The Problem and Purpose of Pain: The Problem of Pain, Part 2

Well that story I tell, and it's now a long time ago since this happened, and there's a lot more perspective now. But probably many of us have been at that point of great anger at God about what has happened in our lives. And when we face that situation, we face pain as a personal problem. So when we talk about the problem of pain, I want to talk about the problem of pain at two levels. The first is the personal level.

When I suffer, it's my pain. Even though my pain may not be unique in human history, other people have surely suffered things more difficult than I did. But it was my pain, my loss, my despair, my hurt. And there's no way to avoid that personal nature of pain. You know, the personal journey of pain takes us in some different directions.

Part of that personal journey is very public, isn't it? We have the ceremony of death. The funeral.

I really only remember two things about the funeral. Roger Sims did a great job at the funeral. I just remember he quoted from the book of Joshua. And the second person I remember is Buddy Waters. He probably doesn't even remember this.

He came up after the funeral, didn't say a word to him. He gave me one of those big old bear hugs, and I nearly lost it. But that is exactly what I needed at that moment. The other part of the personal journey of pain, the non-public part, is the private part. And for me, privately, there were really two things I wanted to do.

thing I wanted was to be alone. I wanted to go to sleep and just escape. I was so worn out physically, emotionally, and as much as I appreciated folks coming by, and that is a very helpful thing, I just wanted to be alone and sleep. But then the second thing I wanted to do is I wanted to man I wanted to fight and so I was quite frankly at that stage asking a lot of questions and very critical of pastors and anybody who dared to speak for God I was listening I was paying attention and quite frankly I thought most of the time they didn't have much to say they were dealing with pablum the surface issues of life they weren't dealing with things that really mattered why didn't they talk about what really hurt and where people were

But then the other part of pain is the theological problem of pain. And that's where we're going to spend a lot of our time today.

C.S. Lewis puts the theological problem like this. He says, because there is pain in the world, it seems that God lacks either goodness or power or both.

either he's not great and powerful, or maybe he's not good, or maybe it's both. It seems that way sometimes with all the pain in the world. Peter Kreft, who is a Catholic theologian, a professor at Boston College, says this is how to frame the theological question. Is there inconsistency in believing all four of the following? That God exists, that He is all-powerful, that He is all good, yet pain also exists.

The way I frame the theological question is, if God is so good and so great, why does life hurt so much? That's capturing that theological problem of pain. Now understand, every philosophy, every religion has to wrestle with this issue of pain. And different philosophies and different religions have come up with different answers to this issue of God and pain. One philosophy of life says, well, it's easy.

It's easy to understand what's going on here. There is no God.

This is just a random world and bad stuff happens and there is no God. How could there be a God that would let this kind of stuff happen? the answer of atheism. There is no God. Another answer would say, well, there is a God, but He's just not as powerful as you might think. And this is the answer of the dualist. A dualist says there are really two gods, one good, one evil. And they are at constant odds. And sometimes on earth the good God is winning and things are going well, but at other times there's that evil God out there who's got a lot of power, who's causing all these problems. And so these two equally strong gods are fighting, but the good God is not all powerful. Rabbi Kushner, who wrote a book, Why Do Bad Things Happen to Good People? This is the conclusion he came to, is that God really just isn't all powerful. He just can't control what's going on, and we just suffer these random painful events. Another answer is that well God does exist and He's a powerful God. He just doesn't care a whole lot about what's happening here on earth. He's got better things to attend to.

And this would be the answer of the deist.

One of the oddest approaches to this issue I think has come from Christian science. Well your pain is really not real. it's just an illusion

it's like the little boy who was talking to the Christian science pastor who came to visit the boy's sick mom who told the little boy well you know son her illness is not real he said the pastor said I want to talk to her and the boy said well that's fine she just looks like she's dead now

well Christianity rejects all of those views and Christianity stands firmly and says God does exist he is great and all powerful he is good and he is loving but guess what pain is real in this world Now interestingly, not only Christianity, but historic Judaism and historic Islam would agree with those four points.

Now as we go through this study, I'm going to give you several important convictions or realities that will guide us. The first is the Bible is God's Word. This is not a time or day when we will defend the Bible. We will just know that it is God's Word today. It is God's Word.

And so I would submit to you, if we really want to understand this issue, while there are many sources out there we can turn to, the only reliable source in all instances for understanding this issue as best we can is the Bible.

And so we will rely heavily on what the Bible teaches us in order to talk about this issue. The second conviction is this. God is sovereign. There is absolutely nothing that happens apart from His sovereign will.

This is a deep subject. I have given you in your handout materials a set of verses on the sovereignty of God. I want to just read a few of them to highlight the reality of this issue according to God's Word. But then I'll leave these for you to think about later. But if you have that handout, let me just read a few of these.

