Suffering, Time And Eternity

"A thousand years in Thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night" (Psa. 90:4).

"Our light affliction, which is for the moment..." (2 Cor. 4:17).

The sad plight of the Vietnamese boat people left all right-thinking people with a sense of outrage. Oppressive inhumanity placed the lives of thousands of our fellow men and women in jeopardy. Overcrowded, unseaworthy boats were time and again refused permission to land. The hapless refugees were forced again to face the perils of shark-ridden, stormtossed seas. It is reported that for every survivor who has finally found a country of refuge, several have perished.

Much credit is due to all who have stretched out a helping hand, welcoming, feeding, clothing and accommodating many of the refugees. Co-workers in the Church of God in Melbourne, Australia had opportunity to share a little in giving material relief and providing gospel literature in suitable languages.

Such harrowing tragedies are bound to stir afresh the questions which have been asked in every generation about the long-continued permission of suffering in human experience. In our human helplessness we cry out with the Psalmist:

"How long, 0 God, shall the adversary reproach?

Shall the enemy blaspheme Thy Name for ever?"

All too readily the natural mind reproaches God for a state of affairs in

which disaster, disease and man's inhumanity to man result in such a vast sumtotal of suffering.

Scripture guides the believer to view the problem of suffering from God's standpoint. It brings into focus the relatively brief present phase of an eternal divine plan. The present is seen in perspective compared with the compensation of ages upon ages yet to unfold - an eternity of blessing unmarred by any shade of suffering.

Moses, the man of God, was led by the Spirit in Psalm 90 to describe a thousand years as one day, and one day as a thousand years, in the sight of God. The apostle Paul, whose personal quota of suffering has perhaps been unequalled among all Christ's followers, described them as a "light affliction", which was but "for the moment". Through a wide variety of suffering experience, God's saints will find strength and assurance as they view their personal trials in this light. God's word explains other reasons why He allows suffering to cloud the lives of those who love and serve Him. But an understanding of the relative brevity of the longest earthly suffering will greatly help us in our personal trials of faith. One sorely tried Psalmist confessed:

"As for me, my feet were almost gone;

My steps had well nigh slipped.

It was too painful for me;

Until I went into the sanctuary of God,

And considered their latter end".

His faith was fiercely assailed, he felt his confidence in God shaken, until he viewed the problem from the standpoint of God's sanctuary. Then he saw things in new perspective. What seemed insoluble became so different against the background of eternal purpose.

To the Christian believer the same applies as he considers the vast spectrum of suffering in a world alienated from God, "It is a sore travail that God hath given to the sons of men to be exercised therewith" wrote Solomon 3,000 years ago. Modern media bring powerfully to our notice the daily continuance of this travail. What justification can there be for its continuance? Faith rests firmly on the revealed assurance that divine wisdom and love have all in perfect balance and control. However painfully drawn out it seems to us, as history repeats itself in sad episodes of human oppression and cruelty, God's timing is faultless. When all divine purpose is one day seen in true focus, it will be clearly realized that suffering has been but "for the moment".

Romans 8:22-23 gives striking insight into the present sufferings of the world in general and God's children in particular:

"For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. And not only so, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for our adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body".

Relief is promised to the believer at the return to the air of our Lord Jesus Christ: and the earnest expectation of the creation waits for the revealing of the sons of God when the Lord Jesus is manifested to take His great power and reign.

unknown | Feb 1980
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