Why Suffering?

I think we've had a wonderful beginning to our Sabbath service today, so let's continue. The title of our sermon study today is, Why Suffering? Why Suffering? If you have your Bibles, I invite you to open them once again. Let's turn to the book of Job, chapter 1. Job, chapter 1, we're going to begin in verse 1. We're going to depart our sermon study series in the Gospel of Luke.

As it happens, depending on the circumstances, I feel it constraints from time to time to address particular issues in life. We will be exploring this whole matter today of the Christian in the experience of suffering. It is one of the most far-reaching, profound questions that ever arise. This whole matter of suffering in our experiences here on earth, vast topic. We will look to only dip into some of the questions, but I hope at the end we'll do so significantly enough to answer some of the questions that are in our hearts regarding this. I can say up front that as we live our lives, it's not possible for any of us to reflect on our lives, to only reflect on the lives of our loved ones and brethren, simply just to read nothing more than the prayer request list to understand that there are a significant amount of individuals who are suffering and some suffering quite drastically and profoundly.

Certainly, this experience is something profoundly expressed here in the experience of Job. Let's set the foundation here. Let's read the book of Job beginning again in chapter 1. Let's read verses 1-12. We are introduced here to an incredible man who would now endure incredible suffering. Job 1, verse 1. There was a man in the land of us whose name was Job, and that man was blameless and upright and one who feared God and shunned evil.

And seven sons and three daughters were born to him. Also, his possessions were 7,000 sheep, 3,000 camels, 500 yoke of oxen, 500 female donkeys, and a very large household, so that this man was the greatest of all the people of the east. Verse 4. And his sons would go and feast in their houses, each day, each on his appointed day, and would send and invite the three sisters to eat and drink with them.

So it was when the days of feasting had run their course that Job would send and sanctify them. And he would rise up early in the morning and offer burnt offerings according to the number of them all. For Job said, It may be that my sons have sinned and cursed God in their hearts. Thus Job did this regularly. He did this for them.

Verse 6. Now, there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came among them. And the Lord said to Satan, From where do you come? So Satan answered the Lord and said, From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking back and forth on it. Then the Lord said to Satan, Have you considered my servant Job?

There is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, one who fears God and shuns evil. So Satan answered the Lord and said, Does Job fear God for nothing?

Have you not made a hedge around him, around his household, and around all that he has on every side? You've blessed him with the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. Verse 11, But now, this is the proposal from Satan, but now stretch out your hand and touch all that he has, and he will surely curse you to your face.

So the Lord said to Satan, Behold, all that he has is in your power. So speaking to Satan, only do not lay a hand on his person. So you're not able to take his life. So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord.

Let's stop there. So again, here's Job, upright, blameless, one who, verse 1, feared God and turned away from evil. But despite that, he now found himself at the cusp of what would be some of the most dreadful circumstances to come. His life, once the devil had asked God to put him through this time of testing, from that time in which God granted Satan this power over him, from that time, everything would fall apart in his life. When you go on to read from this point, when you go on to read from verse 12, after Job is put into Satan's hands, you just see a vast amount of suffering that came into Job's experience here.

We won't take the time to read through this, but let me just give you a brief summary here. The Sabeans, from this time, the Sabeans would come and invade Job's territory. They killed his servants and they stole all of his cattle. The following day, lightning strikes down and this is on Job's shepherds and his sheep, killing all the shepherds, killing all the sheep, all the flocks. In the middle of the night, the next night, the Chaldeans came and rustled his camels.

And then, news reached Job that on the previous night's storm, that that had brought about his house collapsing, his children's house collapsing, where all of his sons and daughters were eating, as was the pattern, and each one of them were killed. All of his family were dead. Just to add to the predicament, Job himself became the recipient of one of the most painful of plague of boils that he couldn't get any relief from.

And again, all of this, the experience of a God-fearing man. You think about that.

This reminds us, this brings to our attention, that right up front, the experience of suffering in this physical life, it's really no respecter of persons, is it?

And so we acknowledge that suffering is, in fact, a central part of our human existence.

