Why Bad Stuff Happens to Good People: The Final Answer

By Robert Louis Tegenkamp Th.D

WHY BAD STUFF HAPPENS TO GOOD PEOPLE: is a book loaded with intrigue, suspense, mind disturbing questions, and eventually the answer given somewhere in the book, not disclosed. Many questions both Christians and secularists ask concerning this topic is similar concerning the guilt and innocence of children, which are answered here with no apology. You may be shocked but you may also be the judge! This read is compared to twelve other writers on the subject with diverse and bizarre answers to the question WHY, which are challenged here and in my opinion offering no answer to this hunting question of WHY. The Final Answer is in this book found nowhere else in any literature.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jun 22, 2015
• ISBN: 9781503576988

Robert Louis Tegenkamp Th.D

The author Robert Louis Tegenkamp grew up on the back side of Cincinnati Ohio in the German community of North Fairmount. At age 16 he became a boy evangelist preaching in over a dozen churches before graduating from high school. Unable to afford Bible College even at one dollar a day Robert secured a job with an optical firm and attended the University of Cincinnati evening college classes three nights a week. In 1961 Robert was called up to serve in the military later receiving an honorable discharge in 1963. He continued his studies for several years while he acquired his skills as a licensed optician in three different states. Suddenly he was able to attended Bible college morning classes before business hours for another four years and was awarded valedictorian of the historic Gods Bible College in 1975 earning a Bachelor of Religious Education degree. He moved to Florida where he went on to earn his Masters degree and his Doctorate of Theology. He opened his optical store in 1981 as he continued to study with various Bible institutes while also serving two different churches as Christian Educational Director. In a period of eight years he brought each individual church from 80 members to over 1000 in Sunday morning attendance. In 1995 Robert produced an evangelistic television series aired across northern America to over 80 million homes, held speaking engagements as well as a revival for a missionary friend in Honduras and later was elected to public office in 2000 which resulted in changing the complete coastline along the Pensacola peninsula of Northwest Florida. In 2004 Robert began writing Christian books sharing his knowledge and experiences with all those who have come to know him and love him.

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Copyright © 2015 by Robert Louis Tegenkamp, Th.D.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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Rev. date: 06/09/2015

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Table of Contents

Chapter 1   Why indeed?

Chapter 2   The Forbidden Truth

Chapter 3   The Great Dispute

Chapter 4   God’s Delight

Chapter 5   Through the Door

Chapter 6   Line of Defense

Chapter 7   Our Offensive

Chapter 8   The Advantage

Chapter 9   Just the Beginning

Chapter 10 Backlash to Blessings

Chapter 1

Why indeed? …. Perhaps because of our individual circumstances and exceptionally diversified points of view concerning life’s many difficulties, this age old question, which has never before been answered to anyone’s satisfaction, may very well trouble you as much as it troubles me. For this reason I set out to uncover the truth and behold… The Final Answer!

Having read just about every book and paper on this subject researching the customary as well as bizarre sources for the answer only increased my anxiety. After an extensive study of many publications by the scholars, Biblical and secular alike, who regularly write and speak supposedly as authorities on this subject I was left with even less confidence that there were any answers at all to the question, why. Having no other option, I decided to consult the Bible for myself. I opened The Book of the Almighty to see how the scriptures might explain this troubling issue of pain and suffering, of unnecessary loss and affliction thrust upon the innocent and physical hardships on the rest of us, and there it was as startling as lightning striking a power-line stretching across Airport Boulevard in Mobile, Alabama during a typical mid-summer’s afternoon thunder storm. How did they miss it?

The Challenge

As a young lad I remember quit well and often on many weekends visiting my Uncle Albert and the family. He was a great army guy, a World War II veteran and lots of fun. On a few of those occasions he would cut my hair, army style, trimming my ears back, he said. He was the barber in the family never once charging my parents for his service. Uncle Albert was a good man; that was for sure, married to a good woman, Aunt Marie. They lived a modest life in a small four room apartment right off the sidewalk on Colerain Avenue close to the downtown Cincinnati main business district.

Yet, even with the little resources that they had, Uncle Albert and Aunt Marie took in an abandoned baby girl and were raising her. Suddenly, without warning, just after his fortieth birthday, Uncle Albert had a heart attack and within minutes died instantly before their eyes leaving Marie and the baby with no means of support. I sat and wondered why?

