Sermon for Sunday January 2nd, 2005

Tsunami’s, Suffering and Other “Acts” of God  by Dr. Craig  Nelson

Romans 8:28-8:28

The devastation of the Indian Ocean Tsunami and the hundreds of thousands of lives lost caused grief and suffering beyond belief. The world even calls these natural disasters “Acts of God”. Yet, everyone on earth has experienced suffering in one extent or another. Your suffering might be through quiet tears shed in the silence of the night as you reflect on the wounds inflicted by another.

Sadly, when we do suffer, our response is often, "It’s not fair, I don’t deserve this! We tend to quickly blame the Lord for tragedy and calamity in our lives. When we experience tragedy, our first reaction is usually to ask an angry “Why?!” A loved one is brutalized, a child is abused, a family is wiped out in a terrible accident, a marriage breaks apart, or perhaps a terrible disease has taken hold of someone and angry people cry out at God and ask, "Why did you do this to me?" Or, too afraid to be angry for fear of appearing faithless, they indirectly accuse Him of causing their suffering by saying, "It was God’s will”, or “God allowed it." You may have had a loved one die, or had tragedy befall you while you were living a rebellious life, and have said to yourself, "God is punishing me."

We also indirectly blame God for our suffering when we say, “He caused it so that we could learn a great lesson.” Even though "we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose" (Romans 8:28), it does not make Him responsible.

It is easy to feel betrayed and hard to reconcile what has happened with a God of love. That is especially true if you have been taught that God’s love would protect you from any harm, keep you from every hurt and pain or protect you from every sickness.

The Cause And Effect Relationship

Because God is sovereign, He can do anything He wants, how He wants and when He wants. Sometimes God allows man to do whatever he pleases, even the most heinous of things. Other times He keeps man from doing what he wants to do and He can also overrule what man does.

When sin entered the world, it put into motion a cause-and-effect relationship in each event in our lives. Things break down and deteriorate as a direct result of sin having entered the world. Sin affects everything around us. A car’s brakes may fail and cause a terrible accident because they had worn out. An airplane crashes because of a faulty part. The washing machine stops working because the bearings froze from years of use, the devastation of a natural disaster. All these things, and those like them, have a direct cause-and-effect relationship indirectly because of sin.

Freedom Of Choice

The day God created you He gave you a free will which allows you the freedom to choose between right and wrong, righteousness and sin. He decreed or ordained by order of His omnipotence (or power) to allow mankind the freedom that could cause sin to come into the world. God did not create sin or suffering. Sin, and the suffering it causes, is a direct result of Satan's temptations and Adam and Eve’s consequent disobedience.

Because God is love, He gave man the freedom to choose whether or not to freely love Him in return. The freedom to love is the basis of relationship. If God had not given us freedom to choose, we would all be a bunch of mindless robots living preprogrammed lives. However, it is because of that very freedom God gave us that there is suffering in the world.
God told Adam that because he listened to his wife and ate from the tree from which He commanded him not to eat, the very ground he walked upon would be cursed. All mankind would have to now “eat of it” through “painful toil” the rest of their lives because of his sin. The earth from that day forth would “produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return." (Genesis 3:17-19)

Sin is the reason you have to work your fingers to the bone to get through this world. The sweat on your brow from trying to make ends meet is a part of the suffering due to sin. The words "thorns and thistles" in the previous Scripture verse have a broad meaning in Hebrew and represent both natural evil and suffering in general.

This natural evil would include floods, tsunamis, tornadoes, disease, earthquakes, droughts, volcanoes and so on. Things wear out because of decay, which is ultimately a result of sin entering the world. It is the sin of Adam and Eve passed down to every human being that first brought about suffering in this world.

Suffering And God’s Will

Suppose you dive headfirst into a pool of water without checking to see how deep it is, and break your neck, did God cause it to happen? Was it really God’s will that you become paralyzed?

If you load an airplane with more weight than it can carry and pray for a safe flight, but it crashes, killing all on board, was it God’s will? Did God make it happen?

If you give a loved one the keys to your car and they goes out drinking, run into a telephone pole, and are killed, would it be your fault because you gave them the keys to the car? Did you cause it to happen?

Handing over the keys to the car would not be the cause of the accident, nor by giving the keys would you be allowing it to happen. The cause of the accident would be directly related to the freedom of choice and actions of the person using the keys. Sadly, there are those who would blame themselves for the accident because they did give someone the keys to the car. But is it really their fault that the person was killed?

