THE BOOK OF LAMENTATIONS – PART 17 – HOW CAN GOD BE KIND AND COMPASSIONATE WHEN HE ALLOWS AWFUL SUFFERING, MISERY AND DEATH? - CHAPTER 3:21-22
We continue with Chapter 3, full of short verses and to the point. These are the laments of a defeated and ravished people.
[19]. WITHOUT RECALL THERE IS NO HOPE
Lamentations 3:21 “I recall this to my mind. Therefore I have hope.”
We encounter the word hope again. Some people say they don’t have enough faith; they struggle with faith. Well faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of God. It does not matter what it is we have difficult with, it is the bible that lightens the problem and gives the solution.
When it comes to the great example of hope, it is Abraham who stands out. {{Romans 4:18 IN HOPE AGAINST HOPE HE BELIEVED, in order that he might become a father of many nations, according to that which had been spoken, “So shall your descendants be.”}}. Where did this hope spring from? Let us look at the verse – {{Galatians 3:6 “Even so Abraham believed God and it was reckoned to him as RIGHTEOUSNESS.”}}
It came from believing the word of the Lord. All hope derives from God’s word. In this Lamentations verse this recall or remembrance leads to hope. God’s word will always play its part. It is fundamental that we have to keep recalling God’s word over and over to give us assurance and hope. When needed, the Holy Spirit will recall to our minds the scripture we need at a particular time. Recall is so important. But how can the Holy Spirit recall to you what you don’t know? It is essential you take in so much of the bible, great portions!
Why would God accept the sinner; accept those in repentance; accept those who remember His word and are bowed down in humility and confession? Well, the answer is given to us and is found in the next two verses, 22 and 23. (We will have to leave verse 23 until the next message)
[20]. GOD IS COMPASSIONATE AND KIND
{{Lamentations 3:22 “THE LORD’S LOVING KINDNESSES INDEED NEVER CEASE for HIS COMPASSIONS NEVER FAIL.”}}
That is a famous verse, one we used to learn as a memory verse in Sunday School. This is one of the contradictions and conundrums for the unsaved. Everyone is aware of the suffering and disproportionate justice in the world. On the other hand there is the suffering of people in war; starvation; unspeakable tragedy and hardship. Many point the finger and ask where is God (if there is one) when so much suffering affects us? People skeptically question the notion of a god of love and compassion and kindness, as the verse says, when all they see is heartache and evil; cruelty and hate.
We must understand their concerns but Christians often don’t address these matters because they are a bit difficult, and I think it is because many themselves are unable to reconcile these inequalities and provide solutions. God has raised up through the centuries some very talented men who do address these matters and we call them apologists – Francis Schaeffer, C S Lewis, Ravi Zacharias (and I know the problem here), John Lennon and one of the earliest, Justin Martyr. There is a choice list of these people.
Some years ago this matter concerned me in what approach I would have in dealing with it, and like a number of cases, it caused me to write a poem. I wanted to address the problem of a God of love on one hand, and the horrible suffering in the world on the other hand. This is a lengthy poem but I am going to include it here, and after that, come back to the Lamentations verse to look at the qualities mentioned in verse 22.
INTRODUCTION TO THE POEM
There is much suffering in the world. This began with the sin of our fore-parents and has been endemic to all human beings. Christians have suffering also, but their understanding of the bible helps to explain it. Also Christ is our resource for suffering. He is our Great High Priest.
Often one hears, “How can God be a god of love with all this suffering?” “Why does God let good people suffer?” “Suffering must prove there is no God because He could stop it.” People do question this problematic concept, and many are cynical about it. It is just not logical for them, that if God exists, or is love, then He allows suffering which is horrendous in the world and always has been. It has been an issue with Christian philosophers and apologists down through the centuries.
All of us would find it a difficult challenge to answer a sceptic on this issue as it is complex. Even Job’s so-called friends could not get it right. Because it was on my mind for a time in 2006 I tried to look at it and come up with a solution that satisfied me. The poem is the result of that and it was a bit difficult to get the right thought processes.
In this poem there are three speakers. The first is the Outsider; the second is Me/You, a Christian; the third is God. The speakers fall into three corresponding Sections – A, B, and C. I hope you can follow it and see the points made and give your own contemplation to the question, “Does Suffering Negate God?”
DOES SUFFERING NEGATE GOD?
SECTION A Part 1 (The thinking skeptic)
Why is life so meaningless
With hate and sorrow everywhere?
Babies die in tragedies
While parents have this grief to bear.
People murdered every day
Through wars and bombs and growing hate.
Cancer-ridden patients die
And millions suffer some bad fate.
Children with diseases live
Their shortened lives in hope of cure.
Older folk in nursing homes
Own painful lives they must endure.
Look at Africa right now
With rampant AIDS and poverty.
Children die with stark fixed eyes -
Who cares about this tragedy?
===========================
SECTION A Part 2 (The argument continues – the thinking skeptic)
Rich folk seem to have no cares -
They squander much on wantonness;
Seem to flout their selfish lives:
Seem so devoid of barrenness.
Murders, rapes, extortion, greed,
Our world that honours corporate lies,
Torture, envy and revenge,
Abuse attacks - who hears their cries?
=============================
SECTION A Part 3 (The argument continues – the thinking skeptic)
Where is God in all of this? -
We witness all the hurt and pain.
