People today ask me why a good God, a loving God, allow suffering to occur? Surely a loving a God, who sends his own son to die on the cross for the human race would not allow these same humans to suffer?

The problem with this question, is that it is a statement that is actually asking two questions in one, and both need completely different answers to be answered properly.

The first question should be : “why is their suffering?” or “what causes suffering?”
The second is : Why doesn’t God do anything about it?

The problem with the problem

Just because we suffer doesn’t automatically mean that it is from God! Most of the suffering we experience today is because of our own sinful nature. The fact that we aren’t perfect is exactly why we suffer. Suffering is but a reminder of the fact that we do live in a fallen world, where broken relationships are the norm, and the nicest people might die first. The state of the current world is but the aftermath of what happened in the garden of Eden, and until we are reunited with God, suffering will be a daily thing, exactly because we are not with God. God doesn’t cause suffering, he stops it!

But this doesn’t mean that God doesn’t allow us to suffer. Just like Joseph ( Genesis 37-50 ) where God allowed certain things to happen to Joseph so that he may become second in charge of Egypt and save the entire North Africa from starvation, so God has his will and plan that we might not fully understand. Just because we don’t understand the plan, doesn’t mean their isn’t one.

The definition of love isn’t “An end to all my suffering”, it is God works for the good of those who love him. What is that good thing good works towards you might ask? It is to be conformed to the likeness of his Son. Romans 8:28-29

See God wishes us to become more like Him, to be saved! To come to know him! He will do what HE thinks is best for us, not what we think. Turning away from sin, and following Christ is not an easy road and God, through his love will be looking after you all the time, but like a child who is naughty, so we too must be punished for our sinful ways!

God would not be loving if he didn’t let us suffer, and gave in to our whim’s and pleas, we would become like spoilt children!

It is a mistake to assume that getting rid of God will make the problem of evil easier to handle!
Or as Philip Yancey puts it ” We either suffer with God, or without him. Suffering with God is infinitely better than suffering without him”

So who is the problem? Is it us?

Think about this for a second.. If God put an instant end to all evil.. What would happen to you? Oh, but you might say, I’m not evil! Look at all the Good I’ve done in my life. What does that count for? The answer : Nothing, when we compare it to our sins! God doesn’t judge sins differently. Gluttony, swearing, homosexuality is on the same level as  murder, rape and stealing.

Or as Jesus puts it in Mark 7:20-23

He went on: “What comes out of a man is what makes him ‘unclean.’ For from within, out of men’s hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and make a man ‘unclean.’ ”

If God was to pour  out his rightful anger upon us, we would all be killed.
Romans 3:23 : “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,”

But Jesus pays for our sin so that one day He can put an end to evil without putting an end to us! See, that is the awesomeness of Jesus. It isn’t for all the good he did, or for his teachings, or for the “love” culture he left behind. But it was because God came down, in human form and died on a cross (fulfilling all the prophecies regarding this matter) so that we may be saved from our inevitable death and separation from God, and instead join him in heaven one day.

The God who suffers
I would like to end with showing that our God is a God who suffers with us. He understands our suffering, and is not separate from all we are going through.
This can be seen when Jesus came down to earth, He was tempted, and faced the same pains we did. But he resisted!

Hebrews 2:17-18
For this reason he had to be made like his brothers in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people. Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.

Because of all of this, our God as not only saved us from our ultimate death and separation from him, but he is also preparing a place for us :
Revelations 21:21-24
The twelve gates were twelve pearls, each gate made of a single pearl. The great street of the city was of pure gold, like transparent glass.

I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp. The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their splendor into it.

For all those who suffer for Christ now, and bow the knee to him will inherit the city in Romans 21.

It seems we have gone from an “unfair” and “abusive” God who looks to torture us for the fun of it, to a God who not only hates punishing us, but does it because he loves us, but a God who also understands our suffering and experienced it himself, and is busy preparing a place for each of us in heaven! All we need to do is accept his invitation.

Our God is good God, and a loving God, even though we suffer, and this is more comforting than anything money can buy.

Don’t believe me?
Look at Job, Joseph, Jesus, Paul. Read the stories of these men and you will see how through all their suffering, not only did they come out stronger, but they also gave all the glory to God!

