Episode 4 - Ancient Faith Chat: Why Does God Allow Suffering?

STSA Church Podcast · Dec 27, 2023

Transcript

All right. Hello to everyone and thank you for joining us once again at another ancient faith chat. My name is Father Anthony Mesa and in case you are just joining us today for the first time. This ancient faith chat is being brought to you by STSA ministries, where our mission is to help you bring an ancient faith to your modern world. And we seek to do that by equipping you with tools and resources and the support that you need to do that. So if you've never seen our website, STSAministries.org, that's STSAministries.org. Please make sure you stop by there after we finish up right here because you will find all kinds of fun and helpful, hopefully helpful resources with whatever it is that hopefully you are doing to bring an ancient faith to your modern world. And one of the resources that we have is actually this ancient faith chat. So again, if you're new on the third Wednesday of every month, I show up here at 730 p.m.

Eastern time. And the goal is to answer one hard question or take one hard topic, something that is on people's minds and not just answer what we believe, but more importantly, why we believe it. Okay, because a lot of the questions that we get, there's an easy like a two sentence answer. But the goal isn't just the answer, but kind of the understanding behind it. Because I believe, again, our mission here, our mission at STSA Church is to bring an ancient faith to the modern world. And the mission of STSA ministries is to help you bring an ancient faith to your world wherever it is that you may be. And I believe that the more we understand, the more we will not only have a desire to spread, but the more effective we will be in spreading that ancient faith. So with that said, today we're going to answer a question that is probably the number one question that people ask. It's always the like, if you could ask God one question, what would you ask? And that's what we're going to answer that question. But before I get to it, okay, those little T's, before I get to it, I want to answer another question before we get to that one. And this is a question that has nothing to do with with our topic for tonight. But the way the way we've done these ancient faith chats is you guys are the ones who have set the agenda. Okay, you email you can email us at ministries at STSA.Church, ministries at STSA.Church. And you can submit questions that you would like answered. And all the topics that we've chosen this far have come from those questions. But there's been some other questions that don't really that maybe aren't a entire ancient faith chat. Maybe isn't like a 20 minute answer. Maybe it is like a one or two minute answer.

And I didn't want to ignore those. So what we'll do is every session, I'll start by answering one of those questions. Okay, so this is a simple question that we got from someone whose screen name is inspire people, which is a great screen name. And they asked the following question. I have a friend who is a Baptist and she's trying to convince me that we should not pray to St. Mary. The or to any other saint, we should only address our prayers to Jesus or God. Oh, is the chat open to all sorry hold on. I think I need to fix that again. Is the chat open to all give me one second here, chat. Hopefully you should be able to chat, I believe if you can't. I think I had this mistake before. Hold on. Okay, hold on there. Hold on. Okay, so now you should be able to chat. Thank you so much for putting that in there. The chat is open for all. Yes. Okay, so there we go. Thank you so much. Thank you for anyone who's putting stuff and yeah, go ahead and put your name in the chat if you don't mind and where it is you're tuning in from. I always appreciate that so I know who I'm talking to. So thank you Julio, who is tuning in from Arlington. Who else is out there. I know who you are, where it is that you're tuning in from put it in the chat.

And you can also submit questions in that chat you can also the questions in the q amp a. I was make that mistake. Okay, so there we go we got some more names popping in there we got tear house from Chantilly we got Lydia from New Jersey. We got Hello Hosanna from Seattle Hello to you too. We got George from Arlington. We got sorry, Joseph from New York we got Sarah Mina and Isaiah in Indiana. All right, Indiana. We got Nancy from Roanoke Joseph from Chicago, and from the UK, and Vera Porto Allegre Brazil, I don't know what part is the name what part is the city but welcome Vera, we're happy to have you from all the way from Brazil or Allegre Brazil or Porto Allegre Brazil I don't know which part is the name which part of the city, we're happy to have you here. Anyway, and Amal from Arlington good to see you too Amal. Anyway, as I said, I want to answer a short question real quick from someone that submitted then I'll get to our main question for tonight. The question is, again from inspire people I have a friend who is a Baptist she's trying to convince me that we shouldn't pray to St. Mary or any other saint we should only address our prayers to Jesus or God, because that's clearly written in the Bible, how can I explain to her. The answer to your question is, okay, should we pray, how can we convince someone of praying to the saints so the first answer to your question is we actually don't pray to the saints. We pray to God and God alone but we ask the saints to pray for us. And that's an important distinction. Okay, because it's actually, it sounds, it sounds like it's just semantics and we're, it's actually what you already, it's already intuitive you already know how to do it, because it's what you do with me. Nobody praised to me. No one says like, Father Anthony please heal my daughter, okay, you'd be, I mean you can ask if you want to.

