thing of suffering? Is it the work of Satan? Does Satan have a part to play in it? Or is it simply natural consequences that happen to human beings that are the result of what we would call simply cause and effect? Natural laws that God set in motion that human beings have violated from time to time. We're going to explore this, and I don't propose that I have all the answers here for you today; I'm merely going to share some thoughts with you, which I believe the Bible clearly shows to give us a handle on this very important subject.

And the reason why I say is because everyone is touched by this to one degree or another. This is called "a veil of tears" according to the book of Job. All you have to do is look around and see the evening news and what's reported and it's enough to make you cry every night. And you cry "thy kingdom come". You can't wait for God's kingdom to come and set us free from all of this terrible, terrible upheaval that's going on in this world.

Well, the very first area that we want to explore is, this thing of suffering may be the result of our own actions. Suffering may be the result of our own actions. This is what we want to explore first. God has created natural laws that govern the universe, that govern this physical planet. We call them the laws of cause and effect; we call them the laws of action, reaction. We call it the law of sowing and reaping; that also has biblical overtones as well. But the bottom line is that if we violate any of these natural laws that have been set in motion, the consequences are often very grave for the recipients. For example, if you just kind of get a yen, and I hope you never get a yen along this way, but if you just decided you wanted to go jump off a ten story building, guess what? Bye, bye. Because the law of cause and effect says you're not going to be around.

You know, sometimes there is a rare exception, and they put this on television. Some guy falls off a 20-story building and somehow survives miraculously, and it is miraculous. You would have to say something happened there, God's merciful hand, something got involved, because normally people jumping off buildings like that, they don't survive. A lady jumped off of a bridge, I guess. I guess she was trying to commit suicide up in Seattle here recently, and a situation happened where she couldn't make up her mind, she was kind of indecisive. But she was stacking up the traffic up on Highway 5, I believe, up there in the Seattle area in Washington State. And the people really got upset with her because she was just standing there and the police couldn't get her to go down, so the people just finally just got frustrated to no end and they just said, "Look, lady, if you're going to jump, jump, jump, jump". And they goaded her, and she finally jumped. And she got busted up pretty bad I understand, when she hit the water. And that's not the only time things like that happen.

We had a situation here recently where a hiker, I believe it was out in California, El Capitan in Yosemite National Forest was up, and got too close to the edge, and as a result he fell some three thousand feet, and they're still pickin' up the pieces of that guy. That's not an easy thing to have to deal with. So we say now why, how come, well basically laws of nature were violated. Certain things that you just don't do. You don't, for example, stand in front of a truck and expect the truck not to hit you, or a train. You just have common sense and a brain God gave you that says, "look, stay away from that," because you don't want to suffer the consequences.

Another thing that might be more subtle, and one that I believe Satan the devil has used on all of us as human beings is that you might not realize that you have been feeding yourself a wrong dietary food for a long period of time, and as a result you might have been a junk food "junkie". A lot of people to-day have eaten junk food and what they're finding out is that research and the reports are saying very clearly that more and more of the younger generation are showing up with diabetes, hepatitis, and some of these things that some of the older folks had experienced. And people normally thought was, you know, as you get older you might have to encounter that, but now they're finding it in the twenties and the thirties, and the forties. And so, something obviously is wrong here. And what that basically does, it creates a serious problem in the lives of those who are caught violating these natural laws.

Another example might be exposing yourself to a contagious disease. Or like sometimes it can happen a dangerous chemical, you don't know the dangerous chemical is there, but suddenly you get exposed to it and what does that dangerous chemical do? Boom, it can get you. What if you were exposed to radiation? Well, we all know what that does, don't we? It can cut your lifespan down, because radiation is a killer and as a result, we see again all this can be brought about by suffering that comes from violation of these natural laws that set in motion. Now whether knowingly or unknowingly, now this is important; whether knowingly or unknowingly when natural laws are violated, it's not because we are evil and it's not because we are good. There's no moral question involved on this. We don't, we don't wake up in the morning and say, "you know, I want to jump off a ten foot, ten story building today". I just want to do this; I want to do that and you know, I want to defy the laws of nature. Most people don't think in that direction.

