I want to speak this morning on the subject of the origin of suffering, the origin of suffering. It's a question that comes up all the time, and it is something that you might be familiar with. The answer, and it's an answer we ought to really have down, because the Bible says the righteous studieth to answer. The righteous studieth to answer. Are you a righteous person? been made righteous by the blood of Jesus Christ and his imputation, then you should be studying to answer people's question. The question of suffering comes up so much, so much. I was just in a store and buying stuff at the hardware store for our work out at Countryside Baptist in Perrysburg, getting some supplies and guy implied what I was doing and I told him we bought a church up in countryside, or Perrysburg rather, that we're renovating and starting to build a congregation there and he just immediately went into why does God make all this suffering? Why is God letting all these children suffer? And it's just a question that is on the tip of so many people's tongues. Why is God letting us have all this suffering. Why does God make kids suffer? And he was talking about kids dying of this and that and the other. And I said, sir, you know something I studied once? I studied about cancer in children. And you can Google this. Any one of you can Google this, find out. And each of the sites has different answers, but they're kind of close. That children defined as zero to 20-year-olds. that's what they call children, zero years old newborns to 20 year olds, that one out of every 300, he's mentioning cancer, one out of every 300 sometime between zero and 20 years of age gets cancer. I said, sir, maybe what we should do is thank the Lord that 299 out of 300 in this sin-cursed world don't get cancer. Maybe we should raise our hands up and praise the Lord. And I was saying this right around the counter and all these people were listening. Great opportunity to witness. So maybe we all ought to praise our hands up and say, Lord, somehow in this wicked, vile, filthy, sin-cursed world, only one out of 300 gets cancer and most of them get healed. But Solomon said in the Proverbs, man's heart fretteth against the Lord. As I said, the human race is basically the blame God first club. It's kind of what the human race is. Let's blame God first and then try to figure it out. And so I want to talk about the origin of suffering and just a little sermon here, line upon line, precept upon precept. So let me get at it. A created cherubim named Lucifer became a self-created sinner. I want to speak today on the origin of suffering, line upon line. I've got seven lines here. Number one is this, and we're just going to build on each one of them. A created cherubim named Lucifer became a self-created sinner. God created angelic beings, an angelic host, and human beings. The angelic beings were basically in three groups even though they're all called angels. There was angels, cherubims, and seraphims. The angels are wingless, wingless, they don't have wings. The cherubims have two wings. The seraphims have six wings. And those in Isaiah 46, for instance, the seraphims that fly around God's holy throne in heaven, with two, they cover their face. With two, they cover their feet, showing modesty in the presence of God. And certainly if angels practice modesty, we should practice modesty too, as male and female, even if it's 95 degrees out. And with the other two wings, they fly around the throne of God and constantly pronounce, The holiness of God, holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty. Now in Revelation, when we get into the future and get to heaven, we're going to find out they're still there doing that in Revelation chapter 4. So what was 700 years before Christ in Isaiah 6, they're still doing in Revelation 4 sometime in the future. I think everybody in heaven understands God's greatest attribute is holiness, not love. holiness, because those angels never stop saying, holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty. Now one of his angelic beings that he made, and the angelic host is called numberless, nobody has the mental capacity to number them all, there's so many. One cherubim was named Lucifer. His origin is relayed to us here in verses 11 through 19, which I'd like to read kind of quickly here. And it tells us a lot about him. We all ought to study him because he has become our greatest enemy. And in any war, if you're going to win it, you better know your enemy. You better learn everything you can about him. It says, Moreover, the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Son of man, take up a lamentation upon the king of Tyrus, and say unto him, Thus saith the Lord, thou sealest up the sum, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty. And thou hast been in the Eden, the garden of God. Well, this is talking about Lucifer here. It's talking about Satan, the old serpent. Because there was only three beings in Eden ever. Who were they? Adam and Eve and the serpent, the snake, the one who is revealed in Revelation chapter 12 and verse 9 and Revelations 20 and verse 2 as Satan. So this is talking about Lucifer. Every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, the diamond, the beryl, the the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, the carbuncle, and gold, the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes, was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created." So we see that he was a musical being, an extremely ornamental being, unlike anyone else that God made. And that's why it says in verse number 12, thou sealest up the sum, or you're really it. You are the epitome of God's creation, the most beautiful creature God ever created. Thou art the anointed cherub, that's short for cherubim, that covereth the throne and protected the holiness of God as the seraphims do now. And I have set thee so, God put him in that place. Thou was upon the holy mountain of God with all the other angelic beings at the base of the mountain. Thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire. Thou was perfect in thy ways from the day that thou was created till iniquity was found in thee. By the multitude of thy merchandise, they have filled the midst of thee with violence, and thou hast sinned." There's the original sin. Sometimes people say, well, the original sin was Adam and Eve. No, here's the original sin. When Lucifer, who had been made so beautifully by God, sinned. Therefore, God says, I will cast thee out as profane out of the mountain of God, and I will destroy thee, O covering cherub, or cherubim, from the mount of the stones of fire. Why? Here is the original sin. Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty. That's called pride, when the heart is lifted up. And it was his beauty that triggered his pride. Be careful if you're beautiful, because you will be tempted to be proud. Be careful if you're rich. Be careful if you're athletic. Be careful if you're musical. Be careful if you're smart. Any one of these can be used to trigger that vile sin of pride in a person and make them think they're something when the Bible says we're all nothing. We're all nothing. You that are plain looking or whatever, we ought to just thank the Lord for it. We don't have that temptation. Thou hast lifted up because of thy beauty, thou hast corrupted thy wisdom. Now he was full of wisdom, verse number 12, so you and I are no match for him. Not only is he full of wisdom, he's been studying the human race for 6,000 years before you showed up, or before I showed up, and he knows how to get us to fall. He's an expert at it. We're no match for him. So be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might. Ask God for his strength and power. By reason of thy brightness I will cast thee to the ground, I will lay thee before kings that they may behold thee. Thou hast defiled thy sanctuaries by the multitude of thine iniquities. In other words, iniquity begets iniquity. Pride begets stubbornness and rebellion and all these other sins that attach to it. By the iniquity of thy traffic therefore will I bring forth a fire from the midst of thee and it shall devour thee. In other words, it just destroys you from the inside out. and I will bring thee to ashes upon the earth in the sight of all them that behold thee. All they that know thee among the people shall be astonished at thee. Thou shalt be a terror and never shalt thou be anymore. Boy, did you ever see a person who becomes so proud, so self-centered, they end up destroying themselves. They end up becoming a terror to themselves and to everybody else around them. It's usually a lonely life being proud. Satan was a self-created sinner, Lucifer. In fact, it says this in 1 John 3 in verse 8, he that committed sin is of the devil, for the devil sinneth from the beginning. That's your original sin. That's your first sin. The devil sinned. He sinned because God gave him a free will. God gave all of his angelic hosts free will and God gave all human beings free will. He did not make any of us like robots. That would bring him absolutely no pleasure if we were forced to worship him or serve him. It would bring God no pleasure. So he gave the angels a free will and the cherubims and seraphims. And so 1 John 3.8 says he was the original sinner. And he said to us, you are of the devil, the devil sinneth from the beginning. And so we've all become sinners too. But number two, Lucifer became a rebel at war with God. Number two, Lucifer became a rebel at war with God. His words are recorded for us in Isaiah chapter 14 and verse number 12. It says, How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning? How art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations? For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God, I will sit also among the mount of the congregation in the sides of the north, I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High. That's El Elyon, the Hebrew title for God. I'll be the most powerful one. Verse 15, yet thou shalt be brought down to hell to the sides thereof. So number two, Lucifer became a rebel at war with God, and you and I are just stuck in the middle. There is a huge war. People talk about conspiracies and agendas and all that, and some of that's true, but let me tell you what the real war is about. God over here and the devil over here, and you and I are stuck in the middle. And he is a rebel who is at war with God. Number three, God made a man and a woman and placed them in a perfect garden. God made a man and a woman and placed them in a perfect garden. This, of course, is back in Genesis 2. That should be easy for you to find. If you'd like to turn there, that's your second chapter in the Bible. Genesis 2 and verse number 8, and the Lord planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there he put the man whom he had formed. Verse 15, and the Lord took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat. But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat of it, for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. So notice by this that God now gives man a free will. There would be no free will if there was no choice. And so God planted one tree in the midst and God said, He took the man, He put him in there. He said, I want you to keep this. I want you to dress this garden, this garden of Eden. And you can partake of all the trees. They're all good for food. They're all pleasant to the eyes, verse nine. And the tree of life was in there, but also the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And thus man was given a free will. by the planting of that one tree, where man could obey God, keep his word, live forever, or disobey God and partake of that one tree God commanded him not to eat of. Man now has a free will. And there would be no free will if there was no choice. And so God gave man a choice. And of course, Eve came along and started living with him. So number three, God made a man and a woman and placed them in a perfect garden. Number four, God placed a tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the