A six and half pound baby boy was born to a young married couple. They named him Andrew. Domestic difficulties plagued this young married couple for some time but now this bundle of joy, a gift from God, drew them together as a family. Two years of happiness and new life excitement passed when suddenly, without warning, little Andrew was diagnosed as having a rare case of child paralysis. As faithful members of a local church the couple received sincere encouragement and moral support from their many friends. Together they struggled to care for and prepare their only son for a life confined to a wheelchair and limited activities for the rest of his days.

Despite the hardship and difficulty this imposed upon the couple with raising the little boy in his wheelchair, the couple loved him dearly taking on this challenge with love and affection, a gift they had yet to fully experience. A few years passed as the couple adjusted to a routine of developing new life skills being educated in caring for their son when without notice, tragedy struck once again. Just before his sixth birthday, Andrew was found having died in his bed that night. Devastated, the young couple sought for answers trying to understand why. They rejected the seemingly sympathetic rationalizations offered by well meaning friends and their pastor. They struggled with the trauma of if all unable to comprehend what had gone wrong. Feeling guilty because of their loss they eventually blamed each other and then they blamed God. Within nine months the young couple filed for divorce and went their separate ways. Those who knew them also felt the effects of their pain and loss questioning the injustice of it and wondered, why?

What could any of us say to this young couple? They had been given a wonderful promise of joy as a second chance to overcome a failing marriage and then suddenly the delight of their life was suddenly taken from them? Having nowhere else to turn for answers except the word of God we will address this disturbing occurrence and by God’s grace and wisdom provide the answer to this notoriously haunting question; why?

Before we consider any supposed conjecture offered by the esteemed and learned scholars with whom we shall also visit examining their conclusions, let us consider the mystery behind this failing aspect of life as we know it and the issue of so often pointless pain and suffering afflicting millions of innocent people every day. Stories like these that we have just heard and others even more bizarre disfigure the slightest splendor of life’s purpose and glory. Why the grandeur of this magnificent world is soiled by so much tragedy and unreasonable loss among good people, not devised by careless recklessness, but from the normality of living life is the question we are most certainly about to expose and bring to justice? So, fasten your seat belts and hang on for the ride of your life.

Previous Opinions

Many known scholars, years before this study was conceived, have literally waltzed around this daring question with little if any success of providing me or anyone with whom I am acquainted, who have at various times examined their reasoning, have yet to receive any logical justification for their conclusions. Until now the only answer available has been ignored if not reluctantly or even deliberately rejected for whatever reason. In my estimation that too is the irony of this study for which we will challenge.

You see, no one in my family was diabetic. At the time I didn’t understand anything about diabetes or how it affected its victims or how those having diabetes handled it. But before my first son Jeffrey was sixteen I learned very quickly when he was diagnosed as a juvenile diabetic, type A. He will live the rest of his life testing himself, pricking his finger five times a day to gauge his blood sugar level, injecting himself with insulin, morning, noon and night.

Upon receiving the news I became very distraught. At the various diabetic meetings held at the medical center educational facility of which I attended often I soon experienced the reality of this condition seen in hundreds of other young people afflicted. I blamed myself, wept, and prayed every night for the Lord to have mercy. I didn’t have any idea what diabetes was before this diagnosis and wanted no part of it when one day I realized how possessed I had become with the guilt of it which lasted for many years.

I could not reconcile the justice in my son’s affliction. I could not imagine a possible reason for any of this. And that isn’t all. If that wasn’t enough to tear apart ones faith, my second son Mark, just six years later before he was sixteen years of age was also diagnosed as a juvenile diabetic. It was all that I could do to accept the reality of this burden. I was too distressed to blame anyone, and I wondered why God allowed this dreadful disease to come upon my sons. What had we done to deserve this? I wanted to blame God but then I wanted to seek His mercy? I had little choice but to thank God that there was insulin to preserve the lives of my two sons even though that did not ease my pain or sorrow. In spite of my faith, such as it was, I tormented myself for years weeping, praying, and wondering why. I am not speaking as an outsider. I understand the pain and guilt we may suffer when tragedy strikes at home. Having received Jesus Christ as my personal Savior at the age of seven I have been blessed to share a wonderful relationship with Almighty God all these many years and yet, many of those years I struggled with the reality that my only two sons are afflicted with this incurable disease. Knowing that there is over 23 million more young people type-A diabetics in the United States just like Jeff and Mark does not help me feel any better. My heart goes out to all of them and I pray with them for a cure one day.