So there really is no moral significance, it's just the fact that with these laws set in motion, when you violate certain things, just like you hear from time to time in these terrible air crashes, that when certain things are violated in the realm of avionics, what happens? A terrible nose-dive and the plane crashes or like recently a good thing of these two pilots from the Canadian Air who brought that plane down in the Azores. When both engines went dead and all the passengers on it, and they said you could have heard a pin drop. They were all scared to death because they thought that was it; and you can imagine, here you are 33,000 feet up into the air flying over the Atlantic Ocean. There goes one engine; suddenly there goes another.

Everything's as quiet as a, you can't, you can't believe it. What's goin on, what's goin on and you get the orders to get ready for possible crash. And by the grace of God those pilots held their cool and glided that plane down into the Azores and I bet those people could have kissed those pilots again and again. But I hope they all gave God a big thank you for that because it was His gracious hand that got 'em down there whether they realize it or not. For those men kept their cool and they did their part.

What really hurts in this area, what really hurts in this area of suffering that happens when certain laws, natural laws are broken is when we suffer for someone else's carelessness in these matters. And it happens every day. For example, people violate certain rules of driving courtesy. And what happens is we hear of grinding car crashes because people were tailgating so close. And somebody is an innocent party and what happens? They end up dying in it. Maybe somebody is three sheets in the wind, just totally drunk and shouldn't even be behind the wheel. They survive and some innocent party dies.

There was a situation here recently where a nineteen-year-old fellow, he was on a motorcycle in the Macon area, and he was getting ready to execute and make his move and this lady was in her car and she was somewhat blinded by, I guess the evening sun, or didn't see him, and she pulled out not seeing the young lad. The mother had to bury her nineteen-year-old son because the lady plowed him all over the place on the highway, she never saw him. Now, in her mind it was an accident. Others would say it was preventable. How do we gauge this? Terrible suffering on behalf of a mother who has to lay to rest a nineteen year old son prematurely. And he probably never decided he was going to go to his final resting when he got on that motorcycle that day. But that's the kind of stuff that we hear of all the time. Car wrecks, child abuse under parents who are alcoholic, parents who take it out on their children, things of this nature.

What we're showing is that there's a lot of suffering going on in this world. Some people believe it's all the result of natural laws, it has nothing to do with God, it has nothing to do with Satan. Well, I propose to show you that I believe the Bible gives us some very clear instruction showing there are other factors involved.

Much of what we suffer as human beings we have done to ourselves, by violating certain fundamental rules. We maybe knew better, but we thought it wasn't going to happen to us. And, And there are no exemptions, there's no you know, pass go free on this one. We all have a precious gift of life that we are told to "dress and keep", and we have a responsibility. Some of us have done better than others, but nevertheless we have a charge before God to dress and keep this temple which is to be the temple of the Holy Spirit. And God wants to dwell in us through the power of His Spirit, but he doesn't want this temple to be damaged in any way.

He wants to be able to work in and through it, but we have damaged the temple. We have damaged it through many of the problems and difficulties that people struggle with; we call them in today's world, vices. They're just bad habits; things that people have gotten into that are hurting them physically because you can't go against these basic natural laws that God set in motion. You take stuff into your body that God never intended to take into your body, the result is suffering. And what we have now is that that's one category that is on a broad scale in this world.

But now, there's another category that comes on the scene. Now a lot of people might not want to believe this, but the Bible affirms that in conjunction with the suffering that goes on in this world, because people are frankly just ignorant of basic information that we should be all attuned to. And we are all, that's why God says all have come short of the glory of God. And we have been hurting ourselves, and when we get into the spiritual realm it really begins to impact. Now the Bible shows us that there was a situation that you and I would not have been aware of if God had not revealed it and recorded it in the scripture. And he recorded it for our learning. Remember, everything that has happened is for our learning, so that we can be comforted from the scriptures, so we can learn from the scriptures, so we can avoid the minefields of life. And here's one of the key areas.

