Does God cause suffering?

God does not cause the suffering to His own, but He allows it to happen, so that His servants can benefit from the experience (e.g. increase their faith), and also for His own glory. Two examples are: Job, whom Satan tested to the uttermost, see Job 1 & 2, and Peter, whom Satan desired to sift as wheat, Luke 22:31.

To prove that a God of infinite goodness is not the author of this world in its present state requires no elaborate argumentation, nor does it make any demand upon the least ratiocinative ability. It is everywhere, and in everything, abundantly manifest that a beneficent Creator would not voluntarily give His unoffending creature, whom He has endowed with intelligence, affections, sensitivity, accountability to Himself and to his fellows, into the darkness, the distress, the sufferings, the sorrows, the woes that are the portion of the whole human family.

"Your letter telling of the distress and darkness of soul into which you have fallen has reached me and I want to assure you of my sympathetic interest in you. First of all, who is the author of this condition in which you are? It is not God, darkness does not come from Him, for 'God is light'; distress does not come from Him, for He is the 'God of peace' and of 'all comfort'; barrenness and bitterness and loss of enjoyment do not come from Him, for He is the giving God, who not only gives the living water that the souls of men may be satisfied and happy, but considers them in every way, and gives 'to all life, breath and all things' (Acts 17:25), 'filling our hearts with food and gladness' (Acts 14:17). It is from Satan that this wretchedness has come. From the very beginning he has poisoned the minds of men by hard and false thoughts of God. 'The god of this world has blinded the minds of them that believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine into them' (2 Cor. 4:4). It will help you if you discern this, your present misery is the work of an enemy, of the devil himself.

It is one heart-quieting consideration, in all the afflictions that befall us, that God has a special hand in them: "The Almighty has afflicted me" (Ruth 1:21). Instruments can no more stir till God gives them a commission, than the axe can cut of itself without a hand. Job eyed God in his affliction: therefore, as Augustine observes, he doth not say, "The Lord gave, and the devil took away," but "The Lord has taken away." Whoever brings an affliction to us, it is God that sends it. Afflictions work for good. "It is good for me that I have been afflicted" (Ps. 119:71). Joseph's brethren throw him into a pit; afterwards they sell him; then he is cast into prison; yet all this did work for his good: his abasement made way for his advancement; he was made the second man in the kingdom. "Ye thought evil against me, but God meant it to good" (Gen. 50:20). Jacob wrestled with the angel, and the hollow of Jacob's thigh was out of joint; this was sad; but God turned it to good, for there he saw God's face, and there the Lord blessed him. "Jacob called the name of the place Peniel, for I have seen God face to face" (Gen. 32:30). Who would not be willing to have a bone out of joint, so that he might have a sight of God? King Manasseh was bound in chains, this was sad to see — a crown of gold changed into fetters; but it wrought for his good, for, "When he was in affliction he besought the Lord, and humbled himself greatly, and the Lord was intreated of him" (2 Chr. 33:12-13). He was more beholden to his iron chain, than to his golden crown; the one made him proud, the other made him humble. Paul was smitten with blindness; this was uncomfortable, but it turned to his good; God did by that blindness make way for the light of grace to shine into his soul.

We should have said rather that the devil was permitted to deal him heavy blows, for all that happened was beneath the hand of God. It was with Paul as it had been long before with Job: three causes are discernible. The third causes were fire from heaven, whirlwind, evil men, in the case of Job, and the thorn in the flesh in the case of Paul. Behind these in each case lay the power and animus of Satan; but behind him as the first cause there was the hand of God. Job's safety and blessing lay in his turning away from the third causes, and even from the second cause, that he might accept all from the hand of God; and so too it was with Paul.

Our answer then as to the nature of all miraculous powers of Satan is that they are divine power put forth with divine permission with a divine object, in answer to a Satanic demand for that power. Satan desired to tempt our Lord, and God put all His power at the enemy's disposal to effect his object if possible. The result was the exhibition of the perfections of the sinless Man. The "messenger of Satan" (2 Cor. 12) given to Paul was permitted of God with a purpose of grace, in spite of the malignity of the one who would destroy the usefulness of a servant of the Lord. In regard to every outward form of Satanic activity we can use the words of our Lord, "Thou couldest have no power at all against Me, except it were given thee from above" (John 19:11). In other words, it was not Satan's lightning, but God's that smote Job's property; God's, not Satan's, whirlwind that destroyed his family. Satan had demanded this — "Put forth Thy hand now, and touch all that he hath" (Job 1:11). Job sees only God's hand in his affliction — "The Lord hath taken away" (ver. 21); and God Himself says to Satan, "Thou movedst Me against him, to destroy him without cause" (Job 2:3).

