Why does God let me hurt?

Job said, as many persons in the world today are saying, Why is it that so many terrible things are allowed to happen to some men? Why is there so much suffering and misery? and why is it that the best people are often the greatest sufferers? Not merely the "down-and-outs," who have squandered their very lives in riot and pleasure, but good persons, pious people, servants of God, are full of afflictions. Many do not know even a day's freedom from anxiety and pain.

The question arises continually now as then, How and why is there in the world so much grief and sorrow? Such thoughts breed discontent and distrust. Some here tonight perhaps find such misgivings creeping into their souls like poisonous serpents. They think within themselves, Surely God does not know the burdens of the human heart. If God is love, why are the righteous afflicted, and why do the innocent suffer? Such questionings spring from a secret distrust of God.

As to why believers, whose sins have all been gone into, judged, and judicially made an end of in the death of Christ, are not exempted from suffering is a cause of great concern in the minds of many who have not the scriptural answer to such a very important question. One can very well understand a rejecter of the gospel, upon whom lies the wrath of an angry God, being greatly afflicted, but to find one who is so loved as Christ is being in evil circumstances is quite another thing altogether.

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.

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."

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.

In 1983 a famous Rabbi in the US, Harold Kushner, published a book about the problem of suffering. In it he suggested that we should not blame God for sufferings (which is right); then he goes on to say that God is good, but that He cannot help it when evil befalls His people (which, of course, is a wrong thesis). Perhaps we may remind ourselves at this point of Romans 8:28, where we see the very opposite of Kushner's claim. God not only allows adverse circumstances, He is even in full control and uses them to form believers in His school' (Rom. 5:3-5; Jam. 1:3). His ways ultimately, and surely lead to the fulfilment of His purpose, that we should be conformed to Christ, the Firstborn among many brethren (Rom. 8:29). Why do we have sufferings? Is it not also, to make us realize that we are living in a world which is in direct opposition to God's will? (cf. 1 Peter 2:15).

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.

It would be a very grave mistake indeed to say “that all the trials and sufferings of Christians are punishments for some particular sin.” Very often these things are sent as a preventive and to draw the heart nearer to Christ. Who would presume to say that the sickness of Epaphroditus in Philippians 2 was a punishment for some particular sin? The apostle expressly tells us that “for the work of Christ, he was nigh to death.” Were Timothy's frequent infirmities sent as a punishment for some particular sin?

In the light of the New Testament, chastening may be sent for retribution, as we see in 1 Corinthians 11:30. But on the other hand it may not be, as we see in Paul's case — 2 Corinthians 12:7, - where the thorn in the flesh was preventive; lest he should be puffed up and fall. Yet again, it may be neither retributive nor preventive but educational, as Hebrews 12 shows. The Father trains and disciplines His children, and even scourges them; but all is in pursuance of His objective - "that we might be partakers of His holiness."

362 But there is a government of God in this world over those who are thus redeemed, and ever has been. "Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth." And when God exercises this discipline, which is always for our good in love, when a soul is truly humbled, He in His wisdom often takes it away, forgiving, as to His present government and ways, the sin which made it necessary. Not that all such visitations are because of sins. The world is in a state of misery through sin, and all are liable to be subject to this servitude of corruption. This the Lord states in John 9:3.