Reasons Why God Allows Suffering?

[TheCurseOfTheRodain]

 

SUFFERING IS NEVER A BLESSING;

This is a very long post with a lot to consider.

So I hope to take it in bite sizes.

 

I would very much disagree that suffering is never a blessing. We're told to rejoice in our suffering. We're that suffering produces endurance. Endurance leads to character and character leads to hope. How can we have endurance in persevering in faith in God, character that is molded to conform to the mind of Christ, and hope in God without suffering?

 

Rom. 5:1-5

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. ² Through him we have also obtained access by faithinto this grace in which we stand, and werejoicein hope of the glory of God. ³ Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, ⁴ and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, ⁵ and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

 

And yet we know suffering ends in good for those who love God and are called according to His purpose. Would you agree?

 

Rom. 8:28

And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.

 

 

 

And still those who will follow Christ and seek to live a godly life will be persecuted.

 

2 Tim. 3:12-13

¹² Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, ¹³ while evil people and impostors will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.

 

 

How about a real life example? On a more personal note a friend (we'll call her Jan) shared in our small group this past week that her mother had cancer. This was a very hard time in their family's life as Jan's mother moved in with them. Yet out of that there was reconciliation between Jan and her mother.  Her mother and one of her uncles hadn't been on speaking terms for about 10 years. Through this ordeal God brought restoration with her uncle. Finally, her mother was also able to share the Gospel with extended family members.

Both Jan and her mother have shared that they absolutely would go through this ordeal with cancer again if they had a choice. The suffering lead to many blessings. So do you see how God can and does use as a blessing my brother?

 

 

Your thoughts?

God bless,

GE

 

 

 

Hi GoldenEagle, I'll start with the last first:

No, God did not give Jan's mother cancer. Cancer is not a blessing. It is a weapon of the Devil. Cancer is an enemy of God. Cancer was put on Jesus' body at the cross, and BY His stripes, we were healed of cancer. That means we exist in a healed state. We aren't the sick trying to get healed, we are the healed and the Devil is trying to steal our state of divine health. The Devil comes to try to see if he can get us to accept sickness. The best case scenario for him is that we accept it, blame God for it, call it a blessing and get everyone around us hopeless and defeated as we fail to understand how God could do this to us and we remain out of sync with God. And this failure is passed on to future generations who then have no hope in what God has done for them with Jesus.

Calling sickness a blessing is like saying if you were a father, you cut off your kid's arm. There's no reason to it, but one day maybe they'll figure out why you did it and somehow, other people will have pity on them and then they'll have a lot of friends, and those friends will do good things for your son because they feel terrible that you, the evil father, cut off his arm. We'll call his severed arm a "blessing" because he got a lot of friends.

 

This logic is demented because it only glorifies the Devil and makes God look like a loveless jerk who takes delight in random destruction of His supposed children's lives. Look throughout the New Testament - when did the people glorify God? The only time you see them do it is when Jesus did miracles and healings and explained to them that Devil was the one who put these sicknesses and diseases and problems on people. WHO held that woman in bondage for 18 years? The Devil.

 

Jan's mother got cancer because of something that the Devil was able to do to her (either she opened a door unwittingly though her words (you don't need to know what you're doing to set yourself on fire - you can go up in a blaze and it's not God's fault either), or the Devil planted a seed in her family somewhere in the past, or she did something to the kingdom of darkness and it was retaliation, or just because she's Christ's the Devil attacked her (most likely)). God did not give her the cancer, the Devil did.

Faith begins where the will of God is known - if she knows that cancer is not from God (it's not a punishment for sin either since all sin has already been punished on Jesus' body at the cross) then she has a platform to get rid of it through faith in God's Word. But if her loved ones tell her cancer is a blessing and she just has to figure out what He's trying to teach her or that she is glorifying God with her suffering then she will be cheated out of her healing, and God will be cheated out of His glory and other Believers will be cheated out of the testimony which will inspire them to believe God for their healing and the Devil will win this battle because no one fought back.

 

Now, as for the good that God wrought when people came together for pity's sake, that's God making something good out of something awful. But again, God did not cause the cancer (and He is eager to be given the chance to get rid of it!), but in the same way that you can be taught to wash your clothes because your clothes end up stinking when you don't, the stink from the clothes is not something God is doing to you, but He doesn't waste the chance to teach you to do better.

