Why Good Christians Suffer: PART 17

Beginning of Series

Why does Ecclesiastes 7:2 say it is better to attend a funeral than a feast?

Funerals are a cold splash of reality, awakening us to our uncertainty as to when we ourselves will face our divine Judge. Funerals alert us to the crucial importance of daily living for God, not for self.

Many of Jesus’ parables (Examples below) likewise stress that life as we know it can end at any moment without the slightest warning, and we suddenly find ourselves facing the eternal consequences of every opportunity we previously squandered. Whether it be death or the second coming, every chance to prove ourselves faithful can in a flash be gone forever and we find ourselves having to account for every idle thing (Matthew 12:36) we have ever done.

Parables About Judgment Coming Unexpectedly

These contain no repetition

Matthew 24:42-44 Watch therefore, for you don’t know in what hour your Lord comes. But know this, that if the master of the house had known in what watch of the night the thief was coming, he would have watched, and would not have allowed his house to be broken into. Therefore also be ready, for in an hour that you don’t expect, the Son of Man will come.

Matthew 24:50-51 The lord of that servant will come in a day when he doesn’t expect it, and in an hour when he doesn’t know it, and will cut him in pieces, and appoint his portion with the hypocrites. There is where the weeping and grinding of teeth will be.

Matthew 25:5-6, 10-13 Now while the bridegroom delayed, they all slumbered and slept. But at midnight there was a cry, ‘Behold! The bridegroom is coming! Come out to meet him!’ . . . While they went away to buy, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him to the marriage feast, and the door was shut. Afterward the other virgins also came, saying, ‘Lord, Lord, open to us.’ But he answered, ‘Most certainly I tell you, I don’t know you.’ Watch therefore, for you don’t know the day nor the hour in which the Son of Man is coming.

Matthew 25:19 Now after a long time the lord of those servants came, and reconciled accounts with them.

Mark 13:33-36 Watch, keep alert, and pray; for you don’t know when the time is.

“It is like a man, traveling to another country, having left his house, and given authority to his servants, and to each one his work, and also commanded the doorkeeper to keep watch. Watch therefore, for you don’t know when the lord of the house is coming, whether at evening, or at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or in the morning; lest coming suddenly he might find you sleeping.

Luke 12:38 It will be good for those servants whose master finds them ready, even if he comes in the second or third watch of the night. (NIV)

Luke 12:39 But know this, that if the master of the house had known in what hour the thief was coming, he would have watched, and not allowed his house to be broken into.

Luke 12:20 But God said to him, ‘You foolish one, tonight your soul is required of you. The things which you have prepared – whose will they be.

(Emphasis mine)

Even sudden disability can mean the end of certain things we could have done for God.

The Story So Far

Our own mortality and that of our loved ones can not only keep ourselves spiritually motivated but can be a powerful witness to those around us of the brevity and fragility of our stay on this planet. Research indicates that being impacted by someone’s mortality is high on the list of factors influencing people to come to Christ. Us not being divinely protected from life’s tragedies achieves more for both us and others than we might have thought.

Did God’s suffering end with the cross (Colossians 1:24)?

We have noted that the suffering God the Son started from when he was in Mary’s womb. What about before and after he came to earth? The Almighty might not suffer physical pain but as we are more personal than a plant, he is more personal than us. Unless you had some psychological abnormality rendering you incapable of empathy, if someone you loved with your entire being was in pain and you had the ability to know every moment of every day the precise extent of that person’s pain, wouldn’t your suffering be almost as intense as that person’s – so much so that you would consider swapping places? If that can be true for someone with imperfect love, what would it be like for the God of infinite love?

Imagine you care so passionately for someone that you have invested your entire life into enabling him to reach his full potential. Suppose he then wreaks havoc by a calculated decision to rebel against everything he knows to be right. If his senseless, malicious behavior ruins his life and devastates the lives of people who are infinitely precious to you, and he shows not the slightest remorse but continues to perpetuate his evil, it is hardly appropriate for you to be indifferent about it, much less blissful. It is right to be intensely distressed and displeased. This is righteous anger. And this is what sin does to God. You do not need me to inform you that sin is still occurring, and it is still stupendously impacting the God who is anything but indifferent.

Consider all the atrocities done in Christ’s name by ‘godly’ pedophiles, greedy con-artists calling themselves televangelists, ‘anointed prophets’ who stoop to cold-reading for profit, and so on. Do you suppose the Lord of heaven is not grieved, angered and pained by such things?

