Pain, Suffering and Sanctification

Nothing exposes your heart like pain and suffering. When you hit it, your heart is totally exposed. All the things you never realised were there are suddenly revealed. It's a very scary and sobering thing. I would guess that one of the reasons God allows pain and suffering is sanctification. It also forces you in one of two directions: anger against God, or throwing yourself into His arms. I would also guess this is one of the ways he sorts the sheep from the goats, how he brings people to salvation or forces them away.

Pain and suffering are necessary. Nobody looks for a saviour if they don't believe they need saving. Nothing reminds you of your need for salvation like pain, suffering and the presence of evil.

In all of this it's good to remind ourselves that God is totally good, and it's Satan that is evil. Like in the book of Job, God permits suffering, but it's Satan that causes it. And he can only go as far as God allows.

The Existence Of God (Part 2)

Sometimes I think that the presence of evil in the world is absolute and undeniable evidence that Satan and demons exist, and therefore God exists. The fact that we even have a concept of evil shows there is a moral law, and a God who wrote that law. We know the world is broken and we demand that it should be better.

As Matt Chandler humorously states, no one gets angry at unicorns, elves or the Tooth Fairy. No one really believes God is fictitious.

Under the control of evil

Reading the latter part of the gospels, it's interesting to note the way in which Judas Iscariot immediately felt a massive sense of remorse after his betrayal, and hanged himself. And this was even before Jesus was sentenced to death by Pilate. He didn't even witness the full consequence of his actions. His guilt and shame was very strong, real and immediate.

It makes you think – why did he suddenly feel this now and not earlier? If his remorse was so immediate and strong, you would think there was enough sense in him not to do it in the first place.

But in Luke 22 Satan himself enters Judas. Satan used him, and it seems he simply discarded Judas when finished, who then returns to a more natural state of mind.

Through the sin that Judas accommodated in his life he came under the control of evil. Sin itself is partnering with Satan, participating in his work, giving a foothold of control to our number one enemy. We should loath and despise this on every level.

Judas of course kills himself, refusing to face and live through the guilt. This seems like yet another act of defiance. I wonder – if he was repentant, faced his sin, faced his guilt, would he have lived to see Jesus rise from death?

Hate can be a good thing

"The man who lived in this constant fellowship with God manifested in his daily life all the fruits of the spirit ... and with them was a hatred of their opposites – a loathing of every form of sin"
'Spurgeon: A New Biography' by Arnold Dallimore

Hate is something I definitely don't have enough of. Do I really hate the sin in my life, or do I half enjoy it? Do I accommodate it because it's easy to? And when I sin, do I go all inward-looking and self-defeatist?
Surely we should stir up an intense hatred of Satan.

I think you could argue that all sin is essentially demonic in nature, because to sin is to rebel against God. And that's what the demons did. Giving in to temptation is to go against the very being that sustains the universe and gives you life. Hatred of sin and Satan could well be another weapon in your pursuit of holiness.

Short term pleasure, long term pain

That's the way of the world. It's all about fleeting moments of happiness. But if you really genuinely are convinced that life ends with death, it makes perfect sense.

If you're life could be extinguished at any moment, then you may as well seek out instant pleasure and disregard the long-term consequences. From this perspective, there is no real moral law. Nothing you do, whether good or bad, will be remembered in a few generations. And all your actions can be justified by one statement: 'survival of the fittest'.

So why don't most people live like this? Why aren't more people more evil than they already are? Either we're lazy, far too worried about what other people think, or we have this built-in sense of God looming over our heads. Probably a mix of all three.