The Problem of Suffering
By Kenny McKinley
Text: Lamentations 3:1-24, Romans 8:18, 2nd Cor. 4:17
(Read Lamentations Text)
Have you ever looked around at your life, or just life in general and asked, “WHY?”
Have trials and hardships ever come into your life for seemingly no reason? Of course they have. If you’ve lived on this earth for any amount of time, then you have seen and endured all sorts of trials, pain, and suffering.
And if you are a Christian, no doubt you’ve wondered why God allows these things to happen. I mean we come to church every Sunday, and you all hear me talk about how God is sovereign, how He is in control, how He is all mighty, and then tragedy strikes, or we go through some kind of trial, or tribulation, and if you’re a normal person you have probably asked the question, “Why is this happening? If God is omnipotent, and He is the sovereign ruler of all creation, then why is He letting this happen to me? I mean, doesn’t Matthew 10:29 says that not even a sparrow can die apart from God’s will?”
Well if you’ve ever asked that question, I want to tell you that its not necessarily wrong that you did. It’s a normal thing to do. But where a lot of people get messed up is that they ask the question, and then never get it answered completely. They come to a wrong conclusion about God, and that has been the cause of many people turning their backs on the Lord; and what about us as Christians? There are some who say that Christians should not be suffering, they say that we should be walking in the abundant life, free from suffering and hardships.
So this morning we are going to be talking about the problem of suffering. Now this is a pretty deep issue, and so I’m going to be discussing it today and next Sunday.
Today we’re going to talk about Christians and suffering, and next Sunday we are going to talk about why we suffer, what causes it, and why it happens.
Now there are a lot of people today, even some so called preachers, pastors, and teachers who say that if you’re a Christian then you shouldn’t be going through any kind of suffering. They say that if you have enough faith you can avoid it, or rise above it. They say that you should be walking in the blessings of the Lord, and suffering and hardships should not be coming your way. They even say that you should be healthy, wealthy, and perfectly happy.
They say a lot of things, but when I hear one of these preachers say something like that then I immediately know that they have no clue what the Bible says.
Turn with me to the book of Luke chapter 1 and let’s read verses 39-42 (Read). Now we all know this story about Mary. We know that an angle came to her and told her that she and her Child would be richly blessed. Then we read that passage that we just looked at where Elizabeth said that Mary was blessed among women. But what do you think Mary thought of her being blessing when it caused her heartache and misunderstanding with her fiancé Joseph? And how much did she want to be highly favored of God when she had to take a long trip by foot to the town of Bethlehem while she was pregnant? And would it seem like God had blessed her while she had to lay on a straw floor and give birth to her first born Son with the stench of manure and the filth of a manger all around her? And what about when she had to flee to a foreign country because soldiers wanted to kill her Child, do you think she felt blessed then?
Do you think that Mary still wanted to be blessed when she was no doubt ridiculed by the Jewish leaders for following her Sons teachings rather than the Jewish traditions? Or how much would she want God’s blessings when it included a night that was filled with screams from an angry mob that was crying out for her Son’s death? And what about the Cross? How blessed did Mary feel as she watched her first born Son slowly being tortured to death on a Roman cross?
Now let me ask you a couple of questions; did Mary have faith? Was she blessed of God? Well if she had faith, then why is it that she had to go through all of those things? According to many of today’s preachers Mary should’ve been able to “rise” above those hardships if she had enough faith right? And what about her being blessed? Did Gabriel lie to her when he called her blessed and highly favored of God? I mean if she was blessed of God then why did she have to endure all that pain, anguish, and suffering?
Mary is just one example, lets look at another. Let’s look at the Apostle Paul.
Turn with me to 2nd Corinthians 11:24 (read 11:24-29). This was Paul giving us a brief summary of just some of the things he had endured in his life. And I’ll ask you again, did Paul have faith? I mean, here’s the guy who wrote 2/3rds of the New Testament. Here’s the guy who preached the gospel and started churches from the Middle East to Europe. Here is a guy, who endured being beaten, being persecuted, being shipwrecked, and all of these things for the cause of Christ, yet he never denied Him, he never denied the faith, and he even went to his death for the Lord. Paul was beheaded by a Roman Soldier because he was a Christian. So did Paul have faith? Was Paul blessed by God?
I want us to look at one other example today. And that is the example of Job. Turn with me to the book of Job, chapter one. Now we know that Job was a good man, because God Himself said he was. In Job chapter one verse eight, God said that Job was blameless, and upright man, who feared God and shunned evil. But we all know what happened to Job don’t we. He lost his children, he lost his wealth, and he lost his health, and then he had his wife, and three friends criticize him and his faith.
But God Himself had said that Job was upright, and blameless. Did Job have faith? You had better believe it. Job makes one of the greatest statements of faith in the Bible in chapter 13:15 when he says, “even though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him.”
Mary, Paul, Job, they all had faith, they were all believers, they all trusted in the Lord, yet they all suffered.
