Why does God allow trials and tribulations?

The question has been often asked, Why does God allow the people on whom He has set His love to suffer in this way? and the answer is simple. It is because He loves them. There may be, there are, other reasons, but this is the chief. Whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth, and if the heart wander chastening is necessary. The wise man tells us, "By sorrow the heart is made better," and experience teaches us the truth of this. How readily will evil attach itself to the best of us! but in the furnace of affliction the dross is separated from the purer metal, and consumed. Moreover, when we endure chastening, God deals with us as with sons; and every trial which visits us, were we but patient under it, would be fruitful in blessing to our souls. True, the experience of passing through the trial is not pleasant; it would be no trial if it were; but a morning of joy succeeds the night of sorrow, and in the quiet after-time we say with David, "It is good for me that I have been afflicted."

We are short in Christian intelligence if we do not know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to those that are called according to purpose. God often sends trouble as chastening for the good of His children. Sometimes as in 1 Cor. 11 it is because of positive sin; but they totally mistake who suppose that it is restricted to that. Heb. 12 puts it on ground quite independent of so sorrowful an occasion, and treats it as flowing from His Fatherly love, and for profit, that we might be partakers of His holiness. It is as much or more to hinder sin as in consequence of its indulgence. It often is a trial of faith and an honour from the Lord, as the apostles so well knew, and many a simple saint in no such prominence. For the disciples as such are called through many tribulations to enter into the kingdom of God.

But in any case "doth any among you suffer trouble? let him pray." God is the resource in trouble; and the saint, instead of only bearing it or sinking under it, is exhorted to "pray." He is encouraged to expect blessing in crying to God about the trouble. It is a practical victory over the enemy who seeks our loss by it, if our mildness or forbearance be made known to all men, and our requests be made known to God. With unbelief it is the contrary: insisting on our rights as and with men, as if God entitled any to such a plea; and making demands or requests on men, instead of looking only thus to God.

But trials of similar character to those found among the "children of this world" are found also among God's children. Oftentimes God's desire in thus dealing with them is to manifest to themselves the evil of their own natural hearts (but this is not always necessary); and what is always necessary and of far greater importance in God's sight is to make then, faith shine more brightly. This was the desired end in His dealings with His servant Job, though in the same trials Job also learnt deep lessons as to nature's (i.e., his own) vileness. (Job 42:5-6) God sees faith in His children: this He values, and the trial is a trial of faith. Thus God takes the distinct ground in our trials of helping us. This is in order that faith (which, it may be, He sees is so feeble) may be strengthened. I believe there is no exception, but that every trial of a Christian is a trial of faith. (1 Peter 1:7.)

It is evidently not always the desire of God to manifest to me (or to any one else) the evil that is in my nature - evil which always rebels against the trials He sends. For if I bow to the trials, and to the word of God, which tells me God is taking the ground of helping me in and by them, nature gets no place and no voice; that is, it is not displayed, though there.

Peter might have said to the Lord, Thou canst hinder my being thus sifted, as Martha and Mary thought Jesus could have hindered the death of Lazarus; and, truly, He who can give the crown of life can shelter us; but He does not do so, that we may be tried. Satan desired to have Job to sift him like wheat, and God permitted him to do so; and this happens to us also. We often say within ourselves, Why has He dealt thus with me? Why has He put me in such or such a crucible? Ah, it is Satan who desired, and God who permitted it. Things often. occur which we cannot understand; such things are intended to shew us what the flesh is.

When the children of God are faithful, God may leave them in trial and difficulty, to bring out that is them which is not of the Spirit. He may also allow evil to have its course and test us, in order that we may understand, that the aim of faith is not here at all, and see that in circumstances the most difficult God can intervene, as in the sacrifice of Abraham and the raising of Lazarus.

The standard of God's holy government is fixed and sure, and can never be lowered. What a man sows, that shall he reap, and punishment for sin is judicially and divinely certain, but to limit God in His dealings with His children to that is to dishonour Him, and to miss the richest and choicest of His designs. In point of fact, it displaces Him, leading to the conception of Him as an arbitrary Being, as the book of Job shews, and, coming to men, it turns the moral order of society upside down, and is accountable for the cruellest sufferings inflicted by men upon their fellows. In Job we have a man whose sufferings might well melt the hardest heart: yet, his friends (and they were men of a very high standard of life), through missing this important link in the chain of God's dealings with His servant, were turned into the cruellest and bitterest of foes. Why? Because, by limiting God's dealings to the punishment of sin, and missing the educative and promotive character of the sufferings, they could only conclude that such a great sufferer must have been a great sinner. What a solemn position these good men were found in. Condemning Job, by attempting ignorantly to justify God, instead of sympathising with the needy, they fixed upon him the cruellest charges. The position became a kind of deadlock, and those who came to help were found to hurt. The basis of their argument was wrong, their premises were false, and making a wrong start, both as to God and to Job, instead of the good that the circumstances called for, the very worst that was in them came out. It was doubtless thoughts like these that led the poet to write that "Man was made to mourn," for indeed "Man's inhumanity to man makes countless thousands mourn." Like the ecclesiastical tyranny of the dark ages of so-called "Church History," these men belied their messages, and were turned into despots of the inquisition. Thinking they were serving God by treating an unbroken sinner in faithfulness, they went all the length to recover him, and like many to-day, who conclude that THEY are the testimony, with hearts steeled against every human and tender feeling, persecute to the death those who may be like Job in the crucible of suffering, but, like him also, may be more in the thoughts and sympathies of heaven than themselves.

