"Doesn't suffering disprove the existence of God?"

This has been automatically generated, and therefore may contain some unintended inaccuracies.

Yes. Our bible reading is from, the 1st letter of Peter chapter 1 verses 3 to 7 and can be found on page 1217 in the church Pibles. Praise be to the God and father of our lord Jesus Christ. In his great mercy, he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. And into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil, or fade.

This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by god's power. Until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. In all this, you greatly rejoice. Though now for a little while, you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trial. These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith of greater worth than gold, which perishes, even though refined by fire, may result in praise, glory, and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.

Morning, everyone. I'm Bart. I'm pastor here at Hope Church. Great to have you here. Just before I get started.

Again, the little card, if there's 1 around you, I'd encourage you, even now to scan that QR code, the big 1. You might wanna cover up the other ones because otherwise your phone might you know, register 1 of the other ones, but so cover up the others and then go for that big QR code that gets you to the slide, though, that means you can ask questions. And so you can put them on there. So as I'm speaking, you can, and you think, yeah, but what about you can put it on there and ask that question. So we're thinking this morning about the subject.

How can there be a God when there is so much suffering. Ah, yes. I don't have control of this. Could you move us on to, yeah, next 1? There we go.

How can there be a God when there's so much suffering in the world. This is, of course, a huge subject. It is the big question that people will raise. Maybe it's, it's a it's a big objection that people have when thinking about religion and when thinking about Christianity, often in conversation with people, this will be the big subject that they raise. What about all the suffering in the world?

Now how are we gonna deal with this? We've had a a a reading from the Bible from 1 Peter, Now I'm not gonna dwell a lot in that passage. I will refer to it later on, but we're gonna look at we're gonna think about several different passages in the Bible. And that should come to that passage towards the end of the talk. We're gonna have 4 headings.

So if you go on to the next slide, there we go. 4 sections, we're gonna think about suffering. We're gonna think about God. We're gonna think about what God has done and what God will do. So that's just so that you know kind of the rough landscape of where we're heading through this talk.

My aim is that we will, maybe be done in in about 20 minutes with that and then give you time, to put in your questions and try to answer some questions as well. So we've got a lot to try to get through. So 1st section, let's go on next slide, suffering a world of pain. As we look at the world we live in, we do see an incredible work world. It is a wonderful world.

At times, it is staggering in its beauty. But also, we need to recognize that there is incredible suffering in the world. And those 2 things seem to be polls apart, don't they? Oxford professor of mathematics, John Lenox, who's a Christian, 1 of the other QR codes goes to a talk of his. Yeah.

He talks about the world, describes it as being 1 of beauty and bombs. There is the incredible beauty in the world, staggering, wonderful, but also bonds. There's incredible suffering and intense suffering in the world, both are there. And, of course, it's the suffering that we are going to focus on this morning. Just over this last week, there were lots of headlines in which people are suffering around the world, a bomb blast in Damascus that killed 9 people.

Bus plunged into a ravine in Pakistan killing 32. A Russian attack on Kiev, which killed at least 30 people. An international network of, of men drugging and raping women and earthquakes in Venezuela. And that's just some of it. We know there is far more suffering in the world.

We need to acknowledge that we live in a world which is filled with pain. And we need to acknowledge as we start this talk this morning that we will ourselves be approaching this talk, maybe in different different positions. 1 writer put it. Some will be approaching this from an armchair and some more from a wheelchair. In other words, this may be more of an armchair thing for you that you want to think about the theory of it and think about the philosophy of it and the theology of it.

How can their be a god? It's more distant. It's more theoretical. But for others, it's more wheelchair that you come to this from a position yourself of suffering, and you are going through difficulty at the moment. And those 2 different ways of being actually do feel and are very different, and you can approach things in a slightly different way, depending on how someone is approaching this.

But we do know what it is to suffer. My wife and I visited her mother this last week, who is in a nursing home, has been for several years. She's been suffering from Parkinson's and dementia, is not able to communicate. Is very weak. And at times, it is very hard to visit.

