I do understand that you have come to Lord's Day 49 in your confessional reading, but when preparing to preach on that, I realized that the one sermon that I have on Lord's Day 49 was already preached by me here in Saris a little while ago. And so with the permission of Pastor Tim, we will be examining instead Lord's Day 10 of the Heidelberg Catechism. So please turn there with me, page 525 of your book of praise. That's also on the screen there for you. Lord's Day 10 picks up the thread of Lord's Day 9 about the fatherhood of God and delves a little deeper into it. Lord's Day 10 is not based on a certain line from the Apostles' Creed, but rather it goes into more detail as to what it means that God is our Heavenly Father. So let's read Lord's Day 10. What do you understand by the providence of God? God's providence is his almighty and ever-present power, whereby, as with his hand, he still upholds heaven and earth and all creatures, and so governs them that leaf and blade, rain and drought, fruitful and barren years, food and drink, health and sickness, riches and poverty, indeed all things, come to us not by chance, but by his fatherly hand. What does it benefit us to know that God has created all things and still upholds them by his providence? We can be patient in adversity, thankful in prosperity, and with a view to the future, we can have a firm confidence in our faithful God and Father that no creature shall separate us from his love. For all creatures are so completely in his hand that without his will, they cannot so much as move. After the sermon, without further announcement, we will stand to sing our amen song of hymn 73, the first three stanzas. May God bless the preaching of the truths of his word. Beloved in Christ our Lord, why do bad things happen to good people? If God is all loving and all powerful, Why then does evil still exist? These are classic questions. Many of you have heard them before. These are classic questions, not just of atheists who wanna disprove God. These are classic questions, not just of first year philosophy students who wanna prove that they're smarter than their religious parents. But these are genuine questions of faithful believers who have suffered in this world. They also ask these things. In every congregation, there are tragedies. There are parents who have lost children. There are those living with disabilities, those living with chronic pain, those with broken relationships, broken relationships with spouses, with friends, with family. There's maybe a mistrust in church leadership because of failures that have been made. and we cannot, we must not do what perhaps has become second nature to us now and simply pretend that these hurts don't exist. And that's true for the person hurting, it's true also for the people around the person who's hurting. At the same time, we can't also just wallow in sorrow for years and years living our lives only mourning what has been lost. But those two extremes, either ignoring it or wallowing in it, those aren't the only two options for us. What if the church, what if we as people, what if we were a safe place to express our doubts, express our concerns, express our pains, express our struggles? What if we could ask questions and not be met with a, well, just trust in God? not be met immediately with arguments like, well, you ask why do bad things happen to good people, but you're not a good person, are you? We confess that we're totally depraved, so don't even ask that. Or, well, if God is all loving and all powerful, why does evil exist? You ask that. Well, first of all, he's God, so don't question him. Secondly, look back at that first answer again. God is God, you're a human, how dare you question him? What if the church was a place where tears were not shamed, but where the crier was embraced? What if we followed the steps of David, a man who cried out again and again to his heavenly father, expressing his sorrow, lamenting before his God? What if we followed in the steps of Jesus, a man who cried over the death of his friend Lazarus, a man who cried out to God, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And in doing so, in asking these questions of God, we don't stand over God in judgment, but rather what we are doing is we are lifting our hands to heaven with our head bowed and asking for answers, asking for comfort, asking for salvation. And we will ask these questions together this afternoon and we will receive some answers. Not all of the answers that we might desire, but there is a little more in the Bible than simply saying it is what it is. And so this afternoon, the word of God comes to you under the provocative title, God in the Hands of Angry Sinners. We'll look at that in three points, his painful providence, his wise providence, and his eternal providence. God in the hands of angry sinners, his painful providence. Now, as you may or may not know, this title is a play on the preacher Jonathan Edwards' most famous sermon, where some of the words are flipped around, sinners in the hands of an angry God. That was his sermon. In this singular sermon, it caused mass revival because of the power in its words, because of the truth in its words. In the sermon, Jonathan Edwards, he describes the wrath of God against sinners, a great and fearsome wrath against those who reject God's covenant of grace, those who reject the Messiah. And he describes it in this way. These are a few lines from the sermon. God holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider or some loathsome insect over the fire, and he is dreadfully provoked. You hang by a slender thread with flames of divine wrath flashing about it and ready every moment to singe it and burn it asunder. And apparently these words and other words in the sermon were so powerful, they were so convincing, even though he spoke them in a quiet, whispery monotone, that his listeners, they grabbed their chairs, they grabbed each other because they were terrified that hell itself would open up beneath them. An invaluable sermon about an invaluable topic, the righteous wrath of God over sin. But this afternoon, we're not on that topic. This afternoon, we're flipping it around. Instead of the wrath of God against sinners, we're looking at the sinful wrath of man against God. God