Rabbi Kushner was heralded as a nationally recognized spiritual leader during 1981 after writing his book; "When Bad Things Happen to Good People. I was pleased with his reasonable conclusions as I read the book but none of what he wrote satisfied my aching soul. I realized that he was not answering the question why but simply explaining how people respond when bad things happen. While much of that which he says is very true and very much needed to hear it does not satisfy the ultimate question, why? Nevertheless, I recommend everyone to read his book but only after you discover the answer here. Rabbi Kushner confronts tragedy as a problem dealt to those who want to believe in a just and fair and livable world. These are those, he says, Who raise the questions about the goodness, the kindness and the existence of God. This may very well be true in many instances but I recall the Psalmist saying, I had fainted, (given up) unless I had believed to see the goodness of the LORD" (Ps. 27:13).

Not everyone holds a grudge against God because of his or her suffering. Yet, never have they been told the truth about why they are among the suffering in this world. Inside the scriptures the prognosis is revealed but reluctantly withheld from the hearers of the word. That is where I am coming from. Jesus said, "If ye continue in my word … ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free" (John 8:32).

Recognizing goodness in tragic circumstances is very difficult. Yet, the goodness of the Lord in spite of tragedy cannot be overlooked. Even as I walk through the darkest trials in my own life, I look for the goodness of the Lord. I cannot justify tragedy anymore than anyone else can but I ask myself, can I live through it, can I survive this loss, this assault on my family, this defeat, or this failure and remain standing? That is one of the many questions we answer as we journey together through this study seeking the answer that until now has never been answered to my satisfaction. Rabbi Kushner asks, "Can I in good faith, continue to teach people that the world is good, and that a kind and loving God is responsible for what happens in it?" I would recommend the Rabbi reconsider his position. The world is not good and a loving God is not responsible for what happens in it. In all fairness and with all due respect, there is only one hope for a world without suffering that we must declare, and it is not in bigger government or the piety of political correctness. Our only hope rest upon the coming Messiah who will one day bring with Him peace and healing to all nations. But for now, we are compelled to simply consider the challenge, why good people suffer?

Some scholars would have us believe that we must suffer because the Messiah has also suffered. Because He suffered we must also suffer with Him. And in a sense we do just that. Yet, God’s desire was never to afflict His Son stricken with the transgressions of the world with such brutality but for our sakes and our sakes alone, "It pleased the LORD to bruise him, to put Him to grief and to make His soul an offering for our sin and sins, (Isa. 53:10). Jesus was Almighty God the Son, eons before He was the Son of Almighty God. He preferred to come into the world as a victorious conqueror, as He truly is and will return as such one day, destroying the works of the devil as well as those perpetrators of his craftiness. It had been prophesied by His own prophets that the Messiah would surely be rejected by the people He fathered, stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted" (v. 3). As the man Jesus, God suffered enormous pain and grief. Jesus, as God, for our sakes became well acquainted with pain and suffering absent of compassion for His well being while He was here on this earth.

The renowned Jewish Pharisee, Saul of Tarsus, 46 AD, esteemed as the Apostle Paul, reminds us that Messiah, Jesus Christ, "gave himself for our sins that he might deliver us from this present evil world" (Gal. 1:4). The Lord is not the author of evil in this world but the benefactor of goodness. By his own sacrifice as the Son of God, Almighty God purposed in His heart to deliver us from the dilemma of sin preparing us for eternal life with Him in mansions of glory.

God does not draw men to Him through pain, suffering, and loss but through divine integrity. The Apostle Paul said, "The goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance" (Rom… 2:4). Pain and suffering coming out of the trials of this world do not bring men to repentance as some scholars contend. Repentance, which is a change of mind and heart, a conversion to Christ, is the result of the suffering Messiah, his shed blood sacrifice already provided for our redemption through the goodness of God.