We could go on, we could talk about Peter, who suffered and was persecuted, and tradition tells us that he was crucified upside down. We could talk about John, who was beaten, and burned with hot oil, and then exiled to hard labor on the island of Patoms. We could talk about John the Baptist, who was thrown in prison and beheaded for the faith, and for preaching the truth.
We can go forward in time to Charles Spurgeon, they called him the Prince of Preachers. He preached 3600 sermons, and published 49 volumes of commentaries and devotionals, he also started The Pastors College in London and the Stockwell Orphanage, yet Charles Spurgeon died at the age of 58, and in most of his later years he was sick. Or we could look at Jonathan Edwards, one of the men God used in the Great Awakening, that great revival that swept through the US in the mid 1700’s. But he died of small pox at the age of 55. He too suffered for most of his life.
When we look at these instances we might be thinking, “God you got it all wrong, it should be the other way around. Christians shouldn’t be suffering, unbelievers should be.”
But the Bible does have something to say about our suffering. Turn with me to 2nd Corinthians 4:16-18 (read). We will suffer on this earth, but we have an eternal home where there will be no more suffering. If you are a Christian, when you leave this world, you will suffer no more. And while you may suffer while on earth, for the time you are here, eternity is going to be so much longer.
Romans 8:18 says, “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.” Hold your place there in Romans because we are going to come back to this in a minute.
And so there is good news, but you say, “Wait a minute Kenny, you still haven’t told us why there is suffering, and why we as Christians have to go through it.”
Well I’m going to try to answer that question in the time we have left, and I hope I can do it justice this morning.
Hebrews 12 tells us that sometimes our suffering is God chastening us. So sometimes we suffer because of our bad or evil behavior. Just like a father would correct his misbehaving child, God can do the same with us. But we have to remember why a father corrects his children. Sometimes it’s for disobedience, but sometimes it’s to avert them from potentially harmful or destructive behavior.
So sometimes our suffering is God’s correction. 2nd Corinthians 7:8-13 tells us that godly sorrow can produce repentance. We may have to suffer so that we are brought to a place of repentance for our sins.
Now that’s not always the case though. Sometimes there are other reasons.
Did you hold your place in Romans? Because we are going to look at something else that passage tells us. If not turn to Romans chapter 8, (Read Rom. 8:18-23). This passage tells us that all of creation is subject to sin. You see, there was a time when there was no sin, sorrow, or suffering, but then Adam disobeyed God, and sin entered the world. In Genesis we read the story, how Adam ate the fruit and because he ate the fruit, his disobedience became a part of him in the form of sin, and not only of him, but of all his descendants after him. The Bible tells us that we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Adam and Eve were made aware of their sin, and they felt guilt and ashamed, and they were cursed with expectations of pain and death. Even the ground was cursed because of Adams sin, in-fact, all of creation came under the curse of sin.
And that is why there is suffering.
Now if you’re like me your saying to yourself, “That still doesn’t answer the question. How could an all powerful, all knowing God, allow that to happen? Knowing full well the result of Adams sin, how could He allow Adam to do something like that?”
And this is where this sermon gets hard to preach.
Because the answer I give you may not satisfy you, but it’s the same answer that God gave to Job. Now I’m not going to take the time to read that to you this morning, but you should read it after church, go ahead and read Job chapters 38 to 42, and see how God answered him. In a nut shell, God said to Job, “Job it’s the way it is, because I said so.”
How many of you have had parents, or have heard parents, or even as parents have said to your children when they asked “why?” those words? “BECAUSE I SAID SO!”
What is meant by that phrase is this.
“Son/daughter, you are just a child, and I am an adult. I have lived for a lot longer than you have, and I have a lot more wisdom and knowledge than you do. You do not understand everything, whereas I have a much greater understanding of things that you. And so, as your parent, the one who gave birth to you, the one who raises you, and provides for you, the one who protects you and takes care of you, I am asking you to trust me on this one, and maybe someday you will understand.”
In other words, it goes back to the issue of faith.
Do you trust God?
Even when times are tough, and you don’t understand what is happening? Do you trust Him? You may not understand it all, but do you believe that He does? We want to accuse Him of making a mistake when things don’t go the way that we think they should.
But you see when we do that, we’re forgetting something.
We’re forgetting how much He suffered. The Bible teaches that Jesus Christ suffered for all of our sins. The sinless Son of God, suffered for the guilty.
The amazing thing is not that God saves some of us, but that He saves any of us.
So this morning, can we stand with Job and say, “even though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him.” Can we believe that He has our best interest at heart, even when it seems like our world is caving in around us?
You see, that’s what it all boils down to. That’s what the Bible means when it’s talking about faith. It’s not talking about some magic power that allows you to walk in divine health and wealth. It’s talking about trusting in the Lord, even when times are tough.
We suffer because of sin, personal sin, and the sin that is in the world, but God’s grace is greater than sin, and someday, we will suffer no more.
AMEN
ALTER CALL
