Why Do Bad Things Happen To Good People?

PERTINENT VERSES TO PONDER:

"As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good..." (Gen. 50:20, ESV).  
"But those who suffer he delivers in their suffering; he speaks [gets their attention] to them in their affliction" (Job 36:15, NIV). 

"God left him, to try him, that he might know all that is in his heart," (cf. 2 Chon. 32:31) 
"[F]or he does not willingly afflict or grieve the children of men" (Lam. 3:33, ESV).
"I create the light and make the darkness.  I send good times and bad times..." (Isa. 45:7, NLT).
"But he knows the way that I take; when he has tested me, I will come forth as gold" (Job 23:10).  
"... Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?" (Job 2:10, NIV).  

"He speaks to them in their affliction." (cf. Job 36:15, NIV).
"Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver, I have tried you in the furnace of affliction" (Isa. 48:10,  ESV).  
"... 'We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God'..." (Acts 14:22, NIV). 
"... But if we are to share his glory, we must also share his suffering" Romans 8:17, NLT).
"And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose" (Rom. 8:28, NIV).  
"Who best can suffer, best can do."  --John Milton

Rabbi Harold Kushner wrote the book, Why Do Bad Things Happen to Good People?  Note:  There are many quick answers:  There are no good people!  In the book Robinson Crusoe Friday asks why evil isn't destroyed:  "What about you?" Robinson replies.  And so why do good things happen to bad people?  What is good and what is bad then, if there is no God?   When we call something good or evil, we are referring to some standard or Supreme Good, which was seen as God by Plato.  Ponder not about debating good but wondering where the idea of goodness came from, if not God?

In short, God is love, but we must see the big picture of what God is doing for His glory and also not forget that God is one of justice, wrath, vengeance, vindication, and judgment.  God will surely fulfill all His attributes.   Also, justice delayed is not justice denied!  We see no justice, but God lives in eternity and sees the big picture.  When we say that it's not fair for innocent people to suffer, how we do know of their innocence?  And if God were to eliminate all evil in the world, what about the evil in us--Jesus said that only God is good!  We must have faith that God is working for the greater good and short-run evil will result in long-range good.  Likewise, we must praise God for the opportunity to do good when we see evil.  Instead of asking where God is, we must realize where the devil is!

The point is that we only see good in light of evil and evil is not God's fault!  God didn't create evil, but only the possibility of evil, which was necessitated because of free will!  This would make no sense if no one turned evil and rebelled against God; therefore, evil exists and must be reckoned with and judged.  Remember, Adam and Eve ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and they come as a package: we can distinguish them and separate them, but evil exists only as a parasite on good.  If mankind had no choice of good or evil, there would be no love or hate in the world; we'd be robots, puppets, automatons, or animals with no free will or opportunity to know and love God.  Don't break faith because we all have to pay our dues.  God simply couldn't create a world of free people who have a chance to obey Him and then have none disobey or do evil!

We talk of injustice, intolerance, inequity, et cetera.  How could there be injustice without justice?  If there were no good, there could exist no evil!  Mankind was created good and went terribly bad, even Satan was once good!  But, fortunately, God is able to turn evil into good and His glory and wisdom will be shown in the end.  Most people just object to evil when it happens to them, but don't realize they are part of the problem too if they don't know God.  The point is that God sends good in envelopes of affliction to make us grow in our faith.  In the final analysis, we ought to celebrate the opportunity to see good in light of evil and to turn evil into good and to have the opportunity to do good when evil seems so certain and unavoidable to everyone to some degree--no one goes through life trouble-free.

Jesus learned obedience by what He suffered (cf Heb. 5:8) and didn't exempt Himself from suffering, nor guarantee we would lead a life in a bed of roses or in a rose garden.  "Jesus was honest enough to tell us we'd have tribulations" and that life was a test of our faith.  Would you believe in a Savior who wasn't sympathetic to suffering and had experienced none first-hand?  But God is the great Sufferer and when we break God's laws, we break God's heart.  When bad things happen, people act differently: some become bitter, some better!

