The Mystery of Suffering
It is easy to become discouraged when we see the suffering that goes on in this world. The Bible emphasizes the mystery of suffering. In Job 5:7 Job said, "Yet man is born to trouble.." He also said in Job 14:1, "Man who is born of woman is of few days and full of trouble." The wisest man who ever lived knew something of troubles and sufferings. Solomon said in Ecclesiastes 2:22, 23, "For what has man for all his labor, and for the striving of his heart with which he has toiled under the sun? For all his days are sorrowful, and his work burdensome; even in the night his heart takes no rest. This also is vanity."
Why do people suffer so much in this world? And more perplexing to many, why do people who love the Lord and seek to obey the Lord so often suffer? It is a mystery and a question that has been asked for thousands of years. Even Job and King Solomon had questions concerning suffering.
To find the cause of suffering one must go back to the book of Genesis, that seedbed of truth and revealer of the origins of everything. In Genesis we find that suffering follows sin as surely as night follows day. After Adam and Eve had sinned against the Lord this is what God said to them, "To the woman he said: 'I will greatly multiply your sorrow and your conception; in pain you shall bring forth children; your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.' Then to Adam he said, 'because you have heeded the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree of which I commanded you, saying, 'you shall not eat of it:' cursed is the ground for your sake; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life. Both thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you, and you shall eat the herb of the field. In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for dust you are, and to dust you shall return'" (Genesis 3:16-19).
The word sorrow occurs three times in those verses. Here we learn that suffering and sorrow are the direct result of sin. If there had been no sin there would have been no suffering. Because we are all sinners we are all going to suffer. Jesus said, "In the world you will have tribulation; . ." (John 15:33). In fact even Jesus who was without sin suffered because he came to live in this sinful world among men. So God has only one son without sin but God has no son without suffering.
Some have the idea that people suffer in order to pay for their sins. That is not why we suffer. Christ paid the penalty for sin when he died on the cross. Suffering is simply a part of a fallen world. But thanks be unto God that when a person is saved the sovereign Lord of the universe uses every ounce of hardship, trouble, suffering, and trials to mold and shape that person into the image of Christ -- that image that was lost in the fall is being restored. That is why we read in Romans 8:28, "And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to his purpose." And one of these days our sufferings will come to an end. A verse that speaks to the end of suffering is 1 Peter 1:6, 7. It says "In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials, that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ," One of these days when Jesus returns the sufferings of God's people will come to an end once and for all. Thank God for that! God loves you and so do we at First Baptist Church!