How can you blame yourself for what someone does with the freedom you have given them? Giving the person the freedom to drive the car into a tree is not the same as willing or causing the car to run into the tree. That is the difference between God "willing" something to happen and "allowing" it to happen.

Our heavenly Father gives to His children "every good and perfect gift." (James 1:17) Many people see the Lord depicted in the Old Testament as always angry, quick to punish and destroy. But, there is a marked difference between how the Lord responded in the Old Testament and how He responds now. The Lord is not mad, He is madly in love!

You are now under the law of grace, not the law of works. You have been bought and paid for by Jesus’ shed blood and adopted into the family of God. Your relationship with the Creator is now as parent and child. No loving, caring parent would intentionally or directly cause a terrible accident to happen to his/her child. It is absolutely inconceivable that such a thought could ever cross a loving parent’s mind. Why then do so many accuse the heavenly Father of the very things they would never do themselves? His nature and character are directly opposed to it. Why not give the blame where blame is due? God is not a tormentor! Satan, Jesus said, has been a “murderer from the beginning.” (John 8:44) Who else would do such terrible things but Satan!

The Real Cause Of Suffering And Torment

Suffering is as much a part of this life as air and water because you live in a sinful world. Your Creator doesn’t cause suffering. Only Satan, the arch-enemy of heaven, can be accused of tormenting you. God is not the author of your pain and suffering. It is Satan who has come to "steal and kill and destroy." Jesus came that we "may have life, and have it to the full." (John 10:10)

The heavenly Father did not put suffering into your life to punish you or teach you a lesson, nor did He promise you deliverance from the suffering of this world. While you are on this planet suffering is inevitable.

Job questioned God about this when he asked, "Why do the wicked live on, growing old and increasing in power?” (Job 21:7) Job shows later on that he acquired a greater understanding of God’s mercy in suffering when he wrote, "But those who suffer he delivers in their suffering; he speaks to them in their affliction.” (Job 36:15)

A great deal of suffering that each of us experiences today is actually brought upon ourselves. Satan can’t indwell a Christian but he can motivate us by whispering in our ears. We can’t really say, "The devil made me do it," but we can say, “I allowed the devil to persuade me to do it."

Your mind is the devil’s playground. It is there that he can talk you into doing something you should not do and it is there that he can talk you into not forgiving yourself as well as others. Poor choices and sin cause more suffering in this world than anything else. No one wants to take responsibility for their actions so they find someone else to blame. The result is that people tend to look to either God or Satan to blame when, in fact, it was the wrong actions on their part and by their own free choice that caused the problems.

The Purposes Of God

God’s mercy has a purpose. That purpose is to see every human brought to repentance: "Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, tolerance and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness leads you toward repentance?” (Romans 2:4)

Since you are the work of the Creator, you ultimately fall far short in your ability to understand, let alone comprehend the how’s and why’s of God’s ways. Paul wrote "Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out! Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor?" (Romans 11:33-34)

When temptation comes, "No one should say, ‘God is tempting me;’ for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone." (James 1:13) Remember that when you are tempted to sin, "No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it." (1 Corinthians 10:13)

The Lord determines the limits of those things that happen to you. He is not the one who causes evil. "For everything in the world—the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does—comes not from the Father but from the world." (1 John 2:16)

All evil acts of man are under the complete control of God. They can occur only by His permission. Although they are evil in themselves, He overrules them for His purpose and glory. God can, and does, turn evil into good.

When Job was going through his terrible ordeal, Satan had to first get the Lord’s permission before he could touch Job.

"The Lord said to Satan, ’Very well, then, everything he has is in your hands, but on the man himself do not lay a finger.’ Then Satan went out from the presence of the LORD." (Job 1:12)

And again, "The LORD said to Satan, ‘Very well, then, he is in your hands; but you must spare his life.’” (Job 2:6)

Note that it is the Holy Spirit who restrains the evil of sin from taking its full toll on the earth. "For the secret power of lawlessness is already at work; but the one who now holds it back will continue to do so till he is taken out of the way." (2 Thessalonians 2:7)

The Lord does allow some sin to fully manifest itself by allowing it to run its course. When envoys were sent by the rulers of Babylon to ask King Hezekiah about the miraculous sign that had occurred in the land, the Word says that God withdrew from him “to test him and to know everything that was in his heart." (2 Chronicles 32:31)