I suggest we stop blaming God for all the suffering in the world, and start pointing fingers our ourselves.

The justice of God has always been misunderstood by those who do not believe/read the bible.

Some of the reasons people have for objecting to the idea of God being a just God, yet filled with love in compassion is as follows :
1) People are generally Good, how can God send good people to hell?
2) The moral code of this world is “good people get rewarded”, which is cemented into us from an early age. So why are the good people punished with the bad?
3) God is love
4) The judging cynical God contradicts the loving Jesus depicted in the bible.

All these examples above are what we call “bad doctrine” of God. It basically means, that the people making these statements do not fully understand who God or Jesus is, and so make false claims/accusations about things they do not fully understand.

But first, lets look at hell, and what the bible says about it.
Luke 16:19-31

The Rich Man and Lazarus

19″There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day. 20At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores 21and longing to eat what fell from the rich man’s table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores.

22″The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried. 23In hell,[a] where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side. 24So he called to him, ‘Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.’

25″But Abraham replied, ‘Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony. 26And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.’

27″He answered, ‘Then I beg you, father, send Lazarus to my father’s house, 28for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.’

29″Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.’

30″ ‘No, father Abraham,’ he said, ‘but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.’

31″He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’ ”

From this passage we learn a couple of things about the rich man ( the one in hell ).
Although he asks Abraham to send Lazarus down to give him relief from the fire, not once does he ask to be saved from the fire!
He continues to treat Lazarus as a slave or a lesser being (vs 24 & 27 ), and shows no sign of repentance towards Lazarus.
In vs 27 he asked Abraham to send Lazarus to warn his brothers, basically saying “Look, you didn’t give me the heads up, but at least give my brothers the heads up about this place”. To which Abraham replies ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.’ (which is basically saying “They have the same information you have, you didn’t listen to it, for your sake, lets hope that they do”)

Note the last verse, see how Jesus knew that even His resurrection would not automatically turn everyone into believers! (.. they will not be convinced even if someone raises from the dead.’ )

From this passage we see that the general attitude of those in hell will be exactly the same as when they were on earth. Still in denial and blame shifting, with no thought for God, or how to serve him.

Hell is God giving us what we always wanted, a life without Him. When we die, God gives us an eternity without Him!

If this is all true, then what is the deal with God being “loving”, yet condemning people to hell? How can a God who judges, also love?

A loving God must be a judging God

If we look at those who love, they also judge. They do not judge because of their lack of love, but because of their love.
A loving person is not indifferent to their loved ones actions. Instead, because of their love, they cannot ignore what is going on, and so God cannot ignore our sin. Not because He hates us, but because He loves us!

Tim Keller puts it this way :

“Think how we feel when we see someone we love is ravaged by unwise actions or relationships. Do we respond with benign tolerance as we might toward strangers? Far from it… Anger isn’t the opposite of love. Hate is, and the final form of hate is indifference… God’s wrath is not a cranky explosion, but his settled opposition to the cancer which is eating out the insides of the human race he loves with his whole being.”

Romans 1:21-25 puts it like this : We have chosen to ignore God (even though he has made himself known to us), because of this God gives us what we want, and turns us over to our own desires.

2 Corinthians 4:1-6 hits the nail on the head.
“Therefore, since through God’s mercy we have this ministry, we do not lose heart. Rather, we have renounced secret and shameful ways; we do not use deception, nor do we distort the word of God. On the contrary, by setting forth the truth plainly we commend ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God. And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For we do not preach ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,”made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.”

Or as Ravi Zacharias puts it :

“People often say, what about all the good things I’ve done? What about all the good people in this world? Jesus did not come into this world to make bad people good. He came into this world to make dead people live. Those who are dead to God, to make them alive to God.”

Well, a good question might be “Well then why be punished for eternity?”, why not just for the 80 years (or however many) we live on this earth? Because “The length of punishment reflects the severity of the crime” – S. Tubman. Our sin is so bad, that infinity can not reconcile us back to God (not without the help of Jesus).

Because God is just, loving and perfect, His love will never compromise His justice, and His justice will never compromise His love.

Imagine a world where evil did not matter and was not punished? Would you follow a God who did not care about justice? Who did not care about you or your eternal future! What kind of God would that be?