And you may be hurting, or you may have family members who are hurting. And you may be angry free at those hats. And the Bible does warn us not to trot out just easy answers. There aren't easy answers. And sometimes it's better just to come alongside someone and listen.

And hear their pain and be alongside them. And so if you have pain in your heart today, I want to say I'm sorry for you for that suffering. And we need to acknowledge right from the start that we will cover a lot in this talk, but we won't come to a point of being able to say why a particular person is suffering in a particular way. Because the Bible doesn't give us that level of detail. Often.

But don't assume therefore that the Bible has nothing to say about suffering. It actually has a huge amount to say about suffering. And I want to suggest to you right from the start, that actually what the Bible gives us is better than what we want. We want the answer to the question why, very often, but I think actually what the Bible gives us is better. And I wanna be able to show that to you as we go through.

So from the start, we need to acknowledge there is a world of pain. Well, let's come to our 2nd point. God. And to the question, how can there be a good and powerful God when there is so much suffering? This is our problem, isn't it?

This is many people's problem. How can there be a god? We look at the world, see so much pain, so much suffering. We see it in our lives. We experience it ourselves.

How can there be a god? And people have expressed this, I mean, over hundreds of years. You know, I mean, this is a big question that people have posed. More recently in 2004 after a tsunami in which more than 250 people 250000 people were killed. A journalist wrote this.

I think I've got it on the on the screen. That was God. This is his conclusion. If God is god, he's not good. If God is good, he's not God.

You can't have it both ways, especially after the Indian Ocean catastrophe. So there's summarizing the the dilemma for us. Seeing the devastation and suffering in the world, either God is able to stop it and doesn't. And therefore, he's not good. Or he's good, but can't stop it in which case he's not good.

He's not all powerful. Now, Tim Keller, who's an American pastor in his book The Reason For God rightly points out that, actually, that line of argument doesn't really stack up. And generally, people don't follow that line, think it follow that just because there is so much suffering in the world, that doesn't logically mean that there isn't a God who is both good and all powerful. Why not? Well, because that dilemma, that posing it that way ignores another fact about God that the Bible puts forward.

And that is god's knowledge and his wisdom. Put it another way. We are very limited in our knowledge and our experience. And therefore, it is possible for a God of infinite knowledge and wisdom to have reasons we don't know about or may not be able to understand why he allows suffering. That's the the that this is a bit more armchair rather than being in the wheelchair, but that's the argument that people will put forward.

Actually, if God has infinite knowledge, it is possible he has reasons we don't understand for allowing the suffering in the world. Let me give you an illustration. I want you to imagine, a 2 year old child who is in pain and is crying. Now you might conclude from just from what I've given you there that the parents are not in the room. But what if I said to you, actually, that 2 year old child in pain crying.

The parents are in the room. They love that child, and they could stop the pain. But they choose not to. What would you then think? Well, you probably then think I need more information.

You probably assume Well, if those parents love that child, are good and could stop it, but choose not to, there must be a good reason why they don't. And, actually, we could think of several reasons why that those parents might not. Well, several scenarios, couldn't we? We could think why it might be a an injection that the child is having, that they need, or a vaccination, something like that. We can think of of good reasons at that point, why why a parent might not intervene.

Okay. What we're saying there is we don't have all the information. We need more, but we don't assume that the parent is not, you know, just either can't be good or can't, it can't stop it. Maybe they have good reason. So too with God and the world.

That line of argument is to say. It doesn't follow just because there's all this suffering in the world that, therefore, there is not a a good and powerful God. And actually, that is what we find when we come to the Bible, and we do need to come to the Bible, and you'll be relieved when we come to the Bible. What do we find there? Well, in the Bible, we're gonna we're gonna just dip it just at the moment, in 1 of the books of the Bible, there are 66 books in the Bible.

1 of them is about a man named Job. And Job is a man who suffers incredibly. Towards the beginning of the book, he suffers the the loss of all his wealth, all his possessions. He was a wealthy man. He loses it all.

