I ran away from Him,
Down the nights and down the days;
I ran from Him,
Down the arches of the years;
I ran from Him,
Through the twists of my own mind—
And in the confusion of my fears,
I hid from Him,
And still He followed.
With steady steps and a quiet voice,
He followed after me.
No matter how fast I ran,
Or how far I tried to escape,
I always heard His feet behind me—
Unhurrying, unyielding,
Yet filled with love.
I tried to find comfort
In everything but Him:
In people, in pleasure,
In beauty, in dreams.
I wanted to be free from His presence,
Thinking I would find peace,
If only I could leave Him behind.
But everywhere I turned,
The things I loved failed me.
The light I chased faded,
The joy I wanted turned bitter.
And always, behind it all,
His voice kept calling me:
"Nothing you find can satisfy you,
Unless it comes from Me."
I told myself He was cruel,
That He would rob me of happiness.
But still He followed,
Not with anger,
But with patient love.
When I finally stopped running,
Broken and exhausted,
He was still there—
Not to punish,
But to gently ask,
"Why do you run from the One who loves you most?"
He showed me
That every loss I suffered,
Every door that closed,
Was His mercy in disguise—
Turning me back toward the only joy
That would ever be real.
-Hound of Heaven (modern English)
This is an excerpt from a famous poem called the Hound of Heaven by Francis Thompson, published in 1890. It helps us understand our situation as humans. We are often like the man in the poem, in a cloud of anxiety and confusion running away from God, looking around at a dangerous world, with child-like emotions, anger, fear, despair, wondering, why is there all this evil in the world? Even as Christians we often run from God. But like the man in the poem, if we could slow and turn around, we’d see His love is pursuing us.
Lately in our country we’ve seen violence, and we’ve wondered, what is going on? What is the source of this evil?
Today we’re addressing the topic of Why is there suffering and evil in the world. We’re going to look at the origin of evil and suffering, and then discuss how we can respond to these things in the right way.
Here’s our first clue: There is a genealogy in Genesis chapter 5 that goes through the names of all the descendants of Adam, the first man, all the way down to Noah. If you list all the names in order, you find that each name has a meaning, just as any of our names have a meaning. My name is Justin, it means to be justified. The first name Adam, means man.
Second name, Seth means appointed. Enosh means mortal. Kenan means sorrow. Mahalalel means the blessed God. Jared means shall come down. Enoch means teaching. Methusaleh means “his death shall bring.” Lamech means the despairing. Noah means comfort or rest.
If you put all those meanings into a sentence it reads: “Man appointed mortal sorrow, the blessed God shall come down teaching; His death shall bring the despairing rest.”
Man appointed, it says, mortal sorrow. Where did suffering come from? The answer is, it came from humanity. God did not initiate it. Humans did.
We consider the account of the book of Genesis. We see Adam and Eve, the first two humans, and they were innocent, they were holy. They lived with God in the garden. God walked among the garden with them. There was no sin then, no suffering.
We know that Adam and Eve were given authority over the garden, to tend it. They were told there was one rule, do not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
But next we see Adam and Eve, and the serpent, this fallen being, tempt Adam and Eve. The serpent tells them, Genesis 3:4-5 “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. 5 “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
So began the difficult situation we find ourselves in today. Adam and Eve were innocent and pure. Satan was corrupted with evil, and he used the power of deception to bring in suffering for humanity.
We know God was left with no choice, but in his justice, to send Adam and Eve out of the garden. Creation was cursed. The world became fallen. The entire paradigm shifted.
The cursed creation would exist for one purpose: To provide humanity one more chance to turn back to God before the end. Humans would continue to be born and spread out on the Earth. That was always the plan. But now, they would all be affected by the sin virus that Adam and Eve had allowed in.
Humans had turned against God and joined the rebellion that started with Satan and his demons. But God immediately established a plan to save humanity.
God decided he would come himself, as Jesus into the world, to pay the blood price that we owed, so if we trusted in God’s gift of forgiveness, then we could be delivered from the sin nature we’ve inherited from Adam and eve, and we could become part of the new humanity who is led not by Adam and eve, but by Jesus Christ the messiah.
Our scripture for today is Psalm 10, that deals extensively with the problem of evil and suffering.
Psalm 10 begins like this: “1 Why, Lord, do you stand far off?
Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?”
This is the cry of the heart when we face suffering. We cry out and say Lord where are you?
Many in our world refuse to believe in God, because of the evil and suffering in the world. They say how can there be a good god if children die of hunger, if people die of cancer, how can there be a good god if hurricanes destroy villages and floods sweep away the impoverished?
