I. The problem of pain is only a problem if
1. This problem is universal
2 Hear this, you leaders of the people. Listen, all who live in the land. In all your history, has anything like this happened before? … 4 After the cutting locusts finished eating the crops, the swarming locusts took what was left! After them came the hopping locusts, and then the stripping locusts, too! … 8 Weep like a bride dressed in black, mourning the death of her husband.
Joel 1:2,4,8 NLT
Mental pain is less dramatic than physical pain, but it is more common and also more hard to bear. The frequent attempt to conceal mental pain increases the burden: it is easier to say “My tooth is aching” than to say “My heart is broken.”
C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain
… our bodies are dying …
2 Corinthians 4:16 NLT
“… pain insists on being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pain: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”
C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain
2. This problem is proof
Pain is unmasked, unmistakable evil; every man knows that something is wrong when he is being hurt.
C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain
To say something is evil is to make a moral judgment, and moral judgments make no sense outside of the context of a moral standard. Evil as a value judgment marks a departure from that standard of morality. If there is no standard, there is no departure. Evil can’t be real if morals are relative.
Greg Koukl, Evil as Evidence for God
II. The problem of pain is only a problem if
1. We are the cause of the problem
12 That is why the Lord says, “Turn to me now, while there is time. Give me your hearts. Come with fasting, weeping, and mourning. 13 Don’t tear your clothing in your grief, but tear your hearts instead.” Return to the Lord your God, for he is merciful and compassionate, slow to get angry and filled with unfailing love. He is eager to relent and not punish …
Joel 2:12-13 NLT
2. God is the solution to the problem
Lord, help us!
Joel 1:19a NLT
III. The problem of pain is only a problem if
1. The real problem is we’re unimpressed with Heaven
18 In that day the mountains will drip with sweet wine, and the hills will flow with milk. Water will fill the streambeds … and a fountain will burst forth from the Lord’s Temple, watering the arid valley … 20 Judah will be filled with people forever, and … 21 I will pardon my people’s crimes, which I have not yet pardoned; and I, the Lord, will make my home in Jerusalem with my people.”
Joel 3:18-21 NLT
Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.
C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory
2. The real problem is we’re uninformed about Heaven
25 The Lord says, “I will give you back what you lost to the swarming locusts, the hopping locusts, the stripping locusts, and the cutting locusts, … 26 never again will my people be disgraced.
Joel 2:25-26 NLT
17 For our present troubles are small and won’t last very long… 18 So we don’t look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever.
2 Corinthians 4:17–18 NLT
He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever.”
Revelation 21:4 NLT
1 “Listen to me, all who hope for deliverance—all who seek the Lord! … 3 The Lord will comfort Israel again and have pity on her ruins. Her desert will blossom like Eden, her barren wilderness like the garden of the Lord. Joy and gladness will be found there. Songs of thanksgiving will fill the air… 5 My mercy and justice are coming soon. My salvation is on the way…
Isaiah 51:1-5 NLT