And he loses all his children. They die. And he loses his health. He is left in pain with painful swords. So he's in agony.

And throughout most of the book of Job, you see Job crying out at what feels like an injustice because he's saying, oh, look, I've not done anything wrong. It's it's just terrible. And he cries out to God saying, god, you know, I want my day before you. I wanna be able to come before you and plead with you to say, look, this just isn't fair. And he goes on for chapter after chapter, and he has his comforters who are not that good, who are sitting alongside him trying to help him.

They're not that useful. And just over and over again, you have this sort of similar line of argument for about 37 chapters. And then 30 chapter 38, God speaks. And it's fascinating what God then says to Job. Because what God does not do is explain to Job why he's suffering.

Actually, there isn't. There is kind of an explanation earlier on in the book. But he doesn't give that to Job. Rather the 1st thing God says to Job is it will come up on the screen. He says this.

Who is this? That obscures my plans with words without knowledge. Now this isn't the only thing God says. He then, for several chapters, ask questions of Job, which highlight that God is not like Job, that God is of far greater wisdom and knowledge than Job. He asked questions like, so were you there when I established the earth?

Have you do you know how the the universe works? That kind of thing, for which clearly the answer for Jovis would know. I don't. Now what's God saying? He's saying, look, actually, you you're coming at this with very limited knowledge.

I do have plans. God does have plans. He says, I've got plans. I've got plans for for your love. I know he has plans even within the suffering.

He says, but you're coming at this with very limited knowledge. Now I take you there just to to show you. Now, again, this this is for you if you're suffering at the moment, particularly. But all this is doing is to say that logical argument of saying, look, look at the suffering. There can't be a God in the world.

That that doesn't actually follow. There could be a God. He may have really good reasons why he allows the suffering to happen that happens. Now we could stop there, but we're not going to. You see, as with that 2 year old, if you were to go back to that image of that 2 year old suffering, what we wanted there was more information.

You could go on to the next slide, by the way. No. Go on next slide. There we go. And what we wanted was more information.

We say, okay, that child's suffering. Okay. The parents are there. They're good. They're loving.

They could stop the suffering, but they don't. Why why not? Well, we want more information. Give us the story. Does God give us more of the story?

Does he give us more information? And the answer wonderfully is yes. But like I said at the beginning, It doesn't necessarily get you to the point that you really want to get to. It doesn't get you to the answer of why this suffering in my life right now. For like I say, I think it gets us somewhere actually more helpful.

So what is the greatest story that the Bible gives us that helps us? This is where we come to our 3rd point. What God has done? You go on to that next slide. Thank you.

What God has done, the cross of Jesus. So the Bible makes the claim that 2000 years ago, Jesus, born on earth, is God himself, come to us. The Bible says that there is 1 God in 3 persons, father, son, and holy spirit. And that Jesus is God the son, born on earth, born on 1 of us. And you can look at the evidence in the Bible in the accounts of Jesus's life and ask them, interrogate them, say, is it true?

Is he really who he claims to be? And I would encourage you to do that if you've never done that. Look at those gospel accounts and see, is he who he claims to be? And then at 1 point in Mark's gospel, which is 1 of the accounts of Jesus' life. Jesus says this in Mark chapter 8 verse 31, it'll come up on the screen.

He then began to teach them that the son of man must suffer many things, be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed, and after 3 days rise again. Now notice that Jesus says He's talking about the son of man. That's a way of him talking about himself. And he says, not just that he's going to suffer. He's not just predicting his suffering.

He's saying something more than that. He says, the word must a couple of times. He said the son of man must suffer that he must be killed. Now that's worth taking note of. That when God came to us as 1 of us.

His purpose, his mission was not to live in luxury, but was to come and suffer and die. Now this sets out sets Christianity apart from all the other major world religions. The Bible says God himself came to us. With the express purpose of suffering and dying. And as you read the gospel accounts, as you get towards the end of them, you do see these are suffering terribly and dying.

