If God Is Sovereign, Why Is His World Full of Suffering?
Chapters
0:05:45 The Problem with with Suffering Is Not that the World Has Gotten Worse
6:36 The Absolute Realism of the Bible
11:19 The Universal Groaning of Creation
00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)
00:00:02.580 | - We open the week with a pretty raw email
00:00:06.340 | from a hurting man, a hurting dad.
00:00:09.480 | He's sad over the brokenness of this world
00:00:11.480 | and that brokenness hits home for him very closely.
00:00:14.120 | Here's his story sent in as an anonymous email.
00:00:17.800 | Dear Pastor John, to be totally truthful
00:00:19.920 | and honest with you, I struggle to believe
00:00:21.580 | the Lord is completely ruling his world today.
00:00:24.400 | It's impossible to believe simply
00:00:25.720 | because of the state of the world.
00:00:28.200 | Or should I say his world today?
00:00:30.800 | Not only has our nation gone down a slippery road
00:00:34.840 | of immoral self-destruction, but our economy is faltering.
00:00:38.560 | National debt is skyrocketing.
00:00:40.440 | The unborn are massacred daily.
00:00:42.880 | Murder rates in America are swelling.
00:00:45.540 | In Chicago, the crime rate has escalated
00:00:47.560 | to such a high degree that I'm beginning
00:00:49.320 | to believe it's safer in Iraq or Afghanistan
00:00:51.920 | than it is in the South Side.
00:00:53.820 | Most children sleep under their beds
00:00:56.440 | in fear that they may become victims of gun violence.
00:00:59.560 | Struggles hit home for us too.
00:01:01.320 | A family of four, we have a son born with ADHD
00:01:05.680 | and this has created a life of pure frustration,
00:01:08.280 | pain, sorrow, and sometimes even despair.
00:01:11.700 | One night while attempting to do his schoolwork
00:01:15.560 | across the kitchen table, he told me,
00:01:18.160 | "Dad, I hate going to school.
00:01:19.900 | "Even the teachers make fun of me.
00:01:22.120 | "I hate ADHD and this medication
00:01:24.720 | "that makes me sick to my stomach."
00:01:26.560 | Pastor John, if God is in charge,
00:01:29.920 | why is there so much suffering all around?
00:01:34.120 | - Well, the most grievous thing this dear man says
00:01:38.360 | is it is impossible to believe.
00:01:41.280 | And so I've been praying, I pray now
00:01:45.520 | that God might perhaps use something, I say,
00:01:50.520 | to make it possible again.
00:01:54.920 | We've tried to address this question many times
00:01:59.200 | at Desiring God and at Pastor John.
00:02:02.880 | But when I saw the question,
00:02:06.440 | I thought I really do want to address this.
00:02:09.800 | Again, because I feel the gut-wrenching pressure
00:02:14.080 | of the problem, not just because of the way
00:02:17.000 | this man so effectively articulated it,
00:02:21.600 | but also because a while back,
00:02:23.560 | Noelle and I watched a three-part documentary
00:02:26.440 | called "Pain, Puss, and Poison."
00:02:30.440 | And in the second episode about the history
00:02:35.400 | leading up to the discovery of penicillin
00:02:38.840 | and the emergence of antibiotics in the 20th century,
00:02:42.840 | I was almost overwhelmed with the thought
00:02:47.600 | of how many thousands of years
00:02:51.360 | the world languished horribly
00:02:56.040 | under the most horrific diseases
00:02:58.920 | with no medical defense whatsoever,
00:03:02.320 | and in fact, with medical procedures
00:03:04.480 | that often made matters worse.
00:03:07.280 | For example, the night before George Washington died,
00:03:13.280 | they bled four pints of blood from his body.
00:03:17.880 | Four pints, that's almost 40% of his blood.
00:03:22.040 | That second episode showed pictures
00:03:26.680 | of people dying of horrible open infections
00:03:31.120 | and little children covered with smallpox sores
00:03:36.080 | as I watched their mothers fanning the flies off of them,
00:03:41.080 | just waiting for their children to die.
00:03:45.520 | And when I saw them, my wife looked away,
00:03:48.320 | she couldn't look, and I just felt myself gasping,
00:03:51.560 | saying, "No, what if I were there?
00:03:55.400 | "What if I were the parent fanning
00:03:58.600 | "this horribly deformed child,
00:04:03.440 | "hideously covered with smallpox sores
00:04:06.080 | "and just waiting for a miserable death?"
00:04:10.080 | And that happened millions of times in the history
00:04:15.480 | of the world.
00:04:17.320 | Most of us in the West have been spared
00:04:21.480 | any immediate contact with the most gruesome,
00:04:24.360 | ghastly, repugnant forms of infection
00:04:28.120 | and disfigurement and writhing pain.
00:04:32.000 | And I felt the force of the question,
00:04:35.480 | "God, God, what does this mean about you?
00:04:40.480 | "What are you doing?
00:04:42.180 | "What are you saying?"
