WHEN
BAD THINGS HAPPEN
We wonder why bad things happen to good people. Specifically, why do bad things happen in
our church? To understand why, we have
to review why bad things happen, Period.
The only thing that makes sense to me is to put it into the framework of
the Great Controversy between Christ & Satan. This helps us to
understand why bad things happen. We
understand that God created a perfect world where there was no sickness,
suffering and death. Where bad things
didn’t exist. We also understand that
with a simple choice there at the gate of Eden...that the world was
shattered. And a new world was
introduced. A world where bad things
would indeed happen. Where sin, death
and decay would come upon all. And bad things have been happening ever
since. From a Biblical
perspective, God wanted to keep that
door shut, locked tight forever and ever: but it has been opened.
Do bad things happen to people because they are bad? Do bad things happen to people because they
are worst sinners than other people? Do
bad things happen because God is punishing people for what they have done? A church member once made a comment to my
wife. (Don’t worry it wasn’t anyone in the Sullivan or Bourbon Church.) This member said, “You must be a really bad
person because of all the things you have suffered.” We still are not sure what her intentions were.
Turn to Luke 13. This is a kind of side story, but Jesus
addresses this issue. Jesus is talking
& this is a continuation of His discourse from Luke 12. Read Luke 13:1 Here were
Galileans worshipping and having animal sacrifices and apparently Pilate makes
an issue of these Galileans & he spills their blood and mingles their blood with the blood of the
animal sacrifices. Read verse 2 Jesus asks do you think that these Galileans
were worse sinners than the other Galileans?
Because they suffered this way? Do you think they did something
particularly bad that would cause them to lose their lives in that way? Jesus answers His own questions. (Read verse 3) I tell you
“NO”. Jesus was really talking about
how the generation at that time needs to repent. (Read verse 4 & 5) The tower of Siloam down by the pool of Siloam was under
construction. Evidently during this
construction of the tower there was an accident and 18 workers were killed.
There was whispered around town that these guys must have been
worst sinners than the other construction workers because this happened to
them. So the popular idea was...bad
things happen because you are bad. Jesus was addressing a common
perception. He said that bad things do
not necessarily happens because we are bad people.
We can place bad
things in four basic categories.
1. Natural Disasters. Often tagged
by insurance companies as Acts of God.
Satan does something and gives God the credit and everyone hates God and
blames God. Many people like to live
around the water, so they build their houses close to the water. Then they get upset when the waves come and
flood their homes.
2. Wrong choices that we make. We can ignore
the label on the tobacco package that says this product may be hazardous to
your health, but sooner or later it catches up with us. Then our families come to the hospital and
ask, “Why has God done this?” God put
together certain laws of nature and if we violate those laws, we have to pay
the consequences. The American Heart
Assoc. tells us about the dangers of a high fat diet and if we ignore that,
sooner or later it will catch up with us.
A person indulges in
alcohol and then insists on driving himself home and crashes into a tree and
looses his life. We all have a choice
and when we exercise our power of choice and make wrong choices. Is God responsible?
3. Wrong choices that other people make and
their impact on us. One day in Pittsburgh a family of singers
was returning on the turnpike from a concert at a church. The women and children were in one car and
the men were in another car. A drunken
driver gets on the turnpike going the wrong direction. He strikes the car carrying the women and
children and so 2 children lose their mother.
She didn’t do anything wrong.
She was simply out giving a concert for the Lord. But there were wrong choices made by someone
else. God didn’t make the accident
happen. Yet families wonder why.
Christians are not exempt
from those bad things.
4. The most difficult area. It is the sinful world factor. We live in a
fallen world. Combinations of genes
passed on to us from Adam & Eve cause problems that we don’t have any
control over. Some people suffer
because they have been born into a fallen, sinful world. They inherited the curse from our first
parents and they pass on those defects and tenancies through diseases.
Some are wondering about that passage that says, “I will put
none of these diseases upon you, that I put upon the Egyptians.” What diseases did God put upon the
Egyptians? Deut. 28 says
if you obey me, I will bless you, but if you disobey me I will bring upon you
the plagues and all kinds of problems.
God sent 10 plagues upon the Egyptians so Pharaoh would let His people
go. That was a direct judgment from
God. But not every affliction an
Egyptian had is in the same category.
God says, “If you will follow me.
I will bring none of those plagues upon you.”
It is also true that Egyptians also had a lot of things
happened to them. We can look at their
mummies and see that they died from a lot of diseases that were
preventable. They were lifestyle
diseases. So God’s saying, “Follow me
and follow my principals and you don’t have to die from those diseases that are
lifestyle induced.”
Combinations of genes can bring about congenital birth
defects. Here is another hot topic in
Jesus’s day. Read John 9:1, 2 Would you ever ask a question like
that? But that was the thinking at that
time. They typically thought that bad
things happened to bad people. How
could it be? Well, maybe his parents
sinned and they passed on their sins and he was born blind. But the disciples are not asking that
question. They are asking, “Did this man sin?”
How could he sin before he was born?
