The Source of Our Adversity
When we experience hardships, we usually wonder why God allows these painful situations to come our way. It just doesn't seem to fit with His role as our loving heavenly Father. We struggle to reconcile our suffering with His love for us and His power to prevent or stop it. In order to understand what's going on, we need to consider the possible sources of adversity.
A Fallen World: When sin entered the world, suffering came with it. God could have protected us from these harmful effects by making us like puppets who could not choose sin, but that would mean we'd also be unable to choose to love Him, because love must be voluntary.
Our Own Doing: Sometimes we get ourselves into trouble with our foolish or sinful choices. If the Lord stepped in and rescued us from every negative consequence, we'd never grow into mature believers.
Satanic Attack: The Devil is our enemy. To hinder anything the Lord wants to do in and through believers, Satan will never cease to harass us. His goal is to destroy our lives and our testimonies, thereby making us weak and useless for God's purposes.
God's Sovereignty: Ultimately, the Lord is in charge of all adversity that comes our way. To deny His involvement contradicts His power and sovereignty over creation.
For us to accept that God allows--or even sends--afflictions, we must see adversity from His perspective. Is your focus on the pain of your experience or on the Lord and His faithfulness? As believers, we're assured that no adversity comes our way unless He can use it to achieve His good purposes.
~Dr. Charles F. Stanley~
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A cooler Hell!
(Thomas Brooks)
"God, I thank You that I'm not like other people--greedy, unrighteous, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of everything I get." Luke 18:11-12
Many please and satisfy themselves with mere civility and common morality. They bless themselves that they are not swearers, nor drunkards, nor extortioners, nor adulterers, etc. Their behavior is civil, sincere, harmless and blameless.
But civility is not sanctity.
Civility rested in, is but a beautiful abomination--a smooth way to Hell and damnation!
Civility is very often . . .
the nurse of impiety,
the mother of flattery, and
an enemy to real sanctity.
There are those who are so blinded with the fair shows of civility--that they can neither see the necessity nor beauty of sanctity. There are those who now bless themselves in their common morality, whom at last God will scorn and cast off for lack of real holiness and purity.
A moral man may be an utter stranger . . .
to God,
to Christ,
to Scripture,
to the filthiness of sin,
to the depths and devices of Satan,
to their own hearts,
to the new birth,
to the great concerns of eternity,
to communion with Christ,
to the secret and inward ways and workings of the Spirit.
Well, sirs, remember this: though the moral man is good for many things--yet he is not good enough to go to Heaven! He who rises to no higher pitch than civility and morality--shall never have communion with God in glory. The most moral man in the world, may be both Christless and graceless.
Morality is not sufficient to keep a man out of eternal misery. All morality can do, is to help a man to one of the best rooms and easiest beds which Hell affords! For, as the moral man's sins are not so great as others--so his punishments shall not be so great as others. This is all the comfort that can be given to a moral man--that he shall have a cooler Hell than others have. This is but cold comfort.
Morality without piety is as a body without a soul.
Will God ever accept of such a stinking sacrifice? Surely not!
"But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, 'God, have mercy on me, a sinner.' I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God." Luke 18:13-14
(Thomas Brooks)
"God, I thank You that I'm not like other people--greedy, unrighteous, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of everything I get." Luke 18:11-12
Many please and satisfy themselves with mere civility and common morality. They bless themselves that they are not swearers, nor drunkards, nor extortioners, nor adulterers, etc. Their behavior is civil, sincere, harmless and blameless.
But civility is not sanctity.
Civility rested in, is but a beautiful abomination--a smooth way to Hell and damnation!
Civility is very often . . .
the nurse of impiety,
the mother of flattery, and
an enemy to real sanctity.
There are those who are so blinded with the fair shows of civility--that they can neither see the necessity nor beauty of sanctity. There are those who now bless themselves in their common morality, whom at last God will scorn and cast off for lack of real holiness and purity.
A moral man may be an utter stranger . . .
to God,
to Christ,
to Scripture,
to the filthiness of sin,
to the depths and devices of Satan,
to their own hearts,
to the new birth,
to the great concerns of eternity,
to communion with Christ,
to the secret and inward ways and workings of the Spirit.
