Written by Assistant Pastor Jon Herring, Kennet Valley Free Church

At the end of my sermon on Sunday I suggested that there is much more to say on Hebrews 12:4-13 and that there would be many questions left that I hadn’t covered. And having had many conversations over a cup of tea following the service I thought it might be good to help us continue thinking it through this week with some further thoughts and reflections.

I have also been asked ‘what is discipline?’– I will save this for a later blog

‘How can God allow Suffering?’ is probably one of the most common and biggest questions that people have whether they are Christian or not! And we were very grateful for Paul Mallard coming to speak on it recently. It has been a topic I have had to think about a lot recently having spoken on it at the summer camp we serve on and in preaching on Habakkuk for the YP Weekend Away and now in Hebrews.

It is obviously a sensitive and emotive topic and I don’t speak as one with lots of experience. However, it is not a subject that God is silent on. We have many many places in scripture that speak about suffering. God knows it is going to be one of our biggest questions and so he provides answers. Some answers that will satisfy our questions and others that have a level of mystery to them and leave us clinging to the great truths we have!

As I said at the youth weekend away. If you live long enough, you will suffer!

You don’t have to look far in the newspaper or listen/browse the news long to hear about suffering in the world.

But it is easy to ignore until it gets real for us, either someone we know or perhaps even ourselves are caught up in it! Maybe that’s where you are at the moment- maybe this last year or in the years previously you have been aware of suffering- in big ways, or small.

But I hope we can see that God wants to talk to us about suffering. It’s not something he ignores- the problem of suffering is a question that is raised throughout the bible- Job, Psalms, Habakkuk, Hebrews, many places!

And it is not just a question for Christians!

If you are a philosophical materialist, i.e. you believe that we and everything that exists is just purely matter, energy and atoms- what is suffering? We all experience it. Why do we care about people suffering if they are just atoms?

One of the questions I was asked on Sunday by a few people was what about children who suffer? How is it fair for them to suffer? Well to help us consider this and other questions on suffering I want us to look at it from a few different perspectives or as I am going to call them insights from scripture.

Insights from the beginning of the bible story Line

Insights from the end of the bible story line

Insights from the place of innocent suffering

Insights from the centrality of Jesus

So to begin at the very beginning, for I am told, ‘it is a very good place to start’ (quote form Sound of Music, those of you who were there on Sunday will know why this is ringing in my ears!)

Have a quick look at Gen 1:24-3

It has not always been like this! We were made in right relationships- in perfect relationship with God and with each other in a perfect environment. SLIDE 7 picture

Now have a quick look at Gen 3:17-19

But sadly it has been ruined. Man’s rebellion against God brought about the curse/the fall. SLIDE 9 picture. We have rejected his good and perfect way and sought our own way, trying to make ourselves gods and consequently we are lost and corrupted! Romans 1:25

‘They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator’ … v28 ‘he gave them over to a depraved mind’

And actually the bible is therefore not surprised by suffering because the world has been corrupted by sin. Actually the surprise is in the patience of God for not responding with greater anger than he does!

Have a quick look at Rev21: 1-8

Verses 1-7 give us a beautiful picture of Heaven- a wonderful hope for those who trust in Jesus- eternal joy in God’s presence. However, v8 reveals a stark warning- eternal suffering away from God’s loving presence.

This is not it! This world is temporary! There is a Heaven to be gained and a Hell to be feared! And an Heavenly perspective enables the Christian to persevere through much suffering.

We live in a culture where death is the last thing people want to talk about! Far from it in the bible. The gospel- prepares us to die well! And promises eternal life.

As one elderly gentleman was once heard saying, when asked by someone on a Sunday morning how he was doing- “I’m not suffering from anything that a good resurrection can’t fix”

The Apostle Paul was a man who knew what it meant to suffer and it was his desire to be with Christ that helped him endure and persevere!

Philippians 1:20-21

‘20 For I fully expect and hope that I will never be ashamed, but that I will continue to be bold for Christ, as I have been in the past. And I trust that my life will bring honour to Christ, whether I live or die. 21 For to me, living means living for Christ, and dying is even better.’

