For the past couple of days, we have been considering together the theme of suffering as it is unfolded in the book of Job. And we've really only scratched the surface of this wonderful book. These messages certainly have not been the final word on it. But I hope has been helpful to give us some practical handles and some insights in thinking about how to deal with suffering. Sometimes it takes going through suffering ourselves before we really begin to pay attention to this book of the Bible. And in fact, for most of us, suffering is one of the tools that God uses to open our hearts to his word. This is certainly the perspective that we get in several verses from Psalm 119. Psalm 119 verse 67 says, before I was afflicted, I went astray, but now have I kept thy word. And in verse 71, it is good for me that I've been afflicted, that I might learn thy statutes. Those verses led the great reformer Martin Luther to view affliction along with prayer and meditation as God's regular teaching methods. He said, I want you to know how to study theology in the right way. I've practiced this method myself. The method of which I'm speaking is the one which the Holy King David teaches in Psalm 119. Here you will find three rules, prayer, meditation, and trial. In the case of Job, it's clear that he was not afflicted because of going astray. He was an innocent sufferer. His sufferings were not punishments for sin, And yet he did learn something when he finally had his audience with God. We've considered several things from this wonderful book. We've looked at suffering and sovereignty. As we looked at the opening two chapters and we saw the mystery of Job's sufferings. that come into his life, even though he is a righteous man, they come through the direct agency of the adversary, Satan. And yet through it all, God reigns and Job submits himself to his sovereign Lord. We've considered suffering in prayer, as we've considered the words of Job, his words of lament, as he brings his emotions, before God, and he expresses the deep grief and sorrow and confusion and even anger at times, bringing that before God in prayer. We saw his complaints to the Lord, as well as his request that he might have an audience with God, that he might be vindicated, and yet also this deep sense that he needs a mediator. a redeemer, to stand between him and the God who is now hidden to him in his suffering. And then yesterday afternoon, we considered the theme suffering and wisdom as we looked at the folly of human wisdom, exemplified in Job's three friends. Job's three friends essentially believed in the principle of retribution. that all suffering is recompense for sins committed. And I think the book of Job is essentially written to show us that that is not true. That sometimes relatively innocent people, good people, not sinless, not perfect in that sense, but people who humbly follow the Lord and seek to live righteous lives, they still suffer. And the suffering is not because of their sin and true wisdom is to be found not in an explanation of everything that happens to us. We're not able to explain some things, but true wisdom is found in fearing the Lord and walking with him and in turning away from evil. And today we come to the final message and the final part of this wonderful book, suffering and hope. where we look at the words of God to Job and we look at Job's response to the Lord. And once again, I find that we cannot do it justice in the time that we have. There are two speeches from the Lord to Job. First of all, in Job chapters 38 and 39 with a brief response from Job in chapter 40. And then again in chapters 40 and 41 with Job's response in chapter 42. And I'd like to begin by just reading the first eight verses or so of Job chapter 38. Actually, a little bit more than that. I think up through verse 11. Job chapter 38, verses one through 11. Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind and said, 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. Where was thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? Declare if thou hast understanding. Who hath laid the measures thereof if thou knowest? Or who hath stretched the line upon it? Whereupon are the foundations that are a fastened? Or who laid the cornerstone thereof? When the morning star sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy. Or who shut up the sea with doors when it break forth, as if it had issued out of the womb? When I made the cloud the garment thereof, in thick darkness as a swaddling band for it, and break up for it my decreed place, and set bars and doors, and said, hitherto shalt thou come, but no farther in here shall thy proud waves be stayed. And we could keep reading to see how God continues to question Job, bringing before Job the wonders and the mysteries of the created order and asking Job if he understands the world in which he lives. And I think when we look at these speeches from the Lord, we will see three things that are of great help and comfort to us as indeed they were to Job. And we might express them in this way. Number one, that the Lord speaks from the storm. Number two, that the Lord rules over the cosmos. And number three, that the Lord triumphs over evil. I think all three of those things are present in these two speeches. I want to try to point them out and show you along the way how this both humbles and comforts Job. So first of all, the Lord speaks from the storm and we've just read it, haven't we? In Job chapter 38, he answers Job out of the whirlwind. The first thing to note here is that this is the language of theophany. where the Lord here is manifesting himself to Job. He is appearing to Job. And this is exactly what Job had asked for. He had longed for an audience