Have you ever been asked the question, "If God is so loving and merciful, why would he allow suffering in the world?" If you have it can be a tough question to answer. Why do thousands of people suffer from hurricanes, tornadoes, and tsunami's? Why do millions of kids suffer from starvation every day? Why are there so many homeless? How could God allow such suffering to happen? If you've ever been asked that question, it can be very hard to answer, especially if the person asking has had a tragedy happen to them. You wanna be sensitive to them. Wednesday night in our "Skeptics" series, we tried to answer this question from a biblical perspective.
n short, all suffering happens because of evil, or sin. There are 2 kinds of evils: moral evil (rape, murder, hate, theft) & natural evil (natural disasters). Anyone can see how suffering from moral evil can be a result of sin... it is sin! But what about natural evil? Are natural disasters caused by sin? Yes, maybe not sin that was committed last week (as some insensitive preachers would say), but sin that was committed in the garden. Think about it, the garden was paradise before the fall of man (Gen 1-3). There was no winter
- Adam would have been pretty cold snow skiing naked! The moment Adam sinned, he realized he was naked and got dressed. Years down the road the world was so wicked that God was sorry he created man and decided to destroy him by a flood. Here's where it all comes together... you can't have a worldwide catastrophic event like the flood without it physiologically affecting the earth. When the waters resided, the earths plates shifted, Pangaea was probably separated post flood. How do you think the grand canyon was formed? The flood had a huge affect on the earth. Post flood we have earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, and tsunamis. Seasons came after the flood. Did it ever rain before the flood??? Now there are natural weather cycles, you don't have hurricanes in February or nor'easter snowstorms in July. They all happen on a schedule. A
s soon as Adam and Eve sinned, paradise was closed and death came. Romans 5:12 says that we all have sin because of Adam. In short all suffering happens because of sin. Way to go Adam, thanks a lot! That still doesn't give us a lot of comfort when we are going through suffering. Here are 5 reasons I believe God allows us to go through suffering: - Suffering shows us what's inside. Have you ever taken a tea bag and put it in hot water. Sure you have! What happened? What was on the inside came out. When we go through suffering, it reveals what we're made of, it shows us what's inside.
- Suffering breaks us of our pride. It can be a humbling thing to go through suffering.
- Suffering can take our eyes off this world and off of ourselves. Sometimes we are so wrapped up in the "things" that we have that they take precedence over our relationship with God. Sometimes he allows suffering to get our attention because we are so distracted by other things.
- Suffering can make us grateful. Ever been through a car accident? It makes you grateful for your life. When we see others go through suffering such as like in a 3rd world country, it should make us grateful for what we have. We're filthy rich compared to the rest of the world!
- Suffering can position our lives to glorify God. It gives us a proper perspective of ourselves. John 3:30 pretty much sums it up, "He must INCREASE, we must decrease." How can we glorify God, which is what we were made to do, if we think too highly of ourselves. A little bit of suffering can position us to bring glory to God.
This week was our first recording of the message, you can find it here. Sorry for the bad quality of sound :-) It will get better I promise. Kevin
1 comment:
I completely agree with the fact that suffering takes our focus off of other things and puts it completely onto God. I know that when I'm going through something, God makes me absolutely dependent on Him. And the longer I take to become that way, the more He has to put me through. Yeah, I agree that suffering can make you stronger as a person, but spiritually it's that absolute dependence that He desires. That's the purpose of my personal struggles that I'll become dependent on Him. And only when I'm weak in and of myself does He make me strong only and totally through his strength and power. I've learned lately that the more dependent you stay, the less He has to allow to happen to you to bring you back to where HE wants you. So I guess it goes along with Him positioning you for His glory and His purpose. Even though we may not understand why we're going through something and we feel as if God is a thousand miles away, faith is the best tool we have. Faith that He is right there with you and that He's hurting for you, but also that He's the one who can heal you completely. Well, there's my semi-deep thought for the day! :)
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