Therefore, it is by adversity in life that we build character and learn the lessons of life to become mature.  And the existence of Satan, evil, sin, death, and adversity is not an argument against God, but for Him.  The ultimate question should not be:  "If there is a God why is there evil?" but the opposite:  "If there is no God, why is there so much good?" God is able to make "the wrath of man to praise Him" (cf. Psa. 76:10).

Faith is a choice and we must decide between good and evil. If faith were easy, it wouldn't be worth anything!  There is no easy answer to the existence of suffering, but it's just as likely to produce sincere faith as to destroy insincere faith; in a way, it's a litmus test!   There is no smoking gun evidence for or against God, so it takes faith both ways.  It isn't a matter of faith versus reason, but faith versus faith--which set of presuppositions you want to accept;  Faith in man and science, or God and His Word as the revelation.  Most people don't have enough faith to be atheists!

We must decide to believe and be willing to do God's will for our eyes to be opened to the truth.  God will authenticate Himself to us if we are willing.  God will not force someone to believe against their will, though He can make them willing (a paradox).  Faith can only be valid and of value, if it's difficult to attain!  That's because God is all-powerful or omnipotent and can overpower someone's will and make the unwilling willing--no one can reject His will (cf. Jer. 20:7; Rom. 9:19).

In sum, upon salvation, we enroll in the school of suffering, which is a given, and we must celebrate it as a red badge of courage that gives us braggadocio as it were and the right to say, "Been there, done that!"--this is Reality 101 and no one escapes it! God owes us no explanations:  "He is too deep to explain Himself, too kind to be cruel, and too wise to make a mistake!"  We answer to God not the other way around!  We are not to second-guess God: John Wycliffe tenet says, "All things come to pass of necessity."  We ought not get a martyr's complex, thinking the more we suffer, the more holy we are, but everyone is called to go through the school of hard knocks at times.

God knows that in our affliction, we will seek Him (cf. Hosea 5:15) and we should know that He gets our attention by affliction (cf. Job 36:15).   "People are born for trouble as sure as the spark flies upward" (cf. Job 5:7, NLT).  In the final analysis, one must acknowledge the fact that there are no easy answers as God didn't even explain Himself to Job.  God is too deep to explain Himself, too kind to be cruel, and to wise to be wrong or mistaken.  No religion, philosophy, or faith has the complete answer!  Soli Deo Gloria!

The Methodology Of Prayer...

"We both have access to the Father through Christ by one Spirit" (Eph. 2:18, CEV). 
"But when you pray, go into your private room, shut your door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you" (Matt. 6:6, HCSB). 
"... 'I assure you: Anything you ask the Father in My name, He will give you'" (John 16:25, HCSB).  
"When ye pray, say, our Father" (Luke 11:2, KJV).  

In the spirit of the Reformation:  "I dissent, I disagree, I protest!"  We are not captive to church dogma and each of us has a right to interpret Scripture.  

NB:   We all should pray as if it all depends on God, but work like it depends on us!  Both Arminian and Calvinist would concur.  

Christians have the prerogative to pray in Christ's name, using His authority, to access the throne room of the Father (cf. Heb. 4:16), and boldly in the Spirit at that!  Most Christians are timid in their prayers and don't pray like sons but like servants!  Jesus told us to pray like this when praying corporately as His body:  "Our Father in heaven..."  Jesus had the audacity to claim God as His unique Father, even though Jews had considered themselves children of God, this was a bold assertion to claim.  It seemed He was making Himself equal to God, calling God His Father.

"And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, 'Abba, Father!' So you are no longer a slave but a son and if a son, then an heir through God" (Gal. 4:6, HCSB).  We need to lay hold of our divine privilege as a child of God and enjoy the right to access God's dimension in the third heaven.  "The argument from silence in that the Bible doesn't forbid praying to Jesus is flimsy and flakey at best and almost anything could be proved with such dialectic.  It should be plain that we ought to pay due respects to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, giving Him due honor to whom honor is due as we engage the potential of the full Godhead.