God’s wrath is not over. Scripture speaks of “the wrath to come” (Luke 3:7; 1 Thessalonians 1:10) and says such things as “because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God’s wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed” (Romans 2:5, NIV and Romans 12:19). And if God’s wrath is not over, neither is his intense anguish over humanity’s sin.

Some of us are so callously self-obsessed and unaware of God that we have not even shed tears over God’s pain that humanity continually inflicts upon him. For example, there are no lengths he will not go to when it comes to love, and yet billions of people spurn him every day. The Bible refers to God’s people as his wife and to them not just being unfaithful but acting like harlots and God suffering divorce (Scriptures).

His People Acting like Harlots

Jeremiah 2:20 For long ago I broke off your yoke, and burst your bonds. You said, ‘I will not serve;’ for on every high hill and under every green tree you bowed yourself, playing the prostitute.

Ezekiel 23:11-14 Her sister Oholibah saw this, yet was she more corrupt in her doting than she, and in her prostitution which were more than the prostitution of her sister. She doted on the Assyrians, governors and rulers, her neighbors, clothed most gorgeously, horsemen riding on horses, all of them desirable young men. I saw that she was defiled; they both took one way. She increased her prostitution; for she saw men portrayed on the wall, the images of the Chaldeans portrayed with vermilion

Ezekiel 23:17-21 The Babylonians came to her into the bed of love, and they defiled her with their prostitution, and she was polluted with them, and her soul was alienated from them. So she uncovered her prostitution, and uncovered her nakedness: then my soul was alienated from her, like as my soul was alienated from her sister. Yet she multiplied her prostitution, remembering the days of her youth, in which she had played the prostitute in the land of Egypt. She doted on their paramours, whose flesh is as the flesh of donkeys, and whose issue is like the issue of horses. Thus you called to memory the lewdness of your youth, in the handling of your bosom by the Egyptians for the breasts of your youth.

Suffering Divorce

Jeremiah 3:1 They say, ‘If a man puts away his wife, and she goes from him, and becomes another man’s, should he return to her again?’ Wouldn’t that land be greatly polluted? But you have played the prostitute with many lovers; yet return again to me,” says the Lord.

Jeremiah 3:8 I saw when, for this very cause, that backsliding Israel had committed adultery, I had put her away and given her a bill of divorce, yet treacherous Judah, her sister, had no fear; but she also went and played the prostitute.

Hosea 2:2 Contend with your mother! Contend, for she is not my wife, neither am I her husband; and let her put away her prostitution from her face, and her adulteries from between her breasts

Hosea 4:15 Though you, Israel, play the prostitute, yet don’t let Judah offend; and don’t come to Gilgal, neither go up to Beth Aven, nor swear, ‘As the Lord lives.’

Feel God’s pain, for instance, as he says:

Isaiah 1:21 How the faithful city has become a prostitute! She was full of justice; righteousness lodged in her, but now murderers.

Ezekiel 16:15-17 But you trusted in your beauty, and played the prostitute because of your renown, and poured out your prostitution on everyone who passed by . . . You took of your garments, and made for yourselves high places decked with various colors, and played the prostitute on them. . . . You also took your beautiful jewels of my gold and of my silver, which I had given you, and made for yourself images of men, and played the prostitute with them

There are occasions when it hurts to love a fallible, vulnerable person, and infinite love hurts infinitely.

If the pain the loving parents of a heroin addict never lets up for as long as their loved one, in his drug-addled state, continues to do wicked, stupid, self-destructive things, the cross of Christ was neither the beginning nor the end of divine agony. Here’s a tiny sampling:

2 Samuel 24:16 When the angel stretched out his hand to destroy Jerusalem, the LORD was grieved because of the calamity . . .

Psalm 78:40-41  . . . often they rebelled against him in the wilderness, and grieved him in the desert! They turned again and tempted God, and provoked the Holy One of Israel.

Isaiah 43:24  . . . you have burdened me with your sins and wearied me with your offenses.

Mark 3:5 He looked around at them in anger and, deeply distressed at their stubborn hearts . . .

Luke 19:41 As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it

Ephesians 4:30 And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God . . .

