When Bad Things Happen to Good People

Transcription

1 When Bad Things Happen to Good People Chris Sheeter and I were students at BJU and friends in Chris was tall, handsome, musical, with a great personality. He also was a good preacher. Chris was studying to pastor. We attended the same church, Southside Baptist Church and worked as waiters at the same Seafood restaurant, Old Mill Stream Restaurant. I graduated one semester before he did and I drove back to Greenville just to fellowship with Chris. During his last semester, he was a life guard at a local hotel. At the end of a shift, he dove in the pool just to swim across and go home. As he was swimming across the bottom, when his friends notice he stopped about half way. Chris drowned. Chris studied seven years, spent nearly $100,000 to prepare to pastor and never got to pastor one day. I remember asking myself, not out loud, why did God lead him to go through the rigors of four years of undergraduate work and the even tougher studies of three years of seminary and then allow this tragedy to happen? William Safire, in a New York Times editorial, wrote after the 2004 India tsunami in which over 200,000 people were killed from 14 countries, Where was God? Why does a good and all powerful deity permit such evil and grief to fall on innocent people? What did these people do to deserve such suffering. David Hume, the eighteenth century philosopher, connected the problem of evil and the existence of God: Is He willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then He is impotent. Is He able but not willing? Then He is malevolent. Is He both able and willing? Whence then is evil? Jewish rabbi, Harold Kushner in his book, When Bad Things Happen to Good People, answered Hume s dilemma. Kushner wrote his book when his son died which drove Kushner to question his traditional Jewish faith. Though a rabbi, Kushner came to believe that God could not have prevented his son s death. He is frank: I can worship a God who hates suffering but cannot eliminate it, more easily than I can worship a God who chooses to make children suffer and die (D. A. Carson. Reflections on Suffering & Evil: How Long O Lord? Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1990, 29). Though the innocent Job suffers in the book that bears his name, the question this book asks and answers is not, Why do bad things happen to good people? But Why do suffering believers continue to serve the Lord? That is the question Satan posed to God in reference to godly Job in 1:9. It is true Biblically that there are no innocent people. All suffering is the result of the Fall of Adam. Each of us is born a sinner and in time willfully sin against God which made clear

2 in the New Testament in Romans 3:23. Yet, Job 1:1 makes it very clear that Job was not suffering retribution for some lifestyle of sin. The godliness of Job is repeated by God in 1:8 and 2:3. Job forces us to examine our motives. The book of Job answers Satan s question in 1:9. Job is divided into three sections. 1. God s Suffering Believer in the Hands of Satan (Chapters 1 and 2). A. Job was godly. Job was perfect not sinless. The word perfect was used to describe an animal sacrifice that was blemishless and ready for sacrifice (Lev 22:21). B. Job was blessed by God. Job s wealth is inventoried in 1:2-3. J. Vernon McGee said donkeys were OT pickup trucks, oxen were OT tractors, and camels were OT delivery trucks. Job was in the trucking business. C. Job was attacked by Satan in 1: Job lost his wealth when Satan was permitted by God to attach Job on all fronts. a. From the South by the Sabeans b. From the west by a thunderstorm c. From the north by Chaldeans d. From the east by a storm The motive for Job s service to the Lord was not material possession. 2. Job lost his children. Job attended a funeral with ten coffins. Job lost the support of his wife (2:9-10). J. Vernon McGee said the reason Satan did not take her when he took the ten children was that she was more useful to Satan alive. The motive for Job s service to the Lord was not family. 3. Job lost his health (2:1-8). There are medical updates throughout the book: a. Painful boils (2:7) b. Severe itching (2:7-8). Job is on the ash heap. c. Great grief (2:13) d. Loss of appetite (3:24) e. Insomnia (7:4) f. Worm and dust infested flesh (7:5) g. Continual oozing of boils (7:5)

3 h. Hallucinations (7:14) i. Decaying skin (13:28) j. Shriveled up (16:8) k. Severe halitosis (19:17) l. Teeth fell out (19:20) m. relentless pain (30:17) n. Skin turned black (30:30) o. Raging fever (30:30) p. Dramatic weight loss (33:21) Job did not serve the Lord because of his health. 2. God s Suffering Believer in the Hands of Christian Critics (Chapters 3-37) A. Job s Friends accused him of suffering because of sin (4:7) 1. They encouraged Job to repent so God would give Job back his wealth, health, etc. 2. This is the OT prosperity gospel. Jim Baker, the fallen and disgraced prosperity preacher wrote a book entitled I Was Wrong. In it he wrote, My previous philosophy of life was fundamentally flawed. God does not promise that we will all be rich and prosperous as I once preached. Walter C. Kaiser gives many reasons for suffering: a. There is suffering because of sin (Job 4:7; 1 Cor 11:30) b. There is suffering in order to learn (Job 33:16; Heb 12:11) c. There is suffering for others (Isa 53:5) d. There is suffering with others (Rom 12:15) e. There is suffering for God s glory (Gen 50:20) (Walter C. Kaiser. A Biblical Approach to Personal Suffering. Chicago: Moody, 1982, ). B. Job sinfully responded to his suffering. While Job was suffering because of some un-confessed sin in his life, Job sinfully responded to his suffering. 1. Job accused God of not caring for His creation (Job 10:8). 2. Job accused God of injustice (19:7). 3. Job demanded answers from God (13:22; 31:35). God was more patient with Job than most of us would have been. Leadership fails. Leadership is not perfect. 3. God s Suffering Believer in the Hand of God (38-42)

4 A. God showed Job His universe that He controls (38:1-38). Finally God speaks. Finally everyone one ends his arguments and counter arguments after three cycles of debates. B. God showed Job His animal kingdom that He cares for (38:39-39:30). C. Job repented not of a sin that brought on his suffering. But Job repented of wrongfully responding to his suffering. Job used the exact words God used in 38: 2 to confess his sin. Job repented when he had no possessions, children, health, nor friends (42:1-6). Job proved Satan wrong. Job served God for nought (1:9). When I was a freshman at Piedmont Bible College Dr. Harold Sightler preached in chapel and related how he was preaching in NC. His wife in Greenville SC drove to the store with their daughter in the back seat. She pulled into the middle lane to make a left turn when a speeding drunk driver crashed into the rear of her car and killed the daughter and almost killed Mrs. Sightler. Dr. Sightler was called to return home immediately that there had been a terrible accident. That night Dr. Sightler drove home from the hospital exhausted not knowing if his wife would live or not. He sort of tossed his Bible onto the dresser and said to God, If this is the way you take care of your servant s family while he is preaching all over the country for You, then I am going to stay home and take care of my own family if You are not. Dr. Sightler fell off to sleep. The next morning his door bell rang and a well dressed man was at the door. Are you Dr. Sightler the man asked. I am. I drove all night in order to see a man the Lord could turn the Devil loose on. Dr. Sightler went back to his bedroom and got on his knees and repented. Conclusion: Let s go from the ash heap to the cross and think about suffering. Like Job, Christ suffered physically. Like Job, Christ suffered socially. Unlike Job, Christ suffered spiritually and eternally for our sins and my sins. PAGE \* MERGEFORMAT 1

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