As in Judah 's case, God may cause grief - deep and heart-rending; but He will still "have compassion according to the multitude of His mercies. For He doth not afflict willingly (or, from His heart), nor grieve the children of men"(v.32, 33). Not for His own pleasure does He chasten, but that we may be partakers of His holiness. He is too loving to lay upon us one unnecessary burden: He is too holy to omit one needed stroke. Unrighteousness He cannot tolerate. "To crush under His feet all the princes of the earth, to turn aside the right of a man before the face of the Most High, to subvert a man in His cause, the Lord approveth not" (v.34-36). All His ways are equal. It is only man's defective vision that makes it appear otherwise. When at last He takes us by the hand, and goes over all the path with us, letting the light of His own glory shine upon every step, we shall understand, as we cannot now, how just and true were all His ways as He led us through this scene.

Nothing can by any means assail His people apart from His permission, for "Who is he that saith, and it cometh to pass, when the Lord proveth not?" (v.37). It is a simple and elementary principle, yet which many are long years in comprehending. Once let it be clear before the soul that God is immediately concerned in every detail of life, and one is delivered from being engrossed with the instrumentalities acting. This comes out strikingly in the case of David when cursed by Shimei. He will not permit the ardent Abishai to touch the offender, for he realizes that "the Lord hath said unto him, Curse David," and he can therefore leave all in His hands, trusting that He will change the curse into a blessing. Job too, in the early period of his testing, is a fine example of submission to the will of God: and, refusing to consider second causes, "Shall we receive good at the hand of the Lord," he asks, "and shall we not also receive evil?" It is blessedly true, and most comforting to the soul to know, that, "Out of the mouth of the Most High proceedeth not evil and good" (v.38); but, on the other hand, He allows evil for our chastening; even, as in the case just cited, using Satan as an instrument to accomplish His gracious purposes.

In fallen humanity man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward. Besides the afflictions of man in body, mind, and estate, there are also the oppressions they suffer one from another. In some parts of the earth slavery still exists and in more enlightened parts the rich oppress the poor. James 2:6. Man is very ready to attribute all such things to the Creator, forgetting that God made man upright and God declared that everything that He had made, including man, was very good. It is sin that has brought in the misery, and man, by becoming the willing servant of Satan, has put himself into the hands of his enemy. Besides the afflictions incident on fallen humanity, there are afflictions that fall specially upon the Christian. There are those he may have to suffer for righteousness' sake as well as for Christ's sake. Another class of afflictions which the Christian has to bear is inflicted directly from the hand of God for his good. See CHASTENING.

(Vv. 6–8). In raising up Cyrus God would have all nations know that He is God and there is none else beside. The truth as to Jehovah is presented in contrast to the Zoroastrian belief of the Persians, by which they held that a certain eternal person brought into existence two powerful beings; one the creator of all good, and the other the author of all evils that afflict men. It is God who forms the light and creates the darkness; it is God who makes peace among the nations, and, in His governmental ways creates evil in the sense of punishment (see Job 2:19: Jer. 18:7–10). It is the LORD that does these things with the final result that blessing will descend from heaven, which earth will be open to receive. It will not be righteousness without grace, nor salvation at the expense of righteousness, but salvation and righteousness will “spring up together.”

1914 170 The very title here attached to the name of God proclaims Him as the source of all hope, and hope is one of the chief sustainers of life. It is that at least for the children of God. They know God in His love, they enjoy His care, His peace, yet they cannot do without hope as given by Him. When brought, through pure grace, to receive salvation in and by grace, they began to see this world in a new light. They perceive and experience that this world is a mass of ruins, the fruit and result of man's sin and disobedience. They do not charge God with the ruin. How could they? A true God, living, perfect, holy, even apart from goodness, cannot be the author of the misery and suffering we are so well acquainted with. The depravity of man's imagination can alone conceive such a thought. A believer acknowledges that, as a member of the human race, he is for his part responsible for the present state of things; and far, very far from complaining of God's ways, sees God's merciful intervention in the wondrous gift of His Son, sent to be the propitiation for our sins. "Herein is love," says the apostle, and how rightly!