There was a man whose name was Job. You're familiar with Job. What jumps into your mind when you think of Job? The incredible suffering that that man went through. Now Job was not one who was out violating natural laws. He was minding his own business, everything was good. But somebody, if I may use the example: …(knocking sound)…"Yes, who is it?"

"Well, this is Satan."

"Well, what do you want?"

"Well, I've been roamin' down here on the earth and I spotted this guy down here Job and, I want at him."

"Well, why do you want at him?"

"Because. I believe that after I get finished with him he'll curse you. He'll abandon you."

"Interesting", God says.

I'm paraphrasing for sake of time. And what does he do? He says "all right; you have access to him under these conditions". And he gives the stipulations, showing God is in control, not the adversary. The adversary is never pictured in a position of control. He is always pictured in a position of lying, never telling the truth, and always about evil, always seeking to undermine the things of God.

And so what we see here then, I'll just reference it: Job 1:6-12 and Job 2:1-6. And what we see there is that all kinds of problems begin to come on the scene in Job's life. As soon as one thing happens, something else happens. Now what the Bible is showing us is that suffering can be magnified by the presence of the devil. Yeah we do ours, you can't, you can't sometimes when we do things wrong we can't turn around and say the devil made me do it. You can't blame God, because God didn't do it. Who did it? Well, sometimes we do it to ourselves because we violate these natural laws that God set in motion. And then we wonder why. Well, the goodness of God shows us why …violated these laws. That's why it's important to obey my voice. So that it may be well with you and your children.

And on other aspects, God shows that suffering can be magnified if the devil chooses to want to have at you. And if God, in his wisdom is trying to show certain things, Job, Job was being tested, Job's faith came through, shining example, he was restored then and above and beyond for all that he lost. But it is a crowning example to show us that the adversary from time to time does what? He wants to target the people of God, people whom God is using.

And one thing that you find very clearly, that in Jesus own corps, his own corps of disciples when he was working with them. Remember something he told Peter? "Peter, let me tell you something." Peter didn't know this. Peter didn't get any message out of the blue, but Jesus knew. And he says, "Satan hath desired to … sift you like wheat."

Now men, I don't think most of us qualify for this, but ladies, you do. If you've been in a kitchen and you've ever sifted wheat, you know how fine wheat can be sifted. It can be almost down to such a fine grade you can go "puh" on it and "pff" it'll just explode and it'll almost powderize in front of you.

That's what Satan wanted to do to Peter. Why? Because Peter was being targeted by Christ to be one of the dynamic leaders in the early leadership of the Church of God. He was one of those founding elements that God was putting together as Jesus said, "I will build my church". And Peter took that to heart. He had no clue as to what Jesus was trying to tell him at first, but later he understood. Now how do I know?

Let's take a look at something else Peter had to write about. I Peter 5:8-9, and in I Peter 5, notice what we see in verse 8. This is Peter now talking. This is Peter, who was told by the Christ himself, …said "look, there's an adversary out there who wants you, Peter." Now do we think of ourselves as we are such an exception that we would not be targeted? May I submit to you, notice what Peter said:

Verse 8 - "Be sober". Who's he talking to? He's talking to Christlike minded people, men and women who have been converted and he says, "be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil as a roaring lion walks about".

And why is he walking about? Same way he did with Job. Seeking whom he may devour. You ever thought about the fact that your name could be there from time to time? And why would your name be there? Well, it's because he comes by and he sees that, uh oh, said individual here is getting lax in certain areas of his or her life. And when they do that, that opens up a door for the adversary to push a little closer. We are told, notice in verse 9 concerning the adversary "whom resist stedfast in the faith".

Now why is it that important? Because the shield of faith is pictured in Ephesians:6 as what is required to quench all the fiery darts of the adversary. Anything he throws at you can, you can shut it down with the faith. Your faith and confidence in God and what God has promised. It says, "Knowing this, what do we know?" That the same afflictions that this process is going on and is being accomplished in your brethren that are in the world.

