TNG Suffering for the Faith

Best-selling author, speaker, and advocate for Christian apologetics, Dr. Alex McFarland. Best-selling author and apologist, Dylan Burrows. Together bringing you truth.

For a new generation, this is TNG Radio. The Word of God says in 1 Thessalonians, In all things give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. But there's some things in life that, let's face it from our human perspective, it would seem hard to be grateful for. Hard to be thankful for some of the pain and problems of life. And as we record this radio show and as it airs, our nation is reeling in compassion and sadness and concern for what the people in the panhandle of Florida have gone through and are going through as Hurricane Michael struck, said to be the fourth largest hurricane in American history.

And one article speaking of some of those beach towns that have just been decimated, they said it looks like an atomic bomb has gone off and they're just going to have to bulldoze everything and start over. And invariably the human response to pain and suffering like this very often is why. Why do bad things happen? So today on the program, Dylan Burrows and I are going to talk about why do bad things happen and what is the Christian response to pain and suffering. And one thing that our heart doesn't like to go there, but we're going to look squarely at the question, do life's problems mean that we can't trust God?

Dylan, it's great to be with you, my brother. And this thing of human suffering and sadness and the problem of pain, I mean this has been a perennial question people throughout the centuries have wrestled with. But I think you and I would agree, Christianity uniquely gives an answer.

Right. And first of all, we don't deny that there is suffering in our world today. When you wake up and you see that 11 people at least have died as a result of Hurricane Michael, you still have 1.4 million people in the southeast with no power.

So many people affected by this, one of the largest hurricanes to ever make landfall, and certainly the largest to make landfall on Florida's panhandle since record keeping began in 1851. What do we say in response to this as Christians? Well, first, we don't deny it. We live in a fallen world where things happen that cause devastating effects. So first, we recognize it and accept it. But second, we have to consider what is the purpose of this? What is the meaning of this? We don't always understand why, but the Bible does talk about reasons that suffering or natural disasters even happen in our world today, so we want to talk about that a little bit, Alex.

So get us started. Why would we see natural disasters happen in our world? What would be a good biblical response to some of these things taking place today? Well, clearly the main reason that we have pain and suffering in all the world is because of sin, that this is a fallen world. And, you know, this might not be a perfect illustration, but as we talk about this and what this world is and is not, that, you know, this world is not heaven.

We love life, and it's a blessing to be alive, and certainly life on this planet has many, many joys and blessings, but there are deep valleys and sorrows, too. Not a great illustration, but Dylan, I was in a restaurant, and I was watching a child just devour some sort of appetizer, I don't know, it was potato wedges and cheese or something, and I heard the mom say to the child, don't overeat because the main course hasn't come. You're eating that appetizer, but you better wait for the entree. This world is not the entree. Heaven is the main course, and this world is the appetizer, and you can't fault the appetizer for not being the entree. A lot of people say, this life is messed up, things go wrong, but we've got to remember, and I think many of the great thinkers in history have come to this realization, and I think when we look at this, as Norm Geisler would say, we're kind of standing on the shoulders of giants, but this world, with all of its failures and voidables and this world with all of its challenges, really does prepare our heart for heaven. Now what we want to do as Christians is respond to the problem of pain and suffering without compromising any of God's core characteristics or God's essential attributes. We know that God is good, God is wise, and God is powerful.

Now there have been different people that have thrown up their hands in frustration and said, well, maybe God doesn't exist, or maybe God just doesn't care, or maybe God is not able, or maybe God just doesn't know what to do. There was a song, a rock song, about ten years ago, what if God were one of us, just a slob like one of us? Do you remember that song, Dylan? Dylan And he really answered the problem of evil in a not-adequate way. He was very influential in the life of a guy named Arius, who later was identified as a heretic, who was wrong on many key Christian doctrines.

But let's ask this question, and Dylan, I'll throw to you. Can we as a Christian, like you said, we recognize evil is real, suffering is real. It's not an illusion.

I mean, there are things in this life that are indeed heartbreaking. But nevertheless, we still maintain that God is good, God is all-powerful, and God is all-wise. So the reality of evil doesn't negate the reality of the Christian God, does it?

