Training Evangelists at Bethsaida

148:6.1It was this same evening at Beth­saida that John also asked Je­sus why so many ap­par­ently in­no­cent peo­ple suf­fered from so many dis­eases and ex­pe­ri­enced so many af­flic­tions. In an­swer­ing John’s ques­tions, among many other things, the Mas­ter said:

148:6.2“My son, you do not com­pre­hend the mean­ing of ad­ver­sity or the mis­sion of suf­fer­ing. Have you not read that mas­ter­piece of Semitic lit­er­a­ture—the Scrip­ture story of the af­flic­tions of Job? Do you not re­call how this won­der­ful para­ble be­gins with the recital of the ma­te­rial pros­per­ity of the Lord’s ser­vant? You well re­mem­ber that Job was blessed with chil­dren, wealth, dig­nity, po­si­tion, health, and ev­ery­thing else which men value in this tem­po­ral life. Ac­cord­ing to the time-hon­ored teach­ings of the chil­dren of Abra­ham such ma­te­rial pros­per­ity was all-suf­fi­cient ev­i­dence of di­vine fa­vor. But such ma­te­rial pos­ses­sions and such tem­po­ral pros­per­ity do not in­di­cate God’s fa­vor. My Fa­ther in heaven loves the poor just as much as the rich; he is no re­specter of per­sons.

148:6.3“Al­though trans­gres­sion of di­vine law is sooner or later fol­lowed by the har­vest of pun­ish­ment, while men cer­tainly even­tu­ally do reap what they sow, still you should know that hu­man suf­fer­ing is not al­ways a pun­ish­ment for an­te­ced­ent sin. Both Job and his friends failed to find the true an­swer for their per­plex­i­ties. And with the light you now en­joy you would hardly as­sign to ei­ther Sa­tan or God the parts they play in this unique para­ble. While Job did not, through suf­fer­ing, find the res­o­lu­tion of his in­tel­lec­tual trou­bles or the so­lu­tion of his phil­o­soph­i­cal dif­fi­cul­ties, he did achieve great vic­to­ries; even in the very face of the break­down of his the­o­log­i­cal de­fenses he as­cended to those spir­i­tual heights where he could sin­cerely say, ‘I ab­hor my­self’; then was there granted him the sal­va­tion of a vi­sion of God. So even through mis­un­der­stood suf­fer­ing, Job as­cended to the super­hu­man plane of moral un­der­stand­ing and spir­i­tual in­sight. When the suf­fer­ing ser­vant ob­tains a vi­sion of God, there fol­lows a soul peace which passes all hu­man un­der­stand­ing.

148:6.4“The first of Job’s friends, Elip­haz, ex­horted the suf­ferer to ex­hibit in his af­flic­tions the same for­ti­tude he had pre­scribed for oth­ers dur­ing the days of his pros­per­ity. Said this false com­forter: ‘Trust in your re­li­gion, Job; re­mem­ber that it is the wicked and not the righ­teous who suf­fer. You must de­serve this pun­ish­ment, else you would not be af­flicted. You well know that no man can be righ­teous in God’s sight. You know that the wicked never re­ally pros­per. Any­way, man seems pre­des­tined to trou­ble, and per­haps the Lord is only chastis­ing you for your own good.’ No won­der poor Job failed to get much com­fort from such an in­ter­pre­ta­tion of the prob­lem of hu­man suf­fer­ing.

148:6.5“But the coun­sel of his sec­ond friend, Bil­dad, was even more de­press­ing, not­with­stand­ing its sound­ness from the stand­point of the then ac­cepted the­ol­ogy. Said Bil­dad: ‘God can­not be un­just. Your chil­dren must have been sin­ners since they per­ished; you must be in er­ror, else you would not be so af­flicted. And if you are re­ally righ­teous, God will cer­tainly de­liver you from your af­flic­tions. You should learn from the his­tory of God’s deal­ings with man that the Al­mighty de­stroys only the wicked.’

148:6.6“And then you re­mem­ber how Job replied to his friends, say­ing: ‘I well know that God does not hear my cry for help. How can God be just and at the same time so ut­terly dis­re­gard my in­no­cence? I am learn­ing that I can get no sat­is­fac­tion from ap­peal­ing to the Al­mighty. Can­not you dis­cern that God tol­er­ates the per­se­cu­tion of the good by the wicked? And since man is so weak, what chance has he for con­sid­er­a­tion at the hands of an om­nipo­tent God? God has made me as I am, and when he thus turns upon me, I am de­fense­less. And why did God ever cre­ate me just to suf­fer in this mis­er­able fash­ion?’