I mean, most I'll send you to the doctor maybe get you some to aspirin and call me in the morning. Okay, but I can't do anything. And the saints themselves don't do anything for us. The same way you ask me as an alive person, you don't pray to me but you ask me to pray for you. It's the same with the saints. We don't, we don't pray to them we pray to God but we ask them to pray for us. Because if you think about it, it's not my flesh and my bones that praise, like you have no problem asking me to pray for you it's not my flesh and my bones it's my spirit. Well, our understanding is that when the body dies the spirit still lives, right, like we're spirit, the spirit still alive forever. And it's my spirit that's praying so just because my body is dead doesn't mean my spirit can't pray. So that's why we can ask the saints to pray for us. And in fact, one could argue that when the saints. Excuse me when we're outside of this body will actually be able to pray much better than on the inside. So that's a short answer to your question is that we don't pray to the saints we asked the saints to pray for us. And it sounds like semantics but it is an important distinction. And if you are looking for more resources on that subject okay I'll give you to sermon series, you can go to our You can go to our STSA YouTube page, and you can look up a sermon series that was done recently called digging deeper, where Father Timothy spoke about fellowship with the saints digging deeper, then you can go way back in the time machine to a series I did probably five six years ago called bringing an ancient faith to the modern world. And I gave a talk about Virgin Mary in particular it's called the truth about Mary, you can check that out. Okay. So, there's your answer inspire people, you got more questions that you want us to answer either brief or long email us and ministries that STSA dot church. Hopefully, we will get a chance to answer your question. All right, now on to our major question for tonight, which is we are going to answer like I said the number one question that people have, which is why does God allow suffering. Why does God allow suffering.

Now I just put in the chat, a link to a handout that I put together with all the notes of everything I'm going to talk about and all the verses and all that stuff that you have that you can download it at your leisure and you can follow along right there. Hold on to it. Why does God allow people to suffer. If God is so loving, I'm sure you've heard this question, and I'm sure you probably thought it at least once or twice as well. If God is so loving why there's so many disasters, why are there earthquakes, why are there tornadoes, why is there so much crime, why are there diseases that are unsolvable, why are there pandemics, why is there evil, why is there drunk driving, why don't drunk drivers kill kids, why do dictators ruin nations, why do bullies beat up on the week, question after question of why why why why why does all this stuff happen. And I'll tell you my personal opinion, okay, I could be wrong with you, you may be a very selfless human being but I think the majority of us when we ask the question why does God allow suffering and all these other situations, the underlying question underneath it is why does God allow suffering for me. Why is this happening to me. Why is my prayer unanswered, why is my grandma still sick. Why is my house, my family, my kids. The underlying question is why is God allowing bad stuff to happen to me. Now, this question is based on two false ideas or two myths. Okay, you know where where Jesus spoke and in john eight and he said you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free. So often we get tripped up, not because we are bad, but because we have false ideas we have lies that we believed, and the truth is the best way is the best remedy for some of these issues that we deal with. Okay, so let's see what are the false ideas then we'll talk about the truth that that solves it. Two false ideas. First false idea is that number one is it's God's job to make me happy. It's God's job to make me happy. You would never say that. But come on, be honest. If I listen to your prayers. If I listen to your complaining.

