Why Does God Allow Christians to Suffer?

by Chuck Ness

“Why didn’t God just create us so that we would never have to experience pain, suffering, or sadness?”

The best way to answer this question, is to start at the beginning where original sin began. Now the best description I have ever read that describes sin is, anything that falls short of the perfection of a perfect GOD. When we refer to sin we also use the word evil, which is the opposite of what God embodies. Now we know that God has the power to make the world free of evil, yet to truly stop evil from ever happening is to deny one the free will to do as one desires. However, God wanted a creature that was as close to being like HIMSELF, without being HIM. Thus when HE made man, HE made man in HIS image with free will. 

With this free will came the possibility that Adam and Eve might disobey God of their own volition, and partake of the Tree of Knowledge of good and evil. Thanks to some coaxing from Satan, Eve was deceived into consuming the fruit and offered some to Adam. Adam, choosing Eve over GOD, also ate of the fruit. Thus, the first two humans exercised their God given right of free will, and they chose unwisely. 

God's Wisdom vs Man's Wisdom

by Chuck Ness

This is a topical message I shared with the Ladies of Windchime back in 2006. I only have a handful of messages recored, because I lost 99% of them when I had a hard drive fail on my some years back. This is one of the messages I was able to save.

Paul tells us that Christ is the Wisdom of GOD, so if you do not have Christ in your heart, it is impossible to make wise decisions. Without the Wisdom of GOD, we will continue to make decisions based upon man's wisdom. Yet we know that God uses foolish things to bring man's wisdom to shame.

For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called. But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty; and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, that no flesh should glory in His presence. But of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God--and righteousness and sanctification and redemption-- that, as it is written, "He who glories, let him glory in the LORD.1Corinthians 1:26-31

Filthy Rags

by Chuck Ness

"But we are all like an unclean thing, and all of our righteousnesses are like filthy rags." Isaiah 64:6

The Prophet Isaiah summed up the reprobate state into which God's chosen people had sunk. Though they had the blessing of the Law given to them by Moses, when he conversed with God on Mount Sinai, they had turned from their Lawgiver and become more wretched than the people who did not have the Law. God's chosen people were worshiping false gods. Isaiah 42:17 They were reveling in idolatry so much so that the prophet called Jerusalem a harlot that was as evil as the Sodomites. Isaiah 1:21 &  3:9.

Yet, the people had an illusion of righteousness. Many, especially the religious leaders who helped lead them into sin, professed to be "holier than thou," all the while burning incense on strange altars. Isaiah 65:3-2 However, God did not look upon their self righteousness as anything but pollution. He even told them He hated the Sabbaths and feasts that He had Himself ordained. Isaiah 1:13-14 The house of Jacob had rendered even its best acts of religious activity to nothing but apostasy in God's eyes. They were all unclean and dead like the leaves of fall, and their iniquities were like the wind that would cause them to be carried away. Isaiah 64:6.