with God. He wanted to encounter God. He wanted to meet with God. And God hears Job's prayer and reveals himself to him in this theophany as he speaks out of the whirlwinds. I think it's probably significant that here it says that Yahweh, the Lord, spoke to Job. It is the personal covenantal name of God, the name by which God had revealed himself to Moses and to the children of Israel when he delivered them and redeemed them from Egypt. And this is a name of God that only shows up in Job chapters one and two, when we have the scene of the heavenly council. And then when the Lord speaks in Job chapters 38 through 42, and then only one other time in the book of Job, in Job chapter 12, verse nine. And it's there on the lips of Job himself. But interestingly enough, this name, the name Yahweh is never spoken by Job's friends. And it seems here that Job here is encountering God in his covenantal grace and mercy. And by the time the Lord is finished, there will be vindication for Job. The three friends will be corrected as we saw yesterday. They did not speak of the Lord, that which is right. Job will be seen to be a righteous man, one on whose intercessory prayers the friends must depend. And God himself will seem to be just and righteous in his ways. And really we could say, and I'm drawing this from an Old Testament scholar who has written quite a bit on the book of Job, you could say that the book of Job is essentially a courtroom drama. And there are three parties in this drama. There is Job who is suffering and who is contending that he is righteous. He's maintaining his integrity and he is maintaining his faith in God. He's in one corner. His three friends are in another corner and they are insisting on the principle of retribution. That suffering comes only as a result for sins committed. And then in the other corner, represented in part by Elihu, probably, and then especially through the words of the Lord himself, there is the principle of the Lord's own justice and righteousness and sovereignty in dealing with his people. And when the Lord speaks, what becomes really clear is that God himself is justified, that Job is vindicated, and the three friends are put in their place and are seen to be wrong in their understanding of wisdom. That is the primary contribution of the book of Job, to show us that suffering happens in our lives, even in the lives of good people, righteous people, God's people, and that God himself is just in all of his ways. And this idea that all suffering is something like karma that happens to us because of sins that we have committed, that idea is shown to be false. And I think it's really important that we remember here that Job is vindicated by God. And when we study these speeches, we see something of Job's response. And we need to not misread that response. I wanna read to you the second response of Job in chapter 42, verses one through six. And just notice two ways in which Job responds to this theophany. this revelation of God and his greatness to Job as the Lord speaks to him from the storm. Chapter 42 beginning in verse one says, then Job answered the Lord and said, I know that thou canst do everything and that no thought can be withholden from thee. He's here recognizing the greatness of God, the omniscience of God, God knows him, God knows his heart through and through. Then he says in verse three, who is he that hide of counsel without knowledge? Therefore, have I uttered that I understood not things too wonderful for me, which I knew not. And of course he's echoing the word, the words of the Lord from chapter 38, verse two, who is he that darkens counsel without knowledge? In verse four he says, here I beseech thee and I will speak. I will demand of thee and declare thou unto me. I have heard of thee by the hearing of the year, but now mine eye seeth thee, wherefore I abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes. And I believe that we see two responses in Job. The first is a response of humility. When he says, I abhor myself, I think he simply means that he is humbled in the presence of God. That word abhor can actually mean to retract something. It can mean to despise something or to retract or to reject. There is no reflexive pronoun there. The word myself is actually added by the translator, so it's not clear what exactly it is that Job rejects or retracts or despises. It may be himself, but it's probably his previous knowledge, his second hand knowledge of God, his understanding of God, which was limited. He said, I had heard of thee with the hearing of the air, but now mine, I see thee. And so it may very well be that what he rejects is this secondhand knowledge that he had thinking that he understood the ways of God. Now he sees the greatness of God. He has seen him with his own eyes and he is humbled. And I think even more important is for us to understand this word that is translated repent. And I'm gonna suggest something to you that may seem a little out of the blue, but I think bears up with the exegesis. The word that is used here for repent is a word that's used often in the Old Testament. And sometimes it is translated repent and that can be an accurate translation, but that's not always the case. This is a word that is used of God himself when God has said to repent. But of course, when God repents, it doesn't mean that he's turning from sin. It means that God is relenting or that God is changing his interaction with human beings in a certain situation. And I think it's important that we do not read this as Job repenting from some previous sin that he had committed. And some people have tried to read the book in that way. I actually heard a sermon many years ago where someone got up and they read this passage