Tough Question: Why Do Innocent People Suffer

If there is a God who is both sovereign and loving, then why do innocent people experience suffering? 

Pastor Dan preached on this August 23 at Parma Heights Baptist Church and started out by saying he wasn’t sure he could even answer this one.  I agree with him here—it didn’t seem to me like he really had a good answer for this one.  Following are some questions that he received from our congregation related to this topic:

I’ve been beaten, raped and abused.  How can a loving God watch and do nothing?

Why do some babies die?

Why do we lose loved ones in the prime of their life?

He said some people argue that:

If God has sovereign power and allows suffering, then He must not be loving.  On the other hand, if He is loving, and allows suffering, He must not have the power to stop human suffering.  Either way, He is not he kind of God I will worship.

Pastor Dan said this is the oldest question about God so let’s begin our quest for truth with the oldest book of the Bible:  the book of Job.

There are three words to answer this question that Pastor Dan used which are “trophy,” “tool” and “trust.” 

TROPHY

He showed us pictures of his children he has on his desk and said he is proud of them and they are like his trophies.  He said God specializes in fashioning trophies of His grace out of the lives of His children. 

Job 1:8—Have you considered my servant Job?  There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil.

This is how God described Job to Satan.  God was proud of Job but Satan challenged God that if he wasn’t so wealthy and didn’t have such a great family, he would curse God.  Satan said God had a hedge around Job so God gave Satan permission to make Job suffer.  Job lost everything in one day, including his children.  He still praised the name of the Lord anyhow!  (“The Lord gives and the Lord takes away, blessed be the name of the Lord.”)

TOOL

Then Satan was given permission to take away Job’s good health but not his life. 

Job 2:7--. . . So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord and afflicted Job.

Job had boils all over his body.  His wife asked him why he just doesn’t curse God and die, but Job remained faithful.  In the end, God blessed Job with even more than He had before.

God wants us to be like Jesus, to have the same mind as Christ, to become Christ like.  Suffering and pain is one of the tools He uses.   

TRUST DURING STORMS OF LIFE

Then Pastor Dan switched to the New Testament and compared our pain and suffering to a “storm.”  In Mark 4:37—A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped.  Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion.

To illustrate a “storm of life” when he asked God to “make this stop” he used the time when his mom was weak, in pain and dying and just wanted God to make it stop.

God allows storms of life for us to see what we truly fear and to recalibrate our fear to the One who is worthy to fear, Jesus Christ.  Because we can trust God with our destination, we can certainly trust Him with the journey to get us there. 

He used another illustration of a grandmother babysitting her 3-month-old grandson.  A tornado came and hit their house, destroying it.  When the rescue crew came to look for survivors they heard some crying.  When they threw off the boards, they found the grandmother laying face down dead but underneath her was her grandson in her arms who was still alive.

Jesus was controlling the storm the whole time.  Jesus took the “storm” of God’s wrath for all mankind when he died on the cross for us.  That grandmother is a picture of what Jesus did for us.  He took the storm.

My thoughts:

I didn’t think this sermon really answered the beginning questions very well.  Anyone have a better answer?  Sometimes God uses bad things so that he will be glorified like when he let Lazarus die and then raised him from the dead.  I agree that sometimes God uses pain and suffering to teach us things and to mold us to develop more Christlike character or to even perhaps bring us to a place where we put our trust in Him because we see no other way out.  Or what about this—perhaps so we can have something more to look forward to in heaven where there will be no pain or suffering.  The good news is that life on earth is short compared to eternity!  God always has a bigger picture than what we see so I often remind myself of Romans 8:18, 28-29 when going through difficult times which says: 

For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.  And we know that all things work together for good, to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose.  For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.

No matter what the reason God has for permitting suffering and pain in our lives, it’s certainly in our best interest to worship Him as our maker and accept Jesus as our Savior to give us a hope.  God is sovereign and doesn’t have to explain Himself to anyone!  In reading through Job, I don’t see God ever explaining to Job that he gave Satan permission to make him suffer.   (See God’s answer to Job in Job 38-42.) 

Instead of asking God “Why God?” We need to ask “What do you want me to do today, Lord?”  That, I think, is a much better question!