scriptures that will form the general basis of the message this morning. Let me just say that this topic that we'll look at is something I've been thinking about, especially these past four weeks, but a topic I think that we all visit often because it's part and parcel of the Christian life. And as I look out amongst you, I'm very confident that every one of you could preach the same message, because we're all cut out of the same cloth as born-again believers. We have many things against us. I'm going to say many things in this world, a world that hates Christianity, hates the gospel, hates God, hates you for being a Christian. And then, of course, on the positive side, we have God himself working in us to will and to do of his good pleasure. But as I share this message this morning, I sense that you will know that, or believe that I know whereof I speak this morning. And again, I believe you, brethren, could preach the same message. Two passages this morning, then. The first one, Isaiah chapter 55. and verse eight and nine, I'm breaking into the context of salvation, but the topic that is included here is an overarching truth that resonates elsewhere in God's word. Isaiah 55, verse eight and nine. God speaking, for my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher, that word means exalted, for as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. And then over to Romans chapter 11, beginning at verse 33. Again, breaking into a context where the apostle is is amazed but understands the grafting in of the Gentiles to the gospel of grace, the covenants of grace. And he concludes that chapter with these words in verse 33 of chapter 11 of Romans. Oh, the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God. Note how unsearchable are his judgments. and his ways past finding out. For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor, or who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again, for of him, and through him, and to him are all things, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. His ways are higher than our ways. His thoughts are higher than our thoughts. As far as heaven is above the earth, his judgments are unsearchable. That is, they cannot only not be searched out and found, but they also cannot be comprehended. God's ways higher than our ways. The title of the message is The Question with no easy answer. So what's the question? A two-word question that every one of you have asked. God, why? Why, God? God, why have you had these thoughts and these providences that have been individually directed into my life? Why have things happened in my arena of my life so that I have asked, I do ask, and I will ask probably to my dying day, God, why this particular difficult circumstance? Why this trial? Why this suffering? God, why? What are you doing? When you boil that question down, against several scriptural truths you understand, there's no easy answer. We could say there's some categorical answers, we'll look at those in a minute, but there's no easy answer relative to your personal life, your personal circumstances that oftentimes seem unpleasant, Contrary to your attempt to faithfully walk with God? Things that seem to go against spiritual reasoning and logic? God, God, why? Of course, Lori and myself have asked that question these past five weeks when our grandson is at a premier hospital, Stanford Hospital, and they cannot control his seizures. not to mention my granddaughter, Isla, who for six years has been on life support and will continue to have to be. But in the larger context of all of us, why, Lord, do I have this particular debilitating sickness or disease? Why was my loved one in a car accident through no fault of their own? Why didn't I get the job that I really wanted? Why do I have the worst neighbors on the planet that vex me every day? Why is my financial situation so difficult? Lord, it's month by month. God, I'm trying to be faithful. I'm trying to walk with you. I'm not perfect, but I'm prying by your help. And yet I feel like Job. I'm poured from cup to cup. Why, God? Answer, God says, Isaiah 55, my thoughts are not your thoughts. My ways are not your ways. My judgments are unsearchable. You cannot comprehend them. You cannot find them out. Now typically when we go through these, I could give you a test and I could ask you, give me three reasons why sometimes in our life God's providences seem to be unpleasant or it brings affliction or suffering. Give me three reasons. The first one is, well Romans 8.28, all things work together for good to them who love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. So God is working this refining in our life. He's working And we like that. The process is difficult. You know, Peter talks about the trial of our faith being more precious than gold. And in that imagery, Peter brings fire and gold together. And the imagery is of a refiner who is refining the gold. And I'm sure you've heard this before, but that goldsmith would look at that melting metal. And when he could see his face in that pool of melted gold, then he knew it was pure. And God wants to see his face, right, his image in our life. And so sometimes these trials, these providences, these circumstances are doing that. It's a refinement. Second answer, I think, would be that God is doing something to get glory for himself. Remember John chapter nine. Those disciples asked Christ, they said, about that man who was born blind. What was their question? Very linear, two-dimensional question. Who sinned, Lord? It was their parents, or it was him? And that's why he's born blind. And what did Jesus say? He said, neither one. I mean, we know If God were to bring some catastrophic thing into our life