Why is There Evil & Suffering

Our sin is the cause of all suffering and evil. James 1:12-16

Introduction We recently finished a series on grace. Grace, by the way, will always be a part of our services because grace is the very heartbeat of the Gospel. This summer, we did a series based on the books of Proverbs and James. Today we kick off a new series that's going to be more doctrinally based. This series is entitled, "The Scariest Parts of The Bible." I'm not an anti-Halloween guy. I'm a believer that we can take some of what the world produces, redeem it, and use it for good. For example, if you hit the Powerball, we'll be more than glad to take your tithe. We can use holidays and celebrations to redirect people to God. So today, as another example, we use the fall season celebrations to talk about some difficult and unsettling topics of our faith. We're going to look at a command Jesus gave us that is difficult, the topic of hell, and today a theological question man has wrestled with since our beginning, which is called the problem of pain.

When misfortune strikes, we tend to look for something or someone else to blame. Tragedy is often mindless and mind-numbing. The past week we have watched infants killed by invading terrorists; missiles fly in the hundreds if not thousands, killing hundreds; a young woman dies in an automobile accident. Senseless tragedy leaves us feeling numb, powerless, and uncertain.

When moments like these come, so too do tough questions. When those tough questions come, we have to not only have answers but the right answers. If we don’t understand important issues like why suffering and evil exist or we have an incorrect theology, then to the Lost our faith seems pointless, and internally the fabric of our faith can unravel. We need to have faith and believe, but we also must understand our faith and why we believe.

Why is there suffering and evil? Events of the past few days and months bring many people to the question of why there are such terrible tragedies. Skeptics, critics, and even Christians wonder why such events happen. What kind of God would allow senseless bombings, natural disasters, and loss of human life? Why would He allow seemingly pointless suffering? How loving is God to allow terrorism, murder, and hurricanes? Did He really create terrorists, warmongers, and people who just seem evil? The question is, if God is so loving and such a wonderful God, did He create evil, and why does He allow suffering? In fact, how can God be loving and perfect as the Bible describes Him, yet there exists suffering and evil? James 1:12-16

James 1:12–16 ESV

Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him. Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God,” for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death. Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers.

Scriptural Analysis V12 The guiding principle of James' book is that obedience through love is the nature of a right relationship with God. Having the trial is not a blessing in itself, but those who stand firm find God's blessing. The crown of life did not refer to the ornament of a ruler but to a garland wreath given to the victor in an athletic contest. God’s reward to us for faithfully enduring trials is not a position of royalty over others. Rather, it is recognition from God. The crown is not a physical object but a spiritual privilege that gives a deeper, fuller life on earth and an unending, joyous life in the world to come. Enduring trials for his glory shows that we love God. When you face trials and temptations, if you stay close to the Lord, you will hear Him say, “Well done, good and faithful servant,” and you will receive the crown of life specifically reserved for those who don’t walk away from Him in trials or temptations.

V13-14 Now James intentionally moves from trials to temptations. James contributed one of the most penetrating discussions of the nature of temptation in the whole Bible. “Is God tempting me?” is a very real concern for every generation. The context of the word “tempt” connotes a provocation to sin.  People can view trials as a provocation to sin. What they have failed to understand is the truth about humanity. This is why the phrase “no one should say” is important for the problem James now addresses.

James strongly denies that God is the origin of temptation, for “God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone.” No evil can have its way with God. He is immune to any of its provocations. It is a flat error to regard any testing as a temptation to sin, and it is a flat error to think that temptations, like trials, can come from God. Temptation to sin is the operation of evil forces outside of God.

The Gospel account of Jesus’ terrifying retort to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan!” starkly illuminates the source of temptation. Peter, whose assertion that Jesus did not allow himself to be attacked, was regarded by Jesus as an evil tempter. But then Jesus added a clarifying and stunning statement: “You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men.”

James knows the origin of temptation and is giving us a stern warning about blaming God with responsibility for temptation. It is not God, nor is it Satan alone. It is instead a personal desire born of self-interest that renders us susceptible to sin. We may wrongly seek to blame others, Satan, or even God, but ultimately we are morally responsible for our sin.