All of God's people are targeted from time to time, young and old alike. But how many people really believe that today? How many people really understand that there is a spiritual dimension out there that can cause suffering and add grief to the life of a human being? And this is why it is so imperative that we stay close to God. So that we can have God's help.

What was Satan's objective in dealing with Job? Very clear. It came out of the mouth of his wife, the closest one to him. Because again, what sometimes people who are closest to you, you tend to let your guard down. And so the adversary thought by coming through Mrs. Job he could give, you know, the final coup de gras. What was it? What did she advise him to do? Stay close to God? "Curse God and die." Now that doesn't fulfill the will of God. God didn't put us on this planet to curse God and then die. But it sure fulfills the will of the devil. It sure makes the devil happy if one turns on God and forsakes the only hope a human being has in this world. So, here we have obviously a very clear example.

There's another one that showed up in the life of the apostle Paul. Now the apostle Paul was a very powerful, dynamic servant of God. You'll turn with me to II Corinthians 12. Here we have a case where God was allowing suffering to take place in the life of the apostle Paul to make him better. Now you think, well, suffering can make you better? Yes, suffering can bring the good out of a person; it can bring the bad out of a person. It can really test a person's mettle.

And that's why it's not easy, this thing of suffering, and the problem of suffering is one we need to look at and really gauge very carefully. Because when you've got a dangerous adversary in the background, you don't want to make any mistakes yourself, but you don't want to open that door and leave the adversary any, any tool whereby he can come at you and add to the difficulty you may be going through. Now in II Corinthians 12, beginning in verse 7, the apostle Paul makes reference here that "lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations".

The apostle Paul had received many revelations above and beyond any of the other disciples. God used him for some very powerful purposes, wrote fourteen books of your New Testament. He was a very dynamic, strong willed individual and his basic stock being Pharisee of Pharisees, Hebrew of Hebrews, studier of the law under Gamaliel, and with his basic background, he knew how to really be strong and very intense. And so he could get his point across very well. But also, with all of this, it can go to your head if one isn't careful. One can say well, I got revelations you didn't. So therefore God must think more of me, Peter, than you. No, he loved …both Peter and Paul.

And Paul says, "there was given unto me because of these revelations, because I saw things, I heard things, I was so wound up with what I saw & what I wanted to try to convey. He says:

Verse 7 - "there was given to me a thorn in the flesh", notice, called "the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure". Now he had asked for intervention three times and the answer he got back was:

Verse 9 - "My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made (notice) perfect in weakness", or suffering. The apostle Paul had to go through a certain amount of suffering with this as would any particular servant of God when, for example, as good as Paul was, as good as Paul could articulate, there was a adversarial individual out there called a messenger of Satan who buffeted him and was pretty good with the arguments as well.

And every time the apostle Paul could push forth an argument in one side, this guy could come in and follow in behind him and undo everything the apostle Paul did in the minds of the people. He didn't know who that was. Secular history implies that Simon Magus had a follower, a guy called Sorrentus, who was always on the trail of the apostle Paul. And that this individual may well have been this messenger of Satan. If he's a messenger, a messenger carries a message does it not? All right.

Some people speculate that this thorn in the flesh was his eyes. He had an eye problem and a difficulty; some of the various theological books reference that. The only problem with that is the fact again, that eye problem is not, you know, a situation where it was a messenger from Satan. We do have a clue in the Old Testament. In Numbers 33:55 I believe it is, where it talks about the fact that when coming into the land, the Israelites were warned that if they brought in any of the strangers in the land in a way that God had not specified, that they would be "a thorn in your flesh". I think that tells us pretty much what it is. They would be a problem to them and they would create suffering for Israel and that's exactly to the same degree or a parallel, we have a parallel here.

Whatever it is in the final analysis, the bottom line is this. The apostle Paul is saying that he had to rely totally on God to solve His problem because every time he dealt with it he always found that he had a struggle on his hands. And sometimes that's exactly, you know, the adversary has his ministers as well and he's got some pretty sharp cookies out there. Don't think they're not adroit and know how to twist the word of God and make right seem wrong. Oh yeah, they're so good at it they can do away with the Sabbath before your very eyes. They're so good at it they say hey; you don't need anything except Christ. And they're so good at it, and like I told you last time, if you buy into that false Christ, you'll just drift away until you drift to oblivion.

