“The LORD God said to the serpent,
‘Because you have done this,
cursed are you above all livestock
and above all beasts of the field;
on your belly you shall go,
and dust you shall eat
all the days of your life.
I will put enmity between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and her offspring;
he shall bruise your head,
and you shall bruise his heel.’” [1]
God’s curse pronounced upon the serpent is a strange study for an Advent message. I confess that this is a first for me in my service before the Lord God, a service now extending over a period exceeding fifty-three years. We are so accustomed to think of Christmas as a season of joy, a time of gaiety and anticipation, that it is difficult for us to allow ourselves to dwell on any thought that would normally be characterised as negative. We don’t want to spoil the holiday atmosphere.
We know that the Christmas season can be extremely difficult for many people. Because we are trained to think of the season as a time for family, as a time to renew or to strengthen friendships, as a time for raucous parties, it is easy to forget that for those who are excluded from such activities—often excluded through no fault of their own—Christmas can be a time of intense loneliness, a time that creates a sense of deep loss.
We who are appointed to shepherd the Lord’s flocks aren’t given the luxury of shoving negative thoughts aside, ignoring such dark thoughts as though they don’t exist. What the world denotes as “negative” is forced upon God’s spokesman week-by-week. The sorrow of God’s people becomes our sorrow as we seek to fulfil the injunction delivered by the Apostle Paul, who commands us as followers of the Risen Lord, “Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep” [ROMANS 12:15]. And each time we approach the message of the Incarnation, the reason for the birth of God’s own Son is again forced to the forefront of our consciousness. God’s Son came to provide His life as a sacrifice for sinful people. And that truth must never be relegated to the dim recesses of distant memory. Remember that Jesus testified, “The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” [MATTHEW 20:28].
Suffering does exist, and we who know the Master are not exempt from the sorrows that afflict all mankind. So long as we are in this body, we will know what it is to weep, to experience the pain of parting as loved ones leave this life, to know the attacks from those we imagined were our friends, and to know what it is to feel deserted even by those we have loved.
But, thanks be to our Saviour, we are given the promise written in the Apocalypse: “I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away’” [REVELATION 21:1-4].
I will pause at this point to acknowledge that I read this passage at the interment of almost every follower of the Living Saviour. I endeavour to comfort those who grieve now by urging them to remember that our Master has given us a comforting word so that we are not left alone without hope. I do not wish the people of God to be consumed with a sense of deep sorrow when their loved ones are taken, and the body is consigned to the grave. I want our people always to look beyond this moment to see what our Saviour has provided for us, and that we shall be reunited with our fellow saints. Amen.
I would not want anyone to imagine that I’m attempting to create some fantasy that permits people to escape the pain of living in this world, but I would encourage all who hear me to look to Christ as the Master over life. He does provide joy and hope for all who know Him and who walk with Him, but He does not keep us from experiencing the trials of life that touch all people. Christ our Lord does, however, provide us with the strength to withstand every test we may face. And He promises that He will always be with us as we pass through the trials that come into our lives.
Consider just a few of the instances when we are given rich promises that we will not ever be left alone in the trials of life. As He was about to be translated into the Glory, Jesus spoke to disciples, instructing them both in their responsibilities and promising His presence with them in every situation. “Jesus came and said to [His disciples], ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age’” [MATTHEW 28:18-20].
I am fully cognizant that the words Isaiah penned were first written for Israel’s comfort, but I also understand that we who have been born from above in this present day are the Israel of God [see GALATIANS 6:16]. Therefore, the words Isaiah penned are for our comfort as surely as they were meant to comfort God’s ancient people.
“Fear not, for I have redeemed you;
I have called you by name, you are mine.
When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;
and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;
when you walk through fire you shall not be burned,
and the flame shall not consume you.
For I am the LORD your God,
the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.”
