This is the word of God, beginning in verse 14. How then can I answer him, choosing my words with him? Though I am in the right, I cannot answer him. I must appeal for mercy to my accuser. If I summoned him and he answered me, I would not believe that he was listening to my voice. For he crushes me with a tempest and multiplies my wounds without cause. He will not let me get my breath, but fills me with bitterness. If it is a contest of strength, behold, he is mighty. If it is a matter of justice, who can summon him? Though I am in the right, my own mouth would condemn me. Though I am blameless, he would prove me perverse. I am blameless. I regard not myself. I loathe my life. I'll say it to the Lord. I know this story is obviously very familiar to you all, as we have traced it many times in our own reading, in our own studies, and certainly we have spent our time here as a congregation. But as we begin this morning, I want you to put yourself, as best as you can, in Job's shoes. Think again about where he is. The lines of communication between God and Job have given way to utter silence. The showers of blessings have turned into storms of tempests and afflictions. The wife of his youth has withdrawn her support. The best of his friends are wrongly accusing him of being a hypocrite. The friendship he enjoyed with God looks and feels more like discord. The praise of daily worship that Job offered up on behalf of his children, on behalf of his own life, has turned into the painful moaning of a miserable man who prays for death. And the favoring light of God's love has seemingly turned into the darkened shadow of God's displeasure. For all intents and purposes, God is no longer happy with Job. After all, that's his friend's chief argument. There's no more happy place on earth for a man of faith than to be in the presence of God. And yet if this is what it's like, then Job would rather be left alone. He had said that as much in response earlier to Eliphaz, asking for God to leave him alone long enough to swallow his spit. God is the fountain of all goodness. God is the ocean of all delight. But if this is what it's like to drink of that fountain, if this is what it's like to swim in that ocean, and Job would rather die. I don't know if you've ever felt this way, but that's the way Job felt. And it's hard to see Job in these straits because of how highly God commends Job in chapters 1 and 2. And also because of how highly God favors Job in chapter 42 when God even says to Job's friends, you've not spoken to me what is right as my servant Job has. That's after you've read the whole book. So how do we reconcile true faith in God with the way Job feels and the things Job says? Well, that may be a Gordian knot for an outsider, but for a child of God who has had any experience with the life of faith, we all know something of where Job's at. We all know something of the struggle of faith. The struggle to believe in a God we cannot see. The struggle to trust a God whose ways tend to pass through the valley of the shadow of death and the valley of humiliation on top of it. We all know something of the struggle to hold on to a God who sometimes strikes us with the very same rod that he used against his enemies. We all know something of the struggle to wait on a God for whom a thousand years is as one day. Now you may not have ever said the things that Job says in his response to Bildad, but if you have had any experience on the battlefield of the spiritual warfare of Christ's disciples, then you've likely wrestled with thoughts and emotions something like these at some point or another. Because this, this is the struggle of living by faith and not by sight. The struggle of living by faith and not by feelings. living by faith and not by my own reason and comprehension. We read about Job's struggle starting in verse 14. How then can I answer him, he begins. And it runs through to the end of the chapter. But this morning we'll pick up at verse 16 and go through verse 21. And I want you to give Job an open ear this morning. And as you do, I want you to honestly consider if you have ever wrestled in this ring. Because if you haven't, then it is likely you will one day. Because God recorded the story of Job's struggle of faith for the same reason he recorded the story of Job's perseverance in faith. Because we need to hear that. And there's lessons we can learn from it. James 5, you know, is the one place where we read of anything further on Job in the New Testament. And James says, we have all heard of the patience of Job. And indeed we have. But as the Puritans were wont to respond, yes, and we've also heard of his impatience. Job wasn't always on top of the world. Job wasn't always strong in faith. Job struggled. You know the book well enough to know that yourself. So I want to look at these verses together this morning. And then I want to suggest three lessons that we can learn from what's going on in this passage. So let's come to the text and let's descend with Job the five steps that'll take us down into the pit of his struggle. Job's first struggle was in the area of prayer, which I think really sits at the heart of his struggle overall. Job says, if I summoned him and he answered me, I wouldn't believe that he was listening to my voice. For he crushes me with a tempest and he multiplies my wounds without cause. He won't let me get my breath, but he fills me with bitterness. A lot could be said there, but