in the hands of angry sinners. Now I'm not the first to switch up Jonathan Edwards' words like this, but the few times that this has been done before, it was used to speak of Jesus Christ and his death on the cross. God in the flesh taken by angry sinners, the Jews and the Romans, and nailed to the cross. And we'll get there this afternoon too, but first we'll examine this in terms of those who sit in judgment over how God rules the universe. A God who allows wars, a God who allows abuse, a God who allows wildfires and hurricanes and death. Sinners in the hands of an angry God, yes, but also God in the hands of angry sinners. And we have to realize, as we heard in the introduction, some of these angry sinners are us. Maybe you felt anger, maybe you felt hurt when we read the words of Lord's Day 10. What do you understand by the providence of God God's providence is his almighty and ever-present power, whereby, as with his hand, he still upholds heaven and earth and all creatures, and so governs them, that leaf and blade, rain and drought, fruitful and barren years, food and drink, health and sickness, riches and poverty, indeed all things, come to us not by chance, but by his fatherly hand. We hear these words, and they hurt us. They hurt us not because we doubt them, rather the exact opposite. These words hurt us because we fully believe them. We know that there is a God. We know that he is personal. We know that he is powerful, and yet our lives look the way that they do. We are his children, and yet in his providence, God allows pain and suffering. How does that make sense? Why would a good God allow bad things? Well, usually when this question is asked, there are two options that are given. Option number one, God isn't powerful enough to deal with sin. When your child dies, the only comfort that we can receive is that God knows what it's like to lose a child. God knows your pain, he's experienced it. God is weeping in heaven with you. That was the comfort that I was given a few years ago when my grandmother died. That was what the pastor preached on. God knows your pain. That's the only comfort we can have. Or option two, God isn't loving enough to deal with sin. God is a big picture kind of God. Your personal suffering, it doesn't really matter to him because God is busy thinking about galaxies and universes. He's thinking about the grand plan. And so if your suffering fits into his plan, that's great. The nitty gritty day-to-day life of puny humans isn't all that important to him. That's sometimes what we hear when we hear about, well, life is a tapestry and your pain is sort of the dark colors. And look at the big picture, it's beautiful. The dark colors, you just kind of have to live with that. These are the two options. And I hope you're following along here because option one isn't good, it's not, and option two is arguably worse. So what do we do then? We have to choose secret option number three. God is absolutely powerful enough to deal with sin. He absolutely is, God's providence is his almighty and ever-present power. God is almighty, nothing is too hard for him. And God is absolutely loving enough to deal with sin. as with his hand he upholds heaven and earth and all creatures. Your life is not too small for God to care about. Leaf and blade, rain and drought, fruitful and barren years, food and drink, health and sickness, riches and poverty. Think about this, think about this, beloved. Here are these words, leaf and blade. God cares about you so much. He is so invested in your life that he cares about your backyard. The leaves on your tree and every blade of grass. Rain and drought, God cares about you so much. He is so invested in your life that he cares about your rain gauge. Has it rained two inches or 10 inches? God cares. Food and drink, I had initially skipped, but since it's Thanksgiving, food and drink, God cares what is gonna be on your Thanksgiving table. He cares what's in your oven right now. Fruitful and barren years, God cares about you so much. He is so invested in your life that he cares about how many apples your tree produces. Could keep on going here with all of them, but I think you get the idea. So option one, It doesn't cut it. God is powerful enough to create everything that we can see, everything that we can't see, with the breath of his mouth. So he is powerful enough to rule. He is powerful enough to fight evil. He could unmake Satan in an instant. Option number two is even worse. That God isn't loving. Really? Everything that God does is loving. To ask if God loves you is a preposterous, completely ridiculous question. Everything that he does is loving, he is love. So secret option number three, what is it? What is the answer to the problem of evil in the world? Why doesn't God do anything? The answer is that he is. He is doing something, he is doing the best thing. And before we get into what God is doing, let's get one thing clear. God is not the author of evil. God is not the one who sits up in heaven imagining new and creative ways to bring suffering to us. Not at all. The pains and the suffering of this world are the result of this being a fallen world. God created it good. There was no pain, no suffering, no tears, no death in the world that he created. Then Satan came in, then Adam and Eve came in. Suffering came into this world because there's more in this universe than Christians and God. There are non-Christians who follow the ways of this world, who follow the promptings of their wicked hearts. Sometimes we are among those. We do that too. Thankfully, we don't do that as much because we are claimed and indwelt by the Holy Spirit. Then there are demonic forces of evil in the heavenly realms. They don't often talk about demons. Give a passing mention here or there to Satan, but they are a reality. Daily we fight them and their effects, whether we recognize this or not. But back to the answer. Secret option number three, God is doing something. God is doing the best thing. He is displaying his wise providence. That's our second point this afternoon. Our God's providence is painful. There's no denying that, we've all experienced some pain. For every good thing from his hand, and every bad thing, every painful and tragic thing, that's allowed by that same hand. And so we might be tempted to despair, we might be tempted to wonder, does providence actually exist? We see the words from our reading, and we have some sympathy with them, because even though we would never express these concerns in polite company, deep down we might be tempted to think exactly the same way. 2 Peter 3, verse four. Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation. Essentially, whether God exists or not, whether God hears our prayers or not, the world just continues. Good things happen, bad things happen seemingly randomly. Providence makes no difference, does it? With or without God's providence, good things and bad things happen to us. This is the exact issue that the book of Ecclesiastes addresses. Where the preacher there says, in my vain life, I've seen everything. There's a righteous man who perishes in his righteousness. There's a wicked man who prolongs his life in his evildoing. So, what shall we say to these things? Should we despair? Should we give it all up? Should we eat and drink for tomorrow we die? By no means, beloved. Because our God is not inactive. He does not sit up helplessly in heaven. He does not sit up heartlessly in heaven. What does he do? What is he doing right now? There are three things that our God does when the forces of evil raise themselves up against his children. Firstly, God controls the evil. God, our heavenly Father, he controls the evil. And so this means that there are some attacks that don't make their way to you. God intervenes, and he protects you, and you never know. Do you think that this world, that your life, with all of its beauty and joy, alongside all the pain and sorrow, but the days that are beautiful and joyful, do you think that that comes because Satan was not wanting to be too harsh on you that day? Do you think that your good days, the moments of laughter, the moments of peace and joy, Is that Satan has taken a holiday? That he's showing you mercy? No, these are direct gifts from God, preventing the negative, protecting you, and then supplying the positive, showing you both mercy and grace. And the attacks that do come your way, just like when Satan desired to attack Job, God limits what is done. Satan is on a leash. He's not given free reign. Now there are times, many times, when we wish that leash was shorter. We don't understand why God would let Satan be that destructive, but God controls evil. That's the first thing that he does. And secondly, God punishes evil. He punishes evil. God is a righteous and a just judge. The evil that is done on this earth will be punished. No evil that is done escapes his sight. It will be punished and it will be made right. God never turns a blind eye to evil. It's just not in his character. There is evil, but God brings in his justice to replace it. And this is perfectly shown in a verse that you may never have heard of, a verse that you may never have read, and after today, it might just be a new favorite of some of you. Turn with me, if you will, to Joel chapter two. It's in the Old Testament, one of the minor prophets, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Joel, chapter two. We're gonna be looking at verses 25, 26, and 27. Joel 2, 25, 26, 27. We're all approximately there. Wonderful. This is what God says through the prophet Joel. I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten, the hopper, the destroyer, and the cutter, my great army which I sent among you. You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied, and praise the name of the Lord your God who has dealt wondrously with you, and my people shall never again be put to shame. You shall know that I am in the midst of Israel and that I am the Lord your God and there is none else. And my people shall never again be put to shame. It's those first words there. I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten. God's promise is not only that he will restore the crops, he will restore the years. This does not mean that God will use a time machine and take us back, but what it means is that these will not be wasted years. What this means is that every tear, every pang of hunger that the Israelites experienced because of that plague of locusts that God himself sent in his painful providence, every tear will not only be dried, but it will be repaid. Every pang of hunger will not only be satisfied, but it will be put right. That joy that was missing in those years, you will now experience it. God will cram extra joy into the upcoming years. You missed out on two years of joy during the plague, well in the third year you will have joy for those three years, three times the joy. I will restore to you not only the crops, I will restore to you the years. And my people will never be put to shame. What a promise. There will be a day when evil breathes its last. There will be a day when your shame will be turned into glory, your pain will be turned into pleasure, and your tears will be turned into praise. And then it will always be like that, forever. The years that the locust has eaten will be restored. And then thirdly, God turns evil. God turns evil. He controls evil, he punishes evil, and he turns evil. God turns evil for good. This is what happened with Joseph and his brothers. He says in Genesis 50, what you intended for evil, God intended for good to bring about what is being done now, the saving of many lives. And this happened in a much larger way, a much greater way with the suffering and death of Jesus Christ. Satan thought that he had won the final victory by killing the Messiah, acting out of wickedness and hatred, never considering that love would win the day. But it was through his most evil action that salvation was brought about. The evil that has happened in your life will be turned. It may be impossible to see it now, but it will happen. And the reason may be revealed to you immediately, or it may be revealed to you after many years, or you may have to wait until time gives way into eternity, but you will know. And while we mourn, and we wonder, and we wait to learn why, we can rest secure in the fact that God knows why. We can rest secure because though we don't know what the future holds, we do know who holds the future. See, there will never be a fully satisfying answer for people like us, for angry sinners