by Elli Hall

Created on: January 10, 2010

God or YHWH allows suffering for two main reasons.  Sinfulness causes YHWH to take off His hand of protection.  Satan also likes to test the children of God by sending them through trials and tribulations which God or YHWH allows.  He allows this to test our character and to see how true we are to Him.

The Scriptures hold many accounts of how sinfulness causes YHWH or God to allow suffering.  Recently I was reading in the 'Apocrypha'.  The story was in the book of Judith.  Nabuchodonsar was dominating all the lands and destroying all the people that would not bow down to him.  One of the people that would have been destroyed were the children of Israel.  One of the things I found very interesting was the fact that one of the advisers to the chief captain of Nabuchodonsar said that if the children of Israel had been acting sinfully and worshiping other gods then YHWH would allow them to suffer as their punishment.  In contrast, if they acted righteously He would be on their side.  The children of Israel would not be able to be defeated then.

In the book of Job, we can see how YHWH allowed Satan to beat a perfectly righteous man through many trials and tribulations.  Job was a very righteous man, and he praised YHWH or God diligently.  Job was a very rich man in both materials and family, but he lost everything.  YHWH did not punish him, but YHWH allowed Satan to test his faith.  Satan wanted to see if he could make Job blame YHWH and turn away from Him.  Job never blamed YHWH for his problems.

For most people whenever the 'going gets tough' our first reaction is to blame God.  God or YHWH does not like to see His people suffer.  Likewise a father may allows his children to take the harder path in order to learn a valuable lesson or to see where their hearts lie.  If we try not to blame YHWH when hard times press it shows a more mature level of character.  It is also important to praise and stand by Him during troubled times because it shows that we are not easily swayed.

Yes, it is true that God or YHWH allows suffering.  There are two main reasons He does this.  The first is because of our sinful nature.  When we willfully sin YHWH takes away His hand of protection.  Secondly, YHWH allows Satan to test us.  He allows Satan to do so that He may know whether or not we will stand by Him.

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