garden to give man a free will. Now here's something very important for the end of the message. The word Eden means pleasure. That's what the word Eden means. It means pleasure. When God made a garden and he called it Eden and he put Adam in it and then made Eve and put her in it, that means literally the garden of pleasure. Okay, now remember that for your answer when somebody says to you, why does God make us do all this suffering? Say, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. God made a garden of pleasure for man. That's what God did for us. All right, get some answers. It's a garden of pleasure. Sometimes the word is translated delights. The same Hebrew word is translated delights. In 2 Samuel 1 and verse 24, for instance, it says this, you daughters of Israel weep over Saul who clothed you in scarlet with other delights. who put on ornaments of gold upon your apparel. So in other words, when King Saul went out and won wars and made conquests of other countries and slew them, they would gather up all these delights from the enemy and come back and give them to the women. It's like women going shopping. That's fun, isn't it? Sometimes the word Eden The Hebrew word means delights, delights. In Psalm 36 and verse number 8, the word Eden is translated pleasures. Psalms 36 verse 8 says this, they shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of thy house and thou shalt make them drink of the river of thy pleasures. Pleasures so you got to remember that okay, okay? Learn something today the word Eden the very first place ever on earth that had a name assigned to it means pleasure Tell them tell people that Educate them let the Holy Spirit Speak through you, and they'll say oh, okay. Well. God sounds like he's pretty maybe maybe once They'll have for once in their life. I thought hey God sounds pretty nice and He made us a garden of pleasures, a garden of delights and he put man in there and his wife and said, take care of it and till it and it's all yours, enjoy it all. But that one tree, I have to have that there so you can honestly have a free will. Just don't eat it. And so number five, Lucifer tempted Adam and Eve to take of the fruit of that tree. We have that temptation here recorded in chapter three of Genesis. Verse one, now the serpent was more subtle. He's no longer called Lucifer, now he's called the serpent. And of course the serpent is defined for us later very, very clearly. I'm glad God did this in Revelation 12 and verse nine. And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent called the devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world. He was cast out into the earth, and His angels, that's what we now call demons, were cast out with Him. Revelation 20 and verse 2, And He laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the devil and Satan, and bound him a thousand years. So now we know who this is here in verse 1. Now the serpent was more subtle. Then any beast of the field which the Lord had made, and he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden, but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. And the serpent said unto the woman, You shall not surely die, for God doth know that in the day you eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and you shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. Wow, that's quite a temptation. People still fall for that today. How can you be your own god? You can determine for yourself what's good and evil. You don't have to listen to God. You don't have to listen to the Bible, that preacher, let somebody tell you how to act or behave. You can do what you want. with your time, your money, your talents, anything, or just go ahead and do what you want. He still says the same thing, nothing new, nothing new, same temptation, still gets people with it. Oh wow, I can be my own God. And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, a tree to be desired, to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof and did eat, and gave it unto her husband, with her and he did eat." So here we see the first disobedience to the commandment, the law of God. Now what is sin? Sin is defined in 1st John 3 and verse 4. Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law for sin is the transgression of the law. When God says a law and somebody transgresses that law, or a simpler word, breaks that law, that is sin. That is sin, transgression, being a transgressor is sin, breaking the law of God. Here Eve breaks the law of God, the very law she just quoted to Lucifer, to the serpent. She just quoted it. She just said, now God told us. in verse 3, you shall not eat of it, neither shall you touch it lest you die. I mean, she knew God's Word, but she was deceived. We learn that in the book of 1st Timothy. She was deceived. Adam was not deceived and was in the transgression. She was also considered a transgressor. But in other words, Lucifer faked her out. While she was listening to the serpent, He was saying in verse 4, you shall surely die. You shall not surely die. And he's thinking, boy, he's the first one that ever said that. God said you will. My husband said you will. Now he says you won't. Hmm. And so she started probably thinking, who's telling me the truth here? And the woman, she begins to look over this situation. Verse 6, she sees this tree is good for food. Man, I'll bet you that tree tastes good, pleasant to the eyes. Tree to be desired somehow, We have no explanation how, supernatural or something. She thinks, if I eat this fruit, I'm gonna get smarter. It's desire to make one wise. And so she eats it and then her husband takes it from her and he does eat. And we have here the first sin, the first sin. And number six, of their own free will, Adam and Eve chose to rebel against God. of their own free will. Yeah, they were tempted just like you are, but you still have a free will. You and I still have a free will even when we're tempted. And James said it this way in James chapter 1, blessed is the man that endureth temptation, verse 12, for when he has tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him. Let no man say when he is tempted, verse 13, I am tempted of God. For God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth He any man. But every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust and enticed. She sees that tree, she says, wow. And she sees what we later would describe as the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes. She said the fruit looks good. Lust of the flesh, I bet you it tastes good. Pride of life, I can be wise, me, me, me. I, I, I, all about me. And then she's enticed. Verse 14, but every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin, and sin when it is finished bringeth forth death. Do not err, my beloved brethren. So we see the progression of temptation, to enticement, to participation, to the sentence of death. And we see it has nothing to do with God. Let no man say when he's tempted, I am tempted of God. God's never tempted with evil. He never tempts anyone with evil. So man was sentenced to death, number seven, and the earth was cursed by God as a judgment. Number six, of his own free will, Adam and Eve chose to rebel against God. In verse six of Genesis three, it says these words. And when the woman saw that the tree was good, here's the lust, the flesh, the eyes, and the pride of life in verse six, now verse seven, and the eyes of them were open, not in a good way, but their eyes were open to evil now for the first time, and they knew they were naked, And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons. And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day. And Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord amongst the trees of the garden." Man, something is wrong now. That wonderful God who created a garden of pleasure now is hidden from. They're afraid of Him. They're afraid to face Him. God understands that and says, Adam, where art thou? Verse 10, and he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked, and I did hid myself, and I hid myself. And he said, who told thee that thou wast naked? Now that's, God knows everything, there's only one other person there, the serpent. Hast thou eaten of the tree whereof I command thee that thou shouldest not eat? And the man said, the woman whom thou gavest me to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat. And the Lord God said to the woman, what is it that thou hast done? And the woman said, the serpent beguiled me and I did eat. So here's all the blame shifting, okay? Here's all the blame shifting. Starts in verse 12. The woman whom thou gavest to me to be with me, she gave to me the tree and I did eat. It's her fault. And the Lord said unto the woman, what is this that thou hast done? And now she's gonna pass the blame on the devil. You know, flip Wilson trick. Some of you know what I'm talking about. You just gave away your age. And the woman said, the serpent beguiled me and I did eat. The devil made me do it. Blame shifting. God didn't buy any of this. He didn't buy any of the excuses. And He never will. And so here comes the judgments. Here comes the sufferings. And the Lord God said unto the serpent, He judges the serpent first. Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle. And above every beast of the field upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life. And I will put enmity, and here's a prophecy if you really dig into it, I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed, and if you follow the genealogy of Jesus Christ it goes back to Adam and Eve. And there's going to be enmity, or as I said earlier in the sermon, there's going to be war between God and Satan. And that war is going to be between Satan and the seed of the woman, which is Jesus Christ. It, that is the seed of the woman, Jesus Christ, is going to bruise your head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. You're going to cause Christ some pain, but Christ's suffering is going to be nothing compared to the suffering Satan's going to face, where it's going to destroy the head of the serpent. If you've ever grown up on a farm, some of you have, you whack a serpent on the head and see what happens to it. It looks more alive than it ever has before, but it's dying. You crush a serpent's head and just watch it for a while. It starts flipping around, man, it looks more alive than it ever, but it's dying. And you know something, Satan looks more alive today than he's ever looked before. But Jesus crushed his head on the cross. He's dying, and Jesus is gonna win. Jesus is wounded, yeah, we'll see his wounds someday. Amen? He bruised his heel. But that old serpent's dying, but he looks more alive than ever. And we'll talk about that tonight. And so judgment on the serpent, verses 14 and 15. Judgment on the woman. Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception in sorrow. Thou shalt bring forth children, and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee. So we see sorrow twice in verse number 16. Adam's got some sorrow too, verse 17. Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it, curse it as the ground for thy sake in sorrow. shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life. Thorns and thistles shall it bring forth to thee, and thou shalt eat the herb of the field. In the sweat of thy face thou shalt eat bread, till thou return unto the ground, for out of it was thou taken. From dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return." And so we see the serpent is judged, the woman is judged, the man, Adam, is judged. Why? Because God is a just judge. And a just judge must punish the guilty. Doesn't want to. If I was a judge in town, I'd have a hard time, because I don't like trying to mete out punishment to anybody. I hated spanking my kids. I hated it. That was the one thing about being a dad I couldn't stand, was spanking my kids. But I did it because it was biblical, scriptural. And as an act of faith in God, I spanked my kids. I said, Lord, I don't understand this. I don't understand how it works. I don't want to do this. but