because of our sin, none of us would be here. There'd be nobody in the world. But Jesus said it's for the works of God that they could be made manifest in his life. A similar thought in John chapter 11 of Lazarus. It was for the glory of God. Sometimes God has a purpose in our life that is totally God-oriented. It's for him, and we as servants, we acquiesce to his will so that he can do the work, and he can get the glory. Of course, this idea that, oh, it had to be this or the other thing, this sin, I mean, we just saw from Genesis chapter three, right, and Romans five, as by one man sin entered the world, and so what? Death by sin. We could trace it back. But, and there's obviously truth in that. But these disciples wanted a very shallow answer to this thing. Or thirdly, we would say chastisement. Sometimes God brings unpleasant things into our life by way of chastisement. You know the verse in chapter 12 of Hebrews. Whom the Lord loves, he chastens, and scourges every son whom he receiveth. All of those are correct. those categories. But I've been thinking about just a little bit from a different bent, a little bit of a different standpoint. And I've concluded, and we're going to look at this, why there's typically no easy answer. No easy answer to this question, why God? So as you can see in your bulletin, we're going to look at five things really briefly. Each one, we could spend a lot of time, I do not plan on spending a lot of time this morning. First of all, the incomprehensibility and the knowability of God, that will lay a doctrinal foundation. Secondly, we'll look at others who have asked this question in the scripture. You are in really good company if you've asked this question, why God? Because there's a lot of folks in the Bible, godly people, who ask the same question. Thirdly, we're gonna look at the case of Job. Fourthly, the wrong question. This question, why God, has taken on in our day a slight twist. And we're going to look at why that question is an invalid question. And then lastly, what shall we do? How do we go on from here? So first of all, the incomprehensibility and the knowability of God. God is incomprehensible. That is, you cannot comprehend God as he is in his totality. And in Isaiah 55, he already says, just his ways and just his thoughts, just those two things about him, are as high as the heaven is from the earth, and his ways are past finding out. His judgments are unsearchable. Romans 9. Theologically speaking, when we say God is incomprehensible, we're not saying that he is utterly unknowable, that we can't know him at all. It just means we cannot comprehend him exhaustively, his ways exhaustively. It's impossible to know God as God knows himself, because he is infinite, and we are finite. You've heard the saying, there is one God, and you're not him. God is infinite, his ways, how he administers the universe, what his plan for you is, a million and one other things is incomprehensible. Exhaustively, you cannot know God. Fallen human beings are so finite. Though we are redeemed, we come from a finite and a fallen perspective. We live and move and have our being in time and in this finite realm, whereas God lives and moves and has his being in this majestically, glorious, infinite realm. He always has. We cannot fully understand, we cannot fully comprehend God. He is infinite, and so that limits our understanding of God and his ways. Of course his ways are past finding out. Yeah, Isaiah, of course his thoughts are higher than, because he's infinite, and we're not. Yet, though he is incomprehensible, he is also knowable. We can know God as God chooses to reveal himself to us. He must reveal himself. And as you know, we say there are three ways he reveals himself. Special revelation, his word. Natural revelation, creation. Paul said the invisible things of him from the very creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made. Paul, what is seen? What is clearly seen? His eternal power and Godhead. So they are without excuse. Or as one of our favorite, Psalm 19, the heavens declare the glory of the Lord. Day into day, utter speech, night into night, And there's no language or knowledge that creation cannot touch. It's a universal language. Special revelation, his word, we can know God that way. Natural revelation, we can understand something about his creatorship that way. And of course, God, who at sundry times in diverse manners spoken time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken unto us by his son. He's spoken to us by his son. who, by the way, the writer says, is the brightness of his glory and the express image of his person. He's revealing God to us. God, though he's incomprehensible, we can know something about this infinitely majestic, glorious God as he reveals these pieces, these parts, these segments of himself to us. Christianity is a very rational religion. I mean, if you were to tell somebody in the street, you know what? God is incomprehensible, but he's knowable, they would say, you're crazy. But the Christian understands how big God is, and how small we are, and the spiritual dimension where God has to reveal himself to us. And with that knowledge, we can know him. There's a mysterious, infinite dimension to God. It's mysteriously infinite. God does not reveal everything there is to know about him. One day we're going to know a whole lot more, but even those things that he has revealed to us, we do not know completely, exhaustively. Think about any gospel truth you know. And would you say that God has revealed that infinite proportion or dimension about that object, the love of God, the grace of God, would you say, I know that exhaustively? Of course not, we wouldn't. Deuteronomy 