from Job chapter 42, and then they insisted Job had sinned after all. And when God revealed himself to him, Job saw his sin and now he repents and it essentially vindicates the three friends instead of Job. I think that's a misreading of the text, and I think that's very clear when you see the words of the Lord to the friends in Job chapter 42, verses seven and eight. I read this yesterday. I won't read all of it again, but I will read just verse seven. And it was so that after the Lord had spoken these words unto Job, the Lord said to Eliphaz the Temanite, my wrath is kindled against thee and against thy two friends, for ye have not spoken of me, the thing that is right, as my servant Job hath. The rebuke here is to the three friends and Job is vindicated. Job has spoken of me that which is right. So what does it mean when Job says, I repent in dust and ashes? And I think the very simple answer is that this is also a word that means to comfort or to console. It's used 108 times in the Old Testament. And oftentimes it is translated as comfort or console at least 60 times, depending on the translation of the Bible. But in the book of Job, every other time this word is used, it carries the connotation of comfort every single time. And I'll give you some of the verses. All of these verses reflect the same Hebrew root. In Job chapter two, verse 11, When the three friends first come to Job after he has suffered such terrible things, they come to mourn with him and to comfort him. Same Hebrew root word. In chapter seven, verse 13, Job says, when I say my bed shall comfort me, my couch shall ease my complaint. Once again, it's the same Hebrew root word. I have heard many such things. Miserable comforters are you all. Chapter 16, verse 2. Same basic word that's used. And I could give you another couple of examples from chapters 21 and chapter 29. I will just read one more from the end of the book. Chapter 42, verse 11. says, Then came there unto him all his brethren, and all his sisters, and all they that had been of his acquaintance before, and did eat bread with him in his house. And they bemoaned him, and comforted him over all the evil that the Lord had brought upon him. Every man also gave him a piece of money, and every one an earring of gold. And of course, the narrative continues to show how God blessed Job's ending even more than at the beginning and blessed him once again with sons and daughters and wealth and restored his fortunes completely But the point I'm making here is that the word that is used here that is translated in most Versions as I repent in dust and ashes. I think is actually better translated. I am comforted and He is comforted as he sits in the place of mourning upon the ash heap I am comforted. So it's not so much that Job is repenting of any sin. He's humbled to be sure because he has now seen God and he's humbled by the greatness of God, by the presence of God, by the power of God, by the display of God's wisdom. He's humbled as he should be. No human being could come into the presence of God without being humbled. Think about how we feel even when we just stand before some great spectacle. If you've ever stood at the brink of the Grand Canyon and you've looked at this majestic wonder of the world or I had the privilege to do a number of years ago seeing Victoria Falls in South Africa, the largest waterfall in the world. That is a humbling experience. How much more to stand in the presence of the creator of all things. For sure, Job is humbled before God and he bows the knee and he recognizes his place as a human being under the sovereignty of the great Lord and creator of all things. But I don't think he's repenting of sin. I think instead he is comforted. that God has revealed himself to him and he's comforted in what God has revealed about himself to Job. So the Lord speaks to Job out of the storm, out of the whirlwinds. There's a wonderful encounter that brings both humbling and comfort into Job's life. And the second thing we see really gets into the substance of this speech from God that the Lord rules over the cosmos. I read again, verses four through seven, where was thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare if thou hast understanding who has laid the measures thereof if thou knowest or who have stretched the line upon it whereupon are the foundations are a fastened or who laid the cornerstone thereof when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy what is the Lord doing here and in the two chapters that follow. He is just asking Job questions and they are questions that have to do with the order of creation. The Hebrew scholar Robert Alter has observed that the first speech of God to Job can be divided into three movements. The first movement has to do with cosmogony, the origins of the cosmos, the foundations of the earth, the sea, the morning light, the springs of the sea, the gates of death, light and darkness. All of this is covered in chapter 38. The second movement has to do with meteorology, patterns of weather and atmosphere. Also in chapter 38, the storehouses of snow, the east winds, torrents of rain, ice and frost constellations, clouds and storms. And the third movement has to do with zoology. The animal kingdom is in chapter 39. The Lord brings before Job all of these different varieties of animals of the wild, the lion, the Raven, the mountain goats, the wild ox, the ostrich, the hawk, the Eagle, and so on. And it seems that the purpose of these questions is to appeal to both the order and the mystery of creation, and to use them as a mirror for the moral order of the universe, and yet the mystery of how things unfold in this world, especially the mystery of suffering and evil. And in effect, It seems