basically it's pretty clear that Job struggles to believe that God answers his prayers anymore. Again, the communion that Job had is gone, and silence has taken its place. Now, we've all felt that way. We've all felt the silence of heaven. We've all felt as though our prayers are bouncing off of the walls and not going higher than the ceiling. No one's listening. But it's usually because we've turned into the ways of sin. especially when we've sinned willfully against the light. And we know God doesn't listen to us then, right? In Isaiah 59 verses 1 and 2, we read, Behold, the Lord's hand is not shortened that it cannot save. His ear is not dull that he cannot hear. But your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear. David says, If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me. We can't pray to God for blessings when we're holding the very arrows that pierce the heart of Christ on the cross. Sin loved and persisted in, sin loved and persisted in, aborts our prayers so that God doesn't hear them favorably. Of course God hears them. He hears everything, but not favorably. And it's only by the prayer of sound repentance that the ears of God are opened again and our prayers travel unhindered to the heart of God and return again laden with answers and blessings. But that's not Job's case, is it? That's not Job's case at all. It's not something Job has done that's shaking his faith. What a terrible sin I've committed and God has turned away from me. How do I get his face back? That's not Job's case. It's not something Job has done that has shaken his faith. It's what God is doing that's shaking his faith. That's the problem. That's the struggle. That's the chip his friends are playing. Look what God is doing, therefore. Job is struggling because he knows a God. He knows who God is, and he can't explain what God is doing. But he's falling back as often as he can on who God is. Job's praying to God with a sincere and upright heart of faith. that the only answers he's getting in return are destroying tempests. You know, a tempest isn't any ordinary storm. A tempest is a great storm, a storm imagined on the waters and in the waves, in the midst of the sea. Who can control it? Who can stop it? Who can stand in its way? That's a tempest, a destroying tempest, the greatest of storms. Job is asking for deliverance and God just sends more trials. Job blessed God. Blessed be the name of the Lord, he said. And what happened in response? More trials. Now, every man expects to suffer a trial or two in this fallen world. We're sinners in a fallen world. It's life, we say. Life stinks. C'est la vie. We expect trouble. But Job's being broken by storms. Every man expects to carry a cross or two in this fallen world, but Job's wounds are so multiplied that he feels like he can't even catch his breath. One upon another. Every man shares in ordinary troubles, but Job's troubles are anything but ordinary. And on top of it all, he says he's struggling with bitterness. We all know what that's like. To feel bitter? We know what it's like to nurse bitterness toward a brother or a sister in Christ, bitterness toward a loved one who's offended you, but I think we also know what it's like to hold bitterness toward God for the way that we feel He's treating us. Bitterness because we're not getting what we thought we were supposed to get. Bitterness because God has not answered our prayers the way we thought. Job is struggling with bitterness because he feels it's all without cause. It is all without the provocation of any sin loved and persisted in. As much as Job knows his own heart, his conscience is clear. He holds on to his integrity, his sincerity. His wife told him, let it go. Curse God and die. And Job says, I will not. Before God, I know my heart. And as much as I know my heart before God, it is this. I'm sincere. And so Job is struggling to believe that God hears his prayers or that he has any more warrant to expect any good from God. after the way God has been treating him. Basically, God's way with Job right now is so bitter and so terrible to his senses that his faith cannot find a foothold in the storm. As if you were tossed in the midst of the sea. Where can you stand? There's not a rock anywhere. You're in the midst of the ocean. The only thing to do is drown, to be overcome. Job is struggling to find a foothold for his faith. And as I said, I think this is at the heart of Job's struggle, because it's clear from what we learn of Job in chapters one and two that the communion between God and Job was not only vibrant, but it was constant. Job was a faithful worshiper of God as a priest over his family. and as a man who walked with God like Enoch, and a man who conversed with God like Abraham. And it's clear from how highly the Lord commends Job to Satan, that God delighted in Job's fellowship as much as Job delighted in God's fellowship. This was a happy, happy friendship. But in a moment, in a matter of minutes, it was all topsy-turvy, it was all upside down. It was all wiped away. And by how much more wonderful that communion was, we can see how devastating it was. Not just the loss of it, that would have been hard enough, but what Job got was the opposite in its place. It wasn't just taken away, the blessed be the Lord, right? The Lord gives, the Lord is taken away. But troubles have come in its place. Troubles upon troubles, tempest of troubles. At least to Job's senses, God went from loving him