Why Does God Permit Suffering?

Introduction

A few weeks ago he began a series of lessons on Sunday night that we simply call answering popular questions or questions most frequently asked. One of the questions that has been raised is why does God permit suffering? And so Brother Benning gave that lesson to me. It’s not the easiest one. But he says he gave me a choice, but I don’t really remember that choice. Nevertheless, it is indeed an important question. If there is a God, how do you account for all the suffering that’s in the world? Perhaps there’s no single argument that challenges the Christian faith more than that of human suffering. Skepticism and doubt originate in the minds of many when they observe human suffering that results from war or from poverty or injustice, even natural catastrophes, when even disease strikes.

The reasoning often goes something like this suffering is a fact. Therefore, God either does not care for man, or else God is powerless to prevent suffering. The skeptic concludes that God either must be loving and not powerful, or powerful and not loving. Well, some even who profess to be Christians have had their faith shaken. Doubts and indeed uh at least questions arise when suffering confronts them. Sometimes Christians even may say, Well, why is God doing this to me? Or what great sin have I committed that that this happens in my life? I don’t deserve this, do I? God has caused this to happen to our child to punish us. Well, such statements as that, I do not question maybe the sincerity of those who make them, but they denote gross misunderstanding of God, of his character, and indeed of his power.

1. Is It God’s Will That Men Suffer?

They’re false charges against God. Though we may not comprehend all the ramifications of the question why does God permit human suffering? Yet I do believe the Bible gives us many answers to these questions, reasonable answers, at least to many of these questions, and I hope you’ll pursue with me tonight. It’s a rather broad topic, and it’s rather complex, and there’s no real simple answer. But maybe as we proceed tonight, we can sort of draw together various aspects that may be raised in your minds and be raised even by those who are the skeptics and the atheists who question. Indeed, we ask, first of all, is it God’s will that men suffer? Perhaps there is no question that is more often raised than did God cause this?

Is it really according to his will? Perhaps one of the most misused and misunderstood phrases is, oh, that’s God’s will, that’s why that happened. Well, we need to understand, first of all, there’s a difference in the intentional will and the permissive will of God. Some perhaps using this phrase, well, it’s God’s will, have made that statement as though any joy or any sorrow is really caused by God directly. And yet that is not fair. For God gives man choice. That’s why I raise the point that there needs to be understood a difference between his intentional and his permissive will. For example, a child crosses a street and happens to step in front of an automobile and is killed. Can we say, oh, well, that’s God’s will?

Perhaps there are those in their attempt to console the grieving parents have said that. But such a statement really strain the faith of the sorrowing parent. And raise the question, well, why? Why would God will that our precious one be snatched from us? And certainly in such a cruel way. In fact, we may raise the question, was that really God’s will? Did he cause it to happen that the child would die by an automobile running over him? Well, first of all, when we think about intentional will. The fact is that God made man for his good and happiness and set in order laws. Laws, both physical and spiritual. Those laws that must be obeyed, but God has made them for man’s good. But there’s also permissive will.

And I would say no to that. Did he permit the fact that the child did step in front of the automobile by his law of physical force and of nature? That the child stepped in front of the automobile and was killed as a result. God permitted, because by his laws that are inevitably set forth. And yet he’s given man freedom of choice. And that’s what enters in when we start dealing with the question. Is it God’s will? We have choice. We have freedom of will. And if this is not so, then we’re not in the image of God. The very fact that God made us in his own image says that God did not make us puppets at the end of a string and he pulls every act that we do.

2. Blame Satan, Not God

But rather to be in the image of God says we are creatures of choice. We have the right either to obey him or to disobey him. We have the right, he permits us to either serve him or not to serve him, to step in front of the automobile or not to step in front of the automobile for that matter. Actually, when we talk about suffering, I want to start off right early by saying we ought to blame Satan, not God. We ought to blame Satan, not God, for the suffering and death.

It’s the devil’s will that there be suffering. Imagine God sending sickness, disease, blindness, deafness, and other afflictions. And then have Jesus come and undo the very thing that God had done. When Jesus came into the world, what did he do? Well, many examples where he healed the sick. He gave sight to the blind, the sound to the to the deaf. He caused even the dead to be raised. Now, did he do this in opposition to the will of God, the very thing that God had sent upon men? Did God want man to suffer, but Jesus came and contradicted what God had done? No, a thousand times, no. In fact, when you look at the scripture in Luke chapter 13 and verse 16, a time when Jesus had healed a woman who was so bowed over with an infirmity for 18 years.

