The Sufferings of This Present Time

     18 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.
     19 For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God.
     20 For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope
     21 that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.
 
When Adam and Eve had sinned against God, they were banished from paradise. In the curse that God gave upon Adam, He said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life. Thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field,” rather than the fruit of the trees of paradise Adam and Eve had previously enjoyed.
 
“By the sweat of your face, you shall eat your bread,” God said, “until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken. For you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”
 
God’s curse was not just on the serpent and upon Eve and upon Adam, but even upon the earth itself: “Thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you.” No matter the work that you put into the ground, the ground will not yield what you want it to yield easily. Genesis 3 doesn’t explicitly say that every created thing was put under a curse because of the sin of Adam, but that’s the implication—even through this mention of the ground.
 
Genesis 1 says God created man to “fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit.” He brought the animals to Adam to see what he would name them.
 
And this man of dust whom God had made in His image to have dominion over all of His creation and breathed life into him rebelled against God with that breath and with thankless heart. Man desecrated the image of God with his sin. And so everything God had given to the man to rule over would instead be against the man as a result.
 
Our sin is such an offense against the holy God who made us that it resulted in all of creation being sent into upheaval—from the smallest atom to the smallest planet at the edge of our solar system and even to the very end of the universe. “All of creation,” we read here in Romans 8:19, “waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation itself was subjected to futility.”
 
It is for us while we are in this life to suffer. As we heard in Romans 5, none of us can blame Adam, for we have all sinned as he has sinned, deserving worse than what we have received thus far. But as we have also heard in Romans, we are justified by His grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus to be received by faith. Therefore the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing to the glory that is ours in Christ.
 
As we look at this passage this morning, we will hear about the promise and hope of glory that far outweighs our present suffering. That’s what Paul states in verse 18: The promise of glory. Second, we are reminded of the plight of creation in verses 19-22. Third, the patience of believers in verses 23-25. That’s what we are going to get into next week.
 
I’m going to cut this off today at verse 21. So we’re going to conclude in the middle of a thought that we will pick up again next week. For now, we reflect upon the sufferings of this present time that we may long all the more for the glory that awaits.
 
I. The Promise of Glory (v.18)
 
Look again at verse 18: “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.” (First, recap.)
 
We do suffer—I think that goes without saying. And we will be delivered from this suffering. But we will be more than delivered. And for that reason, Paul says, it’s not even worth comparing the two. The glory that awaits us is so vastly beyond the suffering, we cannot grasp it by simply saying, “Today we suffer, but someday we won’t.”
 
What we will receive will be far greater than simply saying we won’t suffer anymore—though for some of you, that would be promise enough, right? Your body is in pain. Your heart is in grief. Your mind is in confusion. And who knows what it will be like from one day to the next.
 
If someone asks you, “How are you today,” and you’re not in as much anguish today as you were yesterday, that’s enough to make you say, “Today is a good day.” That’s not today you aren’t dealing with something—it’s just not as bad as it was the day before. So that makes today good. For you, the promise of no suffering would be enough for you to long for, even weep for heaven—for some relief from the hardships of this life.
 
But my friends, I have never stood here at this pulpit—which has been two years now at Providence—and merely assured you of a day when you won’t suffer anymore. If that’s all my message was, I’d be unqualified as a pastor. I’d not be aiming high enough. We will not merely not suffer. We will be glorified with the Son of God, Christ Jesus our Lord.
 
Remember that I said to you last week that as the adopted children of God, we have been made fellow heirs with Christ. We’re not just going to heaven—we gain heaven and earth. We will sit with Him on His throne (Revelation 3:21). As we heard from 1 John 3:2, “Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when He appears we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him as He is.” And from Philippians 3:21, “He will transform our lowly body to be like His glorious body, by the power that enables Him even to subject all things to Himself.” And that He will do for us—for all who believe in and glorify His name.
 
We love to hear the promise of Revelation 21:4. “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” What a beautiful promise. And that would be enough for you to believe in Jesus and long for heaven.
 
You may come as a beggar to His door and say, “My God, just let me sit here. Just let me curl up on your doormat if it means I don’t have to suffer anymore. I know I deserve worse. I deserve to be tossed into that place where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. That’s what I deserve because of my rebellion against you. But you would be so gracious to me to let me live just right here on heaven’s stoop, and people can step over me as they go in to dine with you, which I am unworthy to receive.”
 
But God gives us so, so much more than that. He has picked us off, cleaned us off, clothed us in new robes, and given you a certificate of promise that when you get to that door, you get the best seat at the table and the best foods forever. Yes, death will be no more. Yes, there won’t be any mourning nor crying nor pain. Why?
 