Elsewhere, we find God giving people “over to their stubborn hearts to follow their own devices. If my people would but listen to me, if Israel would follow my ways, how quickly would I subdue their enemies." (Psalms 81:12-14) "In the past, he let all nations go their own way." (Acts 14:16)

Paul understood this when he wrote to the church in Rome: “Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshipped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen. Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion. Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done.” (Romans 1:24-28)

The Lord also prevents some sins. "Then God said to him in the dream, ‘Yes, I know you did this with a clear conscience, and so I have kept you from sinning against me. That is why I did not let you touch her.’” (Genesis 20:6)

God can keep your enemies from carrying out their plans against you and He can keep you from sin in your hour of great temptation! Listen: "To him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy." (Jude 1:24)

The Bible teaches us that God will ultimately be glorified, no matter what the circumstance or situation. Every event that takes place has as its ultimate purpose to manifest His glory, holiness, righteousness, power, wisdom, and love: "For my own sake, for my own sake, I do this. How can I let myself be defamed? I will not yield my glory to another." (Isaiah 48:11)

One day while Jesus and the disciples were out fishing, "Without warning, a furious storm came up on the lake, so that the waves swept over the boat. But Jesus was sleeping. The disciples went and woke him, saying, ‘Lord, save us! We’re going to drown!’ He replied, ‘You of little faith, why are you so afraid?’ Then he got up and rebuked the winds and the waves, and it was completely calm." (Matthew 8:24-26).

Why did Jesus say to them "You of little faith, why are you so afraid?" Didn’t they prove they had faith in Jesus by going to Him in the first place? Too many of us think that faith in Jesus is a guarantee that we won’t have bad experiences, yet here we see Jesus telling them that faith is believing that He will get you though it—not just keep you away from it. Jesus didn’t abandon them, He was right there with them through the storm. When we learn to trust God during the storms of our lives we will then find ourselves forgiving Him for those storms.

The Father’s Heart

Our heavenly Father knows you intimately. "Even the very hairs of your head are all numbered." (Matthew 10:30) He desires only what is in your best interest. Here are some of His promises to us:
“Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows." (James 1:17)
"And my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus." (Philippians 4:19)
“He will not let your foot slip—he who watches over you will not slumber." (Psalms 121:3)
"And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose." (Romans 8:28)

God rules and controls the world with your happiness in mind. When Satan spoke to Eve in the garden, he insinuated that the Lord was trying to hold back something good from her and Adam.

"You will not surely die," the serpent said to the woman. "For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." (Genesis 3:4-5)

Since then, Satan has been trying to make man believe that God does not want us to be happy or for us to enjoy life to the fullest, so he makes us think that sin is good and following God is bad. Yet we know that just the opposite is true: "For everything in the world—the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does—comes not from the Father but from the world." (1 John 2:16)

Luke records in Acts 14:17 that Paul said, "Yet he has not left himself without testimony: He has shown kindness by giving you rain from heaven and crops in their seasons; he provides you with plenty of food and fills your hearts with joy."

Your heavenly Father is always seeking your welfare. "For the LORD God is a sun and shield; the LORD bestows favor and honor; no good thing does he withhold from those whose walk is blameless." (Psalms 84:11)

The Lord’s ultimate purpose is to prepare His people to become His possession: "Who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good." (Titus 2:14)

"But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light." (I Peter 2:9)
On an even more intimate level, He calls you His Bride: "Come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb." (Revelation 21:9)

Not only are you His Bride, but He has promised to have a most intimate relationship with you: "I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.’” (Revelation 21:2-4)

The Creator of the universe became man to walk among mankind and ultimately to die for you. He sent the Holy Spirit and gave you the Bible to prove His love to you and help prepare you for the day when you will see Him face to face. Jesus said that He causes “the sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous." (Matthew 5:45)

God’s Character And Nature

To help in understanding our Lord’s character and nature, read Chapter 13 of 1 Corinthians. Below, I have replaced the words "charity" and "love" in 1 Corinthians 13:1-9 with the name of Jesus.

Jesus suffers long,
Jesus is kind,
Jesus envies not,
Jesus doesn’t boast of Himself,
Jesus is not puffed up,
Jesus does not behave Himself unseemly,
Jesus seeks not His own,
Jesus is not easily provoked,
Jesus thinks no evil,
Jesus rejoices not in iniquity,
Jesus rejoices in the truth,
Jesus bears all things,
Jesus believes all things,
Jesus hopes all things,
Jesus endures all things.
Jesus never fails.