If I followed you around for the day. A lot of us live and act and pray, as if it's God's job, like his job description is to make me happy. Like we've confused God and Santa Claus. That's what we've done. And there's a lot of similarities between them right. So the first one is like God and Santa Claus, they both know when you're sleeping and they know when you're awake. They know when you've been bad or good so be good for goodness sake right like God knows and Santa knows, but Santa would never give us coal in the stocking if you're good. Santa knows if you're good you give good, you get good stuff if you're bad you get bad stuff. Santa knows it. God seems to have missed the memo. So it seems like you know Santa Claus that that's that's what we're looking for when it comes to God, because God's job is to make me happy. So that's the first myth. The second myth is that we believe that death is the end of the road. The death is the end of life. The death is the worst thing that could ever possibly happen that all of us deserve. We have a right to a long, happy, prosperous life, and if it gets cut short, or anything happens to it, then God did me dirty, God jipped me. So how can we address these two myths, okay are messing people up. How can we address these two myths. Let me give you a few truths, and these truths. The first one is actually the most important and if you understand the first one, you don't have to worry about the rest of them but the first one is kind of the big picture and the next three. Okay, we'll kind of explain what what how that works. So the first truth is very simple. Okay, is that God is good.

Period. God is good. The answer to the question of anything in life, why is this happening and why is that and that's not fair and how come evil and how come suffering. The answer the starting point the basis the foundation is that God is good. When I say God is good, good in an objective way, in an absolute way. And when I say that God is good. What I'm implying, I'm not implying I'm saying it is that you and me and us are not good, because God is the only one who is good. Even in the prayers of the church, you'll notice that so often, the prayers in the scriptures, Jesus went out of his way to say that he's not just the shepherd. He's the good shepherd. And we say in the hymns of the church that that we worship you or Christ together with your good father. He is the good father. He is our good Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ, our good Savior. Okay, because goodness is not just like, he's a nice guy. When I say God is good, I don't mean God is nice. I mean that God the definition of his character is goodness. That's why also in the church prayers we say, we ask and entreat your goodness a lover of mankind, we ask and entreat your goodness. Goodness is the identity of God. God is good, whether I understand or don't understand it, whether I can explain it or can't explain it. It's not my job to judge his goodness, and he doesn't have to fit my definition of goodness. My job is to simply trust it, whether or not I understand. Now, let's take a step back, okay, because I say God is good. What does the word good mean? Good is one of those words that we all know what it means intuitively, but it's really hard to define. Like try to come up with the definition of good.

I went and looked online. If you go to dictionary.com, or you will find that the word good has 58 definitions. 58 definitions for one word, which means that even the dictionary doesn't know what it means, okay, when something is defined 58 ways. But I'll give you a definition. It's very simple. What is good? God is good. And what good is, is what God is.

Because just because I can't define what the word is doesn't mean I can't identify it. And typically we know when we see good, right? So for example, most of us would say, most of us would say that if I win the lottery, that's good. If I lose my job, that's not good. If I'm single and the boy asks me out, that's good. And if I'm single and I ask out the girl and she says, no, that's not good. Okay, we can, we don't know how to define good and bad, but we can identify when something fits in one of the two categories. But the question that I have for you, is it possible, think, is it possible that something could be good for you and not good for someone else? That something could be good for one person and not good for another person? Well, yeah. So let's say your car breaks down. Is that good? No. But if you're a mechanic and someone's car breaks down, that is good. It's business. Don't make food on the table. You get a promotion, that's good. But you getting a promotion means your coworker didn't get that promotion. That's not good. So the same act is good and not good. The girl who said yes to you said no to somebody else. So her saying yes to you meant no for someone else. So good, good, go with the air quotes here, good isn't as absolute in our sense as we may think it is. Okay, give me another question. Is it possible that you may call something good today and tomorrow you may change your mind and say it's not good? Is it possible that you may get that job? That's great. And then made it later regret it and say this is the worst thing that ever happened to me or vice versa. Is it possible that the girl would say yes, you'd say that's great. And then later on you'd say I wish she hadn't.

Is it possible? Of course it is. Is it possible that sometimes you're just flat out wrong about what it means to be good and not good. And the answer is yes, because the difference between us and God. God is absolute good. That's the first truth. The second truth is that we, our definition of goodness is subjective, self-serving and short-sighted. It's subjective, self-serving and short-sighted. It's subjective, meaning that it may be good for me, but bad for you or bad for you and good for me. It depends on which angle you look at it. God is objective. It's self-serving, meaning usually what we want to say as good is not really good for society, but is good for me. And third, it's short-sighted. It looks only at the here and now and doesn't factor in the future. So in the end, we may think we know what's good, but we're just kind of guessing. But is there such a thing as absolute good?