Proverbs 16, 9. It's the third verse from the top. In his heart a man plans his course, but the Lord determines his steps. Boy, that is true in my own personal experience. Boy, I had my plans.

life. And then I ran smack into the face of the sovereignty of God who upset my apple cart. And all my plans were turned upside down. Proverbs 16.33. The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord. The lot is sort of like the dice.

So the text seems to indicate that even

aren't random at all. They're under the sovereign control of God. Proverbs 19, 21. Many are the plans in a man's heart, but it is the Lord's purpose that prevails. Go down a few verses to Psalm 139, 16.

Your eyes saw my unformed body, the psalmist says. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. That is an awesome thought. Isaiah 46.10 God says, I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times what is still to come. I say my purpose will stand and I will do all that I please.

From the east I summon a bird of prey. From a far off land a man to fulfill my purpose. What I have said that will I bring about. What I have planned that will I do. Daniel 5.21.

This is talking about King Nebuchadnezzar. He was driven away from people and given the mind of an animal. He lived with the wild donkeys and ate grass like cattle. And his body was drenched with the dew of heaven. until he acknowledged that the Most High God is sovereign over the kingdoms of men and sets over them anyone he wishes.

Matthew 10, 29. Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father. Even some of the smallest birds don't fall to the ground. apart from the will of God.

And last, Acts 4.27, Indeed, Herod and Pontius Pilate met together with the Gentiles and the people of Israel in this city to conspire against your holy servant Jesus whom you anointed. They did what your power and will had decided beforehand should happen. Now I think when we talk about the will of God, it's important to think about it at three levels.

you've been to the business meeting in church where somebody stands up and says, well, I just think it's God's will that we do this.

Usually they don't have a clue. They're just trying to win an argument.

And what we have to begin to ask, well, what do you mean you believe it's God's will? How do you know that? What are you talking about? at least three levels of thinking about God's will. The first is His sovereign will.

That's the big box. This is, I am the king will.

Everything in life that happens is under His sovereign will. There's nothing that falls outside the square. Everything is within His sovereign will. Sometimes He affirmatively makes things happen. Sometimes He permits things to happen by removing His hand.

But He is in control, ultimately.

The orange circle is God's moral will. In other words, these are His commands to us.

While His sovereign will is largely hidden from us, don't know what God's going to do tomorrow for sure, nor do I. God's moral will is revealed to us. It's not hidden. And it's most clearly revealed in His Word, the Bible. These are His commands. You shall not commit adultery. That is God's moral will. You shall not steal. That is God's moral will. Rejoice

Quite frankly, this is where we should live most of life, being sure we're staying within God's moral will. What does He want me to do? What's right? What's wrong? Within God's moral will is His individual will.

And often when people talk about God's will, I think this is what they're talking about. What does God want me to do specifically? Like, who does He want me to marry? What job does he want me to take, etc.? Now I will tell you, I've spent a lot of my life beating myself up trying to figure out God's individual will.

I don't think God is all that concerned, quite frankly, about what job you take. Because he does not first call us to a job or a profession or a geographic location. He first calls us to himself.

And so long as we are within his moral will, we can serve him about anywhere.

was Judas' betrayal of Jesus God's will?

Elaine? Okay, yes. Why do you say that?

Okay, it had to be. God had a plan. It had to be. Does anybody want to argue it wasn't God's will?

Okay.

Great answer. So Judas made a choice to betray Jesus. He acted outside God's moral will. But God used that choice, even though it was outside God's moral will, to accomplish God's sovereign will. Now did God force Judas to betray Jesus?

No. But do wrong choices by evil people upset God's sovereign will? No. at all. But my point to us today is nothing happens outside of God's sovereign will.

So let's bring it down to the personal level. Whatever we have experienced in life,

no matter what, and it may be have been something that was clearly caused by people acting outside God's moral will. Even maybe we acted outside God's moral will and caused our own pain. But none of it was outside His sovereign will.

The third conviction reality is this. The pain in our lives, and lawyers usually hate to say the word always, because when I say always, you've just got to find one example

I want to affirm to you that the pain in our lives always has purpose. Rabbi Kushner would totally disagree with me. I think Rabbi Kushner is wrong. I think it always has purpose. Now, let me give a caution here.

Doesn't mean we know the purpose. We may not know the purpose of our own pain. And if we do, it's usually in hindsight. gotten some distance from it. And one caution I'm going to give here is we must be particularly cautious in trying to conclude why someone else is going through pain, what the purpose is, because usually we don't know. It's not revealed to us, so let's be careful about drawing conclusions about why other people are going through painful circumstances.

And then the last reality and conviction is that pain is real but paradoxical. One thing we will never say today is that your pain doesn't hurt, that it is not difficult, that it is not emotionally, physically, spiritually difficult. But it's paradoxical. In other words, what seems hurtful may well be helpful. What seems bad may in fact be good for us.

And that's the paradox of pain.