Yes, God in infinite and tender goodness can, and does, bring His children through sorrow and suffering. He did it with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, David and others, and He is doing it to-day. He may chasten for sin, as corrective, or He may discipline the soul as seeing danger ahead, which surely is preventive, and, as in the case of Job, He may put us through a good deal of trial, that we may learn ourselves, and enter better into the knowledge of Him — which is surely promotive.

While God uses sickness, accidents, and other trying situations to chasten His children, we must never conclude that God is disciplining us only because of sin. (This was the mistake Job's friends made regarding his suffering.) The Lord often uses sufferings and trials to draw us closer to Him. He may seek to strengthen our faith by putting us in situations where we have to depend upon Him.

When others are suffering, it is never wise to think that God is chastening them for wrong doing. We are not to judge; that's God's business. However, when we are being chastened personally, we should ask God whether He intends it as correction, training for usefulness, or character development. If we do not get in touch with Him about His purpose, and cooperate with Him, we will not gain the happiness and peace He intends for us. Remember, God's dealings are a reality, and we will suffer great loss if we pass over them lightly. On the other hand, they will contribute greatly to our peace and happiness if we take them seriously. We can brighten our testimony for Him by cheerfully accepting our trials.

Tribulation works patience, and patience experience, and experience hope. As we endure in tribulation we come to an experimental knowledge of ourselves, and of God's way with us, and in subjection to His holy will we have the compensating grace that He pours into our souls. Moreover we begin to see the end He has in view. We are not like Job was, for he, poor man, went through his tribulation without knowing the "why" of it; but we, who have heard of his patience, have also seen the end of the Lord. He has not kept us in ignorance as to our destiny. He has predestined us to be "conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the First-born among many brethren" (Rom. 8:29).

p180 [From the French.] * It is clear that afflictions are trials of faith as well as chastening; so we ought not to suppose that what happens to us is always for the purpose of chastening, properly so-called. There is discipline as well as chastening; that is what purifies, what helps to mortify the flesh, what breaks the will, and helps by an inward work to shelter us from outward temptations, which would otherwise surprise us, because of the innate levity of the heart, which yields itself so easily, alas, without knowing it, to vanity, if there is nothing to counterbalance it. I do not speak of outward levity, but of this tendency to forget the presence of God, which is so natural to us. There are then chastening, discipline, and the trying of faith. Chastening ought to affect the conscience, awakening it as to any failure (at least, through the operation of the Holy Spirit which accompanies it); but at the same time the work is not done until the root of the failure is discovered to the conscience, and this applies to all sorts of discipline.

Want of dependence on God, pride, may cause us to fall into many failures; the soul is not restored before that which has given occasion to these failures is judged in the heart. Discipline applies rather to the condition of the soul. There are negligence, pride, inward forgetfulness of God, a thousand things which need the pruning-knife of the Husbandman, and it is even necessary that things which are in nowise laid bare to the conscience should be hindered from acting upon the heart. The flesh needs to be thus kept in check beforehand. But there is a perfecting of the new creature which leaves room for trials: Christ passed through them. Although the new man is in itself perfect, still there is progress. In us these various kinds are mingled; in Christ there was this last only. Not that He was not always perfect, but He "learned obedience by the things which he suffered;" His faith and His obedience were put to the test by circumstances ever becoming more difficult, and this even to death. His perfection was not to act, but to suffer; in suffering there was a more entire surrender of Himself. It was so likewise with the apostle Paul; we find this more particularly in the Epistle to the Philippians. God allows the enemy to put difficulties in the path of the new man. A trial comes; the energy of the new man is exercised by it; it is strengthened by it, and in the end it gains the victory. If one does not act according to faith one shrinks back, one loses joy, or at least the light of the Holy Spirit. The new man, while perfect in his nature, is a dependent being. This is the place which was taken by Christ.

The trials of saints, as they come from God, are generally if not always intimately connected with the position grace gives. God in His sovereignty calls His saints to fill various places of service, some to rule and authority, some to teaching or preaching, others may only know the place of suffering and weeping; but all are for the carrying out of one great purpose (I speak of saints) the accomplishment of one will, a whole in which each saint however humble has his part. God has a niche in His temple for each, a place assigned by grace. It is there each is tested. But if grace appoints the place, it is always there to maintain saints in it. Often the trial is allowed through our want of faith to hide the grace, and then we complain and murmur. "But God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it." He always provides the needed grace. —