Because at the heart of the Christian life and world view is that everything in history has a purpose in the mind of Almighty God. That God is a purposive God. God is not chaotic. For everything, there is a purpose, including what we define as tragedies. When we experience tragic circumstances, our first question is often, "Why?" Sometimes, as in the example of David and Bathsheba in the Old Testament, we see the answer: God took the life of the child as judgment for David's sin.
Other times, the answer is not obvious to us. Today's message exploring God's purpose in our suffering is from Dr. Sproul's series, "When Worlds Collide." And it's freely available to stream in the Grow app from Ligonier. To receive the digital study guide, visit renewingyourmind.org to make a donation, or call eight hundred four three five forty three forty three. Today, Dr.
Sprole looks at several examples from Scripture to show us that not every bad thing that happens to us is necessarily because we sinned. I hope you'll stay with us through the end of this program for an encouraging quorum deo moment. Here's RC. In light of America's declaration of war on terrorism, we have seen that wars are provoked in the final analysis by the conflict of ideas. The war begins in the mind, and hostilities break out when people come to different conclusions on how to live, and how to function.
We've also seen the erosion of the central importance of the concept of divine providence to even the Christian Church in our day. And I've noticed, as the media describes the events of September the 11th in the year 2001, that they use different words to describe the problems of that day. Words like catastrophe. Or calamity, and one of the words that I hear perhaps more often than any other is the word tragedy. But what has concerned me somewhat in the public use of vocabulary is that I keep hearing this one phrase over and over and over again describing these events, and that is the phrase senseless tragedy.
Again, if I had the time to go into a technical, comprehensive analysis of these two words in conjunction with each other, I think I could demonstrate to your satisfaction that the phrase "senseless tragedy" is an oxymoron, because for something to be defined in the final analysis as being tragic, there has to be some standard of good. For something to be deemed tragic, vis-a-vis that, and if things happen in a way that is senseless, there could not be anything that's really a tragedy or a blessing. It would just simply be a meaningless event.
So that is the word tragedy presupposes some kind of order of purpose in the world. But what concerns me here is that the idea of a senseless tragedy. Represents a world view that is completely incompatible with Christian thought, because it assumes that something happens without a purpose or without a meaning. And if God is God, and if God is a God of providence, and if God is sovereign, then nothing. Ever happens that in the final analysis is senseless.
I remember when I was in college and I had to take an introductory course in lab biology. In fact, it was called bonehead biology because it was the biology course for non-science majors. And I remember probably the only thing I remember from that class was the first. Lecture that the professor gave.
Now keep in mind that Bonehead Biology was populated. By for the most part, freshmen. Ninety-nine percent of the students in the class were freshmen. I happened to be a senior. I happened to be a senior philosophy major.
I had to defer the taking of this course because I had a conflict with Greek in my freshman year. And as it was, I had already had three years of college behind me—a philosophical investigation. And the thing that piqued my interest in that opening lecture was that the professor. Said now, as scientists exploring the realm of biology, the one thing we are not interested in is teleology. Which word comes from the Greek word telos, which means end, goal, or purpose.
Now, one of the great quests of the history of philosophy is an investigation into the meaning and to the purpose of life and of human existence, and not only of human existence, but of animal existence, of flower existence, of the existence of rocks, and everything else. That is, philosophy is profoundly interested in questions. Of purpose and meaning, and here I step into this freshman class on biology, and I'm told at the outset that questions of teleology are ruled out of bounds. And what I was hearing the professor say is that what you will learn from now on in the rest of this course will be meaningless. But what the professor was really saying is that we're going to limit our investigation to questions of how, and what, and where.
But the one question that remains out of bounds is the question why. And yet, when we return to the events of September the 11th, 2001, this is the question that burns in everybody's mind. Why did this happen? And particularly, if one is a theist, and especially a Christian theist, we are asking the why question—the question, "How could God allow this to happen?" We're saying, "Why God did this come to pass?" Because Christians do not allow. For meaningless events to take place, because at the heart of the Christian life and world view is that everything in history has a purpose in the mind of Almighty God; that God is a purposive God.
God is not chaotic. God does not play dice, as Albert Einstein once. Remarked, for everything, there is a purpose, including what we define as tragedies. But again, why this tragedy?
