You Turn in your Bibles if you would to Judges chapter eight, we're in verses four through nine, and we're in a series called Unpossible.

When we started this series, we said that there is a way, and the Bible clearly teaches this, that as Christ followers, there is no need for us to be significantly impacted by the external events, the external events that come into our lives.

Our demeanor, our attitude, our spiritual health, the health of our soul can be affected.

remain intact no matter what's going on out in the physical world.

So we've said that in order for God to be able to do what he needs to do in us, we're gonna live by seven resolutions.

Now here's the problem with those seven resolutions.

When you talk about evil, pain, and suffering in the world, and I go back to one of the most common stories or examples I hear when I'm on university campuses, and inevitably someone will come up to me and always use the death or the suffering of a child.

I don't know why it is, but that seems to be the place where everyone goes when they wanna talk about how can we harmonize a good and merciful, loving God with the pain and suffering of a child.

in the lives of the people on the earth that he's created, and especially in relationship to the innocence of a child who suffers as a result of no fault of their own.

So the problem with these seven resolutions.

is that if we're not careful, we'll take these seven resolutions, which are true in and of themselves, which are the basis, the foundation, I think, for allowing, if we respond to the external events of our lives in this manner, they serve as the basis and the foundation for God being able to do what he needs to do in us.

And ultimately it's to help people far from God come near through the conformity of the image we have in us, given to us by God.

conformity of our image to the image of Jesus.

And that's what Jesus does best, brings people who are far away from God, the Father, bringing them near.

So even though those foundational propositions are so essential to living the Christian life, and they are, the reality is they're not meant to be things that we say to people who are suffering in their lives.

They're not.

These are resolutions that we make internally, that we live our lives by these resolutions.

Because the reality is...

You can address the issue of pain, suffering and evil.

Propositionally, you can say, well, this is the reason this is happening.

You can give propositions.

Well, suffering means this and God does this.

You can also address it from the standpoint of philosophically.

What is the meaning of pain, suffering and evil in our world and what good does it really bring?

And then you can also address it existentially.

How is it as a person that I can deal with the pain and suffering and the evil in the world?

I'm suggesting to you that when you dill, when you come to a series like Unpossible, you can't merely concentrate the entire time on a series.

what we call the propositional or what God is doing in our lives, although that's important.

We still have to deal with it in all three arenas, philosophically, existentially, propositionally.

So the one thing I want to do is remind you that the oldest book in the Bible, the book of Job, deals with suffering on all three levels and in a very powerful way, which is why it's still one of the most popular pieces of literature in literary antiquity.

Even if you're not a Christ follower, if you're not a Christian, people still pour over the book of Job.

because it's rich in its wealth of explaining or attempting to explain or resolve the issue of God, pain, suffering, and evil in our world.

And so Job, if you know, by the end of the book, even though he goes through all of these areas or arenas of suffering, he comes to the conclusion, he says, before my ears had heard of you, but now my eyes have seen you.

And basically what he's saying is, before all this happened, I had no idea.

of the depth of the love of God and what God is capable of doing in the midst of the worst of circumstances.

He says, before I'd heard about you, God, I had a, I had a propositional idea, a philosophical idea about you, God, but now I have an existential reality in that I feel your presence and I know who you are.

And God, You're greater and you're able to do immeasurably more than I could ever ask for, hope for, or imagine.

And the depth of your understanding far exceeds my own.

So Job, by the end of the book, moves on this idea that he has to have an exhaustive understanding of all that's going on.

pain, suffering, and evil because he realizes he's finite, God is infinite, there's a point at which his mind doesn't work anymore.

So he trusts that God has a complete understanding of suffering.

He accepts the fact that he never will, but he also comes to the conclusion that God doesn't just throw us out there, that he gives us a prevailing presence to walk with us through the most difficult seasons, unfortunate events of our lives.

Now having said that, I also know that there are… cerebral Christians who have to come to terms with a lot of this.

And in fact, you and I will face conversations where people will come to us and say, look, I wanna believe in God, but I just can't.

Because I look at that child who's suffering, who's dying of cancer, and I see the pain and hurt and the turmoil in the life of the parents, and I just can't harmonize that with what I see in God.

Or I can't harmonize that with a belief in God.

Because if God existed in our mind, we say, he would never allow something like this to happen.

Now there's a.

problem with this issue, I want to do it quickly.

The skeptic or the atheist who denies the existence of God because of the possibility or because of the reality of pain and suffering will sometimes go like this.

The question will be phrased, I can't believe in God because of all the evil in the world.

Now follow me here.

This is important.

I can't believe in God because of all the evil in the world.

The problem is this.

This statement is what we call self-defeating.

It violates the very law of non-contradiction.

contradiction.

