West Willow Community Church

Comfort In Trouble (7 Reasons Why Bad Things Happen) from Don Tines on Vimeo.

Comfort In Trouble (7 Reasons Why Bad Things Happen)

TEXT: II Corinthians 1:1-11

THESIS: Believers are redeemed sinners who live in a fallen world and bad things still happen to them. In fact, God allows bad things to happen for several important reasons.

INTRODUCTION: Trouble is an inescapable reality in this fallen, evil world. One of Job’s would-be counselors, declared, “Man is born for trouble, as sparks fly upward” (Job 5:7). With that sentiment Job agreed: “Man, who is born of woman, is short-lived and full of turmoil” (Job 14:1). Jeremiah, the weeping prophet, said, “Why did I ever come forth from the womb to look on trouble and sorrow, so that my days have been spent in shame?” (Jer 20:18). Life is filled with trouble, sorrow, pain, disappointment, disillusionment, and despair!
Adding to the pain of trouble is the disturbing reality that God sometimes seems distant and unconcerned. Job cried out “Why do You hide Your face and consider me Your enemy?” (Job 13:24). The psalmist asked, “Why do You stand afar off, O Lord? Why do You hide Yourself in times of trouble?” (Ps 10:1). Speaking for Israel, the sons of Korah asked God, “Why do You hide Your face and forget our affliction and our oppression?” (Ps 44:24). The prophet Isaiah said, “Truly, You are a God who hides Himself, O God of Israel, Savior!” (Isa 45:15). Even David, “a man after [God's] own heart” and “the sweet psalmist of Israel” had moments of doubt and discouragement. In Ps 13:1 he asked despairingly, “How long, O Lord? Will You forget me forever? How long will You hide Your face from me?” while in Ps 22:1 he expressed his anguish in words echoed by the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross: “My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?” (cf. Matt 27:46).
Many people today question why bad things happen to good people. But Scripture rejects the underlying assumption that people are truly good. The apostle Paul declared, “There is none righteous, not even one” because “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”. Consequently, because “God is a just judge, [He] is angry with the wicked every day”. Bad things happen to all people because they are sinners who live in a fallen, sin-cursed world. The Idea that bad things happen because of your sin is a lie from the devil himself and is promulgated to cause you shame, remorse, regret and disgrace. Bad things happen because we live in a cursed sin filled world and we are not only part of it but until Jesus comes we can’t escape it. Let’s look this morning at some reasons why bad things happen.

SCRIPTURE READING: PRAYER:
I. God allows bad things to happen to His people to test their faith.

A. God doesn’t test us to see how we will react but to strength our faith.
1. According to Prov 17:3, “The Lord tests hearts.” 2 Chron 32:31 says, “God left [Hezekiah] alone only to test him, that He might know all that was in his heart.”
2. Centuries earlier Moses told Israel, “The Lord your God has led you in the wilderness these forty years, that He might humble you, testing you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not” (Deut 8:2).
3. Peter wrote in I Peter 1:6-7:
In this [salvation] you greatly rejoice, even though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been distressed by various trials, so that the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold which is perishable, even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

4. Those tests are not for God’s sake, because the omniscient God knows every person’s heart. Instead, they reveal to those tested whether their faith is real.
5. No trial, no matter how severe, can destroy genuine saving faith, because the saved “one . . . endures to the end” (Matt 24:13).

B. Job, the most faithful man of his time, went through almost inconceivable suffering.
1. He lost his wealth, all of his children were killed, and he was stricken with a painful disease.
2. Those closest to him turned against him; his wife foolishly urged him to “curse God and die!” (Job 2:9),
3. His friends’ counsel drove him to say: “Sorry comforters are you all. . . . How then will you vainly comfort me, for your answers remain full of falsehood?” (Job 16:2; 21:34).
4. Most disconcerting of all, though Job knew of no major sin in his life, God seemed to be his enemy.
5. In Job 19:6-11, he cried out in despair and confusion,
Know then that God has wronged me and has closed His net around me. Behold, I cry, “Violence!” but I get no answer; I shout for help, but there is no justice. He has walled up my way so that I cannot pass, and He has put darkness on my paths. He has stripped my honor from me and removed the crown from my head. He breaks me down on every side, and I am gone; and He has uprooted my hope like a tree. He has also kindled His anger against me and considered me as His enemy.

C. Yet despite his misery, suffering, and despair caused by Satan’s violent assaults, Job’s faith in God remained intact.

1. In Job 13:15 he confidently declared, “Though He slay me, I will hope in Him.”
2. Confronted by God’s glorious, majestic holiness, Job expressed genuine repentance for having doubted Him in Job 42:2-6:
I know that You can do all things, and that no purpose of Yours can be thwarted. “Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?” Therefore I have declared that which I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know. “Hear, now, and I will speak; I will ask You, and You instruct me.” I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear; but now my eye sees You; therefore I retract, and I repent in dust and ashes.)

