Christ Our King
Lutheran Church

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Why Do Bad Things Happen?

Beloved in Christ Jesus,

I originally wrote about this topic about a year ago, and even put it on the web site, but with the devastating events of the past week in and around the Indian Ocean, I thought it might be helpful to visit it again.

Why do troubles and trials exist in this world? What has God done to deal with the evil and pain and disaster in the world? What benefit, if any, can come from suffering?

Before we get too far, we should realize that many people struggle with these questions for their whole life. There is a risk that we simply come up with pat answers that don't really speak to hurting hearts and souls. Yet it is important to have the proper view of life this side of heaven.

Why do troubles come in this life? Why do bad things happen? As I said, there is no easy answer, but I want to point you to some of Scripture's insight.

The Scriptures say that the god of this age prowls about like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Life has its storms. Our youth recently returned from the "Eye of the Storm" youth gathering in Brandon. One of the lessons we all need to learn is that sometimes Jesus calmed the storm, and sometimes Jesus calmed the disciples in the midst of the storm. This side of heaven the disciples were persecuted. The prophet Elijah was persecuted. The Bible says that he who would live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. Storms in this life will come.

Why does God allow them? God allows the storms so as to refine us as through fire. Think about what fire does. Fire destroys. Fire hurts and causes pain. It also cleanses and burns away impurities. Fire tempers and strengthens. Fire melts things together.

Why does God allow these bad things to happen? Think about that question. It presupposes that evil is God's fault. It follows our natural sinful inclination to shift blame away from ourselves. We revert to Adam in the garden who blamed God for causing evil.

God made creation good, very good. God created Adam and Eve with a free will. Along with the freedom to choose to love God, came the possibility of an opposite response. They could hate God and rebel. Humankind's choice to disobey and walk away from God has brought about the troubled, aching world we see around us. We ourselves are responsible for the evil and pain that is found in our world. Man makes foolish and selfish decisions that result in malnutrition and famine and sickness. God does not abuse children, people do. God does not transmit AIDS, people do. God did not invent the million and one ways sin exists, we did. The blame lies with us.

After Adam and Eve disobeyed, God told them life would be hard. Adam would have to work like a dog to gain enough to maintain himself and his family. Eve would experience great pain in childbirth. After their lives had run their courses, they would die. We cannot wish away death. Science cannot conquer it. Every time someone dies, it is another testimony that we are tainted with evil and that life on this earth is not as God originally intended it to be.

What is God doing while we suffer? Has he washed his hands of the matter and abandoned us to our stupidity? Does he laugh at our foolishness and takes morbid pleasure at our suffering? No, he is supremely concerned about the problem of evil. He has a plan to deal with it.

Some people think that life for a Christian should be one of ease with few problems or troubles. After all, if we are God's children and he is looking after us and ordering the world for us, then everything should go well. That is the theology of glory, and it's dangerous, because when things don't go well, when the trials and storms of life hit we are tempted to doubt God's faithfulness or to focus on what sin we might have committed to get God so peeved at us.

There is no comfort in the theology of glory. One of the places our Lutheran faith is unique is in a view of life that we call the theology of the cross.

Today we are focusing on the storms of life … bad experiences. Glory says blessings come when I ask Jesus into my heart. But when calamities come, does that mean God is punishing me? The theology of glory suggests that only blessings are proof of God's love.

All of the world's religions, except for Christianity, are theologies of glory. The truth is that God sometimes allows difficult things to come into our lives to strengthen our faith and the faith of others. This is what Lutherans call the theology of the cross.

Our situation in life is not always a clear indicator of God's deep and abiding love for us. When I rely on the circumstances of life to bear witness to whether or not God loves me, certainty of faith is lost; joy in the Lord is lost. It is at those times that many fall away from faith.

If things are not going well, glory says that God must not be pleased and more effort to please Him is required. All this would lead us to believe that we earn God's favour by what we do and how we live. This is works righteousness and leaves grace in the gutter.

God's gracious disposition toward us is not revealed in the visible things God has made. It remains hidden. We cannot discern God's gracious disposition toward us from the world around us. We must look instead to the suffering and death of Jesus in order to know what God thinks of us.

