Job 1:1; 2:1-10

Why do bad thing happen to good people? This is one of those questions that people of faith have pondered for millennia. Why do seemingly good or innocent people suffer? Why do children die in natural disasters? Why are infants born with debilitating diseases and why do babies get cancer?

Job is the book in the Bible that deals with this issue head on. In it we are told the story of a man who is truly righteous. In fact God Himself says that Job is blameless. Yet Job suffers horribly! He loses all his possessions and his family in one day. Then he loses his health and suffers from a horrible disease. Yet in all of this, Job does not sin against God.

But the question of why bad thing happen to good people is much closer to home than some guy who lived thousands of years ago in a far away land. For me it's in my own family. Why did God allow my daughter Mary at the age of 7 to lose much of her hearing? Why did God allow Melissa at the age of 3 to lose much of her hearing and vision? They were surely innocent, yet God allowed this to happen to them.

As I said people of faith have wrestled with this issue for thousands of years. The book of Job was probably written between 2,500 to 3,000 years ago. So there have been a number of different approaches to this issue. Lets just take a quick look at a few attempts to answer the question: Why do bad things happen to good people?

The first response is "Who is really good?" After all the Bible says that "all have sinner and fallen short of the glory of God." So all of us are deserving of punishment and suffering. So really bad things do not happen to good people because there are no truly good people.

Well what about Job? Could he have been truly blameless? Maybe he was just as blameless as a person could be. Or maybe he was blameless by Old Testament standards. Like many of us maybe he never actually stole anything or killed anyone. But Jesus raised the bar of righteousness to show us God's standards. Jesus says if we covet we have stolen and if we hate we have killed. By those standards we are all thieves and murdered - sinners all! So Job may have been blameless by human standards but not by God's eternal standards. There for he deserved his suffering as punishment.

But this answer falls woefully short. It might cover most of us. But what about suffering endured by children and infants. It doesn't explain people born with debilitating and painful ailments. To just say we all deserve punishment isn't an adequate answer to the question.

The second answer is that bad things happen to good people because God chooses not to interfere. This is based on the attitude I talked about last week that many people have. The idea that God is somehow detached from the universe. God started the machine going and people have messed the universe up. As a result bad things happen to good people because we have messed up the way the universe is supposed to work. Our sin has thrown a monkey wrench into the internal workings of the cosmos and gummed up the machine.

But that is not a Christian belief. God is involved in His universe. God does intervene in its workings to cause oceans to part and rain to fall or not fall and to heal diseases and save people. God even went as far as to come in the flesh in Jesus Christ. And Jesus didn't just teach, he also healed and then he died for the sins of the world.

So like the first answer this one too is not adequate.

Another answer is that bad thing happen to good people because God allows us to have free will. God in his eternal love has allowed us to do what we want. We can choose to do evil because we have been given free will as a gift. We can choose to drive drunk and kill innocent pedestrians. We can choose to dump toxic chemicals into the water supply and cause innocent people to get cancer. We can choose to fire a gun into the air without a thought about where the bullet might land and who it might injure or kill.

This would explain many of the tragedies of the world. Much suffering can be attributed to the malicious or irresponsible acts of others. Perhaps infants are born with birth defects because of our society's use of toxic and radioactive chemicals. Maybe those chemicals and materials in the endowment cause other illnesses too.

But it still doesn't explain things like natural disasters. Oh maybe global worming can be blamed for some of it. But it doesn't explain all the earthquakes and tsunamis and hurricanes and tornados that inflict suffering on so many innocent people. Again this answer explains some incidents but still falls short of being a complete answer.

I have barely scratched the surface of the question. You can go to the library and get all kinds of books by theologians and philosophers that deal with this issue. But none of these answers is God's answer. Don't get me wrong many of them are good answers and they may help us understand parts of the question. But God gave a different answer.

Near the end of the book, Job demands that God give him an explanation for why these things have happened to him. In chapters 38 - 41 of Job we have God's answer. But God doesn't give an explanation. Instead God asks Job a series of questions: Were you there when I put the stars in the places? Can you tell the sea where to go? Do you understand the ways of the creatures of the deep? Can you control them? In the end Job says, "Surely I have spoken of things I did not understand, thinks too wonderful for me to know."

Basically God's answer is: "I am God, I know what I am doing and you don't." God is the one who created this universe and God is the one ultimately in control of it. We should just trust God. Sure things happen that don't make sense or don't seem right to us. But we are incapable of understanding the fullness of the universe. That doesn't mean we shouldn't ask questions and seek understanding and even question God as Job did. But ultimately God is in control.

I began by asking the question "Why do bad things happen to good people. Perhaps the more important question is not "Why" bad things happen but how we respond "when" they happen! That is really what the passage we read today is all about. In chapter 1 Job loses all his possessions and his family. His response is to say "The Lord Give and the Lord takes away, blessed be the name of the Lord. In Chapter 2 he loses his health and suffers from a painful disease. His own wife tells him to just curse God and die. But his reply is "Shall we accept the good from God and not trouble?"