D. The Testing of our Faith Brings assurance, confidence, and hope.

II. God allows bad things to happen to His people to wean them from the world.

A. Trials strip away the worldly resources that we trust in, leaving us completely dependent on God.

1. Before He fed the five thousand “Jesus, lifting up His eyes and seeing that a large crowd was coming to Him, said to Philip, ‘Where are we to buy bread, so that these may eat?’” (John 6:5).
2. Philip and the other disciples immediately took inventory, and the results were not promising: “Philip answered Him, ‘Two hundred denarii worth of bread is not sufficient for them, for everyone to receive a little.’
3. One of His disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to Him, ‘There is a lad here who has five barley loaves and two fish, but what are these for so many people?’” (John 6:7-9).

B. Philip and the others missed the point: “This He was saying to test him, for He Himself knew what He was intending to do” (John 6:6). Jesus used this incident to show the disciples the futility of trusting in human resources.

III. God allows bad things to happen to His people to call them to their heavenly hope.

A. Paul wrote, “We also rejoice in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance; and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope; and hope does not disappoint” (Rom 5:3-5).

B. Those who hope for heaven will never be disappointed in this life, and suffering is the first step in producing that hope.

1. Paul expressed his heavenly hope when he wrote to the Corinthians, “Momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal” (2 Cor 4:17-18).
2. The greater the burden of trials that believers bear in this life, the sweeter their hope of heaven becomes.

IV. God allows bad things to happen to His people to reveal their true love.

A. Faithful followers of Jesus Christ gladly endure trials clinging to their “blessed hope” found only in Jesus Christ.
B. But those who focus on worldly “things” react to trials with anger, despair, fury and rage.

1. The way Abraham faced the severe trial involving his son Isaac revealed his love for God.
2. Gen 22:1-2 says, “God tested Abraham, and said to him, ‘Abraham!’ And he said, ‘Here I am.’ He said, ‘Take now your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I will tell you.’”
a. Abraham must have been shocked at this seemingly incomprehensible command. Isaac was the son he had longed for decades.
b. Then, when Abraham was old and his wife past her childbearing years, the unbelievable announcement came that they were to have a son.
c. So incredible was the news that their long-cherished hopes were to be realized that both Abraham and Sarah initially greeted it with laughter.
d. Isaac was the son of the covenant, through whom Abraham’s descendants were to come.
3. All of God’s promises and Abraham’s hopes were bound up in Isaac.
a. When God commanded him to slay Isaac as a sacrifice, Abraham was ready to obey.
b. God stopped him, then spared Isaac and provided another sacrifice.
c. Abraham’s willingness proved that he loved God above all else, even more than his own son.
d. He believed in God’s promise that through Isaac the nation would come—he believed that if he killed him, God would raise Isaac from the dead.

V. God allows bad things to happen to His people to teach them obedience.

A. The psalmist acknowledged, “Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I keep Your word. . . . It is good for me that I was afflicted, that I may learn Your statutes” (Ps 119:67,71).

B. The painful sting of affliction reminds believers that sin has consequences.

C. God uses trials to bring believers to obedience and holiness, as the writer of Hebrews reveals in 12:5-11
You have forgotten the exhortation which is addressed to you as sons, “My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor faint when you are reproved by Him; for those whom the Lord loves He disciplines, and He scourges every son whom He receives.” It is for discipline that you endure; God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline? But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Furthermore, we had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them; shall we not much rather be subject to the Father of spirits, and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but He disciplines us for our good, so that we may share His holiness. All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.

VI. God allows bad things to happen to His people so He can reveal His compassion to them.

A. Believers’ suffering allows God the opportunity to display His loving-kindness, which, David declared, is better than anything else in life: “Because Your lovingkindness is better than life, my lips will praise You” (Ps 63:3).

B. Believers never know God more intimately than when He comforts them in their suffering. Isaiah says, “Shout for joy, O heavens! And rejoice, O earth! Break forth into joyful shouting, O mountains! For the Lord has comforted His people and will have compassion on His afflicted” (Isa 49:13;).

VII. God allows bad things to happen to His people to advance their usefulness.

A. The more we are tested and refined by trials, the more effective our service will be.

B. “Consider it all joy, my brethren,” wrote James, “when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing” (James 1:2-4).

VIII. God allows bad things to happen to His people to enable them to comfort others in their trials.

A. Jesus said to Peter, “Simon, Simon, behold, Satan has demanded permission to sift you like wheat; but I have prayed for you, that your faith may not fail; and you, when once you have turned again, strengthen your brothers” (Luke 22:31-32).

1. After enduring his own trial and experiencing God’s comfort, Peter would be able to help others.
2. Peter understood suffering from a first person point of view.

B. Paul’s emphasis from the start is seen in verse 4 that God “comforts us in all our affliction so that we will be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God” (1:4).

CONCLUSION: Paul defended against the false charge that trials were God’s punishment for sin and unfaithfulness. The apostle made the point that God was comforting him in his suffering, not chastening him. In so doing, he penned what is undoubtedly the most significant passage on comfort anywhere in Scripture. In it Paul describes the person, promise, purpose, parameters, power, perpetuity, and participation of comfort is all found in God and God alone.