Now, one of the things that took place in the early days of reflection about the events of September the 11th were comments from some well-known preachers. Particularly, Jerry Falwell, and with an assist from Pat Robertson, Falwell made the observation that the why for this tragedy was that this was God's act of judgment upon America for America's immorality for abortion and the destruction of the human family and other moral issues of our day. That created a firestorm of controversy, negative backlash, and even Christian commentators were quite vocal in their criticism of this assessment by Jerry Falwell. To the end that Falwell then publicly recanted his judgment, which was indeed a rush to judgment.
Now, let me say something. If somebody would say to me, "Why did this happen? What was God's purpose in all of this?" The only honest answer I could give simply is, "I don't know. I can't read God's mind." Now, if you ask me, was God involved? Yes.
Because I'm committed to the Christian doctrine of providence, I'm convinced that God was involved in this act; that it was according to God's purpose. But what the specific purpose of that God was involved in here, I have no idea.
So I'm not to jump to the conclusion that God's purpose was to send judgment on America. But one of the things that disturbed me was how confident the commentators were that it was not an act of judgment. Let me say again. Let me be very clear when I'm saying, I don't know that it was an act of judgment. But I can't think of anything in the Christian worldview that would rule out the possibility.
That it was an act of judgment. If we understand that God does bring calamities from time to time upon nations as an act of judgment. But to struggle with this question, not only of that particular event or that particular day, but the tragedies that befall people through the ages and every day in this world, this question "why" is raised. And let me turn your attention, at least briefly, to a discussion about this sort of question that Jesus had with his disciples. In the ninth chapter of the Gospel according to Saint John, we read these words.
Now, as Jesus passed by, he saw a man who was blind from birth.
Now, let me just stop right there. Your mother, you carry your baby to term. You are excited in anticipation for the birth of this child. You are the father. And when the child is born, you soon discover that the baby is blind.
Very few people respond to that with joy. Very few people would react to that experience as a visitation of divine blessing. In a word. The parents, in their disappointment, in all probability, would see that event, at least for them, and for their child, as a personal tragedy. And certainly, people would be inclined to ask the question, "Why, God, did you let this happen?" And so now.
The disciples see a person who's a grown adult, and they know that that person was born blind and had suffered total blindness for many, many years.
Now, if anything would seem senseless, it would be the experience of the man born blind, and so they come to Jesus, and they say to him, "Rabbi, who sinned?" This man or his parents. That he was born blind. Who sinned, the man who was born blind, or his parents? Which was it?
Now Jesus immediately recognizes that the question that is posed to him commits a logical fallacy. Which we have a technical name for. It is called the fallacy of the false dilemma, or sometimes called the either-or fallacy. That is when a person reduces the possibility to two, and only two, when in fact there may be more possibilities.
Now there are situations. Where the possibilities can legitimately and rationally be reduced to two, there either is a God or there's not a God. There's no tersum quid there. There's no third alternative. It's one or the other.
You're either going to die or you're not going to die. Can't be another alternative. But in this case. The disciples rushed to judgment, and reduced the options to two. When there was a third option they hadn't considered, and so Jesus, when he hears the question stated this way, Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?
Jesus said, "What? Neither. Neither this man." Nor his parents sinned, but that the works of God shall be revealed in him. And I must work the works of Him who sent me. While it is day, the night is coming when no one can work.
And as long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world. And when he had said these things, He spat on the ground and made clay with the saliva, and he anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay, and he said, "Go and wash to the pool of Siloam, which is translated 'Sent.'" And so he went and washed, and came back seeing. And what follows then is the confrontation that Jesus had with the officials, who were astonished at this particular miracle that Christ had performed. But Jesus said it was not because of the sin of the person, and it was not because of the sin of the parents. It was in order to manifest the kingdom of God.
God's purpose here was to demonstrate who I am through this miracle. And to this day, two thousand years later, that blind man, who presumably is in heaven today, who has been joined by his children and grandchildren, sit around heaven and talk about how God used his blindness to demonstrate the identity of Christ. He discovered that his tragic condition. Was by no means senseless. It had a divine purpose.
Now, we look at this and we see that the disciples made a mistake. The kind of mistake Jerry Falwell made. They rushed to judgment and they assumed that the only possible explanation for this person's lifelong blindness was. The man's sin or his parents' sin. Just like Falwell assumed that the tragic events of September the 11th were divine judgment for certain things in this world.
The disciples were wrong, but let's not dismiss them as being stupid.
Some people read this text and they think, what's wrong with those disciples that they would think? That God would allow a child to be born blind because of the parent's sin, or that the man himself was stricken with blindness because of some sin that he committed. Why did they make those assumptions? These were the disciples of Jesus. They had been to the finest theological seminary in the history of the world.
