This evening, I want to speak with you on this topic, “Why Does God Allow Suffering?” It’s important different religions answer this question in vary different ways. N. S. R. K. Ravi was born in 1953 in India into a family of wealth as they were in the second-highest caste, lower only than the priests. Destined for comfort and great opportunities, he was a devout Hindu. The village rejoiced with the family at his birth, especially since male children were seen as a treasure by the Indian culture. But at the age of three, Ravi was stricken with polio. His parents were devastated. They spent a fortune giving Ravi the best of medical treatment. At one point the young boy spent nine months in a total body cast. But his condition did not improve. Abandoning medical solutions, his parents turned to the village gods. His father had two expensive temples built for the gods. Yet, Ravi did not improve. Ravi’s parents began to see him as a burden. He had to have two two people to look after his needs, including 1 person who was responsible for carrying him wherever he needed to go. None of the Hindu gods heard the prayers of Ravi and his parents. His condition worsened and he became completely disabled. After all of the work, sacrifices, and money spent on their son, his parents concluded that Ravi would not walk the rest of his life because he had bad karma in a previous life. Karma is a Hindu fatalistic concept that necessitates reincarnation. The conditions of each successive life are determined by one’s bad or good deeds in past lives. It is kind of a universal law of cause and effect that determines fate or destiny. Each person must suffer for his own deeds of the past life. Ravi suffered as a young boy and was crippled because of the bad deeds he had committed in a previous life. Ravi described his childhood disease this way: “My father screamed at me on time: ‘What kind of sin have you committed? You are nothing by a burden to us.” Ravi spoke of the difficulties of his childhood: “I saw how much my parents enjoyed my brothers and sisters, but they did not want to be around me. They would tell our housekeeper to carry me away from the rest of the family on special events. I was driven almost to the point of a nervous breakdown.” So Ravi became bitter about his condition after none of the gods gave him any help. His anger and hatred towards the gods and his family grew more and more. Let me pause on Ravi’s story and we’ll return back to it in a few moments.
Look with me another entirely different perspective on suffering: “In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, 7 so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.” (1 Peter 1:6-7)
Your joy in life is very important to God. You may say to me, “If that is true, then why doesn’t God remove the pain in my life?” God’s plan for your happiness includes a design for even your distress.
1. The Plan of Our Father
If God allows evil and suffering to continue because he can’t stop it, then he might be good but He’s not all-powerful. On the other hand, if God allows evil & suffering to continue because He could stop it and yet He won’t stop it, then He might be all-powerful, but He’s not good. Either way, the good, all-powerful God of the Bible couldn’t exist. It’s a pretty formidable argument! What do we say to it? Here is a sampling of God’s complete providence in governing the world. Another way to say this is like this: look at how the Bible tells us all that falls under the control of God.
“I have commanded the ravens to feed you there” (1Kings 17:4)
“The Lord God appointed a plant and made it come up over Jonah” (Jonah 4:6)
“God appointed a worm that attacked the plant, so that it withered” (Jonah 4:7)
“I will send swarms of flies on you and your servants” (Exodus 8:21)
“He summoned a famine on the land and broke all supply of bread” (Psalms 105:16)
“He gave them hail for rain” (Psalms 105:32)
“He spoke, and the locusts came” (Psalms 105:34)
“The Lord will whistle for . . . the bee that is in the land of Assyria” (Isaiah 7:18)
“The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord” (Proverbs 16:33)
“Even the wind and the sea obey him” (Mark 4:41)
“He removes kings and sets up kings” (Daniel 2:21)
“Even the unclean spirits, and they obey him” (Mark 1:2)
“He upholds the universe by the word of his power” (Hebrews 1:3)
One of the most beautiful confessional statements of God’s providence are found in the Heidelberg Catechism (an ancient summary of the Christian Faith): What do you mean by the providence of God? (Question 27). The response is helpful for our discussion: “The almighty and everywhere present power of God; whereby, as it were by his hand, he upholds and governs heaven, earth, and all creatures; so that herbs and grass, rain and drought, fruitful and barren years, meat and drink, health and sickness, riches and poverty, yea, and all things come, not by chance, but by his fatherly hand.
And the following question, “What advantage is it to us to know that God has created, and by His providence does still uphold all things?” And again, the response: “That we may be patient in adversity; thankful in prosperity; and that in all things, which may hereafter befall us, we place our firm trust in our faithful God and Father, that nothing shall separate us from his love; since all creatures are so in his hand, that without his will they cannot so much as move.”
When we experience horrendous suffering and catastrophe, one of the ways we respond to it sometimes is we back off of or even abandon our belief in God. It’s perfectly natural and a lot of people do it. When these horrible things happen to us, we back off of or even abandon our belief in God. The real question when you are suffering is this: will you abandon your belief in God?