Now, with that, some people try to alleviate this problem of suffering. And when you look back in history, you see all the means by which individuals will try to deal with it, try to solve this problem of suffering. Even those who say they believe in God will try all kinds of ways to alleviate the problem poised by suffering. For example, Christian science. You may know something of Christian science. It was organized originally by a lady named Mary Baker Eddy. Christian science has long labored to convince us that pain is something of an illusion. If you go in and research this, where it's the belief that somehow or another, we have control and we can remove ourselves from the dreadful experience of pain and suffering. And we do so simply by just controlling our minds in how we think about things. Now, I haven't found the proponents of this to hold very tightly to that line when it comes to the issues of broken bones, for example. Just kind of mind over matter, or ruptured spleens, you name it, and so on. Nevertheless, this solution is offered up as a way to deal with the problem of pain. Ignore it, deny it, and it really won't be there. So that's one attempt to deal with suffering. Another attempt to deal with suffering is not by removing pain from our mindset, but rather they deal with it just by simply rejecting the God that they once believed in. So they say, if this is how it's going to be, I'm just going to simply reject God, the God that I once professed faith in, and by rejecting God, somehow or another, I've dealt with the problem. I've dealt with suffering, you know. Well, some of us at different times in our lives may be tempted to that kind of thinking, and if you've been tempted or moved into that kind of thinking, you're angry, you're confused, you find yourself in a terrible condition. If you're there, I would just like to say as graciously as I can that no one solves the problem of pain and suffering by rejecting God. No one solves it. And in fact, when you do, all you do is simply remove the possibility of providing a meaningful answer to the predicament. If there is no God, if there's no all-wise God, if there's no God who's in control, then we are just floating on a sea of chance, aren't we? And it's all of this is just by blind circumstance, blind chance. Without the presence of a creator God who fashioned us and loves us without God, then you can be sure that nothing ultimately has meaning.

Not least of all, suffering. So in this mindset, what you do is you add to the issue of pain, total meaninglessness. Now, this notion is not too far from many's experience. I'll give you one quote from Hemingway. Some of you know some of the sayings of Hemingway, some of the writings. Hemingway says, quote, this is one of his writings, quote, life is a dirty trick, a short journey from nothingness to nothingness. That was his unquote. That was his that was his perspective. Reject God, reject it. And so, again, the great dilemma of suffering is not rectified by rejecting God. It actually exacerbates it. You know, with God, there's at least a point of reference. In absent God, this whole thing's a mess. Whole thing's a mess, you know.

So, some have tried to deal with it by saying it's an illusion. Some have tried to deal with it by saying I'm going to reject God. Still others try to deal with the issue of pain and suffering by redefining God. Perhaps you've experienced this in your life, the temptation redefining God. This attempt is best and most notably expressed in a book that I will not recommend, okay? It's the book titled When Bad Things Happen to Good People. It's written by Harold Kushner. Again, I don't recommend this book because what does Kushner say in this book? Well, he says, you know, God does exist. Kushner believes that God exists, but he says that God's just not all powerful, you know, he says. So, in this book, Kushner says, quote, listen to this, quote, we advise you to love God and to forgive him despite his limitations, unquote. So, he says, here we have a problem. He says the problem is it's inconceivable for an all-powerful, all-good God would then allow the difficulties to be in our lives. Inconceivable, he said. So, he redefines God. That's how he deals with it. So, first, deny its existence, deny suffering. It's an illusion. That's illogical. Second attempt to reject God. That makes things worse. Third attempt to redefine God. Well, who are we to redefine God? You know, we do not fashion God as a potter fashions clay, you know, just the opposite. Bible says God is the potter, we are the clay. So, how do we deal with it? How do we deal with this issue of suffering? Let's ask, is there a good answer? What's the question we could ask? What's the question? I think the notion or the questions are, again, why did God, in his sovereignty, who knows everything, who plans everything, who controls everything, why did he create a world leaving open the possibility that things would go wrong? Why did he create a world in which things could go wrong leading to a world that is experiencing so much suffering?