Crucified. Now why would that be his mission? What was the purpose behind that suffering and death? It's not just that God himself come and suffer alongside us. I mean, you that that may be nice for us to to know that God himself knows what it is to suffer what we do, but it in the end, it doesn't help us a bit like if you've broken your foot and you're in pain.

It doesn't actually help you if I decide to break my foot that I experience what you're experiencing. You may fear, well, that's nice that you know what I'm going through, but it doesn't actually help you, does it? It doesn't actually help us just if God just comes and is 1 of us and suffers. But the Bible tells us over and over again, it uses the language of that he died for us. So you could I I've not got it on the screen, but you could look at Romans 5 verse 8.

If you're making notes, you could drop that down. Talks about that Christ suffered for us. And when it says for us, It doesn't just mean to benefit us, but that he died for us in the sense of being our substitute suffering in our place. In World War 2, in Auschwitz, in 19 41. There was an incident where, 1 of the prisoners, from that concentration camp, escaped.

And so the camp commander sentenced 10 other prisoners as a punishment to everyone, sentenced 10 other prisoners to starve to death. And 1 of those chosen to die cried out that he had a a wife and children back home. And so another prisoner in the camp, who was a Polish franciscan monk, said I'll go in his place. Take me instead. And the camp commander agreed.

So they swapped. And that prisoner, that Francisco monk, died, eventually. But the 1 he swapped for managed to survive, survived the war. He was able to go back home. That Francisco monk died for that other prisoner in his place.

Now that is a picture of though not a perfect picture of, but it is a picture of what Jesus does for us when he dies on the cross. He dies for us in our place swapping for us. But what was that suffering that he endured on the cross? What is that swap? When Jesus died on the cross, he cried out my god, my god, my god, why have you forsaken me?

So when Jesus died, he was experiencing the rejection of God. God, the father, rejecting his son and pouring out his anger on Now don't forget we said Jesus was dying for us in our place, which means that what he experienced is what you and I deserve, what we should get. Why should we get that? Because we, ourselves, humanity, mankind, and we each individually as well, have rejected God. We've turned away from God.

We've actually replaced God with other things. Though we live in his world, and benefit from all that he gives us everything that we have comes from God. Yet we don't love him. We don't thank him. In fact, we generally ignore him.

We reject god, and we hurt other people. And therefore, we deserve god's rejection. But when Jesus died, he took our place, swapped for us so that we could be forgiven. So that he the god's anger goes on him so that it doesn't have to go on us. Now that's the cross, what God has done.

And you might think, well, what what relevance does that have to our suffering now? Well, a lot of ref a lot of relevance. At least this, it tells us what the answer isn't. The answer of suffering in the world is not that God doesn't care. We see very clearly God does care.

He cares so much that Jesus came and suffered and died for us. Not just alongside us. But in our place. That is how much he loves and cares for us. So and that makes a big difference.

You saw the interview with Ben when he was talking about that miscarriage and how sad that is. 1 of the things that helped them is to know God cares. How do we know God cares? We look back to the cross of Jesus and say we see God cares for us. It makes a huge difference.

Now on top of that, not only do we see that that God cares, but we also know that through the cross, we can be forgiven, come into a relationship with god, and he promises Jesus promises to be with us in this life if we put our trust in him, to walk with us. Even through the sufferings and trials. So that's what God has done, the cross. Lastly, what God will do So the last point to come up, there we go. What God will do?

Now this still connects to what happened straight after the cross. They connect. Because after Jesus died, and he definitely was dead. A soldier shoved a spear into his side to make sure Jesus was dead. His body was then put in a tomb, And it was left in that too.

Definitely dead and berries. But on the 3rd day, Jesus rose to life again. And we see the accounts in the gospels and afterwards where Jesus met with many of his followers and many other people on 1 occasion, met with more than 500 people. Definitely dead. Definitely risen.

And the resurrection is important in lots of ways. It's a vital significance to the Christian faith. If Jesus didn't rise from the dead, you should just forget about Christianity. We could go and do something else on Sunday morning. If he didn't rise from the date, but if he did, and the Bible says he did and gives us good evidence that he did, then that changes everything.