Makes you ask. And the answer is yes. Jesus said it in Mark chapter 10 verse 18. He said no one is good but one, and that is God, speaking in an absolute sense, meaning this. God is not just, oh, sorry. God is not just like better. God is not better. So it's not like I'm good, you're better, the pope is great, and then there's God. It's not like, okay, A, B, C, and then D. It's not that. What it is, is that God is good. Anything not God, by definition, cannot be good because only God is good. Think of it like, I know that's kind of complicated. Think of it like light and darkness. There's no such thing as darkness. There's only light. And anything that is absence of light is darkness. Evil and good is the same way. Evil is not a thing as much as it's an absence of a thing. It's an absence of good or an absence of God. I know I'm being philosophical, I'm being very deep right here, aren't I? But it's not as complicated as you think. God is good. We are not. So if God is in it and God is in us, or God is in the situation, or God is in whatever, then it's good. And if it's not God, it's not good. Simple. Okay, so then you say, if God is good, okay, let's go logical right here. If God is good and God creates all things, then by definition, God then created evil.

How did that work? Because if God created all things, then evil must be something that God created. And I would say, no, God didn't create evil. What God created was free will. Okay, God gave you and me the gift of free will. And that gift of free will is because we were made in the image of God. So being made in the image of God means that we were not created as slaves. We're not created as robots. We're not created as dogs or as just creatures that have no free will. We're made in the image of God. And because of that, God gave us the greatest gift, the ability of freedom to make choices and to make decisions. He did that because he loves us, but also because he respects us and he treats us. Okay, like the way you treat a child, a baby, is don't touch that.

Go over there. Hide this. Lock that. They don't have freedom. But the way you treat an adult is, look, you're free. You can make whatever choice you want, but you're held accountable for those choices. That's what God did with us. So where did evil come from? Evil came from our own free will. Let's be honest. 95% of the evil in this world, 95% of the evil in this world that we complain about, is the direct result of people's choices. 95% of the evil is a result of either my choices that I did to myself. Okay, I chose to drink. I chose to start the car. I chose to do those things. I chose to put all my money in that investment. I chose to take that risk at work. I chose to go over there when I shouldn't have. Like, it's my choice or it's the choice of others. Okay, crime, injustice, abuse, poverty, corruption, violence. These are all a result of man's decisions, man's selfishness, man's abuse of free will. And the other 5%, if I said 95% is a result of man's choices, the other 5% is also a result of man's choices, but indirectly. Okay, I would talk about like natural disasters. No one caused that. Well, yeah, we kind of sort of did, because natural disasters are a result of man's fall, the fall of mankind in Genesis chapter 3. That's why St. Paul says in Romans 8 22, the whole creation groans and labors with bird pangs together until now. So all of nature is in a distorted state.

Why? Because of man's decision and the fall of not just man, but fall of the entire world. So if evil is a result of man's free will, is it fair for me to use my free will to destroy the world and then blame God? Like, is it fair for me to drink, get in a car, drive, hit a kid, go to jail for life, and then say why God? What do you mean why God? What's why God? I don't understand why God. It's all your choice. Is it fair for me to blame the evil in the world on God when truthfully most of the evil comes from us? Now the next question you could say, okay, but couldn't God have stopped the evil? Couldn't God have stopped the evil if he wanted? And the answer to that is, of course, God could have if he wanted. Couldn't God have stopped the evil implies this idea, okay, when you're asking the question, you're saying like, but God doesn't God know? And where is God? Why is God so unfair? Why is God allowing? The answer to that question is this. Couldn't God stop it?