And she really could know, not even lift herself up, the scripture said, and Jesus looking upon her with compassion. The scripture said that he healed her. Now the Jews, instead of being thankful for that, criticized Jesus because he did it on the Sabbath day. But listen to the words of Jesus in response to them. When he said, Ought not this woman being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan hath bound, lo these eighteen years, to have been loosed from this bond on the day of the Sabbath. Her binding was according to Satan, to his will. The loosing was of God. Even to the Apostle Paul, there was given a thorn in the flesh, recorded in the 2 Corinthians. What it was, no one knows. We can only guess what that thorn in the flesh was.

Instead, therefore, of telling us what it was, Paul has told us from whence it came and how God gave him the power to use and to bear it. He said, There was given me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to buffet me, that I should not be exalted over much. Now notice, what Paul said in 2 Corinthians 12 was that this thorn in the flesh, whatever it was, was a messenger of Satan. He didn’t say it was God that brought it upon him. In fact, he said that it was sent to buffet him. Now, there was something which was from God. And he went on to say, I besought the Lord thrice, three times, that it might depart. But he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee, for my power is made perfect in weakness.

3. God Does Not Want Man to Suffer

What God gave was strength to bear it. God did not bring the thorn in the flesh, God brought ability to bear it. And found, in fact, as he found even in his weakness, he found that there was strength. God doesn’t send the thorn. Satan sends that. And God may remove it in the lives of some, and on other occasions he may not remove it. But he sends the grace for which to bear it. The fact is, when you look at these scriptures as well as others, God does not want man to suffer. When you look at the scripture, man’s ultimate good is true of all of God’s dealings. It’s been the purpose of God’s leaders. Let’s just go back to the early story. Brother Benning has been preaching about even the beginning and how the theory of evolution is so contradictory to the Bible story.

But when you really believe in God, instead of the theory of man that would deny God, you go to the Genesis story about God, you have to say that nowhere has God ever been pictured as desiring man to suffer. God’s desire always has been for the best interest of man. In fact, the Genesis account, the first three chapters of Genesis, teach us that in the creation of all things, he created man a superior being, gave him dominion over all living creatures, didn’t he? We’re better than the animals of the field. He made us in his own image. And he placed man in the garden, East and Eden, and it was a utopia. In fact, the scripture says in Genesis chapter 1, or chapter 2 and verses 8 through 9, he said, The Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there put the man whom he had formed out of the ground, made the Lord God to grow every tree.

Now notice, that was pleasant to the sight, good for food, the tree of life also in the midst of the garden and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. What did he put in the garden of Eden? Only that which was for man’s good. But yet he did not force man to serve him. Even the Garden of Eden he gave man choice, didn’t he? There’s a tree of knowledge of good and evil. And man on the one hand could eat of the tree of life and live forever. In Genesis chapter 3 and verse 22, it is said that when he put the cherubims at the gate with the flaming sword, is to keep man from coming back into the garden of Eden, lest he should eat of the tree of life and live forever.

So there was a possibility of living forever, even from the beginning. Had he not eaten of the knowledge of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, perhaps men would have lived forever. Certainly he did not know the pain that was brought about by evil until after he ate of that tree of knowledge of good and evil. You see, God wanted man to serve him. Therefore, he created within man that ability to choose. God wants man to choose to love him and to serve him, not to force him to want to serve him. In fact, he told Adam and Eve, of all the trees of the garden thou mayest freely eat, but of the knowledge of good and evil thou shall not eat of it, for in the day that you eat thereof, what?

4. Suffering Is the Result of Sin

You shall surely die. And therefore, what we know happened is the result of sin. Man ate of that forbidden fruit. What was the consequence? As man ate of the forbidden fruit, the sad story began to unfold. Death. First of all, we see there was spiritual death because he was driven from the very presence of God. Separation. That’s what death really is. Man died being separated from God by sin. And God also placed upon men a curse. In Genesis chapter 3, verses 16 and 17, you remember, by the sweat of man’s brow shall he till the ground and bring forth fruit. For the woman, pain and childbirth, pain enters in. Sorrow and struggle enters in because of sin. The greatest of all, he drove man from the garden of Eden from that tree of life, lest he should eat of it and live forever.

