Dr. J. Vernon McGee :: Why Do God's Children Suffer?

Why Do God’s Children Suffer?

For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds. Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin. And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto sons, 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 ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not? But if ye be without chastisement, of which all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons. Furthermore, we have had fathers of our flesh who corrected us, and we gave them reverence. Shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live? For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure, but he for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness. Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous; nevertheless, afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them who are exercised by it. Wherefore, lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees; and make straight paths for your feet, lest that which is lame be turned out of the way; but let it rather be healed. Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord; looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God, lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and by it many be defiled. (Hebrews 12:3-15)

Our subject is a perennial question that occurs constantly and monotonously more than any other Bible-related question. It is a question asked with a capital WHY? by both believer and nonbeliever. There have been more books written on this subject than the subject of the Antichrist or the social gospel or how to live the Christian life. And still the question is being asked, “Why do God’s children suffer?”

One of the factors that has added to the perplexity and complexity of the problem is the unbiblical sales pitch to the unsaved that is given in some quarters. It is claimed that if you will only trust Christ you will move into the green pastures where all is calm and the problems of life are solved. Even prosperity and healing abound as a bonus for believing. Another addition is joy without any sorrow and with no cloud to darken the sky. In other words, Christianity has been made an inoculation against disease and trouble. One book that was sent to me recently showed how you could make a million dollars by coming to Christ. At least the author did it, and he said that anyone could do it. The book didn’t help me at all, I can tell you that! Such promises are, to my judgment, totally unscriptural. They sound, however, very good. They appeal to the natural man. And they even sound scriptural.

Let’s understand one thing: Salvation is a redemption paid by Christ for the penalty of your sin and my sin. And the primary benefit is that a hell-doomed sinner is now going to heaven because Jesus died in his stead, and the Holy Spirit has brought conviction of sin into his heart and life while he was still “dead in trespasses and sins” (Ephesians 2:1).

Now I don’t want to be misunderstood. There is joy in the Christian life. There is peace. And there is healing. I know. I have experienced all three of these, and I can testify that all of them are certainly true.

However, it is an axiom of the Christian life that God’s children suffer. There is no escape from it. The Italian reformer, Savonarola, put it like this, “A Christian’s life consists in doing good and suffering evil.” That is the picture he paints, and down through the ages God’s men have painted that kind of a picture. In fact, the Word of God is very clear in this connection. If you go back as far as Job, which would take you back probably to the time of Moses or even to Abraham, you will find that he illustrates this truth by a great law of physics:

Yet man is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward. (Job 5:7)

According to the laws of aerodynamics, because of the heat being generated, sparks will fly upward. Just as that is true, man must experience troubles. We will face trouble in this world. David wrote:

Many are the afflictions of the righteous; but the LORD delivereth him out of them all. (Psalm 34:19)

And actually the Lord Jesus told His own (sometimes I think we forget Scriptures like this):

These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world. (John 16:33)

Paul likewise makes the dogmatic assertion:

Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. (2 Timothy 3:12)

There is no if, and, but, or perhaps about that at all. It is an axiom of Scripture that God’s children suffer.

God’s child is not promised that he will escape pain, disappointment, and sorrow in this life. Annie Johnson Flint has expressed it in a lovely way.

You see, God did not promise we would miss the storms of life. He only promised that we would make the harbor at last.

Scripture makes abundantly clear, not only the fact that God’s children do suffer, but the reasons why God’s children suffer. My friend, trials would be meaningless, suffering would be senseless, and testing would be irrational unless God had some good purpose and sound reason for them. Or, as it has been put, “God nothing does, nor suffers to be done, but what we would ourselves — could we but see through all events of things, as well as He.”

There is no pat answer to the problem of why God’s children suffer. It is not a simple question that can be answered with one verse of Scripture. People frequently ask me, “Can you give me a verse of Scripture for that?” Well, there are a great many truths in the Word of God that you don’t have an isolated verse for, I can assure you.

After I had been laid aside for several weeks one summer with severe illnesses, I had an opportunity to study Hebrews, chapter 12. I had reached that chapter in making tapes for the Thru the Bible Radio program. My doctor wouldn’t permit me to make tapes, but he allowed me to do what he called my “paperwork.” So I was able to continue studying, and I spent a great deal of time in this twelfth chapter. I found that I was studying it, not from the position of a spectator-saint, but from the position of one who was then in the arena of suffering.