Martin Luther King, Jr. in his famous letter from Birmingham jail, says the only way he can know whether a human law is unjust is if there’s a divine law, a higher law, from God. He says if there was no God, if there was no divine, higher law, there’d be no way to know whether a particular human law was unjust or not. See, if there’s no God, somebody could say, “Oh that law is unjust!” But that would be according to their standards; why should their standards be privileged over somebody else’s? If there’s no God, there’s no higher, divine law; then how can we say you pain is too much for a good God to allow? If there’s nothing but nature, if nature is all there is, there’s nothing more natural than violence. It’s how you and I got here. Natural selection, right? The strong eating the weak. So there is no God; all we have is nature. What’s wrong with violence? It’s perfectly natural. Getting rid of your belief in God in order to understand evil and suffering won’t help.
1. The Plan of Our Father
2. The Pain of Living
Peter uses a metaphor in front of us to teach us that the pain in our lives has a purpose. He uses the metaphor of us entering into a furnace where gold enters to be purified. We sing a hymn at this church that is based directly on that passage and two of the verses go like this:
When through fiery trials thy pathway shall lie,
my grace all-sufficient shall be thy supply.
The flame shall not hurt thee, I only design
thy dross to consume and thy gold to refine.
Fear not, I am with thee, oh be not dismayed,
for I am thy God, and will still give thee aid.
I’ll strengthen thee, help thee, and cause thee to stand,
upheld by my righteous, omnipotent hand.
There's going to be pain in the Christian life. But why would God do that? This leads us to the words “so that” at the beginning of verse 7: “so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.” (1 Peter 1:7) What this verse does is spell out the design of our distresses. But pause for a moment before we arrive at his furnace metaphor. Peter begins in verse 6 with a very odd way to look at the pain in our lives: “In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials…” (1 Peter 1:6) Again, the Bible says, “In this you rejoice,” Now, God is not immune to our emotions. God doesn’t put us through boot camp like a drill sergeant with little or no thought of us. Jesus commands us: “Rejoice and leap for joy for your reward is great in heaven” (Luke 6:23). And He tells us: “These things I have spoken to you that my joy might be in you and your joy might be full” (John 15:11). The apostle Paul commands us: “Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say rejoice” (Philippians 4:4). The word “this” refers to the first reason for great joy. It refers back to in verses 3–5: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, 5 who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time” (1 Peter 1:3–5).
Verse 3: God caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection from the dead.
Verse 4: God is keeping an inheritance for us in heaven that can not perish, soil or fade.
Verse 5: God is keeping us for that inheritance.
There’s an inheritance and there’s an inheritor and the first basis of our joy is that God is keeping both. God is keeping the inheritance perfect for us and God is keeping us in faith so that we will in fact not make shipwreck of our faith and lose the inheritance. Then in verse 6 Peter says, “In this you rejoice,” The first reason for our joy is the great future God promises us. Our joy is based on the happiness of our future with God and the certainty that we will make it there. Christian joy is almost synonymous with Christian hope. In this you have living, vital, life-changing hope: “In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials…” (1 Peter 1:6). Who or what is making the distress of these trials “necessary?” The answer is God. Peter makes it plain that Christian distress only happens if God wills it: “Therefore let those who suffer according to God’s will entrust their souls to a faithful Creator while doing good.” (1 Peter 4:19) If you haven’t learned this truth yet, you may as well learn it now, that a Christian is going to go through trials. One of the great promises in the word of God is 2 Timothy 3:12 that says: “Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted…” (2 Timothy 3:12) Just look at what Peter said in chapter 4, verses 12-13: “Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. 13 But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed” (1 Peter 4:12-13). If you walk with Jesus you are going to endure some suffering for Jesus. Yet, I’d rather walk down suffering avenue with Jesus than live on easy street without Him.
Someone has said: “O, the Christian life is a bed of roses; God just hasn’t removed the thorns.” His design for our pain is to refine the genuineness of our faith the way fire refines gold so that when Christ comes back, the quality of our faith will improve. God allows trials and troubles, and pain and problems to come for several reasons.
2.1 Trials Teach us Patience
“Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, 3 for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. 4 And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.” (James 1:2-3)
2.2 Trials Teach us Dependence
Paul had, what he called, a thorn in his flesh, and he said that he asked God 3 times to remove that thorn. But instead of God removing the thorn, God gave him the grace to bear it. Instead of giving Paul independence from the thorn, he taught Paul dependence upon him.
2.3 Trials Teaches us Obedience
Trials teach us how to obey God. Sometimes God allows trials and troubles to come into our lives because He is trying to discipline us, and to teach us to be obedient to him. The reason for that is God is trying to reproduce His character in us. And sometimes the only way that that can be done is through the chastening and discipline of God: “For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness.” (Hebrews 12:10)
2.2. Your Pain Is Temporary
“In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials…” (1 Peter 1:6) Thank God that these trials are just “for a little while.” God will never test you beyond what you are able to bear only while you depending on Him. With every trial that comes your way, you remember that there is a corresponding promise of God, that you will have the strength and the grace and the power to handle it. No matter what storm that comes, you will be able to weather the storm. Trials have a reason, but they also have a season.