The God of the bible ( the true God ), is a loving and compassionate God, but also a righteous God, and because He is just and righteous, we can believe in His word.

However, because of His righteousness, He  can not just sweep our sin under the carpet. Instead, He came up with the ultimate plan (planned from the beginning) to save us by sending His only son, to die on our behalf so that His wrath may be satisfied! This plan therefore keeps within Gods character of being a loving God and a just God and not compromising on His judgment. To sum up how His character is not compromised, He loves by sending His son to judge sin (this is Gods justness) but at the same time makes the sinner justified (God’s love) through His son for those who believe. His love never compromises His justice and His justice never compromises His love!

This is how a loving God works, not by blessing us with BMW’s and fancy holiday houses, but by saving us from eternity in hell, and giving us the life ever lasting!

AMEN!!

Last week I touched on the subject of God and the bible. Is the bible still true today? How can we tell if it is true etc? You can read it all here : The Bible…The Voice of God.. How true is it?

This week I will be looking at the topic of “Is there only one true religion?”

I mean face it, one of the biggest challenges we as Christians face in this Post Modern world is the fact that everyone is right, yet strangely enough, everyone else is wrong!

One of the “HOT” topics at the moment is : “There are many roads to God, no one is right.” No matter who you serve, you’ll get into heaven, so don’t stress. Well as nice as this sounds, it is as far from the truth as saying “there is no God”.

But before I get ahead of myself, lets take a look at what God thinks about sharing his glory.

God does not like too divide his glory.

Exodus 20 is a good place too start (it is after all God’s commandments too us).

Exodus 20 : 2-3 are quite clear on where God stands in the whole business of sharing :
“I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me.”

The entire book of Leviticus is filled with things the Israelite weren’t allowed to do. Many of these rules were placed there because other religions of the day where doing these exact things, and God was basically saying “Hey, I don’t want you to be worshiping me as if I’m some other God!”

What about Jesus? God in human form, who came down to earth and supposedly preached peace and unity?
Well first off, Jesus did not preach unity, he preached “repent and believe for the Kingdom of God is near.”
This same Jesus also said “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6)

Does that sound like a Free For All to you? Who comes to the farther? (The farther who will have no other gods before him) Those who put there trust in Jesus, and follow him, only those will come to know the farther.

And post Jesus? What did the apostles preach?
Acts 4:12 “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.”
1 Cor 6:19b-20 : “You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.”

Right, so now that we got that all out the way, what about some of the tough questions people ask?
Questions like “exclusive religions are dangerous, it causes conflict!” or “there are too many good people who are not Christians”, or “all religions teach the same thing” and so on.

I’m going to tackle some of these question very briefly.

Exclusive religions are dangerous – cause conflict
Looking at the current situation in Gaza, people like to point fingers at religion and say that it is all religions fault, without religion this world would be a far better place! Well let me just point out the facts quickly.

In the 20th (Century which has also had more wars,and deaths by war than any century before it) the biggest wars have all been caused by Idealists who have wanted to get rid of religion. eg: Soviet Russia, Communist China, Nazi Germany, Khmer Rouge in Cambodia!

You think religion creates violence! Just look at what the parties above caused!
By the way, if you hold this view (the view that all religions are wrong and deadly) then you are being just as exclusive as the religions you criticize.

There are too many good people who are not Christians
Unfortunately this is sad but true. Luckily there is a simple answer for this. Christians are saved by grace, we do not need to earn our way into heaven. So being “good” is not going to save us (though it is expected). Other religions require Good deeds. Without good deeds you are useless and worthless, with good deeds you can feel superior to others.

As Christians we boast in the cross alone! “May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ” Gal 6:11-18

All religions are equal in value!
If you hold this view point, you must include ALL religions. You can’t just accept some, because then you would need to justify you exceptions. So if we have to accept that all religions are of equal value, we must agree that religions that sacrifice children are as intrinsically good in value as ones that don’t!

All religions are different parts of the one great spiritual truth
This is also know as the blind men and elephant theory.
Basically what this is saying is that just like each blind man can only touch/experience the part of the elephant they are currently in front of, and will never be able to see the full picture, so each religion is but a part of the GREAT truth.
See, the problem with this view is quite simple. For the person to make this statement they must accept the fact they are but an observer who actually knows what the elephant looks like. In which case, you hold the key to enlightening all of us!

