Every day I hear about someone’s illness or terrible tragedies they are having in their lives. Many people ask why God does not intervene to prevent diseases and suffering.

The pain and suffering God chooses not to prevent leads many to question the wisdom and goodness and even the existence of God. They don’t understand how such a loving God could allow so much evil, pain and suffering.

Understanding why God allows suffering requires a fundamental understanding of his laws. Suffering is basically a consequence from breaking the principles God outlined for us in the Ten Commandments. If there were no consequences for breaking the commandments, how would people know if they were doing right or wrong? If there were no consequences for sin, then Christ was crucified in vain, and man would not have need for salvation.

God has made it clear that the gift of free will he has given man is a freedom of choice. It has never been God’s intent to force man to love and obey him. His intent was for us to see the wisdom in his commands and choose to love and obey him from the heart.

Having the consequences of suffering is the only way God can show us if we are doing right by him or not. Many people have been blaming God for their suffering and many have completely turned away from him because of the sufferings and tragedies that have happened in their lives.

The real question is, “How can we blame God for the consequential sufferings we receive when we are the ones who freely choose to not believe and obey the commandments that God gave us to live by?” It is not God that is making the choice to oppose the commands, it is the people.

The base cause of our nation’s misery today stems from an ignorance of actual Bible concepts. When God teaches one thing and our theology courses teaches the opposite then the person who believes the theology over God will suffer the consequences God sends for not believing and obeying him instead. We cannot ignore the facts that God gives us in the Bible and believe theory instead. Theory is not what gives us salvation. Believing and obeying God does. 

Our society today has taken for granted that the pastors who are leading them have been taught correctly. Based on this assumption they have neglected to research the actual Bible contents to make sure that what the pastors teach them is also in alignment with what God teaches.

God has shown me two major examples of these conflicting teachings are commands 2 and 4. God says have no graven images and idols and keep the seventh day Saturday Sabbath. Man on the other hand teaches to have the graven image of the cross and changed God’s Sabbath day to a different day. Those who believe and follow man instead will suffer the consequences of disease and problems. This is how God shows us we are wrong for following man instead of him.  Only when we go back to believing and obeying God will our consequential sufferings be reduced and eventually stop. I have personally put God to the test on this.

In my younger days I tried living life the way every one else has been doing now. I paid no attention to the commands and suffered some of the very same things people are suffering from now. Once I started reading the Bible and noticing the contradictions that man was teaching I decided to put all my belief and faith in God and Christ. Every time I heard a new teaching and it didn’t seem to set well with me, I would do a study of the subject with my Bible, concordance and dictionaries. My study always proved that God was right and man was wrong. Since I have been believing and obeying God on everything, my life has become disease and problem free. That is proof enough for me to know God is right and man is wrong.

I have realized that suffering was never meant as a judgment on our lives. It was meant as a tool for God to use to show us lessons in life and what happens when we oppose him and his righteous standards. Most, but not all suffering is the result of breaking God’s commandments whether knowingly or unknowingly. There are some instances of suffering that cannot be explained. Those instances are used as trials to refine us or strengthen us spiritually and emotionally to be able to lead others to Christ. Those trials are also God’s way of finding out who we will follow, God or man.

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