5. All Suffering Is Not Punishment for a Person’s Sin

Man not only was separated from God’s spiritual death, but he began his physical death as he was separated from that tree of life. New Testament, the Apostle Paul declared in Romans 5 and verse 12, wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world and death by sin, so that in death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned. Suffering, death, the result of the entrance of sin into the world. But lest you first of all say, wait a minute, do you mean that everybody that suffers has sinned? Well, no, that’s not really what the Bible says either. In fact, all suffering is not punishment for a person’s sin. I mean, here’s the child who has come out into the street, and the parents would they say, Oh, well, wonder what sin that child did, or wonder what sin we did for the child to be killed by that automobile.

And to even think such is to really misunderstand what God’s will is in the matter. Let me share with you at least three different examples in the Bible, where there was suffering, or the Bible speaks of suffering, that is not a direct result of that individual sin. You may recall in the Gospel of John in John chapter 9, the great story of the man who was born blind that had Jesus uh healed. He he he took uh and put uh clay upon a spittle and made upon his eyes and told him to go wash from the food of Saloon and he was healed. But that story begins with the fact that as he came upon this man born blind, his own disciples asked, Who sin? Did this man sin or did his parents sin?

You see, among the Jews, even then, as as among several today, there was the common thinking that anybody who who did uh have any problems or suffering, it was the result of sin, being punished for it. They also really had the point of view that everything that happened to anyone, whether it’s good or bad, was as though God held man at the end of a string like puppets, but they misunderstood, didn’t they? In fact, if you remember the story in John chapter 9, Jesus exposed the error of this kind of thinking, when in fact he said, Neither this man nor his parents have sinned. But what happened in this? He used the affliction, the blindness of this man to prove the mercy of God, number one, by giving him sight, and the power of Jesus, number two, by healing the man.

He used it to glorify God. He was able, indeed, to say, look, that’s not the right reason. But the fact is, God wants man to have good things, not bad things. Look at what Jesus has done, many other occasions where he healed the sick. Where he did those things out of compassion. He wanted man to suffer. Why would he have done such? But then there’s the passage in 2 Timothy chapter 3 and verse 12 that says, All who live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. Well, no doubt you know the story. Even a specific individual. Stephen was stoned in Acts chapter 7. James was beheaded, recorded in Acts chapter 12. There are other stories. Many Christians were persecuted. Paul was imprisoned, we know when he wrote several of the New Testament letters.

All who live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. Now sometimes this, of course, comes because of others who are evil, affecting those who are righteous. It’s not because the righteous are sinful, it’s because they are righteous that they’re suffering in those occasions. In fact, God has promised an eternal reward for those who are faithful unto death. You may say, does he want them to suffer physically? Well, that’s not his intentional will. It is a permissive will. What he really says in passages like Revelation 14, blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from henceforth that they may rest from their labors and their works to follow them. What is it? They shall rest from their labors. God has planned for something even far better than this life.

And his intentional will for man is to prepare a place for man far better than anything here. Of course, there’s the Old Testament story, the book of Job. If you’ve never studied it in full, I would encourage you to do so. Indeed, the chief argument after Job is afflicted, you perhaps know the story early on, how that here was a man who was righteous. In fact, so righteous, the scripture says in Job 1 and verse 5, that he would rise up early in the morning, offer burnt offerings according to the number of them all. He’s described in verse 1 as perfect and upright, one who feared God. But it was not just something that was done spasmonically or you know, just hit and miss hot and cold.

In fact, the scripture said, Thus did Job continually. He was a good man. And it was from Satan’s point of view who came and challenged God. Oh, the only reason Job’s doing this is because you fit a you put a hedge around him. You’ve made it so. And God permitted, didn’t he? He permitted Satan to test Job, to try his faith. Soar boils from the crown of his head to the sole of his feet. Even his own wife turned against him. Why don’t you curse God and die? And finally, you may say, what added to his affliction as three supposed friends.