Because it's those who do and keep His Commandments and those that adhere and endure to the end, the same shall be saved. God is testing our faith and He wants us to stay with him and stay the course.

Now why does God allow these things to happen? Well, again, I Peter 5:10 gives us another insight into why God permits Satan sometimes to complicate the problems of life in peoples lives. It says:

Verse 10 - "But the God of all grace, who hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after you have suffered awhile." Notice, you're getting a taste of suffering. It says: "make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, and settle you." So there is a character developing process going on in the life of every man, woman, and child. And that process, again, is made clear in the process of conversion, and ultimately will come to all human beings in God's own time. And that's the important thing.

For us, now, it is high time. It is our time, now, to understand what we must do to deal with this suffering, to avoid violating things that would cause hurt or harm to ourselves or to others. You never want to be one responsible for causing hurt, harm, or injury to others. That's all summarized in the key note if we were our brother's keeper, things would be different. But people don't live today as brother's keepers. When you got a guy on your tail, a tailgater on the freeway situation, or you got a big eighteen wheeler bearing down on you because he thinks you're going too slow and he wants you to get out of his way, is that being a brother's keeper? And then if you have to hit the brakes & he can't stop fast enough; jacknife, bang, bang, bang, bang, and you know the rest of the story. It happens every day. It's gotten so commonplace it's just the news. But for every person that dies did you know twenty-five other people suffer and are in agony as a general rule? Twenty-five other people are torn with heartache and suffering when a loved one or a friend dies. It's sad. No wonder it's called a veil of tears.

Well, we also can take great consolation, and by the way, that scripture I read to you was in I Peter 5:10 for those of you taking notes. And we can also take consolation in what God has told us through the apostle Paul in I Cor. 10:13, where it says:

Verse 13 - "but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able, but will with the trial, or the temptation, also make a way of escape, that ye may be able to bear it". God will provide a way of escape. We sing the song, "God will see us through". So, many times the bottom line is what God permits Satan to do is permitted to bring suffering upon the righteous, and it perfects the righteous rather than devour them. Satan's goal is to cause us to curse God and die. But God's goal is to perfect us through that.

Now the last category we want to look at is that: Can suffering be also the chastisement of God? And this is an area we need to also explore. Because I believe you'll find out that the Bible does teach that this is the case. And sometimes we may never even go there. We may never even stop to think that it could be God trying to get our attention, that it's a wake up call. That something is not right in our lives and God is trying to tell us as an individual, as a church, because you'll see later on that he talks to the Laodiceans, very specifically about this type of thing. For those are people who are going to be caught in an end time scenario that is going to be very, very dangerous. And they are given special instruction by the Word of God in order to avoid the dangers ahead.

In the Old Testament, in Deuteronomy 8:5, we have the following: God says that you shall also consider in your heart; we need to stop and think about this; he says that:

Verse 5 - "As a man chastens his son," now why does he do that? Because he loves his son. He doesn't want his son to get in trouble and so he may have to upbraid that son. "So the Lord your God chastens you." So God chastened ancient Israel. This is what he did to them, and he told them, this is my reason for doing it. But sometimes, Israel, you were getting way off track. You started forgetting the covenants, you started going after other gods; you started losing perspective of what you had pledged in terms of your allegiance to me. That I would be your God, and you would do what? You would serve me only. And you would be my people in a very special way.

Well, Proverbs, chapter 3, the admonition continues even further. In Proverbs 3:11-12 we have the following:

Verse 11 - "My son, despise not the chastening of the Lord, neither be weary of his correction." Correction, is there something wrong that needs correction? Is that why he's having to do it? If you are correct, you wouldn't need correction. But if you are not correct, a loving father sees a son or a daughter who's not correct in what they're doing and so he corrects them. Verse 12 - And so we go on and you'll see even as a father to son in whom he delights.