All of these summarized in the question, why suffering? Why suffering? Why this experience in the human condition? Well, I want to say four things, four things, as we endeavor to answer this overarching question of why suffering. To help myself more than anything, I'm going to give you four C's. Each of these answers are going to begin with C. Why? Because I said so. That's what helps me organize my thoughts. So four things to state in endeavoring to answer this question, why suffering? So let's get right to it. The first C, the first reason to state right up front as to regards to answering why suffering. Number one is choice. Choice. The Bible reveals that suffering is a direct consequence of choice, and God gave mankind the freedom of choice. Why did God give mankind the freedom of choice? Well, with choice, God gave mankind choice in order to allow his creation to serve him freely and lovingly and not serve him just because they didn't have a choice. There was no other choice. So with choice, then, the experience of suffering entered into man's condition when Adam and Eve made that decision to go their own way. Suffering is a direct result of that. So let me say this all again. It's important to get right up front here. Again, suffering is a direct consequence of choice. God gave mankind the freedom of choice, and again, he did so in order to allow his creation to serve him freely and lovingly and not just because they didn't have another choice. And so with choice, the experience of suffering entered into man's condition when Adam and Eve chose to go their own way. God wanted mankind to be able to choose him, to love him from their heart. Choice made that possible. Now, it's clear God could have stopped Eve's disobedience. He could have slapped that fruit from her hand. In fact, if you really want to get there, God could have eliminated the serpent, the devil, before even creation was. Could have done that. But again, God chose to allow mankind the opportunity to willingly love him and to genuinely obey him. That's what it's all about. And only by freedom of choice does that make it possible, a reality. And it is that allowing them first to go the freedom of their own way, God allowed for sin to come into the world and all of its horrible results of pain and suffering.

Now, when I was coming up with that first point, I know that it's not necessary an explanation that the human mind, the mind of man immediately bows to. But choice, this first answer to suffering, it is the answer which allows Christians with a biblical worldview to say to their friends, to say to their neighbors, we're not trying to apologize for God. We're not trying to apologize for God in relation to the problem of pain. We recognize He has ultimate sovereignty. He could stop all evil tomorrow, all suffering tomorrow. And God said, there is a day coming, there is a day coming in which He'll bring all suffering to an end as He brings evil to an end. That day's coming. But until that day, He determines to keep it exactly as it is, allowing choice and all that comes with it.

Now, as you begin to learn to think upon these lines, and as you open your Bible, you discover that when the Bible discusses the issue of suffering, it does so most often in terms of its end purpose, in terms of its end goals, the purpose of suffering, the end goals of suffering. This is how the Bible addresses pain and suffering most often. And it's done in the framework of God's end goal. God's end goal is what? God's end goal is to bring us safely into glory. God's end goal is to conform us into the image of His Son. And to that end, to that purpose, to that goal, He will, if you like, do whatever is possible, whatever it takes, in order to achieve that objective in our lives.

And so, in the course of our lives, by allowing pain and suffering to be a consequence of a wrong choice, suffering then is part of bringing us to that ultimate objective.

It's a consequence of a poor choice.

So, we'll have more to say on that in a moment, but that's the number one to state when endeavoring to answer, beginning to address the question of this experience of suffering, choice, choice.

Number two, number two to state in endeavoring to answer and address this question of why suffering? Number two follows very closely with number one. Number two reason we experience suffering is sometimes God allows suffering because He plans for it to be corrective. That's the second C, corrective. Sometimes God plans for suffering to be corrective.