When you see your Lord for who He really is, love incarnate, you can truly understand and "rely on the love God has for us," because, "God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him." (1 John 4:16)

The Suffering Of God

"I want to know Christ and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in His sufferings, becoming like him in His death." (Philippians 3:10)

The Apostle Paul was able to rejoice in suffering because he knew what suffering had produced in his life. He admonishes us to “rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.” (Romans 5:3-5)

God has also promised you that when you do suffer while in this world, you actually share in the suffering that Jesus went through because of sin.

Through His suffering, He was made perfect as the “author of our salvation.” God the Father guaranteed that you also are made perfect and share in Christ’s glory when you experience suffering. As His child you are an heir of God and co-heir with Christ: “We share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.” (Romans 8:17)

Paul continues in verses 18-19, “I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed.” And who are the sons of God? Look at verse 14: “Those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.” Listen! Good news! Those who have accepted Jesus as their personal Lord and Savior and are led by the Holy Spirit will be revealed to the world in all of His splendor! What a prospect—and we don’t have to wait until we die to inherit it!

The universe lies in “frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies." (Romans 8:19-23)

It is imperative that you understand that suffering is a part of discipleship and should be counted as part of the cost of surrendering your life to Jesus.

And yet your “present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us." (Romans 8:18) The problems and struggles you face “are achieving for [you] an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So [you] fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” (2 Corinthians 4:17-18)

God’s heart aches as He yearns and longs for a reconciled relationship with man. Jesus died to pay the penalty for your sin. He shed His blood so that you could have a renewed relationship with Him. He suffered a brutal death on the cross while suffering the pain and agony of man’s rejection of His offer of forgiving love.

Listen! Jesus’ suffering didn’t end when He took His last breath on the cross! He also suffers when you rebel against Him. He suffers each time you turn your back on Him, each time you think of yourself more highly than your brothers and sisters, each time you don’t forgive another and offer reconciliation! Your pride and selfish ambitions are the source of His suffering.

God Is All-Sufficient

Jesus is the only one who can handle all that you lay before Him. It is so important that you always stay focused on Him! Peter admonishes you to “cast all your cares upon Him, for He cares for you." (1 Peter 5:7 NKJ)

Jesus laid aside His deity in order to be a human being, just like you and me, and in doing so experienced great agony and suffering. There are three keys to understanding how Jesus was able to endure.

First, He had an incredible relationship with the Father. This produced an incomprehensible peace that helped Him to persevere throughout His life. The world’s definition of peace is absence of war and conflict. God’s definition of peace is serenity in the midst of turmoil and trials. We can only experience the "peace that passes all understanding" when we are plugged into the Prince of Peace who is living inside of us.

Second, was His understanding of the total picture. Rather than looking at isolated circumstances, He understood everything to be for the glory of God, and that all things do work out for the best. When we understand and accept this key, we will experience tremendous growth.

Third, Jesus had great hope. He knew that He would eventually be back with the Father, sitting at His right hand. You also have a hope. Your ultimate hope is that you know one day you will be with the Lord, either when you are taken in the twinkling of an eye (1 Corinthians 15:52-53), or pass from this life to the next through death. It is because of that hope you can persevere in times of suffering and hardship.

Trying to blame someone or something for your suffering never resolves anything. You are essentially an imperfect, sinful human being who will always make a lot of mistakes. The only answer is to forgive others, including yourself, when mistakes are made.

Ultimately, suffering is necessary for the death of self. Unless you die to self you will never have the comfort of true hope to offer anyone else. Suffering should be used as a training school to learn to help others. It causes you to understand and experience the heart of God. When you forgive, you are brought into the glorious freedom of knowing Jesus in the power of the resurrection because you have shared in His suffering for the sake of mankind.

Until we begin to love and forgive each other, His suffering will never end. Jesus didn’t deserve to suffer, yet He, who knew no sin, suffered in our place and while dying an agonizing death on the cross, cried out, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do." (Luke 23:33) Jesus provided the way to find freedom from sin’s consequences.
There is no real escape from suffering while in this world. But there is a place you can go to find peace and comfort – under the shadow of His wings! (Ps 57:1) Jesus said; "I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world." (John 16:33)