The only biblical template for prayer is the Lord's prayer despite its over-familiarity, it is not meant to be a recitation nor a to make prayer look like a cakewalk.  By and large, there are no hard-and-fast rules for prayer procedure except that it be done in the divine formula of access to God, whether assumed and conscious or not.  Jesus seemed to espouse certain conditions for prayer or protocol and never deferred to the tradition of the elders.  There is no correct or set way or pattern to pray in that God does hear all believers' prayer, but the power is in the equipping of the saints in knowing to whom we are praying and availing ourselves of the rights of sons and daughters of God.  However, there exists proper etiquette with God or S.O.P. for all things are to be done in an orderly fashion per 1 Cor. 14:40.  "For through Him we both have access by one Spirit to the Father" (Eph. 2:18, HCSB).  This means that all three persons of the Godhead or Deity are involved in our prayers! Thus, efficacious prayer avails with the concerted work of the tri-personality (the three personas of the Godhead).

Just like in creation being done cooperatively all three members of the Trinity co-equally involved; i.e., from the Father, through the Son, by the Spirit.  The Trinity accomplished our salvation:  the Father authored, purposed, and planned it; the Son executed, accomplishes, and fulfilled it, and the Spirit applies and makes it known all in concert!  Basically speaking, the Father originates or initiates; the Son reveals and makes manifest, and the Holy Spirit executes, fulfills, and applies.  Likewise, the whole Trinity is cooperating in our prayer life:  we pray addressed to the Father, through the Son, by the Spirit!  We are exhorted to always pray "in the Spirit."  Jesus' involvement means more than attaching His name to the end with the formula "in Jesus' name" for good measure as if it's a magic formula or hokum.

Prayer can be summed up:  we pray to the Father, in the name of the Son, in the power of the Spirit.  We look to Scriptural warrant and precedent for examples to echo in prayer.  Paul showed powerful prayers to the Father.  He went to the  TOP!   In the Old Testament, and we are not living in the Old Testament, they prayed to the LORD God of Israel, for instance, but we have a more revealing person to address a prayer to now that we know Jesus.  Jesus set the example in praying to the Father and the Lord's prayer is likewise.

However, we must not forget that it is in Him that we have such access to the Father and He has given us a license to pray in His authority.  As Eph. 3:12, HCSB, says, "In Him we have boldness and confident access through faith in Him."  Just like knowing a person intimately gives us power in communication and fellowship, even giving us boldness in requests, so knowing the Father and availing our rights as a child of God gives us power in prayer, so it is like putting God in a box to see Him as only one person of the Godhead and not as a triune Being working in synergy.  Sometimes it is appropriate to address Jesus directly in prayer, but He is seated at the right hand of the Father in glory and we have the right to go to the top as it were and use His authority as a passkey to heaven's very throne room of grace.

Famous quotable lines worth noting:    "When you can't stand life, kneel!:  "Crises have kept me on my knees!"  "Pray as if everything depends on God; work as if everything depends on you!":  "Better heart without words than words without heart!"  "I have often gone to my knees, simply because there was no place else to go!"  "When it is hardest to pray, pray the hardest!"  "Satan trembles when he sees the weakest saint upon his knees!"

NB:  The Oneness Pentecostals or Apostolic Pentecostals deny the Trinity and have done away with the Father and have reverted to old heresy of modalism and are pejoratively referred to as the "Jesus only" movement.  This is a red flag that those who value sound doctrine are leary of.  Praying without biblical precedence opens Pandora's box and is highly problematic.  

 A word to the wise is sufficient:  tradition must bow to conviction and we do not interpret Scripture in light of experience or feeling, but experience and feeling in light of Scripture.  One of the battle cries of the Reformation was sola Scriptura or Scripture alone (as our authority); we must appeal to Holy Writ to settle all doctrinal matters and not tradition; the Catholic faith exalts tradition as equal status to the Bible, and this is one thing that distinguishes Protestants.  Tradition must be concordant with Scripture!  

One need not fear they're out of their league or that their prayers are anemic, because God sees the heart and the Spirit translates our prayers!  

NB:  Paul the apostle was always careful to give the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ his due and reverent attention in addressing the Godhead in prayer.  Indeed, the historical orthodox doctrine has been to address the Father in all prayer in Jesus' name in the power of the Spirit.  Paul exhorts us in 1 Cor. 4:6 HCSB, emphasis mine:  "...' nothing beyond what is written.'"  