to being angry at him. Job went from being a best friend to enemy number one. And we can all see that once you begin to entertain those kinds of thoughts, well, it's a breeding ground for unbelief and bitterness and despair. Job's second struggle is in verse 19. It was over the great disproportion between God and man which made it seem impossible to get through to God, or to have any ground upon which to talk things over with God, as it were. Let's sit down. Something like what the Lord says in Isaiah 118. Let us reason together. Let's talk about this. There was no ground upon which to stand for Job to have that kind of conversation with God. He says if it's a contest of strength, behold, he is mighty. Now we already talked about God's strength in verses four to 13. How God is not only mighty, but almighty. Not simply strong, but strength itself. God has a might that none can subdue, and behind it, He has an authority that none ought to resist. Some men have strength, but no authority. Others have authority, but no strength. But God has both, which makes Him the sovereign Lord God Almighty. It makes Him the best of friends, or the worst of enemies. God has the authority to do whatever He can, and He has the strength to do whatever He will. Which leads to the question, who can stand toe to toe with God? And Job simply says, not me. I push on the door, but God holds it shut. I try to get through, but he stops me. I dig my heels in, but I only lose my balance because he's too strong for me. It's a context of strength. If it's a contest of strength, behold, he's mighty. And of course, what's so discouraging about this is that all his life God's strength worked for Job. It was God's strength that raised Job up above other men. It was God's strength that blessed Job more than other men. God's strength worked in tandem, as it were, with Job's strength. Whatever Job set his hands to do, the Lord prospered it. But now God's strength is working against Job. And Job's strength without God is seen to be the weakness that it is, leaving Job utterly helpless before Him. And Job is struggling with this. But there's a third struggle. It's also over the disproportion between God and man, in that just as there is no way to contend with God, so there's no way to argue with God. Job says, if it is a matter of justice, who can summon Him? which might be best understood as this, if it's a matter of going to court with God, who can speak for me? It's not so much summoning God, really, the better translation is, who can speak for me? You see, what Job is pointing out there is that there's not a man on earth in any better of a position than Job is, who could represent him before God. In fact, according to chapter one, verse eight, Job is head and shoulders closer to God than all men. So that if Job can't do it, then who can? No one can do it. Neither man nor angel can stand in a place of mediation between God and Job. Well, because the creature will always be a creature and God will always be God. This disproportion simply cannot be made up by a mediator among the angelic or human host. And it's not, of course, that Job wants to argue with God. Job just wants to ask God that perennial question. Why? Why? As he will say later in chapter 10, why do you contend with me? It's not his question. It's Job's question. Job was very conscious of his integrity and sincerity before God. But added to that, Job was not at all conscious of any extraordinary guilt or guile that would explain The extraordinarily bitter treatment he was receiving at God's hands. And so the question then becomes perennially, why? I don't understand. Job's fourth struggle is in verse 20. It's over his consciousness of the imperfections of his own righteousness before God. Job says, though I am in the right, my own mouth would condemn me. Though I am blameless, he would prove me perverse. Which is basically Job's way of saying, if I tried to defend myself, My attempt to do so would be my greatest defense. It'd be like a humble man tootin' his own horn to let everyone know how humble he is. Because to sound our own praise is to sound our own shame. Let another man praise you, not you yourself, says the scriptures. And so Job's point here is that he has no intention of trying to defend himself before God, even in good conscience. because Job knows that God could easily point out a thousand sins in his life and in his heart, of which he is unaware. Given the deceitfulness of man's own heart, given the inability of any man to live a single day without the sins of omission and commission, this is why, as I've said before, this entire defense to Bildad culminates in verse 33, in a heart cry for a mediator to stand between him and God. A cry that can only be, and will certainly be, answered in the God-man Jesus Christ, who, as Paul says in 1 Timothy 2.5, is the only mediator between God and man. That's where this is driving us. Oh, that there were an arbiter, says Job, a mediator, a daisman. The response of the gospel is, there is. Neither from the angelic host can it be brought, neither from the human host can he come. But from the presence of God, as God Himself taking on human flesh, we have found a mediator. In verse 21, I think we can see Job throwing up his hands in near discouragement. Job feels that there's no way out but the grave. We heard this as early as his first speech in chapter 3. Why didn't I die in my mother's womb? Job's wife has left him. His friends