Well, sirs, remember this: though the moral man is good for many things--yet he is not good enough to go to Heaven! He who rises to no higher pitch than civility and morality--shall never have communion with God in glory. The most moral man in the world, may be both Christless and graceless.
Morality is not sufficient to keep a man out of eternal misery. All morality can do, is to help a man to one of the best rooms and easiest beds which Hell affords! For, as the moral man's sins are not so great as others--so his punishments shall not be so great as others. This is all the comfort that can be given to a moral man--that he shall have a cooler Hell than others have. This is but cold comfort.
Morality without piety is as a body without a soul.
Will God ever accept of such a stinking sacrifice? Surely not!
"But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, 'God, have mercy on me, a sinner.' I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God." Luke 18:13-14
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I want to know Christ – yes, to know the power of His resurrection and participation in His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death. (Philippians 3:10 NIV)
Do recognize that the Cross is the end of the risen life, and not only the beginning. If you forget everything else, remember that. The Cross is the end of the risen life, as well as the beginning: "That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, becoming conformed unto His death." People have been to me with Philippians 3 and have asked: "Why did Paul put death at the end? Surely it ought to be right the other way round – 'That I may be conformed to His death, and know Him in the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings.'" No, there is no mistake. The order is of the Holy Spirit. The power of His resurrection presupposes that there has been a death, but the very resurrection-life leads to the Cross. The Holy Spirit in the power of the risen life is always leading you back to the Cross, to conformity to His death. It is the very property of Life to rule out all that belongs to death. It is the very power of resurrection to bring us back to the place where death is constantly overcome.
That place is none other than the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ where the natural life is put aside. So Paul says: "...becoming conformed unto His death," which means: to have the ground of death continuously and progressively removed; and that, again, as we have said, is the fruit of living union with Him. It would be a poor look-out for you and for me were we to be conformed to His death in entirety apart from the power of resurrection in us, apart from our already knowing the Life of the Lord. Where would be our hope? What is it that is the power of our survival when the Cross is made more real in our experience? There would be no survival were it not that His risen Life is in us. So Paul prays: "That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection..." and that means conformity to His death without utter destruction. The end of the risen life is the Cross. The Holy Spirit is always working in relation to the Cross, in order that the power of His resurrection may be increasingly manifested in us.
~T. Austin-Sparks~
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The biggest problem for those in Hell
(R.C. Sproul)
Many people hope for a second chance after death, yet nothing in Scripture gives the slightest hope of that. The Bible says that "it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment" (Hebrews 9:27).
In recent years, there has been a revival within evangelical circles of the heretical doctrine called annihilationism, which holds that the wicked are merely annihilated. Their punishment is that they cease to exist. But the Bible is very clear that the punishment of Hell is conscious and unending--a place where the wicked "will go away into everlasting punishment" (Matthew 25:46).
Almost all the biblical teaching about Hell comes from the lips of Jesus. Modern Christians have pushed the limits of minimizing Hell, in an effort to sidestep or soften Jesus' own teaching.
Yet there is no biblical concept more grim or terror-invoking, than the idea of Hell.
The Bible describes Hell as . . .
a place of outer darkness,
a lake of fire,
a place of weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth,
a place of eternal separation from the blessings of God,
a prison,
a place of torment where the worm never dies.
A breath of relief is usually heard when someone declares, "Hell is a symbol for separation from God." To be separated from God for eternity is no great threat to the impenitent person. The ungodly want nothing more than to be separated from God. "They say to God: Leave us alone! We have no desire to know Your ways!" Job 21:14
Yes, Hell is separation from the grace, care, and love of God, but not from God Himself. The biggest problem for those in Hell will not be separation from God--it will be the presence of God that will torment them. In Hell, God will be present in the fullness of His divine wrath, actively punishing the wicked. Hell is an eternity before the righteous, ever-burning wrath of God. He will be there to exercise His just punishment of the damned. They will know Him as an all-consuming fire.
When we are saved, we are saved from God Himself! We are saved from exposure to His fierce wrath and punishment!
