Issues of suffering

ISSUES OF SUFFERING, DEATH AND EVIL
By Pastor Glenn Pease
1. JOB THE RIGHTEOUS SUFFERER Based on Job 1:1
2. SUFFERING IS NOT GOOD-A STUDY IN JOB.
3. WHY TRAGEDY? Based on Job 1:6f
4. GOOD AND EVIL Based on Gen. 3:6
5. GOOD AND EVIL II Based on Gen. 3:22-24
6. A SIMPLE SOLUTION TO SUFFERING Based on John 9:1-23
7. ACCIDENTAL SUFFERING Based on Acts 20:7-12
8. THE SEVEN CAUSES OF SUFFERING Based on Luke 13:1-17
9. DEATH AND THE WILL OF GOD ACTS 7:51-60
10. PART II DEATH AND THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD
11. THE MYSTERY OF DEATH Based on I Cor. 15:51-58
12. SUCCESSFUL SUFFERING Based on James 1:1-8
11. GOOD OUT OF EVIL Based on Phil. 1:12-26
12. GOOD OUT OF EVIL PART2 Based on James 1:12
13. A BELIEVER'S RESPONSE TO DEATH based on II Sam. 12:15-23
14. DELIVERED FROM DEATH BASED ON PSALM 116
15. THE VALUE OF DEATH BASED ON PSALM 116
16. THE RIGHT TO QUESTION GOD Based on Hab. 1:1-4
1. JOB THE RIGHTEOUS SUFFERER Based on Job 1:1
One of the first impressions I gained at the Baptist General
Conference annual meeting in Green Bay was that Christians are
perpetually suffering. Every day we were reminded of leaders in our
conference who are fighting with cancer. Just in our small
denomination of 130,000 people there are hundreds who have cancer,
and hundreds more who suffer from other diseases. On top of this,
accidents are taking life, or leaving people injured and maimed
everyday. If this be the case in just one arm of the body of Christ,
how great must be the suffering of the whole body?

A Russian pastor just recently released form prison for exchange
for some Russian spies spoke to the conference twice. He told of his
great sorrow because of fellow pastors and lay-believers who still
languish in Russian prisons, not for being criminals, but for being
Christians. (This was 1979). There is no doubt about it, it’s a great
day to be alive, but the facts are that Christians are suffering
persecution and martyrdom all over the world. In our part of the
world where we have peace we suffer from disease and accidents. In
conflict torn countries Christians face all of this plus the sufferings
inflicted by man.
It is no wonder that Paul prayed that Christians might be
strengthened in the inner man. Christians need internal shock
absorbers to keep on going in spite of the blows dealt by life. The best
shock absorbers are right thoughts about suffering. Wrong ideas and
theories to explain it only adds to the burden. Helmut Thielicke, the
great German preacher and scholar, who has traveled across America
many times was asked, "What is the greatest weakness of American
Christians?" He responded, "Their views of suffering." American
Christians suffer one by one and have not gone through the holocost of
war with its cities bombed and thousands dying all around them. The
result is, most of the deepest thinking on suffering comes from
Christians in England and Europe where they have been through it.
They will not be comforted when you squeeze rose-water on their
cancer. The facts of life have forced them to rethink the popular
simple views that Christians hold in sunny times. Fortunately for us
God has given us another way to think deeply about the mysteries of
suffering. We do not have to go through the fire to see the light. The
book of Job reveals the debate on suffering as no other piece of
literature on earth. Just as Jesus suffered for us that we need not
experience hell, so Job suffered that we need not go through hell on
earth to come to right ideas about suffering. Thank God we do not all

have to learn by experience. It is possible to learn much from the
experience of others. All of us will experience suffering, but few if any
will have to go the route of Job. His severe experience can help all of
us make our less severe journey smoother by giving to us the shock
absorbers of right ideas.
In the book of Job we learn from the mistakes of others. This is the
path of wisdom, for we cannot live long enough to make them all
ourselves. We can make plenty of them, however, and the fact is,
many go on making the same mistakes made by the friends of Job.
They were good and godly men, but are the great examples of how
wrong good and godly men can be when it comes to suffering. Their
mistake was the common mistake still being made by Christians.
They tried to impose their simple explanation on all of reality. They
followed the path of all who are dogmatic. In order to get all of the
evidence to support their theory, they just ignored the facts that didn't
fit. They hated complexity. They demanded that Job conform to their
nice neat simple formula for explaining his, and all suffering.
Their simple formula was that all suffering was a sign of divine
displeasure. When men are good and godly they do not suffer, for
God blesses them. When they do suffer they have ceased to be good
and godly. They have sinned, and all suffering is punishment for sin.
The beauty of this formula is that anyone can grasp it. It solves the
mystery of suffering and explains everything. If you suffer it is just a
reaping of what you have sown. There is really no mystery to solve. It
has only one major defect-it is not true. This is what Job keeps saying
over and over in his defense.
Many Christians, however never read the book of Job, or do not
understand it if they do. The result is that many Christians suffer
great mental agony because they try to explain everything by this
simple but false formula. They cry out in affliction saying, what have I

done to deserve this? This implies that all suffering is deserved and is
punishment for bad behavior. They may be conscious of some sin in
their life, but there is no way that their sin can be so great as to
deserve such severe punishment. So they get angry at God and accuse
Him of cruelty and injustice. They know people much worse than
themselves who do not suffer at all. Their faith is often damaged, and
they suffer mental and spiritual torment all because they start with
bad theology and a wrong view of suffering.
If we learn nothing else from our study of Job, let's learn the folly
of trying to force all of the facts into a simple formula. There is a
fascinating Greek legend about a robber named Procrustes. He had a
very unusual way of treating guests who came to his home. He had
only one bed for guests, and so everyone had to sleep in it. Since he
wanted each guest to fit the bed just right, he would stretch short
guests on a stretcher so they were the right length, and, of course, if
they were too long, he cut them off so as to fit. Needless to say he was
not a popular host. His perverted practice has led to the word
Procrustean. It describes the friends of Job perfectly. It is a word
that refers to people who will cut off facts, or stretch the truth, or
anything else that is necessary to squeeze all of reality into the bed of
their iron-clad formula.
The book of Job is anti-Procrustean, and it demands that we
stretch our minds rather than the truth. It forces us to see life from a
larger perspective, and to expand our theology to cover a greater
diversity of facts. The book of Job forbids us from getting a hold of a
piece of the puzzle and calling that the picture.
Let's look at some of the Procrustean beds which men have tried to
force all of the facts of life to fit into, but which the book of Job rejects
as inadequate formulas to explain suffering. You may not like this
study anymore than Job's friends did, for maybe you will find your pet

theory among them. Don't feel too bad, however, for if there were not
a lot of false ideas about suffering, God would not have devoted so
much of His Word to the purpose of fighting them. All of us will be
forced by this book to reexamine how we think about suffering.
The first false view of suffering is:
1. Suffering is the result of the sin of the sufferer. It is agreed by
numerous commentators that the main purpose of the book of Job is
to destroy this popular and almost universal view of suffering. Most
religions of the world follow this formula. The whole doctrine of
reincarnation is built around this theory. If babies suffer and die they
must have sinned in a previous existence. If good and rightous people
have terrible diseases, it can only be explained by the sins they
committed in a former life. The main purpose of the doctrine of
reincarnation is to force all of reality to fit this formula. Those who
really believe this formula have solved the problem of suffering by
denying that there is a problem. If masses of boat people are
drowning, and thousands of children are dying, and disease is turning
people into zombies of affliction, there is nothing to get upset about,
for they all deserve what they are suffering. All suffering is
punishment for sin, and so all is fair and God is just. This theory
enables those who hold it to watch people die like flies without
compassion, for they see no evil in suffering. It is all good because it is
just punishment for sin.
Believe it or not, this is the theory of suffering held by Job's
friends. No wonder those who add to life's misery by this cruel
counsel are called "Job's friends." They did not believe in
reincarnation, but they did believe that all Job was suffering was
justified, and that it was God's way of punishing him, and trying to get
him to repent. They each take turns at trying to break Job down so he
will confess his secret sin. The best arguments for their view of

suffering that you will find anywhere are right here in the book of Job.
As eloquent and forceful as they were, however, they never convinced
Job that he was being punished for sin. They could throw at him
Scripture verses by the dozen that say, whom the Lord loveth He
chasteneth. Job knew that was true of much suffering, but he refused
to accept it as an explanation for all suffering, and especially his own.
Why? Because it just did not fit the facts of life. You cannot just take
a truth, even a Biblical truth, and impose it on all of life's experiences.
It is a Biblical truth that men reap what they sow. It is a Biblical
truth that sin leads to suffering. It is Biblical truth that whom the
Lord loveth He chasteneth. No one will deny that these are sound
Biblical truths. Nevertheless, if they do not fit the facts of a specific
case, they are not true of that case. The best of medicine is of no value
for a sickness it cannot cure. Suffering can be educational, but this
truth is of no value to the man who is killed, or left in a coma, by an
accident. What the facts clearly reveal about Job is:
No. 1. Verse 1 tells us he was blameless and upright, and one who
feared God and turned away from evil.
No. 2. In verse 8 God confirms this description and adds, "There is
none like him on earth."
It is established from the start that the man we are dealing with is
in the center of God's will. He is as near perfect as any man named
anywhere in the Bible. This means that any theory of suffering that
does not take into account that even the most righteous can suffer
terribly is false. Job was not being chastened by the Lord, for the
Lord loved him and held him up as the best example of godliness. His
suffering had nothing to do with his sin, and, therefore, all of the
arguments of Job's friends which try to convince him he has angered
God are themselves what made God angry. At the end of the book
they are only spared from God's wrath by Job's prayer and sacrifice

