Pain and Suffering

When a person receives Jesus Christ, does that put an end to suffering in this life?

If a believer experiences grief, does that mean they lack faith?

Unfortunately, some, within the church, would say yes.

Let’s look at what the Bible has to say.

 

“The human spirit can endure a sick body, but who can bear it if the spirit is crushed?” - Prov. 18:14 (NLT)

 

“Laughter can conceal a heavy heart; when the laughter ends, the grief remains.” - Prov. 14:13 (NLT)

 

“Like one who takes away a garment on a cold day, or like vinegar poured on soda, is one who sings songs to a heavy heart.” - Prov. 25:20 (NKJV)

 

“Have mercy on me, Lord, for I am in distress. My sight is blurred because of my tears. My body and soul are withering away. I am dying from grief; my years are shortened by sadness. Misery has drained my strength; I am wasting away from within. I am scorned by all my enemies and despised by my neighbors – even my friends are afraid to come near me. When they see me on the street, they turn the other way. I have been ignored as if I were dead, as if I were a broken pot.” - Ps. 31:9-12 (NLT)

 

“O God, listen to my cry! Hear my prayer! From the ends of the earth, I will cry to You for help. My heart is overwhelmed. Lead me to the towering rock of safety, for You are my refuge, a fortress where my enemies cannot reach me. Let me live forever in Your sanctuary, safe beneath the shelter of Your wings! Interlude~ - Ps. 61:1-4 (NLT)

 

“Jesus wept.” - John 11:35 (NKJV)

 

“And being in agony, He prayed more earnestly. Then His sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground.”  (Jesus in the garden before His crucifixion) - Luke 22:44 (NKJV)

 

“Yea, and all that will live Godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.” - 2 Tim. 3:12 (NKJV)

 

Pain and suffering are a part of our fallen state in this world. The question one should ask, rather than do Christians suffer, is, what should Christians (or anyone) do when pain and suffering come?

 

“Whom have I in heaven but You? I desire You more than anything on earth. My heart may fail, and my spirit may grow weak, but God remains the strength of my heart; He is mine forever.” - Ps. 73:25-26 (NLT)

 

“But as for me, how good it is to be near God! I have made the sovereign Lord my shelter, and I will tell everyone about the wonderful things You do.” - Ps. 73:28 (NLT)

 

There are so many passages that deal with pain and comfort, I could go on and on, but that would be a very long post. Suffice it to say, there is much to say about suffering but also the hope that comes through Christ Jesus. Emotions are not always good but we must remember that God gave us emotions, good and bad, and there are reasons. How we choose to deal with them is what we need to master.

Do we let grief wear us down? Do we seek to be on an emotional high at all times? Neither are good for us. We need to allow grief to have its place and move on. Likewise, joy and happiness have their place, but we will not always be in a state of bliss.

Wherever we are, we can look to God and trust Him. Even in the darkest grief, God is still good, and we can find His peace and even joy.    

 

“Thus saith the Lord, the King of Israel, and His Redeemer, the Lord of Hosts, I Am the First and I Am the Last; and beside Me there is no God.” - Isa. 44:6 (NKJV)

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WISDOM: A Commentary on a Commentary Part II

 

Today I will pick up with the first chapter of Dennis Prager’s commentary, The Rational Bible: Genesis- God, Creation, and Destruction.

In Chapter 1, he begins with the beginning, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Gen. 1:1).

He states that to some extent, this is the most important verse in Scripture. I find his narrative to be dead-on. He writes, “First, the verse posits a Creator of the universe. That means, among other things, there is meaning to existence. If there is no Creator, there is no ultimate purpose to existence, including of course, human existence. We humans can make up a meaning because we are the one species that cannot live without meaning. But the fact remains that we made it up.”

When the Bible was taught in schools and the majority of people in America went to church, we did not see the violence and chaos that we see, or live with, today. Why? I would argue that when we removed God out of the picture, we lost our sense of purpose and identity (I would also add accountability). When we have no solid foundation on which to base our meaning, purpose, or accountability, we become a people devoid of conscience and each seeks to make his own purpose, generally with selfish intent, and impose his/her will on others. The perfect recipe for disaster.

Prager continues:

 

Of course, atheists argue that believers in God made up God; therefore, God does not really exist. But they don’t always apply this rule to the existence of what they acknowledge they made up: meaning. If what we make up (God) doesn’t exist, what atheists make up (meaning) doesn’t exist. If there is no God, we know there is no ultimate meaning or purpose to life: that all existence – including, of course, our own – is the result of random chance. But we do not know there is no Creator. So, unlike those who know they make up meaning, neither we who believe in God nor atheists know we made up God. On the contrary, there are very strong arguments for a designer of the world, but there are no arguments for an ultimate purpose to life if there is no God.  

 

Man has always sought the meaning and purpose to life. With the hopelessness that comes with not knowing God, meaning, and purpose, one can only try to create for themselves some sense of being. For some, it is to take what others have. For others, it is charity, but as good as this is, it is for selfish reasons. Most of us gain a great satisfaction out of helping others. At its heart, the motivation is to make us feel better. I’m not saying this is necessarily a bad thing, but when we condemn those who take the former approach, on what moral code do we make such condemnation? After all, we are merely products of random chance and this life is all there is, why not live it up and do what pleases us?