The circumstances of life, then, whatever they might be, have to be seen through the suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus. Does God love me? Is he watching over me? Are all my moments and my days in his care? The situations and storms of life sometimes suggest "no."

God's word says "yes." Jesus' suffering and death on the cross for your sins and mine say "yes." God's Holy Spirit poured out upon us at baptism says "yes." The cross permits no speculation about God or his disposition. There, written in the broken body and shed blood of Jesus His Son, is God's final word. "God so loved the world that he gave is one and only Son…"

In the midst of the suffering of a fallen world, God would have us look not to our circumstances to know the truth of His love for us, but to look to the Cross. When we do, whatever our circumstances, whether well fed or hungry, whether in plenty or in want, we have the joy and peace that the world does not know or understand.

He will not simply overlook sin. No evil will go unpunished. To our eyes it often seems that the accounts are not equal, that the evil are winning the day and the good are being crushed underfoot. People may appear to get away with murder, but there is a day of judgement coming and all accounts will be balanced. On that day the unrighteous will receive their just punishment.

But that's not all. There is also good news. God promised to Adam and Eve and to further generations that he would send a Saviour who would solve the problem of sin and evil. We will come back to that.

God makes a most startling promise in Romans 8:28: "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." This verse does not teach us that life will be free of pain and difficulties. It does teach us that God will take all the events of our lives, the bad things, the disasters and the trials, and he will bring good out of them. Remember that the disasters and trials do not come from God. They are the result of the sinfulness of the world in which we live. They are the result of the devil seeking to destroy the works of God and lead his children astray. But God is so wise and so powerful that he can take the bad things that happen to us and work them out for our good. He can take the pain caused by sin and hatred and bring about gracious results for us. This is what God promises to those who love him and are called according to his purpose.

Many think that their lives are simply ruled by blind fate. Others operate under what we would call a theology of glory. The theology of the cross is different. God loves us in spite of our sin and failure. He reaches down to us in the midst of our anguish and offers encouragement and hope. He promises to transform our trials into experiences that will bring blessings.

How does God work this miracle of making things work out for good? Consider the purpose of pain. C. S. Lewis says that pain is God's loudspeaker to rouse a deaf world. When troubles befall us, often we ask ourselves, "is God punishing me?" We hunt for the exact sin, which might have caused our present affliction. There is a better question to ask … "is God warning me?" Sometimes we think of the trials of life as punishments for sin. But God has another purpose for pain … to warn us of the foolishness of living without him and to call us back to him. All of us in our own particular way have disobeyed God's law and ignored our Father in heaven. All of us deserve the eternal punishment that awaits us after death. Yet God in his mercy sent his Son to suffer all the eternal affliction that we deserve. He calls us all to turn to Christ, to repent and be saved. Sometimes we refuse to listen until he places some pain in our path.

If you are in the midst of suffering and are tempted to think that God is punishing you, remember that the punishment for sin has already been paid for by Jesus' death on the cross. God is not punishing you, but he may be warning you, calling you to humbly turn to him and receive his kindness and love.

The Bible says that our God is a refining fire. Don't you wish he hadn't told us that? A silversmith heats the precious metal over a very hot flame until it is melted. When it melts, all the impurities in it rise to the top and the silversmith can scoop them away. Once the silver has been purified, the smith can fashion it into a beautiful work of art.

God is like a refiner who sits and purifies silver. You who are God's followers are that silver and God considers you of great worth. The trials of life are the flame that causes the silver to melt and the dross to rise to the surface where it can be removed. When we go through difficulties, the Lord can remove the impurities of sin from our character and make of our lives something beautiful.

Do you know how the silversmith can tell when all the impurities have been removed from the silver? When he can see his own face reflected in the smooth surface of the molten metal. So our gracious God allows trials to come our way, not to hurt us or dishearten us, but so that he might see his purity and love reflected in our lives. God does indeed work out all things for our good.

What is the real evidence that God loves me? Is it found in the blessings I have, or is it found in the trials and discipline which come my way? Scripture says, "the Lord disciplines those he loves." He loves us so much that he is not content to see us wallow in our sin and selfishness. Now, there are days when we wished he loved us a little less, but our heavenly Father at times uses the difficulties of life to improve us and make us better.