 

Pain and suffering are not teachers. Jesus only suffered at the cross, otherwise, He did not. He learned everything of the Spirit of God and the Word of God. That's where God says wisdom comes from, not suffering.

 

Also keep in mind, and resolve logically, that if you still insisted on calling cancer a blessing, then again, cancer would have to be in Heaven, and yet it won't. It will be in the Lake of Fire burning with the Devil. Therefore, again, cancer is not a blessing.

[RustyAngeL]

I would agree that suffering builds character and teaches us to walk by faith.  It makes us throw ourselves into God's arms.  A diamond only becomes a thing of beauty after is has gone through the fire. 

[TheCurseOfTheRodain]

 

SUFFERING IS NEVER A BLESSING;

This is a very long post with a lot to consider.

So I hope to take it in bite sizes.

 

I would very much disagree that suffering is never a blessing. We're told to rejoice in our suffering. We're that suffering produces endurance. Endurance leads to character and character leads to hope. How can we have endurance in persevering in faith in God, character that is molded to conform to the mind of Christ, and hope in God without suffering?

 

Rom. 5:1-5

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. ² Through him we have also obtained access by faithinto this grace in which we stand, and werejoicein hope of the glory of God. ³ Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, ⁴ and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, ⁵ and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

 

And yet we know suffering ends in good for those who love God and are called according to His purpose. Would you agree?

 

Rom. 8:28

And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.

 

 

 

And still those who will follow Christ and seek to live a godly life will be persecuted.

 

2 Tim. 3:12-13

¹² Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, ¹³ while evil people and impostors will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.

 

 

How about a real life example? On a more personal note a friend (we'll call her Jan) shared in our small group this past week that her mother had cancer. This was a very hard time in their family's life as Jan's mother moved in with them. Yet out of that there was reconciliation between Jan and her mother.  Her mother and one of her uncles hadn't been on speaking terms for about 10 years. Through this ordeal God brought restoration with her uncle. Finally, her mother was also able to share the Gospel with extended family members.

Both Jan and her mother have shared that they absolutely would go through this ordeal with cancer again if they had a choice. The suffering lead to many blessings. So do you see how God can and does use as a blessing my brother?

 

 

Your thoughts?

God bless,

GE

 

 

Next, rejoice in sufferings.

 

WHY does Paul say to rejoice? Because through the favor of God he has the victory every time - he cannot be defeated. Notice that God does not say in Romans 5:1-5 that He is causing the suffering. But rather the suffering has it's source in the Devil. And He says to rejoice because even though the Devil trys to put suffering on you, these are all the good things that God can bring about in you. BUT, God does not say this is His desire or that it is His method, only that even when the Devil trys to put suffering on you, these are the result.

 

As for Romans 8:28, that has to do with intercessory prayer for you by the Holy Spirit - read the verse before and after it. It means God works things together for your GOOD, it doesn't mean that God allows/gives you a whole bunch of trash and junk and suffering in your life so that you can somehow learn something or just simply not die and thereby become somehow "stronger". It means God is plotting GOOD for you, via the Holy Spirit interceding for you. Has nothing to do with you suffering.

 

2 Tim 3:12-13

It would seem you are blatantly trying to find places where the words suffering or persecution are being used in the Bible and then just automatically saying because the words are mentioned in the Bible, that must mean God is the author of these things in your life.

Nothing could be further from the Truth - YES, the Scripture is true, we WILL be persecuted (the word persecution literally means "pushing away", not violence (though it can take the form of violence), like it is often confused to mean), BUT: it doesn't say God is doing it! IT IS THE DEVIL WHO PERSECUTES. Jesus said I am come that they may have zoe (life), whereas the Thief (Satan) comes to steal, kill and destroy. So if something in your life is stealing/killing/destroying you - IT CANNOT BE GOD.

The persecution comes because why is Satan going to sit back and let you preach the Gospel and destroy his kingdom of darkness, and get everyone saved and prospering and healthy and working together for good, unified as one in Christ? We as Believers have the biggest targets on our backs. The SECOND you take a stand on ANYTHING in the Word of God (I mean the promises, because every promise is now yours personally (Gal 3:29)), the Devil comes to try to get you to let go of it (Mark 4, Luke 8, Matthew __?).

 

Bottom line: none of these bad things are from God, they are ALL from the Devil. Wise up and kick him out of your life! No one talked more about Satan than Jesus, by far. See what He told the Apostles about him in the letters of the New Covenant in those 40 days that He walked the Earth after He resurrected. The Devil is your problem, not God.