Because of what is said in the verse right before it: “I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be His people, and God Himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”
 
It’s because we will dwell with the holy God forever in His presence. That’s the great thing about heaven—not just because there will be an end to suffering, but because God is there. We have been reconciled to our Creator through the precious blood of Jesus Christ, who died on the cross for our sins. All who have believed in Him will not perish under the judgment that we all deserve, but have the promise of everlasting life with Him.
 
So do you see what Paul means when he says, “It’s not even worth comparing our present sufferings with the glory that is to be revealed to us”? In 2 Corinthians 5:1-10, we read:
 
"For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. 2 For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling, 3 if indeed by putting it on we may not be found naked. 4 For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened—not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. 5 He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee."

I remember my dad telling me (this turned out to be a Jonathan Edwards quote, but I always thought of it as wisdom from my dad) that for the Christian this life is the only hell we will ever know. But for the unbeliever, this life, no matter how easy or difficult it might be, is the only heaven they will ever know. How much should knowing this also compel us to share the gospel that others would come to faith in Jesus Christ and be promised eternal life in glory?
 
II. The Plight of Creation (v.19-22)
              
Consider again verses 19-22: “For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. 20 For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 22 For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now.”
 
I’ve mentioned this passage long before we ever got to it. You can probably feel all of creation groaning together every time you stand up after sitting too long. Have any of you ever gotten up after sitting too long, and you just let one of those groans—it’s like the groan of all groans, like all of creation is groaning with you because you feel the pain of your age in your joints when you make your muscles and bones do something they don’t want to do.
 
I've been taking my students through the book of Philippians this semester, and we just recently read Philippians 3:21. Christ will transform our lowly bodies to be like His glorious body by the power that enables Him to subject all things to Himself. How do you teach a bunch of high school students who largely think they're invincible about physical suffering we can do nothing to overcome?

On the day I was in that verse with the students, I had just been over to Dave and Cathy's to pray with them. Dave, if you don't know, has been in a wheelchair for most of his life. Cathy has Parkinson's and her memory is not what it used to be. Yet it's such a joy to visit with them and talk about this hopeful expectation of glory they both share. So I talked about them with my students; that their struggles, the suffering they experience in their bodies make them long all the more for heaven.

I also told them about Joni Eareckson Tada, evangelist and Bible teacher who had just turned 76. She's been paralyzed from the neck down ever since she was 17 years old. She is a Christ-filled believer and teaches about how much she looks forward to the day she will be with her Savior in a brand new body.
 
About this, she humbly said, “The first thing I plan to do on resurrected legs is to drop on grateful, glorified knees.”
 
Though all of my students are physically healthy, some of them have suffered in other ways. They have experienced a death in the family or a serious illness. Some come from broken homes. They’ve seen their dad not love their mom and go after another woman. They’ve seen how fallen this world can be. The hard part is teaching them how their suffering should cause them to look at Christ for deliverance and not get bitter about it.

Even when we see the bitterness and rage that happens in this world, wars and conflicts, from national skirmishes to the arguments that happen at home, even all of this is a testimony to creation’s groaning and a longing for deliverance, to be released from this curse that has come down on all that has been made.

Look at verse 20 again: "For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it." God is the one who put creation under a curse because of the sin of mankind. And there's nothing we can do to reverse course. Jesus said He is making all things new (Revelation 21:5). Man in his sin will never be able to undo what God has done. Ecclesiastes 7:13 says, "Consider the work of God: who can make straight what He has made crooked?"
 
Some have tried to relieve the effects of the curse or turn back the curse in a multitude of ways. People turn to substances to numb their pain or anxiety. The passions of the flesh they just give in to, trying to feel the best they can possibly feel, when faced with the unavoidable truth that life is hard and then it ends.

Some have tried to turn back the effects of the curse in political ways. Environmentalism or climate change alarmism is an attempt to undo the curse that God has put on creation, much to their dismay. Then there are those efforts to slow down aging. How can we stay young and beautiful? Since before Ponce De Leon, mankind has been on the search for that mythical fountain of youth. And then there are those attempts to defeat death itself. Inventors and programmers are trying to find a way we can download the human consciousness into a machine and live forever.
 
Whenever someone asks, “Why is there so much suffering and evil in the world?” Or when a skeptic asks, “Why would a good and loving God allow people to suffer so much?” The very questions themselves reveal an understanding, even an eager longing for perfection. The skeptics do believe there is a moral right and there is a moral wrong. They know the universe cannot function without such laws.
 
If they were being consistently logical, there can’t be moral right or wrong. Everything is meaningless, and we’re just cosmic star dust farting brain gas whenever we think. When the skeptic questions why God allows evil, his own logic self-destructs. I will come back to this question in a moment of why God allows evil, but let's finish up verse 21.