[ISAIAH 43:1b-3a]
The days are dark: we don’t know if there will be war in the Far East; we can’t see an end to the conflict in Ukraine; we wonder if there will be further violent clashes in the Middle East and whether other nations will be drawn into the conflict between Israel and the Arab nations. Beyond this, the political climate in the United States and Canada causes many hearts to grow faint. The economic outlook is increasingly dim, as real wages stagnate and unrestrained, wastrel policies of our politicians drive inflation ever upward. Cultural norms are crashing about us, and militancy is on the march against righteousness. In the midst of such turmoil, is there hope? Can the one who follows the Saviour find hope in this situation? As I review the early chapters of the Word of God, I see divine peace promised and ultimately secured in the Person of Jesus, the Son of God.
THE DECEPTION PROMOTED — Satan deceived our First Mother, and he continues to deceive those who listen to him to this day. Jesus warned that the devil is a liar and the father of lies [see JOHN 8:44]. The master deceiver planted doubt in Eve’s mind, leading her to question God’s goodness and to doubt His holy character. She began to question God’s right to demand obedience from the man and the woman He created, just as she began to doubt that He would really hold to account those whom He had created. Doubting God’s right to reign, questioning His character, and rejecting the knowledge that He would hold mankind accountable for their acts, she succumbed to sin. To be certain, Eve was deceived. Adam, however, chose to rebel.
Given the choice to obey God or cling to the woman whom God had made, Adam chose rebellion against the Living God in order to align himself with Eve. I have pointed out in a previous sermon that Adam was witness to the exchange between Eve and the serpent, and he did nothing to restrain the woman. [2] He was right there beside her! His culpability for rebellion was greater than we could ever imagine. Adam knowingly chose to accept the lead of the woman in rebellion against the command of God.
We have seen the dark account on multiple occasions. The serpent, identified as “more crafty than any other beast of the field that the LORD God had made” [GENESI 3:1a] challenged the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’” [GENESIS 3:1b]? And tragically, Eve failed the test.
Eve responded to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die’” [GENESIS 3:2-3].
That is not at all what God had commanded! God had graciously told the man whom He had made, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die” [GENESIS 2:16-17]. God gave the man everything, except for that one fruit. What is apparent is that the woman distorted what God had said. Much as we do to this present day, we look upon the grace that is given and grumble because of what is kept from us for our own good. God graciously permits us to marry whomever we will, with the sole restriction that must seek marriage only with those who share in our worship of the Lord [see 1 CORINTHIANS 7:39b; 2 CORINTHIANS 6:14-15]; but we grumble because we want to marry outside the Faith, focusing only on gratifying our own desires.
Here is the thing that must not be overlooked when viewing the sin of our first mother, Eve. She added to the command that God had given; and when we add to what He has said, we distort His will. This is the reason we have received the stern warning given in the Apocalypse, “I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book, and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book” [REVELATION 22:18-19]. If it is wicked to take away any portion of God’s Word, it is equally wicked to add to what He has said. We do not clarify God’s will when we add to what He has commanded.
When Eve added to what God had commanded, the serpent immediately distorted the will of God, telling the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” [GENESIS 3:4-5]. What was evil, an action which transgressed the will of God, suddenly seemed desirable, seemed good, and the woman saw evil through the lens of her own desire rather than viewing what was about to happen through the lens of pleasing God. And so, we read, “So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate” [GENESIS 3:6].
That is how sin always appears when we look at it through the lens of our own desire. The casual affair is exciting, positive, sensual; but it can only bring grief and sorrow. Solomon was correct when he warned,
“[The forbidden woman], the adulteress with her smooth words,
…forsakes the companion of her youth
and forgets the covenant of her God;
for her house sinks down to death,
and her paths to the departed;
none who go to her come back,
nor do they regain the paths of life.”
[PROVERBS 2:16-19]
The ads for alcohol appear so attractive. Drinking makes you happy and fills your life with attractive, youthful people. The ads don’t speak of the sorrow that will ultimately attend your drinking. How descriptive are the words the Wise Man wrote.