Someone maybe asking as you listen: Does God Will Our Suffering and Distress? Now I know that this raises a painful and troubling question
We are not playing games here. We are talking about your real life this very day. Does God will the break up of your marriage? Does God will your cancer, your homosexual orientation, the rebellion of your child, the loss of your job, the threatening chaos in Iran and North Korea? The answer is No, God does not will it, and Yes, He does: “Therefore let those who suffer according to God’s will entrust their souls to a faithful Creator while doing good” (1 Peter 4:19). No, in the sense that He does not delight in pain for its own sake. God does NOT command sin or approve of sinning. But yes, God does will that these things be, in the sense that He could prevent any of those things but sometimes does not, but rather guides them. He does this because of higher designs than the destructiveness of sin or the deceitfulness of Satan or the painfulness of suffering. He does not endorse or approve sinning, but God can and does will that sinful acts come about for His own holy designs. When Christ was murdered on the cross, it was sin, but God willed that it happen: “Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him; he has put him to grief” (Isaiah 53:10) And by that will we are saved.
The Rest of Ravi’s Story
Let me return to Ravi from the beginning of my talk. When Ravi was seventeen, he decided that he was at wits’ end with his family. “At the age of seventeen, I stole some money and ran away from home.” Ravi recalled. “It was really a strange scene: a teenage boy in a wheelchair roaming the streets and the roads. One day I was just sitting on a bench at a train station, and a Christian dressed in a white robe sits down by me. I tried to lie and tell him that I was waiting for the next train, but he knew that wasn’t the truth. The next train was not scheduled to arrive for another nine hours.” Ravi continued the story about the strange man at the train station. “He opened a Bible and just started sharing with me. Of course, I had no idea what he was talking about, but he kept reading and talking about verse after verse. I would see him close his eyes at times, but I had no idea what real prayer was.”
“He told me that God really loves me, and how he paid for my sins. All of my life I had been told that the gods were angry with me since I did not please them enough.” The man was persistent with Ravi. “He repeated several times that God had a special purpose in my life, and that my physical disability would be used for God’s glory,” Ravi continued. “But I didn’t even know what glory was.”
Although Ravi did not become a Christian that day, the strange man in white started a chain of events that would lead him to the Savior. He told Ravi that he could go to a Christian boarding school about an hour away. They would take care of him and let him continue his education. Fourteen months later in the Christian school, Ravi met Christ.
1. The Plan of Our Father
2. The Pain of Living
3. The Proof of Our Faith
“so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 1:7).
Now Peter uses the picture of a goldsmith. Your faith is the gold, and God is the goldsmith, and life is the crucible in which your faith is shaped and molded. Many of us do not understand exactly what a goldsmith does. First, a goldsmith takes the rough ore of gold, and puts it into a crucible. He then turns up a great fire underneath this crucible in order to melt this gold. The reason for doing this is that all of the impurities that contaminate this ore of gold will rise to the top and the precious gold will settle to the bottom. Your faith is as precious as gold to God, and He allows your faith to go through the fiery trials of life because trials have 2 very wonderful effects on faith:
3.1. Trials Verify Faith
Peter speaks of the genuineness of a man’s faith. That word “genuine” literally means to prove something to see if it is genuine; to test something to see if it is the real McCoy, or just a counterfeit. You see, there is a genuine faith and there is a counterfeit faith. And anything that God makes that is genuine, Satan will always try to counterfeit. You know, there are some people who appear to be Christians, when they really are not Christians. And it is sometimes very, very difficult to tell the difference between a real Christian and a false Christian. When it comes to faith all that glitters is not gold. Peter makes this very salient point that the faith that cannot be tested, cannot be trusted. Faith must be tested. An untried faith is an untrustworthy faith. Until your faith is put to the test, we can never be sure if is real faith. If there’s a defect in our faith, we need to know it: “Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you fail to meet the test” (2 Corinthians 13:5)! That is, if your faith is real.
3.2. Trials Purify Faith
Peter uses the word here “tested.” That word means to clean out the impurities and to remove all the dross. Your faith, no matter how strong it is, has all kinds of impurities. Some times it is infected with pride. Sometimes it is defiled by jealousy. Sometimes it has rotted with envy sometimes it is cankered with impatience. A visitor watched as a silversmith heated the gold in the crucible. Hotter and hotter grew the flames and all the while the goldsmith was closely scanning the crucible. The visitor said, “Why are you watching the gold so closely? What are you looking for?” The silversmith replied, “I’m looking for my face. When I see my own image in the gold, then I stop. I know my work is done.” God is looking for a face in every one of his children; the face of His Son: “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers” (Romans 8:28–29). And He will chasten us and discipline us and use fiery trials to mold us and make us into his image.