on their behalf. Their theory which was so false in relation to Job was
almost true for themselves in that they came close to great suffering
for their sin of teaching that all suffering is due to sin. This is a serious
sin, for God has gone to great lengths to make it clear that it is a false
view of suffering, and to be ignorant where knowledge is available is
sinful.
Does this mean the righteous do not suffer because of sin? No, it
does not mean that at all. The Bible is full of examples of saints who
suffer due to their sin. Poor Peter weeping because of his cowardly
denial of his Lord is a prime example. It is not that there is not truth
to the formula that suffering is due to sin. It is just that it becomes a
false view of suffering when you try to impose it on all experiences of
suffering. A partial truth made into a whole truth becomes a lie.
When you take something relative and make it absolute you are guilty
of idolatry and sin against God. That is what the friends of Job did,
and the book of Job exists to help us avoid their mistake.
If you think all suffering is punishment for sin, you will be forced to
pervert the image of God into a cruel creator rather than the merciful
creator that He is. Imagine how cruel it would be to imply that all who
have cancer or some other fatal disease are suffering because they
deserve it. Such cruelty is a sin that God forbids by this book. The
parents of a girl born with a crippled foot were asked why they did not
have the child's foot straightened by surgery. They replied, "If we
had the foot straightened He'd find some other way of punishing us."
They looked upon their suffering as God's punishment, and the result
was they had a perverted and pagan view of God. Had they
understood the book of Job, and that tragic things can happen even to
the innocent, they would have been motivated to turn to God in faith
rather than from Him in fear.
We don't have time to look at other false views of suffering. The

main truths to grasp is that the righteous can and do suffer, and
wicked sometimes do not. These are the facts of life. The question of
course is why? Why isn't it true that only the wicked suffer, and that
only the righteous prosper? It seems like the friends of Job ought to
be right. Why are they so wrong? They were wrong because of the
cross. The cross was in God's heart and mind long before Jesus came.
The teaching of Job was essential to prepare the way for the Messiah.
No one could ever believe in a Messiah who was a man of sorrows, and
who would suffer crucifixion between two thieves if they were
convinced that only the wicked suffer and the righteous escape it.
Those Jews who never learned the message of Job missed God's
greatest gift, for they rejected Jesus because, like Job's friends, they
said he must be a sinner, for he suffers. The poet said of Jesus:
The best of men
That e'er wore earth about him was a sufferer;
A soft, meek, patient, humble, tranquil spirit,
The first true gentleman that ever breathed.
We can look at the cross and praise God for our suffering Lord, and
what He purchased for us by His suffering. Those who believed, and
yet believe, that the righteous can never suffer, can never grasp the
truth of the cross and the fact that God Himself suffers-the only
absolute RIGHTEOUS SUFFERER.
2. SUFFERING IS NOT GOOD-A STUDY IN JOB.
We have special seats as we watch the drama of Job unfold. God
has, by this opening chapter, invited us into the balcony to watch the

whole thing from a heavenly perspective. We get to see from the view
of God and Satan, and who knows how many millions of celestial
spectators. It is a sort of cosmic, SMILE YOUR ON CANDID
CAMERA, set up. We are all in on it, but Job has no idea what is
going on. We know that all of the dirty tricks of Satan are deliberately
designed so we can all see Job's reaction. We also know that when the
entertainment is all over Job will be rewarded for being a good sport
through it all.
In this analogy Satan is the Allen Funt of the spirit world who goes
about constantly trying to dream up new ways to reveal human
responses to trying situations. All of this could be great fun if God
would just call Satan off on account of unnecessary roughness. If
Satan would have been less violent the whole drama could be
enjoyable. Had he just plotted for all his possessions to be robbed,
that would have been an interesting thing to watch. But Satan pulled
no punches. He wiped Job out and without mercy saw to it that the
vast majority of his servants and all of his children were killed. This
spoils the whole show for those who are not sadistic.
Many have felt that God made a bad deal with Satan. Robert Frost
has God explaining later to Job: "I was just showing off to the devil."
Job responds, "That was very human of you." Carl Jung, the famous
psychiatrist, goes so far as to say that God felt guilty for what He let
Satan do to Job. The reason he says God sent His Son into the world
to die on the cross was because He felt so guilty about Job. The cross
was not only to atone for man's guilt, but for His own. This is
certainly as extreme a view as ever uttered, but what it reveals is man
questions the justice of God in allowing Satan to treat Job like He did.
It just does not set right with man that God would give this much
freedom to the forces of evil. He should have put more restricted
limits on Satan.

This is man's biggest problem with evil. Why does God in His
sovereignty not stop evil from being so powerful. The feeling is, if God
is forced to permit evil, He is not all powerful, and if He freely permits
it, He is not all good. God is forced, it seems, to give up one or the
other of these attributes. Since all of Scripture however reveals God
to be both all powerful and all good, man is forced to try to figure out
how this can be when God permits evil to be as powerful as it is.
One of the answers to this dilemma is, God can allow evil to be
powerful if the end result is greater good. In other words, God is
justified in permitting any degree of evil that He, in His sovereign
power and wisdom, can turn to good. For example, God allows Satan
to buffet Paul with his thorn in the flesh, because that evil of suffering
will help Paul escape the greater evil of pride that could ruin his whole
ministry. Here is a clear case of God giving Satan freedom to do what
He could use for good. This means that the reason God does not
destroy Satan and cast him into the lake of fire is because, in a fallen
sinful world, the works of Satan can be used for the purpose of God.
God allows Satan freedom because it is useful for His own ultimate
goals. God is in control, therefore, and evil will not be able to do
anything that God cannot overcome, and make count for good in the
long run. This being the case, God is off the hook, and He is justified
in permitting evil.
This truth is easily perverted into error. Some conclude that evil is
not real. If evil is used for good, they reason that evil is really a part
of the good. If the good can only come by way of evil, then evil is
good. If good can come of evil then evil is not really bad, and,
therefore, not genuinely evil. This kind of thinking leads to the
Christian Science conclusion that evil is not real at all, but is the result
of false thinking. The Bible makes it clear, however, that evil is real,
and that it is bad and not good. God can use it for good, but it is evil
and destructive, and not His will. The fact that God is superior to evil,

and able to counteract it's negative power does not mean that evil is
not real and awful. The fact is some evil will persist forever, and that
is why hell is a reality. We must avoid the superficial conclusion that
all is really good if we only understand everything. Because evil is
real, there is much in life that is worthless and meaningless.
Those who think that evil is really good do not realize that by
denying the reality of evil they make God responsible for all that we
see as evil. The Bible makes it clear that evil is real and God hates it,
and is not the author of it. Sometimes Christians feel that God
sovereignty means that He controls everything that happens in this
universe. If that was the case, then there is no such thing as freedom,
and God is totally responsible for all evil. If God controls all that we
do, then all of our sin must be His doing, and, therefore, His will. God
then is responsible for all sin, for it He controls everything, who else
can be held responsible? Since that conclusion is totally at odds with
the Biblical revelation, we must go back to God's sovereignty and
come up with another view of it that does not make Him the author of
sin.
God's sovereignty means that He is the only Person in the universe
who can take the risk of creating free willed beings because He is the
only Person who has the power and wisdom to make sure that the risk
of evil will not outweigh the good. He can end up with a universe of
free willed creatures and much good and love that could not otherwise
exist. God's sovereignty does not mean He does everything. It means
that even though millions of beings do things He does not will, He is
able to work in all things for good to those who love Him and who are
called according to His purpose. God's will is not done on earth daily
by millions, but because He is sovereign, His will will eventually be
done in spite of all the sin and evil and rebellion.
This is one of the powerful messages of the book of Job. Satan set

free to do his worst was not able to destroy Jobs relationship to God,
and God's final reward and blessing of Job. Paul in the New
Testament said nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ
Jesus our Lord. The book of Job had already made this truth clear.
Life, then, from the Biblical viewpoint is a comedy, and not a tragedy.
A comedy is a story that, no matter how tragic the events, ends well.
Job is, therefore, a comedy, and all of human life is a comedy, however
many tragedies there are to endure.
Now all of this helps us to see suffering in a different light. All of the
values and blessings that come out of suffering are real because God in
His power and wisdom is able to use evil to bring forth good. The
suffering itself is evil. It has its origin in evil powers and wrong
choices, and it is evil in itself, for it will not be allowed to be a part of
God's eternal kingdom. Evil has no intrinsic goodness at all and so
cannot be eternal. The cause of suffering is evil, but the consequences
can be good because God can work in everything for good.
God is not the cause of any defect in the body, for the body of the
Christian is the temple of the Holy Spirit. Just as you would not come
into the sanctuary of your church and destroy the pews and the walls
or windows, and just as you would not throw garbage all over to make
it a place of filth which would be repulsive to God and man, so God
does not smash His temple in planes, trains, cars, or bikes, nor does
He spread cancer and other diseases through His temple to make the
body repulsive. All of the good that come from Christian suffering
these things are because God will work in everything (however evil
and repulsive) to bring forth good. If men will cooperate with God,
there is no evil that cannot be overcome to produce good. But do not
conclude that this means the evil or suffering is good, or that God is
the author of it for good. Both of these conclusions lead to the false
concept that evil is not real, and that God is the author of evil.
Anything that leads to these conclusions is not Biblical thinking. God