Dying is even better than life- Wow!

The book of Job gives us a great insight into the life of a good man who experiences severe suffering in his life through no fault of his own.

At the beginning we see a scene where the Devil basically says to God “the only reason he loves you is because you’ve made it all so good and easy for him.”

And God says “We’ll see” (paraphrase!)

But in a most tragic scene as Job sits on the ashes of his property that has burned down, having lost all his worldly possessions and livelihood, covered in horrifically painful sores and mourning the death of his beloved children his wife asks him:

““Do you still persist in your integrity? Curse God, and die.”

But Job’s response is incredible.

“Shall we receive the good at the hand of God, and not receive the bad?”

And then Job’s friends step in and over a series of very long conversations they basically say “Look Job you must have done something really bad! If you’re suffering like this you must deserve it”

But at the end of the book of Job God steps in, and we hear him speak to Job and He asks a number of rhetorical questions

CH38

v 4“Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?”

v34

Can you lift up your voice to the clouds,

so that a flood of waters may cover you?

v35

Can you send forth lightning bolts, so that they may go

and say to you, ‘Here we are’?

Why is God saying this- What is his point?

God not only shows the friends that they are wrong about Job but more importantly that we are to trust him because he is in complete control. He controls every element of our existence and he sustains the minutest detail of every part of this creation, even the lightning bolts report to him!

Just take a moment to take a breath… every breath is gift from God to you!

A God like that can be trusted with everything! It means that even when we suffer in the most awful way, we can trust that God’s plans are not being thwarted. For Christian’s this gives great hope and sustains them in times of real pain and difficulty, because as we are told in Rom 8:28. we know that in all things he works of the good of those who love him! God is good and in complete control and he works for the good of those who love him.

And at the end, Job’s faith in God is stronger and God even blesses him beyond what he had before!

And what Job learns is summed up by a man called R. Sibbes who wrote:

“God teaches us and refines us through pain and suffering. There are dimensions and knowledge of God’s grace that we can only understand through suffering.”

As we saw in Hebrews 12 on Sunday suffering is part of God’s training for those who love him. It is in our suffering that we grow in our love and trust of God, that we see his grace to us more fully and consider the hope of eternity with him more clearly! A depth of love that cannot be learnt otherwise.

Now, this is also often true for those who do not yet love Jesus.

As CS Lewis once said- “suffering is God’s megaphone” Shouting out to us to turn back to him!

Suffering causes many to call out to God, and he often answers and many are lead to faith through their suffering. I can think of numerous friends for whom this was true!

It is impossible for us to see what God is doing in ours and others lives through suffering but as Barry reminded us on Sunday- God is outside of time- he sees the beginning and the end all at once! And he uses it for his good and loving purposes that we will know him and love him deeply!

As we have seen throughout the book of Hebrews, Jesus had to become human to deal with the human problem and to take our sins and our suffering, the eternal suffering we deserve upon himself (Hebrews 2:17-18). And as we have been reminded in Hebrews 12 Jesus experienced all the suffering we do and far more! He understands!

God doesn’t leave us helpless and without hope in this fallen world. He comes after us, pursues us and reveals his love to us. When we can’t understand our suffering we go back to the cross.

If we are tempted to think- this is not fair, this proves God is not loving- we go back to the cross! Good will put an end to suffering because he suffered as a human for us!

And like Job we can consider that maybe God is doing some things I don’t have the wisdom to see. Just as he makes the galaxies and constellations that I don’t have the power to make!

Yet what I can see of God demonstrates his love to such a profound degree. Suffering is not punishment. Christ has taken our punishment. On that wretched cross, God bore all my sins. That is the kind of God I want to worship! And that is the God I want to point my friends and family to who don’t yet know and love him!

Christians are prepared to stake everything on this God because of the way he has revealed himself to us in Christ. Because when we don’t have all the answers we still have Christ. The most magnificent demonstration of God’s love for us.

Some suffering seems so unfair, so cruel and horrific but we can have complete confidence that it will pale into insignificance when we see the new creation where there will be no more suffering only pure joy, peace and love in God’s presence!