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There are many reasons for suffering, and all of them are not evil (cataclysm, trials approved of God, the pain of discipline, etc.,), though all that is evil eventually causes great suffering in one way or another. Irenaeus, the early church Bishop of Lyons who sat at the feet of Polycarp the student of John, was almost always writing apologetically, either in response to skeptics of his time, or to strengthen and equip the brethren, and in this case, pointed out how God uses the suffering and evil of this world to help us grow and develop in character as He conforms us into the image of Christ Himself, who as a man was made perfect in His suffering. Growth is often what appears to be the result of the interactions of orderly and chaotic forces. Change is often birthed on the passing away of the old. Jesus tells us that a grain of wheat can not bring forth fruit unless it falls to the ground and dies (to its grain-ness). In fact, the potential for all that the plant will become, even the bearing of fruit after its own kind, is dependent on this process, and gains the necessary mulching and nutrition it initially needs to sprout and grow from its apparently deteriorating remains. Of course in this particular reference Jesus was referring to His own death, burial, and resurrection, that had to take place in order to birth forth the Church (John 12:24).

 

In John 15:2 Jesus tells us, "Every branch in me that does not bear fruit He takes away, and every branch that bears fruit He prunes that it may bring forth more fruit." As a branch, one must admit that pruning is never pleasant, but in the end retrospectively we all can see it was worth it. But this is not something new with the teaching of Christ but is first found in the oldest of books Deuteronomy and Job.

 

Deuteronomy 8:5 tells us that sometimes the Lord has to chasten us. David considered this a blessing (Psalm 94:12). The wise King Solomon tells us that this is because He loves us, we are His children, and just as a father chastises his child, so the Lord chastises those whom He loves (Proverbs 3:11,12). The same is true with Jesus, the Son of Man (Revelations 3:19). But this process, though grievous at the time, has it's sure rewards (Hebrews 12:11). We truly grow in our suffering. Listen to what Job said when he was in the most grievous time of trial (Job 23:10). Job tells us, "But He knows the way that I take, when He has tested me, I will come forth as gold."

 

Sometimes the afflictions He allows us to go through are to cause us to repent, like when David declares that before he was afflicted he went astray, but as a result of his unpleasant experience he could now obey the Lord (Psalm 119:67). When we get ourselves into trouble, sometimes God will use the circumstance to get our attention and teach us to depend on Him (Jonah 2:2). He literally refines us as refiner does with silver (Zechariah 13:9). A silver smith applies the heat to the silver purposely putting it into the fire and watches it very closely. The dross slowly burns off while the smith never takes His eye off his hoped for product. He knows the process is complete when he can see his image in the reflection. So it is with God and His children. Therefore our light and momentary troubles we now must endure are all helping us to achieve an eternal glory that far outweighs them all (2 Corinthians 4:17). Amen?

He will even use the terrible tribulation to this ends. There will be some who will be saved during the great tribulation and because it caused them to draw close to the Lord will "wash their robes in the blood of the Lamb (Revelations 7:14). This proves by the way that the Spirit is not taken out of the way. Even the man who has built his whole house on the solid foundation of Christ and God's word will face tempests during that time, just as we do now. The difference is we will endure, while those who trust in the arm of flesh will build on shifting sand of self, and when the winds come and flood rushes in their house will fall (Luke 6:48; 1 Peter 1:7; 4:12).

 

So from all this we can see that struggle is an important part of teaching us to thrive and endure. We learn and develop many fine applicable traits like patience, longsuffering, perspective, etc.!

 

However, there is also a type of suffering that is the direct result of one's sin (Deuteronomy 28-30), and other times when God allows a tragedy to use it to glorify Himself. When the Pharisees ask Jesus who was to blame, the man or his parents, Jesus replies nobody, but it was so that God's glorious works could be seen in him (John 9:1-3), and then sometimes the people are simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. There are also natural disasters and the consequence of the free will choices of evil people.

