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Bible Question: I have read through your study on God's will. I find it difficult
to accept that God would willfully cause suffering in our lives.
Surely He would not willfully allow suffering, would He?
Bible Answer: God's main characteristic is His holiness. Yes, God loves (1 John 4:16) us, but we go ahead and sin anyway. We actually enjoy our sin. For example, our world promotes sexual sin as fun. Most men and women would agree that adultery looks like fun or is fun. God uses suffering to motivate us to not sin. God is more interested in our holiness than in our comfort. We do not really understand our Holy Creator. Listen to the following passage,
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Know therefore today that it is the LORD your God who is crossing
over before you as a consuming fire. He will destroy them and
He will subdue them before you, so that you may drive them out
and destroy them quickly, just as the LORD has spoken to you.
"Do not say in your heart when the LORD your God has driven them out before
you, 'Because of my righteousness the LORD has brought me in to
possess this land,' but it is because of the wickedness of these
nations that the LORD is dispossessing them before you. "It is not for your righteousness or for the uprightness of your heart that you are
going to possess their land, but it is because of the wickedness of these nations that the LORD your God is driving
them out before you, in order to confirm the oath which the LORD
swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. "Know, then,
it is not because of your righteousness that the LORD your God
is giving you this good land to possess, for you are a stubborn
people. (NASB) Deuteronomy 9:3-6 |
In this passage, God makes it clear that He will destroy a nation
because they sinned. In the following passage, God will discipline
all parties because everyone sinned.
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Then God sent an evil spirit between Abimelech and the men of
Shechem; and the men of Shechem dealt treacherously with Abimelech,
in order that the violence done to the seventy sons of Jerubbaal
might come, and their blood might be laid on Abimelech their brother,
who killed them, and on the men of Shechem, who strengthened his
hands to kill his brothers. And the men of Shechem set men in
ambush against him on the tops of the mountains, and they robbed
all who might pass by them along the road; and it was told to
Abimelech. (NASB) Judges 9:23-25 |
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