Here's why.

Once you assume evil, you're also assuming there's good in the world.

You're also assuming there is a moral law that governs the categories of good and evil.

You with me?

So once you say there's evil, you're saying there's categorical evil.

Because if evil isn't absolute, then you have no complaint against God.

If good and evil are just...

uh, relative, then there's no such thing as absolute good and evil, which means what you call evil.

God could call good.

There has to be an absolute category of evil.

And I believe there is an absolute category of good.

So that when something happens in the world, we can look at it and say, that's category good, or that's category evil.

But in order to have categories of absolute evil and good, you have to have a moral law to govern those categories.

There has to be a moral law somewhere that tells us this is good.

These events are good.

These events are evil.

And the problem with that is, if you have a moral law, you have to have what we call an absolute moral law giver.

So you have to have someone that stands outside of time and space, someone who's created all things, someone who is the ultimate ethic, who gives you the ultimate moral law.

A moral law, moral law cannot be given by humanity because it would be subjective.

It would be a moving target.

You have to have someone who's absolute to give an absolute moral law, to give the categories absolutely of good and evil.

So the question itself self-destructs because there's no such thing as evil unless there's such a thing as God.

You can only ask the question of evil in the context of God, not outside the context of God.

Because unless there's a God, there is no absolute moral law to give us the absolute categories of good and evil.

You with me?

So philosophically, you can't have evil unless you have God to give us the definitive categories.

Now moving on from that, the philosophical issue and the propositional issue is the idea of love.

People will then say, well, okay.

If evil cannot exist outside the context of God, if God is essential to give us the absolute moral law to govern those categories of good and evil, then how can we harmonize a good God then with all the pain and suffering in the world he allows?

Because quite frankly, I see some things that God allows and if I were God, I just wouldn't do that.

Well, that's your first hint.

You're not God.

You don't have exhaustive understanding of everything that's going on around you or what God is ultimately trying to do.

But you also don't have the ability to.

recover from all evil, pain and suffering, which we'll get to in a moment.

But in the scriptures, we learn something about the heart of God and that is the ultimate value in the universe is love.

God wants a love relationship.

Folks, if you, God has the potential to remove the potential of all pain, suffering and evil.

But to do that, he would have to remove your and my freedom.

And to remove that would be to remove the very reason we were created in the first place, which is a love relationship.

Relationship you with me so love and relationship is what he wants that requires free will but because that requires free Will that does open the door to evil?

Because a lot of people are going to use that free will that God gave them rather than to pursue a relationship with God They're gonna use that free will for Narcissistic purposes they're gonna say I'll reject God I go away from God and when I do that I start using the world I start manipulating the world around me for my purposes only there's nothing bigger and bigger myself.

So from a philosophical and propositional point of view, there's no way evil can exist without the belief or the idea of God, because only when we get God do we get the moral law to govern the categories.

And at the same time, in God's scenario, he's decided to create a world where love and relationship is possible.

And the only way love, authentic love, and relationship are possible is if we're given the freedom to choose or to reject the love of God.

And in doing that, it opens up the door to evil.

Those are.

Those are the philosophical propositional realities, but there's an existential reality too that we've never talked about.

And I wanna talk about that for a moment.

Let's go back and look at the death of a child because I said last week that the most difficult thing for me to do is go to a cancer, a children's cancer ward and to see all of these little children with their heads shaven and their parents.

I mean, think about watching your four year old child go through chemotherapy, go through the process and you're not sure if your child is gonna live.

Just the fact of the pain in the back.

the suffering in the hurt is so deep.

And that's why I want you to be careful with these propositions.

They are good, they are true, it is the way by which we live, but it is not the way you're gonna comfort a mother or father in their moment of their deepest pain.

So let's look at this still from a philosophical point of view.

It's still not going to, what I'm about to tell you again is not going to be the perfect word for a parent who's going through this at that time.

We're going to get to that, but it's still something we have to deal with.

Think about from God's point of view, the four victims involved in the death of a child.

First you have the parents.

The parents are the ones who are going to be the ones who are going to be the ones who they're gonna suffer a great loss.

And even watching their child suffer is great loss.

The heartache is something that most of us can't imagine.

I've said before that when God decided he's going to show us the depth of his love, what does he do?

He gives us his only son.

There is no greater love that a parent has for a child.

There's no greater love in the human experience.

So God wants you to be convinced of the depth of his love.

So he gives you his own son.

Now, parents, Psalm 23, four tells us that though we walk.

of the valley of the shadow of death, we will fear no evil." And I'm here to tell you as a pastor that I have, this is one, her name is Gloria, I have example after example after example of when people went through the deepest, darkest moments of their lives, that God gave them a special revelation of himself that they might endure.