like us. It's hard to accept that these words describe us, but they do at times. It's something that we have to fight. You may have heard this before. You may have heard this, it's okay to be angry at God. God is bigger than your anger. He can deal with your anger. You may have heard that, but it's not true. It's not true. It's natural to be angry at God. It's natural for sinners to sin. What we must do instead is instead of being angry at God, instead of pouring out our anger on Him, Let us mourn and let us lament. Take up the words of Psalm 88, what we sang. Dark words, depressing words. Your terrors like a mighty flood have overwhelmed and almost drowned me. All day long they surge around me. You bring me bitter solitude. I am shunned by those I loved so dearly. My closest friend is darkness dreary. This, the words of Psalm 88 are the proper reaction to that pain that we feel. bringing it to God, lamenting over it, mourning over it. Sadness is right, not anger. Because where does anger come from? Anger comes because we think that we deserve better. But sadness, sadness comes because we know that God is better. God is better than what is happening and we don't understand what he's doing. We know that God is good, we know that God is powerful, we know that we are his dearly loved children, and right now we're not feeling that love. And so we call out in confusion and fear, knowing and expecting that God will answer us, knowing that if right now we are living in a Psalm 88 season, then there will come a day when it transitions, there will come a day when it gives way into a Psalm 89 season. My closest friend is darkness dreary, Yes, maybe now, but not forever. I will forever sing of your great love, oh Lord. That is where the story ends. For our God's providence, even though it does include pain and suffering, it is wise and it is eternal. That's our final point. because of the almighty power, because of the almighty love of our heavenly Father shown in his providence to us, his people, we may have hope. We may have hope no matter what may come tomorrow. We have hope no matter how great our sorrow today. A Christian may and a Christian even must have hope. I choose that word carefully, beloved, because it's hope, not optimism, that we must have as beloved children of God. Christians have no right to be optimistic, but at the same time, we have no right not to be hopeful. Let me explain. Optimism, optimism is the belief that things are finally going to end up happy. That's a nice goal to have, it's a fine goal, but let us set our sights a little higher than mere happiness. Optimism is that belief that things are going to end up happy. But hope, on the other hand, Hope means that we know the Lord God of all creation, who sits in the heavens and rules over all the peoples of the earth. We know his grace, we know his mercy, we know his holiness, his character, and his love, and above all this, we know his son, and thus we live in hope. Hope is the belief that things are finally going to end up right. True peace, true love, true joy forever. It is Jesus. It is Jesus who transforms our weak optimism, maybe I'll be happy, into hope. Things will be made right. It is Jesus whose earthly ministry can be described as God in the hands of angry sinners. Sinners who do not merely rage against God like we do from time to time, but sinners who took God, who grabbed him with their hands, who bound him, beat him, bloodied him, and buried him. How can this give us hope? God himself didn't escape the pains and torments of this world. How could we possibly hope to do so? Well, it's for this reason, beloved. It was through his suffering, it was through the suffering of God in the hands of angry sinners that you and I have been set free. Our greatest enemy, our ultimate enemy has been defeated and our destination has been changed. Because Jonathan Edwards was right. All those years ago, he was right on the money. God holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider or some loathsome insect over the fire, and he is dreadfully provoked. You hang by a slender thread with flames of divine wrath flashing about it and ready every moment to singe it and burn it asunder. That's who we are naturally. This is what the wages of our sin get us. We earned this, fair and square, each and every one of us. But God, but God, our Father through Christ, sent his Son to conquer sin and death and Satan. Because of Jesus Christ, we are no longer held over the pit of hell, but rather our destiny and our destination has been completely transformed. This world, this world, as painful as it is from time to time, it is as close as you or I will ever get to hell. Because the gates of hell have been closed. No Christian will ever enter through its doors. And because of that, because we know that our destination is not hell, we can confess with the catechism that we can be patient in adversity. Because we know that adversity is temporary. We can be thankful in prosperity for we know that we don't deserve it. And with a view to the future, we can have a firm confidence in our faithful God and Father that no creature shall separate us from his love. On this side of glory, beloved, there will be dark days. There will be seasons of suffering. We will question. We will be tempted to rage against our heavenly Father when we see the disparity between what we experience and who we know our God is. a father who provides for his children, a father who gives his children hope and a future, blessings now with the promise of so much more yet to come. And now, right now, for some of us, the road is painful and dark, but we can take comfort in the fact that it's also short. It's painful and dark, but it is so short. The destination, on the other hand, an eternal place with no more night, no more mourning or crying or pain anymore. For those things will have passed away and they will never return. All of those years of suffering on this side of eternity will be restored. And so with tears in our eyes and with hope in our heart, let us travel together to that shining, glorious city where we will live abundantly, where we will live a life eternally, a life where this world will be but a faded memory as we revel in our Father's perfect providence, one day and then forever. Amen.