accuse him, and God's pulled away from him, leaving nothing in his wake but tempests. Job never claims to be perfect or sinless, but he knows he's innocent of the sins of which his friends accuse him. And he knows he is innocent of the sin against God which Satan was sure he would commit once he lost every tangible sign of God's favor. Job obviously wasn't aware of that conversation. But the Scriptures are very clear, especially in the end. Job never committed the sin that Satan was so sure he would commit. Job's innocent. Despite how strong his words have been at times, how strong these words are, and words yet to come in the rest of the speech, Job has not cursed God. Job is struggling. He's struggling greatly. But he's innocent still of these things. But when life is reduced to nothing but pain and misery, when loneliness is our only companion and bedfellow, when our daily garment, as Job said earlier, is little better than our winding sheet, and when it seems that heaven has become brass and God has turned enemy, it's hard to find any motivation to go on living. And it's very hard to find the faith to go on trusting. So Job says, I loathe my life. If this is what it is to live, I'd rather die. That's where Job is. Maybe that's where you are today. Or maybe that's where you've been tempted to go. But as Job will learn when his trials have run their necessary course and done their necessary work, and as we all learn sooner or later, for all the mysteries surrounding God's way with us, God's love for us in Christ is never, ever altered. And God's purpose for us is always not simply good, but very good, because His purposes are aimed not at making us happy, but at making us holy. Which is the only way we'll learn that there is no true happiness in a fallen world for a wretched sinner than that happiness that is joined with holiness. And so, as always, it's there, there in the character of God, that we must resort for our answers. There are so many troubles, beloved, at which you can't throw anything but the character of God. I don't have an answer for you, but I know God is good. I don't have an explanation for you, but I know my Jesus is on the throne. I can't explain it. I don't know how it's going to end, and I don't know how we're going to get through it, but I do know this. Jesus loved me, and He gave Himself up for me. And my Jesus reigns. He rules, as we confessed already in the service, over everything and everyone. These are the kind of situation here that Job is in. We're in that kind of situation. so that it's there in the character of God that we must resort for our answers. Where else can we go? We're like Peter. To whom else shall we turn? And it's upon the truth of God alone, sealed in Christ's blood and engraved upon the stone tablets of His preserved word, that we must build our hopes. We can't build our hopes upon our fleeting senses. We can't build our hopes upon our feelings of how well God is running things. That'll always run us contrary to God. Because our feelings will always misread His handwriting. God's works will always be illegible to our senses and our feelings. So let me give you just three points of guidance this morning that will help you navigate these straits and reefs when you find yourself in a storm like Job's. The first is this. We need to know, we need to believe, we need to rest upon the fact that our prayers are heard and answered even when afflictions still lie heavy upon us. So often we interpret the effectiveness of our prayers based upon, of course, its answer. If God didn't answer the way we thought, well, that prayer was no good. If God didn't answer the way we expect, well, God's not listening, as if we have it all figured out. as if we know what God should do, as if God is accountable to our finite minds, as if His decree could fit in our pea brain. It's ridiculous. If you think about it, it's absolutely foolish to behave in such a way. We would never confess that theologically, but we sure live that way practically, don't we? Our prayers are heard and answered even when our afflictions remain, even when nothing changes. That's the thing. You see, Job was wrong to say that his multiplied afflictions were proof that God had shut him out. Job was wrong to lose a footing for his faith in God's goodness because he lost a footing for his feelings of God's goodness. God isn't any good anymore. God isn't good to me anymore because I don't feel good anymore. That's kind of what Job is saying. This feels terrible. So I know God's not being good. Because if God was good to me, it would feel good, wouldn't it? If God was good to me, it would feel better. I would be happier. I wouldn't be crying all the time. I wouldn't be troubled all the time. I wouldn't be struggling with worry all the time. If God was good to me, then things would be great in my life. See, our faith in God doing us good can't be based on whether or not we feel good about it. That's ridiculous. And our trust in God to answer our prayers can't be determined by whether or not we got the answer we prayed for. That's also ridiculous. God calls us to a higher way of life. God calls us to a life of faith and trust and absolute unswerving confidence in Him, in His truth, His ways, His secrets. That's what God's calling us to trust, isn't it? His secrets that He's not gonna share with you. The secret things belong to the Lord. His decree is not put on display in all of its detail for you so that