David No, it doesn't. So it leads us to this tension that God is good, and yet there is evil and there is suffering in our world today. And it leads us to this idea of, could there be a good purpose or any good reason for suffering that we face? We see a natural disaster like this hurricane.

What good could come out of something like this? And that's a question we want to address in a very real and compassionate way, because we know a lot of people go through pain, and they go through challenges, and we don't want to negate that. All of us face those things in our lives that bring us down.

We don't understand why. But we also want to recognize that God may have a purpose and a plan in this, Alex. So what are some ways that God could work in a positive way through some of these tragic things that we see in life? Alex Well, you know, Malcolm Muggeridge years ago was a brilliant journalist, and he became a Christian eventually in life. And he said, you know, imagine how prideful we are and we're selfish. He said, even in spite of these challenges, he said, could you imagine if the world were nothing but apple pie and cotton candy? The word he used was insufferable. Imagine how insufferable we all would be if everything always went our way.

So Malcolm Muggeridge, like many great thinkers, I think of Corrie ten Boom, who survived the Holocaust, and Billy Graham, who was just one of the great leaders of our lifetime. Pain and suffering humbles us. And this first segment ebbs away, but I want to talk about, when we come back, why there is suffering. And let's identify just what is sin and fallenness.

This is Truth for a New Generation radio. We've got to pull away for a brief break. Stay tuned, because we'll talk about our look at suffering and the outcomes of it when we return after this. As we take a break, let me tell you about three tens, three books that'll answer questions that come your way from others or even yourself about the Christian faith. Book number one, Ten Answers for Skeptics. Today's skeptics are looking for authenticity, integrity, and straightforward faith. And in this book, you'll learn how to answer intimidating questions, identify the root issue behind those questions, and dismantle the spiritual bombshells dropped by non-believers.

Those usually end up just being a puff of smoke. Number two, Ten Answers for Atheists, where Alex looks at the philosophical assumptions at the root of atheism and agnosticism, exposing logical, historical, and conceptual fallacies. Alex shares clear explanations of beliefs and biblical answers to those questions that often leave you stumped, but no more. And number three, the ten most common objections to Christianity and how to answer them. You know, many Christians hear these objections and have a crisis of faith, but Alex and Dylan have been around. They've visited many places and talked with many people through the years and can offer straight answers that'll give you confidence and understanding about your beliefs. So the three tens once again, Ten Answers for Skeptics, Ten Answers for Atheists, and the ten most common objections to Christianity and how to answer them.

Find them wherever Christian books are sold or at alexmcfarland.com. We care about justice and aren't afraid to ask hard questions. In fact, we care about a lot of things. We have passion for truth. We are engagemagazine.net, an online group of millennials brought together by a common goal to share truth, apply scripture, and to get involved in our lost and hurting world. Engagemagazine.net hosts discussions that help you apply a biblical worldview to your daily life.

Engagemagazine.net. I want to give Alex an opportunity to talk about some of the things going on at Truth for a New Generation recently, some of the ways that God is working across our nation through young people and changing lives for eternity. Catch us up a little bit, Alex, on what's been happening.

Oh, well, thanks, Dylan. You know, I'm so grateful for the way the Holy Spirit of God is moving. As we record this, I'm just getting in from about two and a half weeks of preaching in several cities, and I was just in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where we are getting ready for the next Truth for a New Generation conference.

And people are excited. I spoke at a Christian school. I spoke at a public school in Mississippi. And a lot of young people are very excited to not only learn how to have a relationship with Jesus, but how to defend their faith. And what I want to say also is thank you to everyone who is supporting this ministry. As we do major events around the country, as we distribute literature, and as we broadcast, and we've got two radio programs, a television program, we've got a growing online presence, we've got an app, and we are all about presenting the Gospel and equipping the Church to defend the faith. Let me just say we thank you because we could not do this without the prayers and financial support of people who believe in evangelism and the Christian worldview. And what I want to say is our prayer guide for America.

