[Darris McNeely] We had a question from a Beyond Today viewer a few days ago that we answered, who was addressing the subject of suffering. We talked about why suffering in an earlier episode. We can call this one today Part 2. It's a big subject. There's a lot to cover - several episodes of these dailies that we could do. But the viewer asked why bad things happen to good people. And he felt that, he made the comment here, he said, "I do not believe God is capable of making bad things happen, He only allows. And mostly we're experiencing consequences of our own bad judgment." Now we talked about last time how sometimes things happen on a large scale, natural disasters, that none of us have control over, creating a great deal of suffering. But as our viewer rightly stated, sometimes our own decisions and our choices lead to certain problems that we come up with, and our own efforts, suffering, because of what we do.
And this is addressed in the book of James 1:12. James is a very practical book of Christianity and he addressed this very point. He says, "Blessed is the man who endures temptation, for when he has been approved he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him. Let no one say when he is tempted, 'I am tempted by God.' For God cannot be tempted by evil nor does He Himself tempt anyone." And so he said we need to be careful what we ascribe to God, what we put on God's responsibility and what should be ours. He goes on to say in verse 14, "Each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed." So there is the issue of temptation that every one of us as humans have to deal with. We all go through various temptations. And when we come up to a temptation we have to make a choice. And that's our own free will. God gives us that. And that's what James is addressing (James 1:12-17).
He said, "Each one is tempted when he is drawn away." Verse 15, "When desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin, and sin when it is full grown brings forth death." And so the temptation leads to our choice, and if we make the wrong choice and we create a problem for ourselves through sin, through an action that brings about suffering, brings about a misfortune and consequences that we are going to have to pay the price for in the short term, or maybe even the long term, maybe even for the rest of our life, that's brought upon by our choice. And that's one area of suffering that we must understand and we must realize that we have a responsibility for. We own it. And that's what James is addressing. We can't put that off on God. We can't put that off on anyone else. He goes on to say, "Do not be deceived my beloved brethren." And then he goes on to turn it around and to show exactly where God is coming from.
He said in verse 17, "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above and comes down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning." God does give us good gifts. And it is the choices that we make upon the teaching and even the blessings from God opposed to the temptations and the sin that might accrue from our own decisions that we have the responsibility to make by our own choice. That's what God gives to us and that's what we are responsible for. And so, let's understand that part of suffering, and let's make sure we're making the right choices in our lives to avoid problems and consequences that are caused by unwise choices leading to sin.