you can be comfortable about following Him since He's so wise as you've discerned it. We must go back to Abraham, the father of the faithful who was called to leave everything and follow God. He knew not where. That's what faith does. I don't know where you're leading me. Tell me where you're going to take me and then I'll make my decision. Tell me how I'm going to feel when it comes down the pike and then I'll decide whether to trust. Tell me what I'm going to get and then I'll decide whether or not to let all my good things go. That's not living by faith. God calls us to live a higher life. We need to understand that God answers our prayers according to His wisdom and not our wisdom because our wisdom is sheer foolishness. We need to understand that God is doing us good. And in doing us good, God aims more at our soul's prosperity than at our comforts and our body's feelings. Jesus didn't come to make you happy. He came to make you holy. Look at Titus 2.14. He came to set you apart from the world, to call you out of the world, and even told you the world would hate you. In fact, if the world doesn't hate you, there's a big problem. It means you're just like the world and you fit right in. It means you're not a sheep, you're a goat. He called us to Himself out of all of these things. And so God aims at doing us good by aiming at our soul's prosperity, more than at our body's feelings. And given how selfish and short-sighted and comfort-oriented our prayers usually are, don't be surprised to learn that God is healing you when He's wounding you. Don't be surprised to learn after the fact that God was fulfilling your desires when He crossed them entirely, that He actually gave you exactly what you wanted. But in order to do it, He needed to cross your prayer entirely, because you prayed that it would come by a way that it absolutely cannot come. come on a silver platter, as it were, and God says, no. No good comes to you on a silver platter. It comes by the flames of a furnace. But oh, the good, not even the half has been told you. Watch me work. That's what God is saying to us. Because the effectiveness of our prayers cannot be determined by how well God's answers meet our expectations. In fact, what we need to remember is this. For a child of God, every prayer we pray is heard for Christ's sake. There's no prayer of a child of God that goes unanswered. Beloved, we have the privilege of the ear of God and it is never closed to us because Christ prays for us. So that we either get the prayer, get the answer that we prayed for, or we get the answer we should have prayed for. Because Jesus is praying for us. And that's why we pray in Jesus' name. And that's why Jesus taught us to pray, not my will, but yours be done. And beloved, that's how Jesus prayed. Who had all heaven and earth at His disposal. And who humbled and submitted Himself to His Father in our shoes. Beloved, how can we never? How can we pray any other way than that? Isn't this what James says? Boasting about tomorrow is foolish. What we should say is, if God wills. It's submission. It's submission. This is where freedom really comes. And so our prayers are heard and answered even when afflictions still lie heavy on us. Secondly, let me give you this guidance. What we learn in Scripture, and we certainly learn from Job, More importantly, we learn from Jesus' own experience, God usually sorely afflicts those He greatly loves. None was so commended by God as Job, and none was so greatly troubled by God as Job. And therefore, this reconciles in our minds these two seeming irreconcilables, affliction and God's children. We think these two things are miles apart, but God doesn't. God has an affinity, in fact, for uniting them, for pairing them up, as it were. In fact, who among us hasn't seen, in our experience in the Christian life, that it's been by our greatest afflictions, when submitted to, that God's done some of His greatest work in us? If you haven't learned that lesson yet, you will. one day you will look back at your greatest hardships and see that that's when God was doing his deepest work. Because according to Hebrews 12, which we read, it's not because of any anger that God has toward us as his enemies, as Job was tempted to believe, that God troubles us. But rather, it's because of the deepest love that God has for us as his children. You see, like a physician, it's his love It's His love for us that makes Him take a scalpel to us. Like a pharmacist, it's His love for us that makes Him take and use poison on us. And like a father, it's His love for us that makes Him lay a rod on our backs. So that what this teaches us is that it is wrong to say that the heart of God is against us because of negative providences in our life. Because however painful that scalpel is, if it's in the hands of our great physician, then it has come to do us good. However bitter that poison is, if it's in the hands of our good doctor, then it's come to purge us of an even greater poison, the poison of sin. And however heavy that rod may be, if it's in the hands of our loving Father, then it has come to direct us in the way that we should go and to turn us out of the way of real trouble. So often what we think are our troubles are not at all our troubles. It's never our hardships that really bother us. It's our heart's reaction to the hardship that's really the problem. Our anger, our bitterness, our resentment. There's nothing wrong with the trouble. It