The Lord is deeply moved by his people’s behavior

1 Samuel 15:10-11 Then the word of the LORD came to Samuel: “I am grieved that I have made Saul king, because he has turned away from me and has not carried out my instructions.” . . .

Deuteronomy 5:29 Oh, that their hearts would be inclined to fear me and keep all my commands always, so that it might go well with them and their children forever!

Hosea 11:8 How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, Israel? How can I treat you like Admah? How can I make you like Zeboiim? My heart is changed within me; all my compassion is aroused.

I suggest we each seek God’s heart and a softening of own hearts until Scriptures like the following moisten our eyes:

Genesis 6:5-6 The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of man’s heart was continually only evil. The Lord was sorry that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him in his heart.

Psalm 14:2-3 The Lord looked down from heaven on the children of men, to see if there were any who understood, who sought after God. They have all gone aside. They have together become corrupt. There is no one who does good, no, not one.

Isaiah 1:13-14 Bring no more vain offerings. Incense is an abomination to me . . . I can’t bear with evil assemblies. My soul hates your . . . [divinely] appointed feasts. They are a burden to me. I am weary of bearing them.

Isaiah 63:3,5 I have trodden the wine press alone; and of the peoples, no one was with me . . . I looked, and there was no one to help; and I wondered that there was no one to uphold: therefore my own arm brought salvation to me . . .

Isaiah 63:8-10 In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them. In his love and in his pity he redeemed them. He bore them, and carried them all the days of old. But they rebelled, and grieved his holy Spirit. . . .

Jeremiah 2:5,7  . . . What unrighteousness have your fathers found in me, that they have gone far from me, and have walked after worthless vanity, and have become worthless? . . . I brought you into a plentiful land, to eat its fruit and its goodness; but when you entered, you defiled my land, and made my heritage an abomination.

Luke 13:34 Jerusalem, Jerusalem, that kills the prophets, and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, like a hen gathers her own brood under her wings, and you refused!

Romans 2:1-11 Therefore you are without excuse, O man, whoever you are who judge. For in that which you judge another, you condemn yourself. For you who judge practice the same things. We know that the judgment of God is according to truth against those who practice such things. Do you think this, O man who judges those who practice such things, and do the same, that you will escape the judgment of God? Or do you despise the riches of his goodness, forbearance, and patience, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance? But according to your hardness and unrepentant heart you are treasuring up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath, revelation, and of the righteous judgment of God; who “will pay back to everyone according to their works:” to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory, honor, and incorruptibility, eternal life; but to those who are self-seeking, and don’t obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, will be wrath and indignation, oppression and anguish, on every soul of man who does evil . . . But glory, honor, and peace go to every man who does good . . . For there is no partiality with God.

Revelation 3:15-16 I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were cold or hot. So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will vomit you out of my mouth.

Psalm 51:4-6 Against you, and you only, have I sinned, and done that which is evil in your sight; that you may be proved right when you speak, and justified when you judge. Behold, I was born in iniquity. In sin my mother conceived me. Behold, you desire truth in the inward parts. . . .

Isaiah 59:16 He saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor. Therefore his own arm brought salvation to him; and his righteousness sustained him.

Isaiah 64:6 For we have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteousness is like a polluted garment. . . .

Lamentations 3:33 For though he cause grief, yet he will have compassion according to the multitude of his loving kindnesses. For he does not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men.

Ezekiel 6:9 . . . I have been broken with their lewd heart, which has departed from me, and with their eyes, which play the prostitute after their idols . . .

John 3:19 This is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the light; for their works were evil.

Romans 1:21 Because, knowing God, they didn’t glorify him as God, neither gave thanks, but became vain in their reasoning, and their senseless heart was darkened.

Real love longs to share not only in a person’s joy and success but in that person’s sorrow and suffering. This applies equally to our love for God and his love for us. “In all their affliction he was afflicted,” says Isaiah 63:9 about our God. Again, Judges 10:16 says, “his soul was grieved for the misery of Israel”.

Christ died to remove the toxic sin-barrier between us and the Holy Lord. He died so that we could be one spirit with God (1 Corinthians 6:17); so he could be in us and we could be in him. Through that union, we enter into all that is his – his holiness, his victory, his joy, his spiritual riches and his heartache. The Lord of the universe has burdens infinitely beyond what we can comprehend, let alone bear, but we should long to share his heart to our limited capacity.

Continued:Part 18