I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

It's still painful, it's still hurtful, but somehow God gives him a glimpse, gives them a glimpse of himself that somehow sustains them.

Now this was the only...

and we didn't have these other three, this would not be enough.

I'm simply saying.

The story after story, example after example, 1 Thessalonians 4.13, Paul says that we grieve, but we don't grieve as the world grieves.

So we still grieve, still part and parcel to a fallen world.

And we're never going to know what God causes, what God allows.

That's not the point.

The point is that God comes alongside of us.

It's the same thing that Job learned.

Job learned, remember, he said, my eyes, my ears have heard of you now, my eyes have seen you.

He's saying that even in the midst of losing everything, and if you read the book of Job, you'll know that he.

He suffered more than anybody we've ever known.

He lost his children, his goods, his friends, he lost everything.

And so in that moment, he learned that God won't just throw you out there.

Something unique, something supernatural happens.

And typically the people who complain about suffering in the life of someone else, they're coming at it from the outside rather than going through it from the inside.

I'm not saying the pain and suffering is not real.

I'm simply saying that in those times as a pastor that I've walked with people who face these kind of things, it's amazing how God gives them a special revelation of himself to open their eyes that this is not the final say.

Okay, that's the point, that this is not the end.

The second is the child, the boy or little boy, little girl who goes through the suffering.

In 2 Samuel, David loses his son and he makes a very powerful statement.

He says, my son will not return to me, but I will go to him.

God gave David a revelation that nobody else in the Old Testament had, unless God specifically gave it to them.

I mean, in the Old Testament, we're not talking about heaven and hell.

We're not talking about Sheol.

We're not talking about paradise.

The only revelation they have in the Old Testament is Sheol.

that you go to the grave when you die.

Job discovers something through his suffering that wait a minute, there is life after death.

My Redeemer lives and he will stand upon the earth.

In the end, David learns something as he gets a special revelation from God that he will not see his son again on earth, but it's not the final story.

He will go to his son one day and they will be reunited.

So according to scripture and theologians and something that is called provenient grace, as soon as the child dies, The child goes into the presence of the Father, immediately in the presence of the arms of God.

To live with God throughout eternity.

So as a parent, when you get that great understanding that yes, you've lost something, and yes, the pain is real, the reality is there will be a great reunion and you will be rejoined with that child.

And when you are, remember what we said, this is not compensation.

This is God replacing what you've lost to an infinitely greater degree.

There will be a union and a reunion between mother and child, between father and daughter, and father and son.

The second victim.

in this death of a child is the skeptic, who denies God because he says this is such an evil act.

Well, we just spent the previous side of the board showing you where he has no basis of condemnation.

Think about it.

In the atheist worldview, nature is red in tooth and claw.

So the question I have is why are you upset at evil and suffering when your worldview says there's no meaning or purpose to life?

And everything is based on the survival of the fittest.

So this is nature's way of ridding the world of the weak so the strong may survive.

My question to you is, as an atheist, as someone on the outside looking in, why are you upset?

There's no meaning in life.

There's no real purpose to life.

Somebody dies, okay.

It's just us strengthening the gene pool.

It's natural selection.

Let me answer that question for you.

The reason you struggle with it is because you know down deep inside God exists and you know that God exists.

And the reason you know God exists is because you know that life is sacred.

And life can only be sacred?

and meaningful if there is a God who created it.

Otherwise, if we're all here by accident, there's no meaning, there's no purpose, and there should be no sadness at the loss of life.

The fourth victim is the questioner who's on the outside saying, and this is a big one, I don't understand why God gets to make arbitrary decisions.

Why does he get to determine who lives or dies, and yet when I do that, it's seen as evil?

Well, that's an easy one to answer, and the answer is twofold.

Number one, you're not God.

You don't have the power and the wisdom and the knowledge of how everything is working together.

Yes, God could step in and save the life of a child.

We don't know why because we're not God, but we know he can recover.

He recovers through a prevailing presence, through the fact that the child goes immediately into his presence for eternity and for the reality that what God made the first time, according to 1 Corinthians 15, the second time he remakes life, it's far greater than the first.

Did you hear that?

When the child goes into the presence of God, they don't only go in in an equality basis, the life they're now given, the latter life is far more glorious than the former life.

So God, when he chooses to allow a life to come to the end, when he chooses to allow a life to come to the end, he's not just going to allow a life to come to the end, he's going or even if it's possible in some scenarios where God uses a life for his purposes and then calls them to heaven.

The reality is we can't do that because we can't recover, but he can because the God who gave life the first time can give life the second time and the second life is far greater.

Now, Even though that all works, philosophically, existentially, propositionally, we still have to deal with the fact of how, how do we help each other?