is what it is. God has sent it. It comes with his blessing. It comes from a father and not from a judge. What could be wrong with it? It's what goes on in our hearts and reaction that's the problem. We just want God to deal with the issue and we want to ignore our own hearts. But God says, no, let's work on that heart and you'll see this issue is not an issue at all. You can be in the midst of a flood that covers the entire world and still be safe when you're in the hands of God. So as we think about these two things together, these two points, I think we see here a call to be on our guard against Satan's temptations in the hour of trial. Because you see, when Satan sees our faith faltering in the face of God's storms, that's when Satan rushes in to fan our unbelief into flame and to tempt us to try to sin our way out of trouble. Beloved, there is no worse reaction to hardship than to sin to try to get out of it. That is the dumbest thing you can do. That is the worst thing you can do to yourself. Because then you really bring real trouble on you. Real trouble then begins. So we need to guard against the voice that says, how can God love you and deal with you like this? Takes us immediately to Matthew 4, doesn't it? This is exactly, this is exactly how Satan spoke to our Savior. This is exactly how Satan spoke to Eve. Remember what he said to Christ? If you are the son of God, turn these stones to bread. It's as much as saying, if you're the son of God, then what kind of a father do you have that doesn't even feed you? It's not a good father in my book. Is that a good father in your book? Would you judge that father a good father that would starve his own son, his beloved son in the wilderness for 40 days? It's not a good father. Where is that a good father? Who can say that's a good father? This is with Satan's temptation to Christ. And of course, Christ succeeded where Adam failed. But Satan rushes in, so we need to be on our guard against that voice. How can God love you and deal with you like this? If God loved you, you wouldn't be having all these problems in your life, Satan says. It would be one thing if you were chastened like a child, because after all, the scripture admits as much. But I have a feeling you're being treated like an enemy. Have you ever felt that way, Satan will say to you? Don't you feel like God's treating you like an enemy? It would be understandable, says Satan, if you were going through what others go through. But look around you. Your troubles are unique. Your trials are over the top. I think you're all alone here. Nobody knows what you're going through. Nobody's been through what you're going through. No one understands. No one could cope with that. I think you've been kicked out. I think you're an outcast. You know, maybe God never really loved you at all, if this is where it's led. And we need to counter those lies with Job's whole story. We need to read the whole story. And more than that, we need to counter all those lies with God's promises. Promises of His faithfulness and promises of His wise use of trials for our good. We need to read Hebrews 12 again. And we need to remember that however bitter the cup may be, which God sometimes puts into the hands of His people, the children of God never, ever drink the wrath of God. What we drink is sometimes very bitter, yes, but it's never the wrath of God. It's a bitter poison, but it's a poison like a doctor gives you to make you better, to purge the real problem, sin. And the reason we never drink the wrath of God is because Christ bore it all in our place on the cross, and Christ didn't dare to exit this world until he could say before the bar of God's justice, and you know the words, it is finished. That's when He left, and no sooner. And what that means, beloved, is that we can take up the cup of suffering which our Father gives us, and we can not only taste it, but we can drink it. We can drink it to the bottom. We can drink it to the dregs, knowing that there is the sugar of everlasting love mixed in that bitter cup. Because when we drink the cups of our suffering by faith in God's character and by faith in God's promises, we will always taste the sugar. And that will help the most bitter of suffering to go down with rejoicing. It's when we take the cup of suffering from our Father in anger and resentment and complaint that all we taste is bitter. It's not because there's no sugar in the cup, but we've resolved not to taste it because we're mad at God. But if we trust our God, if we trust our Father, and we yield to Him and say, yes, Lord, Your will be done, do with me as You know best, then, oh, how the sugar comes rushing into your palate and helps you through that trouble. Let me end with this. We see in Job's account here that the faith of God's people may sometimes waver under trials, especially heavy trials. Even in the best of Christians, faith is a grace that needs to be continually fanned into flame. It needs to be cultivated. It's a grace that needs to be exercised so that it can grow strong for the day of battle. And when it's not, faith can grow weak, short-sighted, dull, and lethargic, especially under the surprising cold snap of heavy trials like Job got, when things just rush upon you without warning, as it were. And it's when that happens that faith can seem to lose its way and lose its bearings. Until we think things we ought not to think, we feel things toward God we ought not to feel, and we