[TheCurseOfTheRodain]

I'll do the second post of yours GoldenEagle - probably tomorrow. More good stuff coming.

[TheCurseOfTheRodain]

I would agree that suffering builds character and teaches us to walk by faith.  It makes us throw ourselves into God's arms.  A diamond only becomes a thing of beauty after is has gone through the fire. 

 

The Scripture says that Jesus did everything He did as a man no different than us. He did everything He did as the Son of Man, not as the Son of God (Philippians 2). So how did He grow in wisdom, the favor of God, faith, character?

It didn't happen by suffering, because His suffering was at the cross as the Lamb of God. So how did He learn? By believing and obeying God and His Word. Whenever the Devil tried to persecute Him or do something to Him, He just relied on the Word of God and walked in faith and got the result God's Word promised. Notice that the Devil lost every time He went up against Jesus? (And Jesus is our blueprint) Not a single time was he able to do anything to Him, until, as He said, no man takes His life, but He lays it down (not even God the Father took it, Jesus had to do it of His own will).

Walking by faith doesn't come from suffering either. The Scripture says in Romans 10:17 that faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. There is no other way it comes.

Edited November 16, 2013 by TheCurseOfTheRodain

[GoldenEagle]

The Bible says Put on the garment for the spirit of heaviness.  We all go through times of suffering.  Illness, the loss of a loved one, lost jobs or even the loss of beloved pet.  It hurts our hearts.  I have learned that mountain top experiences with the Lord are a wonderful thing. They give us strength and unspeakable joy.  Yes mountain top experiences are glorious but we don't live on the mountain.  We have to come back down that is where the real test of faith is, everyday life.  I also learned that farmers do not plant on the mountain top but always plant in the valleys,  why?  because that is where the most fertile soil is and that is where the most growth takes place.  We don't like the tests and trials everything in us want's to turn and run but the fact of the matter is we have to go through them, there is no way around them.  God promises  never to leave us or forsake us and He never breaks His promises to us.  The key word here is trust.... Are we going to trust Him or we going to run in the other direction?  i pray everyday He gives me the courage to face what I must.  I don't always feel like it happens but then I wake up and realize He has gotten me through another day.  It's a walk, a step by step walk.  I just thank Him  that He is always with me every step of the way.

 

Yes sister! Amen!

 

There's mountain top experiences and valleys. It's int he valleys that our faith is truly tested, we are refined, and God is glorified.

We are all in a storm of life, coming out of a storm, or going into a storm. But thankfully we serve God who is master of the storm. He can calm it or give us strength to help guide us through it.

 

God indeed doesn't break His promises. He is good and can be trusted.

I often think that God allows me to go through this things to show me how dependent I am on Him.

[GoldenEagle]

Hi GoldenEagle, I'll start with the last first:

 

No, God did not give Jan's mother cancer. Cancer is not a blessing. It is a weapon of the Devil. Cancer is an enemy of God. Cancer was put on Jesus' body at the cross, and BY His stripes, we were healed of cancer. That means we exist in a healed state. We aren't the sick trying to get healed, we are the healed and the Devil is trying to steal our state of divine health. The Devil comes to try to see if he can get us to accept sickness. The best case scenario for him is that we accept it, blame God for it, call it a blessing and get everyone around us hopeless and defeated as we fail to understand how God could do this to us and we remain out of sync with God. And this failure is passed on to future generations who then have no hope in what God has done for them with Jesus.

 

Calling sickness a blessing is like saying if you were a father, you cut off your kid's arm. There's no reason to it, but one day maybe they'll figure out why you did it and somehow, other people will have pity on them and then they'll have a lot of friends, and those friends will do good things for your son because they feel terrible that you, the evil father, cut off his arm. We'll call his severed arm a "blessing" because he got a lot of friends.

 

This logic is demented because it only glorifies the Devil and makes God look like a loveless jerk who takes delight in random destruction of His supposed children's lives. Look throughout the New Testament - when did the people glorify God? The only time you see them do it is when Jesus did miracles and healings and explained to them that Devil was the one who put these sicknesses and diseases and problems on people. WHO held that woman in bondage for 18 years? The Devil.

