There might be some people that are new here. My name is Brian Barber. I'm an ER doctor and I work in urgent care right now because it's less stressful. Although, I did get a phone call about 10 minutes before I left saying, hey doc, we could use you in the ER if you're available. For some reason, I conveniently didn't answer that. So, actually, it was a message on my phone. I didn't even know it rang. I travel around the world as a medical missionary with Operation Renewed Hope with Grace Dental Medical Mission. Pretty much anybody, fundamental-wise, they'll put up with me for about a week. I give these talks to medical students, so it's geared towards a little bit different audience, and a lot of times, you know, you have discussion time, question time afterwards, so just consider the audience. I look at things from a medical perspective, and today we're going to talk about illness and suffering as it pertains to medicine. But first, I'd like to open up in prayer. Father in heaven, we thank you for the opportunity to be in your house and to study your word. And I pray that you would help us to see what it is you would have for us to teach us, and that you would help me to have the right words to convey that you might be honored and glorified. We pray and ask all these things for Jesus' sake. Amen. So as a physician, we are trained to deal with this kind of stuff on a regular basis. Death and dying is something that is integrated into our curriculum from the first day that we show up for Gross Anatomy Lab and every time thereafter. And we are, in a sense, desensitized to some of the aspects that go along with death and dying, and it's by design. However, that doesn't take into the fact that when you're actually dealing with persons, with human beings, that your emotions don't take over. And I remember two particular instances that go in my mind. The first one was when I was a resident in training on a pediatrics floor, and I had my first bout with pediatric cancer. It was a patient that had osteosarcoma, and that's cancer of the bone. It was metastasized and spread everywhere in the body, and he was going to die, probably about eight, seven, eight years old. And I went to the parents to interview the patient, as my training was supposed to do, and I was at a loss for words. I didn't know what to say. What do you say to a seven-year-old who's dying? It was by far one of the hardest things I had to do until about a year ago. About a year ago, I was in the emergency room and I was called to a code blue cardiac arrest in a patient that was up on the third floor. It didn't take me very long to realize as I was going up to the elevator, because it was actually faster than the stairs, to get to the third floor. And I was on the floor. and I was on the pediatric floor. And it dawned on me very quickly that this just wasn't your typical 90-year-old patient that had had his time. No, this was a pediatric patient. I walked into the room, and it was a person that was about 10. And they were there in the hospital for dehydration. Just simple influenza. Influenza dehydration, they were given fluids, and for some reason this person had sat up, fell over, and went into full cardiac arrest. And so I walk into the room, the patient's in full cardiac arrest, 10 years old, just there for minor illness, and I can still hear the parents behind me screaming. As we're trying to take this young person and bring life back into the body, and we were unsuccessful. What do you do when tragedy strikes? How do you respond? How do you respond to the people who have had tragedy strike them? What do you say? And that's what I'd like to talk about today, because I've learned a few things since then, and as usual, Unfortunately when all else fails look at the instructions, right we seek God's Word Unfortunately, sometimes too late and I've learned some things I'd like to share with you. First of all You have to understand that we all have a terminal condition a And that is death. And death came into the world because of sin. The Bible says, wherefore, as by one man sin entered in the world, and death by sin, so that death hath passed upon all men, for all men have sin. We have a congenital anomaly. We have a genetic defect in our DNA code that tells us that someday we're going to die. And this is inevitable. And the reason why it's inevitable is because in the beginning of the creation of time, our first male species and female species, Adam, offended God. And from the day that we are born, we are an offense to God. And that offense is called sin. And this is just part of the life that we live. C.S. Lewis put it this way. Let's say that you're playing a game of chess. And every time you play a game of chess, If you were to make a bad move that placed you in a position to where your opponent could take your rook or take your queen, he would just give it back to you and give you a do-over. And every time he moved, you would be placed in a position to where you could take his rook or his queen. And every time the board was changed, it was always in your favor. And you would say, what kind of game is that? It's pointless. Well, that's the way that we live. You see, sorrow in life is inevitable. Because if we lived in a life where every time somebody would do something bad, God would kill them. And every time you had a bad thought, God would zap your brain so that it was impossible for you to think anything but good thoughts. If he could change inevitable reality so that breaks would never fail, so that things would never happen that were bad or tragic in our lives, then we would live in an existence where God would control all of the variables. We would never have a free will. And life would be pointless. And so this is where we live. In a continual reality of choices. Some bad, some good. And we live in a world where we have sorrow, and we have joy. We have pain, and we have pleasure. We have life, and we have death. And this is called the free will of man. Man chose to offend God in Genesis. And ever since then, we