 

Now then, there are four aspects of world and personal events that we must also understand in order to gain a fuller Biblical appreciation regarding this age old concern of suffering and evil, and here they are:

 

1)      On the one hand, God occasionally demonstrates an irresistible will! This comes out of His Sovereignty as Lord and Creator, and the idea of Divine Providence. God definitely can, and in some situations does, cause such an influence (that can be considered the cause of suffering or even evil from the finite human perspective) and that no one and/or nothing can stop it from occurring. Colossians 1:16, 17, indicates that God the Father, by His Word, the Son, and with the Holy Spirit, not only created all things and so can do with them as He pleases, but also that all things (which includes the entire Universe and all in it) are sustained and kept in order by Him. Before He imposed lawfulness into the chaos, darkness was on the face of the deep, and at first the matter of the Universe was without form and was void (in turmoil).

 

2)      We also know that God can, and in some cases does, control and use natural events in the out-working of His will (Deuteronomy 11:17; James 5:17). Sometimes these are not pleasant to humans who are effected by these occurrences, and though most often they are a part of Judgment or a warning of something much worse, sometimes they actually bless. Just remember that God causes the rain to fall upon the just and the unjust alike, but so it is with the thunder and the lightening!

 

Remember when Jesus calmed the tempestuous sea (Luke 8:23-25)? Can tempests be considered evil since sometimes people die? Do they cause suffering? Of course they do...just look at the recent tsunamis and earthquakes. But as disciples in the very presence of the Creator incarnate, was the tempest they were in really the important issue that they should have been concerned with? Jesus seemed more concerned that some lacked faith? So what if this tempest ended their earthly existence! In Messiah (Christ) life is much more than our momentary brief stay here, it comprises eternity! The saved are actually better off. The unsaved should grieve because their names are not written in the Lambs Book of Life. The children of God who got angry with Him obviously still lacked the type of faith exemplified by Shadrach, Mesach, and Abednego. They needed to know that though their God coulddeliver them, that even if He chose not to, what He would do, actually would be what was best, and that in the long run, if they really trusted in Him, they would realize this ultimately would have been the choice they really preferred (His will being done). When the Lord says trust in me and I will give you the desires of your heart, He is saying that knowing that if they are truly trusting in Him, their desire will be for His will to be done and not their own.

That is why it is written that he who seeks to save his life will lose it, but he who is willing to lose his life for the Lord's sake shall surely save it! I mean in the Lazareth incident what did they have to worry about? They were there with the Lord Jesus, the Messiah, the Son of the living God! They saw Him physically resuscitate the dead on a number of occasions! They had full confidence in a glorious afterlife! They did not merely hope in one, they absolutely knew there was one!

During the storm on the sea of Gallilee the outward appearance of their circumstance served only to take their focus off of the reality that lay asleep next to them in the boat. They forgot that God is in control of the bigger picture. Eternal life, not death, is the real issue (Romans 6:23). The appearance of outward circumstances are irrelevant from the faith perspective. In fact sometimes they are even deceiving. Remember when Abraham and Isaac left their servant to ascend Mt. Moriah? Abraham knew he was going there to slay the boy, but tells the servant to wait there until "we" return!?! In faith, Abraham knew something we may not truly realize. God had already promised that through Isaac the chosen seed would come (Genesis 3:15). Isaac was the child of promise who would eventually bear this precious seed! Would God allow this slaying to countermand His own promise? Well even if He did Abraham was sure God had to have something in mind, because Abraham believed God (not just believed in God)! Resurrection perhaps? Who knows? However, Abraham had genuine faith and so, staggered not at the promise of God. He trusted that God's will was best, and therefore even if the Lord was going to allow Abraham to slay the boy, Abraham would have surely slain him, out of the fullness of his faith. Would we then judge God? God forbid!

 

         Now God has said, and shown over and over, that He loves us. So when at the crossroads, will we believe Him or not? Will we place our trust in Him or not? Now I did not ask, do we believe "in" Him, but will we believe Him? Like father Abraham! Only this is the trust that equals a truly effectual faith.

 

Remember when Peter was urged out of the boat by Jesus and actually walked on the water? As long as He was focused on the Lord, full of faith, all was well, but as soon as He took His eyes off of Jesus, and let the appearance of his circumstances govern His perception (the waves and fierce winds), His faith wavered and he began to sink. But even then, when in the midst of his despair and fear, he called out to the Lord, and the Lord stretched out His arm and saved Him! Man! Thanks be to God for those stretched out arms!

