10 Profound Lessons to Learn from the Long Term Suffering of Job
Page 3 ⇦ Previous | Next ⇨ Page 5
4. SUFFERING AND PROSPERITY ARE NOT DISTRIBUTED IN THIS WORLD IN PROPORTION TO PERSONAL EVIL OR GOOD
God mysteriously spares the wicked. He spares them sometimes throughout their lifetime here on earth. That is true, isn't it? Well, you have an example here in Uganda. When dictator Iddi Amin was ousted in 1979 he went to live in Saudi Arabia for the rest of his life. It is true that he didn't have much press coverage, but even then, he lived a pretty good life. As far as we can tell, Amin did not suffer much after he had brought so much suffering to Uganda. He got away without suffering in this world.
There is a famous person in the United States named Hue Heffner. He is probably the biggest reason for pornography in the USA becoming legalized and becoming accepted and consequently destroying literally millions and millions of people over the last 50 years. This immoral man is still alive today [September 2010] and to the best I can tell, he lives a very luxurious life and loves to flaunt pornography and practices what he preaches. He is completely immoral and doesn't see suffering as a result of God's Judgement for his sins coming to him. Well not yet! And that is just part of the mystery that God does not distribute proportionately the suffering to the wicked in this world.
God inscrutably brings great suffering in this world, sometimes to the righteous. I am teaching a course on Missions right now, and I have asked my students to present today short biographies on missionaries. One of the students will present a biography on Henry Roseverie who was a medical doctor in the Congo in the 1960s. When I first read her biography, I could not put it down. I was absolutely gripped by the suffering that this godly woman endured. Unbelievably, she was captured by a rebel group in Congo and put in a home and incarcerated for months with other people. And then she was beaten and raped over and over. If you read this book and see the untold suffering of this godly woman that is written therein, you will get perplexed and you will definitely ask yourself this question: "Why would God let this godly woman to suffer this much when she was out there serving God and serving other people and laying down her life and denying her self?"
I will tell you one thing I know and that is: Herrie Roseveri has a story to tell because God preserved her faith in the same way that God preserved Job's faith. And she has had an impact that otherwise might never have happened. I gave the illustration in our previous message in this series of the crippled Jodi Harrison Tada and I think the same thing is true with her. Wherever she goes and praises God and talks about her life and the grace of God, people listen. Here is somebody 42 years in a wheelchair and she is still praising God? She must have a great God! God's grace must be so great to enable her after all these years of suffering to still worship and praise Him.
Page 3 ⇦ Previous | Next ⇨ Page 5
4. SUFFERING AND PROSPERITY ARE NOT DISTRIBUTED IN THIS WORLD IN PROPORTION TO PERSONAL EVIL OR GOOD
God mysteriously spares the wicked. He spares them sometimes throughout their lifetime here on earth. That is true, isn't it? Well, you have an example here in Uganda. When dictator Iddi Amin was ousted in 1979 he went to live in Saudi Arabia for the rest of his life. It is true that he didn't have much press coverage, but even then, he lived a pretty good life. As far as we can tell, Amin did not suffer much after he had brought so much suffering to Uganda. He got away without suffering in this world.
There is a famous person in the United States named Hue Heffner. He is probably the biggest reason for pornography in the USA becoming legalized and becoming accepted and consequently destroying literally millions and millions of people over the last 50 years. This immoral man is still alive today [September 2010] and to the best I can tell, he lives a very luxurious life and loves to flaunt pornography and practices what he preaches. He is completely immoral and doesn't see suffering as a result of God's Judgement for his sins coming to him. Well not yet! And that is just part of the mystery that God does not distribute proportionately the suffering to the wicked in this world.
God inscrutably brings great suffering in this world, sometimes to the righteous. I am teaching a course on Missions right now, and I have asked my students to present today short biographies on missionaries. One of the students will present a biography on Henry Roseverie who was a medical doctor in the Congo in the 1960s. When I first read her biography, I could not put it down. I was absolutely gripped by the suffering that this godly woman endured. Unbelievably, she was captured by a rebel group in Congo and put in a home and incarcerated for months with other people. And then she was beaten and raped over and over. If you read this book and see the untold suffering of this godly woman that is written therein, you will get perplexed and you will definitely ask yourself this question: "Why would God let this godly woman to suffer this much when she was out there serving God and serving other people and laying down her life and denying her self?"
I will tell you one thing I know and that is: Herrie Roseveri has a story to tell because God preserved her faith in the same way that God preserved Job's faith. And she has had an impact that otherwise might never have happened. I gave the illustration in our previous message in this series of the crippled Jodi Harrison Tada and I think the same thing is true with her. Wherever she goes and praises God and talks about her life and the grace of God, people listen. Here is somebody 42 years in a wheelchair and she is still praising God? She must have a great God! God's grace must be so great to enable her after all these years of suffering to still worship and praise Him.
Page 3 ⇦ Previous | Next ⇨ Page 5