This is a little bookmark that's got evangelistic praying and revival praying. We've given out tens of thousands of these. We've got a pack of these.

And we want to send you a shrink-wrapped package. We hope you'll daily pray for specific things for this country, for a move of God in our country. But you'll distribute these to your church and to your friends, and we'll become a nation of intercessors for your gift in any amount to support the work of Truth for a New Generation and all the multifaceted parts of this ministry. We want to send you a package of the prayer guide for America, and maybe you'll start a prayer group.

Maybe God will lead you to get some of your friends together or maybe your Sunday school class. And so the information is on the website truthforanewgeneration.com, or you can write to us in PO Box 10231, Greensboro, North Carolina, 27404, and for your gift in any amount, which is tax-deductible. And we send a receipt at the end of the year, of course. But we'll send you a package of the prayer guide for America, and we'll keep you up to date on what's going on. But Dylan, back to the question of pain and suffering, which is probably the most commonly asked question as I travel and speak and we minister.

In fact, yesterday when I was in Louisiana doing a leaders' luncheon for this city-wide event we have coming up, several people had driven hours because they wanted to meet me, not necessarily for the big conference, but they wanted to talk to me. And it was after this luncheon I spent a couple of hours really doing pastoral counseling. And Dylan, it wasn't, oh gee, Alex, please talk to me about the parchment manuscripts of the New Testament.

And it wasn't, Alex, will the Internet be used by the Antichrist someday in the future? No, it was pain and suffering. Why the bereavement? Why the cancer? Why the struggles with sin and so many things?

And so we're going to answer three questions. Why is there suffering? Could there be good purpose in suffering?

And what should be my response when I face suffering? And Dylan, let me quote Thomas Aquinas here. In Summa Theologica, which was a major landmark theological work, Aquinas writes this, that only God is fully satisfied within himself. God is happy, joyful within his own nature. God alone does not come to happiness by some outside activity, says Aquinas.

And that's true. But man has to come to God to be fulfilled. And so we will never be fulfilled apart from God. So Aquinas said that part of the reason for pain and suffering in this world is to show us that we are not complete in and of ourselves. We only can be fulfilled as we turn to God, and it just might be the pain of life that causes us in humility and contrition to turn to God, because apart from the Lord, we're always going to be empty.

Well, that's certainly true. And as we continue our topic today, we've talked about why is there suffering. We live in a fallen world. There are also times when people make choices that cause suffering. And we have to remember that all suffering is due to sin.

It's not something that God is doing because he's out to get us, but it's something that happens as a result of living in a sinful world, and sometimes due to our own sinful consequences. But when we talk about natural disasters, part of this is just the everyday existence in a fallen world. We face these times where there are tornadoes, there are hurricanes, there are tsunamis, and we understand that they happen, but we struggle to understand why they happen at the times and places they do and cause the tragic consequences in lives that they do. So it leads us to talk about, could there be good purpose in suffering? Now, in an article I wrote recently, I talked about three quick reasons that God may not prevent natural disasters.

I think this is interesting. When you think about the Bible, the first one is that God may use the forces of nature to focus our attention on him and his greatness. You think about when Jesus calmed the storm with his disciples. Well, he did that because there was an opportunity for him to show his power as God's son among his followers. A second reason is that God may use certain natural disasters as a judgment on sin. We see that in the plagues in Egypt. We see that in other times throughout the Old Testament, especially when God used that to draw people to him as a form of judgment.

And then there's the third reason that we see in Romans 8.28, that God can use an event to bring about an even greater good. And I'll share one quick story and then get back to you, Alex, is that a few years ago we had a tragic tornado in our area in Chattanooga in North Georgia, and one of my co-workers had his home destroyed. And I remember hearing him tell the story of being in his bathroom, trying to stay down and away from the storm and feeling that suction and thinking he may be pulled up out of his own home. And yet God spared his life, but his house was completely destroyed, and he didn't know why. Well, in the aftermath of that storm, one of his neighbors was there and helping out with the cleanup, and a disaster relief crew was there and began talking with him about God. And through that conversation, his neighbor came to faith in Jesus Christ.

