Sermon Tone Analysis

Lewis believed that God is active in the world, but the full understanding of God’s actions will not be realized until the end of time.

Suffering aims to expose an unbelieving heart or exercise a believing heart.

The problem of reconciling human suffering with the existence of a God who loves, is only insoluble so long as we attach a trivial meaning to the word "love", and look on things as if man were the centre of them.

Man is not the centre.

God does not exist for the sake of man.

Man does not exist for his own sake.

"Thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created."

We were made not primarily that we may love God (though we were made for that too) but that God may love us, that we may become objects in which the divine love may rest "well pleased".

We shall draw nearer to God, not by trying to avoid the sufferings inherent in all loves, but by accepting them and offering them to Him; throwing away all defensive armour.

If our hearts need to be broken, and if He chooses this as the way in which they should break, so be it.

I'm not sure God wants us to be happy.

I think he wants us to love, and be loved.

But we are like children, thinking our toys will make us happy and the whole world is our nursery.

Something must drive us out of that nursery and into the lives of others, and that something is suffering.

I suggest to you that it is because God loves us that he gives us the gift of suffering.

Pain is God's megaphone to rouse a deaf world.

You see, we are like blocks of stone out of which the Sculptor carves the forms of men.

The blows of his chisel, which hurt us so much are what make us perfect.

CS Lewis

SUFFERING AIMS TO EXPOSE AN UNBELIEVING HEART

There is a clear principle taught throughout Holy Scripture; all faith will be tested.

Not so that God might know its genuineness but so that we might know.

Peter also points out that while we indeed ‘suffer grief’ (Gk.

lypeō) as a result of ‘all kinds (Gk.

poikilos) of trials’, they all have the purpose that our faith ‘may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honour when Jesus Christ is revealed’.

He compares this process of testing to that of gold being refined in the crucible.

When the Lord Jesus listed differing responses to the ‘seed’ which is the word of God, he included those who, when they hear the word ‘at once receive it with joy.

But since they have no root, they last only a short time.

When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, immediately, they quickly fall away’

Writing to the Thessalonians, Paul notes two things which to him marked their conversion as genuine: they recognized the word which they had heard as God’s word, not man’s and their reception of that word was tested by suffering

Peter instructs us not to think trials a ‘strange’ (‘foreign’, Gk. xenos) element in normal experience—our calling is to be made like our Saviour in his sufferings

James goes even further, urging us to count trials ‘pure joy’ because they are part and parcel of the way forward to maturity

and Hebrews reminds us that educative discipline (Gk.

paideia) is inseparable from being a beloved child of the Father

The mocking voice of Satan poured scorn on Job’s faith, claiming that the Lord had made life all too easy for him and scoffing that if he were to lose all that made his life pleasant, he would ‘curse [God] to his face’

Job’s faith, however, was proved true, and he was confident that

In the light of even this small selection of Scripture, we see that ...

When the word of God arrives in our hearts and lives, testings and trials come too as God’s appointed way for his children to grow spiritually and to come into the arena of Christlikeness.

Even our poor understanding of such things can see that this must be so.

Many Christians are given the opportunity in Sunday worship to affirm, ‘I believe in God the Father, Almighty’.

This is all well and good, but we do not actually know that we truly believe in such a God until Monday faces us with experiences which suggest that he is far from almighty and pretty unfatherly!

Testing has its place and purpose, and this applies not only to the outward trials of adversity and circumstantial difficulties but also to the individual realities of besetting sins, temptation and the ceaseless warfare of the spiritual life.

Unless, therefore, we are prepared to rewrite the Bible, we must face the fact that Israel, having sheltered beneath the blood of the lamb, launched out into pilgrimage to face the wilderness in a divinely planned programm to test obedience, bring loyalty to light and prove the faithfulness of God

SUFFERING AIMS TO EXERCISE A BELIEVING HEART.

FAITH DOES NOT SHIELD US NOR DOES OBEDIENCE SAVE US FROM SUFFERING.

FAITH DOES NOT A CREATE A BUFFER ZONE AGAINST SUFFERING.

FAITH DOES NOT INOCULATE OR INSULATE US FROM SUFFERING.

IF ANYTHING IT INVITES AND INSURES ITS APPEARANCE.

WE DON’T OBEY SO THAT WE WILL BE SECURE.

WE ARE SECURE THEREFORE WE OBEY.

TESTING AIMS TO EXERCISE OUR FAITH BY TEACHING IT TO TRUST THE LORD’S STRENGTH AND TO STAND FIRM IN HIS PROMISES.

Sin has robbed our world of security and it further deceives us into seeking its apprehension.

We expend ourselves on foundations that cannot survive and erecting shelters that cannot stand.

Christ has come and offers himself as a sure foundation and a shelter of security.

“The settled happiness and security which we all desire, God withholds from us by the very nature of the world: But joy, pleasure, and merriment, He has scattered broadcast.

We are never safe, but we have plenty of fun, and some ecstasy.

It is not hard to see why.

The security we crave would teach us to rest our hearts in this world and oppose an obstacle to our return to God.

Our Father refreshes us on the journey with some pleasant inns, but will not encourage us to mistake them for home.”