00:04:44.720 | And I'm aware from this man's question
00:04:47.400 | and from thousands of others
00:04:49.960 | that such experiences of unimaginable suffering
00:04:54.400 | and hideous disfigurement,
00:04:57.600 | that it has confirmed countless people in unbelief.
00:05:02.600 | They would say, as he does, "It's impossible, Piper.
00:05:05.780 | "It's just impossible to believe anymore
00:05:08.680 | "simply because of the state of the world today."
00:05:11.840 | That's his quote.
00:05:13.680 | Only I'm saying the problem is worse.
00:05:16.560 | It's horribly worse because between 1900 and 1977,
00:05:21.560 | 300 million people died of smallpox.
00:05:26.820 | Then with a massive global vaccination effort in 1977,
00:05:33.360 | it was gone.
00:05:36.000 | And today, nobody, think of it,
00:05:39.520 | from 300 million to nobody gets smallpox.
00:05:44.080 | Nobody gets polio.
00:05:46.240 | The problem with suffering
00:05:48.280 | is not that the world has gotten worse.
00:05:52.440 | Oh, yes, it's plenty bad.
00:05:55.360 | And he documented its badness.
00:05:57.240 | It's plenty bad.
00:05:59.400 | But the worst problem is that for thousands of years,
00:06:03.960 | the world has had it so much worse than it is today
00:06:08.880 | in terms of horrific suffering.
00:06:12.280 | So how do I, John Piper, stay a believer
00:06:17.280 | when the little suffering that I have been exposed to
00:06:23.320 | directly and indirectly takes my breath away?
00:06:26.080 | Here's my witness.
00:06:30.700 | I think I've got three thoughts here.
00:06:33.080 | One, the first thing that grips me
00:06:36.880 | is the absolute realism of the Bible.
00:06:40.240 | I spent several years writing a book on Providence,
00:06:42.840 | and month after month, I was stunned
00:06:46.560 | at how candid and open and blunt and even gory
00:06:51.560 | the Bible is in presenting God's judgments upon the world,
00:06:56.440 | especially his own people.
00:06:58.240 | Just a taste from Deuteronomy 28.
00:07:01.560 | The Lord will strike you with wasting disease
00:07:05.560 | and with fever, inflammation and fiery heat,
00:07:09.960 | and with drought and with blight and with mildew,
00:07:13.120 | and you shall be a horror to all the kingdoms of the earth.
00:07:17.520 | And your dead bodies shall be food for the birds of the air
00:07:21.520 | and for the beasts of the earth.
00:07:23.940 | The Lord will strike you with the boils of Egypt
00:07:27.880 | and with tumors and scabs and itch
00:07:31.480 | of which you cannot be healed.
00:07:33.880 | The Lord will strike you with madness and blindness
00:07:37.280 | and confusion of mind.
00:07:39.840 | Why?
00:07:40.920 | Verses 45 following, that was verses 22 to 29, this is 45.
00:07:45.920 | Because you did not obey the voice of the Lord your God,
00:07:50.600 | because you did not serve the Lord your God
00:07:52.960 | with joyfulness and with gladness of heart,
00:07:55.180 | because of the abundance of all things.
00:07:57.960 | Now, my point here is simply that our objections
00:08:02.340 | to God's ways are not because we have seen things
00:08:06.600 | more clearly or honestly than the Bible sees them.
00:08:10.740 | The Bible doesn't shrink back from any horror
00:08:14.680 | or injustice in this world.
00:08:17.080 | That's my first step.
00:08:18.920 | I can't throw away the Bible because it's naive
00:08:23.400 | or deceptive or a whitewash of the miseries
00:08:27.920 | that God himself ordains.
00:08:30.720 | Here's my second step.
00:08:33.440 | I would say that the physical horrors in the world
00:08:38.440 | can only make sense to us and have meaning
00:08:43.980 | and eventual righteous resolution
00:08:47.780 | if we come to embrace the biblical reality
00:08:52.020 | that sin against an infinitely wise and just and good God
00:08:58.460 | is a moral outrage greater than the physical outrage
00:09:03.460 | of centuries of global suffering.
00:09:06.740 | Let me say that again, because it is the heart of the matter
00:09:11.760 | and it is very difficult for people
00:09:15.760 | without the Holy Spirit's massive work to embrace.
00:09:21.860 | I'll say it again.
00:09:23.340 | The physical horrors of suffering in this world
00:09:27.300 | can only make sense to us and have meaning
00:09:30.420 | and eventual righteous resolution
00:09:32.460 | if we come to embrace the biblical reality
00:09:37.300 | that sin against an infinitely wise and just and good God
00:09:42.300 | is a moral outrage greater than the physical outrage
00:09:47.420 | of centuries of global suffering.
00:09:53.260 | I'm not saying that each experience of suffering
00:09:58.260 | corresponds to each person's particular sins.
00:10:02.500 | If that were true, we'd all be in hell.