is light and in Him is no darkness at all. It is impossible for God to
sin, or to tempt anyone else to sin.
There are some Old Testament text that lead to confusion on this,
for they seem to be saying that God is the author of evil. Amos 3:6
says, "Shall there be evil in a city, and the Lord hath not done it?"
The prophet is simply pointing out that God does punish sin by
judgment, and that judgment is called evil, because it is from man's
point of view the worse thing that can happen. It is an evil to come
under the wrath of God, but when God does judge it is in reality not
evil but justice. God never judges unjustly or unfairly, and so there is
no real evil in His wrath, but the Old Testament often refers to it as
evil from the Lord. It is the result of man's evil, and when he reaps
what he has sown, it is an evil crop of suffering, but in no way does this
mean God is the author of evil. He prefers mercy, but mercy rejected
leads to justice, and justice for the sinner is an evil consequence.
Understanding all of this helps us avoid the agony of misconception.
So many Christians look at the tragedies of life and Rom. 8:28, and
struggle to figure out how everything works together for good. They
watch their loved ones die, and suffer months and years of loneliness
and heartache, and all the while wonder how they are suppose to see
any good in it all. This is a futile struggle and frustration based on the
misconception that evil is not real, but that all is good, and that all is
of God. You owe it to yourself, and to all the body of Christ to avoid
giving anyone this superficial view of life. Evil is real and it hurts, and
it is not good, nor can God Himself make evil good, but He will work
in all things, even the most evil things, to bring forth good.
But the fact remains, that is the back door to blessing. It is best to
come in front door and experience blessing without having to endure
the evil. Many a man's drunkenness has lead him to the gutter where
he looks up for God's mercy. That is good, but better is the way of

man who seeks God's mercy without ever ending in the gutter. Job
had great blessings when it was all over, but I wonder if Job would
have had his choice, what would he decide? Would he choose to go on
with his ideal family and wealth, and social prestige, and right
relationship to God, and avoid all he had to suffer, or would he choose
to endure the agony he did for the sake of possessing more? We don't
know what Job would do, but most people in his shoes would, I am
sure, choose the easiest route and avoid the battle.
Since we don't have a choice, however, we need to be ready for the
battle. But let's not be naive and think the battle is not real, but only
a good we don't yet understand. Evil is real, and life is a battle with
real bullets. It is not all a mere play where we all go out to celebrate
afterwards. You have seen too many good people suffer too believe
that. You have witnessed too many broken homes and hearts to think
that way. Jesus would not have wept if all was for the best. All is not
for the best. He tried to prevent the destruction of Jerusalem, but he
was rejected, and he wept over the folly of the people that would lead
them to such great suffering. It was not for the best; it was evil.
Suffering is not good, but thank God this not good cannot keep us
from God's best if we, no matter what, remain loyal to Him. Suffering
is not good, but thank God He will work with us, even in that which is
not good, to bring forth what is good.
3. WHY TRAGEDY? Based on Job 1:6f
Elie Wiesel, who survived Hitler's blood bath for the Jews, as
devoted his life to telling the world of this tragedy that he feels
surpasses hell in its horrors. His books have motivated others to
write so that there now exists a holocaust literature. There are books,
plays, articles, and poems, about history's most unbelievable tragedy,

which is the brutal murder of six million Jews. Wiesel did not see the
entire million children who were killed, but he saw enough so that he
was never the same. He wrote:
"Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has
turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven
times sealed. Never shall I forget that smoke. Never shall I forget
the little faces of the children, whose bodies I saw turned into
wreathes of smoke beneath the silent blue sky."
In another place he wrote that people tend to think that a
murderer weakens when facing a child. The child reawakens the
killers lost humanity and he can't go through with it. But it didn't
happen. "Our Jewish children had no effect upon the killers. Nor
upon the world, nor upon God." The result was that Wiesel did not
respond like Job, but like Satan expected Job to respond. Wiesel
wrote, "Never shall I forget those flames which consumed my faith
forever. How can a Jew say anything religious thereafter?"
Wiesel survived the tragedy but his faith did not. He could not
understand how God could allow evil to be so powerful, and so he
concluded that God does not care. This is the test that Satan put Job
through many centuries earlier. All ten of his children were wiped out
in one blow, and all of his wealth was destroyed the same day. Job
also endured a holocaust. His dream world was shattered by a
nightmare, and his ideal family was instantly reduced to no family at
all.
There is obviously something wrong in a world where things like
this can happen. If tragedy was just an isolated incident here and
there, and limited to the bad guys, we could go along with Job's
friends, and the problem of suffering would be easily solved. But
tragedy does not have any respect of persons. The Jonestown

massacre was not a mafia convention, but over 900 mostly innocent
people. They were women and children, many of whom were good
and godly. The worse airplane crash in American history did not go
down with a load of pimps and prostitutes, but with respectable
citizens, some of whom were God's children. War, famine, and
terrorism are snuffing out the lives of thousands every year, and
disease takes a terrible toll, and in all cases the good guys as well as
the bad are victims.
If the problem of suffering in this world does not bother you, you
are yourself suffering from hardening of the heart, of softening of the
brain. Those who study Job's sufferings, and the tragedies of the
world are forced to consider the subject called Theodicy. Theodicy is
the justification of the ways of God to men. There have been many
books written on this area of theology. Joni's second book, A Step
Further is a Theodicy, and it is a good one. Many feel that the book of
Job itself is a Theodicy. A Theodicy strives to show that as bad as
things are, God is good and He is in control, and evil is not winning the
battle. A Theodicy is the defense of God in a world where evil often
seems to dominate.
The book of Job opens up the window of heaven, and enables us to
see the problem of suffering from a broader perspective. Job himself
did not see what we can see. He had to go through his tragedy
believing that God was the sole cause of it all. Life is so much harder
when you have only a partial perspective. Most of the ways we explain
suffering are only partial, and none of them fit every situation. A wife
comes to consol and you are not long in listening to her story before
you could watch her husband hang with a smile on your face. Then he
comes in and tells his side, and you wonder why there is nobody taking
a collection to hang his picture in the hall of fame for endurance. The
point is, when you see life only from one side you have a distorted
view. We have a distorted view of most of life, and especially life's

tragedies.
The first thing the book of Job does for us is give us an insight into
the conflict in heaven that explains some of the tragedy on earth. God
gives us a wider perspective so we can avoid the partial perspective of
Job's friends. Satan is no equal to God, for God is clearly supreme.
He sets the limits to how far Satan can go. Nevertheless, He does give
Satan the authority to test Job within those limits. Who then is
responsible for the tragedies Job suffered. Is it God for allowing
Satan the freedom to test him, or is it Satan, for he is the one who
actually carries out the diabolical plot. He motivates the enemies of
Job to come and rob him and kill his servants. He produced the
tornado and guided it to destroy the home where all Job's children
were. Satan masterminded the whole series of tragedies, and so he is
clearly responsible. God is only partially off the hook, however, for
He gave Satan the permission. That is why we need a Theodicy. We
need to explain how God can be good and just in doing this.
The book of Job is teaching us that God is soverign and is the
supreme authority so that even Satan can only operate by his
permission. But yet there is great evil that results from this
permission to do that which God Himself would never do. If God in
His sovereignty allows others to do what He would never do, we can
only conclude that God considers some other values greater than the
prevention of all evil. If God can prevent evil by His sovereign power,
but chooses not to prevent it, we are forced to conclude that either
God is not good, or that God permits evil for a greater good. Weisel
choose to believe the first, and Job choose to believe the second. Job,
of course, made the wise choice, but we must still ask why? Why is
Job's choice the best, and how can God's allowing tragedy be
justified. Theodicy is the name for the answers to that question.
The classical Christian answer is the theodicy of freedom. God

could have said to Satan, "Hit the road you cynic. Your pessimism
about Job farce. Don't come back until you have developed the skill
of possibility thinking." God could have used His sovereignty that
way, but instead, He chose to accept the challenge of Satan and allow
him to test Job. God gave Satan freedom to do what was evil. Just as
He gave man the freedom to do what was evil. If God is willing to let
evil exist for the sake of freedom, then freedom has to be one of the
greatest values in all the universe. When God made Adam and Eve
He also gave them freedom to do evil. He warned them not to eat of
the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, but He gave them freedom
to do so. He could have easily prevented it but did not. We see that
evil existed before man.
As we examine freedom we discover that it is really the basic
source of all evil, and yet, it is the most treasured value of God and
man. The only way we can justify God's allowing Satan to test Job,
and Hitler to test the Jews, and all of the other holocausts of history, is
to grasp the theodicy of freedom. St. Augustine in the fourth century
was the first to put this into systematic form. Ever since then it has
been the traditional view of both Catholics and Protestants. Most
Christians hardly ever consider it, but the book of Job forces us to do
so. Since God created everything that is, and said it is very good, even
Satan was made good. God created no natures or creatures that were
evil. If God had made Satan evil then God would be solely responsible
for the evil in the universe, but God made everything good.
How then could evil ever get started in a good universe where all
creatures and all things were good? It came in by way of God's
greatest gift to His highest creatures. It was by means of the gift of
freedom. God could have prevented evil very simply by withholding
the gift of freedom. God had the choice of making a world where no
evil could exist, but He did not do it. At least in our world He did not
do it. God may have created hundreds of worlds where there is no evil

because there is no freedom. There could be worlds where all is
beautiful and not one sin because all of the beings that inhabit it are
programed to do only what is good.
We live in a different kind of world than that. Those worlds are
mere toys compared to our world. For here everything is real. There
is life and love and loyalty. But there is also sin and evil and death
because of the freedom of will. Those who think God controls all that
happens in this world have a misconception of the value of this
freedom of the will in God's value system. It means everything to God
to have free willed beings to relate to. They are not machines, but real
persons who are able to fellowship with Him. Their love and
obedience is priceless, because they are freely given, and not the
automatic response due to programing. Islam says all is automatic,
and God is the cause of all good and evil. Nothing can be changed for
all is determined. This is pure fatalism and not the Biblical view of the
freedom of choice.
As on earth so it is in heaven; you get what you pay for. The cost of
this type of world we live in is enormous. The cost is the risk of evil,
for freedom to be real there must be allowance for the choice of evil.
There is no way to have freedom and avoid the possibility of evil.
Satan was made with the same freedom to chose good or evil. What is
evil? Since God is the creator of all, and God is good, evil is any use of
freedom which is contrary to God's will, and what He would have His
creatures choose. When any free willed being chooses to do what God
would not have programed them to do, had He made them robots,
that is evil.
These kinds of choices must be possible for there to be true
freedom. Where there is no alternative there is no freedom. If you
have to vote for the dictator in power, and there is no alternative, you
are not in a free country. If you have to do the will of God, and there