See, you can’t claim that everyone knows a small portion of the big picture, if no one knows what the big picture looks like, or even exists! (especially when each of the portions are in no way related or even hint at a “bigger” picture)

Which brings me to my last objection.
All religions teach the same thing.
If you really believe this too be true, I suggest you study the table below.

Lets just look at Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism as examples :

Wow, now that is what I call an incompatible list!
So if any of you had reserves about the fact that they might all teach the same thing, I hope this has helped you in that!

But what too make of all this evidence?

If religions of this world, do not say the same thing, and are all radically different(which they are). Then there is a choice to be made, and it is definitely important enough to investigate.

If the bible is right (which the first article helped to prove) then the wrong choice will have serious consequences!

How true is the bible in its current state? Is it still the word of God? How can I base my faith on something that is almost 2,000 years old?

These are some of the many questions that are asked by Christians and non-Christians in this day and age. The good news is that it is easy to prove. The bad news is that by proving ( and accepting the proof ) that the bible is indeed the authoritative word God would force us to challenge our current beliefs. People don’t like this, and so they will come up with opinions not based on facts, but opinions based on experiences on why the bible can’t be true.

So before I continue, let me just put it this way. Just because the bible doesn’t gel with your view of how things should be, doesn’t mean it isn’t true!

I will be looking at the New Testament, since if the New Testament is true, and Jesus accepted and quoted from the Old Testament without hesitation we can accept that the Old Testament is true.
(Because A is true, and B gives A support and A references back to B. ‘A’ can not be true, while B false.. if A is true, then so is B. Let A be NT, and B OT :p)

Note on Science
When approaching a historical book, we must look at the historical evidence. The modern scientific methods does not apply when researching the factuality of the events surrounding the bible. A scientific proof is based on repeating the event, in a controlled environment, where observations are made, data is drawn, and hypotheses empirically verified. When dealing with History, we deal with the historical evidence, and look at the facts given to us.

Some old facts
I’m going to list some facts about documents that were created at around the same time period as the bible.

Book 1 : Thucydides History
Date of Original Document : 460 -400 BC
Oldest surviving Copy : 90 AD (plus a few 1st Century Fragments)
Time between original and copy : 1,300 years
Number of ancient copies in existence today : 8

Book 2 : Caesar’s Gallic War
Date of Original Document : 58-50 BC
Oldest surviving Copy : 850 AD
Time between original and copy : 900 years
Number of ancient copies in existence today : 10

Book 3 : Tacitus History
Date of Original Document : 100 AD
Oldest surviving Copy : 800 AD
Time between original and copy : 700 years
Number of ancient copies in existence today : 2

Book 4 : The Four Gospels
Date of Original Document : 42 – 90 AD
Oldest surviving Copy : 130 AD (Mark) 350 AD (New Testament)
Time between original and copy : 200 years
Number of ancient copies in existence today : 5,000 Greek , 10, 000 Latin & 9,300 others

These figures themselves should start putting things into perspective. The gospels aren’t some book that were just randomly found lying around. If we accept the top 3 books as historically true (which we do)then just on these figures alone, I feel that the gospels, and ultimately the bible can be seen as historically correct, or at least be treated with the same measuring stick .

The NT documents are too early to be fake
We must remember that when these documents were originally written (Paul’s letters 15-25yrs after the event, and the Gospels written 40-60 years after) when the eye witness’s still existed. People could still be called upon when doubters didn’t agree. If heresy was published, it would not have survived, since those around at the time would not have allowed it too. Imagine writing a bibliography on Nelson Mandela or some other famous leader, but you decided to include things like “he brought people back to life”! You would have been shot down in an instance(or in those days probably hanged).

If you were going to write some kind of politically motivated literature, you would at least wait until all the eye-witness had died off and not have your writings circulating among the public where anyone with a bit of will power could easily just question a couple of witness’ and disprove it. (I’m sure amongst the Jewish Elders there were enough of these people trying to suppress these writings, but obviously did not succeed.)

A second point to note is how honest the writers were..

