first Peter chapter 1 verses 3 through 12 praise be to the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ in his great mercy he has given us new birth into a Living Hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead and into an inheritance that can never perish spoil or fade kept in heaven for you who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time in this you greatly rejoice though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials these have come so that your faith of Greater worth and gold which perishes even though refined by fire may be proved genuine and may result in praise glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed though you have not seen him you love him and even though you do not see him now you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy for you are receiving the goal of your faith the salvation of your souls concerning the salvation the prophets who spoke of the grace that was to come to you searched intently and with the greatest care trying to find out the time and circumstances to which the Spirit of Christ in them was pointing when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow it was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves but you when they spoke of the things that have now been told you by those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven even angels long to look into these things this is the word of the Lord every single week we’re gonna take one just one of the big questions big problems that people in our culture and especially in New York City have with Christianity what are those big problems every single week we’re gonna look at one and this week we’re looking at the one that you could call the problem of evil and suffering and it’s a very very formidable problem for Christians Christian belief and if I could put the argument you might say against Christianity on the basis of evil and suffering in a nutshell it would be like this if God allows evil and suffering to continue because he can’t stop it then he might be good but he’s not all-powerful on the other hand if God allows evil and suffering to continue because he could stop it and yet he won’t stop it then he might be all-powerful but he’s not good either way the good all-powerful God of the Bible couldn’t exist it’s pretty formidable argument what do we say to it how do we address it some of you know some of you know that on Sunday night September 10th just like three weeks ago or four weeks ago Sunday nights that they were tenth I was asked to speak at a memorial service at Ground Zero mainly for families of people who who are members of the police department Fire Department of Port Authority who were killed in 9/11 it was mainly for the the fans of 9/11 victims families at Ground Zero some of you certainly know because I wasn’t here and some of you weren’t excited about that but it was it was quite an experience so I was supposed to go down and speak to all these people with lost loved ones of 9/11 about the problem of evil and suffering and they said you’ve got seven minutes seven minutes to discuss the problem of evil and suffering to people who have been struggling enormous ly with it personally with it for five years so like a typical preacher I took eight and a half minutes and I want to share with some of the thoughts I shared that night with you tonight at a little greater length this text tells us first of all one thing you should not do one way not to face evil and suffering in the world and then three ways to face evil and suffering in the world one way not two three ways to this is first Peter chapter one now Peter in this book this letter this whole epistle is addressing people who have suffered a great deal and are about to suffer more and when we experience horrendous suffering and catastrophe one of the things one of the ways we respond to it sometimes is that we back off of or even abandon our belief in God it’s perfectly natural and a lot of people do it when when these horrible things happen to is we back off of or even abandon our belief in God but Peter noticed Peter in verse 6 and 7 what he says if you especially if you pick out the let me just pick out a few words he says you had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials so that your faith may result in praise glory and honor he says the pain you’re going through now and the suffering you’re going through now doesn’t have to weaken faith at all or destroy faith it can strengthen fit it oughta strengthen faith now how does that happen well we’ll get to that in a minute but here if just for a moment I want I want to consider what Peters saying Peter is saying that in the face of evil and suffering abandoning your belief in God doesn’t help anything it doesn’t help you understand suffering it doesn’t help you handle suffering abandoning your belief in God doesn’t help at all why not Martin Luther King jr. in his letter to Birmingham letter from Birmingham jail very famous little document says the only way he can know whether a human law is unjust is if there’s a divine law a higher law from God did that he says there was no God if there was no divine higher law there’d be no way to know whether a particular human law was unjust or not if there’s no God somebody could say oh that law is unjust but that would be according to their standards and why should their standards be privileged over somebody else’s okay but just take that a step