Of course he could. And he will. But just not now. Think of it like the teacher leaving the kids at recess and sees looking out the window and sees the kids playing at recess. One of the kids is taking advantage of one of the other kids, then he's tricking him or he stole his money, or you know he's doing whatever it is and the teacher's just watching, just watching, just watching, just and the kids are like, I'm getting away with it, I'm getting away with it, I'm getting away with it. But you know what? The bell's gonna ring soon. And when the bell rings, the teacher is going to come out to the playground. And what you thought you were getting away with, all of a sudden justice will be served. So I wrote this in your handout. Is the day is coming when suffering will cease and evil will be judged. Just because God hasn't ended suffering yet doesn't mean that he won't. Just because evil seems to be prospering now doesn't mean that it will. Psalm 125 verse 3 through 5, if you struggle with this concept, okay there's a great passage, Psalm 125. It says the scepter of the wicked will not remain over the land allotted to the righteous. Okay, King David was a righteous person who during his time he suffered a lot. The bad guy seemed to be winning. The bad king was there and I'm running around like a crazy person to run for my life. But God confirmed it in him and he wrote this, the scepter of the wicked will not remain over the land allotted to the righteous.

It might for a little bit, but in long run it won't. It continues, for then the righteous might use their hands to do evil. Do good, O Lord, to those who are good, to those who are upright in heart. But those who turn to crooked ways, the Lord will banish with the evildoers. In other words, the bell in this world is gonna ring. The teacher is gonna walk in the classroom. Just because the teacher hasn't walked in yet doesn't mean that it isn't gonna happen. Okay, I'll give you another passage that we say during the divine liturgy. We say that he has appointed a day for recompense on which he will appear to judge the world in righteousness and give each one according to his deeds.

Just because he hasn't done it yet doesn't mean that it isn't going to happen. There will come a time when everything is made right. Today, evil is prospering and we're like, why are the bad guys? Why are the evil? And it's not fair. Hold your horses. Wait till the end of the movie before you judge the director. Get to the end of the book. You can't read half the book and close and be like the author, like really didn't tie up all the loose ends there.

Like it didn't make any sense. Get to the end of the book and then you will see there will be fairness. There will be righteousness because he will give each one according to his deeds and justice will be served. And when we get to that point, our last truth is that when we get to that point, our suffering will pale in comparison to the future glory that awaits us. Our suffering today will pale in comparison to the future glory that awaits us in the next life. Roman chapter 8 verse 18 says, For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. When I say that, I'm not trying to minimize the facts. I'm not trying to say, you know, just grin and bear and don't make a big deal. I get it. The suffering is there. I get it. There's evil. I get it. There's injustice. I get it. I get it.

I get it. But the truth of the matter is, is that it will end and the current suffering will be nothing compared to the future glory that God promises each one of us. And leave you with this analogy. Imagine on the first day of 2023. Okay, so imagine, you know, January 1st, 2023, you have the worst day ever. The worst day ever. Let's say you wake up in the morning, you get in a car accident on the way to work and you total your car. You get to work, you're all frazzled and your boss calls you in the office and he fires you on the spot. So you lost your job. You lost your car. On the way out, you're walking back. Okay, you trip, you break your leg.

Okay, you got to cast whatever it may be. It's like the worst day possible that you could possibly imagine. Everything in the world that could go wrong goes wrong on January 1st. And then let's say from January 2nd to December 31st, the other 364 days were the exact opposite. January 2nd, you wake up in the morning, you find out your richest uncle dies and all of a sudden you inherit a billion dollars. You lost your job on the first day. Next day you inherit a billion dollars. January 3rd, you wake up and you discover that, you know, even though you don't need the money, you get hired for your dream job that you always wanted to, you know, be a NBA basketball player or to be a sportscaster on TV or whatever it may be, your dream job and you get hired for that. And then on January 4th, you just stumble in the kitchen and you discover a cure for cancer. Like whatever it is, you're nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Whatever. Imagine it keeps going like that every single day from January 2nd to December 31st is the greatest day ever. And then I come to you on December 31st and I ask you, say, hey, how was 2023 for you? Tell me about 2023. What do you think you'd say? You'd say it was the greatest year of my life. Nothing has ever happened like this in my life. Every day was so great. And then I'll come to you and say, but wait a minute. I remember on January 1st, you lost your job. And I remember on January 1st, you had that car accident. So how could you say it was such a great year? All those horrible things happened to you. You'd be like, in comparison to what I've received since, no comparison. That's what's going to happen to us in eternity. Not saying that nothing bad happened to you. You've had bad stuff. There's bad stuff all over this place. In the world, you will have tribulations, which Jesus said. But what I'm saying is that God will make it right in the end because number one, he is good, absolute good. He is not the author of evil. He is the author only of good. He is absolute good. Number two, we are not good. Our definition of goodness is self-serving. It is subjective and it is short-sighted. Our job is not to explain his goodness, but just simply to trust in his goodness, knowing that our definition is no good because he will make all things right in the end. And that's what I'm saying. All is said and done. I leave you with this verse, 1 Corinthians 2, 9. I have not seen, nor ear heard, nor entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love him. St.