that what God is saying to Job is something like this, Job, you weren't there when I created everything. And there are a lot of things that you can't explain. You can't explain how the world was made. You can't set limits for the sea. You can't control or predict the patterns of weather. You don't understand the instincts of animals, Job. And therefore, how do you think you could understand my ways? One commentator, David Clines, says, God's long series of questions to Job is not intended to humiliate him, but to challenge him to reconsider what he already knows about the world that God has made and to ponder its mystery afresh. God points Job to 10 features of the natural order as examples of its mystery and to nine species of animals to illustrate the mystery of created life. We can take just one example. The example of the sea in verses eight through 11, I've already read this. It's poetic imagery as the Lord pictures the sea as emerging from the womb. The sea is personified and God is essentially asking Job, who is the midwife that attended the sea as it was born? And I think what God means is that God himself is the ruler of the sea. He is the one who laid the foundations of the earth and he is the one who set limits to the waters of the sea. You shall go this far and no farther. But in the mind of an ancient Near Eastern man as Job was, this also had important theological connotations. It's important to remember that Israelites especially viewed the sea as a menacing force of chaos and of evil. The sea waters represented that which threatened the created order. Do you remember how in the book of Genesis, when God judged the world, he did so as he let loose the floodgates of heaven and water covered the face of the land. You think of Moses in Israel, in Egypt, and they are delivered by God. And they come up to the Red Sea. Egypt is behind them and the sea is before them. How in the world will they be delivered? Only through the God who parts the waters of the sea. And this makes sense of the poetic imagery that's used in wisdom literature and in the Psalms. where the Lord is seen to be mightier than the sea. Psalm 93 verse four, the Lord on high is mightier than the noise of many waters, yea, than the mighty waves of the sea. Psalm 77 verse 16, the waters saw thee, O God, the waters saw thee, they were afraid, the depths were troubled. Psalm 29 verse 10, the Lord sitteth upon the flood, yea, the Lord sitteth king forever. And once again, it's showing us not only that God is the creator of the world, but he is the ruler and he is the ruler of the things that threaten creation. Indeed, he's the ruler over suffering. He's the ruler over evil. He is the ruler over anything that brings chaos into the created order. All of the unexplained mysteries and ominous threats in this world exist under the sovereign hand of God. That's why that Dutch reformed theologian Abraham Kuyper said that there is not a square inch in the whole domain of human existence over which Christ, the sovereign over all, does not cry, mine. It's mine. This is my world, Job. I'm the one who sets the boundaries of the sea. I am the Lord who rules the cosmos. And Job is therefore humbled. You see his response in chapter 40, verses one through five, after this first speech, Job answered in verse three and four, and said, behold, I am vile. What shall I answer thee? I will lay my hand upon my mouth. Once have I spoken, but I will not answer yes twice, but I will proceed no further. Job essentially says you win. The case is closed. You are righteous. You are God and I am not. And brothers and sisters, that is one of the responses. that we as God's people must make in the midst of suffering. It is to recognize our place that God is God and we are not. We are his creatures and he is the creator. We are his subjects and he is the sovereign. We are his servants and he is the Lord and he can do what he pleases with us and he is just and righteous in all his ways. And he can be trusted. So we see the Lord's voice from the storm. We see the Lord ruling over the cosmos, the cosmic order, the created world and everything that is in it. And then thirdly, we see the Lord's triumph over evil. Or as I'm tempted to word this point, we see that the Lord slays the dragon. I have a book in my library called The Seven Basic Plots. It's a book on literature by Christopher Booker. And he just points out how there are seven basic plots that run through all the stories of the world. And one of those stories is, or one of those plots is overcoming the monster. You just think about the stories in our literature and in our culture, Beowulf and Grendel, George and the Dragon, Gandalf and Saruman, right? Overcoming the monster, slaying the dragon. And I believe that this is also one of the plot points of the Bible. And we see it in the book of Job. And once again, I'm going to suggest something you've maybe never heard before, but I I really believe that the scholarship that has been done on the book of Job in the last 20 or 25 years bears this out. And it all has to do with these two puzzling beasts that are described in chapters 40 and 41, the behemoth and the Leviathan. I'll read Job chapter 41, verses one through 10, just about the Leviathan. Hear the description. Canst thou draw out Leviathan with an hook, or his tongue with a cord, which thou let us down? Canst thou put an hook into his nose, or bore his jaw through with a thorn? Will he make many supplications unto thee? Will he speak soft words unto thee? Will he make a covenant with thee? Will thou take him for a servant forever? Will thou play with him as with a bird? Will thou bind him for thy maidens? Shall the companions make a banquet of him? Shall they part him among the