Why Does God Allow Suffering?

• You’re watching KCMI TV. Well, thank you for joining me and uh I woke up at 3:00 in the morning this morning and I got up. God would just put this on my heart and uh I want to share it with you and I think that maybe it will help answer some questions on why uh we as believers especially uh when you feel like you’re really dedicated to the Lord and you know there’s no sin in your life and you love God and you’re devoted to his purpose.
• Why is it that there are so many difficulties that you encounter and why are the struggles there? And so I want to go back to the scripture because this is where I started this morning with the with the Lord. And uh this is in second Corinthians chapter 5. And it’s a familiar portion of scripture. And Paul is um speaking here uh 2 Corinthians chapter 12 and we’ll start with verse 7.
• He says, “Unless I should be exalted above measure.” So he begins right off the bat. He says, “This is why.” He said, “So I won’t be exalted or lifted out of my sphere that God’s put me in.” He said, “Through the abundance of the revelation.” So this means right here that that God is pleased with Paul because he has given Paul an abundance of revelations.
• where he’s revealed himself in a measure that God does not reveal himself to most people through. He says, “There was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure.” And verse eight, he said, “I I besought the Lord three times that God would take this thing from me.
• ” And the Lord said this. He said, “Paul, my grace is sufficient for thee.” In other words, he said, “What I’m going to give you the ability to navigate this,” he said, “it is sufficient. It’s enough.” And he said, “Because my strength is made perfect in weakness.” And um I I really believe this that uh the only way that God can really display his power in our life is through our weakness.
• You the power of God cannot be manifested in us as long as we are independent of God or we’re strong in our own strength and own ability. And this is why David um said this in Psalms 119 verse 71. He said it was good for me to be afflicted. And we’re thinking, wow. You know who says that? David said that.
• He said it was good for me to be afflicted because he said that’s where I might learn thy statutes. And so, uh, I want to just delve into this a little bit because Paul, he says, “Most gladly, therefore, would I rather glory or rejoice.” It’s what a word means, glory. He said, “In my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
• ” And so there is no other way for God’s glory and his power to be manifested in us unless we are weak in our own strength. And and I want to give you an example. Uh in the early 90s, I think it was in Arizona, uh there was this experiment that was carried out and some of you might remember this. It was called a biosphere or a biodome. And it was thought out well by scientists and they took I I think it was like eight people and they put them in this dome.
• It was about three acres, two and a half football fields. And they made it completely independent of everything outside of it. They created inside that bioddome its own environment. They mirrored uh the rainforest, the what the ocean produced. Um it had its own atmosphere and it was completely selfsufficient. all of the plants, all the ecosystem, the grass, they created it with inside that bioddome and they put those people in there.