20, 29, 29, which theologians use to describe this phenomena of incomprehensible and nobility. The secret things belong unto the Lord our God. But those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children forever, that we may do the words of this law. So remember when you ask that question, why God? Remember, though he is knowable, he's also incomprehensible. We have a working knowledge of God, we have an experimental knowledge of God, we know much, relatively speaking, about God, who he is, what he thinks, how he acts. But remember, we have to mix in our fallibility, our weak faith, our finiteness, our incompleteness. But this is a foundational truth. His ways, his thoughts, are far beyond us. He is knowable, but at the same time, incomprehensible. So secondly, others who have asked this question, God, why? Or why God? And like I said, you're in good company if you ask this question, because the saints of old on the pages of scripture have asked the same question. And God anticipates. No surprise, God knows all of his people are going to be asking, like the little child asks the parents, why? Why? We ask, why God? And I just want to remind you of a few of these. And just by way of caution, you'll notice these that are asking, they ask in a very godly way. Some ask in a very, very bad way. And I'm thinking of Ezekiel 18 and Ezekiel 33, where the people asked a question. At the same time, they charged God. They said, your ways are not equal. God, your ways are not equal. And God said, my ways are not equal? God says, your ways are unequal. And they got into this pointing, as opposed to, it's okay just to ask the question, but we have to be humble, we have to have the right motivation. The people in Ezekiel's day had already judged God and found that God was not equal when they asked the question. First of all, first person, and I'm just gonna give you a few of these people. First one was Moses. Remember when God sent Moses to deliver the Israelites? And one of the first or second audiences that Moses and Aaron had with the Pharaoh, Pharaoh decided they had too much time on their hands to be asking this kind of question and wanting to go into the wilderness to worship God. So Pharaoh commanded his people to have the Israelites make bricks without straw. It used to be very hard and arduous to make bricks, but the straw was provided and they could meet the quota of making bricks. Now Pharaoh says, no, they have to go find their own straw. They had to go a long way to find straw, and sometimes that supply was exhausted. The Israelites get upset, and who do they get mad at? Mad at Moses. And the scripture says in chapter five, they came to Moses and Aaron, who had just come out of another audience with Pharaoh, and they got in between, and they got in his face, in Moses' face, and they said, The Lord look upon you and judge you because you have made our savor to be abhorred in the eyes of Pharaoh and the eyes of his servants to put a sword in their hand to slay us. Moses, ultimately, because what you have done is gonna kill us. Moses, next verse 22 of chapter five, Moses returned unto the Lord and he said, two questions, number one, Why have you so evilly entreated this people? Why, God? And number two, why have you sent me? Why am I involved in this? He asks God these two questions. And then in the next verse, he gives evidence that substantiates his question. He says, for since I came to Pharaoh to speak in thy name, he hath done evil to this people. And you have not delivered the people either, God. See, there's the evidence. And when we go through trials and afflictions and suffering and providential circumstances, we have the evidence already that proves why we can ask the question, why God? As all these events unfold, They seem to be opposed to God's partially revealed will to Moses. God didn't reveal everything to Moses. He revealed partially, right? And he revealed along the way. Moses thought it was counterintuitive to the nature of God. His evidence seems to vindicate Moses. And as you know the story, God answers these questions, but not with a quick solution. He says, I will deliver the people, but not today. And yes, Moses, I've heard the groanings of the people. They've been here for 430 years before you got on the scene, Moses, and I've heard them. And then he says something. He says, Moses, I am Jehovah. Moses, there's one God, and it ain't you. That says a lot about the nature of God and our smallness and God's infiniteness. And actually, if you trace through the life of Moses several times, he says, why God? Why God? What are you doing? How this, why that? What about the other thing? Next individual, Gideon. We actually looked at this several years ago, but in Judges chapter six in verse 13, Gideon asks the question this way, if the Lord is with us, oh, there's a lot in that sentence. If you're with us, God, I'm gonna make a lot of assumptions, like everything is gonna be hunky-dory in a walk in the park. If you be with us, Lord, why has all of this befallen us? Where are the miracles that our fathers told us about, saying, did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt? And then this conclusion, but now the Lord has forsaken us. Have you ever said that in the midst of a trial or a suffering or circumstance? God, you're far from me. You don't hear my prayer. You may not say God has forsaken us, but it's where are you, God? You've delivered us into the hands of the Midianites. The backstory, of course, is that the children of Israel had done evil, and God had to correct them. And Gideon is threshing wheat. He's hiding because the Midianites kept coming in and stealing all the crops. And Israel was really impoverished