is no way to do what He does not will, you are not in a free world.
What all this means is that evil is a necessity in the kind of world we
live in. It is God's will that evil be possible, but it is not His will that it
be actual. That is, God wills that you have the freedom to choose evil,
but He does not will that you make that choice. God makes evil
possible by granting free will, but only free willed beings can make evil
actual by their choices. God makes man free to murder, but He does
not will that they do so. In fact, He clearly wills that they do not and
threatens severe punishment if they do. Who then is responsible for
the evil? It is the one making that choice.
This is what theodicy is. It is a justification of the ways of God to
men. There is no point in men getting angry with God and accusing
him of injustice and indifference because of the great evil in the world.
He is not responsible for it since by definition evil is always that which
God does not will. Not only does God not will evil, He is the only one
who has the power and wisdom to conquer evil, and even use it for
good. To forsake God in the holocaust, or in any degree of suffering
and tragedy, is to totally misunderstand the origin, nature, and
destiny of evil. Evil is the by-product of freedom. If you insist that
freedom is not worth the cost, maybe God will grant you the choice of
being a rock, or some mindless creature of instinct. For those who
prefer to be persons, however, there is always the risk of evil and
suffering.
In the light of this theodicy we can better understand what is
happening when God seems to be cooperating with Satan. God gives
him the power to go ahead and put Job to a brutal test. Why would
God ever do such a thing, and then have it recorded for all the world
to read? Billy Graham gets criticized for having a liberal on his
platform, and here is God with Satan on His platform, and God grants
him an answer to his request. God is determined to prove to all the
intelligent beings in the universe that man is truly free. Satan has

charged that Job is a slave and has no real choice between good and
evil. God calls Satan's bluff, and says go ahead and test him, for in
doing so you will reveal to the whole universe just how free man is. He
is no puppet. He can choose good or evil, and Job will prove it.
The fact is, none of the suffering that Satan could throw at Job
could penetrate his inner sanctuary of freedom. Evil can march
around the gate and bang upon it, but it can never enter and capture
the freedom of man's will unless the bolt is lifted from the inside. The
same is true for the forces of good, for Jesus stands at the door and
knocks, and He will only enter a life when the door is opened from
within. Man is truly a free being. He can say yes or no to both God or
Satan. Man has the freedom to defy either of them, and he has the
freedom to chose the way of either. Neither the power of good or evil
can conquer man by sheer force. God knew that, but He had to prove
it to Satan. After Satan did his worst to make God look like a
monstrous evil enemy, Job still chose to be loyal to God.
The observers around the council table of heaven could only
conclude that man is one of us. Job gained universal respect, for he
could do good and evil and be able to choose the good and reject the
evil. He demonstrated the worthiness of man's place in God's eternal
plan. Job became a universal hero. So great is the value of freedom
that God says it is worth any price. If is means giving Satan
opportunity to do evil; if it means the agony of Job; if it means the
torture of Hitler, and all of the diabolical suffering of history, it is
worth it. That would be easy for God to say if He just sat in heaven to
watch, but God did more than that, He got involved. He did not make
man take all the risks of freedom. He said in order to have the best I
will share the cost of such freedom. That is why the cross was a part
of God's long range plans even before the foundation of the world.
God knew there would be hell to pay to produce a free being like

man, and so He committed Himself to be the greatest sufferer of all.
He would endure the hell His own justice demanded. The cross is the
symbol of God's commitment to human freedom. It means everything
to God, and the cross is the price God paid for man to be free. A
young boy was looking at a picture of the crucifixion, and disturbed by
its cruelty he said, "If God had been there, He would not have let them
do it." That is the feeling we get as we look at the tragedies that
struck Job. But God was there, and God was in Christ reconciling the
world unto Himself. The worst was turned into the best because God
was there and permitted the worst. So with Job, and so with so much
that we suffer in this world.
Evil is powerful in the world because man and spiritual beings like
Satan are not programed computers, but are real persons with real
choices, and they often choose that which is not God's will. Evil is so
great at times that those suffering must wonder if freedom is really
worth it. Even when we understand this classical theodicy that makes
so much sense, we get a gnawing feeling that maybe the cost is too
great, even if God did pay the major share on Calvary.
The book of Job reveals also the way out of this final doubt that
God can be justified for the world as it is. God is also free, and better
yet He is sovereign. This means He can guarantee that His will can be
ultimately accomplished, and the history of man will end as the story
of Job ends, with victory over evil. P. T. Forsythe said, "To justify
God is the best and deepest way to fortify men." This is what theodicy
does. It shows us that God is not the cause of evil, but He is the cause
of victory over evil. Job is a comedy, for in spite of all the tragedy, it
has a happy ending. So life is a comedy. No matter how tragic life
becomes because of freedom, God will make sure that evil will be
overcome, and all its victories will be temporary.

4. GOOD AND EVIL Based on Gen. 3:6
When Victor Hugo was at what seemed to be the height of his fame
he came into disfavor with Napoleon III and was exiled for 19 years.
It was only natural that Hugo would consider this as pure tragedy, but
his immediate judgment was wrong. During those years he wrote far
superior books, and he became twice the man he had been before.
The day actually came when Hugo looked at that seemingly unhappy
event and exclaimed, "Why was I not exiled before?" The evil that
befell him actually resulted in a greater good.
It may seem ridiculous to suggest that man's fall and exile has also
resulted in a greater good, but let me suggest it anyway. Biblical
theology would seem to demand this conclusion, for we know that God
is sovereign, and that in spite of his giving to man a free will, He will
not end up when history is over with less than what He began with.
God could allow the possibility of evil just because He is able to bring
good out of it. Let us not get the impression that the fall was good. It
was not, but it was a very definite and tragic evil. The point is, God is
in control and permits only that evil to be possible out of which He can
bring good.
It is often of small comfort in a tragic situation to say it could be
worse, but it is of great comfort at the point of the fall of man. In one
of Shakespeare's plays a character is made to say, "And when he falls,
he falls like Lucifer, never to hope again." This is exactly what did not
happen in the fall of Adam and Eve. They did not fall as Satan did.
He fell by his own choice to defy God, but they were tempted by
external persuasion. Therefore, their fall was not final, but rather was
one where God has plans to restore them to a state of perfection.
Without the fall we would not have a Savior, and however pleasant
our life would be, it would be less than what we have ahead in eternity

because of what Jesus accomplished for us.
All this amounts to is the logical conclusion we must come to as
Christians because of our rejection of Dualism. We believe that God
alone is sovereign, and He is the creator of all. We do not believe that
there are two ultimate beings as the ancient Persians and Gnostics
believed, with one being good and the other evil. We believe in a
limited dualism in which light and darkness battle one another with
Christ leading the forces of light and Satan the forces of darkness. We
believe the evil forces had a beginning, and that they will have an end
in defeat.
Evil we say is dependent upon the good for its very existence.
Good can exist alone, but evil must have the presence of good to exist,
for evil can have no meaning except by contrast to a standard of good.
It would be impossible to ever do a thing in the wrong way if there was
no right way to do it. But one could do it the right way even if it were
impossible to do it wrong. Let me illustrate. Suppose you have a
puzzle all together except for one piece of a very odd shape. There is
only one right way for that piece to go in. It is just because there is a
right way for it to fit that it is possible to try many wrong ways. You
can hold it several different ways and turn it over before you finally
hit the right way. All the wrong ways can only exist because of there
being a right way. If there was no right way for it to fit, there would
be no wrong ways, for anyway would do. Wrongness is dependant
upon rightness for its very existence.
God and good are supreme and ultimate, but Satan and evil are
temporary intruders. This is confirmed by the record we have here of
the entrance of evil into the world. It got in by the misuse of that
which was good, and thereby established the basic nature of evil as
being the striving for a good by the wrong means. In other words, just
as God can bring good out of evil, so Satan can bring evil out of good.

