[062b]. A Message From A Poem – Does Suffering Cancel Out A God Of Love?

[062B]. A MESSAGE FROM A POEM – DOES SUFFERING CANCEL OUT A GOD OF LOVE?

THE POEM AS IT IS WILL NOT FIT IN THE ILLUSTRATION SPACE AVAILABLE. I HAVE SPLIT IT INTO THREE PARTS. THIS IS THE SECOND PART

THE INTRODUCTION FOR THE POEM IS IN PART 1.

PART 2

SECTION B - PART 1 (THE CHRISTIAN REPLIES – YOU OR ME)

Questions you have asked of me

Are searching ones, hard to explain.

Moral issues, ethics too,

Aren’t always black and white, or plain.

I will see what I can do

To throw some light on all of this;

Try to raise some valid points,

And hope all those you won’t dismiss.

Answers can’t be all confirmed

Why God allows a hurting earth.

In the world there is great wrong,

Inequity, denial of worth.

People want to blame someone,

And God is made the easy choice;

Hard to reason out the facts,

And tough to give them reasoned voice.

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SECTION B - PART 2 (THE CHRISTIAN REPLY CONTINUES – YOU OR ME)

Evil did not come from God,

But from the failure of mankind.

Practices and thoughts so vile,

Spring from a foul, polluted mind.

Recognise that God ordained

That man should function with self-will.

Those decisions that man makes

For wickedness, continue still.

Handed down are dire results -

The consequences of man’s sin.

Don’t blame God for those outcomes

That man has scored; that man will win.

God is not a Santa Claus

To heap more good on wickedness.

Locked in evil, there they stay,

Expecting God their sins to bless.

God’s account is being kept

Against the day of reckoning.

Crimes, abortions, murders, thefts,

For punishment are beckoning.

Soon God’s day of wrath will come -

His judgment from heaven, revealed.

Silence, you now think is locked,

Will be no longer then concealed.

Man has wrought, and man has earned

His trail of pain from his own hand.

Don’t blame God for what results,

When suffering engulfs the land.

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SECTION B - PART 3 (THE CHRISTIAN REPLY CONTINUES – YOU OR ME)

Let me now address for you

This issue of a distant God.

Look now at your planet home,

For on this earth God’s feet once trod.

Jesus Christ creator God

Created life in forms diverse;

Fashioned man and woman too,

And with their God they did converse.

Adam in rebellion sinned

And went his self-resourceful way.

From that time man has not sought

The mind of God, or to obey.

Jesus Christ, the Son of God,

On earth knew suffering each day.

Helpless folk in great despair,

In Christ, found burdens passed away.

Jesus on the cross was hung

When beatings and abuse He’d borne;

Suffering in man’s true place,

Made sin for us - His body torn.

Think right now, that heart of God -

Compassion for us flowing out.

Love for us, the sinful ones -

Christ knew what hurt was all about.

No one suffered more than He,

When He accepted all our sins.

Shunned by all and crushed through pain,

He paid sin’s debt - salvation wins.

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SECTION B - PART 4 (THE CHRISTIAN REPLY CONTINUES – YOU OR ME)

Can you see what I now say,

That Jesus was our substitute?

Suffered horribly for us,

For all of us were destitute.

God has played the utmost part

Providing His salvation plan,

Reaching out to comfort all,

To save the lowest, hurting man.

Don’t accuse God of neglect,

Or add to Him indifference.

Love extends its reach to all,

But man rejects deliverance.

Remedy is there to take;

The cause and cure to apprehend.

God alone gives life meaning -

Perspective, help you comprehend.

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SECTION B - PART 5 (THE CHRISTIAN REPLY CONTINUES – YOU OR ME)

Backtrack now to what you raised

About allowing suffering . . . .

Man has fully caused this hurt

That sees him lost and wandering.

Christ identified with us

And made our sin and grief His own.

“Man of Sorrows” what a name -

The Substitute who left His throne.

He knew pain and grief and woe,

And cares about our human plight.

Christ the Lord, He took that grief,

And gave His life to win that fight.

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Come to Me the Saviour said,

And gather all, to Me in peace.

As a hen collects her chicks,

His care for you will never cease.

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26 Feb - 6 March 2006 Ron Ferguson A-B-C-B throughout

TO BE CONTINUED IN THE NEXT PART