Because the resurrection is a foretaste of what is to come. In the book of 1 Corinthians, which is, 1 Corinthians chapter 15, and chapter 15 is all about the resurrection. 1 of the verses says this. But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the 1st fruits of those who fallen asleep. 1st fruits, if you've got an apple tree or fruit tree or something like that, you know, 1st fruit of the season is nice and exciting because it means you will get more.

There will be more later on in the season. That's the point that the that Paul is making here as he writes on Corinthians 15. Christ's resurrection is a 1st fruit to be more. And the Bible promises, those who've put their trust in Jesus will also have resurrection bodies. You see, the Christian hope is not of being, you know, just disembodied spirits or sitting on a cloud playing a harp who wants to do that.

I mean, maybe you love playing the harp, but that's not what we're looking forward to. The Christian hope is of physical resurrection, and not just of us being resurrected physical resurrection bodies, but that the whole of creation will be restored and renewed. Talks about a new heavens, and a new earth, there's a restoration that's gonna happen. And the the resurrection of jeez, just a glimpse of that. A bit like every day I go to work, I walk along the toll with Broadway, and you may have noticed that the cost are there.

There's a there are boards outside and there's a banner saying under refurbishment. And there's a little gap in the boards. Every time I walk past, I try and just look in, just catch a glimpse. And what are they doing in there? How good's it gonna be?

I suspect it'll still be quite like a costume. But but, you know, how good is it actually gonna you get a little glimpse. The resurrection of g is exciting in and of itself, but it is a little glimpse of what is yet to come. Of resurrection bodies for those who've trusted Jesus and of a whole new creation. Revelation 21, the last book of the Bible talks about a new heavens and a new earth.

And that new creation will be 1 in which there is no more death or mourning, or crying, or pain. And that is what the Bible says we are looking forward to. What God is going to do is that new creation. Now you might think, well, okay, that that sounds like that sounds a lovely dream. But how do you know whether that's actually gonna be real?

That's where, actually, we come to that 1 Peter reading in which, I I'll just quote a little bit of it, just 1 little bit from the bit that Robin read earlier, where it says, in his great mercy, he has given us new birth. Into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. How do we know that that future is gonna happen? Peter says you look back to the resurrection again, and you say that is the thing that gives us that hope tied the 2 things together. And hope is not just a, oh, I hope it'll happen.

It's a certain hope. It's a that's how the Bible uses the word hope. It's a sure future. Now I said at the start, that the Bible doesn't give us the answer to the specifics of why. Why this suffering to this person now?

But that it I think it gives us something better. And I think it does in giving us what God has done and what God will do. John Lenox in his talk says, that when you come across a question as a mathematician, when you come across a question that, you can't answer, what he does is change the question. That's good. Good advice if you're taking any exams, but maybe you could change the question on the exam paper.

But but he said, look, we can't answer that question. Why this particular suffering, why now, why this person. But change the question, he says, But is there evidence that there is a God that we can trust with suffering? And he says, I think the answer is yes. As you look at what God has done and what God will do.

You see, that child go back to that illustration of the child in pain. What does that child really need? Okay. It's a 2 year old. The the parents could try and explain vaccinations to.

I don't think that would work. They could have left a piece of paper on the chair with a full explanation of vaccination, how they work, why it's good for the child. Of course, a 2 year old reading that, that's optimistic. But anyway, you go with me. That really isn't what the child really needs.

What that child needs is the parent to say I'm I'm with you. You'll be okay. Trust me. You'll be alright. And actually, what the Bible gives us is far better.

I mean, if God gave you the explanations for why you are suffering, why others you love are suffering, will that really help? It might do. I'm not saying it wouldn't help at all. Would it really help as much as god's saying? I'm with you.

Look at what I've done for you. Look at what I will do. You can trust me because God isn't just good, isn't just powerful. He is a has infinite knowledge, and he's far more loving of us than we can imagine. And that kind of got It's the kind of God we need to get us through suffering.