Now in the New Testament we see that church that I referenced, called the Laodiceans in Revelation 3:19. He says:

Verse 19 - "As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten".

So these are people that God loves who are caught in this end time scenario. You know, don't ever have the idea that the Laodiceans are, that's some kind of a dirty word. It just merely means that that's a group of people that find themselves living in a very precarious time in human history; where things have been dumbed down so bad to almost quote Adolph Hitler, in one of his famous statements when he rose to power back in the 1930's, in the twentieth century. When he came to power in Germany, he said it is good for government that people do not think. For if the Germans had stopped to think what Adolph Hitler was up to, there would have been a different ballgame. But they were seduced by the power of what he offered them. You can be the master race; you can have back everything that was taken for you. You were treated wrong. It's these people that are the cause over here. Somebody to blame, to feel good, to feel proud again. And they were seduced by that, and didn't realize how bad it would get and the suffering they would experience until Adolph Hitler drug them through the greatest war in human history. Men who were there and who fought in that war will never forget it. There was nothing like it since that time. There's been many little wars, and other wars, but nothing like that great conflagration of World War II.

The next time war comes it's going to be far worse. That's why God warned us about the great tribulation. That's why He tells us we've got to be mindful of his word. In Hebrews 12:5-8 He says:

Verses 5-6 - have you "forgotten the exhortation", this is the apostle Paul writing now, he says: "which speaks unto you as children. My son, despise not the chastening of the Lord nor faint when you are rebuked of him. For whom the Lord loves He chastens."

Now why do we have to be reminded of that? I submit to you, think about yourself as a parent, if you've had a child and you had to spank your child for some particular reason. Oh, I know that's an unpopular word today. I know that's not politically correct because you don't want to mar his little personality, but that little gluteus maximus back there was designed to be warmed up every so often for the purpose of getting the attention up here. Now, remember how it happened with you? Or maybe you with your children? That when that came, that little reminder of correction? What was the first thing that flew out of your mouth if you weren't careful? "You don't love me." Isn't it interesting God has to emphasize that God loves us, that he corrects us? Because our human tendency is that when we're corrected, we tend to think, uh oh, you don't love me. If you loved me, you'd never correct me. And God says, "uh uh, that's not the way it operates. I love you so much that when you're off track I'm going to give you a polite kick in the pants if that's what it needs to get you back on track." Why? Because I want you in my kingdom! I don't want you damned with the world, those that would rather have the world than what I have to offer. Now that's very important to God, and so He says:

Verse 7 - "If you endured that chastening, God deals with you as a son", as a daughter. That's the greatest thing you could possibly say. Kind of like the commercial today, you know, where they show the children where I guess the drug addicts and the peer pressure and all that stuff and the kids are saying, "you were always on me and everything else, and you were terrible parents; and you did this, and you did that", and when it's all said and done they said, "Thanks".

In other words you stayed the course of parenthood. You stayed with them. You didn't let them skirt the issue. You knew they were up to no good & you stayed on them and corrected it until they came to see the error of their ways. And that's why God does it; because he wants us, the goodness of God leads us to repentance, always. And he goes on to say, that if you be without chastisement, where we are all partakers he says, then we are bastards, or illegitimate and not sons. Now God doesn't want to look on us as illegitimate, he wants us to be his sons and daughters forever.

Now what would be God's purpose in chastening his children? Well, obviously, it's because he wants us to be partakers, as we heard in the Sermonette, of his holiness. And if we're on a bad course, let's just say for some reason, we've gotten into some real bad habits of some kind, well then, would a loving father stand by and just watch us keep going down the tubes? Or would he do what? Take action. Well, that's exactly what he does, he takes action. We're told in Hebrews 12:11 that if we exercise it, it brings "the peaceable fruit of righteousness". We know that God is there with us and He's going to see us through in this matter.