“Who has woe? Who has sorrow?
Who has strife? ho has complaining?
Who has wounds without cause?
Who has redness of eyes?
Those who tarry long over wine;
those who go to try mixed wine.
Do not look at wine when it is red,
when it sparkles in the cup
and goes down smoothly.
In the end it bites like a serpent
and stings like an adder.
Your eyes will see strange things,
and your heart utter perverse things.
You will be like one who lies down in the midst of the sea,
like one who lies on the top of a mast.
‘They struck me,’ you will say, ‘but I was not hurt;
they beat me, but I did not feel it.
When shall I awake?
I must have another drink.’”
[PROVERBS 23:29-35]
I read what Solomon wrote, and I confess that I find myself saying, “How did he know? How did he know what I did and how I would feel?”
Deceived by her own heart, our first mother, as is true of all who have followed in her steps since that first step into exaltation of her own will over the will of her Creator, stepped boldly into sin, even leading her husband to join her in the rebellion. Therefore, we read, “When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths” [GENESIS 3:6-7].
Too late we realise that the consequences of sin are more than we can bear. Tragically, it is still true that “The wages of sin is death” [ROMANS 6:23a]. I do not like to cite this verse without pointing to the latter portion of what is written. Having delivered a stern warning, our Lord quickly appends a statement of hope and relief for any who will receive it when He says, “but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” [ROMANS 6:23b]. Because it is Christmas, we must know that the reason we rejoice is that God has made provision for us to be delivered from the consequences of our sin.
THE DIVINE PRONOUNCEMENT — What we must remember is that the Lord does not ignore sin—He judges sin, and that judgement is sooner rather than later. Thus, we read,
“The LORD God said to the serpent,
‘Because you have done this,
cursed are you above all livestock
and above all beasts of the field;
on your belly you shall go,
and dust you shall eat
all the days of your life.
I will put enmity between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and her offspring;
he shall bruise your head,
and you shall bruise his heel.’”
[GENESIS 3:14-15]
God had already judged the devil, casting him out of Heaven when pride contaminated his heart. However, the divine judgement was iterated in this instance as the Lord GOD pronounced sentence on the old serpent, the devil.
God used a sort of divine jiujitsu in pronouncing sentence on the devil. Indeed, Satan would bruise the heel of the offspring of the woman, but that One born of a woman, the One Whom we know as the Son of God, would crush the head of the serpent. Satan would indeed wound the Messiah; but through giving Himself as a sacrifice for sin, Messiah would forever destroy the power of the wicked one. This is what is meant when we read, “Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery” [HEBREWS 2:14-15].
You have no doubt at some time asked why you suffer, why you experience difficult times, why you should have to pass through trials. You question why, if Satan is a defeated foe, does he exert such malign influence in our world today. Though the Bible doesn’t answer your specific questions, it does reveal why God allows hardships to come into the lives of His people. Among the reasons why we suffer is because we live in a fallen world. There is comfort in knowing this, because it means that we are not called to deal with some bad accident, some horrible luck, and it does not mean that we are being forced to deal with some failure on God’s part. Despite Rabbi Kushner’s speculation that bad things happen to good people because God wants to do good, but He just can’t violate our free will, [3] we Christians do not suffer because God is unable to remove us from the evil surrounding us. We suffer because evil is in our world, and God works in the midst of that evil to bring glory to His Name and for our good.
Have you never read Paul’s assessment of our situation. The Apostle to the Gentiles has written, “We have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies” [2 CORINTHIANS 4:7-10].