Job shows us the response of the faithful to suffering. It is to acknowledge that God is the one in charge. It is like the song "He's got the whole world in his hands." He's got you and me and the little bitty babies in his hands. All we can do is trust HIM.

When bad thing happen to good people what do we do? How do we respond when the innocent suffer? What do we think when natural disasters injure and kill? We look to God, and trust in his wisdom and power. He, after all, is the one who created this world, and only He understands it completely.

Job 42:1-6

Theologians and Philosophers have often pondered the problem of evil. Briefly the problem is this: If God is all knowing, all powerful, and all loving, then why does evil exist. Put in every day language "Why does God allow bad things to happen to good people?" Think about it. If God loves us, as we believe God does, and God is able to do every thing, and God knows of our suffering as we know God does. Then why does God allow the righteous to suffer. The atheists with their strict logic argue that this is proof that an all knowing all loving and all powerful being doesn't exist. Otherwise this God person would do something about the suffering of the righteous. And the innocent would not be the victims of evil. Babies would not suffer from painful birth defects, And evil people would not kill righteous people.

For a long time the "problem of evil" was nothing more than a theological and philosophical problem for me. But one day this problem came home to me, and it became painfully real. It became real as I wrestled with the pain that Melissa's disability caused her. I don't remember the exact incident that brought the problem of evil home to me. Perhaps that was the day that I saw a rainbow and Melissa was not able to see it. Maybe it was one of those times that Melissa was passed by for a promotion or a job and we had a gnawing suspicion or even a certain knowledge that it was because of her disabilities and not her experience and abilities. Maybe it was a time when Melissa wanted desperately to drive a car or have a long conversation of the phone with an old friend, but couldn't. Maybe it was a combination of these any many other incidents.

At that point the problem of evil ceased to be "Why do bad things happen to good people?", and it became "Why does God allow Melissa to suffer?" Melissa was only 3 1/2 when she lost over half of her hearing an eyesight, she couldn't have done anything to warrant punishment at that age. It couldn't have been a punishment for something her parents did, only a malicious God would smite an innocent child for her parent's sins. And it can't be for something that she has done since, because she has accepted Christ as her Savior and God's promise is that through Christ's blood all our sins are forgiven. And it definitely can't be for lack of people praying for her.

Don't feel sorry for Melissa. She doesn't want people feeling sorry for her. And I wasn't feeling sorry for her either. I was angry! Why did God allow this to happen, and why didn't God do something about it now?

I imagine this is how Job felt. Get this straight, Job was a righteous man. In Job 1:8 God says Job is a "blameless and upright man." And Job was faithful to God through tests that many of us would fail. In one day Job lost his family and his property. His reply was "The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away, blessed be the name of the Lord." Then Job lost his health. Satan struck him with sores all over his body. He was forced to sit in the city dump and scrape his sores. Even his wife told him to curse God. But he said, "Shall we receive good health from God, and not the bad." Most righteous people would have taken Job's wife's advice long before this point.

Now Job's friends knew why he was suffering, or they thought they did. He had sinned against God. The only solution to his dilemma was to confess that sin. So they came to Job and tried to reason with him. And Job defended himself, "I am innocent!" For thirty five chapters they argue back and forth.

Job wasn't just arguing with his friends, he was arguing with God. Job knew he had done nothing wrong, then why was he suffering. Job wanted God's actions to be justified somehow. Even the righteous get angry with God sometimes. Don't feel sorry for Job. He was angry! Why? Why did God let this happen to him and why didn't God do something about it?

You know God answers the prayers of the righteous. So once all these humans had finished flapping their gums God appeared. Out of a whirlwind God spoke to Job. And God said, "How dare you question me!" Who are you to demand an explanation for my actions. I created you and not the other way around. Do you know how this world works so well that you can tell me how to run things?

The Job was humbled, but God went on. Look, when you can cloth yourself in glory then I will listen to you. When you have the ability to lift up the righteous and bind the wicked in eternal darkness, then I will hear you. When you have the power and wisdom to rule this universe then will be your time to speak.

Then in humility Job replied. I know you are able to do anything that you set your mind to. I have offered opinions about things I know nothing about. And I have demanded explanations for things that are beyond my understanding. I am sorry; I failed to trust you and your majesty.

So what is the solution to the problem of evil? I don't know. Why did God let Job suffer? I can tell you the story in the Bible but I cannot explain or justify God's actions. And why does God let Melissa suffer? Beats me. I am too little to understand such great things.

I don't know why our all powerful, all knowing and all loving God allows bad thing to happen to good people. But this I do know. "He's got the whole world in his hands. He's got the brothers and the sisters in his hands. He's got Job and Melissa in his hands. He's got the whole world in his hands."

I know something else. The mind that directs those hands is more loving and just than I can even imagine. Perhaps that is enough. I can't possible understand the intricacies of the way God runs the world. But I can trust God to run it in the most loving way possible.