have had a change in our genetic code, and life itself has become a reality of blessings and tragedy. And this is by design since the fall. Because of that, Medical science has come to learn a few things. Now, medical science often does things that can tell you how, they just don't tell you why. And that's just the way it is. We can't tell you why, we tell you how. This is how people age, okay. So if you look at this chart, basically what it's saying is, in your body, you are always having cells that divide. Cells are constantly dividing and turning over. Skin cells, liver cells, brain cells, brain sheath cells anyway, heart cells to some extent. All these cells are turning over in your body and they turn over at a certain rate. Well, the older you get, the slower that rate becomes. So, as you see in this chart, a newborn has a cell turnover rate up into the 65-70 million, whereas if a 100-year-old, he's decreased that by several percentage. And someone with Warner Syndrome, if many of you might have saw the movie Jack with Robin Williams, it's about a kid that ages four times faster than most kids. That's Warner syndrome. Somebody that is born that ages on an exponential scale faster than anybody else, his cell turnover rate is exponentially slower. So our cells are turning over our body as we age at a slower and slower and slower rate. And the way this happens is there's a enzyme called telomerase that causes your DNA to be spread apart so that these ends, they're called telomeres, they cause your DNA to replicate and replicate and rejuvenate until one day the replications are done. And then it's time. Now sometimes these replications are ended more abruptly, and tragedies happen, but even if they did not, it is inevitable in your DNA that someday all of your cells are going to not turn over anymore. And you're going to be done. Usually it's the heart. Usually the cardiovascular system goes first. In case you have ever seen someone who is older who just passes away in their sleep, this is how. Their cells stop turning over, their heart just simply stops. And this is part of life as we know it. Once again, medical science can tell you how, they don't tell you why. I would like to tell you why. And I would like to do it by what we do in medicine, and that's a case-based study. I've got three cases that I'd like to discuss with you, and they are found in God's Word. The first case I'd like to discuss is a 25- to 35-year-old male with congenital blindness, and this is found in John 9. Please turn there. John chapter 9, verses 1 through 3. As Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind from his birth. And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man or his parents, that he was born blind? Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sin, nor his parents, but that the works of God should be manifested in him. Now here's something that'll blow your mind. We know that death and suffering entered it in the world because of the fall, right? Because we live in a sinful world. We have death and we have suffering and we have parts of life that are tragic and that are not to our liking. And a lot of this comes as because of the curse that came with the fall. But what do you do with this? Jesus Christ said, well, this man was born this way so that he could glorify me. You see congenital blindness, it's about 4 in 10,000 births. It used to be 8 in 10,000. And in developing countries, it can be up to 50% preventable. Now remember, this is before they had vaccines, before they had antibiotics. So more likely than not, this was a whole lot bigger percentage than this. There were people that were born blind probably at a much higher rate than they are now. 70% of the blindness now is caused by a one gene defect, and the Chinese found that not too long ago, and they named it NMNAC. And now, We know why it's caused. Back then, they probably had people like that all of the time, and this was just normal. But Jesus Christ, he said, this person was born blind so that he could glorify me, and the works that are made in him are going to tell people about me. God ordained it. You want to see more proof of that? Let's go to Exodus, chapter 4. This is fascinating to me, that people would be born with an anomaly, a disability, a handicap, if you will, and God says, I did it on purpose. Let's look at this. Exodus chapter 4 verses 10 and 11. I think you guys know the story God goes to Moses and he said Moses I want you to go into Pharaoh and I want you to tell the people is tell Pharaoh to let my people Israel go and Moses comes up with all these excuses of why he can't serve God and One of the excuses he gives to serve Asking why he can't go and do what God wants him to do is because he can't talk very well He has a speech impediment, right? You guys remember this story? Well, look what God says God says in verse 10, and Moses said unto the Lord, O Lord, I am not eloquent neither hereto nor since. Thou hast spoken, and I servant, but I am slow of speech and of a slow tongue. And the Lord said to him, who hath made man's mouth? Who maketh the dumb, or the deaf, or the seeing, or the blind? Have not I the Lord? So get this. God says to Moses, who made man's mouth? Who made the seeing? Who made the deaf? Who made the blind? I did. That's what God said. God said, I made them that way. That's amazing to me. Why would God make someone with a defect? Why would He make them blind? Why would He make them deaf? Well, if you go back to John chapter 9, You'll see that he did it for one reason he did it so that he might be glorified You ever notice someone That has a defect that inspires you Anybody see the Olympics anybody see that guy that had the artificial legs run in the Olympics. I Mean those kind of people inspire me what if God made someone just for the purpose of inspiring you? What if he had a bigger plan than any of us ever imagined, and he did it through ways that we would consider defects or tragedies? Sometimes what we call a disability, God calls an opportunity, amen? Sometimes