This is probably thee reason why many leave behind God, their experience of suffering leads them to reject God.
So it’s vital that we understand how God’s system works. We see that every human being born is born with a gift that many of us aren’t even fully aware of, the gift of free will.
We get to choose. And God has written it into the system that he is not able to force free choices.
If God deleted free will from the system, of course there would be no evil or suffering. But there would also be no love. And love is the most important thing in the universe. If I could force Chelsey my wife to love me, is that really love? No it’s force. But, if Chelsey freely chooses to love me, that’s real love.
Next verses 2-3: “In his arrogance the wicked man hunts down the weak, who are caught in the schemes he devises. He boasts about the cravings of his heart; he blesses the greedy and reviles the Lord.”
We live in a world where we’re affected by the poor decisions of other humans. I have free will, they have free will. And we’re all on this planet together. So we find situations where the wicked hunt down the weak, plot against the faithful, they celebrate sin, they bless the greedy, and they despise the Lord almighty.
We often look at the evil all around us, in other people, in institutions, and we cry out to God to put an end to evil. But what about the evil in us? If God were to deal with evil right now, he’d have to deal with us. And get rid of that evil too.
Now as we Christians we would say, well we’re righteous because of Jesus, we don’t have evil, because Jesus has covered our sins. This is true. But, what about our unsaved loved ones who we pray for day and night?
God is being patient, waiting for them to come in. And so he is patient with all the evil in the world, waiting and giving time for everyone to have the opportunity to say yes to Jesus.
Why suffering? God’s open door for all.
Next, verses 4-5: “In his pride the wicked man does not seek him;
in all his thoughts there is no room for God.
5 His ways are always prosperous;
your laws are rejected by him;
he sneers at all his enemies.”
In all his thoughts, no room for God. Evil is so terrible, and the evil person, the sinful person is a horror to witness. I think of myself before I was saved, and it was not pretty.
But here we get another key to the truth about suffering. What we are in very important, more important than we realize.
The bible tells us we are made in the image of God. That’s not said of animals, plants, even the angels. We are unique. So much so that we’re told that if we endure to the end with Christ, we will inherit the kingdom of God.
So what we are is very special. This explains why the punishment for rejecting Christ is so severe, eternity in hell. Because we were to be the crown of God’s creation, to share in our God’s authority over all he made. Think about that for a second. To share in his authority, to rule over everything he made. We were made to be given great authority, and with great authority comes great responsibility. That’s why the end game is so serious, heaven or hell, because what we are is so unspeakably incredible and amazing and powerful. We have the spark within us of the creativity of the Creator of all!
Next, verse 6: He says to himself, “Nothing will ever shake me.”
He swears, “No one will ever do me harm.”
We desire a world where nothing will ever shake us, nothing will ever harm us. We were made for a paradise. That’s why death seems so terrible to us, it horrifies us and it should. We struggle to comprehend suffering. It’s a mystery to us.
If we want to understand the mystery of iniquity, we ought to look to two examples, the first is Job. If you want to understand suffering, look at the book of Job. Job was tested and suffered greatly, but he honored God through it, he cried out, he wrestled, but in the end, he trusted His god, and he was greatly rewarded. Job knew horrible suffering. Yet there was a purpose in all of it.
Second example, is of course Jesus himself. Jesus suffered in every way that we do. He suffered pain, despair, and difficulties. He wrestled with God like Job did, in the garden of Gethsemane.
He pleaded with God to take the suffering of the cross away. Father, if it’s possible, take this cup away from me, but your will be done, not mine.
Jesus also desired to be relieved from the suffering. But the cup was not taken from Jesus. Jesus drank that cup of brutal suffering, for us.
Can we then, through all this suffering in our lives, look to the example of Jesus, see that Jesus struggled with it too, but in the end Jesus, drank from that cup, for us. And so can we too, drink from lesser cups of suffering in our lives?
Jesus cried while nailed to the cross, “Father why have you forsaken me?!”
Jesus became suffering for us that day, he became evil for us that day. He was forsaken. And because of what Jesus did, we never have to be forsaken. We are accepted.
Jumping down to verse 14, it says, “But you, God, see the trouble of the afflicted; you consider their grief and take it in hand.
The victims commit themselves to you;
you are the helper of the fatherless.”
God sees our trouble. He doesn’t ignore. He grieves with us. It says he takes our grief in his hands. Our response then, is to commit ourselves to God. Declare, God is my helper.