further if there is no God let’s abandon belief in God huh if there’s no God there’s no higher divine law then how can we say that any historical event is unjust I mean what is more natural if there’s if there’s nothing but nature if nature is all there is there’s nothing more natural than violence it’s how you and I got here natural selection right the strong eating the weak so there is no God all we have is nature what’s wrong with violence it’s perfectly natural and somebody who really understood that was jean-paul Sartre in his signature essay on existentialism he writes this if God does not exist there is no longer any possibility of an opera re good existing it is nowhere written that one must be honest or must not lie since we are now on the plane where there are only human beings Dostoyevsky once wrote if God did not exist everything is permitted that is right if God does not exist we have neither behind us nor before us a luminous realm of values nor any means of justification of any behavior whatsoever hear what he’s saying he says if there is no God then you might have feelings that this is wrong this is unjust that’s all it is it’s a personal feeling it’s just a personal feeling on what possible basis that there is no God on what possible basis could you object that the natural order of violence is unnatural so you see if you don’t believe in God suffering and evil is as big a problem if not a bigger problem than if you do I mean I’m gonna stop the philosophy right now I’ll tell you why because if you really are struggling really profoundly with how a good God could allow even suffering that this is not a philosophical issue for you is it but my point has only been this evil and suffering is a problem for those who believe in God but evil and suffering is a problem for disbelief in God it’s a bigger problem because if there is no God who’s to say that this is wrong why do we even need to have a you know on what basis do we even ask for a better world in other words getting rid of your belief in God to handle evil and suffering will not help getting rid of your belief in God in order to understand evil and suffering won’t help what will okay the next here are three ways according to Peter that we can face suffering and evil in our lives and I guess we could characterize those three things this way you have to look back to something Peter says you have to look ahead to something and you have to look into something to look back to something ahead to something and into something to handle evil and suffering of this world at first we have to look back to something now notice in this passage and he also says that in Chapter four Peter likens suffering and pain and trouble to a fire he likens it to a furnace that you put gold or metals through okay now that’s a very powerful image that troubles and suffering are like a fire a fiery furnace that that you put metals through and it’s a wonderful metaphor and you can get a lot out of it you think about it but one time in the Bible it literally happened and probably Peter may have this in mind this incident in mine one time it really literally happened that some believers were thrown into a fiery furnace remember when that happened in Daniel chapter 3 Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar sets up a great image and demands that everyone bow down to it and worship it but three young men Jewish men Shadrach Meshach and Abednego won’t do it in a rage Nebuchadnezzar says you’re gonna be thrown into a fiery furnace and he heats the furnace so hot that the people who are throat the men who are throwing them in to the fiery furnace are killed by the heat as they do so and after they’re thrown in Nebuchadnezzar obviously from a safe distance looks into the furnace and is amazed what he sees and we’re told in Daniel 3 then King Nebuchadnezzar leaped to his feet in amazement and cried weren’t there three men that we tied up and threw into the fire but I see four men walking around in the fire unbound and unharmed and the fourth looks like a son of God now what happened in there because of course as we know they came out unharmed but only three came out who was that in there with them now one of the things we know right off the bat is that in the Hebrew Scriptures in the Book of Isaiah Isaiah the prophet God gives us a promise and here it is God says fear not I am have redeemed you when you pass through the waters I will be there when you walk through the fire you shall not be burned neither shall the flame Kindle upon you that’s Isaiah 43 you know we sing us we sing a hymn at this church that is based directly on that passage well and two of the verses go like this when through fiery trials thy pathway shall lie my grace all-sufficient shall be thy supply the flame shot hurt thee I only design by dross to consume and thy gold refine fear not I am with thee o be not dismayed for I am thy God and will still give the aid I’ll strengthen thee help thee and cause thee to stand upheld by my righteous omnipotent hand wow what a promise but notice everybody is that inspiring does that sound inspiring did you did you see what the promise is to believers the promise is not it is not that if you belong to me God says you won’t through deep waters you won’t go through fiery trials he doesn’t say that does he in fact the promise isn’t even if you go through fiery trials the promise is when you go through fiery trials when when you are plunged