You will not find so much as a hint recorded in the Word of God that the Christian should be shocked that he must suffer. What is found in God’s Word is the teaching that suffering is the experience or each individual that has every lived or that ever shall live. Suffering will continue to be the lot of all mankind until the coming of God’s Messiah to reign over the earth. It was our first parents who brought this condition upon us when they rebelled against the revealed will of the Creator. God hasn’t failed; no one should imagine that because she or he must face trials that they are abandoned or that God is being forced by circumstances to turn to Plan B. Well, where is the comfort in that view? It is just this, no one should feel they are abandoned when trouble comes into life or when their path leads them through the dark places that all must pass at times. The one who suffers must know that she has not been forsaken or that she is about to be crushed. Rather, if that one who suffers is a Christian, she must know that the pain she is experiencing has a purpose. God is working even in your pain to ensure that good will come from your painful experience.
Look again at the passage we just read as Paul wrote of suffering. He gives us a word picture of a clay jar, implying that this fragile jar is perhaps cracked, thus allowing the treasure it holds to shine through! Think about that! We are not unbreakable vessels! Each of us is fragile, easily broken. Some of us may withstand a little more pressure, others of us withstand substantially less. Nevertheless, though we are redeemed as followers of the Risen Lord of Glory, we are fragile—the body is susceptible to death and destruction, the mind can be broken, the spirit can be crushed. And yet God is at work to ensure that something good will come from our fragility. People will not look at us and conclude that we are the source or our hope and strength; they will see through our brokenness that whatever hope and security we possess is because He lives in us. For this to happen, for God to be glorified, we must be put in situations that overwhelm us so that we don’t try to rely on our strength or on our wisdom, but we reach out for help.
What I would have you know when you are suffering is that our suffering as followers of the Risen Saviour compels us to understand without equivocation who we are so that we truly understand what God has entrusted to us. Those cracks that allow your vulnerability to shine through becomes a means by which God allows His presence to shine through. The cracks in your life reveal His grace and His glory working in you. In our suffering, God is giving us something that works to our benefit. When you suffer as a child of God, don’t imagine that you have been forsaken or that you have no hope, rather, because you are a child of the Living God you should know that nothing—nothing—comes into your life except what your Father permits. And what He has permitted will glorify Him as His grace is revealed in you.
Listen as I read something that was written by the half-brother of Jesus. “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing” [JAMES 1:2-4].
You will note that James is writing about comfort. However, what he writes compels us to think about what we actually want out of life. You can either see comfort as consisting of a life marked by success, strength, and pleasure, or you can think of comfort as a life characterised by spiritual awakening, growth in the Faith, or movement toward God and His glory. You won’t be able to accomplish both simultaneously since each situation tends to crowd out the other.
Christians know that the second option is much more satisfying because it is what we were destined for from the moment we were born again. Since this is our destiny, it will gratify more fully, it will fulfil the yearning that always gnaws at our hearts as twice born people. The suffering that our God permits to come into our lives becomes a powerful tool for our growth and the transformation leading to the image of Christ. Suffering becomes God’s tool to mould us into the image of Christ.
This is a difficult passage for us to digest. James is not telling us to be happy because we are in pain or because we have suffered loss. We are not called to practise some form of Christian stoicism, maintaining a stiff upper lip without ever shedding a tear. The brother of our Lord is pointing us to a truth that is hard to accept—God is using our suffering to produce what is necessary in our life, and He is doing this because the transformation needed can never be produced through our own effort. God doesn’t send pain into your life, but He works during the painful times to accomplish something beautiful in your life.
Isn’t this what we witness when Paul teaches us, “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. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified” [ROMANS 8:28-30].
I suppose it is natural that we tend to focus on the bad things that come into our lives. However, James and Paul, and every other writer included in the canon of Scripture are urging us to dare believe that God loves us so much that He is always working to transform the evil we experience into that which glorifies His Name; and the evil that comes into our path is changed into something wonderful for us! Because you are His child, God is always working in every situation you may face to ensure that you are better for having faced the challenge!