C. S. Lewis said, "Badness is only spoiled goodness." If you examine
any sin you will discover that some good is always the foundation of it.
This is why sin if often so appealing. It appears to offer so much good.
The greater the good involved, however, the greater the sin. If sex
perversions are high on the list of sins, it is only because normal sex
experience is so high on the list of God's blessings.
If bigotry is such a despised attitude, it is because conviction is
such an honorable attitude. In other words, evil is basically a
perverted good. Take orthodoxy for example, which means being
sound and right in your beliefs. None can doubt that this is a good,
and yet it has been the cause of so much evil because of its being
converted and made an end in itself. Mark Guy Pearce writes, "Look
back over the ages so far as we have any record of the world's
religious history. We shall find that the cruelest thing that ever came
into God's world is religion without love. It has kindled more fires for
the burning of martyrs, it has invented more diabolical torches, it has
wrought more dire and dreadful suffering, then wars and strong drink
put together.
Jesus as the risen and reigning king said to the church of Ephesus
that it was good that they tested men and found them to be false
apostles. It was good that they were orthodox, but they had left their
first love. He warned them that if they did not return to that love all
their orthodoxy would be for naught, and he would remove their
candlestick from its place. Christ stands squarely behind Paul's
statement that though one has no knowledge and faith enough to
remove mountains, but has not love, he is nothing. Jesus says by His
rebuke to this church, and it is backed up by all of Scripture, and the
pages of history reecho it that the end does not justify the means. No
end however good, even that of being orthodox, can be attained or
maintained by means inconsistent with love. If it is, the good is
perverted and becomes an evil. The point that we need to grasp is

that any good is the source of potential evil, for evil can only exist by
perverting a good. This calls for constant examination and renewed
commitment lest we be subtly led into sin in our very pursuit of the
good.
This is what happened to Eve. God had made everything good,
and there was nothing that was bad or evil on earth. The only possible
way Satan could introduce evil into the world would be by some
misuse of what was good. The paradox of the fall is that good
surrounds it completely. C. Vaughn said, "The fall is a greater
mystery than the redemption." We have been studying the cleverness
of Satan in getting Eve to fall, and we have seen that Satan has used
truth as one of his instruments of deception. Satan could not succeed
without using good for his evil goal. We see Satan using wisdom and
truth to deceive Eve into disobedience. Now as we look at the tree of
knowledge of good and evil, which has by Satan's subtlety became the
object of Eve's attention, we discover again that good is the only thing
we can see, and that is all that Eve saw as well.
1. First she saw-The tree was good for food. God had made all
things good, and this included the fruit of the forbidden tree. It did
not just look good, it really was good for food. The only possible way
evil could arise out of seeking this good food would be by gaining it in
a way out of harmony with God's will. That is exactly what happened.
We see, however, that the good itself was good. It was only the means
to get it that made it evil. Satan's success was in getting her to gain a
good by an evil means.
God was the author of taste, beauty, and desire for wisdom, and
all of these are good. It is not an evil to desire good food, but it is
natural and good. All of these good factors combined to produce an
evil simply because they were directed toward a good but forbidden
goal. Any good that has to be gained by disobeying God is a good out

of which evil will come. To desire such a good when you know it
cannot be gained in God's will is an evil lust. Desire is not wrong, but
a lust for that which is forbidden is a desire that has gone out of God's
will.
It was Eve's lust for the good fruit that led to the fall. Someone
wrote, "Eve, with all the fruits of Eden blest, save only one, rather
than leave that one unknown lost all the rest." Martin Luther wrote,
"How rich a God is our God! He gives enough, but we do not heed
this. He gave Adam the whole world, and that was nothing. He was
only concerned about the one tree he had to ask why God had
forbidden him to eat of it. So it is today. In his revealed word God
has given us enough to learn. We leave that alone and search into His
secret will, and yet we fail to learn it. It serves us right if we perish
through such conduct." What greater folly can there be than to
forsake the abundance of God's blessings and go in pursuit of what He
has forbidden? The forbidden fruit was good for food, but then so was
every other piece of fruit in the garden. Beware of being duped into
pursuing anything just because it is good, for a good pursued out of
God's will is an evil.
2. It was a delight to the eyes. Certainly no one would call
aesthetics evil. That means the enjoyment of beauty. Beauty is God's
doing, and so also is the love of beauty in the heart of man. Yet this
good can also be used to draw us into the snare in gaining the good by
a wrong means. Had the tree been ugly, and the fruit unappealing,
and half rotten, the chances of the temptation succeeding would have
been slim indeed. Evil we see again can only succeed when it has a
good foundation on which to build. It cannot stand alone. It can only
enter where a good standard is established. Adam and Eve could
never have been tricked into doing an evil in itself. The only hope for
evil to succeed was by using the good. It is still Satan's most effective
means to get people to fall. If he can get us to focus our eyes on a good

goal that must be gained by disobedience to God, he has a good chance
of getting us to go ahead. We are prone to persuade ourselves that as
long as the goal is good the means do not matter.
Many have fallen where they never expected they could simply
because they continued to gaze at the forbidden. The poet has said,
The ill we deem we ne'er could do, in thought we dramatize;
What we should loathe, we learn to scan with speculative eyes.
Alas! For ignorance profound of our poor nature's bent!
The weakened sympathy with wrong becomes the will's consent.
All that glitters is not gold, and all that is beautiful is not thereby
approved of by God. Joseph Parker said, "A beautiful gate it is that
opens upon ruin! It is well-shaped, well-painted, and the word
welcome illuminates it in vivid letters." We need to be fully
conscience that evil's best tools are the good, the true and the
beautiful. Spurgeon said that the serpent probably got Eve fascinated
with it so that she liked it the most of all the creatures. To her it was
beautiful and something to be treasured. Satan often uses beauty to
lead us astray. These are three values that all men desire. People who
think sin is always ugly and awful are usually very fine respectable
people who will never be saved, for they do not believe they are
sinners. We must be ever aware that evil is basically perverted good,
for only then can we spot the sins that trap us when we think we are
being righteous.
3. To be desired to make one wise. God certainly expected man to
use the brain He gave him, and to grow wise is good. Eve desired to
be wise and her hunger for knowledge was not evil. We see that a
good was the object and goal, which was made to bring about man's
fall. She had three good reasons to justify her act of eating. If she put
all arguments for and against down in writing, there would only be one

against it and three for it. This shows us the quantity of arguments is
not a valid basis. No number of arguments weigh anything in the scale
of decision when God's command is against it.
Eve let 3 good goals tip the scale, and she chose to go against
God's command. Our interest in this message is to stress the fact that
evil could not succeeded without the help of the good. Good is the
foundation of evil, and without it evil cannot exist. This shows us that
good is the original and evil is an intruder. All evil is a perversion of
some good in God's totally good universe. One day the perverted will
be destroyed, and all his perversions, and all will be good again.
Meanwhile we need to grow in our discerning of good and evil that we
might not be led into evil by way of the good, but that we might
overcome evil with good.
5. GOOD AND EVIL II Based on Gen. 3:22-24
Oliver Wendell Holmes said, "Pretty much all the honest
truth-telling there is in the world is done by children." This does not
mean, however, that their truth telling is always pleasant. Especially
if you have guests, or if you are like the Sunday School teacher who
asked too many questions. One Sunday she told the story of the Good
Samaritan, and she made it very vivid so the children could realize
clearly what had happened. Then she asked, "If you saw a person
lying on the roadside all wounded and bleeding what would you do?"
A thoughtful little girl broke the hushed silence and said, "I think I'd
throw up."
The truth is not only not always pleasant, but it can even be used
to promote evil. William Blake wrote, "A truth that's told with bad
intent beats all the lies you can invent." Satan is the father of lies, but

he reveals right from the start that he recognizes that truth can often
be even more effective than lies in accomplishing his purpose. If you
think the devil never tells the truth, then you have not read Gen. 3
very closely. In verse 5 the subtle serpent tells Eve that when she eats
of the forbidden fruit her eyes will be opened, and she will be like God
knowing good and evil. No one can call this statement a lie without
also accusing God, for in verse 22 God says the serpent's prophecy
was literally fulfilled, and man did become like God knowing good and
evil. Satan is not fussy. If the truth can be used to get men to disobey
God, why bother inventing lies?
Truth is never an adequate reason to justify disobedience to God's
revealed will. Satan will use the truth and nothing but the truth, and
he will offer you the very best if he can persuade you to get it by
disobeying God. Just because something is new does not mean that it
is right, or that it is God's will. Adam and Eve assumed that if they
could become more like God by disobeying God it must be the right
thing to do. They got a good thing, but they paid too great a price,
when by obedience they would have gotten not only the knowledge of
good and evil, but eternal life as well. There is no doubt that God
intended Adam and Eve to eat of both the tree of life and the tree of
the knowledge of good and evil, but it was to be only in His good time.
This seems clear if we look closely at God's words in verse 22. These
are really quite startling words, and they have led to some very
radical developments in the history of theology.
God says, "Behold the man has become like one of us, knowing
good and evil." Many have looked at these words and said that it
doesn't sound like a fall, but rather a rise. Man's first sin made him
more like God than he was when he was innocent. That is an
improvement, and it made man greater than he was before. Fallen
man is more divine than innocent man, and so the fall must have been
good. Many conclude that God intended man to fall just because it

was the way for Him to become more godlike. They do not see
tragedy in man's fall, but rather the beginning of the struggle of man
to climb to the heights of perfection. What they are failing to see,
however, is the fact that man got this good by disobedience, and so fell
from a perfect relationship to God. It is true that eating of the
forbidden fruit made them more godlike, and that is why it is
reasonable to believe that God would have let them eat of it eventually
after they had proven their loyalty to Him.
When God finished creation He said that all was good. That
included the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The tree was not
evil, nor was it bad to have the knowledge of good and evil. God has
it, and no one can be like God without it. Animals do not have it, and
so they are not moral beings. Man does have this knowledge and is a
moral being, and is responsible for choosing good and avoiding evil.
The Bible refers to the knowledge of good and evil as a precious gift.
God admits here that it is a quality of His own nature, and so to have
it is to partake of the divine nature. In I Kings 3:9 Solomon prays,
"Give thy servant therefore an understanding mind to govern thy
people, that I may discern between good and evil." In II Sam. 14:17 it
is said of David, "...my lord the king is like the angel of God to discern
good and evil."
If it was a good thing to have it, and if it made man like the angels
of heaven and like God himself, why then did God not want them to
live forever, and, therefore, put them out of the garden? The answer
is really quite obvious. If man lives forever with the knowledge of
good and evil, but with a will that is not committed to good and loyalty
to God, he will be an eternal rebel. God already has eternal rebels in
Satan and his fallen angels. He does not intend to allow man to
become like them, and so His act of expelling them from the garden is
an act of great mercy. If He allowed them to stay and eat and live
forever, He would be condemning them to eternal separation from