“God of love” how can you say
When suffering and hurt remain?
“God of compassion!” Tell me
Where is this God in people’s lives?
Why is it, without this God,
The world in sorrow still survives?
Rich get richer - poor just die.
There is no God to intervene.
Concepts like a God of love,
To thinking people, are obscene.
Self-delusion’s such a curse
When more than half the world is poor.
Hunger offshoots to disease
With tragic, painful deaths for sure.
Why does God ignore distress,
And why the pain and suffering?
God’s existence can’t be real
When heartaches keep on gathering.
==============================
SECTION B Part 1 (The Christian tries to answer some points)
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.
============================
SECTION B Part 2 (The Christian tries to answer some points)
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.
===========================
SECTION B Part 3 (The Christian tries to answer some points)
Let me now address for you
This issue of a distant God.
Look at now 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.
===========================
SECTION B Part 4 (The Christian tries to answer some points)
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.
==========================
SECTION B Part 5 (The Christian tries to answer some points)
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.
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.
==============================
SECTION C Part 1 (God now speaks with His evidence)
Roar beyond the waterfalls
To universal heights proclaim -
Shout it out in all the world -
The God of Comfort is His name.
Listen now unto your God,
To what your Lord and Maker claims.
Separate from minds closed fast,
Become the ones that God reclaims.
=========================
SECTION C Part 2 (God continues to speaks with His evidence)
Come to Me you hurting ones -
With oil I’ll gently soothe your care;
Bind your wounds your sin has caused.
I’ll carry you in your despair.
Distressed I am about man’s pain,
The suffering and misery,
Crimes, inequity and sin,
Abortion, lies and treachery.
Come to Me O stiff-necked world,
Your scarlet sins made whitest white.
Reason together, repent,
And leave behind your blackest night.
I the Lord despise not hurt
I am aware of this world’s plight
Measures I have taken all
To intervene to make you right.
==========================
SECTION C Part 3 (God continues to speaks with His evidence)
Comfort, comfort, come to Me -
Compassion’s found beneath My wings.
Refuge for your hurting souls;
Contentment to your hearts it brings.
I’m the Lord, Your loving God
Who yearns to take your pain away.
Solace find, close to My heart -
Please come and learn of Me today.
Take My yoke upon you all -
All you weighed down, you weary ones.
Shed your heavy-laden load
And rest your souls, My chosen sons.
Listen, people, to Me now -
Your sins have caused you woe and grief;
Separated you from Me
But Saviour Christ has won relief.
I so loved this sinful earth
With all its sin and agony.
Gave for you My only Son
To bring you peace and harmony.
Come to me and come with haste
To feast on heaven’s milk and wine
Priceless gifts, but with no price
Now let your ears to Me incline.
==========================
SECTION C Part 4 (God continues to speaks with His evidence)
You will never know My hurt.
My back I gave to those who whipped,
Covered not My face from spit,
And from My beard the hairs they stripped.
Form distorted, there I hung
More marred I was than anyone.
Faces turned away from Me -
Despised, forsaken - Me they’d shun.
Gone astray each one of you -
I made your griefs and sorrows Mine.
Crushed and scourged - Yes I knew pain!
It fell on Me, the Christ divine.
==================================
26 Feb - 6 March 2006 Ron Ferguson A-B-C-B throughout
Jeremiah could write of the unceasing loving kindnesses of the LORD even when the LORD’S hand had just openly been raised against His people Judah. One can be eloquent and have all the ideas when it is all smooth sailing, but when right in the thick of it, it is a whole different story. Yet, in the midst of this catastrophic judgement against Judah, Jeremiah could see the compassion of God. His loving kindness is so great. The hand of faith grasps that fact.
Christian, you are not immune from tragedy in your life. All this comes through being in a fallen world with a sinful nature. The great difference terween you and the worldling is that you have a heavenly Father and a Saviour who is closerthan a brother. We have to realise that. Faith is the operation whereby we let go and let rest. Let go your struggling in this issue and let God take the whole matter.
Faithful is He who will never allow us to be tested beyond our limits and will encourage you when the storms come towards you. James 5:11 Behold, we count those blessed who endured. You have heard of the endurance of Job and have seen the outcome of the Lord’s dealings, that the Lord is full of compassion and is merciful.”}}
It is one of the saddest things when someone who has walked with the Lord (that is the way we have understood it) comes face to face with losing a child, or a divorce splits a family unit, ot a serious medical issue arises, or there comes a financial disaster, and that those points the person gives up, because he/she inwardly believes God has not cared for them.
Often the problems we encounter are to a greater or lesser extent, of our own making so we can not blame God for what is happening. Even when we mess up, God will never abandon any of us, so why do some abandon God? 1Cor. 1:9 God is faithful, through whom you were called into fellowship with His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.”}} 1Th. 5:24 Faithful is He who calls you, and He also will bring it to pass.”}}.
Faith is the strong link to heaven. It is the steel cable that holds the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is the eye that sees the inextinguishable light of God as our constant. God loves you in the midst of tragedy and nothing will ever separate you from the regeneration link you have with the Lord. Rom. 8:35-39 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? . . . . . nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
We are going to stop there because of the size of what follows but I know the following verses are connected with this message. We will try to link them in in the next message. This is a very thought-provoking matter.