James contrasts trials and temptations to sin by saying a trial of our faith is to prove the faithfulness of God. It is never a temptation or a test of sin. Sin is man's own doing. Israel had done this many times in the Old Testament. Every time they faced suffering, they blamed God, doubting his will and ability to help them. These Christians, James writes to, must not make the same mistakes Israel did. God does not tempt anyone. God does not wish evil on others; he does not cause evil; he does not test in the sense that he tries to trip someone up. The cause of one’s failure does not lie in God.

We are our own cause of temptation. The source of all temptation is ourselves and our desires. We entice ourselves with the objects we desire. The blame for temptation then can never rest upon God, but entirely upon us. All temptation and, therefore, all sin originates within us.

V15 James then uses the image of conception and birth to drive home the point that temptation and sin come from within. All sinful actions start as little embryos in the heart. What this is saying is very important if you think about it. All of your resentments, the internal clashes, and all of your anxieties come from within yourself. It started with an internal conception, which led to the birth of sin. Conception means something inside that’ll eventually come out. You might punch somebody in the mouth. You might harm them. You might kill them, but it starts with the conception of anger in your heart that will give birth later to the sin. And sin, when matured and fully functioning in the human heart, will lead to death. James has seen a truth that Jesus proclaimed in Mark 7, “For from within, out of men’s hearts, come evil thoughts, envy, slander, arrogance and folly.”

V16 James wraps this up by saying, don't be deceived, my dear brothers. To be deceived about one of these items is to be deceived about them all. Yes, God will test you and allow trials to come your way, but the temptation to sin is completely the responsibility of you, each person. Don't doubt God's goodness, nor should you believe you're the innocent victim. God is good, and we are sinners. TODAY'S KEY TRUTH Our sin is the cause of all suffering and evil. Application So, before we get to the issue of evil and suffering, the problem of pain, let's look at the first idea here, which is our sin. James says you will face tests and trials, and they can come from God. But temptations to sin don't come from God. You never sin except for one cause. There’s only one cause of our sin, and that is we want to sin. Nobody makes you sin. No conditions make you sin. You only do it because you desire it. That’s very important in our modern day and in our culture to know that. James says you must not make the mistake of confusing the cause of your sin: it's you. We live in a secular world. What does the secular worldview say? “This life is all there is. This world is all there is.” Do you know what that means? “If you lose love here, if you lose happiness here, if you lose anything here, there is no consolation.” So our culture says in response, “If you suffer, you need to sue because suffering is absolutely not the way it should be. Somebody has messed up, and it can’t be you.” Or maybe it is you, but the point is, “No! No! Things are supposed to be good. Everything has to be good because this world is all there is.” What it means is this culture does not prepare you for suffering at all. It “dis-equips” you for suffering. Therefore, to hear what James says about sin and suffering is vitally important for us.

The way sin works is not that we want bad things. The way sin works, the essence of sin, is not that we want bad things, but we want things so badly, too badly. Sin finds its roots in our “epi-desire,” our over-desire. Epi means over. James tells us it’s your over-desires that seduce you. This is powerful theological imagery. In the Old Testament, God tells us he never sees sin as just breaking the rules. He sees it as spiritual adultery, not just breaking the rules. He says the reason people sin is they are enticed away into the arms of other "lovers." That’s what an epi-desire is, it's a fatal attraction, according to James. Our desire for something "more" than we want Jesus is where we go off the rails. Sin begins when something becomes your love rather than God. Something else becomes the author of your self-esteem. Something else becomes the source of your value. It’s okay to want to work or have a career, but when the career becomes the way you feel good about yourself and the way you feel happy about life, it becomes a fatal attraction. You go after it. You need to have it. You have to have it. The Bible says that’s spiritual adultery. That’s how sin starts. What’s wrong with career? Nothing, but an epi-desire for a career is seduction to sin. The Bible says sin always starts like that, it's something you add to Jesus as a requirement for being joyful.

Your epi-desires entice you, seduce you, then what happens? Conception, which leads to the birth of sin, which grows to be death. Conception means something inside that’ll eventually come outside. All sinful actions start as little embryos in the heart. What this is saying is very important if you think about it. All of your resentments, the internal anger, and all of your anxieties come from the epi-desires. Why are you so bitter about certain things? Because something you think you have to have has been taken from you. That’s why you’re so angry about it. Why are you so anxious? Why are you so afraid? Why are you tempted to lie? Because you desire something so strongly, more than you do Jesus, and it's being denied to you, and so you sin in an attempt to fulfill your desire. Then that sin leads to destruction and death, which also leads to evil and suffering—starting to see where we are going? Our sin is the cause of all suffering and evil. Conclusion Homer's Iliad has Zeus complain: “It is incredible how easily human beings blame the gods and believe us to be the source of their troubles, when it is their own wickedness and stupidity.” Proverbs 19:3 says it better: “A man’s own folly ruins his life, yet his heart rages against the Lord.”