Sometimes our suffering is for the sake of someone else. God permitted Satan to oppress Job in order to demonstrate the strength of Job's faith in God. His example of faith in the midst of trial continues to have far reaching impact. Millions have been encouraged by his story and his witness to the living Redeemer. When we endure difficulties, our faith stands as a witness to others. When we endure difficulties, we are able to help others in similar situations. Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 1, "God comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God."

You've heard the examples before; a young man contracts cancer, but instead of shouting against God, he bears testimony to his hope of eternal life through faith in Jesus Christ. Before he dies, his unbelieving father comes to know Jesus too. A couple loses all their possessions in a fire, but their calm acceptance of the loss teaches their neighbours that a personal relationship with God is more precious and enduring than material things.

God would bring about a great blessing from a bad situation. When the Bible says "all things work together for good for those who love God and are called according to his purpose" it does not mean that believers will never suffer. It does mean that they will never suffer without a purpose. Evil men cause all sorts of suffering and conflict, but God promises to make their purpose backfire on them and result in blessings for God's children.

Scripture gives us the example of Joseph in the Old Testament. His brothers hatched an evil plot to get rid of him. They sold him into slavery. Years later all was turned around. Joseph could say, "you intended to harm me but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives." As Joseph sat in his jail cell, he did not know exactly what good would result from his plight, but he trusted that God would keep his word. You and I can rest in the same assurance that God is caring for us and we will never experience trials without a purpose. In the midst of those trials, we can hold to the promise, "God is faithful; he will not let you be tested beyond what you can bear. But when you are tested, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it."

I promised that we would come back to the promise that God made to send a Saviour. Did you know that God has scars too? Focus your eyes on Jesus. He was a good man who did not deserve the miserable fate that befell him. He spent his life in service to others, reaching out to the sick with healing, to the lonely with love, and to the guilt-ridden with mercy. Everywhere he went crowds followed him to receive his compassion and to hear his words which soothed their troubled spirits.

You would think that everyone would admire a fellow like that, but he had his enemies. They did not like the way that he pointed out their self-righteousness and lack of concern for the needy. So they planned to do away with him. The enemies bribed one of his best friends to turn him over to the police. Then they put him on trial for crimes he had never committed. The unjust trial came to the attention of two government officials who had the power to set him free. One ridiculed him and the other washed his hands of the whole business, permitting this innocent man to be condemned to a torturous death.

But it wasn't all their fault. The Dutch artist Rembrandt reacted to the crucifixion in a totally different manner. In 1633 he painted "The Raising of the Cross." In this painting, next to the Roman soldiers, there is a man in a blue painter's beret raising Christ upon the cross. That man is Rembrandt himself-a self-portrait. By picturing himself as one of the executioners, Rembrandt was confessing to all the world that he too had sent the Saviour to the cross and that Christ had personally died for his sins.

The suffering that Jesus endured was not only the betrayal by a friend, the injustice of a kangaroo court, and the agony of death by crucifixion. The greatest agony He endured could not be seen. The Bible teaches that during Christ's suffering, God the Father placed upon Him all our sins and all our guilt. On the cross, Christ suffered all the punishment that you and I deserve for our disobedience of God's will. WE should have been punished. WE should have been crucified. WE should have been condemned to hell. But Jesus took it all in our place (Isaiah 53:5).

Why did he do it? Was He forced to suffer against His will? No! Jesus declared, "No one takes it [My life] from Me, but I lay it down of My own accord" (John 10:18). He gave His life so that we would not have to pay the price for our sins. Jesus willingly laid down His life, even though He was innocent, to free us from eternal judgement.

God's help in the midst of the storms of life goes way beyond a mother's kiss or patting our head and telling us everything is all right when it really is not. God actually makes all things turn out right. He raised His Son Jesus from the dead. God promises similar victory over death to all who will turn from their sins and trust in Christ to forgive them. The God who sent Christ as the Savior promises that He will bring an end to all the evil on earth. He will raise us from the dead and give us new bodies that will never know suffering again. "He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain" (Revelation 21:4).

All this will take place because God Himself, in the person of His Son Jesus Christ, suffered for us. So, while we suffer in this troubled world, we have Jesus with us. He is able to sympathize with our every weakness and comfort us with his compassion.

Peace and Joy in Jesus,

Pastor Larry Flohr