Now you think about that, and selfishly you could say, God, you could have done that some other way, couldn't you? But I remember my friend saying, you know, I don't like that this happened, but if it was what God wanted to use for my neighbor to have faith in Jesus Christ and spend eternity with him, I'm okay with that. Amen.

So there are times when God can use a disaster to bring about an even greater good than we would ever expect. Well, we've got to take a break from this segment. Stay tuned. We're going to come back on Truth for a New Generation radio and look at why there is suffering and what good can come out of it based on our response.

Stay tuned. First Peter 3.15 tells us to be ready always to give an answer for the hope we have. We're instructed to be prepared to defend our faith. This is Alex McFarland for the Life Answers team, students we train at North Greenville University, a leading Christian college in South Carolina. The Life Answers teams are made up of students who will inspire and equip your congregation. These apologetics teams we train speak in churches to youth groups and train Christians of all ages to address key issues of our times from a biblical perspective. Like is there a God?

Is the Bible true? What about gender and moral issues? Call me at 864-977-2008 and we will arrange for the Life Answers team to come to your church and give a presentation that will benefit your people for years to come.

864-977-2008 and always be ready. If you're a Christian parent, you of course want to instill a biblical view of life in the hearts of your children. If you're a pastor, you want to offer ministry that draws young families to your church. This is Alex McFarland encouraging you to check out my new book and video curriculum, The 21 Toughest Questions Your Kids Will Ask About Christianity. Why do bad things happen? I interviewed hundreds of children, ages 5 to 12, and we address actual questions from actual children, the spiritual issues that are on the minds of your kids.

Did Jesus ever sin? The book and video lessons are great for groups of any size and was produced with the goal of equipping kids to stand strong for Christ in any situation. The 21 Toughest Questions Your Kids Will Ask, the book, study guide and video series, you'll find it at AFASTORE.net.

That's AFASTORE.net. Welcome back to TNG Radio with Alex McFarland and Dylan Burrows, and we're talking about why is there pain and suffering and what good can come from it. Let's divide suffering, evil, pain, whatever you want to call it, into three categories. Really, moral evil, natural evil, and existential pain. Moral evil are those things humans do to each other like murder and theft and war and lying and rape. Moral evil, natural evil, weather disasters, earthquakes, tidal waves, really all of which are traceable to fallenness, the Flood, sin.

In fact, much of the behavior of the planet, the way that the plates shift and the tectonic activity that causes things like tidal waves and weather patterns are traceable to the Flood, which was a judgment on sin. But even things like birth defects and the pains of this life and human pain and animal pain, we call that existential, we experience them. Dylan from, you know, things like losing our car keys and then we're frantically looking and we hit our head and we say a curse word and we're all the more angry. Everything from mere inconveniences to plagues and diseases, really the fallenness of this world, it's a daily reminder this world is imperfect, but God is still good and God is still faithful.

Right. We all have those Charlie Brown days, right, where everything goes wrong and we don't know why, why does everything bad happen to me? But when we stop and think about it, we realize that God is there despite the bad things that happen in our day-to-day lives. He's promised that his presence will always be with us. I tend to think of the book of Job and the suffering that he went through where he lost all ten of his children from a natural disaster and yet his response was, the Lord gave and the Lord has taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord. So it's a good example that we don't always have to have all of the reasons, the explanations, all the answers to why to still worship God and to still serve him.

And when we do, especially in times of great suffering, that's often when God will respond in a positive way that's surprising and greater than we could ever imagine. Absolutely. You know, here at North Greenville University, where I am, as you and I record, Leslie Brown is the reference librarian and has helped us on some of our writing projects. And she, two years ago, was in a very severe car wreck. Somebody crossed the center line and hit her head on. And the other driver, whose fault it was, sadly died. And she was trapped in her car and they had to come and literally cut her out of her car and they rushed her to the ER. And Leslie Brown will praise God emphatically for that car wreck.