Yet so often we have a struggle we’re going through, and we ask God for help, and God doesn’t move right away. He waits, or he doesn’t help us at all. Why?
Sometimes we permit suffering to continue to bring about a greater good. Example, the dentist? We go in and they drill into our teeth and it causes suffering, but, it brings about a greater good of healthy teeth. Sometimes when God waits, or doesn’t move, it is to bring about a greater good.
That isn’t always the case though, sometimes we suffer simply because we live in a fallen world that has been messed up by humans. Sometimes God steps in, sometimes God doesn’t, we have to trust Him in that.
Many philosophers have wondered at the problem of evil, and assumed, if God existed and he’s good, he would defeat evil. So there must not be a god, because evil exists.
Of course this argument is self defeating, because where do you get a rationale to call something evil or good? If evil and good exist, an objective morality exists. If an objective morality exists, you must have a moral law giver, to provide that framework, which can only come from God.
But the argument often goes like this:
If God is all good, He would defeat evil
If God is all powerful, He could defeat evil.
But evil is not defeated. Therefore God doesn’t exist.
Professor Norm Geisler, provided a response to this:
If God is all good, He would defeat evil
If God is all powerful, He could defeat evil.
Therefore evil will one day be defeated.
It is God’s character and ability to do so.
But it still begs the question: Why doesn’t God do it now?
1. He is waiting patiently for the lost to come to Christ.
2. He is allowing suffering to prepare His saints for paradise.
3. He is testing the faith of His saints to prevent any future rebellion. (meaning: Every time your faith is tested and you choose to keep trusting God, it strengthens your commitment to God. God is developing in us such a strong commitment, once we are in heaven, it will prevent any future rebellions.)
4. He is displaying/proving his righteousness in contrast to the mystery of iniquity
So we’ve talked about the Garden of Eden and the fall. We’ve talked about God’s provision of Jesus Christ as the solution to the problem. How does it all end?
We know that after the end times, and the millennial reign of Christ, the enemy is defeated, and there is a great day of judgment for every person on earth. And there are two final destinations: The New heavens and new earth, or hell.
The End game is this: God separates good from evil forever, quarantining evil in a place called hell. And good prospers in a place called paradise.
The end is just what everyone desires, “Lord end the evil and suffering.” If we accept Jesus, and allow him to save us, we will never suffer again. If we reject Jesus, we will suffer for all eternity.
In conclusion today, given all these truths about the problem of evil and suffering, how do we get through these struggles?
The first thing we want to understand is that Jesus Christ is the savior we all need, because until we have him, we are the evil in the world, and we contribute to it. When Jesus enters us, we become part of the solution.
Second thing to understand is that suffering is emotionally devastating. That’s why we get so upset when we see suffering and evil in the world. It goes against everything we’re made for, we’re made for heavenly joy. So understand that the pains you go through in life will shake your world. But also understand there is a solution to this, and it is a concept called wrestling with God.
Whether Job, or Jacob, or Abraham or Moses, or Paul or Peter or James or John, they all had one thing in common: They wrestled with God. When suffering occurred they constantly brought it to God in prayer and talked with Him, read the word, talked to friends and family about it, talked to their spiritual leaders, and through that wrestling with God, God slowly brought them to a place of blessing.
Third, expect suffering, the new testament constantly tells us to expect it, that it will happen, and James even writes that we should count it all joy when we face trials of many kinds, because the trials build and refine our faith. So often the best response to a new trial or problem is to accept it. Believe that suffering produces perseverance, and perseverance produces character.
Fourthly, as we walk through this broken world, in all the ups and downs and triumphs and tragedies, we learn to trust Him more and more. We see him deliver us time and again. We see him answer our prayers time and again. We see trials come and go. We see God mature us through these challenges. We learn to simply trust Him. And we join with Job, when he says, “Thou he slays me, yet will I trust him.”
Fifthly, ask God for healing. After the suffering, we find ourselves covered in wounds from all we’ve been through. And it’s a good thing we serve a healing God. He doesn’t want to leave us wounded from all the pains. He wants to heal us. Ask Him.
Suffering came about through evil, and evil led to deception and deception led to the fall, and the fall led to suffering. But the mighty God came down giving salvation to all who would believe. He met us in our suffering. Jesus became evil and suffering for us, so that we could be healed. Thank you Jesus for your mighty gift! Let us wrestle with God through the sufferings, seeking His wisdom, so we may be at peace despite all the wrongs we see in the world. He is able!