relative to the food. And an angel of the Lord comes to Gideon and says, The Lord is with thee, thou mighty man of valor. So he has this reinforcement of an angel of God. The context shows that he understands it was an angel. But then that's when he says, if the Lord be with us, then why has all this happened? God goes on to tell him, go in your might. You will save Israel from the Midianites. I have sent you. But what's going to unfold is this process this time duration. And God is going to, if you know the story of Gideon, besides the fact that Gideon has to test the Lord a few more times and ask why and prove it, Lord, God is going to save the people and use Gideon in the most improbable way possible. Nobody could have thought up of this plan, and that's the one God chooses to show that he's behind it. It's like Paul who said, when I am weak, then I am strong. What about the prophet Habakkuk? Again, we looked at this several years ago. The prophet asked God five questions. God, where are you when I need you? Most of chapter one. God, where are you? I need you. Next, why do bad things happen to good people? Chapter one into chapter two. Chapter two, why do good things happen to bad people? Fourth question, which is, I think, a question we ask. Will I make it through this trial? I'm being poured from cup to cup. I have an outward countenance, a disposition, where nobody knows what I'm going through. But Lord, inside, this is a real struggle. Will I make it through this trial? And fifthly, a question that runs through the whole chapter. God, why are you acting in a way that seems to be contrary to your nature? Remember, God was going to use the enemy of Israel to invade and judge them. And this was a big struggle for the prophet. God seemed to be going outside of his sphere of holiness and righteousness and remembering his covenant people and all of these things. And Habakkuk, was saying, you're going against your nature, at least as I perceive your nature, which was not complete. He couldn't comprehend the nature of God. Of course, that prophet's faith was tried very much, but at the end of that book, it's very triumphant. God does get him through that. He says, although the fig tree will not blossom, neither shall there be fruit in the vine, The labor of the olive shall fail. The fields will yield no meat. The flock will be cut off from the herd, and the cows from the stall. Yet, so everything can go bad, everything can go south, as they say, yet I will trust in the Lord. I will joy in the God of my salvation. The Lord God is my strength, and he will make my feet like hind's feet, and I will walk upon mine high places. He makes that a song and gives that song to be a temple song. Others have asked a question. Others who have asked the question seem to be standing in between the knowability of God and his incomprehensibleness. Many other saints in the scriptures have done it. And we do it. We're in good company. God anticipates the question. He knows we are weak in the flesh. Thirdly, the case of Job. Did Job ask the question? Oh, yeah. Job really asked the question. You know that his trial, I think, has no parallel, at least in the human sphere, in the rest of scripture. It's such of a quick compass. Losing his family, his wealth, I'm gonna say he lost his wife, like Adam did. We could talk about that later. He lost his health. His health was so bad, his friends came to see him and they said, we don't recognize him. We don't even recognize him. Through most of the book, from basically chapter three to chapter 38, Job is searching for answers. If God is good, if God is benevolent, why is there suffering? I'm gonna come back to this question shortly. Job's friends, they have answers. Oh, Job, it's a secret sin. It's that simple, Job. You committed a secret sin, and so God is judging you. Of course, you know God has to reprove them, and he says, you've not spoken about me correctly. God doesn't punish in that way for secret sins to the point of death. And if there was a sin, it would be more along the lines of chastening to correct and bring us back. In Job's case, there seemed to be no end. It seemed to be a full and final punishment that was going to kill him. Chapter 3 to chapter 38, Job is searching for answers. Beginning at chapter 38 through chapter 41, God asks Job 84 questions. Okay, Job, you're asking me questions, I'm gonna ask you 84 questions, and I want you to answer them for me, and then we can get down to this question of why God. I wanna look at just three of the questions God asks Job, or God's response to Job, and apply them to our afflictions and trials and circumstances. where we ask, why God? Again, the severest of trials for an extended time period, and Job is basically asking, why God? So now in chapter 38, beginning at verse one, and the Lord answers Job out of the whirlwind that he says, who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge? Gird up now thy loins like a man, for I will demand of thee, and answer thou me. Here's the question. Where was thou when I laid the foundation of the earth? Declare it, if thou hast understanding. Job, here's the question. Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? God is now starting to show Job that he is Jehovah God, In eternity past, he created the world, the cosmos, by the word of his power. But I'm going to ask you to think about something here relative to us, something when you're going through deep waters that's very interesting to me as I thought about this. The book of Job is 42 chapters. Job, his personage doesn't enter into the book, until the end of chapter one and the beginning of chapter two. And so this timeline for his suffering and what's going to happen begins before Job even shows up. So this question, where was thou when I laid the foundation of the earth? Let me rephrase it. Job, where were you when God in eternity past constructed your life's path? God constructed Job's life path from the foundation of the world before Job showed up on the scene. Let me ask you a question. Where were you when God planned out your life's path? when you would be born, where you would live, who your family would be, when you would be born again, what church you would, churches, plural, we often belong to several churches over the course of our life, what churches you would belong to. This trial, that circumstance, that providence, Where were you when God planned this mysterious, spiritually divine process that would make you fit to be a partaker of the inheritance of the saints in light? Colossians chapter one. When God architected you. When God did not just architect you and send you into the planet, but when he oversaw from your alpha to your omega, your plan, with his perfect will and with his permissive will, but vouchsafing you for all of eternity. Where were you? Where was I? The second thought that God sends to Job is in Job chapter 40, beginning at verse one, The Lord answered Job again now and he says, shall he that contendeth with the Almighty instruct him? He that reproveth God, let him answer it. Job goes on to say, I'm vile, I'll lay my hand upon my mouth. But God in verse eight asks this question. Will thou disannul my judgment? Will thou condemn me that thou mayest be righteous? somewhat of a dangerous question that Job was getting into. And God turns it back on him and says, Job, this is what you're asking. Will you disannul my judgment and will you condemn me so that you could be found righteous? Job, through this whole trial, Job, I've been wrong. I've taken wrong steps, but you've been right the whole time. Job, is that what you're asking? Job did, as we know, try to maintain his own righteousness, to a fault, of course. And God is saying, Job, you cannot govern the universe. Not only can you not govern it, you don't have the power, the wisdom, or the strength, Job, to do it. I think Job was getting close to that Ezekiel 18 and Ezekiel 33 line where they're saying, God is not equal. God, your ways are not fair. It's not right. Job, again, Job's trials and suffering, there's no parallel. I mean, it's really, really hard to understand the difficulty that he went through. But God is telling Job, really, Job, you need to judge yourself and not me. And Job, actually, I am administering the universe and the world according to meekness and truth and righteousness. Like Abraham said, shall not the judge of all the earth do right? God is doing right, Job, even though you're being poured from cup to cup. So God's, I'm just highlighting three of these things. God's first answer to Job was, Job, I planned your life before you came on the scene. Of course you don't understand every step. God's second answer, he enforced to Job, George, be careful to not charge God foolishly. And here, of course, Job gets it, because it goes on in chapter 42, and Job says, I know, Lord, that you could do everything, and no thought can be withholden from you. He goes on to say, I have heard of thee with the ear, but now mine eye seeth thee. Wherefore? I abhor myself and I repent in dust and ashes." Now here, think about it. What a mark of spirituality. The one who has been tried and tested and afflicted has lost everything, and he realizes, even in that condition, God is right, God is true, he has to repent. in dust and ashes. He submits. That's a beautiful thing. He submits to Jehovah God. He acknowledges his insignificance. He realizes that there's no easy answer to why he's suffering. Not at all. Someone said this, man never knows his real littleness until he understands something of the greatness of God. God is high and lifted up. were upon the earth made out of the dust of the earth. God's third answer to Job. Chapter 42, verse 12. So the Lord blessed the latter end of Job more than the beginning. God's plan all along was to bless the latter end of Job more than the beginning. Though he had to go through the deepest waters, I could never go through those. Tremendous affliction, tremendous loss. God gave it back and even multiplied it. God bless the latter end. This leads to our fourth point, the wrong question. And this question with no easy answer. There's no easy answer to the question, why God? Because our knowability is tempered with the incomprehensibleness of God. And like Job, we don't have enough knowledge and understanding of what God is doing in the overall picture of things. And we misinterpret the will of God often, basing it on our finite knowledge or our past experience. But this question, why God, has morphed into a different question today. And I want to talk about it just for a minute. Here's the way the question appears today. The unbeliever is asking this question. This is how we ask the question, why God? If God is good, and he is all powerful, why is there suffering? I've heard that question. Perhaps you have, too. If God is good, that is, he's benevolent, he's merciful, he's loving, and I would say, yes, he is. He's gooder than we can imagine. He's a good God. And if God is all-powerful, He's sovereign, He's majestic in His power. I mean, Proverbs talks about His power from a little tiny ant to the universe. He is a good God. He is powerful. then why does he allow suffering? This question is an invalid question. It's a flawed question because it limits God to two options. It says, maybe God is good, but he's powerless, can't stop the suffering. We know that's wrong. Or, God has the power. He is all-powerful. He