 

Jan's mother got cancer because of something that the Devil was able to do to her (either she opened a door unwittingly though her words (you don't need to know what you're doing to set yourself on fire - you can go up in a blaze and it's not God's fault either), or the Devil planted a seed in her family somewhere in the past, or she did something to the kingdom of darkness and it was retaliation, or just because she's Christ's the Devil attacked her (most likely)). God did not give her the cancer, the Devil did.

 

Faith begins where the will of God is known - if she knows that cancer is not from God (it's not a punishment for sin either since all sin has already been punished on Jesus' body at the cross) then she has a platform to get rid of it through faith in God's Word. But if her loved ones tell her cancer is a blessing and she just has to figure out what He's trying to teach her or that she is glorifying God with her suffering then she will be cheated out of her healing, and God will be cheated out of His glory and other Believers will be cheated out of the testimony which will inspire them to believe God for their healing and the Devil will win this battle because no one fought back.

 

Now, as for the good that God wrought when people came together for pity's sake, that's God making something good out of something awful. But again, God did not cause the cancer (and He is eager to be given the chance to get rid of it!), but in the same way that you can be taught to wash your clothes because your clothes end up stinking when you don't, the stink from the clothes is not something God is doing to you, but He doesn't waste the chance to teach you to do better.

 

Pain and suffering are not teachers. Jesus only suffered at the cross, otherwise, He did not. He learned everything of the Spirit of God and the Word of God. That's where God says wisdom comes from, not suffering.

 

Also keep in mind, and resolve logically, that if you still insisted on calling cancer a blessing, then again, cancer would have to be in Heaven, and yet it won't. It will be in the Lake of Fire burning with the Devil. Therefore, again, cancer is not a blessing.

 

 

You say "No, God did not give Jan's mother cancer." Notice I never did say God caused the cancer in Jan's mother. And yet cancer was indeed a blessing in this woman's life. Did you read how God restored relationships and made His name known? God did use it to bring glory to His name.

 

You say "Jan's mother got cancer because of something that the Devil was able to do to her." I would disagree with you here. Of course that really has more to do with your assessment that any suffering is caused by the Devil. I believe we live in a fallen world that is affected by sin.

 

Sometimes God allows bad things to happen so that His glory might be displayed. Take the example Jesus healing the man born blind with particular attention to verse 3.

John 9:1-7

As he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. ² And his disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” ³ Jesus answered, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him. ⁴ We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work. ⁵ As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” ⁶ Having said these things, he spit on the ground and made mud with the saliva. Then he anointed the man's eyes with the mud ⁷ and said to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means Sent). So he went and washed and came back seeing.

 

You say "The Devil comes to try to see if he can get us to accept sickness." Question then do you believe that sickness is only either A) sin in someone's life or B) the works of the Devil?

Which brings up another question... If the Devil comes to try to see if we accept sickness could Job have simply forgone all the suffering he went through (loosing his family, his possessions, becoming very sick, etc.) simply by not accepting sickness? Curious.

As to the example in red. Your focus is misplaced I believe brother and no offense but you are using a straw man argument by misrepresenting my position. You are focusing on the child instead of the father. The benefit in cancer (suffering) isn't in someone gaining a lot of friends. The benefit is that God's name is known and the Gospel through Jesus Christ is shared. Another example that came out in our small group was a young 12 year old (we'll call him Sam) who has and had leukemia. That little guy was and is facing death every day. The people that he can talk about Jesus to are very different than you and I. Did God cause the leukemia? I don't believe so. Did God allow it? Yes indeed as God is all-powerful I believe. Sam has been able to share his faith in Jesus to many and many have come to know God through Sam's suffering.

I think sometimes we forget the only 2 things this side of eternity with eternal value are God's Word and the soul's of people that need Jesus.

You claim "Pain and suffering are not teachers." I would beg to differ with you on that. Pain and suffering are a part of our walk with God. God allows suffering but doesn't necessarily cause it. We live in a fallen world that is affected by sin. Would you agree?

Good discussion!

God bless,

GE

[GoldenEagle]

I would agree that suffering builds character and teaches us to walk by faith.  It makes us throw ourselves into God's arms.  A diamond only becomes a thing of beauty after is has gone through the fire. 

 

Amen! Yes it is all about trusting God and being conformed to the mind of Christ.

[GoldenEagle]

 

Next, rejoice in sufferings.