They had been trained by the Word of God Himself. Why would they make such a stupid blunder as to assume there was some kind of relationship between sin and suffering? Because they knew the truth of God. That the ultimate reason for tragedy, the ultimate reason for suffering in this world, is sin. Get rid of sin, you get rid of suffering.
In heaven, there is no sin. In heaven, there is no death. In heaven, there is no suffering whatsoever. And so the disciples understood that there is a link in this world between sin and suffering, between evil and tragedy. But they made the mistake of assuming that the particular cause for this particular tragedy was a particular sin of some particular person.
Had they read the book of Job carefully, they would have known better. Remember the misery of Job. How is it presented to us in this exquisitely insightful piece of wisdom literature? That opens as a drama opens with the first act and the first scene. Where Satan comes before God after he had walked to and fro on the earth, and he begins to mock God, and he says, "Look at all these people down here on earth; they're serving me.
I'm the prince of this world. Nobody's paying any attention to you." God said, "Well, have you considered my servant Job?" Satan mocks God, laughs. He says, "Job." Ha! Sure, Job serves you. Why wouldn't you?
You've put a hedge around him. You've made him the richest man in all the world. All you've done is poured blessing upon blessing after blessing upon him. He knows where his bread is buttered. You take away that hedge, and let me at him, and you'll hear Job curse God.
God said, "Okay." Have Adam, and all hell breaks loose on this righteous man who loses everything and is driven to abject misery, to sitting on a dung hill, where his wife comes to him and says, "Job, curse God and die. Get it over with." And tenaciously, Job says, "Though he slay me, yet will I trust him." But Job doesn't know why. He's going through this misery, this relentless pain and suffering, and his friends come to him, armed with the concept of the relationship between sin and suffering. Oh, Job, poor thing! They come and say, "What secret sin were you involved in?
You must be the worst sinner of all time, since you're the worst sufferer of all time. There must be an equation between your suffering and your guilt." And the whole book of Job is written to disprove that conclusion and that assumption, because the purpose of Job's suffering had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with his personal guilt. But again, even his friends who made that assumption made it because they did understand that there were times in history where God does visit judgment on people and afflict them with pain and suffering as a execution of justice. David, seven days, on his face, sackcloth and ashes. Praying that God will spare the life of the baby born by Bathsheba, after the prophet Nathan had informed David that God was going to take the life of that child in judgment, and David still pled with God for a whole week, spare the baby.
And God took the child as judgment. Upon David, you can't spend ten minutes reading the Old Testament scriptures without seeing the God of Israel inflicting judgment on people because of sin. The error you see of the disciples and the error of Joe's friend was assuming that in every situation there's a direct correlation between sin and judgment. What was Paul's sin that caused him to have the thorn in the flesh? That thorn was given to him for his own sanctification, to manifest the goodness of God, to have Paul rely constantly on divine grace.
My grace is sufficient for you, Paul. There are many reasons why God visits His people. With what we call the tragedy, without its being a direct judgment on sin, though at times it is. And again, the bottom line of this encounter of Jesus and the disciples is: don't rush to judgment. That because this man was born blind, it was because he was being judged by God, or that his parents were being judged by God.
Neither one was the case. That's why I say, if you ask me why this happened, the only honest answer I can give you is, I don't know. That's one of the many things that I appreciated about Doctor Sprole. If he didn't know, he wasn't afraid to admit it. In just a moment, we'll get to one final thought from Dr.
Sprole. But if you'd like to continue your study in When Worlds Collide, it's freely available for streaming in the Grow app from Ligonier. You can also request the downloadable study guide for this series when you make a donation in support of this program at renewingyourmind.org or when you call 800-435-4343.
Now, a coram deo moment from Dr. Sprole. The bottom line assumption of anybody who believes in the God of Christianity and the God of Providence is that ultimately, ultimately, there are no tragedies, no tragedies for the people of God. God has promised by Himself that all things that happen in this world, all pain, all suffering, all tragedies, are but for a moment, and that God works in and through those events. For the good of those who endure them.
That's why the apostle said, "The pain, the suffering, the affliction that we bear in this world isn't worthy to be compared, isn't worthy to be mentioned in the same breath, with the glory and the blessedness that God has stored up for His people." Tragedy for the Christian is temporary, never permanent. Thursday, Dr. Sprole explains how God has the inherent right to impose obligations on us. Find out what those obligations are here on Renewing Your Mind.