Paul suffered a lot. St. Paul said that when you see what God has prepared, good, good, good is the only way to define it. So that's our topic here for tonight. I will be happy to take any questions that you may have. You can ask your question in a few different ways. You can put a question in the chat if you would like. You can also see the Q&A button down at the bottom. I see people are starting to put some in the Q&A. You can put your question there.

You can also, if you would like to ask your question with your voice, if it's something that you don't want to put in the chat, but you want to ask it, you can simply raise your hand, hit the raise hand button. Okay. And then I will let you, I will unmute you and you can ask your question. Okay. So the first question we got from Nancy says, how about suffering from illnesses? Oh, I was speaking about suffering in a general way and I would include that. So whether the suffering is from illnesses, okay, or suffering from someone's mistake in the end, everything goes back to our free will, which led to, so you're saying illnesses. So a lot of illnesses are as a result of our own decisions. So if someone has, you know, someone, you know, smokes and they get lung cancer or someone, you know, drinks too much and has brain damage or whatever it may be, then you say, what about the illnesses that no one caused? Illness, sickness is a direct result of sin. Okay. So there would be no sicknesses. That's why the book of Revelation talks about over there. There's no sadness. There's no tears. There's no sorrow. There's no sicknesses. So sickness is a condition of sin. So whether the illness was caused by a direct sin, which if we're honest, a lot of them are, or an indirect sin. Okay. The source of it is still the same.

It's man's free will that led to illnesses being in the world. Okay. All right, let's get rid of that question. Okay. Does anyone else have any questions that they would like to ask? Go ahead and put it in the Q&A or put it in the chat. And if I don't see any questions, that means that I did a really good job answering all of your questions. You can ask a question about this or about anything else. Okay. Feel free to ask anything that you want. If not, that means I did a really, really, really good job. I'll ask you a question then since no questions coming up now. You put it in the chat. During my talk there a little bit earlier, someone popped onto the screen. Someone popped onto the screens. Anyone know who it was that popped onto the screen for a brief second?

Put the answer in the chat if you know who it was, if you saw it, and if you didn't see it, that means you weren't paying attention. My sister is my wife, Marianne. Yes. And the reason why is because I'm using her Zoom account because her Zoom account with her company allows me to do these webinar styles and things like that. So she must have just logged on by accident and I'm sure I'm going to get yelled at when I go downstairs for not reminding her. But anyway, that's good. I have a very forgiving wife. This question comes from Terhas Berhani. Hope I'm pronouncing that right. How about someone who suffers from cancer for a long time? I have a hard time accepting this type. Yeah. So again, cancer. I'm not saying well again there are some types of cancer that you may cause yourself so that leaving that aside you're probably talking about like, I didn't cause it, I didn't do anything. Why did God give me cancer. The truth of the matter is all sickness is a result of sin and that's from man, not from God. Okay.

But I don't think that's what you're asking. What you're asking here, how do I accept the fact that this really good person in my life, we all know someone who's really good, who's suffering, and it seems to be like why them and why so hard and why no answers. I get it. I promise you. I actually said this in church a couple weeks ago. If you look out over the church landscape, there's not a single person who sits there in church no matter how they appear. That includes me. That includes you. There's not a single person who doesn't have something that they are praying and crying out to God, whether it's a sickness, whether it's a situation, whether it's a lost family member, whatever it is, every single person has. The answer to all of it is, I don't know. I'm not God. But I know that he's good. And I know that if he gives it, then I know that he can make it work together for good. That's a different topic which I didn't talk about. Romans 828, all things work together for good to those who love God. He doesn't give bad things. He only gives good things. And I promise you, tierhase, if you can trust in his goodness, then I promise you, God will reveal how he is working in all things to be good for those who love his name. I can't explain it because I'm just me. And God doesn't have to answer to me. The fact that I can't explain it doesn't mean it's not true because like, who am I? I'm just me. Just because a three-year-old can't explain calculus doesn't mean the calculus doesn't make sense. Well, calculus doesn't make sense. Let's say addition. Nobody understands calculus.