God does things that we don't understand that we think are so bad that this person had to do something wrong and in John chapter 9 Jesus said it's not his parents. It's not him It's done so that the works that I work should be manifested and I shall be glorified God's glorified in this person with congenital blindness I'd like you to see a second case study. This is a middle-aged man with infantile paralysis of the upper extremity. Let's go to Mark 3. Mark 3. And he entered again into the synagogue, and there was a man there with a withered hand. And he watched him, whether he would heal him. And they, that's the Pharisees, they watched him whether he would heal him on the Sabbath day, and they might accuse him. And he said unto the man which hath the withered hand, Stand forth. or or another translation rise stand in the midst and He said unto them is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath days or to do evil to save life or to kill and they held their peace and when he had looked round about On them with anger being grieved for the hardness of their hearts He said unto the men stretch forth thine hand and he stretched it out and his will hand was restored as a whole and the Pharisees went forth and straightway took counsel with the Herodians against him how that they might destroy him and So you have a man here with a withered hand. The word withered means shriveled up or dried up. And a lot of experts that are looking at this passage, what they're saying is most likely this guy suffered from infantile paralysis. Or the other word is known as polio. If you look at this chart, I couldn't find a picture of a hand. But if you look at this guy right here, he's got polio. And now look at his leg. Does that look shriveled up to you? Does it look smaller? See, polio affects the central nervous system. There's three kinds of polio, it's a virus, and they actually affect different parts of the nervous system, usually the legs, and what they do is they de-enervate the nerves that go into the muscles so that they're not working anymore and the muscle shrivels up. There are people all around the world that suffer from polio still in developing countries. Now we have vaccines for it. Back then, they didn't have any of that. And most likely, what a lot of commentators are saying, this man suffered from this illness. And it caused him to have a hand. And in Luke 6, we learn his right hand. So most likely, this man couldn't work, right? Because his hand was non-functional. It was withered up. So this man comes to Jesus Christ and he says, and Jesus Christ says to him, come forth. Now it was a Sabbath day. And we're not supposed to work on the Sabbath, right? That was the rule back then, the Pharisees. They made several rules, over 600 rules, right? And they said, this is what you're supposed to do and not supposed to do on the Sabbath. They had so many steps you could walk. They had so much things you could do and not do. You couldn't light a candle. You couldn't kindle a fire because that was work. All these things. And Jesus comes to them and looks at them with this man with a withered hand. And he says, what's really important? There's another thing in the Bible, sometimes you'll see the word palsy. Palsy is an older English word for paralysis. And so I just wanted to point that out. There's different kinds of palsy. Many of you have heard of Bell's palsy or facial palsy. You can have cerebral palsy. There's different kinds of palsy. When the word palsy is used in the Bible, a lot of times it's used in a more general sense of generalized weakness or witherness, but specifically it refers to paralysis. And so this guy had a paralyzed hand, more likely than not, and it was non-functional. And Jesus used his pain. to demonstrate to an unbelieving world what is most important. What if God caused illness and suffering in order to get your attention? What if you needed a reality check of what is really important in life? How many of you in the past week have hugged your kids a little tighter than you did before? How many of you, all of the sudden, you decided that family time was more important than whatever else that you had to do at that particular day? What if God was using a megaphone to tell you that there are things in life that really count and things that don't matter, and you need to get your priorities straight? What if God did that through someone in what we call suffering? God has a way of getting our attention, does He not? And sometimes God uses things in our lives that are unpleasant in order to teach us that what is most important is Him and the people that we love. I want you to see number three. This is an elderly gentleman with a debilitating chronic illness. By the way, just in case you were wondering, how did I come up with middle age? The Greek word for child is technon. The Greek word for elder person is presbyteros, or presbytery, where we get the word presbytery from. Neither one of those words is. It was the general word for man, given the average life expectancy of someone in first century Middle East. That's how I came up with that, middle age. So just in case you were wondering. Elderly gentleman with a debilitating chronic illness. All right Go ahead and turn to your Bibles to 2nd Corinthians There was an elder gentleman in the Bible Who had a very debilitating chronic illness as a matter of fact, it was so debilitating that that he was only able to write the vast majority of the New Testament with. His name was Paul. And I'd like to talk about him just for a minute. That's 12. There we go. I was at 9. Okay, so 12, 7 and 9. So the Apostle Paul He says in 2 Corinthians 12, 7, And lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to buffet me. lest I should be exalted above measure. For this thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me. And he said unto me, my grace is sufficient for thee, for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly, therefore, will I rather glory in the infirmities that the power of Christ may rest upon me." Paul had a thorn in the flesh. We don't know what it is. The Bible isn't specific. A lot of experts say it was one of three things. Either it was malaria, epilepsy, or poor eyesight. And there's some evidence in Galatians that it might be the third one. But nonetheless, whatever it was, it was chronic and it was debilitating. And the Apostle Paul called it a thorn. Thorns aren't very pleasant, are they? Did you ever get a thorn? I had somebody come into my urgent care clinic the other day with a big splinter. It wasn't from a rose, which I remember it was from. It's just right there deep inside their foot, and they couldn't stand it anymore. Paul said it was buffeting me. It was constantly nagging at me, and yet Paul could write the majority of the New Testament, right? Why? Do you ever have somebody that has a chronic debilitating illness? You ever met someone like that? Paul did. And the thing that makes Paul different from a lot of people that suffer is that Paul had a response of dependence on God. You see, Paul said that my weakness is his strength. And what if God gave you a chronic debilitating illness so that you could learn how to depend on Him and Him alone? So that in your weakness, He is made strong in you. Do you want to know what glorifies God? Were any of you at the services yesterday? That's what glorifies God. When God's people stand up and they say, in the midst of the deepest amount of pain, God is enough, that's what makes God strong. It makes Him look big. And our God ought to look big. And He ought to be able to be magnified in tragedies, in trials, in suffering, in illness, so that the power of Christ might rest upon him." That's what Paul said. That was his philosophy in life. I have these things, and they buffet me. They are debilitating, they are chronic, and I have them all the time. But that's not what's important to me, Paul says, because in my weakness, God is made big. because my dependency rests on him. Are you resting in God? Is God enough? Is his strength more than enough to overcome your sadness and sorrow? God has been more than enough. And all you have to do is look at the lives of the people who have been affected. The Gaddys, the people that have come up here, and they have stood up in front of us in the deepest amount of pain, and they have said, God is enough. And the whole world, in case you haven't noticed, is taking notice. And the reason for that is because in our weakness, He is made strong. So by way of application, I'd like to, from these case studies, just provide a few principles. Number one, we live in a fallen world, and until Jesus returns, suffering and pain is just as commonplace in the world as breathing. One cannot exist without the other. Just as in a chess game, you can't have all of the things line up in your favor. God cannot change the reality of every bad person and kill them instantly so that the realities are always in a certain way, or we would live as robots. without free will in a world that is guided strictly by routine. We live in a fallen world and sorrow is as much as joy. And that is by design since the fall. Pain and suffering are sometimes ordained by God for His own glory. Sometimes God brings suffering in your life and in mine just for the purpose of saying, And I will be glorified. And that is beyond our understanding. Pain and suffering cause us to stop and evaluate what is really important. What if God brought something in your life that said, you need to slow down. You need to take a good look at your family. And you need to evaluate what is most important. And what is most important is my glory. And that is how I'm going to get your attention. Pain and suffering. bring us to a place of dependence, and that adds to the bigness of God. God is made big when we show our dependence on Him in our lives. And then the last thing I'd like you to show by way of application, and I'm sure that many people who have been through various sorrow, debilitating illness, cancer, They can probably attest to this much better than me, is that pain and suffering gives us the opportunity to help others. I'd like you to see 2 Corinthians 1, 3 through 5. Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in our tribulation, our trials, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted as of God. For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also abounded by Christ. We are able to comfort others in times of trial and testing and sorrow. many times because we have been through times of testing and sorrow, and we have saw that God is enough, and He's big enough, and He's strong enough, and He's sufficient enough. And we can go and we can tell them and say, I know what you're going through, and I know what's on the other end. And though you sorrow but for a moment, there is an exceeding weight of glory that can be through your suffering. And that is because of the person of God and of Jesus Christ, and that He is sufficient. And I can say that, and you can say that, because of the things He has done in your life, in your trials. And you can go to that person who has had the same thing happen, and you can say, God is enough. He's enough for me. He's enough for you. And we can use that to comfort others. C.S. Lewis put it this way. I've been reading his book, The Problem of Pain, recently. And he said, pain is God's megaphone to the soul. It's the way God speaks. C.S. Lewis said, God whispers in our pleasures but shouts in our pain. God is shouting. And he wants you to know who he is and that he's enough. Let's pray. Father in heaven, Thank you very much for the opportunity to use what I know and use your word to bring about the knowledge of you. And I pray, Lord, that we worship you today, that we would magnify who you are today, that you would be glorified in what we say and do, and that we would see your sufficiency in our lives so that we can go forth and tell others about how great you are. Thank you for who you are and how much you love us. And we ask and pray this for Jesus' sake, amen.