Because let me ask you something, this board, the things that we just went through, okay?

So just have a glance, the things that we just discovered.

Does that make the pain and suffering any less real or intense in the person who's going through it?

No, these are ideas, these are truths that we have to grapple with.

But to tell you the truth.

Because they won't really help a person at the depths at which the person needs to be helped when they're going through the loss of a child or something that is so devastating, the loss of a loved one or a spouse or the estrangement of their children.

Now this is where we come to revolution, resolution rather, seven.

And resolution seven basically says this, I will stay off God's throne.

I will stay off God's throne." In Judges chapter eight, Gideon and his 300 men, this is the end of the story, exhausted yet keeping up the pursuit, came to the Jordan and crossed it.

He said to the men of Sukkot, give my troops some bread, they're worn out and I'm still pursuing Zeba and Zalmunna, the kings of Midian.

But the officials of Sukkot said, do you already have the hands of Zeba and Zalmunna in your possession?

Why should we give bread to your troops?

In Gideon replied, just for that, when the Lord has given Zeba and Zalmunna to me, I will give them bread.

and Zamuna into the hand, into my hand, I will tear your flesh with desert thorns and briars." From there he went up to Peniel and made the same request of them, but the answer is the men of Sukkot had.

So he said to the men of Peniel, when I returned in triumph, I will tear down this tower.

Now you look at that.

It's not quite the end, but I want to paint the scene for you again.

Gideon has just defeated the Midianites.

Many of them are running away now.

He's chasing them with the...

hundred men.

And to our knowledge, without asking God, He comes and he needs food from these two villages.

Both the villages deny him food and water.

And he's so frustrated with them because he knows God is doing a mighty work that he says, okay, when I get through with these guys, I'm gonna come back and take care of you.

Now scholars believe that each of these tribes were 15,000 strong, at least minimal, probably not counting women and children.

And so Gideon is so filled now with faith that God wants to end this atrocity, this impoverishment.

that's happening because of the Midianites, that he's gonna finish the job.

In fact, Judges 6.13 says, if you are with us, remember, this is what Gideon said to God when God first approached him.

If you're with us, where are all these miracles our forefathers told us about when you parted the Red Sea and fell the walls of Jericho?

Now what happened between chapter six and chapter eight, when Gideon first did not believe that God could rescue or would rescue, and now he's so confident that God will, he doesn't even go to God for more instructions, he now just wants to complete the task.

Even if it means 300 men against 30,000 plus the Midianites who are running away.

So the question is, Did God successfully build Gideon's faith?

And the answer is you bet your military boots he did.

With just 300 men, he now pursues thousands.

Listening and obeying the voice of God way back when the battle began, he now has a sense that God somehow is sovereignly directing him, granting him one adventure after the next, leading to the greatest victory of Israel's existence, or at least one of them.

Okay.

Given that, given what God has been able to do in Gideon's life, he's created a giant slayer, here's the question.

We now know what God can do.

We're confident that we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us.

We're confident that he who did not spare his own son will surely give us all good things.

We're confident that God will work everything together for good, but here's the question.

Does that make our pain any less real or intense?

That is a question.

It's one we have to grapple with, even though we know all these things, philosophically, propositionally, and even existentially, that God will come to us in our time of need.

Does it make the pain any less real?

And the answer is, I don't believe so.

Well, what's missing then?

The book of Job forces us to admit a lot of things.

And one of the things it forces us to admit in the first few verses of Job is number one, Popular in Job's day was the doctrine of retribution.

And the thought was this, it comes from Mesopotamian wisdom literature.

The thought is this, that if you're righteous, it always results in prosperity.

And if you're unrighteous, it results in suffering.

So if you're experiencing blessing, you're a good person.

If you're experiencing suffering, you're a bad person.

The story of Job throws that right out the window because we're told that Job is an upright, righteous, blessed, and a good person.

And Job was a good person.

He was a righteous, blessed, and a good person.

nameless man.

So from the get-go, we're told, hey, suffering sometimes comes into your life and it has nothing to do whether you're unrighteous or righteous.

Now we're not told what it does have to do with other than the glory of God and the revelation of God, but there's still a point at which we stop and God begins.

So Job gets this first wave of suffering.

He loses everything.

I mean everything.

He lost his livestock, his land, his children, and in an instant his very life falls apart.

But if you look at the story, what does Job do when all of this occurs?

The Bible says he worships and falls, he worships and falls down to the ground.

And he cries out these words in Job 121, the last part of the verse, may the name of the Lord be praised.

How does he do that?

Then he gets hit with a second wave of suffering.

First he's struck on the outside, now he's struck on the inside.

Painful sores from the soles of his feet to the crown of his head.

