For many, pain and death is difficult to reconcile with an infinitely powerful and all-loving God.  The difficulty may be so great that a person refuses to believe that God actually exists, or refuses to place his trust in Him.   So where does pain come from?  Without the Bible and its accounts of Creation, the Fall, and the New Creation, it would be impossible to make sense out of the suffering world we find ourselves in.  In fact, one might conclude that there is no meaning or purpose to pain - it just is.  Gen 1:26-27 explains that God created man "in His own image."  Man was created to accurately represent the attributes and character of God (but without being God).  One of the attributes of God is His sovereignty - His ability to make absolute choices and His power to implement those choices.  Man, because he is made in the image of God, has the ability to make real choices with real consequences.  At the Fall, Adam and Eve chose to try to be God instead of being satisfied with being the image of God.  God could have destroyed His rebellious creation at that point and been totally just.  But because of His mercy, He has implemented a plan of redemption in which mankind is allowed to experience the painful result of his first bad choice, and is given an opportunity to choose again.  God will not override man's ability to choose because to do so would be equivalent to destroying the image of God within him.  The only reasonable alternative then is to allow him to experience the real consequences of his wrong choice, and also provide a Way of escape (John 14:6; 2 Tim 2:25-26; 2 Peter 1:4) for those who would choose rightly (Deut. 30:19).  Mankind has been given a second and final chance, and that second and final chance is now (2 Cor 6:2 ; Heb 4:7, 9:27).  Because God is all-just, God will have a final judgement.  If you have received Christ as your Savior, He took your judgement; and there is now no condemnation for you.

Why does God allow pain to continue?  Surely, God is not pleased when people suffer.  But He is doing the best possible thing under the circumstances - He is allowing pain to do its work.  C.S.Lewis called pain "the megaphone of God" constantly calling out to people to recognize their need for Him.  In a fallen condition, we do not learn without pain; pain is necessary for correction and growth.  God has promised the pain and death will eventually be destroyed (Rev 21:4); but for now, the longer God allows pain and death to do its work, the more people will be saved (2 Pet 3:9).  If pain does not result in turning to God, it is ultimately pointless.  The intensity of pain that God is allowing should be a warning of the seriousness of the consequences of sin.  For God's allowance of pain to be just, there must be worse things than physical pain and death for those who ignore God's calling! (Matthew 5:29-30).

If pain and death are the result of sin, why do Christians (whose sins have been forgiven) continue to suffer?   Why are we left in the world to suffer, since we have already turned to Christ?   Well, if believers were raptured at the moment of conversion, who would be left to spread the Gospel? (John 17:15)  We have to conclude that our main mission as Christians is to spread the Gospel, otherwise to remain on earth would be pointless.   Suffering, then, is a calling that we have as Christians that can be necessary to fulfill the Great Commission.  Suffering makes more effective and improves our witness.  In addition to hearing the Gospel, people need to see the Gospel lived under the same pressures they feel, so that they know it is real.

"But we have this treasure (the Gospel of Christ) in jars of clay (weak flesh) to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us."  2 Cor 4:7

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