When would God chasten us? Lets take a look at I Cor. 11, we read this in the Passover season and sometimes we may read over it and fail to catch the real meaning here. I Cor. 11:31 - Paul is going through and explaining the Passover and how he, what he had received from Christ. And then in verse 31 he uses this expression, he says:

Verse 31 - Now "if we would judge" or some translations use the proper term discern, "if we would discern or judge ourselves we should not be judged" or the alternate translation is, punished. We wouldn't be punished. If we would discern, or judge, or stop to evaluate, we could avoid these things. So what God is saying in essence, if you correct yourself, by taking regular evaluations of yourself, and see where you are, then I won't have to. But if you don't, I've got to. Because if I don't come to your aid, if you stay on the course that you're on, you'll never achieve the kingdom of God. And this is quite a message from the scriptures of the living God. And He wants us there more than we understand. We talk about it, we say we want to be in the kingdom, I don't think we realize how much God the Father and Jesus Christ want us in that kingdom. They can't wait for the day to deliver us from this veil of tears and all this problem of suffering, when He's going to create a new heavens and a new earth where …righteousness, no more tears it says in Revelation, no more suffering, no more death, all those things bring suffering and heartache to people, to be set free from that. That's what God envisions in his mind and that's what he wants you and I to envision, so that we never lose sight of what is transpiring.

If we're in danger of being condemned with the world, and we're not turning around and making reasonable effort to do so quickly, then God has got to take action on our behalf, because of his deep commitment and love for us. Now how does God chasten us? Well, you can take a look at Amos 4:6-12 and you'll see the story of Israel going astray and how God intervened to try to bring them around. Now God did not use miraculous supernatural events. He could have, but he didn't. He chose to work through the natural laws and the phenomena of weather, and circumstances that he's already set in motion. But through his divine providence he can bring about and shift things anyway he wants.

For example, in the Old Testament we have a case where Joseph, it was God's purpose for him to rise to prominence in Pharaoh's court. So God gave him vision. And He says hey, "you're going to have seven years of (what?), plenty, and seven years of famine. And because of that famine; now how do you get seven long years of famine. God was intervening, according to that dream into the natural laws with his divine providence to see that his plan of getting Joseph into Pharaoh's high esteem was possible, so that later when it came time to bring all these real life families down into Egypt, into the land of Goshen, it would fulfill the promise of God.

All these things are there for our learning, that beautiful example of it, but what it shows is that God acts through nature & it's providential working is all that's necessary to turn things around in time. That's what he used in ancient Israel. He can do the same for any nation and many times He will do something like that for individuals, and what do people say as a result of that? When they survive a harrowing experience? Thank God, we're alive. To be alive is a blessing from God. Because there are many people who lose their lives in terrifying upheavals in this world.

Well, we begin to find then that what God basically is trying to show us through the natural events that we do in our own lives where we mess up, where Satan sometimes compounds and where God sometimes has to get involved specifically. He's trying to give us a wake up call, a wake up call to realize that our lives and our reflection and our relationship with God the Father and Jesus Christ might not be as good as we like to think it is, and we really need to seek God, with all our heart, like the scripture says. Because we're going to see that this world is going to get very, very violent in the years to come and we're going to need our loving Father to protect us from these ungodly times. There's nothing we physically can do; we all must know that from reading the scriptures, that it'll take God's hand to deliver us when the chips are down. What God wants to do is He wants to constantly encourage us to repent and turn back to Him and not stray and get ourselves in trouble.

And so, in conclusion, I'd like to just reiterate again that when we experience suffering in our life to one degree or another, certain things, certain lights ought to start flashing immediately in our thought pattern. And most important is have I violated some physical law? Have I done something wrong in the natural scheme of things, have I gone contrary, have I eaten something, been exposed to something? We check those things out and the goodness of God will lead you to repentance, show you where you're wrong in certain things, and help you to change those things.