You see this throughout the Bible, but one of the most notable expressions of this second answer to why suffering is found in Psalm 119. So, if you'd like to turn over there for a moment, we're going to turn to Psalm 119 verses 64 through 68, and we're going to see this corrective aspect of suffering really brought so straightforwardly to us by the psalmist. Psalm 119, again, we're going to read verses 64 through 68. With regards to this second aspect, the given answer to why suffering, I don't know if this could be said any clearer here. Psalm 119 verse 64, the psalmist says, The earth, O Lord, is full of your mercy. Teach me your statutes. You have dwelt well with your servant, O Lord, according to your word. Teach me good judgment and knowledge, for I believe your commandments. But verse 67, here it is. Before I was afflicted, I went astray, but now I keep your word. Verse 68, You are good and do good. Teach me your statutes. Let us stop there. I don't know if we can say it any clearer. Before I was afflicted, before I had this corrective aspect in suffering, I went astray. But now, afterwards, we could say, I obey your word. So the skies were blue, the sun was out, and frankly, I was going my own way. God who? You know, that's where I was going. I was doing my own thing. But now that you've allowed suffering into my experience through affliction, I obey your word. So you see the context of this Psalm 119. It's, it's teach me. You've dwelt well with me. And then it brings forth this aspect of conflict and suffering and correctiveness as a blessing from a good God, you know.

One other place in scripture, which I think really reveals this second aspect of correction in regards to suffering. One more. Hebrews 12, verse 5 through 11. Let's turn over there, if you will. This second place in scripture, it really gives us, it gives it to us clearly as well. There can be a corrective aspect with regards to our experience of suffering.

Listen to what the Hebrew writer says here. Hebrews 12, we're going to read verses 5 through 11.

Listen to these words. This is incredible to hear. Hebrews 12, verse 5. The Hebrew writer says, And you have forgotten the exhortation which speaks to you as to sons. So this is very, this is an enduring part, sons. It's very enduring reference. My son do not despise the chastening of the Lord, nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by him. For whom the Lord loves, he chastens, and scourges every son whom he receives. Verse 7. If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons. For what son is there whom a father does not chasten? But if you are without chastening, if you are out without this corrective aspect, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate and not sons. So if you were without correction, you're illegitimate. Furthermore, now he's going to reference physical fathers, furthermore, we have had human fathers who corrected us, and we paid them respect. Shall we not much more readily be in subjection to the Father of spirits and live? For they, the physical fathers, they indeed for a few days chastened us, as it seemed best to them, but he God, for our prophet, that we may be partakers of his holiness. Now, it goes without saying, verse 11, now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful. Nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. Let's stop there. So here we have God the Father allowing this chastening aspect, this corrective aspect in suffering for our prophet to get us back on track. Why? Why? So that God's end goal, that we, that you, will be partakers of his holiness. Boy, that's a wonderful objective from our loving Father, you know. So if any of us have lived our lives with any kind of sensitivity at all, we realize that some of our suffering that we've experienced through life is part of and has been a result of God's gracious, wonderful, corrective plan. And we recognize that some of those experiences are because of this. And so the pain, as painful as it was, the emptiness, as real as that emptiness was, it all was a means of blessing for God has used it to be corrective for the purpose of making me holy. You know, I was trying to think of a physical example to help us grasp onto this. Every kind of physical example kind of breaks down after a while, but it is like, perhaps, a little Jimmy, a little Jimmy, who's running around the pool. Okay, he's just running. There's a sign there that says, no running, you know, and the father and the parents have already said, stop running, Jimmy, you know, and short of the father grabbing Jimmy and stopping him, the father lets him go. Little Jimmy's running, sign, parents instruction, and sure enough, he falls, his skin's his knee. And what is the first thing out of Jimmy's mouth?

Typically, it's mom. Moms are good at taking care of scrap scrapes or dad, you know. Likewise, likewise, in our scrapes, what's the first word out of our mouth, typically?

God, God, you know. So sometimes suffering is as a result of God's gracious and wonderful corrective plan for us.

Third, number three. Number three, in answering this overarching question, why suffering? Number three, God uses suffering not simply as corrective, but also in order to be constructive. So that's the third C, constructive. God uses suffering in order to be constructive.

Perhaps the place in Scripture where this most comes forward to us is Romans 5 verses 1 through 5. So if you'll turn there for a moment, we're just going to turn to one place here.

Romans 5 verses 1 through 5. This is where we see this constructive aspect revealed with regards to the answer to suffering. Romans 5, we're going to look at verses 1 through 5. The Apostle Paul is about to tell us suffering actually produces something beautiful in us, and it constructs us. It constructs something wonderful here.