Now, I am the first to admit that I’m not eager to experience hardships, but I am learning through experience and from what God has provided in His Word that He is working to ensure that what I am called to face will be changed into a means of creating the image of His own Son in me. God is working to ensure that I am delivered from myself as the image of Christ is becoming more and more evident in me! Dear people, this is nothing less than grace! Rather than the grace of relief, this is the grace of rescue and transformation, which is the grace we need. [4]
Here's what I mean. When I suffer, my self-reliance is destroyed. You must remember thar we were created to be reliant on God, not on ourselves. Because this is the case, self-reliance will never produce anything good in us. We are dependent on God, and thus we are dependent on one another in this Body into which we have been placed. We are dependent on one another in the church into which we have been placed! We tend to think of ourselves as independent of others because we imagine we can make it on our own. However, our suffering drives us to cry out to God. And our fellow saints witness our distress, and more often than we could ever imagine, they become the means by which God gives us victory.
Our self-righteousness is exposed when we suffer. Let’s admit that despite our thoughts about ourselves, we are not spiritually okay. Let’s further admit that when we suffer, the evil that hides in our lives is exposed. We hurt! As result of our pain, we are irritable, envious of others who are not experiencing our griefs. We become demanding, impatient, doubtful, and we grow angry. Suffering doesn’t make us that way, but it brings out these characteristics that have always been part of us!
When we experience pain or reversals in our lives, we often will witness the pain or the reversals we experience as a demonstration that there is still sin in our lives. Dear people, we have not won a metal in the Grace Olympics. We still need the Saviour’s grace! What is exposed during those times when we suffer is proof that we require something of far greater importance than immediate relief. We need grace and not deliverance from situational, physical, relational, or cultural hardship.
Suffering can destroy our idols, because the suffering we must endure becomes a means of exposing what is truly important to us. In our sorrow we often discover what actually controls our life. The deep waters through which we are passing will often prove painful, but in our distress, what we have lost that gave us our sense of worth and which we have valued so greatly will become apparent. Our hope which is built on the transient treasures of this world is destroyed through our pain. And the positions we anticipated would give us hope will be exposed as folly, demanding that we fix our hope on our Creator and our Saviour. Love for Him Who loved us and gave Himself for us will be renewed and strengthened.
There is a significant point concerning the sorrows we may experience now that I am compelled to make for our encouragement. The pain we experience now is used by God to prepare us for His use. I don’t mean to imply that God causes our pain, but you should know that God is always working in the sorrow we experience to bring forth good for us and glory for His Name. Here is a passage demonstrating how this works.
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too. If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; and if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer. Our hope for you is unshaken, for we know that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in our comfort.
“For we do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead” [2 CORINTHIANS 1:3-9].
As God’s child, you must no longer live for yourself. You are free to live for Him Who loved you and gave Himself for you. You belong to Him; He purchased you with His blood. As His, you are appointed to be a minister. Don’t look at this as a vocation or as some task in which you engage from time-to-time or on some schedule. See your ministry as a lifestyle. We don’t naturally know how to conduct the ministry God assigns us to perform; we must be trained. And it is in the painful experiences through which we pass that God uses to train us.
Perhaps you will be encouraged by the Apostle’s view of the hardships he faced. He has written, “We do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.
“For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling, if indeed by putting it on we may not be found naked. For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened—not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee” [2 CORINTHIANS 4:16-5:5].
As we experience our pain, God is using this experience to create in us a longing for His comfort; and as we experience His comfort, it allows us to be prepared to be His agents of comfort to others as they experience pain and as they suffer. Here is a wonderful truth that we dare not miss—our suffering becomes the means for ministry. God works in our pain to qualify us to be His effective servants to others who are hurting.
I am not naturally sympathetic, and compassion is not my strong suit. However, God is using my weakness, the confusion, and the fear that I experience to make my heart softer, to make me able to enter into the trials others are facing showing compassion and showing understanding, qualities that are not naturally part of my makeup. Our suffering, the painful experiences we are forced to endure, enables us to look outside ourselves so that we are equipped to extend hope, comfort, joy, and confidence that God has given us in our own trials.