But then again, what if it is the Adversary, (knock, knock, knock) knocking at the door, seeking permission to work on you when you're in a weakened state. And you're looking over here and you don't realize he's working over there magnifying your suffering, magnifying the difficulties you're experiencing, hindering your life as a human being. That's one of his goals, to hinder your life. He does not want you to be in compliance with God. He wants you to be in compliance with his radical schemes. And of course, all he can bring is death, because he's the god of death. We serve the god of the living, the Most High God, and his beloved son Jesus Christ, the high priest of Melchizedek forever. And God never wants us to forget that. If it is a chastisement from God, we understand first and foremost that it's because He loves us and in that love demonstrates what do we see? We see that it is God who wants us to stop sinning, but he won't stop us if we are sinning. He will just encourage us to stop. He will show us why we must stop, because the wages of sin is death. But He will not stop us, we have to seek Him and in seeking Him, that's the whole name of the game here, because if you try to determine, well, what is it? Am I doing something wrong? Is it Satan, is it God? Well, unless your sin is so blatant that you obviously can see what you're doing wrong, in most cases you don't know. You've just got to run it through the cycle of thought. You've got to check this out. But the bottom line is this - you go to God first.

1. "God, are you correcting me? Have I done something wrong? Show me if I'm wrong."

2. "If it is the adversary adding to my burden, rebuke him in Christ Jesus, keep him away not to compound the suffering and the agony I go through."

3. "If it is natural circumstances, then show me what to do. Lead me in the paths of righteousness for your name's sake so that I don't break these fundamental laws that you've set in motion. I don't want to reap something that's way down the road that I've sown in my ignorance and stupidity. I need your help, I need your saving grace", for it is by grace we are saved through faith and our devotion to Jesus Christ.

How then do we react to that? We always seek to draw closer to God. And why is that the most important thing? Because if you do this you fulfill the purpose of God in every day life; to draw closer to God, the Father, closer to Jesus Christ. If you draw closer to him, guess what? You frustrate the purpose of the devil, who wants you to "curse God and die". Very plain, very simple spoken from the scriptures. And if it is neither God correcting you and it's not the devil after you; it's just something you've done yourself, even that will bring you closer to God to seek a solution. And when it's all said and done, what is the whole purpose of it? Why does God permit suffering? So that we all draw closer to God and we have much more compassion for one another, and that we begin to appreciate what Jesus Christ had to go through when he took the suffering of the entire world upon his shoulders. And that just blows your mind. There's just no way to comprehend that. Because when you suffer and I suffer, whatever our pains, whatever our aches, our sufferings in life, that's what seems so big to us right then and there. How do you multiply that from all the billions and billions of people. It's just mind staggering.

No wonder God the Father says we have such a wonderful High Priest. Every knee will bow to that wonderful High Priest. Romans 8:18 in conclusion. The apostle Paul went through his share of suffering. We're told here that we have to suffer awhile, but in Romans 8:18, he makes this comment. He says, but I, and here's his mind and his focus in life. He says:

Verse 18 - "I reckon that the sufferings of this present time" of what we have to be exposed to.

That's what Jesus did; he came into a world and he was exposed to suffering in a way like he had never experienced before. And He was made perfect as a High Priest through the things which he suffered. And He set us an example, and in this present time, He said it cannot "be compared (notice) to the glory that shall be revealed in us". God can't wait for the day when He completely does away with all the hurt, sorrow, and He begins to unleash the most wonderful thing that He's been waiting for. And that is to transform our human, corruptible, hurting bodies at times, fearfully and wonderfully are we made. The best body going, male and female, but it wasn't made for eternal life. It was only made for this life, and He can't wait to transform it and give you and give me and everyone that looks to God the Father through Jesus Christ the most glorious transformation that will knock the socks off of anybody. …it uses the term in the Bible, the redemption of your body. To live on a glorious plane of glory, honor and immortality forever and ever in the Kingdom of God. That's what God desires for us; that's not what Satan desires for us.

So now maybe what you can do is you can look at suffering that comes from time to time maybe in a little different way, and maybe I've been able to share some thoughts with you to help you see what goes on behind the scene. There's more here than meets the eye. We need to think it through and beseech our heavenly Father humbly in Jesus Christ for deliverance, because there are many sick and afflicted in the Church of God today. If I were to ask for a show of hands, I bet in this room, a lot of hands would go up. But we don't complain, we bear our burdens and we look to God to deliver us in His own time.