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WHY ALL THE SUFFERING?  IT SEEMS LIKE THE ONE IN CHARGE WOULDN’T LET IT CONTINUE.  WHY DON’T YOU STOP IT?

You would be surprised to learn just how much of it I won’t allow – but back to your first question.  I once created a uniquely beautiful and gifted angelic being.  I made him an authority in charge of heavenly worship.  It went to his head.  He thought it would be a good thing if he relieved me of the whole operation.¹⁵  He corrupted a third of the angelic beings.  I had to give him and his allies the boot.¹⁶  He went on to deceive and corrupt the first parents as well.  That was the origin of all the suffering in the universe.¹⁷  Why don’t I stop it?  My long suit is to take what is very bad in essence and use it to my advantage to make something very, very good.¹⁸  Suffering is no exception to that rule.

ALLOWING THE SUFFERING TO GO ON SEEMS SO UNKIND.  ISN’T THERE A BETTER WAY?

My son asked that question in the garden at Gethsemane, so you know my answer.¹⁹  It might help to look at the stage play analogy again.  It’s one thing to just produce something that the audience will enjoy and yet another to reveal the heart and mind of the director plus bring it all to a glorious conclusion.  My intentions are greater still.  A truly great director will reproduce himself in the players.  A patron meets one of mine on the street, I want it to be more than a little like touching me.  My son is the pattern but, by design, just the first of many with what I would call family resemblance.²⁰  He was no stranger to suffering and did learn from it.²¹  To be genuine, none of the siblings²² can bypass this part of the equation – even though many mistakenly go to such great lengths trying to avoid it.²³

15 “The workmanship of your timbrels and pipes was prepared for you on the day you were created.  You were the anointed cherub who covers; I established you; you were on the holy mountain of God; you walked back and forth in the midst of the fiery stones.  You were perfect in your ways from the day you were created, till iniquity was found in you” (Ezekiel 28:13b-15).  “How you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning!  How you are cut down to the ground, you who weakened the nations!  For you have said in your heart, ‘I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will also sit on the mount of the congregation on the farthest sides of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the Most High’” (Isaiah 14:12-14).

16 “So the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old, called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was cast to the earth, and his angels were cast out with him” (Revelation 12:9).  “(The dragon’s) tail drew a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth” (Revelation 12:4a).

17 “Then the serpent said to the woman, ‘You will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good from evil.’ . . . The woman said, ‘The serpent deceived me, and I ate’” (Genesis 3:4, 5, 13b).

18 “When Joseph’s brothers saw that their father was dead, they said, ‘Perhaps Joseph will hate us and may actually repay us for all the evil which we did to him.’ . . . (But) Joseph said to them, ‘Do not be afraid, for am I in the place of God?  But as for you, you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, in order to bring it about as it is this day, to save many people alive’” (Genesis 50:15, 19-20).

19 “He went a little farther and fell on His face, and prayed, saying, ‘O My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will’” (Matthew 26:39).

20 “For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be (just) the firstborn among many brethren” (Romans 8:29).

21 “. . . though He was a Son, yet He learned obedience by the things which He suffered” (Hebrews 5:8). “For it was fitting for Him (the Father) . . . to make the captain of their salvation (the Son) perfect through sufferings” (Hebrews 2:10).

22 “For both He who sanctifies and those who are being sanctified (set apart) are all of one, for which reason He is not ashamed to call them brethren . . .” (Hebrews 2:11).  “. . . go to My brethren and say to them, ‘I am ascending to My Father and your Father, and to My God and your God’” (John 20:17b). 

23 “He who says he abides in Him ought himself also to walk just as He walked” (1 John 2:6).  “Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence?” (Psalm 139:7).  “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Hebrews 10:31).  “My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials” (James 1:2).