NB:  People act out their faith for four reasons:  reason--it sounds logical; emotion--it feels good; culture--everyone does it; tradition--we've always done it.  But Christianity is countercultural and challenges us to throw down the gauntlet and cross the Rubicon of the truth based solely on the Word of God.  

CAVEAT:  IGNORING SCRIPTURAL PRECEDENTS FOR THE SAKE OF TRADITION OR CUSTOM IS THE GATEWAY TO HERESY AND EXALTING TRADITION ABOVE OR EQUAL TO SCRIPTURE AS ROMANISM ESPOUSES.   

Jesus Himself taught us how to pray corporately or as a church:  "Our Father who is in heaven...."   And I take His Word at face value.  God is more than a projection or throwback to our need for.a father figure but is our all in all through the Trinity.  It is true that some have rejected God on this account for they had no father figure or thought God was just a throwback to our need for one.  Our heavenly Father knows our hearts and we need to have that more than a doctrine of prayer by all means.  However, we ought to be obedient to the plain teaching of Scripture and realize this is to our advantage to see prayer the way God does.  (The principle for Bible interpretation is that we interpret the obscure in light of the plain and what may be implied in light of what is obvious--the implicit in light of the explicit.)

We all should inquire and do some soul searching as to whether we know the Father and can say that we are His children.  If we pray only to one member of the Godhead without regard to others, we are unduly discriminating and should wonder whether it's warranted or Scriptural and if we know the Father; e.g., imaging the pastor praying thus:  "O God..." Wouldn't this be sufficient to conclude he isn't familiar with the Father or even the Lord and seems estranged or alienated from a distant God--perhaps to a foreign God or unknown God?  God invites us to call Him Father even in the Old Testament:  see Jeremiah 3:19, ESV, which says,  "... And I thought you would call me, My Father...."

"Now to Him who has power to strengthen you ...  according to the command of the eternal God ... to the only wise God, through Jesus Christ--to Him be the glory forever!  Amen." (Rom. 16:25-27,  HCSB, italics and boldface mine).   

There are conditions for effective prayer:  Praying according to God's will; entering His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise; abiding in Christ's Word; being thankful, confessing known sin, and having faith that He will answer!  Prayer is successful when it changes you not God, who doesn't need change and cannot change.   Soli Deo Gloria!

Assumption Of Good Soil

"And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God" (1 Cor. 2:4-5, NKJV).

Too many preachers are adept and savvy at preaching to the choir and have adapted their sermons so as not to reach nor be sensitive to seekers and the wayward sinner.  Jesus never assumed the crowds were believing in Him and were disciples, in fact, He constantly illustrated the kingdom of God as if the audience wasn't yet in.  He was always cognizant of false disciples and pseudo-conversions.  There were always the Pharisees listening in to find something to criticize and condemn Him for.  Preachers must be cognizant of all varieties of listeners: pagans, atheists, agnostics, skeptics, seekers, newborn believers, adolescent believers, and even the seasoned believer.  Their job is to feed the sheep and the lambs as well as call the sinner to repentance; the gospel message is never passe.

What happens in too many churches is that there is the presumption of good soil when many have gotten into a worship or growth rut and are even backslidden despite their Churchianity and attendance.  The preacher must be all things to all people in a sense, knowing not who may be listening in and God may be working on or wooing through the sermon, known as the "Hound of Heaven" tracking them down. The preacher sows seed in the manner of the prototype Sower Himself, Jesus, and the seed is the Word.  The preacher who relies on the Word and its effect on souls in melting the hardened heart will be most efficacious. Jesus sees through the veneer and the Word penetrates soul and spirit convicting and softening the hardest of hearts.  The Word shall not come back void and will accomplish God's will according to Isaiah 55:11.  Jeremiah adds in Jer. 1:12 that God sees well to perform His Word.

The preacher is to be attended that gives proper place to the Word--Isaiah 8:20 says that if they speak not according to the Word, they have no truth in them!  We must not rely on the articulate, eloquent talents of the mind, but the sensitivity of the spirit to the ministry of the Holy Spirit and the soul of the congregants and attendees' needs. This is so that our faith doesn't rest in the wisdom of man nor in the education, brilliance, nor talents of man but in the spiritual gift of preaching by the power of the Spirit; as the Word says, "Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit," says the LORD in Zech. 4:6.

