Suffering as a Natural Consequence of My Sin

Watch this lesson on YouTube, or listen to it here.

Access the slide deck here. 

Intro

1) Up to this point, we have tried to understand, to the best of our ability, the nature of God and evil and how both can coexist.

2) The next part of this class will focus on what we CAN know for certain: Biblical reasons for suffering.

A)   This does NOT mean that we can know the reason for our own suffering (maybe ever). As far as we know, Job never knew why he suffered.

B) But we can at least know something about why suffering often happens.

C) The big points of this list comes from a 2002 class at Florida College with Phil Roberts on The Book of Job.

3) Review an earlier class about how all suffering is ultimately caused by sin, and I am a part of this problem.

A)   In each of the reasons we list, I want to emphasize the sin.

Suffering as a Natural Consequence of Sin

1) This is when suffering is directly caused by a person’s free will choice to sin.

A)   Reaping what you sowed (Gal. 6:7-9)

B) “You did it to yourself”

C) Prov. 19:3: “When a man’s folly brings his way to ruin, his heart rages against the Lord.”

1) People often make sinful choices, they suffer the natural consequences of those choices, and then they blame God and ask, “Why are all these evil and bad things happening to me!”.

D)   I expect this class to be, in many ways, deeply unpopular.

2) Examples

A)   Physical well-being

1) A drunk driver who suffers any number of consequences from a wreck.

2) AIDS

(a)   See DA Carson, How Long, O Lord. Appendix: Reflections on AIDS (p. 276).

(b)   Gemini stats (2/3/26)

(i) 67% - Male-to-male sexual contact

(ii)  22% - Heterosexual sexual contact (I don’t know how many of those were within marriage as God intended)

(iii)                    10% - Injection drug use

(iv) These numbers equal 99%

(c)   Prov. 11:5-6

3) Consequences from drug or alcohol addiction (Prov. 23:29-30).

4) Running your mouth to the wrong person or in the wrong way (Prov. 12:13).

5) Even death (Prov. 11:19).

B) Laziness and a lack of discipline

1) How many cases of economic hardship can be attributed to these?

2) Prov. 21:25; 24:30-34

3) Someone complains about how hard their life is, and they goofed around in school and have not done anything to prepare themselves to be productive or useful.

4) “Insofar as sheer personal laziness is at stake, however, the Bible does not encourage us to sit around and point a finger at God. It urges repentance and diligence…”[1]

5) Lk. 15:11-16 (v. 30 – prostitutes) – The younger son’s suffering was caused by his own bad decisions.

C)   Family and relational suffering

1) Sex before marriage

2) Infidelity

3) Pornography

4) A refusal to live Biblically

(a)   A husband who does not love his wife as Christ loved the church

(b)   A wife who refuses to submit to her husband

(c)   Parents who refuse to discipline their children

(d)   Children who refuse to listen to corrections

(e)   None of these are God’s fault!

5) I tell this story constantly because I don’t want us to make a similar mistake.

(a)   Here is a Christian man or woman who is raised to know right from wrong

(b)   They leave home for college, and sow their wild oats

(c)   They marry someone who does not care about spiritual things

(d)   They have kids and fail to raise them to love God

(e)   Then, at some point, they become interested in spiritual things. They get their lives right with God (GREAT!), but it’s too late for the kids. They don’t want anything to do with it.

6) Jacob (Gen. 27-29)

(a)   He deceived and tricked his father and brother

(b)   He had to run for his life

(c)   He was deceived by Laban who gave his the wrong sister and dealt badly with him

D)   Preachers who suffer

1) Example of a man who has had one problem after another in his preaching work. He was at one church, and “the elders were stupid.” Then, he went to another church, and “the elders were stupid.” Then, a third church, and guess what? Maybe the problem is not with the congregations?

(a)   This is not persecution for the sake of the kingdom.  

(b)   This is a person who is reaping what they sowed and they are not willing to claim responsibility for it.

2) Rehoboam (1 Kgs. 12)

(a)   He ignorantly ignored the advice of his older wiser advisers and listened to his younger foolish advisors.

(b)   The result was political revolt and God’s kingdom was split in two.

E) Spiritual and emotional restlessness

1) “There is a place in Isaiah 57 where it says, ‘The wicked are like the tossing sea, which cannot rest, whose waves cast up mire and mud. ‘There is no peace,’ says my God, ‘for the wicked’’ (v. 20–21). At first sight, that looks like just another of those Old Testament statements: God will smite the evildoers. But look again; this is talking about natural consequences. The Stoics had it right. If you live for and love anything more than God then your life is always going to be like a tossing sea. You will be restless, without peace. If you love anything more than God, you are always going to be in anxiety about it. God is saying, ‘The natural consequence of turning away from me—the natural consequence of not centering your whole life on me—is deep restlessness.”[2]

F) Random

1) Prov. 13:21 – “Disaster (note: Evil) pursues sinners, but the righteous are rewarded with good.”

2) Prov. 26:27 – “Whoever digs a pit will fall into it, and a stone will come back on him who starts it rolling.”

3) *Prov. 28:17-22 – Various factors.

3) Lessons and disclaimers

A)   A refusal to take personal responsibility for our sin is a major problem.

1) In the Garden (Gen. 3:9-13)

2) Saul (1 Sam. 15)

3) cf. David (2 Sam. 12:13; 24:10, 17)

4) The reason why I am spending an entire lesson on this is because there are more than enough examples in this life of people who complain about suffering and blame God when they have brought it upon themselves, and what they need the most is to take responsibility for it.

B) What about amazing grace?

1) We have an entire class called the problem of evil. What about the problem of good? Who deserves any of the good that we have in this life?

2) We have all done things that deserve heavier consequences than we suffered, sin most of all, and God has been merciful and gracious to us anyway. This reflection should be a cause for active praise and worship.

C)   Not all suffering is a natural consequence of sin.

1) Job

(a)   4:7-8 – Eliphaz’s main point.

(b)   8:4 – Bildad’s explanation why Job’s kids died.

(c)   They were wrong. We know why Job was suffering, and it was not because he did something to bring it on himself.

2) The man born blind (Jn. 9:2-3)

3) Jesus on the cross

[1] Carson, How Long, O Lord

[2] Tim Keller, Walking with God through Pain and Suffering