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Revelation 7:9-17

One day St. John was visiting heaven. And he saw many wonderful and awe inspiring things. One of the things he saw was a crowd. It was a great throng of people in white robes waving palm branches and singing like some celestial Palm Sunday procession. They were singing praises to the lamb of God who sits on the throne. One of the elders that attends to the worship of God in heaven asked John who these people were. John said, "Beats me. Who are they?" The elder replied, "These are the ones who have come through a great ordeal and have washed their robes in the blood of the lamb."

I can remember the first time I head someone preach on this passage. It was in a small rural church near Rock Hill and Bishop Bethea was preaching. This small black church had been vandalized and racial slurs had been painted on the building. The bishop decided to act as a pastor to this congregation and so he came to preach the good news to them. And if any of you ever saw Bishop Bethea preach you know he could preach.

First he read this passage from Revelation and then began to point out that this crowd of people had come through a great ordeal. They did not get to heaven because their lives were perfect. They did not reach this pinnacle of heavenly bliss and praise because they knew no trouble. This heavenly throng were the ones who had come through a great ordeal. And they had washed their robes in the blood of the lamb.

God never promised us a rose garden. Like the song says, "Along with the sunshine there's got to be a little rain sometime." God's people are not promised a life free of trouble. Your life won't have less troubles just because you get closer to God. In fact it sometimes seems that the closer you get to God the more troubles you have. Think of the most godly people you know. Now look at their lives. Often times they were persecuted or suffered great hardship. But at the same time the closer you get to God the more you can face those troubles.

John is proof of this. The Bible tells us that John was in prison "on account of the Word of God and the testimony of Jesus." We are not entirely sure of the details, but apparently John was in prison because of the faith. He was suffering because he was a Christian. In John's day Christians were persecuted because they refused to worship the Emperor. Some were executed publicly. Some were fed to wild animals. Some were burned alive to light the arenas. Some were merely thrown in prison. John was one of the ones thrown in prison. Now prison is never a fun place, but Roman prisons were more like concentration camps than the ones we have now a days. These were work camps and Patmos was a center for mining ore. John probably spent his time literally breaking rocks. It was also a hot Mediterranean Island.

John was in prison but he was also close to God. It says that John was in prayer on the Lord's day. Remember his religion was against the law but he was still practicing it in prison. Probably before dawn, when the soldiers would have come to get him, he prayed and worshipped even thought it could cost him his life, physically speaking. But in the midst of that prison Jesus appeared to him and showed him heavenly glories beyond imagination. Throughout Revelation John keeps describing what he sees by saying it was like this or like that. He had trouble putting his experience of God into words. He had to say "Well its like..." The things he was seeing were unlike anything he had every seen or experienced. Yes, John suffered, but he also knew comfort beyond imagination.

God never promised John a rose garden. But we should expect that because God never promised Jesus a rose garden either. Jesus was the only begotten Son of God. He was so close to God that he said "The Father and I are one." And he wasn't lying.

Jesus was closer to God than anyone else ever had been since Adam and Eve. And God didn't promise him a rose garden. He was the King of Kings yet he lived in utter obscurity for 30 years. When he finally did come to the public eye he was ridiculed. His own home town tried to kill him after his first sermon.

His cousin and forerunner was beheaded by Herod. And the crowds just could not get it. Over and over again he told them that he was going to Jerusalem to die and rise again. But they refused to believe. And then one of his own disciples betrayed him with a Kiss while the others ran and denied any knowledge of him. Finally there was the cross. The most cruel form of torture and death yet devised. Designed to display a person as they died. Nails were driven through the hand and feet and a person hung in such a way that the lungs filled with fluid and the person literally drowns. The nails in the feet actually allow the person to push up and get a breath, but at some point the pain becomes too much and the person stops pushing up. That is why they went to break the legs of the thieves so that they couldn't push up any more and they would hurry up and die.

God never promised John or Jesus a rose garden so why should we expect it. I remember when I was in college one day before an exam the students were quizzing each other to get ready. It was a psychology class and we were asking each other definitions of psychological aliments. What is psychosis. What is dementia. The girl in the seat next to me said, "Define Alzheimer's Disease." I described it with the textbook definition but we both knew the tragic human face behind it. Then off the cuff she said, "I'm glad I won't ever have that." I asked what she meant. She said, "I'm a Christian and I won't ever have that."

She truly believed that because she was a Christian she would never get Alzheimer's! But Christians do. Christians get cancer, and AIDS, and die in car accidents. Christians lose loved ones and get fired and laid off and are killed in drive by shootings. Awful things happen to Christians.

God never promised us a rose garden. But God did promise to be with us. God promises to raise us up when the world beats us down. God promises us a white robe and victory branch after we get through the great tribulation. And God promises that we will get through.

Please don't misunderstand me. I am not saying that you are not a Christian if you are not going through great tribulations. Some Christians think their level of suffering corresponds to their level of spirituality. Sometimes we do suffer for the faith, and sometimes we don't. I am also not saying that the times of healing and comfort only come after death. What I am saying is best summed up in these words: "Life is hard, but God is good." Both parts of that statement are true and the one does not negate the other. God never promised us a rose garden, but he did promise us the rose of Sharon, Jesus Christ, to be with us and strengthen us and to give us a crown of victory and a robe of salvation!

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