If we look at the world, we see chaos when man does what he wills. Within nature, we see order and beauty. Of all I have read and studied, I have never seen any belief system that demonstrates why this is, other than the God of the Bible.  

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WISDOM: A Commentary on a Commentary

 

What is wisdom? As a simple man, a scholar by no means, I have been intrigued with wisdom since my early teen years. It was at that time, my family was attending a church and I remember this verse in huge letters on the wall,

“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding” (Prov. 9:10).

This was penned by King Solomon and most of us know he has been considered the wisest man that ever lived. How did Solomon gain his wisdom? I’m glad you asked!

When Solomon assumed his role as king, in place of his father David, the LORD appeared to him and asked him what he wanted. Solomon humbled himself and asked for wisdom to rule Israel. He did not ask for wealth, long life, or anything for his own profit. For this, God said, “behold, I have done according to your words; see, I have given you a wise and understanding heart, so that there has not been anyone like you before you, nor shall any like you arise after you” (1 Kings 3:12, NKJV). Because he had not asked for anything for himself, God also gave him great wealth, long life, and more.

Recently, I have wanted to gain an understanding of the Jewish mindset regarding the Old Testament, or Torah (first five books of the O.T.). I purchased a book written by Dennis Prager, a man I respect very much, and a teacher of the Torah. In his commentary, Genesis, God, Creation, and Destruction, from his, The Rational Bible series, he writes:

 

Here, too, because it has so much wisdom, the Torah – and the rest of the Bible – is indispensable. However, we live in an age that not only has little wisdom, it doesn’t even have many people who value it. People greatly value knowledge and intelligence, but not wisdom. And the lack of wisdom – certainly in America and the rest of the West – is directly related to the decline in biblical literacy. In the American past, virtually every home, no matter how poor, owned a Bible. It was the primary vehicle by which parents passed wisdom on to their children. In the modern period, however, people have increasingly replaced Bible-based homes and Bible-based schools with godless homes and with schools in which no reference to the Bible is ever made. (p. xix).

 

So what is the outcome? He continues, “As a result, we are less wise and more morally confused. As I showed in Exodus, in my discussion of secular education as a potential ‘false god,’ the best educated people in the West have often both lacked wisdom and been among the greatest supporters of evil ideologies and regimes” (p. xix).  

I think he hit the nail on the head. Today, we see people who have no clue what truth is, or even sex. It’s funny how those who tout, “follow the science” are ignorant too or reject the truth of science regarding biological sex. The confusion over truth, “your truth and my truth may be different,” is astounding to me. Truth, by definition, is true in all times, for all people, in all places. What these people replace with truth is opinion or feelings. Wisdom is knowing the difference.

In his argument that the Torah was not created by men, Prager presents some examples of what the Torah introduced to the world:

 

·          A moral God: All gods prior to Torah’s God were capricious, not moral. A just and moral God meant, among other things, ultimately justice will prevail (if not in this life, in the next). It also meant human beings, imbued with a sense of justice, can argue with, and question, this just God (the name “Israel” means “wrestle – or struggle – with God.”)

·         A God beyond nature: God made nature, and is therefore not natural. This led to the end of the universal human belief in nature-gods (such as rain-gods). And sure enough, as belief in the Torah’s God declines, nature-worship seems to be returning.

·         A God who loves and who wants to be loved: This was another world-changing concept introduced by the Torah to the world.

·         Universal human worth: Every human being is “created in God’s image.” Nothing like this had ever been posited prior to the Torah.

·         Universal human rights: Another world-altering consequence of universal human worth (p. xxiii).    

 

He makes a profound statement when he writes, “The Torah is so utterly different – morally, theologically, and in terms of wisdom – from anything else preceding it and, for that matter, from anything written since – that a reasonable person would have to conclude either moral supermen or God was responsible for it” (p. xxii).     

I have concluded the same. It is irrational to think anything else since the Bible has been the most scrutinized book of all time and has held up to every challenge. While some might argue that it (the Bible) is absurd, given that it goes beyond the norm into the supernatural, there have been many beliefs that seemed just as questionable. At one time, people thought the earth was flat (the Bible got this right, Isaiah 40:22). If you went back in time and told people one day man would walk on the moon or you would be able to talk to another person, while seeing them from across the globe, in real time, from an untethered device, they would have considered this impossible.

While we can’t introduce unbelievers to God in physical form, we can show undeniable evidence that proves God’s existence. Even when God came in physical form, in the person of Jesus, people rejected Him. It’s not a head problem, it’s a heart problem. So how much more-so will people reject the Bible?

Prager makes an excellent argument for the moral teachings of Scripture; the data bears witness to this. The further we distance ourselves from wisdom and the moral teachings of Scripture, the more we regress back to a chaotic world that worships the creation rather than the Creator (Romans 1:25).  

Prager is not a Christian and I do disagree with some of his views of Scripture, I will right more on this later, but he is a man of great knowledge and one can certainly learn a great deal from him. His wisdom and insights are brilliant.