The Jews believed that some children who were so unruly that they
actually sinned before they are born.
And things like this happen to them as a result. Silly?
Read verse 3
The blind guy or his parents didn’t sin, but God had him born blind so
that Jesus could work this miracle later on.
Right? Wrong! Would God have him born blind, just so Jesus
could work this miracle? Some
translations put it this way. “Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but
so that the work of God may be displayed.
I’m going to work a miracle and reverse the process of this man being
born into a sinful world.” I like
that. That fits into the kind of God I
see emerging from the Bible perspective.
A God who wouldn’t have someone born blind just so He could work a
miracle and make an example of it. But,
that you can see the works of God.
So Jesus performed a
miracle that day. It was typical to
feel that God is punishing me for something they may have done. Sometimes when our children get hurt or
something goes wrong with them. We, as
parents, wonder what did we do wrong that God is punishing us? We were tempted to think that way when our
2nd child was still born. That was 16
years ago this month. That isn’t the
God that we see in the scriptures. Is
God really into tit for tat? NO! God is not a vengeful God, punishing our
loved ones for what we have done. Those
18 people at the tower of Siloam didn’t die because they were worst sinners
than everyone else or because they deserved it. They died because they lived in a sinful world where bad things
happen.
That is the theme of the book of Job. That bad things don’t happen to you because
you are bad. We tend to think that Job’s miserable
comforters are telling the truth about God.
They said this happened to you Job because secretly you have sinned and
now God is punishing you. Job said, “I
am innocent before God.” The people of Jesus’ day read this book and understood and still they could ask, Who sinned that
this man was born blind?
Let’s turn to
Job 1:21. After all that befell him, Job maintained
his innocence. He fell down on the
ground & in Verse 21
He says... “Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I
return thither; the Lord gave, and the
Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” In all this, Job did not sin by charging God
with wrong doing. The King James
Version says Job sinned not, nor charged God foolishly.
When we go through these things, it’s painful. Job discovered that above all and through
all that God is at work for the
ultimate salvation of his creation.
This is known as the sovernity of God.
There are times when God supernaturally intervenes & there are times
that He doesn’t.
I have read about vines that grow on the side of the oak tree,
their tendrils hold onto the tree. The
vine clings to the oak tree. Sometimes
storms will come and blow, but they can’t blow the vine apart. There are times when the oak tree blocks the
wind from blowing on the vine. The wind
blows & the vine is on the other side being protected. Sometimes the wind blows directly on the
vine & it gets pushed harder & deeper into the oak tree. We can be like the vine. Our Lord is like the oak tree. Sometimes He blocks & deflects the wind
from our lives. Sometimes He allow the
full brunt of the wind upon us & all we can do is to cling to Him tighter
& tighter.
God loves us too much to exempt us from all the trials of
life. God doesn’t allow trials for the
sake of causing us pain, for the sake of sorrow. James 1:2 in the
KJV says “My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations.”
But in NIV says “Consider it pure
joy...whenever you face trials of many kinds.” Now we would call someone who finds joy in pain something like a
sadist. But notice He doesn’t say enjoy
it when you have trials of any kind.
Does He say you should like it?
NO! He says consider it pure
joy, that doesn’t necessarily mean, you like it. The Clear Word says “When various temptations come your way,
look at them joyfully as opportunities to grow spiritually.”
It is an attitude. That’s the choice that you have. You can choose to consider it pure joy or
you can choose to allow it to become a cancer of bitterness in your lives. Consider it pure joy because you know that
the testing of your faith develops perseverance. And perseverance must finish it’s work so you may be mature and
complete, not lacking anything. If any
of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God who gives generously to all without
finding fault and it will be given to him.
Consider it means the attitude we take the choice we make. We need to pray when we have trials, so we
can count it or consider it pure joy and allow God’s will to be worked out in
our lives.
We came to the realization that there were only 2 choices we
could make. We could be anger with God
or we could let God be God and say we don’t know how all this fits into Your
plan. We’re not even going to ask for an explanation. We’re just going to accept the fact that you
are God and that we are servants and it’s not the other way around. It is either despair or acceptance of God’s
sovernity These are the only 2 alternatives.
Bad things hurt. Bad
things happens to us all. How we deal
with it is our choice? I am going to
close with a text from Habakkuk 3:17. From the Clear Word Bible, “Though the fig tree does not bud
and there are no grapes on the vines; though the olive crop fails & the
fields produce no wheat; though the sheep all die & there are no cattle in
the stalls.
(That’s pretty dismal
picture.) I will still be joyful
& sing. I will rejoice in the
Lord. I will be glad that God is my
Saviour.”
Verse 19 “The Lord is my strength-whom shall I
fear? The Lord is my light-of whom
shall I be afraid? He help me run as
lightly as a deer & helps me climb to the heights of the mountains.”
CLOSING PRAYER
Father,
We thank you for the
trials of life, because we know you are all wise & you know the trials are
for the perfecting of our characters.
We thank you for not putting on us, more than we can bare.
We pray for the strength to endure what comes our way &
look forward to the reward you have promised.