00:10:05.820 | As far as I can tell and as far as the Bible reveals,
00:10:12.060 | there is no clear correlation
00:10:15.980 | between the extent of an individual's suffering
00:10:20.360 | in this world and the extent of their guilt.
00:10:24.260 | What I'm referring to is what Paul means in Romans 8:20
00:10:29.340 | when he says, "The creation was subjected to futility,
00:10:33.660 | "not willingly, but because of him
00:10:36.780 | "who subjected it in hope," that is God.
00:10:39.800 | What hope?
00:10:42.060 | "That the creation itself will be set free
00:10:44.640 | "from its bondage to corruption
00:10:46.400 | "and obtain the freedom of the glory
00:10:48.860 | "of the children of God.
00:10:50.720 | "We know that the whole creation has been groaning,"
00:10:55.340 | oh, has it, "together in the pains of childbirth until now."
00:11:00.340 | It's like the earth is pregnant
00:11:03.260 | and screaming with birth pains.
00:11:07.480 | "And not only the creation, but we ourselves
00:11:10.340 | "who have the first fruits of the Spirit,
00:11:12.760 | "we groan inwardly as we wait eagerly
00:11:16.180 | "for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies."
00:11:19.640 | The universal groaning of creation,
00:11:23.020 | the agonizing of all creation in suffering
00:11:26.740 | is owing to what verse 20 calls subjection,
00:11:30.460 | the creation's subjection,
00:11:33.360 | and what verse 21 calls bondage to corruption.
00:11:37.560 | And this subjection and corruption
00:11:39.660 | is owing to the one who subjected it in hope, namely God.
00:11:44.380 | This is what I'm referring to
00:11:45.580 | when I say that the sin that came into the world
00:11:49.140 | through Adam and spread to all people
00:11:51.180 | is a moral outrage greater
00:11:55.500 | than the physical outrage of suffering,
00:11:58.000 | which means that seeing and believing
00:12:02.500 | the goodness and justice of God
00:12:06.140 | assumes a Copernican revolution of our mind and heart.
00:12:12.300 | In other words, if we're gonna see God as good
00:12:15.980 | and just and wise, we have to undergo
00:12:20.180 | such a profound mental and spiritual Copernican revolution
00:12:25.180 | of mind and heart so that God ceases to be a planet
00:12:31.540 | circling the sun of humanity
00:12:35.740 | and becomes the massive, blazing, glorious sun
00:12:41.060 | at the center of the solar system of all things.
00:12:45.020 | God becomes supreme reality.
00:12:48.060 | His being becomes the supreme worth
00:12:51.580 | and treasure of the universe.
00:12:54.180 | Only in this way will the moral outrage of sin
00:12:58.820 | be seen as worse than the physical outrage of suffering,
00:13:03.820 | which means very practically
00:13:08.780 | that when I gasp at the hideous pictures
00:13:13.580 | in the documentary and find myself inevitably saying,
00:13:18.580 | "Oh God, oh God, what does this mean?"
00:13:23.140 | The answer I hear is all human suffering
00:13:29.980 | is a screaming witness to the greater horror of human sin.
00:13:38.700 | Finally, the third thing that keeps me from not believing
00:13:43.700 | or keeps me believing is that God sent his son
00:13:49.020 | into this world, sent his very self
00:13:53.620 | to suffer a moral outrage greater than the outrage
00:13:58.620 | against his father by all his people in their sin.
00:14:06.340 | For the infinitely pure and good and wise
00:14:09.420 | and strong and holy son of God to descend
00:14:13.180 | to the degradation and torture of a Roman crucifixion
00:14:16.580 | is enough suffering, enough indignity
00:14:20.140 | to cover all the outrage of all the sins
00:14:23.980 | of all who believe.
00:14:25.700 | Therefore, all who believe will have eternal life.
00:14:29.400 | All who believe will have eternal joy.
00:14:32.100 | God shows his love for us
00:14:34.660 | in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
00:14:39.660 | So I don't claim that such faith is simple or easy.
00:14:44.940 | It is a gift, and I am simply bearing witness
00:14:50.900 | to how it is that I am still a Christian.
00:14:55.900 | - Yeah, thank you for giving hope here
00:14:58.260 | and for being willing to field these hard
00:15:00.140 | and dark emails, Pastor John.
00:15:01.860 | And listeners, thank you for being willing
00:15:03.420 | to share your raw stories with us.
00:15:05.500 | Our regret is that we cannot get to all of them.
00:15:09.900 | But thank you for joining us today.
00:15:10.940 | You can ask a question of your own,
00:15:12.220 | search our growing archive, or subscribe to the podcast,
00:15:14.720 | all that at desiringgod.org/askpastorjohn.
00:15:18.780 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke,
00:15:19.820 | and we will see you back here on Wednesday.
00:15:22.420 | Thanks for listening.
00:15:23.460 | (upbeat music)
00:15:26.040 | (upbeat music)
00:15:28.620 | [BLANK_AUDIO]