himself. But if He cast them out to die as mortal, He can provide a
way of redeeming them and bringing them back into fellowship with
himself. This way He can give them eternal life and win an ultimate
victory over Satan.
God's plan is not to have men who are living forever, but to have
men who are living forever in fellowship with Him. A Christ like
person can have the knowledge of good and evil, but chose to follow
the good. If we were Adam like for all eternity, there would be
guarantee that we wouldn't sometime chose evil and fall all over again.
In order to achieve the best God had to prevent man from eating of
the tree of life until after he was made completely like Christ. When
we become like Him in eternity there will be no more chance of our
disobeying God than there was of Christ disobeying. He had the
knowledge of good and evil, but He always chose the good.
Death with the hope of eternal blessedness is certainly a better
plan than eternal life with a sinful nature. Satan is an example of
everlasting evilness. If God had not prevented it Adam could have
become another Satan. Physical death was a blessing in comparison to
eternal spiritual death of separation from God. What we have here
then is God's grace in action. It may look cruel, but it is pure grace.
Man was losing Eden so that God could redeem him and restore him
to an even greater paradise. The devil can never die, but he is
doomed forever. We can die, but we can also be delivered and live
with God forever. Death was not the worst fate man could have had.
The worst fate would be eternal life with a sinful nature.
Thank God for forcing man out of Eden. This was the greatest
eviction that ever took place, and because of it we all can have the
hope of returning to paradise through Jesus Christ. God did not
destroy the tree of life. He just made sure that sinful man could not
partake of it. In verse 23 we see God sending them out to labor in the

ground from which they were taken, and to which they would return.
They were driven out to die, for only those who can die can be
resurrected and restored to perfection. When the angels fell God cast
them into hell to await the judgment, but man is not put in a place of
torment, but in a place of toil, and with a promise of deliverance.
Verse 24 uses stronger language and says that God drove them
out. As tragic as the lost was men read too much into it. Some poet
wrote,
One morning of the first sad fall,
Poor Adam and his bride
Sat in the shade of Eden's wall-
But on the outer side.
This was true, and the lost was real, but to add to this that they lost
their relationship and fellowship with God is not true, for the next
chapter goes on to show that they worshipped God and thank Him for
blessings, and they offered sacrifice to Him. There is no comparison
between the fall of angels and the fall of man. They fell from within,
but men fell because of outside pressure, and so there was a radical
difference in the nature of their fall, and in the nature of their
judgment.
God shut the gate of paradise to Adam, but the Second Adam
opened it again on the cross, and the very day of His death He
promised a sinner that He would enter with Him into paradise. The
closed gate with the flaming sword of the angel guarding it is no longer
the true picture. Now Jesus stands at the gate inviting all to trust Him
and enter in. It was a terrifying experience for Adam and Eve, for the
cherubim were frightening looking creatures. They were not cute
little baby angels as the artist portray them, but they were great and
dreadful creatures that would frighten anyone. Adam would have

tried climbing over the gate at night to get a bite of that life-giving
fruit if he was not scared to death of that cherubim. There is no way
back to eternal life unless God takes away this awesome guard.
The New Testament Gospel is the good news that this guard is
gone. Jesus now stands before the tree of life, and He now offers man
the chance to freely partake of the tree and live forever. They need
simply to yield to His Lordship and accept His atonement for the
cleansing of their sin. Christians need to let the world know that the
gate to paradise and eternal life is now open.
6. A SIMPLE SOLUTION TO SUFFERING Based on
John 9:1-23
One of the good things to come out of suffering is this: It forces
those who cannot see any sense in it to grapple with the mystery, and
strive to squeeze some meaning out of it. Almost everyone who writes
on suffering does so out of their own personal encounter with this
mysterious monster. In the book When It Hurts Too Much To Cry,
Jerry Fallwell begins with this account. He tells of Clifford who left his
good paying job to come to Lynchberg to study for the ministry. He
had a wife and two small sons. He was an excellent student, and
Fallwell was proud to have such a caliber of man in his school.
One Saturday night just after Cliff had finished with family
devotions someone fired a shotgun through the living room window
and Cliff was killed instantly. Fallwell arrived in a few minutes to see
the most senseless thing he had ever witnessed, and he could not help
but question God, and wonder why He would allow such a terrible
thing to happen. He gave it a great deal of thought, and the only
conclusion he could come to was that it is an unsolvable mystery with

no sense whatever on any level known to man. In the light of this
tragedy he rebukes those who deal with suffering superficially. He
writes, "I think Christian leaders often do their people a disservice
when they spout glib and shallow cliches to people going through some
of these dark experiences!"
There are many people who do this. He has had others in this same
category. One of their fine students was going home and picked up a
hitchhiker. The student was killed and dragged into the woods where
his body was found. He has other horror stories as well, but the point
is, you cannot look at the victims of serious suffering and not ask the
question why? The disciples of Jesus could not help but wonder when
they saw a man who had been blind from birth-why? Why would any
man have to enter the world never to see it? Why is there such
meaningless suffering? It is the most simple question to ask, but
unfortunately, the answer is not so simple.
The disciples see no profound complexity in the situation. They are
confident they have narrowed down the answer to one of two
alternatives. Who sinned, this man or his parents that he was born
blind? Jesus could have taken either, and they would have been
satisfied, but instead, he took neither, and said it was not personal or
parental sin that caused this suffering. Jesus through a monkey
wrench of complexity into their simple solution to the problem of
suffering, and by so doing he taught them, and teaches us, one of the
most important principles we can learn on the subject of suffering.
The principle is this:
I. SIMPLE SOLUTIONS TO SUFFERING ARE SUPERFICIAL.
Show me a simple solution to the problem of suffering, and I will
show you a heresy that will fit neither the revelation of God, nor the
experience of man. Simple solutions are none the less the most

popular and widely held by the intelligent and ignorant alike. Here
are the disciples of Christ who are hand picked by the Master
Himself, and they view suffering with the same old worn out theory
held by the friends of Job. They assume that such a terrible fate as
being born blind had to be the result of somebody's sin. It was so
logical and obvious to them that they did not even see the cruelty of it.
They are asking, who is guilty for such an awful thing: His parents or
himself. In other words, who do we blame when this horrible reality.
What kind of parents must they have been to give birth to such a
monstrosity as a blind baby? Or what kind of a low life scoundrel
must he be that God would punish him at birth for the sins he foresaw
that he would commit?
I hope the disciples at least asked their question out of ear shot of
this poor blind man, for there are very few things more cruel than to
make suffering people feel guilty for their own suffering. Both the Old
Testament and the New Testament reject this theory to account for
suffering, and it is superficial, but it is still often promoted. Fallwell
tells of his personal friends Dr. and Mrs. Rudy Holland who
discovered their young son had a brain tumor. Surgery removed it,
but 11 months later it returned. This time it was much larger and
inoperable. They were told their son had less than a year to live. They
heard of a new technique developed at Boston Children's Hospital,
and they took their son there. The surgery led to all kinds of
complications, and he was in the hospital for months. He did
eventually come home but was kept alive by synthetic hormones.
Then a cyst that had formed ruptured, and he was in a coma for 32
days. After being out of it for a month he lapsed into it for another
month. He lost most of his memory and was going blind. Fallwell says
that you can't put into words the kind of suffering this family had to
endure. Imagine the cruelty of trying to figure out whose sin it is they
are suffering for.

We want life to be simple, and we want to have easy answers that
give meaning to life. We want life to be black and white where the
good guys are escaping suffering, and the bad guys are getting their
due reward of judgment. If life was only like the movies, but it is not,
and often the real life story has the bad guys getting by with murder,
and the good guys being the ones getting murdered. So it was with
Able, John the Baptist, Stephen, and on and on. Simple answers are
not always false, but they are so often foolish and cruel when applied
to specific situations.
Do people go blind because they mix up a pile of gun powder and
then light it? Of course they do. Do they go blind because they stare at
the Sun too long? Yes they do. People go blind for all kinds of foolish
things they do. They cause their blindness by the choices they make.
But to take what we know to be true and make it the truth, and apply
it to every blind person, is to be cruel. If we see a blind child and say, I
wonder what stupid thing this kid did to become blind, then we are the
ones being foolish. There are hundreds of reasons for why people are
blind. Those who assume that there is only one reason, and that is that
they did something evil or stupid, are a part of the problem in the
suffering of the world.
Simple answers are convenient, but they are often worthless or
cruel. Harold Kushner in his book When Bad Things Happen To
Good People writes, "I once read of an Iranian folk proverb, ' If you
see a blind man, kick him; why should you be kinder than God?' In
other words, if you see someone who is suffering, you must believe that
he deserves his fate and that God wants him to suffer. Therefore, put
yourself on God's side by shunning Him or humiliating Him further.
If you try to help him, you will be going against God's justice." It is
simple solutions like this that make so many religious people cruel and
without compassion.