Let's say addition or subtraction. A three-year-old can't understand it doesn't mean it doesn't make sense. It just means they can't understand it. Well, it's the same thing. God is good. I have to remind myself that always God is good. Just because I can't see it doesn't mean that it's not there. Next question from Nancy. My friend's daughter, three years old, has cancer. Cancer, cancer, cancer. And the whole family and I are in pain. I disagree that this is because of someone's sin. So as I said, I'm not saying that the three-year-old did something to bring on the cancer. But what I'm saying is that we as humanity did something to bring on cancer into the world. And I know this is a hard thing to say, but the truth of the matter is our problem is we see ourselves, again, this is a result of sin. A result of sin is that we see ourselves as disconnected. We see as like, I'm an individual.

I didn't do anything. Why this came on to me? It's his sin, not my sin. The truth of the matter is that we as humanity, we are one. Humanity is one. We are one person. We are all connected and our blood runs same from all of us. So humanity sinned, therefore humanity received the consequence of sin, which is death. And part of that is illness, illness which leads to death. Humanity sinned. So I'm not saying your friend's daughter sinned, but I'm saying sin is a reason why there's all kinds of problems in this world. With that said, like I said to the girl before or whoever I was talking to before, is that God, because he is good, finds a way to work all things together for good to those who love him. So I don't encourage you, Nancy. And again, I know this is hard, but I would encourage you and your friend to trust in God's goodness, even when you can't see it, because I promise you it's there.

I promise you it's there. And I'll tell you this from experience. The people, for the most part, obviously there's exceptions. The people that are going through the illness and the suffering, they actually can see God's goodness more than the people outside. We look and we're like, oh, that's so horrible and that's awful and where are you God? And usually the people inside are not that way. Like we are trying to comfort them, but the truth of the matter is they're the ones who end up comforting us. Because when you're in that situation and you cry out to God, God finds a way to reveal his goodness. And again, just because I can't explain it doesn't mean it isn't true. Okay. Next question is anonymous. How about someone who wrongs me or my family? Is it okay that I still sue them to recoup my losses? There's nothing wrong with suing someone, okay, of doing it if, as long as you're not lying or not doing anything wrong. There's no problem with going to court. Absolutely. The only thing I would caution you towards is it being done out of an attempt to make things right or an attempt to hurt and punish, okay, and like a vindictive kind of a way. If it's a vindictive thing, I would advise you for your own sake, not for the other person's sake, but for your own sake. Okay, because vengeance ends up doing a lot more. That bitterness and that resentment is going to hurt you a lot more. It's going to hurt the other person.

So going to court, you know, like calling the police, you know, doing what's right, no problem. But I never want to allow the vengeance. Okay, that's where I worry about. Okay. Questions are flowing in right now. Lydia says this isn't related to the topic, but how can you forgive someone who hurts you so much? That's a great question. That's a big topic. But I think Lydia, you just recommended a future ancient faith chat, okay, about the subject of forgiveness because that is a big one. That's a big one. One that's dear to my heart and I will because I don't want to do the question injustice because I want to do the question justice. I'm going to defer it to another time. But I will tell you that it is possible and it is. We'll talk about that another time Lydia. Okay.

Look at that suspense. Joseph says, what would you say to those who currently suffering with injustice I find it hard to say the right thing without me sounding privileged. I think it's a good thing because obviously I'm speaking in generalities right here. So the first thing I would say is to someone who is dealing with injustice, there's nothing wrong with fighting for your rights. As I said, with the court example earlier, there's nothing wrong with fight for your rights and we fight for justice for sure. And especially it's our job, like you, Joseph, we fight for the rights of those who can't fight for themselves. That's absolutely our job. It's the job of the rich to fight for the poor. It's the job of the privileged fight for the underprivileged. It's the job of the born, the alive to fight for the unborn, those who aren't alive. It's the job of the strong to fight for the sake of the weak. Like it's our job to fight for those who can't fight for themselves. Those who are healthy for those who are sick. That's Christianity 101. Okay. And whenever we start to lose that sight of that, that it's just like, well, it's just about me. It doesn't affect me.