Again, verse 20 says, "For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope," and then verse 21 finishes the thought: "that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God."

I believe it was John MacArthur who said this, but he mentioned that when the last person whom God had foreordained for salvation from the beginning of the world comes to faith—when the last of God's elect hears the gospel and puts faith in Jesus Christ and comes into His kingdom—boom, it's over. Christ returns, judgment and wrath are poured out on the wicked, the righteous will enter into eternal life.

All of creation is anticipating that day. That's when the new heavens and the new earth will be completed and consummated. The effects of corruption on this world, subjected to futility because of sin, will be turned back. It will be over. The imperishable kingdom will be forever. It will never be subjected to futility again. Creation here personified longs for that day. May the love for that day be in your hearts, brethren.
 
Closing Thoughts

On social media, a Cleric posted the following haiku:

Now for the Christian
Nothing is coincidence
All is providence
              
A man from Canada named J. Smith responded and said, “All would include heinous crimes.”
 
The Cleric said, “It would, wouldn’t it? Romans 8:28 says, ‘And we know that for those who love God, all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose.’”
 
Mr. Smith retorted, “Could God have created a world without heinous crimes and still have accomplished what He wanted?”
 
The Cleric said, “That depends on what He wanted. If what He wanted was to “show His wrath and to make known His power” through “vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of His glory for vessels of mercy, which He has prepared beforehand for glory⁠” (Romans 9:22-23). [So if that is what God wanted to accomplish, then doesn’t it seem to you He’s doing that through both the good and the bad?]
 
Mr. Smith responded, “So God is limited in power as He could not produce a universe that didn’t involve rape? He could not show His wrath to lesser crimes, but had to make sure to include rape, as He is powerless to change the rules?”
 
The Cleric said, “How did you logically derive that this means God is limited in power? God is God. He can do whatever He wants, and He’s always just in doing it. We are not good, as your very question acknowledges—yet with more foolishness than Job, you see yourself fit to put God on trial for it, and you marvel in your wit. That you even thought this is so utterly blasphemous, you should be amazed that you even get another breath. So be thankful and tremble that He gives you anything at all.”
 
Then the Cleric referenced Psalm 115:1-3 which says, “Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to your name give glory, for the sake of your steadfast love and your faithfulness! “Why should the nations say, ‘Where is their God?’ Our God is in the heavens; He does all that He pleases.”
 
Mr. Smith said, “I am simply mirroring back to you what you are saying. You are saying God cannot change the rules, that he needed to include rape to carry out his will. If God is limited in not being able to change the rules then He is limited in power. It logically follows.”
 
The Cleric replied, “Did God include rape to carry out His will for you?”
 
Mr. Smith said, “Answer my question first.”
 
The Cleric patiently said, “You did not ask a question. I've asked the last two questions. If you're talking about the question you asked previously, I did answer it. So if it suits you, let me recap for you. You asked, ‘Could God have created a world without heinous crimes and still accomplished what he wanted?’ My response to you was that it depends on what He wanted.
 
“And then I showed you the Scripture as to what He wanted to do—to show the full range of His glory through vessels of wrath (these persons whom you acknowledge commit these heinous crimes and will receive God's judgment) so that He may show the riches of His glory to vessels of mercy (who are also not good, but God has chosen to show His mercy to them anyway and grant to them eternal joy): all of this part of the plan that God has foreordained.
 
“So if that's what God wanted, then He is not limited by anything. He is accomplishing exactly what He wanted to demonstrate: the full range of His glory to us pitiful creatures who are undeserving to receive anything from Him at all. Somehow that logically translates to you as ‘God is limited in power,’ which, if you were humble, should instead expose to you the futility of your own thinking. [You couldn’t even recognize that you didn’t ask a question.]”
 
The Cleric then added, “Sir, I have much to do [and you seem unwilling to answer my question]. So I will simply put forward to you to repent of your pride and humble yourself before God. Turn to Jesus Christ, God’s only Son, whom He gave as an atoning sacrifice to die for the sins that we deserve to die for. He rose from the dead that we might live. ‘Whoever believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life’ (John 3:16).
 
“Christ is such a perfect offering, and God is such a loving and merciful God, that if you will only put your faith and trust in Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins, God will not only take His wrath away from you (which you deserve for your impudence alone, setting aside any other sins you are surely guilty of), but He will make you new and grant you to live with Him forever in His eternal, perfect kingdom, though you've done nothing to deserve it.
 
“Continue to doubt and to question the Almighty God, Creator and judge over all things, and you will stand before Him one day, but not to ask your question. Your mouth will be silenced in the presence of this glory I've told you of, and you will perish in His judgment. I don't want that for you. So I hope you will think about these things, that God will be merciful to you, and you will turn to Jesus Christ, and live.”