Why God puts us through pain

But another aspect of suffering is considered from verse 5 to verse 11: "And ye have forgotten the exhor­tation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of Him: For whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth." If they suffered persecution from sinners, yet it was God who was allowing this means by which to train His own to conform to His own thoughts: this was "the chastening of the Lord." Blessed is that faith that looks far deeper than the surface of things, to see that every bit of trial and affliction, though it may be occasioned by the grossest wickedness of men, is under the perfect control of our God and Father, being the very thing our own souls need to form them in the pattern God has planned. A child may little understand the reasons for his father's dealings, but if the father has proven himself perfectly kind and trustworthy toward his child, then the child may have fullest confidence that those dealings are to be trusted.

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.

Why did they suffer? Became they were God's sons. Men, the instruments for their sufferings, might seem to be dealing with them as they chose. It was not so. God indeed allowed it. He had His own purposes in it all for the rich blessing of His saints. He can even use Satan to carry out His ends on behalf of His people. He then was above it all, and was really by their trials training His children. Behind the hand that smote them was the Father, permitting it in His love to them and for their profit. "It is for chastening that ye endure," so wrote the Apostle; "God deals with you as with sons; for what sun is he whom his father chastens not? But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons" (12:7-8). It is of the training up of children that we here read. How stimulating was such ministry! To have ease in the midst of their countrymen, who were bitterly opposed to God and His Son, would indicate for them a state of spiritual bastardy. Which of them would desire that?

The ways of God with His own are often painful, for it is written, “My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of Him: for whom the Lord loves He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives” (Heb. 12:5-6). Behind the chastening and scourging there is a heart of infinite love, and every movement is direct with perfect wisdom. Moreover, God has shown to us the reason for His ways of discipline. This is the way in which we learn endurance and subjection to God; this is how we become partakers of God’s holiness, and bear the peaceable fruit of righteousness that He will display in us in the day of Christ’s glory.

The purpose of God's chastening of His children is "that we might be partakers of his holiness" (Heb.12:10), and that by trying and difficult circumstances and unpleasant situations of His chastening dealings with us, we might be delivered from our own wills and become yielded to God's "good, and acceptable, and perfect, will" (Rom.12:2). Chastening is not just punishment or chastisement; it is really child training, instruction and discipline, which every child of God must experience from the Father who deals with us as sons (Heb.12:7).

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.

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).

He suffered for righteousness, and He suffered for sin; but, besides this, He entered, as taking by grace a place among the godly remnant in Israel, into all which that remnant would feel as seeing the state of Israel (of which they were actually part) under the chastening hand of God for sin. All this He felt as none else could feel. His sympathy is as perfect now, though no longer passing through the sorrows by which He gained the experience of it. Besides, it is only in the part which has to be broken and corrected that we suffer; a touched affection, when Christ is with us in the grief, is of infinite sweetness, though the sweetness of sorrow. It is only when the will mixes itself up with the sorrow that there is any bitterness in it, or pain in which Christ is not. But then this is all useful and what we need. The Lord takes your dear babe to heaven (certainly he has no loss): what is the rest of God's dealings in it with us - with one's heart? He who has made a mother's feelings knows what they are - knows what He has wounded, and knows why - has a purpose of love in it. There is a mass of things in the sincerest of us of which we are not aware, which are not brought into subjection to God, which work and shew themselves unsuspected. God breaks in upon us; how many things He shews - how many cords He cuts at one blow! A whole system of affections is touched: we feel that death has its place and part in them. I never saw a family the same thing after the first death that it was before. There was a breach in the circle. What belonged to the whole body of affections and life of this world was touched, was found to be - mortal: it was struck in its very nature. The course of life went on; the wave had closed over that which had been cast into it; but death, and the affections which belong to this world, had been found to meet. But all this is well; for death is come in. Besides we live in these things; our will lives in them; and when the will is broken, so far as it is so, it is broken for everything. We learn much more to lean on what never breaks - not to lose our affections, but to have them more in connection with Christ, less with this will of our own nature; for nature must now die as well as sin. But then Christ never makes a breach, except to come in and connect the soul and heart more with Himself; and it is worth all the sorrow that ever was, and more, to learn the least atom more of His love and of Himself; and there is nothing like that, nothing like Him; and it lasts.

In the story of the few interesting incidents in the life of the apostle Paul, he tells us with unmistakeable plainness, that the thorn in the flesh was sent for the express purpose of preventing self-exaltation, and thus suffering wrought in the prevention of sin.