And it's just what difference does it make to me? That's the opposite of Christianity. With that said, what I would say to that person in the injustice, okay, because the truth of the matter is, is they may escape that injustice, but there's going to be another injustice around the corner. Everyone struggles with injustice is all over the place is that this world is not meant to be a place of justice. This is recess. And it's recess. It's anarchy. Okay. It's survival of the fittest here. It's a strong man rules. That's the way it is here in recess. The recess will end. Teachers going to walk back on in. And like I said, that example of January 1st versus the rest of the year, that's what's going to happen. So we are going to stay true and stay clinging to God, knowing that he is going to come back. And our, our light affliction, which is but for a moment, second Corinthians 417, he says, our light affliction, which is but for a moment is working for us a far more exceeding an eternal weight of glory. Okay. That's actually a great passage for anyone who's struggling. Second Corinthians chapter four, verse 16 through 18, second Corinthians chapter four, verse 16 through 18. Okay.

I am running out of time. I always got lots of questions. What would be a good example of a saint that was able to deal with suffering in a Christian manner? So many like fine. That, you know, it'd be a hard question. Find me a saint who didn't suffer. Find me a saint who didn't suffer because if you look at any of the great saints, every one of them had tribulations and trials. The one that popped in my head right away was Joseph in the Old Testament. I always think of him as the champ.

She could also go St. Paul in the New Testament. Right. So there's just so many examples. Look at all the prophets. Look at David. All right. Look at Elijah. There's so many examples. But if you ask me for one, I would go Joseph in the Old Testament.

I would go St. Paul in the New Testament. Okay. All of them. And any every other one. If sickness is a result of sin, even if we confess and repent. Yeah. When we confess and repent, this is important. It removes the consequence of sin spiritually, but it does not remove the consequence of sin in an earthly sense. So if I steal and then I confess, will I still go to jail? Yes. I should. Okay. If I murder and I confess, will God forgive me? Yes. Spiritual consequences removed, but earthly consequence, I'll still go to jail. Okay.

If I am, if I have sex outside of marriage, okay, before I'm married and I get pregnant and I confess, I confess, I confess, I confess. Well, God forgive me, of course, but I'm still going to have a baby. Like the consequences of sin in an earthly way are still here. Confession and repentance is for the much more important consequence, which is the spiritual. Okay. Let's go. Can we opt, can we be optimistic about death? Absolutely. We can be optimistic about death. We should be optimistic about death.

St. Paul speaks about in first Thessalonians and second Thessalonians that when we speak about the end of the world, okay, and the death of all the saints, he says we use those words to comfort one another. Okay. Because life in that, listen, listen to all the questions, cancer and injustice and suffering and consequences. Death is going to be the best thing that ever happened to us. Kidding me? That's the eye has not seen, ear has not heard. Again, remember I told you earlier that there's two myths that causes problems, that God is our Santa Claus and number two, the death is the end. Death is the beginning. Death is the beginning. Death is the beginning. All this is just a pregame show. This is, what is this? This is not what we were meant for. Not for so much more, so much better. Okay. So I still see more questions, but I'm going to leave you on that one because my time is up and that's the best way to end it is that life in this world, okay, life in this world is not what it's meant for. So we're going to stop looking and expecting things to be perfect right here. It will never be perfect, but God never promised that. What he promised is that he is good, that he will make all things good when the time is right. So, sorry I didn't get to all your questions. It's your fault for not asking them at the beginning.

Okay, if you had thrown them in the beginning, you could have gotten it up there, but I can only do what I could do. So thank you so much for joining us here. As I said, we're on the third Wednesday of every month, so the next time will be September 21st. And we will answer the question, do I have to be Christian to go to heaven? Do I have to be Christian to go to heaven? That'll be our question and we'll answer then. If you have any other questions, please email us at ministries at STSA.church. That's ministries at STSA.church. And please make sure you check out our website. We have all kinds of resources there. They're all 100% free to be used for you and your church and in your ministry. So thank you all so much. God bless you all. And I will see you all on September 21st at 730 p.m. Have a good night, everyone.