merchants? Canst thou fill his skin with barbed irons, or his head with fish spears? Lay thine hand upon him, remember the battle, do no more. Behold, the hope of him is in vain. Shall not one be cast down, even at the sight of him? None is so fierce that dare stir him up. Who then is able to stand before me? One in the world is the Leviathan. And the commentators have been debating this for years. And I'll give you the options. Many believe that these are simply descriptions of ferocious creatures of the wild. The behemoth is usually considered a hippopotamus, and the leviathan maybe a whale or a crocodile. That's one option. Commentators do take that perspective. Some people have speculated that these may be biblical references to prehistoric animals, something like dinosaurs. And I'll acknowledge the majority view is probably the more naturalistic one, the hippopotamus and the whale or crocodile. But in recent years, there has been, I think, a really important scholarship done on the book of Job that has been looking at Job in the light of other ancient Near Eastern texts. And they believe that these images are drawn from ancient Near Eastern mythology and that they represent the forces of chaos, death, and evil. For example, one Bible dictionary says, in Ugaritic mythology, Leviathan, appearing by the name Lothan, is one of the primeval sea monsters who battles against Baal on the side of Mot, the god of the underworld, and who is ultimately defeated. This mythological tradition was adopted and transformed in the Bible where God appears as the victor over the sea monsters. I'm gonna give you an argument for this. Okay, Jeremiah can clean up the mess if you disagree, or if he disagrees. I'm gonna give you four reasons why I think this is true. And I think if it is true, it connects to a broader theme in the Bible that certainly is theologically true, but I think it accounts for why Job finds so much comfort from the Lord's mysterious revelation of himself. So four reasons why I think this Leviathan is a symbolic reference to the primary agent of evil in the world. My argument here is that the Leviathan is something like a guise for Satan. First of all, his appearance, his appearance. And the problem with the naturalistic interpretations of Leviathan is that when you, you read the description of the appearance, it just doesn't fit a crocodile. So for example, in verses 18 through 21, We read, by his kneesings or his sneezings, a light doth shine, and his eyes are like the eyelids of the morning. Again, think of light from his eyes. Out of his mouth go burning lamps, flaming torches. and sparks of fire leap out. Out of his nostrils go with smoke as out of a seething pot of cauldron. His breath kindled coals and a flame go without of his mouth. That's the description of a fire breathing dragon. So that's one reason to think this is not just a crocodile. There's something more in mind here. Also his habitat, the place of his dwelling, it's the sea. Verses 31 through 34. He maketh the deep to boil like a pot. He maketh the sea like a pot of ointment. He maketh a path to shine after him. One would think the deep to be hoary. And what that means is that as the Leviathan races through the waters of the deep, he's producing this white crest. like a hoary head, a gray head, a white crest behind him as he goes through the sea. Upon the earth, there is not his like, who is made without fear. Do you remember the words of Luther's hymn? For still our ancient foe, doth seek to work us woe. His craft are power and great, and armed with cruel hate on earth is not his equal. I wonder if Luther was drawing his language from that verse. He beholdeth all high things, he is king over all the children of pride. But he inhabits the sea, and as we've already seen, the sea is this representative force of chaos and of death, that which threatens the created order. And then there are the other biblical references to Leviathan. There are a number of references to this creature, whatever it is in the scriptures. Psalm 74 verse 12, verse 12 through 15 for God is my King of old working salvation in the midst of the earth. Thou didst divide the sea by thy strength. Thou breakest the heads of the dragons in the waters. Thou breakest the heads of Leviathan in pieces. Notice plural heads. and gavest him to be meat to the people inhabiting the wilderness. Thou didst cleave the fountain and the flood, thou driest up the mighty rivers. And you read, go all the way to the New Testament, the book of Revelation, Revelation chapter 13, verse one. And you remember in John's vision, he sees a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and 10 horns. Or take Isaiah chapter 27, verse one, in that day, the Lord with his sore and great and strong sword shall punish Leviathan, the piercing serpents, even Leviathan, that crooked serpents, and he shall slay the dragon that is in the sea. So these and other considerations have led scholars to believe that Leviathan is a guise for Satan himself, the adversary who is instrumental in bringing about Job's suffering. And there's a similar argument for Behemoth, that Behemoth represents death. And that what the Lord is showing here is that death and Satan themselves are under the sovereignty of God, and that God contains them, controls them, keeps them on a leash, limits them so that they can only do so much. So the argument here is the appearance of the Leviathan, It seems more like a fire-breathing dragon than a crocodile. His habitat is the sea. Thirdly, the other references in the Old Testament to Leviathan, the fourth would be how this makes sense of New Testament language. And I've already mentioned Revelation chapter 13, verse 1. And you could also go to Revelation