The biggest error evangelists fall prey to is assuming the lost soul is already saved--they get saved without never having had a sense of being lost.  The preacher must get them lost before getting them saved; in other words, preach the law before the gospel--the bad news of sin before the good news of grace!  The reality of the matter is that there is good soil in the church, but also rocky, weedy, and shallow soil!  There is the good seed, but also the bad seed that the devil has sown and continues to subvert God's work.  Christ has commanded that the good shall grow with the bad and we are not to do any weeding as it were to cast out the bad seed.  This means that every church likely has an enemy of Christ who has crept in unawares, even a false disciple. The preacher must sow unadulterated seed, not the Word mixed with some bad seed.  This implies sticking to the Word and being faithful to preach it according to sound doctrine.  This will save him and his hearers.

The truth may be unbearable to the hardened in the heart (rocky soil) and the sinner shouldn't feel at ease in God's house.  The church is a place to convict of sin and bring to renewal in the Spirit, setting one on the path to righteousness in the will of God.   Jesus came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance!  (see Luke 5:32).  The sinner can prepare his soil but God can till the soil of the most hardened heart of stone and transform it into flesh.  We must believe in the power of the Word itself to transform lives and work miracles--the changed lives from the gospel are the best miracle we can witness.

This is why some churches don't accomplish much for the Great Commission because they have no focus on the soils.  Good soil is guaranteed to bring forth fruit!  They must not become complacent or let members get a false assurance of their salvation and comfortable in their walk, not committed to growth and service. Is it any wonder that Mahatma Gandhi said that he "likes their Christ, he doesn't like their Christians[?]" And that Nietzsche said that he would "believe in the Redeemer when the Christian looks more redeemed[?]"  The sermon should be a spiritual checkup and appraisal of one's walk and should have a message for everyone's heart.  This is precisely why the Pharisees couldn't bear His sermons: He preached to them as if they weren't saved or spiritually secure in their turf.  He threatened their job security and personal space!  It was like they were saying, "Don't you know who we are?"

This is why it's so important to prepare our hearts for the Lord's day and the sermon and not let it fall on unprepared hearts or other than good soil!   There is a grave error in assuming we are good soil and that the hard sayings of Christ don't apply to us or that we've arrived--for Paul, the apostle, said that he didn't claim to have laid hold of it yet!   But don't be discouraged, the preacher is promised that the Word will not fall on deaf ears if preached faithfully and there will be fruit, though foliage seems the immediate result.  Sooner or later, there will be results from the faithful preaching of the gospel working in the hearts of the lost--the flock need never grow tired of the gospel message but always open to new perspectives.

True preaching of the Word is as a two-edged sword:  comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable. Jesus will see through the veneer and false pretense!  The preacher ought to be cognizant of all soil types in the church and try to get through to the hardened, to set free the weedy, and to give substance to the shallow--there are too many believers who have exhibited a shallow conversion and exhibit their lack of salvation by falling away, proving their ultimate disloyalty and lack of faith.  The love of the world is an obstacle to faith and the preacher must not let them feel comfortable with their weeds.    No matter what the threefold enemy of the devil, the world-system, and the old sin nature or the flesh attack with--don't succumb!  The preacher is commissioned to preach the Word in spite of the soil types and let God do His thing and work miracles.      Soli Deo Gloria!

The Sacrifice Of Contrition

"For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings" (Hos. 6:6, NIV).   "You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings.  The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God you will not despise" (Psalm 51:16-17, NIV).   "... 'Does the LORD delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the voice of the LORD?  To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams'" (1 Samuel 15:22, NIV). 

 "... All I had to offer Him was brokenness and strife..." (hymn by Bill Gaither--Maranatha Music: "Something Good").  

Christians offer multiple sacrifices:   of thanksgiving, of praise, of doing good and sharing, of a broken heart, and even of offering themselves as living sacrifices; however, "to obey is better than sacrifice" (cf. 1 Sam. 15:22).  Jesus came to be the fulfillment of all sacrifices; i.e., the law's demands.  He did this by fulfilling the law and doing everything it required on our behalf--He not only died for us but lived for us as well!  Jesus learned obedience by what He suffered (cf. Heb. 5:8) and feels our pain because He's been there; however, we are completing the suffering of Christ and living out His life in our adversities (cf. Col. 1:26).  Could you trust in a God who didn't understand suffering and couldn't identify with us and know what we are going through?