Through our own sorrowful experiences, God is giving us stories of how His grace has sustained us and brought us through some dark trials. We were in panic, and God met us in those dark moments to lead us through and into the light. Now, we can tell others what He did for us, He will do for them. When the waves were almost washing over our heads, our God lifted us and the powerful rip tide that threatened to overwhelm us was unable to destroy us. Now, we can come alongside others to encourage them with our story of the God Who delivered us. As we tell our stories, others are encouraged. Isn’t this what we read as the Psalmist is praising God!
“I will extol you, my God and King,
and bless your name forever and ever.
Every day I will bless you
and praise your name forever and ever.
Great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised,
and his greatness is unsearchable.
“One generation shall commend your works to another,
and shall declare your mighty acts.
On the glorious splendor of your majesty,
and on your wondrous works, I will meditate.
They shall speak of the might of your awesome deeds,
I will declare your greatness.
They shall pour forth the fame of your abundant goodness
and shall sing aloud of your righteousness.”
[PSALM 145:1-7]
There is a final truth concerning our suffering: Suffering teaches us that this world is not our final home. Some years back, one advertisement that seemed to pop up on a surprising number of shows drilled home the message, “You only go around once in life. So grab for all the gusto you can.” Well, the ad writer was wrong. The Word of God is very clear that this is not all we have as those who know Him, or rather, as those who are known by Him. God has invested His very Being in us; His Son died to redeem us, and His Spirit lives in us. Through the pain we suffer, our Father is creating a longing for our eternal home and for our being gathered to Him.
Think again of Paul’s description we saw in 2 CORINTHIANS 5:1-5: “We know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling, if indeed by putting it on we may not be found naked. For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened—not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee.”
Like pilgrims on a great journey, we live in a world of tents, a world of impermanence, a world of discomfort. All the hardship and loss we face are being used by our God to prepare us for our eternal home. God is using the pains, the deprivation, the sorrow, the grief we experience here to loosen the tight grip we have on this dying world. He is teaching us that the impermanence of this present world can never be the paradise for which we long. God is at work, using the suffering we experience to create a longing for the eternal home He has prepared for those who love Him. The Spirit of Christ living in us who are twice-born is a constant reminder that there’s a home waiting for us where we will be welcomed and where we will at last be home.
Jesus promised, “Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also. And you know the way to where I am going” [JOHN 14:1-4]. Our dark experiences must never be seen as a failure of God’s plan; our suffering is a tool meant to bring us in line with God’s plan so that we will love what He has prepared for us more than we love our present situation.
Whenever I read God’s pronouncement to the serpent, “He shall bruise your head,” I think of Christmas. God sent His Son into this world, knowing that He would receive in Himself all the sin, all the perversity, all the wickedness from my life, and He would receive in Himself the punishment I deserved, and in Him I would be forever freed from condemnation. What a wonderful gift my Father has given, and that gift was given so that no one need suffer divine judgement. As it is written, “God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” [JOHN 3:16]. Have you received God’s gift? Amen.
[1] Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. Wheaton: Standard Bible Society, 2016. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
[2] Michael Stark, “The Silence of Adam,” sermon, 16 June, 2013 https://www.sermoncentral.com/sermons/the-silence-of-adam-michael-stark-sermon-on-manhood-176717, accessed 15 August 2023
[3] Re. Harold S. Kushner, When Bad Things Happen to Good People (Schocken Books, Inc., New York, 1981)
[4] This thought and the following thoughts are suggested by Paul David Tripp, August 15, 2020, https://www.crossway.org/articles/4-reasons-for-hope-in-suffering/?utm_source=Crossway+Marketing&utm_campaign=6004565bfc-20200815+-+Men+-+Hope+in+Suffering&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_0275bcaa4b-6004565bfc-287749461, accessed 15 August, 2020