 

WHY does Paul say to rejoice? Because through the favor of God he has the victory every time - he cannot be defeated. Notice that God does not say in Romans 5:1-5 that He is causing the suffering. But rather the suffering has it's source in the Devil. And He says to rejoice because even though the Devil trys to put suffering on you, these are all the good things that God can bring about in you. BUT, God does not say this is His desire or that it is His method, only that even when the Devil trys to put suffering on you, these are the result.

 

As for Romans 8:28, that has to do with intercessory prayer for you by the Holy Spirit - read the verse before and after it. It means God works things together for your GOOD, it doesn't mean that God allows/gives you a whole bunch of trash and junk and suffering in your life so that you can somehow learn something or just simply not die and thereby become somehow "stronger". It means God is plotting GOOD for you, via the Holy Spirit interceding for you. Has nothing to do with you suffering.

 

2 Tim 3:12-13

It would seem you are blatantly trying to find places where the words suffering or persecution are being used in the Bible and then just automatically saying because the words are mentioned in the Bible, that must mean God is the author of these things in your life.

 

Nothing could be further from the Truth - YES, the Scripture is true, we WILL be persecuted (the word persecution literally means "pushing away", not violence (though it can take the form of violence), like it is often confused to mean), BUT: it doesn't say God is doing it! IT IS THE DEVIL WHO PERSECUTES. Jesus said I am come that they may have zoe (life), whereas the Thief (Satan) comes to steal, kill and destroy. So if something in your life is stealing/killing/destroying you - IT CANNOT BE GOD.

 

The persecution comes because why is Satan going to sit back and let you preach the Gospel and destroy his kingdom of darkness, and get everyone saved and prospering and healthy and working together for good, unified as one in Christ? We as Believers have the biggest targets on our backs. The SECOND you take a stand on ANYTHING in the Word of God (I mean the promises, because every promise is now yours personally (Gal 3:29)), the Devil comes to try to get you to let go of it (Mark 4, Luke 8, Matthew __?).

 

Bottom line: none of these bad things are from God, they are ALL from the Devil. Wise up and kick him out of your life! No one talked more about Satan than Jesus, by far. See what He told the Apostles about him in the letters of the New Covenant in those 40 days that He walked the Earth after He resurrected. The Devil is your problem, not God.

 

Again, you are arguing against something I didn't say. I never did say God causes suffering brother. I would say that God indeed does allow it. Suffering has it's source in both that we live in a fallen world and that we have an enemy who seeks to devour, kill, and destroy.

As to this in red... Question: Are you saying God doesn't allow suffering? If God doesn't allow suffering then is He not all-powerful?

The problem is we live in a sinful, fallen world. The Devil is one reason we do suffer. However, the Devil is not the only reason. I don't have a problem with God allowing suffering brother.

Again, good discussion.

God bless,

GE

[TheCurseOfTheRodain]

There is so much to respond to here; I haven't even finished the last one I said I was going to do, so that one first. This is in reference to Psalm 119:71, where the man in it says that it was good for him to be afflicted that he might learn God's statutes. However in verse 73, he says "Thy hands have made me and fashioned me: give me understanding, that I may learn thy commandments."

 

Now why doesn't he ask for affliction to learn God's commandments, if one insists that affliction is good (good in the sense that it is God's perfect will)? Why does he ask for understanding instead of affliction? Notice in verse 71 he did not ASK for affliction, but like so many Believers who get off the path and go into the world and start acting like the world until they open up some bad doors and get hurt, the affliction came upon him. In other words he is saying even though he was afflicted, he learned something good out of it. It is doesn't imply or define that God caused the affliction. HUGE difference. Especially because just 2 verses later he is ASKING for understanding in order to learn from God, not asking for affliction to learn...

 

And in keeping with being intellectually and logically consistent, if affliction is our teacher as you insist, then HOW did Jesus know everything about God and His Word? He was not afflicted until the cross as the Lamb of God, and that was of HIS own will, not of God's. He CHOSE that, the Father did not put it on Him and it was so that the Father's master plan of redemption for us could be fulfilled, and He was the only One who could do it, being the Second Adam. Surely God is nothing if not consistent, and if He uses affliction and suffering to teach us, then He would surely have done for His formerly only begotten Son; after all, He is the very blueprint for all Believers to be modeled after.

Yet, Jesus knew everything there was to know about the Father and His Word.

The reason He did is because He stood on God's Word only and spoke and acted in faith all the time, staying close to the Father; saying only what He heard Him say and doing only what He saw Him do. Suffering and affliction were never His teachers, ever.