While these are inspiring words, and they most certainly are, they do little to satisfy the hurting soul who only desires to understand, why he must suffer as he does? The Psalmist says, "For thou has delivered my soul from death: wilt not thou deliver my feet from falling, (my painful demise) that I may walk before God" (Ps. 56:13). Can I bring some sane rationale to all the suffering that exists in the earth and especially the afflictions on those who, in this study, as we will discover, are good people? Let me say this, there is nothing sane about suffering, this I know, but surely there must be an answer explaining why, whether it is sane, I cannot tell. Even though many of the commentaries written on this subject have never satisfied my longing soul with a convincing answer to the question, I shall continue to pray the Lord to keep me from falling into the clutches of unexpected sorrow and despair. Saint Jude says most certainly, "He is able to keep you from falling (Jude 1:24). Yet, there is more to all this. There is something yet missing that we are overlooking, something someone is not telling us. Could it be that the reason why bad stuff happens to good people is obvious as snow falling in winter but that we have missed it or we simply prefer to ignore it? My problem is your problem; I just couldn’t understand it’s purpose if there is any purpose at all. Solomon, the son of David said Through knowledge shall the just be delivered" (Pro. 11:9). If we only knew a little more about the real reason why good people are faced with so much adversity it just might satisfy some of our longing to understand why we must suffer so much pain and so often.

Uncertainty

In his book … "Why Do the Righteous Suffer, Dr. Hobart E. Freeman suggests that bad things happen to good people for specific reasons. He gave only one saying, Suffering may be, and sometimes is, to vindicate God’s faith in us." This traditional spin off of Job’s trouble found in the Old Testament is the classic example of most studies on this topic. I am well acquainted with the amount of Job, a good study, having read those 42 great chapters yet unable to corroborate even a portion of Freeman’s sorted theory reaffirming that this classic conclusion, typical as it has always been, is still a bit of a stretch. God does not place us in harm’s way, subjecting us to unnecessary pain and suffering just to confirm that our faith is still valid.

Neither was Job put in this position. Job was a righteous man justified by his great demeanor and not at all by his faith. He most certainly is an example of a good man. But in Job’s case, he became the pawn of a conflict between God and Satan. This conflict has been the thorn in our flesh since the fall of Adam. It has been the basis for all the trouble we suffer in this life. For this reason we may suffer exhaustive, sometimes traumatic overwhelming stress when misfortune strikes often disrupting our lives for a period of time. And when it comes, we withdraw to the darkness of our despair spiritually crawling into a vacant corner of our spiritual inadequacy away from everyone shutting out even the whispering comfort of God’s voice wondering; why! Can God not read our hearts; does He have to put us through a trying circumstance, a tragedy of loss, or those occasions that remind us of Job’s experience? Of course He does not, because our life’s purpose is not measured by the accomplishments we acquire, but by the strength of our faith motivating our personalities, a force that lies within us, dormant if we fail to implement its might.

14

Our failure is not so much that we have no confidence in our faith, but perhaps we are too often overcome by our reluctance. All of us possess a measure of faith but that is not the reason we are subjected to tragedy. The reason we do not strike the flint of our faith in times of desperate need is simply because of our perception of faith. Human beings have many gifts and abilities we seldom express during an entire lifetime. Faith is one of these and definitely the most vital function of life that supports our struggle against fear and failure. That’s the perception we ignore. Certainly we are tested by our faith when the circumstances of life deal us a sudden distress or hurtful situation unexpectedly. Even though the desire is within us to activate its virtue too often we fail to implement its propensity (for lack of a better word) in the time of need.

John writes, "For whatsoever is born of God overcomes the world: and this is the victory that overcomes the world, even our faith" (1 John 5:4). Our faith in God and the provisions of God to change circumstances in our lives for good is a force provided every one of us. We activate a portion of our faith every day in our daily lives crossing the street on the green light, laying down to sleep at night, sitting in a chair without first examining its structure are all acts of faith. However few people rarely activate their faith in questionable situations of adversity and peril because they are suddenly overwhelmed with the situation and often submitting to the element of fear that rises up within them.

Living with a sense of confidence and security against the adversities of life is the benefit of faith trusting in the caring consciousness of Almighty God. Faith is not given to us to endure pain and hardships but to rely upon the One who in exchange has taken our hardships upon Himself, "For to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness" (Rom. 4:5) which says we should not attempt to demand a response from God but trust Him, believing. Righteousness, this virtue provided in us, is not granted to us due to our good efforts as in Job’s case but instead, it is imputed to us as we activate our faith trusting in Christ to accomplish all those good things in our lives that appear impossible to us as well as those that surround us in our individual circle of friends.

We are the beneficiaries of faith, not God. "God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith" (Rom.12:3). This faith is not given to just a few but to all men who dare to implement the virtue of