Suffering Consequence and Judgment

 

Suffering 12

          We have spent the opening part of this lengthy blog series on suffering examining what suffering is, and looking at various examples of suffering in the pages of God’s Word. We have also heard from two individuals of how they dealt with a season of suffering in their lives. We are going to shift now, and for the next five weeks or so we are going to discover God’s purpose in our suffering. Put another way round, I am going to attempt to provide some solid answers for the age old cry, “Why is this happening to me?!” God does things for reasons. Though He is often inscrutable He is always good, and always works to produce good. I may not be able to tell you the why for a particular suffering, but I do intend to show you from Scripture why God uses the tool of suffering in our lives.

          Suffering is our response to loss and loss is rooted somewhere or other in sin. Most of the time the loss that comes from sin is indirect, in other words, it does not come as a result of our own sin. But other times, the loss in our lives is a direct production of sins we have committed or maintained. Sometimes, then, our suffering is simply but painfully the straightforward consequence of our own sinful or foolish choices.

          History is full of examples of this, and it just so happens I am reading one of them right now. Garret Graff’s 2021 work, “Watergate, A New History” casts a wide net, and in the process shows us the agony of Nixon’s second term as he cast a permanent stain on his name. The suffering Nixon endured was entirely self-inflicted; he did it all to himself with a cascading series of foolish, selfish, criminal actions.

          We also see clear illustration of this in the Bible. For example, think of those who endure the suffering of poverty. Proverbs 19.15 tells us Slothfulness casteth into a deep sleep; And an idle soul shall suffer hunger. Certainly there are times when people are poor or hungry and it is not the fault of their own sinful or foolish actions, but God is clear here that sometimes it is their fault. If you are lazy, sooner or later it is going to catch up to you. You will need something you do not have, and that need may well be pressing or distressing.

          This is built-in suffering. In other words, God does not have to send suffering to the lazy man; laziness automatically produces it. Another and better known term for this is consequence. We all know too much about that, do we not?

          There are other occasions, however, in which our suffering comes at the hands of an angry God. This is different than consequence, or perhaps I should say in addition to the consequences. This is judgment. This is God taking an active rather than a passive approach in meting out suffering.

          Again, it is relatively easy to find examples of this in history. The Flood. Sodom and Gomorrah. The destruction of the Jewish nation by Nebuchadnezzar. The awful siege of Jerusalem by the Romans in AD 70. But if you want to see this in all of its horrific clarity I would beg you to look forward rather than backward. Look at the end of the unsaved man’s life. What do we find? The torments of hell. Jude plainly calls this judgment. Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them, in like manner giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire. (Jude 7)

          Let us return, however, to the consideration of God’s purposes in suffering. Even in these, though they are self-inflicted and not the primary focus of this series, God has a purpose. What is it?

          The purpose of consequence is deterrence.

Peter suffered bitterly when Christ looked at him across that courtyard as he cursed and swore and denied that he even knew Him. That searing emotional pain was the consequence of betrayal. What was the result? A chastened and humbled Peter placed his bold spirit entirely at the will of His Saviour, and did so for the rest of his life, up to and including his own martyrdom. He never again wanted to feel how he felt that cold night of the crucifixion. And he did not.

          In Peter’s case, the consequences deterred him personally. Other cases are recorded so that we may be deterred from foolish activities by observing the consequences they experience. There is deep wisdom in tasting another’s suffering and learning from their consequences. Years ago, I took my oldest son into the basement of our home and made him watch a documentary on meth. It tracked the implosion drugs produced in even the best of young people. Why did I show him that? So he would learn from the consequences of others. In his case, their suffering produced deterrence in him.

          The purpose of judgment is different. Judgment is not about deterrence; it is about justice. It is about equaling the scales. The marble frieze above the entrance of our Supreme Court building in Washington D.C. contains a blind-folded woman holding a scale in one hand and a sword in the other. The blind-fold represents that the absence of favoritism. The scale represents something being weighed carefully so that it may be made equal. The sword represents judgment. Solomon said it this way: A false balance is abomination to the Lord: but a just weight is his delight. (Proverbs 11.1)

          I spent sixteen years at the corner of George and Lavergne in Chicago. In that time, I saw gang fights in the streets, shootings on the sidewalks, and murders in the alley. Last time I checked, the statisticians tell us there are 50,000 gang members in Chicago. They run entire neighborhoods, now more than ever. Drug use, theft, and robbery are often ignored by the police. Even the most serious of crimes, murder, is mostly unpunished. In my years there, the police department’s clearance rate – meaning someone was charged for that murder – averaged twenty five percent. That is right, three out of every four murders in the city never even resulted in an arrest let alone a conviction.

          As awful as that paragraph reads, and as angry as it makes me I take solace in knowing that justice will indeed be done some day.

 

Revelation 20:11–15

11 And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works. And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.

          What is the Great White Throne but the equalizing of the scales? It is justice meted out. It is judgment. The tormented suffering the guilty will endure for eternity is right and righteous. They have broken God’s law countless times. They have spurned the costly grace of God and trampled His Son’s broken body under their feet. The piteous wails of their victims cry out for redress, for judgment, for justice. And they shall have it.

          There is always a purpose in suffering. There is an answer to why. God designed it that way. Sometimes that purpose is the deterrence of consequence. And sometimes it is the justice of judgment.