We must bear in mind that there is always light at the end of the tunnel and "this too shall pass!"   We experience brokenness so that we can be patient with others in the same boat and witness or minister to them in their pain.  We can thus comfort others with the same comfort we have known in Christ.  God knows everything about us and always did!  He is not surprised by our failings and shortcomings.  He knew of them before our salvation.  There is a reason for suffering, but God isn't obliged to explain Himself: He's too deep to understand, too wise to make a mistake, and too kind to be cruel.  We are not to think like Job's friends that we are only getting punished for our sins and aren't even getting what we deserve.  Jesus paid the full penalty for our sins, and we are not punished for our sins, but by them!  By and large, we don't break God's laws; they break us!  What we do is break God's heart and that's why He knows what hurt is and wants to heal us of our suffering.

Christ's legacy to be gained is a peace that passes all understanding and cannot be taken away. We can experience this legacy in the midst of suffering and find out it works by experience--the proof of the pudding is in the eating!  We can become seasoned believers having been trained in the trenches of the warfare of life and having had O.J.T. in battling the enemy.  Thank God, His mercies are new every morning and they never come to an end for us--He never gives upon us and we are just "works in progress" no matter how mature we are and should not assume we are always good soil or that we've arrived--even Paul didn't claim to have laid hold of it yet.  There are no hopeless believers, only those who've given up hope!

This is precisely why we must localize or tailor the gospel to the recipients. Paul was the evangelist to the Gentiles while Peter was to the Jews, but Paul strived to be all things to all men so he could, by all means, save some!   Not everyone is on the same page and God must use different strokes for different folks. Some water, some plant, some reap!  But God gives the increase!  God is only using us as honorable vessels or servants to do His will, we can only venture to boast of what He does through us, not what we do for Him, but what God does through us is what counts.

We need to know about the prowling of Satan to devour us in our weak spots because he knows our vulnerabilities.  The danger we must beware of is Satan using us for his schemes or giving us temptations and thoughts that we carry out, like when Peter was rebuked by the Lord to get behind Him.  Satan can put thoughts into our minds and can distract us from the Word.  Winning entails knowing our enemy as well as knowing ourselves.  Shakespeare (Polonius in Hamlet) said, "To thine own self be true"!  The Greeks of antiquity said, "Know thyself!" and Sun Tzu, the Chinese author of The Art of War,  said, "Know your enemy!"   But the Bible says "Know God!"  All three are necessary to mature in Christ and to engage in the angelic conflict with all the onslaught of Satan known as the Anfectung (attack in German) by Martin Luther in order that we do not succumb to the schemes of the devil.

Only when we realize our sinfulness and realize that we are no better than sinners are we grace-oriented.  George Whitefield was asked what he thought of a man going to the gallows:  "There but for the grace of God, go I."  We must come to Paul's awakening when he said, "I am what I am by the grace of God."  William Jay of Bath said, "I am a great sinner, and I have a great Savior."  We are in essence just beggars tellers other beggars where to get a meal, it's been put.  Peter realized his unworthiness and said, "Depart from me O Lord, for I am a sinner."  It's a fact that the closer we get to God, the more we become sensitized to sin and aware of our failures.  Samuel Rutherford said we should pray for a lively sense of sin, "the greater sense of sin, the less sin!"

We must realize our sinfulness in toto and not cling to any self-righteousness, fully repentant and willing to change our ways exhibiting it by a change in behavior to be saved--believing repentance or penitent faith is necessary for salvation.  A person who feels he is righteous or has no sin cannot be saved, and Christ and His gospel have nothing to say to those unwilling to confess and repent of their sins.  If we feel no brokenness for our own sin (contrition), how can we feel brokenness for the lost and feel their pain knowing and feeling their despair?

In sum, we must be reassured and comforted in knowing that Jesus was indeed a "man of sorrows and acquainted with grief" and was "tempted in all ways like we are, yet without sin."    Soli Deo Gloria!