And Job's response is different this time.

He does not praise the name of the Lord.

He does not fall down to the ground and worship this time.

Instead, he sits down outside of town at the trash dump or the ash heap.

And he's isolated most probably because he has leprosy.

And the Bible says he takes...

a piece of pottery and he starts to just scrape himself through the sores.

His wife comes along and says to Job, why don't you just curse God and die?

Death would be better than this life that you're in.

But Job's response in Job 2.10 is this, shall we accept good and not bad from the Lord?

How does he do that?

If evil disproves God's existence, does goodness confirm God's existence?

existence.

That's something I always ask the skeptic.

You're telling me that the presence of evil means that God does not exist.

What about the presence of all the good in the world?

Love, relationship, marriage, children, the beauty of God's creation.

When you see those things, does that take your mind toward God?

Job's statement is definitely a theological one.

He is saying to his wife, what good is it to curse God?

Will he stop existing if I deny his existence?

I don't think so.

And then he goes on basically to say, if God is the source of all things, then doesn't God have the right to give and take away?

That all the blessings in our lives, including our children, our relationships, don't all of those things come ultimately from God?

And then this is when it gets really good.

And this is the core of the message.

Job's friends hear about his predicament and they come to visit him.

In verse 11 of chapter two, when Job's three friends, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, Zophar the Naamite, or Naamathite, heard about all the troubles that had come upon him, they set out from their homes and met together by agreement to go and sympathize with him and comfort him.

So as three friends get together and they hear about what Job is suffering, we need to go see him.

Now I want you to notice how they respond, and this is my fear of the series on these seven resolutions.

Eliphaz speaks first and he's the oldest, therefore he's the kindest, he's lived life a little bit.

And remember Job has lost everything, his health, his wealth, his children, everything, and then suddenly imagine your friend shows up and he says this to you.

Job 4, verse 15.

A spirit glided past my face, and the hair on my body stood on end.

It stopped, but I could not tell what it was.

A form stood before my eyes, and I heard a hushed voice.

Can a mortal be more righteous than God?

Can a man be more pure than his maker?

Now, with respect to Eliphaz, what exactly is he saying to Job?

Do you remember the story I told you years ago about how sometimes in seminary, if you don't know the answer to questions, you just pad and you write making no sense, but you're hoping that if you write a bunch of pages on the essay question that you'll be able to hit somewhere near the truth and at least the professor will pass you.

And remember I told you the story of a professor getting a paper like that, and with red ink on the front, he basically wrote these words.

This is not right, this is not even wrong.

This is not right.

This is not even wrong.

See, to say something is wrong assumes that something meaningful has been said.

But if everything you've said is nonsensical, then this is the correct response.

This is not right.

This is not even wrong.

In other words, there's nothing that's been said to judge.

Well, when this guy comes to Job and says, I know you're suffering, but a spirit glided past my face.

My hair stood up on my body.

Job's response is basically gonna be exactly that.

This is not right, this is not even wrong.

I don't know what in the world you're saying.

Have you ever had a friend that tried to spiritualize everything?

They'll come to you, I know you're suffering, but I've heard a word from the Lord.

Now I'm not saying that God doesn't speak to us through other people, but when you use it as authority, when you say the Lord told me this in order to bolster your own authority to say it, when in reality you're just wanting to say something, you're just trying to get God on board to give you the authority to say it.

The problem when you say something like, Eliphaz says to Job, it's not testable.

It's so weird that Job can't test it.

And basically.

Finally he responds to Eliphaz by saying this, if only my anguish could be weighed and all my misery be placed on the scales, it would surely outweigh the sand of the seas.

The arrows of the Almighty are in me.

My spirit drinks in their poison.

God's terrors are marshaled against me.

And then he ends in verse 14 of chapter six saying, a despairing man should have the devotion of his friends.

He says to Eliphaz, you're underestimating the level of my pain.

You think you can just give me some kind of philosophical, mystical answer and suddenly I'll do okay and it's not that simple.

My problems, Eliphaz, are more complex than you're making them out to be.

Besides that, no matter how much I'm struggling, even if I'm losing it, a real friend would stick by me.

And then Job cries out to God, teach me and I will hold my peace, cause me to understand.

Bildad is the second friend, he shows up.

And after listening to Job's frustration of where is God, here's what Bildad says to him.

Your words are a blustering wind.

Ask the former generations and find out what their fathers learned.

For we will.

we were born only yesterday and know nothing, will they not bring forth words from their understanding?

Bill Datt is saying this to Job.

Look what pain accomplished in the lives of people before us and that should comfort you.

You know, we're not going to get there.

But with both Eliphaz and Bildad, there is a measure of truth here, but it's just not very helpful.

It's like when your pastor says this to you, let me tell you about my anxiety disorder and how God shaped and formed me through that.

Or let me tell you about the death of my mother and what God taught me in that to be more pastoral than just propositional.

Those are good things in and of themselves and in the larger context can indeed be comforting.

But the reality is when you're in the midst of a deep spiritual winter, these things are good only in theory.

Do you know why?

The reason they're good only in theory at the moment, now they will serve a great purpose in the future, but in the moment, here's what the mind thinks.

Wait a minute.

Isn't God omnipotent, which means he's all powerful?

Can't he achieve what he wants to achieve in me through another way?

Okay, Jeff, I hear that God built you and your anxiety and he built you through the death of your mother, but couldn't he have done those same things in other ways that didn't require so much pain?

Job's response is this, if, beautiful, Job 933, if only there were someone to arbitrate between me and God, you hear what he's saying?

He's saying, build that, I hear what you're saying, but I don't need a spiritual lecture right now, I just need someone to plead my case.

Someone to represent me before God and say, God, is this really necessary in Job's life?

Can we not accomplish the same thing through some other means?

You know, there's somebody else who said that.

Pretty good guy, Jesus.

another way?

Can this cup pass for me?

Can we, can we do the same thing another way?" But ultimately Jesus said what?

But not my will, but yours be done.

Job says, I need somebody to arbitrate between God and me to plead my case.

And if I knew someone was pleading my case that we might be able to do this another way, then you know what?

That would give me strength.

Unfortunately, there's still one more friend.

His name is Zophar.

He's the youngest and the rudest.

Sorry, it's just true.

He's frustrated because Job's pain has inconvenienced him.

So he's made it more about him than Job.

And in Job 11 verse 12, he says this, it is more likely that a donkey will give birth to a human being than for you to listen to wisdom.

Wow, now that's not really something you wanna say to somebody who's lost his children, his family, all of his wealth, and now even his physical wellbeing.

Zophar doesn't like the fact that Job is not listening to what they're saying.

They prepared this good sermon, they met before, together, they had all their words in place, and they're upset that by giving Job these words, somehow it's not comforting to him, so now they're putting the blame on Job.

In fact, he goes on to say, oh, this is horrible.

He goes on to say in verse 14 of chapter 11, if you put away the sin that is in your hand and allow no evil to dwell in your tent, then free of fault, you will lift up your face, you will stand firm and without fear.

Do you hear what he's saying?

Saying Job it's obvious that you've got some sin in your life And if you get rid of that sin, then you know what God will heal you but we've already been told in chapter 1 that he was an upright blameless righteous man and Job's response you can tell he's not happy with so far.

He says doubtless This is Job 12 verse 2 and 3 doubtless.

You are the only people who matter and wisdom will die with you but I have a mind as well as you.

I am not inferior to you.

Who does not know all these things?

He said, you're just telling me things I know.

You've given me all the platitudes I already knew.

I love that about Job.

I've already, I already know, who doesn't know this?

And then he says, you know what?

Before you came, I had a lot of problems.

Now I have one more.

When you die, wisdom is gonna die with you.

Now I've been hard on Job's friends.

And I've done so because my fear in the series that somehow as you take on these resolutions that you will forget, these are for you.

It's a transformation for you internally, personally.

And I guarantee if you live by these resolutions, you're gonna have extraordinary victories, no doubt.

But in the moment of people's pain, the seven resolutions, that is not what they need to hear.

What do they need then?

They need friends.

The truth is that Job's friends were at their best when they weren't talking.

Verse two, or verse 11 of chapter two, when Job's three friends, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite, heard about all the troubles that had come upon him, they set out from their homes and met together by agreement to go and sympathize with him.

Do you know the Hebrew word sympathize there, nud, is the word that means rocking back and forth.

We ever seen somebody that's in real turmoil and if you've seen them do this, they're just rocking.

They're trying to deal with the pain, the intensity of the suffering.

I know that if I had a child that was in a cancer ward and I'm watching this child suffering, go through this chemo and not be able to, know what's going on.

I know that I'd be doing this.

I know I'd be rocking back and forth.

Verse 12 says, when they saw him from a distance, they could hardly recognize him and they began to weep aloud and they tore their robes and sprinkled dust on their heads.

When they come to Job, they had heard things are bad, they didn't know how bad they were.

And when they came to him and saw the depths of his suffering, they tore their robes, they sprinkled dust on their heads.

And they realized at that point, it's best that we don't say anything.

To go to Job and say, hey, don't worry, it'll all work out, was not gonna work.

So the Bible says, they sat on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights.

No one said a word to him because they saw how great his suffering was.

Seven days and seven nights they didn't say a word, and in that moment they were brilliant.