Look at this. Romans 5 verses 1 through 5. Here the Apostle Paul says, speaking of the topic, Therefore, Romans 5 verse 1, therefore, having been justified by faith, so he's speaking to the believers, those called by God, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have access by faith into his grace in which we stand and rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Okay, verse 3. And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance and perseverance, character and character hope. Now, hope, this end result, does not disappoint because the love of God has been poured out in your hearts by the Holy Spirit, which was given to us. Let's stop there. I just find this so fascinating. Connected to the love of God being poured out into our hearts, directly connected to God pouring out his love into our hearts, is tribulation.

Goes against our human thinking, doesn't it? How do we make sense of this? How do we make sense of this constructive aspect to the answering? Why suffering? I think we make sense of this most clearly when you see an individual, when you see a man or a woman, and you know they have had a tumultuous life, a life full of tribulation. But when you look at their eyes, wow, there's just a tenderness that's there, a tenderness. And if you're like me, you just marvel at it. How did this woman do all that she's been through? How does she have such tender eyes? How does this man, knowing all that he's been through, how does he connect to me in my suffering? How is he able just to put his finger on it and say, I know what you're going through? And I believe him, you know, he does. How does he get that connection? How does that happen?

Well, very often, God used suffering in his life to construct him. And God used suffering in her life to construct her in this way. And he wouldn't be the man he is, and she wouldn't be the woman she is, had not God chosen to employ pain, not correctively, but constructively.

I know you've met those individuals. They're wonderful people. And you know that they understand you. And you know, like the scripture says, they just have this hope in there. It's undeniable. It's just a hope. Wow, that hope does not disappoint, does it? Does it?

That brings us to the fourth reason, number four. The fourth C, the purpose of suffering is to reveal whether an individual's love toward God is credible or not. So our fourth C is credibility. Credibility. Fourth C, to show suffering is employed, allowed, to show that their love toward God is credible. Do they have? In other words, to love God for who he is, and not what I get out of him. Okay? That's credible love. So the experience of suffering reveals whether or not our love for God is credible. Suffering reveals if an individual simply loves God for who he is or what they can get out of him. Credible love loves God with no expectation in return. That's credible love. This fourth revelation in suffering is very important. I think I'm not overstating it. When I say our ultimate goal, our ultimate purpose in this life, in the end, is for us to love God through it all. Through it all. If you want an ultimate purpose in your life, that is it. My purpose, God, is to love you through it all, in spite of it all. All that we go through in this physical life. In Job's experience, to which we began, Job is in fact, in the book of Job, is in fact one of the most profound, detailed explorations of credible love toward God than you will find anywhere else. That's what the book of Job is about. It is one of the most detailed explorations of revealing credible love. What is Job's love for God? Did it have credibility? Did it? And God allowed Job to be placed in the power of Satan to experience suffering. Righteous Job, in order to demonstrate before Satan and all the angels and all mankind this very thing, that he was going to love God for who he is no matter the circumstances that came his way. This was the ultimate determination that God wanted revealed by allowing Satan a measure of power over Job's life. Let's go back to Job 1, if you will. We see again this very thing. This very thing is being determined. How credible was Job's love toward God? Job 1, in beginning in verse 8, we see this test to determine just that. Would Job's love for God be credible in the end? Was there a credibility to it? This was the challenge from Satan. Look at this. Job 1 verse 8, here it is again. The Lord had said to Satan, Have you considered my servant Job? There's no one like him on earth, a blameless upright man, one who fears God and shuns evil. Okay, so that's Job 1, 8. Verse 9, so Satan answered the Lord and said, Does Job fear God for nothing? Not so sure. Here it is. Listen to Satan in verse 10. Have you, God, not made a hedge around him? It's interesting. Around his household, around everything on every side. Have you not blessed the work of his hand and you've increased his possessions on the land?