chapter 12. We read in verse three that there appeared another wonder in heaven and behold a great red dragon having seven heads and 10 horns and seven crowns upon his heads. And then a description of a war in heaven with this seven headed dragon. And who is this dragon identified as read verse nine. And the great dragon was cast out that old serpent called the devil and Satan, which deceive it the whole world. He was cast out into the earth and his angels were cast out with him. And even the sea, have you ever been puzzled by Revelation chapter 21, verse one, when there is a new heavens and a new earth and the first heaven and the first earth were passed away and there was no more sea? Why is there no more sea? Because the forces of chaos and death, everything that threatens the created order is being done away with once and for all. So my suggestion here is that part of God's revelation to Job is that he is the Lord who slays the dragon. He is the Lord who defeats our enemy. He is the Lord who triumphs over evil. He overcomes the monster. I'll just read one more text as we draw to a close. Hebrews chapter two, verses 14 and 15. For as much then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also Christ himself, Likewise took part of the same that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is the devil, and deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. Christ through death defeated death. Here's the old Puritan author John Owen put it, the death of death in the death of Christ. And listen, brothers and sisters, at the end of the day, all of our fears and all of our suffering are fears that are related to dying and death and the pain that leads up to it, the suffering that leads up to it. That's what the great fear is. The great enemy in scripture, the last enemy to be defeated is death. And the good news of the gospel, and I think the links are right here in the book of Job, the good news of the gospel is that death is defeated. It is defeated in the cross and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. I started with Martin Luther. Let me end with Luther. He said, death is the emperor of the world. He strikes down kings, princes, all men. He has an idea to destroy all life, but Christ has immortal life, and life immortal gained the victory over death. Through Christ, death has lost her sting. Christ is the death of death. Therefore Christ, the power of God, righteousness, blessing, grace, and life, overcometh and destroyeth these monsters, sin, death, and the curse, without war or weapons in his own body and in himself. They cannot harm those who hide in Christ. Sin, death, the wrath of God, hell, the devil are mortified in Christ. Where Christ is near, the powers of evil must keep their distance. And Luther was no stranger to suffering. This wasn't just theory for him. One of the most heart-rending stories is when Luther lost his beloved daughter, Magdalena, who died from the plague when she was 14 years old. And Luther was shattered by this event. He was heartbroken as any parent would be. And when they were nailing the lid on the coffin, he cried out, hammer away, hammer away. On doomsday, she'll rise again. Luther wrote a resurrection hymn, a hymn about the resurrection of Christ. To him, it's very meaningful to me now because the night before my mother's funeral, someone read these words to me. And then I read them the next day in her funeral service. And it's a wonderful hymn about Christ's power over death. And it is our hope, it is our only hope, brothers and sisters, in the midst of suffering, that our God, who is the sovereign Lord, is also the saving Lord. And he saves us through defeating death in the death and resurrection of his Son, Jesus Christ. That's the answer to evil. It's the answer to suffering. It's the answer to this problem that we've been considering. Listen to how Luther put it, Christ Jesus lay in death's strong bands for our offenses given. But now at God's hand, he stands and brings us life from heaven. Therefore, let us all rejoice and sing to God with heart and voice loud songs of hallelujah. It was a strange and deadful strife when life and death contended. The victory remained with life. The reign of death is ended. So the scripture makes it plain that death by death's own sword is slain. It's sting is lost forever. Hallelujah. My dear friends, in whatever suffering you're facing, including the prospect of your mortality, the death of your precious loved ones. Remember this, that the Lord who speaks from the storm is the Lord who rules over the cosmos. And he is the Lord who triumphs over evil. He has slain the dragon. He has defeated death. He has done it through his son, Jesus Christ, who faced death himself and who has risen in victory and in triumph over death, in the grave, sin and Satan, everything that threatens us. Jesus has won the victory and the day is coming when he returns and death and sorrow and suffering will be no more. That's our hope. Let's pray. Gracious Father, thank you for your word and thank you for the hope that the gospel gives us. We pray that your Holy Spirit would apply these truths deeply to our hearts for our comfort and for our strength. May we be both humbled before you as we consider who you are as the sovereign creator of heaven and earth, the one who rules in wisdom and in justice, and may we be comforted with the good news that because of your great love for us, you have dealt with the problem of suffering and evil once and for all. May that hope sustain us, in our own temporary present sufferings. May we look forward to the glory which will follow. May we take heart in the good news of our crucified and risen Savior, Jesus Christ, in whose gracious name we pray, amen.