into the fiery furnace God says I will so care about you and I will so love you and you will so be able to sense my love and presence with you it’ll be as if I’m walking with you and if you sense me walking with you you won’t be consumed and that by that it means the trouble and the trial won’t turn you hard it won’t turn you bitter it won’t break you but instead it’ll refine you it’ll give you splendor it’ll it’ll it’ll give you a character in a soul and a faith well you say that’s really very inspiring but how do I know it’s true and this is the answer of the New Testament when in the Old Testament God says I will be with you in the furnace of affliction not so you get to the cross of Jesus Christ will you know how far God was willing to go to make good that promise when he says I’m gonna be with you in your afflictions not to get to the cross do you realize how far he went to be with us in our affliction see down here at verse 10 and 11 it talks about the prophets like Isaiah the prophets who spoke of the grace that was to come to you predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glory that would be revealed only Christianity of all the religions of the world says that in Jesus Christ God became vulnerable and subject to suffering and pain and even death on the cross to our astonishment we see if you’re a political prisoner God the subject of unjust suffering weakness and death what do you see on the cross he’s being lynched essentially or have you lost a loved one to our astonishment we look up on the cross and we see the father losing his only Son or are you just screaming out you know in your pain why God why God you look at the cross and there’s Jesus screaming out in pain why why see amazing he suffered everything we have ever suffered he suffered everything we’ve ever suffered oh and more and more because when you actually look at the accounts of the end of Jesus life one of the things that strikes you especially if you if you’re a history buff in any way is that a lot of people died better than Jesus do you know that you know what I mean like I’ve in the last couple years I’ve read the the death of the Maccabee and martyrs you know it’s it happened in history between the old and new Testament when Antiochus Epiphanes the Syrian tyrant took over Israel and was doing everything he could to oppress the Israelites and some people stood up to him and they were put to death in public the Maccabee and martyrs and in every case these Maccabee and martyrs were when they were being killed they would they would look they talked to the onlookers and the onlookers would say trust God you know they were they they were smiling they had confidence their heads were held up here in the Garden of Gethsemane you see Jesus Christ clearly a man in shock blood coming out of his pores asking God is there some way I could get out of this is it is there some kind of is it can this cup pass from me and and on the cross saying why why have you forsaken me why the difference and then here’s the reason Jesus Christ did not just suffer what we suffer on the cross his sufferings went way beyond the physical he was experiencing cosmically what we deserve what is the natural consequence of wanting to be away from somebody you see if you say to somebody I don’t want to be around you I don’t want you controlling my life I want to be away from you what’s the natural consequence of that the natural consequence to say okay be away from me but because the human race wants to be we want to be our own masters we don’t want God to control us we want to be in charge with the natural consequence is to be cast out of the presence of God but when we cast out of the presence of God you’re being you’re losing the source of all life all light and on the cross Jesus Christ did not just experience physical torment but he was being cast out of the presence of God and he was experiencing cosmic absolute utter infinite suffering and Jonathan Edwards explains that in terms of a fiery furnace in his famous sermon about Jesus struggling in Gethsemane he says this about Jesus he says the sorrow and distress which Jesus soul then suffered arose from that full and immediate view which he had of the cup of wrath which was vastly more terrible than Nebuchadnezzar’s fiery furnace he had a near view of that furnace of wrath into which he was to be cast he was brought to the mouth of the furnace that he might look into it and stand and view its raging flames and see the glowing x’ of its heat that he might know where he was going and what he was about to suffer for us for us okay now do you see let’s go to the cross and take this big question to the cross let’s take this question of the cross go to the cross and say God why are you allowing evil and suffering to continue and even though the cross cannot tell you what the answer to that question is the cross can tell you what the answer to that question isn’t what it can’t be it can’t be that he doesn’t love us it can’t be that he doesn’t care we don’t know what the reason is they allows evil and suffering but the one thing it can’t be is he doesn’t care or he’s remote or he’s indifferent because he came and he plunged himself not just into the fiery furnace of our sufferings but to infinite degrees beyond anything that we will ever suffer because he loves us that much and he hates suffering that much that he was willing to come and be plunged into our sufferings and experience it so