It is true that many people become stronger through their
suffering, and they become great examples of how it can strengthen
character. But it is a major mistake to try and apply this to somebody
else's tragedy. If a family just hears that their teenage daughter has
been killed in an auto accident, and you try to comfort them by saying
God wants to make you stronger, you are being cruel. You have no
business trying to interpret other people's suffering. If they ask you
for an opinion, you can share your theory, and they can take it or
leave it, but to impose your unasked interpretation on people based on
ignorance is to be a part of the problem. It is as foolish and superficial
as someone standing at the cross asking, who did sin, this man or his
parents that he should meet with such a violent end? This question
might fit the two thieves for they were suffering as a direct result of
their crimes, but Jesus was innocent. You can say that two out of
three ain't bad, but it is bad when you apply a simple solution to a
situation where it is superficial and does not fit the facts.
This was just what the friends of Job were doing for days, and they
were making his life miserable, and they were completely wrong. Now
the disciples are doing the same things with this poor blind man. They
were not so cruel as Job's friends, for they did not spend days rubbing
his nose in it, and making him feel guilty. But they believed the same
simple falsehood that all suffering is connected with specific sin. Old
errors die hard, if they ever die at all. They usually become so
ingrained in the minds of people that even after they are rejected they
continue to affect the attitudes.
The book of Job ends with God's rejection of Job's friends simple
solution to his suffering. It would have ended with God's judgment on
the friends had Job not interceded on their behalf. God was angry
with their superficiality which they so dogmatically defended. Now we
are seeing history repeating itself in our text. Jesus is again rejecting
the simple solution to specific suffering by saying it has no connection

with any specific sin in the sufferer or his parents. By doing this Jesus
shut down the number one most popular explanation for suffering of
all time. The vast majority of the human race has always clung to this
simple explanation of suffering, that it is the punishment for sin. Let's
consider why-
II. THE SIMPLE SOLUTION IS SO SUCCESSFUL.
The reason for its popularity is its simplicity. It basically
eliminates the problem of suffering altogether. If all suffering is a
result of the sin of the one suffering, then where is the problem? All is
as it should be, and justice is being done, and all it fair. Everybody is
reaping what they have sown. Life is no mystery at all, but is perfectly
sensible and orderly.
That is why billions cling to the doctrine of reincarnation. It is the
simple solution to suffering perfected in a system. All that seems
unjust and unfair when innocent people suffer is easily explained.
They are suffering for sin in a previous life, and so there is no
problem. Every miserable situation you can imagine can be accepted
by these people, for even though they may be innocent babies who are
suffering, it all makes sense because they were sinful scoundrels in
their previous life, and their present tragedy is just what they deserve.
The simple solution allows people to live in the midst of horrible
suffering and feel no guilt when they don't lift a finger to help relieve
the pain, because everything is really just as it ought to be, for
suffering is the just punishment for sin. The simple solution eliminates
all mystery. There is nothing to wonder about and question, except
maybe, is it the sufferers sin or the parents sin that is being punished?
In other words, the simple solution is a denial of the problem of
suffering. There is no problem because there is no such thing as

innocent suffering. Once you eliminate the whole concept of innocent,
unjust, and unfair suffering you have, in essence, eliminated evil.
The one thing all simple solutions to suffering have in common is
that they deny the reality of evil. Like Christian Science they
conclude that evil is just the result of the wrong way of looking at
reality. If we look at it properly, they say there is no evil. Evil is an
error of the mind. Christians fall into the same trap when they try to
justify all suffering by quoting Rom. 8:28 and say, "All things work
together for good." They imply by that that all things are good, and
do not stop to realize that what they are doing is denying the reality of
evil. If all things are really good, then there is no such thing as evil.
This is pure heresy along with all the other simple solutions to
suffering. It calls evil good, and makes a mockery of all the suffering
innocent people have to do.
This theory makes it good for Judas to betray Jesus; good for
Christian men to have affairs; good for people to drink and drive
killing innocent people, and on and on we could go calling all evil good.
This, of course, will not stand up in the court of reality. Evil is real,
and the innocent do suffer, and there is no way to call it good. Rom.
8:28 is not saying that all is good. It is saying that God will not
abandon us to evil, but will in every situation, even the most evil, work
with us for good. But no matter what good comes out of the evil, it
does not justify the evil. Any theory that rejects the reality of evil is
not biblically valid, and that is what all simple solutions to suffering
do.
What we need to see is that because something is true, it does not
mean it is the truth. This is what leads every simple solution to the
level of heresy. It is a partial truth exalted to the level of an absolute
where it becomes a falsehood. It is obvious that there is much truth to
the idea that sin leads to suffering. Adam and Eve lost paradise, and

began the suffering of the human race because of their sin and
violation of the will of God. There is no end to examples of how sin
leads to suffering. This simple solution, however, breaks down very
quickly when we see Abel being murdered by Cain. All of the sudden
we see the good guy dying while the bad guy lives. Now we have
innocent suffering, and the mystery of suffering begins. Abel did not
die because of his sin, but because of Cain's jealously. It was not good,
but evil, and it happened to a righteous man, and God did not stop it
or prevent it. The Bible very quickly thrusts us into the problem of
suffering, and just as quickly rejects the simple solution to suffering.
The greatest sufferer of all time was Jesus, and He was sinless. He
was the only truly innocent sufferer whoever lived. He suffered
completely because of the sins of others. John the Baptist was the
greatest born of woman in the Old Testament, but he was still a
sinner. But who would have the audacity to say he was beheaded in
his 30's by Herod because he deserved it? He died because of the sin
of others in their opposition to righteousness. Stephen, the first
Christian martyr, was also a young man and a righteous man. He
was still a sinner, but who would dare suggest that he was allowed to
be stoned by God because of sin in his life? This tragedy had nothing
to do with Stephen's sin. Maybe he did lose his tempter that week,
and maybe he had a struggle with envy or lust, or any number of sins,
but nothing could be more superficial than to suggest that his suffering
and death had anything to do with his personal sin.
The most popular solution to suffering of all time fails to make any
sense in these and millions of other situations. You will find it still
believed in high places, however. The minds of the Apostles were sold
on it until Jesus set them straight. Jesus said the blind man was not
blind because of his sin or the sin of his parents, but that the work of
God might be made manifest in his life. What a shock this was to the
disciples. Here was a man who was not sinless, but his sin had nothing

to do with his blindness. This is true of most people who are blind, and
most people who have any disease, handicap, or affliction. The reason
we have compassion on these people in Christian lands is because we
have rejected the idea that people suffer because of their sin. We
recognize that they are victims of evil, and do not deserve their
suffering. If they did deserve it, then all of our Christian compassion
that tries to relieve their suffering would be putting us in opposition to
God's will.
This being the case, we need to reject another major false concept
that grows out of the simple solution of suffering. If all suffering is due
to sin, then it follows that the innocent will not suffer. If all suffering
is the deserved punishment for sin, there will be no suffering on the
part of those who do not deserve it. In other words, the simple
solution promises freedom from suffering to the innocent and the
righteous. This is the very thing which the Bible does not promise.
The simple solution denies the reality of evil, and that the innocent
suffer. The Bible, however, reveals that much suffering is unjust and
unfair. Peter preaches the Gospel and 3,000 souls come to Christ.
Stephen preaches the same Gospel and 3,000 stones come flying at him
to knock the life out of him. One gets souls, and the other gets stones.
There is nothing fair about this. Many innocent people suffer the
pains of life and do recover, but many do not, and the simple solution
does not deal with this aspect of reality. It ignores it, and that is why it
is so superficial. It is blind to unjust and innocent suffering.
The Bible does not ignore this reality. It makes it clear that this will
be a major battle of life. God does not promise that life will be fair. In
fact, He promises that it will be very unfair because of the power of
evil. All He promises is that He will be fair, and that those who endure
the unjust suffering of life will be greatly rewarded. Jesus says we can
even be glad and rejoice in unjust suffering for we know that our
reward in heaven will be great. Jesus prepared his disciples to expect

to suffer for being righteous. It was just the opposite of the simple
solution that relates suffering to sin. He said much suffering will be
related to not sinning, and they will be persecuted because of their
being godly and not going along with the unholiness of the world. All
through history Christians have had to suffer just for being what God
wanted them to be.
Christians have come to believe that they have some kind of
promise to be protected from the trials and tragedies of life. This
view leads to rebellion and rejection of God when it is proven false by
serious suffering. A mother who lost a son in battle wrote this to her
pastor. "I never intend to step inside a church again. It has failed me.
It has lied to me. It has taught me to believe that God would take care
of my boy and bring him back in safety as I prayed. I have prayed.
My boy is dead. What do you have to say to me now? I hate God. He
cannot be trusted." This has happened to millions of people who have
swallowed the simple solution to suffering. They believe that only the
sinful will suffer. The innocent and godly will escape suffering. When
reality comes crashing in on them they blame God. Their false ideas
of God lead them to be angry at God when they should be angry at
themselves for neglecting to read everything God has revealed in His
Word, which is a promise that in this world you will suffer.
The simple solution to suffering has created more atheists than any
other tool of the devil that I am aware of. You read the works of the
great unbelievers, and you find that the god they are angry at is the
god that is created by the false and superficial ideas of suffering.
When this spider web of theory cannot hold the weight of reality, they
reject God for not keeping promises He never made. A good portion
of the world's suffering is caused by this simple solution to suffering.
People believe it is the truth, and when it turns out to be a lie they
blame God. Mark Twain wrote a whole book blaming God for the
rotten things in this world. He was raised to believe that God would

not allow bad things to happen to good people. When he grew up and
saw it wasn't so, he rejected God. Nobody had any right to give that
false concept of God to any child. It is a lie, and it will lead to the
rejection of God who is the only ultimate answer to the problem of
suffering.
False ideas about suffering are the cause of much suffering. I agree
with J. B. Philips who wrote about the false idea that godly people will
not suffer. He writes, "It seems to me that a great deal of
misunderstanding and mental suffering could be avoided if this
erroneous idea were exposed and abandoned. How many people who
fall sickly say, either openly or to themselves, "Why should this
happen to me? I've always lived a decent life."
"There are even people who feel that God has somehow broken His
side of the bargain in allowing illness or misfortune to come upon
them. But what is the bargain? If we regard the New Testament as
our authority, we shall find no such arrangement being offered to
those who open their lives to the living Spirit of God. They are indeed
guaranteed that nothing, not even the bitterest persecution, the worst
misfortune, the death of the body, can do them any permanent harm
or separate them from the love of God. They are promised that no
circumstance of earthly life can defeat them in spirit and that the
resources of God are always available for them. Further, they have
the assurance that the ultimate purpose of God can never be defeated.
But the idea that if a man pleases God then God will especially shield
him belongs to the dim twilight religion and not to Christianity at all."
The fact is, the godly often suffer even more than the ungodly. The
poet put it,
The rain falls on the just and unjust fella,
And sometimes more on the just, for the unjust