say things that we ought not to say. Maybe that's where you are today. Maybe that's where you've been tempted to go. I think in one degree or another we're all tempted to go there sometimes. So let me just say in closing that whatever we do, our only recourse in these seasons of struggling faith is to hide ourselves in Jesus Christ until the storm passes. Which means we need to look outside the measure of our faith. And we need to remember that our gospel hope, especially in such seasons of struggling faith, our gospel hope is not in the strength or in the stability of our faith in God, but it's in the strength and the stability of Christ's work before the Father on our behalf. Because it's not our hold on Christ that will get us through the storm. You're never going to be able to hold on strong enough to not let go. You're going to be in a place that Job is in. And you just throw up your hands. I'm lost. I don't see you. Have you gone? It's not your hold on Christ that's going to get you through the storm. It's His hold on you. Don't look to your strength. Look to His work. And that's why we can camp out with all our tears and with all our feelings of hopelessness. We can camp out on the promises that God has made to those sinners who would prefer to die at the foot of the cross than live a life without God. Sinners who would prefer to die at the hands of God than the hands of an enemy. Like David when he was given the three options of God's judgment. Throw me not into the hands of my enemies for they are without mercy. Throw me into the hands of my God, for He is merciful. Wait a minute, judgment's coming. People are gonna die. But oh, God is merciful. But God's coming with a rod, God's coming with a sword, and He's unsheathed it. He's gonna take things from you. But God is merciful. Man is never merciful. Satan is never merciful. God is merciful. Throw me there. I would rather die at the hands of God's merciful judgment than anywhere else. It is to those, to you, to us, that God has made such promises. And furthermore, we need to take our refuge in Christ's perfect faith in God when Christ was under the trial of all trials on our behalf. Because you see, it's Christ's persevering faith under trial that upholds us when we falter under trial. It's Christ's faith that carries us through when we've got nothing left. Think about it, beloved, when the storm of God's immeasurable wrath passed over Christ, he believed, he persevered, he held on in the darkness, he kept on, he never stopped praying, he never lost a foothold for his faith in the midst of incalculably contrary feelings. So that for all the pain that Christ underwent, for all the feelings of His Father's just anger, and for all the loss of the feelings of His Father's eternal love and pleasure in Him as His Son, how did Christ respond? He cast Himself in faith on His Father still, and He cried out in that all-conquering, enduring faith, My God, My God, all for faithless you, all for struggling me. My God, my God, I don't see you, I don't feel you, but I know you. I feel nothing but what is contrary to your love and your care, but I trust you. Beloved, think of the trust that our Savior in his humanity, in his full humanity, think of the trust with which our Savior cast himself into the arms of his father, knowing that his father was going to pour out the entire cup of wrath, that he would trust his father to pour out not a drop more than what was needed, and that he would trust his father to raise up his body on the third day. according to His promise. What trust! What faith! That's the faith Christ had going into the darkest of trials and the heaviest of afflictions. And beloved, that's the faith that gets you through. His faith. That's your refuge. So when the storms of life come and we find our faith faltering, let's cast ourselves on God's covenant love, on His faithfulness. We may not know what God is doing. We may not know where it will lead. We may not know when it will end. But we do know who He is. We do know what He's promised. And we know that His perfect track record isn't about to be tarnished in our case. Because He is our God. And we are His people, the sheep of His pasture. We are the children of His right hand. And as Paul says, He cannot deny Himself. Nor can He deny His Son's perfect work on our behalf. And therefore, my message to you this morning is simply this. He will uphold you. He will carry you through. Trust your God. Let us say with Moses, for we are in such a case, be still and know that I am God. Be still and watch your God work. He doesn't need the means you think he needs to do what you want him to do. He can work without means, He can work contrary to means, He can work above means, and He can work with means. Let Him do what seems best to Him, and trust Him and not man. Amen. Let's pray together. O Lord God in heaven, we have already this morning confessed our unfaithfulness, our faithless fear, our troubled hearts. We have confessed the loss, O Lord, of footings and groundings as we have been unduly disturbed by circumstances or the words of men. Father, we thank you that you are merciful toward us. Thank you, O Lord, that you are patient with us. Thank you, Father, that all our foibles, all our sins and failures do not repel you. but draw you near. Come near to us, O Lord, in all our weakness, and in all of our hopelessness and helplessness. And be our help, and be our hope. We pray it in Jesus' name. Amen.