INTRODUCTION:

I’m hoping to have a personal talk with all of you this morning about something that is simply not easy to deal with.  Under great mental strain or in extreme physical pain, people who trust that Jesus has pardoned them sometimes speak in ways that would make you think that they don’t believe in Jesus at all.  Not only for the people who are going through it but also for those who are standing by (doing their best to provide loving support), it is a harrowing experience.

Some of you may have already gone through this very extensively as you watched with tears in your eyes while loved ones struggled through the last phases of the disease that claimed their life.  You perhaps heard them say things that shocked you and there’s a good chance that some of what they said hurt you.  But whether we’ve been through it already or not, we would all do well to understand what can happen in the heart and mind of a child of God when waves of pain and suffering relentlessly come crashing in, like the pounding surf.  What are we to think and what are we to do when a loved one talks that way?   But also, when we’re the ones who are going through the wringer and our mouths are producing the extremely pessimistic words, what are we to remember…

When God’s People Don’t Talk Like God’s People

It almost seems like Job’s doctors should have tried a different anti-depressant, or at least they should have administered a stronger narcotic.  If the words you heard were depressing, things get uglier farther into the chapter.  “I prefer strangling and death rather than this body of mine.”  Lord, if you’re not going to alleviate this excruciating pain, let me die in peace.  I can’t take this any more.  It’s heart-breaking when you hear someone give up like that.  It’s frightening to think that someday you may feel that way.  Where are we going to go with all of this?

The reality is that believers in Jesus sometimes talk this way.  It’s not good and it’s not OK, but nor does it necessarily mean they’ve disowned God and fallen away from faith in him.  They’re simply not where they need to be.  It’s also incredible – the patience God demonstrates when his people dive so deep into pessimism and speak so disparagingly.  But it’s also revealing, isn’t it – how fragile and fleeting our faith can be when it’s under fire, when we’re under duress. Job had been a pillar of a believer, but it sounds like the pillar was crumbling.  Months of futility, nights of misery.  My life is coming to a swift and hopeless end and I will never again experience anything good.

Have you heard words like those from the lips of a believer in Jesus?  Have you spoken them yourself?  It’s like we don’t believe what we’re hearing.  It’s like we don’t believe what we’re saying.

Remember these things: 

ONE:  “I can’t take this anymore,” may be exactly how a believer feels, but feeling and fact don’t always line up.  “God will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear.”  As painful as it may be, God is controlling the difficulty.  Simultaneously he is holding you, sustaining you, keeping his promise that he will not let it get the best of you.

TWO: God will not allow anything to come between his people and his love for his people.  Nothing in all creation can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus.  It may take reading it and hearing it a hundred times a day, but it always holds true.

THREE: When it feels as if God has stripped away every good thing and left us helpless, he has a loving purpose.  He’s calling out with a loud and loving voice: Lean on me.  Self-sufficiency and self-trust will not help.  I am your God and I will help.

FOUR:  All eyes on Jesus!  Jesus fully experienced pain and suffering worse than that of Job and worse than that of anyone.  Everything that made Job prefer death over life smashed into Jesus a million times more severely.  Pain without relief, and, for a time on the cross, no God to turn to for help, and yet his words remained pure.  His pain was for evil that he didn’t do and wickedness he didn’t have, and he swallowed it all so we could have God look us straight in the eye and say, “You are my son.  You are my daughter.  You are my holy child.”

When God’s people don’t talk like God’s people, the Holy Spirit does something more miraculous than the parting of the Red Sea.  When pain and suffering are driving them crazy and words of faith and hope are seemingly nowhere to be found, he brings a word to their lips that launches itself straight into heaven: “God, remember what I am! I am nothing but a breath.”

Even after his people have shamefully been saying things they shouldn’t, because he is who he is (constant and loving and faithful and forgiving), God still remembers them.  He doesn’t excuse them because they can’t do any better.  He forgives them because Jesus offered up his holy life in place of them. 

^For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.  As a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him; for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust. 

He remembers how mortal we are, then shows us how magnificent he is.  He remembers how weak we are, then shows us how wonderful he is.  He remembers the people he redeemed, especially when they need him most.

One of the prayers we pray the most says it the best.  When you’re standing by that bedside or making your way to that hospital room day after day, when you’re lying in that bed or a resident in that hospital, fall back on what Jesus taught you to say:   Deliver us from evil.   Pray it with your loved ones.  Pray it yourself.  When the words they speak don’t line up with the faith God has given them, when his people are truly at their wits’ end, God always delivers them.

We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about the hardships we suffered in the province of Asia.  We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life.  Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death.  But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead.  He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us.  On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us.    

He will!  Lord Jesus, we believe it.  Help our unbelief!

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