that someday he could end all evil without ending us the implications of this are vast the cross does not tell us what the answer to the question is why does God allow the old suffering but it tells us what the answer can’t be and that is that he doesn’t care even believe it or not Albert Camus understood that and in this amazing piece of writing Camus says this christ the god man suffers to evil and death can no longer be entirely imputed to him since he suffers and dies the night on Golgotha is so important because the divinity ostensibly abandoned its traditional privilege and lived through the end despair included the agony of death and because Jesus Christ went into the ultimate furnace for you the only furnace that could really consume you because Jesus what Christ went into the ultimate furnace for you there’s your assurance that he’s walking in to your personal furnaces with you whether you feel him or not no matter how hot it is right now for you he’s walking next view so if you want to deal with evil and suffering the first thing you’ve got to do is you got to look back to something what he did on the cross but the second thing you’ve got to have is you got to look forward to something you have to look ahead to something what is that well at the very top of the passage remember Peter is talking to people who are suffering and are gonna suffer more and he says you have been born again into a Living Hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ’s from the dead and into an inheritance that can never perish spoil or fade kept in heaven until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time there’s a mouthful but look what he’s saying first of all you can’t go through the furnace without a living hope and hope is you know obviously I hope for something in the future but a Living Hope is a power it’s a it’s a dynamism it’s something that really gets you through that furnace and what is this Living Hope it’s an inheritance which of course means a kind of wealth and it’s kept in heaven but it’s not strictly spiritual because the foretaste of it the sign of certainty that we’re going to get it is the physical resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead and it’s the physical resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead that is the foretaste the firstfruits of the final salvation to be revealed at the end of time and what is that new heavens and new earth at the end of Revelation chapter 21 and 22 down comes heaven into this world to pure and give us a new heavens and new earth and Paul talks about it in terms of the resurrection we experience a resurrection and he says in first Corinthians 15 behold the trumpet shall sound the dead will be raised imperishable and we shall be changed for when the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable and the mortal with immortality then the saying that is written shall come true death has been swallowed up in victory Oh death where is thy sting o grave where is thy victory thanks be to God who gives us the victory in Jesus Christ hide you see what he’s saying God is not preparing a ethereal spiritual heaven that would be compensation for the life in this world that we lost no no resurrection isn’t compensation for the life we lost resurrection is the restoration of that life the new heavens and the earth means this world your body your loved ones your homes restored to you purified beautify this world this body it comes out it comes back it all comes back pure unfading imperishable unspoiled and paul goes so far as to say suffering and death will be swallowed up by victory and you know I have been thinking about this for years now you know what that means to be swallowed up by victory it doesn’t mean that death and suffering just stopped its swallowed up and take it into the victory look when I swallow and digest things it makes me bigger as you can see okay well you swallow and digest the things you take them into yourself and they become part of you and it make you bigger unfortunately all right what does Paul mean when he says the resurrection is gonna swallow up the suffering and evil you’re going through right now the best illustration I’ve got of it and it’s a it’s a very imperfect one is some years ago I had a horrible nightmare one night and I have no idea if it was something I ate is something I you know a movie I’d watched I have no idea why I’ve actually if you’ve ever heard me use the illustration before I usually don’t go into detail because was really the most awful dream basically I dreamt my entire family had been slaughtered and then I woke up and there they were and I want you to know that when I went to sleep that night before the nightmare oh I love my family you know I was comforted to see them all around me but when I woke up having lost them and having gotten them back as it were I couldn’t even look at them without crying for joy what had happened see having gotten them back as it were the experience of losing them made the experience of having them infinitely greater it’s almost like the experience of losing them had been swallowed up by experience of having them so that was infinitely more precious now if I mean I know that’s just a dim hint of it but if what if Jesus Christ resurrection happened and it did and that means our resurrection is going to happen and it will then it means everything sad everything horrible is going to be brought up into our future glory