I spanked my kids. I did it consistently. My wife did it consistently. It helped. God's plan. God's a just judge. He doesn't want to punish anybody. There is no pleasure in the death of the wicked, the scripture says. No pleasure. But he's just. And a judge in town that keeps letting guilty people go free is not a just judge. We would demand, wouldn't we, that we have a new judge. if the judge just kept letting people go free. They were guilty. No, we want judges to judge the guilty. We want that. And God had to judge. And so we see sorrow and the curse. We see the earth cursed. Thorns, thistles, weeds. Animals are cursed. They die. They've gone crazy. Animals have gone crazy. They have. The animal world, the animal world is crazy. I mean, if you go into the woods, carry a bat with you. or something, I'm serious, take a cane or something with you, you never know what you're gonna face. I stopped to talk to a red fox down here on Hemlock this morning. What are you doing? He just turned around, stared at me. But you never know, it's crazy, it's a cursed world. It's gonna all flip someday though, amen? And the animals are all gonna be peaceful, the little baby's gonna be playing with lions, riding on their backs through the millennium, having a good time, Man was sentenced to death and the earth was cursed by God as a judgment, but what produced the suffering that the formula is this, Satan plus selfishness plus sin equals suffering. And you gotta know this answer to explain this to people because this is on the tip of their tongues all the time. This is why Darwin started evolution. He said, I didn't mean to speak atheistically. He says, there's just so much suffering in this world. I can't reconcile all the suffering I see with a loving God. And Darwin blamed God and so he launched into writing some, there must be some explanation for this elaborate creation that there can't be a God. That's what he said. He said, I didn't mean to speak atheistically, but there's just so much suffering. This is one of the big questions in this world, and you and I have the answer. The answer is God planted a garden of Eden, a garden of pleasure for us. And someday, hallelujah, paradise will be restored. Praise God. Thou wilt show me the path of life. In thy presence is fullness of joy. At thy right hand are pleasures forevermore. Psalm 16, 11. What does pleasures forevermore mean? I don't know. But boy, that sounds good. At thy right hand, that's where Jesus is. There's pleasures forevermore. And the book ends with paradise restored, all because of Jesus Christ, who died for us to save us so we would not have to be judged, and we would not suffer and end up in hell forever, but we could be in heaven. And as he talks about that new paradise, he says in Revelation 21, verse 4, and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes. And there shall be no more death, neither sorrow. Remember the sorrow, Eve's sorrow? Remember Adam's sorrow? Neither sorrow nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain, for the former things are passed away. You know, I think that guy down in North Collins is thinking. I think he's thinking, I shared these things with him. The origin of suffering is Satan. The origin of suffering is selfishness. You want to suffer, be selfish. You want to wreck everything in your life, just be selfish. Go ahead. You'll suffer. Just go ahead. Be a self-centered, proud man or woman. You'll wreck everything before you're done. Just be selfish. Sin is what causes suffering, not God. Not God. God has a lot of pleasure planned for us. And someday there's going to be no more pain, suffering, or sorrow in these little kids that do get sick. And they do. That's real. And accidents happen. And people die. Our mortality rate is still 100%, by the way. The human race, OK, your mortality rate is still 100%. Now, the COVID virus is less than 1%, far less. But it's a real thing. Some people get violently ill from that thing. Really. Some people die. Some people die of COVID. Some people die with COVID. But it's very, very small compared to the virus that has infected your soul, which is called sin. We're all going to suffer and die because of that. But, boy, God's got some pleasure playing for us, and that's going to last forever. But you need to be saved. So know these answers. It's going to come up. Somebody's going to just blurt it out because it's on the tip of their tongue, because it's in their heart, because out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. Why does God, why, why God? And they may use some choice words with it. And you can say, wait a minute, God made a garden for us. A garden of Eden. A garden of pleasure. But Satan wrecked it. Man wrecked it. Selfishness wrecked it. Sin wrecked it. were the ones that brought the suffering. And it's just compounded now with so many sinners on earth. Everything is corrupted. The gene pool is corrupted. People are born with diseases and infirmities and deformities and all kinds of things as we go on. But it's not God's fault. Let us pray as we bow our heads and close our eyes for prayer. Heavenly Father, Help us to never be amongst that group that blames you for this. Because you had a paradise for us, a garden of pleasure, and you have one for us in the future if we'll just accept your son Jesus Christ as our Savior and believe in him. And Lord, I think maybe we can win some of these people over. I pray for that man. I pray for the people at the counter who went silent and started listening. God bless that seed. Help us to have answers. And the next time somebody blurts that out, help us to stand and be men and women of backbone and say, wait a minute, there's a good God in heaven who made a garden for us. We wrecked it. Satan wrecked it, not God. And Lord, I want to pray that everybody here would accept Jesus as their Savior. If they have not, they don't have any hope. They're lost. Now bless us, Lord, as we dismiss and reassemble tonight. Thank you, Lord, for your precious word and the answers it gives us. In Jesus' name, amen.