 

Look at Isaiah 54 and see that they aren't our teachers either. Verse 9 says because of the New Covenant, God CANNOT EVER BE MAD AT US AGAIN. Ever. Because all sin has been paid for by Jesus (as listed a few verses above). Just below that it is written that fear, oppression and terror STAY FAR FROM US, BECAUSE we won't fear, and God says behold, they will surely gather together against you, BUT NOT OF ME. God says explicitly He is not sending this trash to you.

 

This is getting a little into your latest posts, but this overlap is necessary: God IS sovereign. He is an omnipotent, omnipresent, onmiscient One. BUT, as Sovereign Almighty God, He has placed Himself UNDER His Word. He has chosen in His sovereignty to obey ONLY His own Word and cannot EVER break it or do anything outside or in opposition to it.

Where could that be, you might ask?

Psalm 89:34 "My covenant will I not break, nor will I alter the Word that is gone out of My lips." So whatever He has said He will do in the New Covenant He is bound by His own Word to perform it, everytime without fail.

For those of you who think God is in control on the Earth, check this out as well, for it goes hand in hand, Psalm 115:16 "The heaven, even the heavens, are the Lord's: but the earth hath he given to the children of men."

So who runs the Earth? US. Not God.

Look further at Psalm 82:6 "I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the most High."

Psalm 8:5 For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels *(The word here that has been translated as "angel" is actually Elohim and ALWAYS means God Himself, so God has actually said to us, and He cannot lie, that we are only a little lower than Him), and hast crowned him with glory and honour"

 

These verses all show the immense privelege and responsibility that has been conferred upon us by Almighty God, and it all stands, according to His unbreakable Word.

 

So God is not the One sending affliction, sickness, disease or anything else bad to you, when He has already sworn in His Word that He won't do that. He CANNOT go against His own Word. He would have to cease to exist.

 

Now, I see you concede that while you think perhaps in light of all this that God is not the one sending you sufferings/afflictions/oppressions, etc, you think He allows it.

 

Now how He can allow it when He says in the Psalms that he who sees someone sinning and does not condemn it or speak up against it IS GUILTY OF THE SAME SIN? By Him allowing these things, or allowing Satan to bust us up with all kinds of junk He would be guilty of SIN.

And God is sinless and cannot be impugned with sin. So again, it cannot be possible to say God allows Satan to kill you/strike you with disease/sickness/steal from you/etc unless you agree with imputing sin to God. And of course no one can do that.

 

Therefore we are left with only ONE conclusion: it is the same answer God gave to Paul when asked God to shut down the devil in his life and God responded that His grace/favor is sufficient for him. Meaning, USE MY GRACE, it will get the job done! And then you see Paul talking to Timothy later about how out of ALL those things the Devil TRIED to afflict Paul with in Iconium, Lystra and (whatever the 3rd place is called), the Lord delivered him. Now if God didn't deliver him out of the Devil's afflictions, HOW did it get done? BECAUSE used what God had released to us by grace/favor at the cross through Jesus. (and no, it was not a sickness that was on Paul, the same verse says it was a spirit of the Devil - it was the spirit that stirred up all those people against him to persecute him in those 3 towns).  

 

Undoubtedly you will say but what about Job, didn't God say Satan could crush Job? No, you see the way the Devil got into Job's life was through what Job FEARED (Proverbs and Job himself speak many times about the things you fear coming upon you (vs what you hope for coming upon you (it's faith opens the door for God to act, fear opens the door for Satan to act))).  When Satan came up to God and was so mad about this Blessing Wall, this Hedge that up all around Job and everything he had and Satan said he couldn't touch him, God cannot lie and had to respond truthfully, simply explaining that Job had already let the wall down with his fear (through offering all the sacrifices for his children) (and his wife opened it further).

It's the same with when people are sold the lie about evolution and millions of years when God says to Job BEHOLD the Behemoth or consider the Leviathan; for God to say those things, Job has to be able to go physically look at them or else God would be unjust to command him to behold/consider them. The Behemoth was what (thanks to the term being coined in 1857) is considered a dinosaur today, or in the Hebrew, a dragon. Same with the Leviathan, and no it's not a crocodile - crocodiles don't breath fire and they are relatively easily caught; nothing like the description of what God says happens if you try to lay a hand on one or catch it. Dinosaurs and man DID co-exist - but that's another topic (there are dozens of other places where the word dragon is used, even fiery flying serpents...).