Steals the just's umbrella.
There is no promise that life will be fair, but only that God will.
Jesus says in Luke 21:16-17, "You will be betrayed by parents,
brothers, relatives and friends and they will put some of you to death.
All men will hate you because of me." That is not much of a promise
of a fair life. But then in the next verse Jesus says, "But not a hair of
your head will parish." This is His way of saying that its an unfair
world, and unjust suffering is inevitable, but in God's ultimate plan no
child of His will lose one minute thing because of the power of evil.
Jesus says in John 16:2, "A time is coming when anyone who kills
you will think he is offering a service to God." Jesus did not hold back
any punches. He told His disciples there were no guarantees that they
would escape anything by following Him. He ends the chapter by
saying in verse 33, "I have told you these things, so that in me you may
have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I
have overcome the world." Jesus was so realistic about life, and that
is why He promised trouble. But He was also reassuring, for He
promised final victory and present peace in Him.
Paul was a great sufferer of all kinds of unjust pain, and it was not
because of sin, but because he was a servant of Christ. He writes in II
Cor. 11:23-29 that he was in prison frequently, had been flogged often,
been exposed to death many times, received whippings, and was
beaten with rods, once was stoned, three times shipwrecked, and
suffered frequent dangers and pressures. Who sinned, was it Paul or
his parents that he should have to suffer so much pain? The simple
solution to suffering will gladly accept either alternative just as long as
sin is the cause of his suffering. The biblical answer, however, is like
the answer of Jesus concerning the blind man. The answer he gave is
neither. Paul's suffering was unfair and unjust, and not punishment
for sin. It was the price he paid to do the will of God in taking the

good news of salvation to a lost world.
Are we to conclude that suffering is not due to sin, but instead due
to being an opponent to sin, as Paul was? Not at all, for this would be
to replace one simple solution with another, and when it comes to
suffering all simple solutions are superficial.
7. ACCIDENTAL SUFFERING Based on Acts 20:7-12
The Cherynoble nuclear accident in Russia was one of the most
headline grabbing events of the 20th century. But what we do not
realize is that many accidents are not spectacular explosions, fiery
crashes, or powerful events of violence. There are also very silent
accidents which are equally deadly. For example, back in 1983 two
employees at a hospital were clearing out a warehouse where a worn
out cancer therapy machine had been collecting dust for 6 years.
They had no idea that in the case of this machine were 6,000 pellets of
radioactive cobalt. They sold it for scrap metal for $10.00. Some of
these pellets fell out into the truck they used to carry it to the junk
yard. At the junk yard the pellets were scattered all over the place as
the magic picked it up and dumped it in a pile. These 6,000 pellets
were mixed with metal that was sent out to a company that made legs
for tables in fast food restaurants. Others found their way into metal
rods to reinforce concrete.
Nobody was even aware that a dangerous accident was in progress,
for there was no noise or explosion. Many people, however, were
being exposed to high levels of radioactivity. It was not until a truck
carrying a load of this radioactive material pulled into a government
project that anybody became aware. Radioactive detectors set off
alarms, and the Nuclear Safety Commission immediately went into

action to trace these rods back to that junk yard. Then they had to
trace where all the scrap had gone. They closed down the leg making
factory, and they found the truck that delivered the machine in the
first place. It was very hot, and it was hauled away, but research
learned that up to 200 people could have touched it or been near
enough to be exposed.
2,500 table bases had to be returned from 40 states. People eating
at these tables were getting the equivalent of a one hour lung x-ray.
The hottest legs of all were found in a downtown Chicago hotel. The
point is, there was no big exposition by which to identify this accident,
or series of accidents. It was quiet and not dramatic, and so there was
no way to trace how many people were affected by it. Nobody was
doing anything evil to cause this accident. The two men who started it
all were acting in ignorance with no intent to harm anyone. Yet they
may have done harm to thousands of people.
In this message we are looking at two other men who were involved
in an ancient accident that only temporarily left one of them dead, but
we can see that though the scale is smaller the same principles are at
work. A study of them will help us better understand the causes and
cures for suffering in the world. There is only one permanent cure for
the suffering of any person, and that is to get a body that is no longer
subject to pain and death. The only way to get such a body is by faith
in the risen Christ who died and rose again that all who trust Him
might have just such bodies that will live with Him forever. But until
that day of total victory over all suffering there are millions of pains
we are to strive to prevent in time. The only way we can be effective
in preventing suffering is to keep learning more and more about the
causes. That is what the study of all branches of medicine is about. If
you find the cause for suffering, you have a good start toward
conquering it or preventing it.

Let's look at this accidental death of a New Testament teenager
and see what we can learn about the cause and cure of suffering. Keep
in mind that this account is being written by Dr. Luke who is an eye
witness of the event. Dr. Luke is not being super spiritual here at all
by writing such things like: It must have been the will of God, or
demons made it happen. He takes the very scientific approach that
says there were perfectly logical and natural causes for this accident.
If it was planned by God or Satan it would not have been an accident,
but there is no hint that this event was intended by anyone. All
accidents have causes, however, and Dr. Luke gives us an excellent
diagnosis of the causes of this particular accident. We want to look at
it through the doctor's eyes, and see his account of the cause, and by
inference, his prescription for the cure. First look at-
I. THE DESCRIPTION OF THE CAUSE.
Dr. Luke describes two basic causes for this accident which fits
the majority of accidents in life. The two are circumstances and
choices. For example, look at the circumstances. It was a pressure
situation because of time. Verse 7 says that because Paul had to leave
the next day he went on talking till midnight. When you have a lot to
get done, and very little time to do it, you are in a high risk
environment. It is a perfect setting for miscalculation and poor
judgment. I reflect on times I have cut myself, and most, if not all,
were due to being in a hurry. Speed kills and injures millions.
In our case study here Paul was not doing anything too fast, but
because of the time factor he was trying to do too much in his limited
time. The result was that he did not know he was literally boring part
of his audience to death. It is a speaker's job to talk, and the
audience's job to listen, but sometimes the audience finishes their job
before the speaker. I do not know if any of us have had to listen to a
speaker until midnight, but most of us can sympathize with Eutychus.

I have had to endure the suffering inflicted by a speaker who could not
find the terminal. I have not only struggled with sleepiness, but with
whether or not I should just leave. Eutychus did both. He went to
sleep, and he left by way of the window. The going to sleep was not
serious, but the unconscious exit from a third story window was a
radical remedy to his dilemma. But the point is, it never would have
happened had Paul ended his message at 11:30. Dr. Luke makes this
clear in verse 9 where he says that Eutychus sank into a deep sleep as
Paul talked on and on. Dr. Luke is describing a scene of endurance.
He implies that Paul was being excessive in his speech. He hints that
he too may have been eager to hear Paul's amen.
Eutychus had gotten himself into a situation where he was a captive
of somebody else's agenda. But let's notice that the circumstances
alone did not cause this accidental death. There were also choices that
were made by the people involved, and they were the primary causes
of this suffering. Paul made the choice to push his audience to the
limit of their endurance. Eutychus made the choice of setting in an
open window to listen. Here is the crucial choice, and the primary
cause of the accident.
Others may have been sleeping too, but they were safely snoozing
away on the floor or some piece of furniture. A little girl once told the
preacher that she went to sleep during his sermon and had the most
wonderful dream. She meant it as a complement. Sleeping in church
is not always dangerous. Ben Kenchlow of the 700 club tells of his
church sleeping in his book Plain Bread. He went to a Catholic school
as a boy, and every morning at chapel he noticed one of the sisters
kneeling with her elbow on the pew in front, and her head down in her
arms. He decided to copy her.
He writes, "I soon realized her very worshipful posture was
conducive to dozing, and one morning shortly after that I heard sister

snoring softly. She wasn't praying, she was sleeping! I had fought like
crazy against dropping off to sleep in those early, dark mornings. I
had assumed God was watching, and He'd see me there sleeping, and
hit me with one of those bolts of lightning people talked about. But
then I said, "If she can sleep though mass....I can, too." From then on,
I slept through most of the masses I attended the rest of my 4 years at
St. Peter Claver's Academy.
A pastor was once showing a teenager the brass scroll on the back
of the church with names inscribed. The pastor said, "This is the list
of our church members who have died in the service." The teen
responded, "Was it the morning or the evening service?" Not too
many people die by falling asleep in church, but there is a history of
this kind of experience, and so Eutychus will have a lot of people to
talk to in heaven about their church naps.
Benjamin Franklin in his autobiography tells of his first visit to
Philadelphia. He saw a group of well dressed people, and he writes, "I
joined them, and thereby was lead into the great meeting house of the
Quakers near the market. I sat down among them, and, after looking
round awhile and hearing nothing said, being very drowsy thro' labor
and want of rest the preceding night, I fell fast asleep, and continu'd so
till the meeting broke up, when one was kind enough to rouse me. This
was, therefore, the first house I was in, or slept in, in Philadelphia."
One of the greatest missionaries of modern times was C. T. Studd.
His fiancée became quite ill in China, and he had to nurse her back to
health. When the day of their wedding came he was so tired from the
strain of caring for her that he fell asleep during his own wedding
address. It was before the day of tape recording too, and so he never
did hear what the pastor had to say, but he woke up and had a great
marriage.

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