148:6.7“And who can chal­lenge the at­ti­tude of Job in view of the coun­sel of his friends and the er­ro­neous ideas of God which oc­cu­pied his own mind? Do you not see that Job longed for a hu­man God, that he hun­gered to com­mune with a di­vine Be­ing who knows man’s mor­tal es­tate and un­der­stands that the just must of­ten suf­fer in in­no­cence as a part of this first life of the long Par­a­dise as­cent? Where­fore has the Son of Man come forth from the Fa­ther to live such a life in the flesh that he will be able to com­fort and suc­cor all those who must hence­forth be called upon to en­dure the af­flic­tions of Job.

148:6.8“Job’s third friend, Zophar, then spoke still less com­fort­ing words when he said: ‘You are fool­ish to claim to be righ­teous, see­ing that you are thus af­flicted. But I ad­mit that it is im­pos­si­ble to com­pre­hend God’s ways. Per­haps there is some hid­den pur­pose in all your mis­eries.’ And when Job had lis­tened to all three of his friends, he ap­pealed di­rectly to God for help, plead­ing the fact that ‘man, born of woman, is few of days and full of trou­ble.’

148:6.9“Then be­gan the sec­ond ses­sion with his friends. Elip­haz grew more stern, ac­cus­ing, and sar­cas­tic. Bil­dad be­came in­dig­nant at Job’s con­tempt for his friends. Zophar re­it­er­ated his melan­choly ad­vice. Job by this time had be­come dis­gusted with his friends and ap­pealed again to God, and now he ap­pealed to a just God against the God of in­jus­tice em­bod­ied in the phi­los­o­phy of his friends and en­shrined even in his own re­li­gious at­ti­tude. Next Job took refuge in the con­so­la­tion of a fu­ture life in which the in­equities of mor­tal ex­is­tence may be more justly rec­ti­fied. Fail­ure to re­ceive help from man drives Job to God. Then en­sues the great strug­gle in his heart be­tween faith and doubt. Fi­nally, the hu­man suf­ferer be­gins to see the light of life; his tor­tured soul as­cends to new heights of hope and cour­age; he may suf­fer on and even die, but his en­light­ened soul now ut­ters that cry of tri­umph, ‘My Vin­di­ca­tor lives!’

148:6.10“Job was al­to­gether right when he chal­lenged the doc­trine that God af­flicts chil­dren in or­der to pun­ish their par­ents. Job was ever ready to ad­mit that God is righ­teous, but he longed for some soul-sat­is­fy­ing rev­e­la­tion of the per­sonal char­ac­ter of the Eter­nal. And that is our mis­sion on earth. No more shall suf­fer­ing mor­tals be de­nied the com­fort of know­ing the love of God and un­der­stand­ing the mercy of the Fa­ther in heaven. While the speech of God spo­ken from the whirl­wind was a ma­jes­tic con­cept for the day of its ut­ter­ance, you have al­ready learned that the Fa­ther does not thus re­veal him­self, but rather that he speaks within the hu­man heart as a still, small voice, say­ing, ‘This is the way; walk therein.’ Do you not com­pre­hend that God dwells within you, that he has be­come what you are that he may make you what he is!”

148:6.11Then Je­sus made this fi­nal state­ment: “The Fa­ther in heaven does not will­ingly af­flict the chil­dren of men. Man suf­fers, first, from the ac­ci­dents of time and the im­per­fec­tions of the evil of an im­ma­ture phys­i­cal ex­is­tence. Next, he suf­fers the in­ex­orable con­se­quences of sin—the trans­gres­sion of the laws of life and light. And fi­nally, man reaps the har­vest of his own in­iq­ui­tous per­sis­tence in re­bel­lion against the righ­teous rule of heaven on earth. But man’s mis­eries are not a per­sonal vis­i­ta­tion of di­vine judg­ment. Man can, and will, do much to lessen his tem­po­ral suf­fer­ings. But once and for all be de­liv­ered from the su­per­sti­tion that God af­flicts man at the be­hest of the evil one. Study the Book of Job just to dis­cover how many wrong ideas of God even good men may hon­estly en­ter­tain; and then note how even the painfully af­flicted Job found the God of com­fort and sal­va­tion in spite of such er­ro­neous teach­ings. At last his faith pierced the clouds of suf­fer­ing to dis­cern the light of life pour­ing forth from the Fa­ther as heal­ing mercy and ev­er­last­ing righ­teous­ness.”

148:6.12John pon­dered these say­ings in his heart for many days. His en­tire af­ter­life was markedly changed as a re­sult of this con­ver­sa­tion with the Mas­ter in the gar­den, and he did much, in later times, to cause the other apos­tles to change their view­points re­gard­ing the source, na­ture, and pur­pose of com­mon­place hu­man af­flic­tions. But John never spoke of this con­fer­ence un­til af­ter the Mas­ter had de­parted.