WHY GOD LETS PEOPLE SUFFER
Lesson 10: To Contrast this Life to Eternity
RO 8:18 I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.
I. Review
Lesson1 Ecc.3:1 There is a time for everything and a time for every activity
under heaven
Lesson 2 Job 40:8 Will you condemn Me that you may be justified?
Jos.24:15 Choose for yourselves today whom you will serve
Lesson 3 Pr.3:12 The Lord disciplines those He loves
Lesson 4 Jos.22:20 And he did not perish alone for his iniquity
Lesson 5 Ps119:50 My comfort in my suffering is this, that Your promise
preserves my life
Lesson 6 Php.3:10 I want to know Christ and the power of His resurrection and
the fellowship of sharing in His sufferings
Lesson 7 2Cor. 1:4 Who comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God
Lesson 8-9 Eze. 30:8 Then they will know that I am the Lord
II. What a difference heaven makes
A. Nonbelievers attitudes of death
1. “Money is a singular thing. It runs with love as man’s greatest sources of joy. And with death as his greatest sources of anxiety. John Kenneth Galbraith, The Age of Uncertainty (Houghton Mifflin)
2. Hamlet:
3. Grandpa Simkins-Worm food
a. Does not want to consider the consequences which are worthy of fear
1) DA 12:1 "At that time Michael, the great prince who protects your people, will arise. There will be a time of distress such as has not happened from the beginning of nations until then. But at that time your people--everyone whose name is found written in the book--will be delivered. 2 Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt.
2) Jesus: MT 25:46 "Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life."
b. No proof
1) Account of near death and people coming back
2) Do not believe the Bible
a) Old Testament
1. Discussion Q. 1 Read 1Kgs 17:1-24 and 1Kgs 4:8-37. Why was it important for these events to have taken place and been recorded?
2. No clear description of heaven or Hell
3. Focus on this life
b) New Testament
1. Lazarus Q.2 Read Luke 16:19-31. How does this illustrate what Jesus taught in Mt. 6:1-6?
2. Jesus
3. Discussion Q 3 Read Deu. 18:1-14, Mt. 6:19-21 and Luke 12:22-24, 29-31. Discuss the differences. Why was Jesus so misunderstood?
III. Changes our focus:
A. Want vs. need
B. Rom. 8:18
C. Norma’s story
IV. How bad does it have to be to make us willing to leave? Israelites into the desert
LEV 20:25 " `You must therefore make a distinction between clean and unclean animals and between unclean and clean birds. Do not defile yourselves by any animal or bird or anything that moves along the ground--those which I have set apart as unclean for you. 26 You are to be holy to me because I, the LORD, am holy, and I have set you apart from the nations to be my own.
V. Do not be of the world:
1. LEV 20:26 You are to be holy to me because I, the Lord, am holy, and I have set you apart from the nations to be my own.
2. Discussion Q.4 4. Read Eph. 2:19-22. What difference has the promise of heaven made to you? EPH 2:19 Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God's people and members of God's household, 20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. 21 In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. 22 And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.