How credible is this love? God, I propose stretch out your hand, touch all that he has, and we'll see. He's going to curse you to your face. How credible would Job's love be for God? Would Job love God for who he is when everything's taken away? Let me ask you here today. You know the question's coming. Will you love God? Will you love God for who he is when everything's taken away from you? That's the question. Very important. God does not want his people coming to him in any other way except credible love. A love that has some credibility to it. Not an insurance policy. None of that. No other reason. And so, therefore, for this reason, God does not want us to live lives free of suffering. Why? Well, in the end, he's going to show the world through his people what credible love looks like when he has a people standing willing to go through anything and still love him. You know, if you really think about it, it's really what Christ came to show us. You know, Christ loved God through it all no matter what suffering. And Christ said, here's the way. I came as a suffering servant. Follow me. You know, this is it. Will you love him through it all? So, in many ways, Job was pointing to Jesus Christ and Job's experience showing us what the Savior was coming to do. Give us that example. And so, following Christ and just like Job's example, God uses pain, illness, crashed and crushed hopes. All these things come to his followers to bring them to the end goal. Ultimately, suffering is used to put on the character of Jesus Christ himself so that we may live with him forever. So, with all of that, let me make a bold statement. Therefore, suffering is one of God's greatest blessings to his people.

Suffering is one of God's greatest blessings. You think you would ever believe that or you'd ever hear a statement like that? Suffering is one of the greatest blessings that God has allowed in our experience. Why? Why is that a blessing? Well, through choice, through correction, through construction and credibility, he's going to bring us to his ultimate purpose.

As we begin to conclude, you know, God doesn't ask us to have all the answers with regards to this answering why suffering. In fact, Job, through it all, didn't have all the answers in the end. But as we conclude, I want to show you, though, what Job did understand. So, let's return to a final passage of Scripture. We're going to go all the way to the end of Job, Job 42, verses 1 through 6. And we're going to see Job 42 verses 1 through 6. Job still didn't have all the answers. He didn't understand at all. But as he reflects on all of his suffering, he comes to a profound understanding that God was working out his purposes in Job. And God was intimately involved in it for the purposes to bring him into the ultimate glory that God desires for all of us. Job 42, beginning in verse 1 through 6, he now reflects on all that he had gained in knowledge, and he's profoundly changed by it. Here it is. Job 42 verse 1. Then Job, after all of this, Job answered the Lord and said, I know that you can do anything, everything. So he's sovereign. God's sovereign over it all. And that no purpose of yours can be withheld from you.

You ask, who is this who hides counsel without knowledge? Job says, therefore I have uttered what I did not understand. Things too wonderful for me, which I did not know. Verse 4, listen, please let me speak. You said, I will question you and you shall answer me. So here's righteous Job, verse 5, God-fearing Job. He says, verse 5, I have heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you, and therefore I abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes. Let's stop there. So in reflecting all the knowledge from suffering, righteous Job, he was close to God. He knew God, of course. Well, even righteous Job did not actually see God until he was blessed with suffering. He says, but now my eye sees you. And he acknowledges, God, you can do anything, and there's no purpose of yours that can be withheld from you. I see the purpose you have in my life for this suffering. And in that, he responds by repenting. Oh, boy, I want you to fulfill this purpose in my life, and I want to remove everything of me that's going to prevent you from fulfilling this in my life. So I repent. It's a great response. It's a great response. Often when you go through suffering, start with repentance. It's an incredible response because you know God's doing something in your life. And so you want that purpose to be fulfilled. So you want to remove everything that may hinder the fullness that God wants to accomplish in you through the suffering experience that you're going through. And to his end, to this purpose, to his goal of bringing us to glory, Job says there's no purpose of yours which can be withheld from you. And to that understanding, we say thank God. Thank God. Thank you, Father. Will you, Father? This is our prayer today. Will you do whatever it takes to fulfill this in my life? I'm ready. Please be merciful. But I'm ready. Will you do anything to take me to this purpose? Guide me in right choices. Correct me. Construct me so that in the in the end, we as a people, it will reveal through all this suffering we go through, it will reveal in the end a credible and everlasting love for God.