Objection: Pain is God’s Megaphone to Raise a Deaf World

The fact that a famous and beloved Christian author said this does not mean it’s true.  Does God use what the Bible attributes to Satan to get people’s attention?  Is GOD now the source of our pains because He wants to get our attention?

That would be unlike God.  His usual way of dealing with humanity is to give His Word and expect you to heed it.  If you don’t heed it, you suffer the consequences, but God doesn’t send pain to get in your way of making wrong choices.

If this absurd statement were true, everyone who is in pain right now should be paying close attention to God’s words because God got his attention through His megaphone.  You know full well that’s not so.  If anything, sinners in pain are more likely to curse God for “allowing” the pain to happen to them.

If this absurd statement were true, a Christian who loves God and tries to serve Him wholeheartedly would never experience pain because He would not need God’s megaphone to raise him out of his deafness.  Were Paul’s pains God’s attempt to get his attention because he wasn’t walking closely enough to get any revelations?  No, Paul’s pains were the results of persecution, and God did not send those pains – man inflicted them.

Perhaps some, like David, got afflicted and wised up, realizing that following God’s ways were better after all.  But to say that pain is God’s attention-getting method contradicts what Jesus said.  Jesus said that when the Holy Spirit came (which He did), He would “reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment,” in particular the sin of not knowing Jesus (John 16:8-9).  So God does not send PAIN to get people’s attention in the Church Age; He already sent the Holy Spirit.  Those with ears to hear Him will hear Him, and the others can just remain ignorant (1 Corinthians 14:38).