and resurrection make it infinitely better than it would have been if we’d never had any of those experiences and that’s the final and ultimate defeat of suffering and death and that’s the reason why dusty Eskie writes these astounding words he says I believe like a child that suffering will be healed and made up for that all the humiliating absurdity of human contradictions will vanish like a pitiful mirage like the despicable fabrication of the impotent and infinitely small euclidean mind of man but in the world’s finale at the moment of eternal harmony something so precious will come to pass that it will suffice for all hearts for the comforting of all resentments for the atonement of all the crimes of humanity for all the blood that they’ve shed that it will make it not only possible to forgive but to justify what has happened that’s unbelievable but if the resurrection is true that’s absolute right everything said we’ll come untrue and yet the resurrection will be infinitely greater for it having once been true all that suffering and all that evil so you have to look back at what he’s done and you have to look ahead and have a Living Hope it was to come but there’s one more thing this passage tells us is at the very very end there’s something we have to not just look back to something we have look ahead to but look into verse Allah first 12 is astounding to me because verse 12 says they spoke of the things that we’re now told to you by those who preach the gospel to you of the gospel into which things even angels longed to look and that word long my friends that word long is an amazing word it’s the word epidemia which really means lust the Angels obsessively passionately look into the gospel they look at the story of God of God saving us through Jesus Christ and they never get tired of looking into it they’re constantly looking into it all the time you say gospel isn’t the gospel just that kind of elementary ABC stuff the basic on a minimum belief requirements to get into Christian life and then we go on to more advanced stuff after that don’t we don’t tell the Angels that angels are a lot smarter than you and me you know they’ve been around forever and yet they never ever ever ever get tired of looking into the gospel the gospel is the thing that they’re looking into all the time why let me show you how this is what we have to do as well just for a second think about let’s let’s think about all this in terms of the gospel how did Jesus get through his furnace how did he get there Jesus came through an incredible furnace of affliction how did he get through his furnace Hebrews 12 says for the joy that was set before him he endured the cross so he had a Living Hope of course the only way you get through the furnace is through a Living Hope what was his Living Hope well that’s a good question what could it be you say well maybe what he was hoping for was bliss in heaven with his father but don’t forget this living hope is something that got him out of that what was the drew him away from heaven and put him through the fiery furnace what was his hope what what could he possibly have been looking for that he didn’t already have up there Isaiah 53 says the results of his suffering he will see and be satisfied and that’s an amazing statement what could make infinite suffering worth it and the answer is my righteous servant was Isaiah 53 shall justify many you are his living hope that’s the only thing he did not have in heaven and that he had to come to earth and go to the cross and plunge himself into the fiery furnace for you a beautified unspoiled unfading perfect restored resurrected glorified you in his arms that is his living hope that’s what filled him with such joy that’s what filled him with such inexorable and infallible resolve that he went into the furnace and he came out like gold and knowing that he the thought that you are his living hope the thought that you were his living hope will make him your living hope the thought that you were his living hope and that’s what drove him through the furnace will make him your living hope and it’ll but you know he’ll be able to walk through the furnace with him and if you do you see that wonderful verse 8 if you learn to look into the gospel the way the angels do and always see in new ways what he has done for you the way we just tried to give you an example of at some times you will actually you you don’t see him but you will love him and he’ll rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory and if you do your Greece will be taken up into his story and turned to gold let’s pray thank you father for giving us a a complete portfolio of what we need in order to face the horrible mystery of evil and suffering it’s a horrible mystery we don’t know why it’s not over we don’t understand the reason for individual tragedies and catastrophes we don’t but when we look behind us when we look ahead of us when we look into the gospel of what your son has done we have everything we need so that the evil and suffering instead of consuming us will turn us to gold we pray Lord that you would help us right now as we go to the table and receive the Lord’s Supper to look with the Angels and all the hosts of heaven deeply into your gospel and come out with the strength and the joy that only that can give us we pray this in Jesus name Amen for more of the series and other resources from Timothy Keller and Redeemer Presbyterian Church please visit