To trace evil and suffering’s origination, we have to go back all the way to the creation of the universe. In the book of Genesis, when God finished His creation, including humanity, He said it was …good. The word good there actually has a greater connotation than something of value, it also means complete, in perfect rhythm. The act of creation was complete in every way. So God has finished with creation, yet no suffering or evil exists. Where did it come from? God did not create evil. Evil, sin is the perversion of something good.

God said that we, humanity, were good and complete. Well, for our creation to be complete, one thing that God had to include in us was the ability to make choices on what we desire. That is what is meant by image bearing. God desired a true and full love relationship with us. For that type of true love relationship to exist, then choice had to be a part of the equation. We were designed to desire God above all else. True love is based upon choice, not coercion. If God made us love Him, it would not be a true love relationship. For a relationship to be complete, both parties must be free to choose to love or reject each other. God gave us a choice so that our relationship with Him would be complete and a true love relationship.

Well, with that ability to choose which desires to pursue comes the possibility of true love and good, but also, the possibility of hate and evil. If we had the choice of love, acceptance, and goodness, then that means we have the choice of hatred, rejection, and evil. God made evil possible when He gave us a choice. But we made evil actual by our choices of selfish desires. The difference is God is righteous and desires a relationship with us, but we choose to reject God, do evil, and cause suffering. Though He made the possibility, we make it a reality.

Choice and free will mean you only and always and ever only do what you most desire to do. We have free will, which means you never, ever do anything but what you most want to do.

James reiterates that God did not create evil. Evil, sin is the perversion of something good. God gave us the freedom of choice to choose. That was good. Yet we perverted that freedom to choose to perpetuate our selfish desires and personal agendas. It is because of the sinful choices we make that evil and suffering exist in this world. We make evil and suffering a reality through the choices we make. We have chosen to mistreat, abuse, deceive, and destroy our fellow man. We made evil a reality. Some might ask what about Satan? Satan chooses evil for himself, but He cannot make choices for us. He tempts us and tries to lead us down dark and disastrous paths, but it still is our choice to follow him.

When Adam and Eve first sinned, God not only said that we would face the consequences of our bad choices but that the earth was cursed because of our sins. Natural disasters, terrorism, abuse, hatred, neglect, abandonment, suffering, destruction, all forms of evil, and death are all the results of our sins.

Our sin is the cause of all suffering and evil.

Now if I landed and ended here, we would feel like Isaiah did when he dressed in sackcloth, sat in ashes, and just mourned over his sin. And truthfully, we should mourn our sins. We don't mourn our sins enough, which is odd. Because this week, as we have watched the horrors of babies, families, and hundreds of innocent people being executed, tortured, kidnapped, abused, and killed, we have done what? Mourned. We mourned such evil and sins. We have mourned other people's sins and the evil and suffering that resulted. But have we mourned our own sin? Have we mourned ignoring our spouse this week? Have we mourned that conversation where we deceptively manipulated the truth to avoid consequences we didn't desire? Have we mourned our belittling comments to a coworker, neighbor, or friend? Have we mourned how we snapped at our family this morning and then walked into church with fake smiles? We need to mourn our sins.

But even in that mourning, we can still land and end in the joy, hope, and excitement of God's grace as God took Him who knew no sin to become sin on our behalf. The beauty of God’s grace is that God’s grace is LIMITLESS. There is no chance of God’s grace running out. There is enough to go around for everyone. Remember a few years ago, when gas was not so plentiful, and we had to go to the gas station all over town to find gas? That will never happen with God’s grace. God’s grace tanks are always full and ready to be dispensed to those who will accept it, and we don’t have to take turns getting into it. The beauty of God’s grace is that God’s grace is available to all. No one is left out. God doesn’t issue grace to only a select few. Grace is for us all.

Our sin is the cause of all suffering and evil.