could stop the suffering. But he's not a good God. Because he's not stopping the suffering in your, in my life. This is a false question. It's an invalid question because it limits God to just two options. Here's the question that should be asked. Since God is good, And since he is all powerful, will he ever do anything to stop the suffering? And the answer is yes, he already has. He sent his son into the world, the Lord Jesus Christ, as the savior of the world, to fix the sin problem, to carry our griefs and our sorrows, to tell us to cast all of our care upon Him because He cares for us. He came into the world to suffer in that place of suffering that we never could have suffered. The Bible says Christ's suffering on the cross is the most glorious contemplation that God the Father has. He sent His Son into the world to fix the death problem. He got victory over death. God sent His Son into the world to do those things and so many more so that whoever puts their trust in Him will have their end like Job. He'll bless your latter end more than your beginning. God has done something. Was there anybody else that you thought of? When we talked about people in the Old Testament who asked this question, why God? Was there anybody else who asked that question that you thought about? How about the Lord Jesus Christ? About the ninth hour, Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthanah, that is to say, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Why have you forsaken me? Now, listen to this. You're gonna have in your Christian life many why God questions that you will not get a complete answer for. But if I were to ask you, why did the son of man ask why God? You could tell me the answer. Because he was bringing salvation. Redemption. Think about that. You could answer the question, when Jesus said, why God? Fully God, fully man. He asked the question, why God? And you could tell me the answer to that. That's pretty profound, the way I think. And at the same time, I'm reminded, I'm going to have a lot of why God questions. And because of all some of those things we've talked about, I will never have a complete answer. There's never really an easy answer, an answer that's buttoned down as much as we would like it. Ultimately and finally, any suffering or trial that we go through, it's there for a reason that God determined from before the foundation of the world. It's going into that salvation and the perfection of what he is doing so he can present us before His Father in heaven on that final day. Lastly, quickly, what shall we do? So we're gonna have this question. There's never gonna be an easy answer. I think we knew that intuitively before I started. But we ask the question, why God? We all go through these struggles. God's plan is not maybe where our heart thought we wanted to go. We don't understand. We want a reason. We want God to develop it for us. One thing, I think, besides asking why, there's always that question that we should ask, God, what are you teaching me about yourself? And what are you teaching me about myself? And just that desire that with meekness and humility, if we ask God, and he knows we're gonna ask the question, Maybe we can be satisfied if he gives us just a little bit of light so that we can take one step in front of the other on a day-by-day basis. But there's one verse for me where I go always, because in the light of trials and afflictions, for me, it is so helpful. And it's in 1 Peter 4, verse 19. Let them that suffer according to the will of God, so it's not a chastening that you brought upon yourself for some sin or something, wherefore let him that suffers according to the will of God, the providences, the circumstances where he's working in us to will it to good, wherefore let them that suffer according to the will of God commit the keeping of their souls to him in well-doing as unto a faithful creator. The word commit is a word that means trust. It means to lay down. Trust and trusting him. As unto a notice faithful creator. He didn't say a faithful savior. Yeah, he's a faithful savior. It didn't say the faithful high priest. He is a faithful high priest. He's a faithful creator. This gets back to the issue of Job, where God had laid out his, when he was creating his life's path before Job even showed up on the scene, here he's saying, commit unto this faithful creator. He created you from A to Z. The word faithful is a word that means persuaded to the point of tranquility and peace. It's a complete, committing unto him and trusting unto him, this faithful creator. And he says, do it in well-doing. That is, continue to walk the walk, humbly before your God, nurturing the spirits, the fruit of the spirits and the graces and all those things, putting one foot in front of the other, but remembering he's a faithful creator. Why God? Some, most, maybe all of those answers we'll find out in eternity, and we'll be able to say, he did all things well. I was an idiot. I didn't understand. I couldn't comprehend. I didn't know. In spite of my ignorance, God got me to that haven of rest. Father, thank you for your word, and we thank you, Lord, that you've been so condescending to make provision for our weakness, our questioning, our finiteness and fallibility. Lord, help us all to trust in you, though sometimes the way is very dark, the waters are very deep. Lord, each of us in this room have had those circumstances and providences in our life. Might we always be able to honor and glorify you, even in the midst of asking the question. And Father, might we always be that people that does bring glory to your name, not just when we are on the mountaintop, but when we're in the valley. We ask this in Jesus' name, amen.