 

Other examples of God's Sovereign providence in natural circumstance can be seen in the plagues of Exodus, the destruction of Jerusalem at the hand of Nebuchednezzar, the deaths of Ananias and Saphira, and so on. Oh yes, God can and does work His causative will, and can and does use political forces, natural disaster, and other things to work out His over-all plan. But sometimes it is just the outcome of natural or choice motivated trends. Sometimes what appears to be innocent people get hurt or killed, but who knows what He is saving them from or for? His ways are higher than our ways, His thoughts are higher than our thoughts! So even when He brings a judgment or a disaster to warn of coming judgment, is He unjust? I think not!

 

3)      A second aspect that we see in world and personal events is called God's permissive will. This is when God has not ordained or caused a certain thing or event but allows it to happen, and then having foreknown that it would, works it all together for the good of those who love Him. Or sometimes He allows it to teach us. Or uses it to demonstrate worthiness of an inevitable judgment. For example, God never willed or ordained polygamy, but He allowed it in such a way that in the cases of Abraham and Jacob He worked out the coming of Messiah through which the maximum number of souls would be saved. However, it likewise led to the very political situations we see everyday in the press, regarding the Middle East , that will eventually lead to the return of Christ, and the judgment of the enemies of God, throughout history, so that justice will truly have been served.

 

4)      God also has created beings with free will (certain orders of angels and mankind), and in His foreknowing takes into account, all the consequences of all those actions and choices and somehow works them all in. How can this be save that He is God? After all, about 75% or more of all pain and suffering on this planet is caused by man's own fallen nature and the choices he makes or has made. In the beginning, God gave man dominion over the Earth, and by the beguilement of Eve and the disobedience of Adam (which was not God's will for them), the dominion of the realm was passed over to Satan and his adversarial hosts. Sin, sickness, and death, came into the world through Satan, and were not part of God's original intent. But they had been given free will. So in order for God to redeem man and the planet, while not violating the free volitional choices of His creature, i.e., man, whom He loved, He had to come and Himself serve for our sins (because we were/are all utterly incapable) having taken on the nature of man, so we could be freed from the curse, and once again become children of God. So then, people can make many bad choices that bring inevitable harm to self and others (Romans 8:19-21), thus ourselves causing most of the suffering and evil, but those who will trust God rest secure no matter what happens, even if they perish (Romans 8:30,31; 1 Corinthians 9-10)!

 

5)      Finally there is the matter of natural cause and effect consequence. These are not God's fault either, neither will He intervene, and it is not the choice of any evil, ill willed, or shortsighted persons. The Earth was made perfect for life as we know it, but in order to maintain the sensitive balance of all forces at work here, and provide the maximum benefit to most, the Earth goes through various changes, i.e., rains, air pressure variances, platelet shifts, volcanic eruptions, etc.! Now these naturally occur, but somehow man loves to build cities over fault lines, and form villages at the feet of active volcanoes, etc., and then wants to blame God when these natural pressures and changes express themselves. If volcanoes and earthquakes did not occur, I venture to guess this planet would have exploded eons ago. Why should God be seen as the culprit? Will people scream, "why God, why did you do this?", when southern  California splits and sinks into the ocean? When global warming increases to where the water levels rise 100 feet will they say…"Why didn't you stop this God?" The warning signs are screaming loud enough, we have the power to effect change, but we are, as always, blind and deaf until the water is rising up around our house! Some things just happen! Remember the story of the tower that had fallen on a man and the Pharisees trying to trap Jesus asked, "Who's fault was it, this man's sins, or the sins of his parents that caused the Tower to fall and kill him?" And Jesus replied, "Neither, the Tower just fell on Him!" Sometimes the tower just falls, the poor man was just in the wrong place at the wrong time!

 

Now yes, God could hyper-Calvanistically control every little detail and word and event through all time, but then we would all just be puppets or robots, and how would He then be just in judging anyone who merely, irresistibly, did what He had manipulated them, or programmed them to do? See the fatalism in this? No! Free will and providence are a finally orchestrated marriage in God's plan. This is the emphasis the earliest church fathers placed as taught and so I give it to you beloved. Remeber, even the evil can be used by God to achieve His goals, for God works all things (even evil and suffering) together for the good of those who love Him. Thanks be to God and may His blessing ever be upon us all.

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Q: Why does suffering and evil exist in the world by augustrean and irenaus books?
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