It became such a powerful act that it became part of Jewish life and culture in the years, decades, centuries to come.

It's called sitting Shiva, sitting sevens.

It means that when someone's mourning, you come and you just sit with them for seven days, day and night, you don't utter a word.

We as Christ followers forget Ecclesiastes chapter three.

There's a time for everything and a season for every activity under the heavens.

A time to be born, a time to die, a time to weep, a time to laugh, a time to mourn, a time to dance, and a time to be silent, and a time to speak.

The pain and suffering in some people's lives is so intense.

when they lose a job, when they lose a relationship, when they lose a friend, when they lose a mother, a father, a son or daughter, when their hearts are so broken, when their loss seems to be too great for them to keep going on, and when the future seems so bleak that there's no hope of recovery, That's when we desperately need one of the most beautiful things that God provides.

We need friends who will rock with us and mourn with us and sympathize with us and weep with us and understand the depths of our suffering.

Not platitudes, not resolutions spoken outside into us.

We need those who will come alongside and walk with us through the valley of the shadow of death so that we might not fear any evil.

Ecclesiastes says, I've seen the burden God is laying on the human race.

What a pop, right there.

He has made everything beautiful in its time.

That's true too.

He said eternity in our hearts.

Yes.

Yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.

You know what really comforted Job in the end?

He realized his own limitations, that there's so much he doesn't know that God knows.

God came to him and gave him this prevailing presence and a revelation of what is yet to come.

And the telltale sign of Job is when Job stands and says, I now know that my Redeemer lives and will one day stand upon the earth and renew all things.

Please stay here.

Focus just for one second here.

I'm asking you, yes, to make the resolutions.

I believe in them.

But suffering must be dealt with existentially.

And yes, we know that God does his best work in the most dire of situations.

We are people of the cross.

Jesus was most centered in the will of the Father when he was being crucified by the Romans for the salvation of all mankind.

Yes, we know that.

But while all this is happening, it is so essential to our soul, the real us, the essential us, the way down deep inside, that we must learn what Job ultimately learned when he said, if only there was someone to arbitrate between God and me.

Can I tell you that there is?

representing you before the Father, pleading your case.

Is there any other way?

But ultimately trusting the Father's will.

is the son who died for your sins and brought you into fellowship with God the Father.

And at the end of Job chapter 29, verses 25 through 27, when Job says, I know my Redeemer lives and in the end, he will stand upon the earth, we seldom read the next verse.

And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh, I will see God.

I myself will see him with my own eyes.

I and not another, how my heart yearns within me.

Here's what he's saying.

Job's saying, I know suffering has to be dealt with personally, but the only way it can successfully be dealt with is to know that there is life beyond the grave, that there is more.

And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God.

He said, there's a perspective from God's side that is locked away from me in the temporal frame.

I'll never be able to see it, but at the same time I know that death is not going to break communion with me and God, and neither will it break ours.

That's why Paul said, "'Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to grieve "'like the rest of mankind who have no hope, "'for we believe that Jesus died and rose again, "'and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus "'those who have fallen asleep.'" Paul is using a double negative.

He's saying we still grieve.

Oh yeah, we grieve.

Not sinful to grieve.

Not wrong to weep and cry and mourn.

But we grieve hopefully.

It's a balanced combination of two extremes.

Grieve, yes, but with hope.

Are we stoic?

No.

Do we face life with a stiff upper lip?

No.

We grieve when there's a time for grieving.

And that's why when Jesus comes to the tomb of Lazarus in John 11, verse 35, even though he knows what he's about to do, even though he knows he's gonna restore Lazarus, and Mary and Martha in just a few moments are gonna be experiencing such elation that's never been experienced before.

Even though he knows all that, he stops.

and he weeps.

And then in verse 38, Jesus once more deeply moved, came to the tomb.

It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance.

And the Bible says that he, the Greek word, I'm sorry, it means to snort with rage.

It's like a bull who's angry.

The only way Christ would be angry in this situation is if death is an intruder and it was never meant to be this way.

Death was not the original design.

Tim Keller in his book on death says, we're not meant to die.

We were meant to last.

We were meant to get more and more beautiful as time goes on, not more and more enfeebled.

We were meant to get stronger, not weaken and die.

Paul explains in Romans 8, 18 through 23, that when we turn from God to be our own lords and saviors, everything broke.

Our bodies, the natural order, our hearts, our relationships, nothing works the way it was originally designed.

It is all marred, distorted, broken, and death is part of that.

it.

So Jesus weeps and is angry at the monstrosity of death.

It is a deep distortion of the creation he loves.

So while you and I live in a world that denies death, that refuses to deal with it, and talks about as if it's a natural part of life, the circle of life, Jesus says, no it's not.