Perhaps the most frightening aspect of Hell is its eternality. People can endure the greatest agony, if they know that it will ultimately stop. In Hell there is no such hope. The Bible clearly teaches that the punishment is eternal. Punishment implies pain. Mere annihilation, which some have lobbied for, involves no pain. Jonathan Edwards said, "Wicked men will hereafter earnestly wish to be turned to nothing and forever cease to be, that they may escape the wrath of God!" "They called to the mountains and the rocks: Fall on us and hide us from the face of Him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb!" Revelation 6:16
Hell, then, is an eternity before the righteous, ever-burning wrath of God--a suffering torment from which there is no escape and no relief.
No matter how we analyze the concept of Hell, it often sounds to us as a place of cruel and unusual punishment. If, however, we can take any comfort in the concept of Hell--we can take it in the full assurance that there will be no cruelty there. It is impossible for God to be cruel. Cruelty involves inflicting a punishment that is more severe or harsh than the crime. Cruelty in this sense is unjust. God is incapable of inflicting an unjust punishment. The Judge of all the earth will surely do what is right. No innocent person will ever suffer at His hand. The last judgment will be administered by a perfectly just and righteous Judge, so there will be nothing arbitrary or unjust about it.
(R.C. Sproul)
Many people hope for a second chance after death, yet nothing in Scripture gives the slightest hope of that. The Bible says that "it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment" (Hebrews 9:27).
In recent years, there has been a revival within evangelical circles of the heretical doctrine called annihilationism, which holds that the wicked are merely annihilated. Their punishment is that they cease to exist. But the Bible is very clear that the punishment of Hell is conscious and unending--a place where the wicked "will go away into everlasting punishment" (Matthew 25:46).
Almost all the biblical teaching about Hell comes from the lips of Jesus. Modern Christians have pushed the limits of minimizing Hell, in an effort to sidestep or soften Jesus' own teaching.
Yet there is no biblical concept more grim or terror-invoking, than the idea of Hell.
The Bible describes Hell as . . .
a place of outer darkness,
a lake of fire,
a place of weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth,
a place of eternal separation from the blessings of God,
a prison,
a place of torment where the worm never dies.
A breath of relief is usually heard when someone declares, "Hell is a symbol for separation from God." To be separated from God for eternity is no great threat to the impenitent person. The ungodly want nothing more than to be separated from God. "They say to God: Leave us alone! We have no desire to know Your ways!" Job 21:14
Yes, Hell is separation from the grace, care, and love of God, but not from God Himself. The biggest problem for those in Hell will not be separation from God--it will be the presence of God that will torment them. In Hell, God will be present in the fullness of His divine wrath, actively punishing the wicked. Hell is an eternity before the righteous, ever-burning wrath of God. He will be there to exercise His just punishment of the damned. They will know Him as an all-consuming fire.
When we are saved, we are saved from God Himself! We are saved from exposure to His fierce wrath and punishment!
Perhaps the most frightening aspect of Hell is its eternality. People can endure the greatest agony, if they know that it will ultimately stop. In Hell there is no such hope. The Bible clearly teaches that the punishment is eternal. Punishment implies pain. Mere annihilation, which some have lobbied for, involves no pain. Jonathan Edwards said, "Wicked men will hereafter earnestly wish to be turned to nothing and forever cease to be, that they may escape the wrath of God!" "They called to the mountains and the rocks: Fall on us and hide us from the face of Him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb!" Revelation 6:16
Hell, then, is an eternity before the righteous, ever-burning wrath of God--a suffering torment from which there is no escape and no relief.
No matter how we analyze the concept of Hell, it often sounds to us as a place of cruel and unusual punishment. If, however, we can take any comfort in the concept of Hell--we can take it in the full assurance that there will be no cruelty there. It is impossible for God to be cruel. Cruelty involves inflicting a punishment that is more severe or harsh than the crime. Cruelty in this sense is unjust. God is incapable of inflicting an unjust punishment. The Judge of all the earth will surely do what is right. No innocent person will ever suffer at His hand. The last judgment will be administered by a perfectly just and righteous Judge, so there will be nothing arbitrary or unjust about it.
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