The NT documents are too honest to be fake
Look, I don’t know about you guys. If I was going to come up with some propaganda to push my political view, or too get more followers to come to my new establishment (church) I would definitely not include stories about a leader who
a) Was crucified
b) Was betrayed by one of his own understudies (Judas)
c) Spent time with prostitutes and tax collectors
I would not include stories like Peter who denies Christ 3 times, or how the disciples ran away in fear when Jesus was being crucified, and of course mention that Women were the first to witness Jesus resurrected! Woman weren’t even allowed to take the stand in court!

But if that isn’t enough to convince you on the point of honesty, did you know that when the apostles were struggling with the huge problem of Jews vs Gentiles and circumcision(in the book of Acts), the apostles didn’t put words into Jesus’ mouth and misquote him, or make up some story where Jesus “supposedly” said something on that topic. (Jesus in fact never even mentions circumcision)

But, not only were the NT documents too honest, they are extremely detailed on facts that you would only haven known if you had been there when it happened.

The NT documents are too detailed to be fake
The gospels were actually a type of biographical history that was radically different in style to the commonly found literature of the ancient world (Homer etc.) They include details with no relevance to the story except that they were things that actually happened.
Notable passages are :
John 8:6
“They said this to test him, so that they might have a charge against him. But Jesus bent down and began to write on the ground with his finger.”
No, they don’t mention what he wrote, and NO, you can not speculate, because for all we know Jesus was playing hangman with himself! But you wonder why they included this.

Mark 4:38
“But Jesus was in the back of the boat, asleep on a cushion. So they woke him up and asked him, “Teacher, don’t you care that we’re going to die?”
Here are a bunch of guys who are about to die because of a storm, then when Jesus calms the storm, they become more scared of Jesus, and yet through all of this Mark still remembers the fact that Jesus was sleeping on a cushion!! Makes you wonder why they added it. But they did, and the it is just another demonstration of facts being included that didn’t have too be, but were added because people remembered it.

John 21:11
“So Simon Peter went aboard and dragged the net ashore. It was full of large fish-153 of them. And although there were so many of them, the net was not torn.”
If genius world book of records was around, this would have definitely made it in!

Besides these tiny bits of information being included, the NT is also very transparent.

The NT documents are too transparent to be fake
An incident like the one found at Luke 2:1-3
“Now in those days an order was published by Caesar Augustus that the whole world should be registered.
This was the first registration taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. So all the people went to their hometowns to be registered.” Allows itself open to objective checks. (If you were going to fake something, you aren’t going to add historical information that people can actually check-up upon)

Like the story in Luke 23:26
“As they led Jesus away, they grabbed Simon, a man from Cyrene, as he was coming in from the country, and they put the cross on him and made him carry it behind Jesus.”
If they wanted to keep it vague they could have said “some guy”, or “a passer by”. But no, they give a name and country, which I am sure was enough evidence for people who wished too track him down.

Or how about Acts 2:32 “It was this very Jesus whom God raised, and of that we are all witnesses.” The readers would have been informed that there were definitely witness’s who could be questioned.

In 1 Cor 15:3-8 it mentions who Jesus appeared to after his resurrection. That is quite a list of people, not something you are going to add if you are trying to remain vague about certain events so that people would found it is all a lie!

Another interesting fact I have discovered is that via some Social Economic studies scholars have uncovered that the prices used in the New Testament to describe a days wages, or a sack of barley was correct for the time of Jesus, and not for the times when these books were written. How might be thinking, o wow, like that is going to convince me.
But let me put it this way : Can you tell me what the price of Coke was 25 years ago? 60years ago? What about a daily wages?
Or the price of petrol?

Just another small note showing how historically correct the bible is.

Like I have said before, I’m just putting the evidence out there. If you don’t like it, then I urge you to critically question your motives for not want to accept these truths.

I hope this article is of some help, and that if you didn’t believe that the bible is true, that this might set you on the right path.

I could also suggest Reading the following books :
1) The Bible (always important)
2) The Resurrection Factor (Josh McDowell )
3) Why believe the bible (John Blanchard )
and more..

A useful site that will be of some use to answering further questions  : http://www.challengingdavinci.com/thechurch.html

There are many factors I have not included in this article, and if you wish to discuss them I would be more than happy to try and answer them.