It was never meant to be this way.

That sin has broken and marred this world.

And then Paul says in 1 Thessalonians, for the Lord himself will come down from heaven with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ shall rise first.

And after that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will be with the Lord forever.

Therefore, encourage each other with these words.

the ultimate encouragement to suffer.

Listen now, this is the end.

The ultimate courage and encouragement to suffering is for you to know the child you lost will return to you and there will be a great reunion.

That the love you lost will be replaced to an infinitely greater degree.

that the body you lost will be restored, renewed, imperishable, indestructible, conducive to a new order in the heavenly realms.

And the hopes and the dreams that you lost will pale in comparison to the dreams discovered and experienced throughout eternity.

What C.S.

Lewis calls, and the Apostle Paul, the weight of glory far outweighs anything that you've lost in the here and now.

And in the meantime, to live knowing that God works everything together for good for those who love Him and who are called according to His purpose.

Can I tell you something?

Some of you are bearing such a burden and you've been carrying it for so long, you have to give it away now.

In Timothy 1.12.

Paul says, and of this gospel I was appointed a herald and am an apostle and teacher.

That is why I am suffering, he says.

I am suffering because I am an ambassador for the good news of Christ.

But then he says this, of all the pain and the suffering and the turmoil and the stonings and the floggings and the shipwrecks and the physical pain of the thorn in the flesh, he says, I am suffering because I am an ambassador for the good news of Christ.

But then he says, of all the pain and the suffering and the stonings and the physical pain of the thorn in the flesh, he says, I am suffering because I am an ambassador for the good news of Christ.

But then he says, of all the pain and the stonings and the physical pain of the thorn in the flesh, he says, I am suffering because I am an ambassador for the good news of Christ.

But then he says, of all the pain and the stonings and the physical pain of the thorn in the flesh, he says, I am suffering because I am an ambassador for the good news of Christ.

But then he says, of all the pain and the stonings and the physical pain of the thorn in the flesh, he says, I am suffering because I am an ambassador for the good news of Christ.

As yet this is no cause for shame, because I know whom I have believed, and am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him against that day." There comes a time in everyone's life, no matter how intense the pain, that you take it and you lay it down and you entrust God with it.

And you might not be able to do that in one moment of time and never have to deal with it again.

But if there is a definitive time in your life, when you take whatever it is that you're suffering, whatever that intense pain is, and you carry it, that you've been carrying it for so long, and you bring it over here and you drop it at the cross, and you say, I can't carry this on my own, and I'm gonna entrust it to you.

What does that mean?

It means, God, I'm gonna entrust the reality that whatever I've lost here, I will regain.

I will someday be reunited with the great loss.

I'm gonna trust that that day's going to come.

And I may have still bad days and good days, and it might be a rollercoaster ride spiritually speaking, but ultimately today I'm giving this to you, God, to know that this thing that I've lost, this thing that I've suffered, one day, Whatever I've lost is gonna be replaced to this infinitely greater degree.

And I am gonna be able to survive this life.

And I'm gonna be able to do all things through Christ who strengthens me because I'm gonna take this burden and I'm gonna stop carrying it and I'm gonna lay it down and entrust it to you because I know ultimately you're gonna do something immeasurably more.

greater than I could ever hope for or imagine, and that whatever I've lost, one day in the greatest reunion known to mankind, joy.

I don't know what it is in your life, But I know you can't keep carrying it.

And I know that platitudes aren't gonna help you.

Even resolutions may not help you in the moment.

There has to come a time, in the same way you brought your sins to the feet of the cross and gave them to God and he took them and forgave you for all eternity, you gotta bring your burden now.

The thing you've been carrying, give it to Jesus, trusting he'll take it and he'll guard it and he'll do immeasurably more than you could ever hope for, ask for or imagine.

And at the moment that you sincerely do that, you take that deep breath of giving it all to Him, the trajectory of your life will change and you'll go on in strength and victory.

And God will do His work in you.

Father, thank you for your goodness and your mercy and I pray in Christ's name, those who are heavily burdened will lay it down.

Whatever it is, that they would entrust it to you finally, until the day of redemption, when our eyes will be opened and all the dots connected, and ultimate comfort and restoration occurs.

We wait anxiously for that day, for the liberty and freedom of the sons of God, and for the creation that cries out, will be restored, and all good things.

will come to the surface and everything that is bad will be undone.

We wait for that day in Christ's name.

Amen.

Thank you for watching our sermon on our One and All YouTube channel.

If you haven't subscribed, I wanna encourage you to do so and click the notifications because we're gonna have a lot more content as we move forward, especially in this series.

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Watch them throughout the week so that way we can help you along your faith journey.