And you might think, how could somebody be grateful they were in a head-on collision? Well, the good news is, while she was banged up and she had a couple of minor, minor bone injuries, she could have easily been killed, but she wasn't. But the reason that she blesses God for the car wreck, and an example of how God brings good out of what otherwise would have been evil, they rushed her to the ER, they're doing a full-body scan, and one of the technicians said, oh my goodness, how long have you had ovarian cancer?

And Leslie Brown said, what? And they identified that she had ovarian cancer that would have taken her life the only way they discovered that she had cancer and they were able to intervene and treat her, save her life, she's completely healed. But the wreck put her in the ER, which alerted the doctors to the fact that she had cancer.

And she will tell you, had that wreck not occurred, she would not be alive right now. So God is wise, and even, like you said, Dylan, even when we don't know the reason why, or we don't fully know why, we can trust the God who is omniscient. God knows all things, God is omnibenevolent.

That means all good. And even if we don't know the fine print and all the details, God is good, he loves us, and he absolutely has our best interests at heart. Yes, and we don't always know the reasons for the pain, and we can't always control the pain that comes our way.

We take pain relievers when we have a physical pain, but there aren't pain relievers for some of the things we deal with in life. But another great example is that in 2010, there was the devastating earthquake in Haiti that killed over 200,000 people nationwide, and I had an opportunity to be there one week after it had happened, serve on a relief team. It was a tragic situation, and I thought, God, why am I even here?

How can I even make any difference among all of the sadness, all of the tragic circumstances that are around me? And then that Sunday morning, I came to the church that was at the place where we were staying, and the church had several hundred more people there than usual that Sunday. The Haitian pastor got up and shared the gospel. Many people came forward, and at least a dozen new people came to faith in Christ that Sunday alone. And a year later, that ministry had double the number of children in its schools, had a growing ministry that it would not have had otherwise. And while I would not wish that kind of tragedy on any nation or any place in the world, there are ways in which God works through even the worst circumstances to change lives for eternity and to do his work in ways that we can't comprehend.

Absolutely, absolutely. And, you know, oftentimes pain is a preparation for future ministry. 2 Corinthians 1, verses 3 and 4 says, Praise be to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of all compassion, the God of all comfort, who comforts us in our troubles.

True. Listen to this. So that we may comfort those in any trouble with the same comfort wherewith we ourselves were comforted of God. What that means is, if you go through pain and suffering and you trust the Lord and he purifies you, he calls you to himself, the challenges of life drive us to Jesus, someday we can come alongside another person and we can legitimately say, I understand, I went through something similar, God is faithful, and he'll be there for you too. So pain and suffering, like you said, it brings people to Christ, it brings people to church, it may be preparation for future ministry.

You know, if you go on some of the online bookstores or you go to your local Christian bookstore and you Google my name or Dylan's name, by God's grace, we've written quite a few resources, and a couple of years ago we interviewed a number of atheists, we wrote a book called Ten Answers for Skeptics, and another book, Ten Answers for Atheists, and the ten most common objections to Christianity and how to answer them, a lot of apologetics books. One of the most common questions relates to pain and suffering, and so we would encourage you to be equipped, trust God, process your own pain from God's vantage point, worship as you wait, and let God not only work around you, but in you, and any way that we can help or the books we've created, we pray for God's glory and for his kingdom, that it will prepare you for effective life, ministry, worship, and bearing fruit for our Savior. Jared Amen, and thank you so much for being with us this week at Truth For A New Generation. We especially want to continue praying for those affected by the hurricane. Please let us know if we can pray for you at Truth For A New Generation.com. Thanks for being with us.

Tune in next time. Announcer Truth For A New Generation, in association with Alex McFarland Evangelistic Ministries, exists to equip Christians with a biblical world view through conferences and camps. For information about upcoming events, visit TruthForAnewGeneration.com or give us a call at 877-YesGod1.

That's 877-YesGod and the number 1. TNG radio is made possible by the friends of Alex McFarland Evangelistic Ministries. PO Box 10231, Greensboro, North Carolina 27404. That's PO Box 10231, Greensboro, North Carolina 27404. Or give online at AlexMcFarland.com or TruthForAnewGeneration.com. Thanks for listening and join us again next time as we bring you more truth for a new generation on TNG radio.