The Mournful Wail of a Miserable Man │ Msg 5/22

0:01 For a change, I would like you simply to listen rather than to follow along in your Bible. You're free to do that, but the words will be different because I want to read for you from Job chapter 3 from Eugene Peterson's paraphrase known as the message. words changed a little but the tone of it seems to emphasize the right kind of thing i'm calling today's message the mournful wail of a miserable man it's not my testimony and it may not be yours but more than most of us would like to believe it has been on our lips in other ways at other times, if not now. Listen to some selections from this third chapter. Job broke the silence.

0:59 He spoke up and cursed his fate. Obliterate the day I was born. Blank out the night I was conceived. Let it be a black hole in space. May God above forget it ever happened. Erase it from the books. May the day of my birth be buried in deep darkness, shrouded by the fog, swallowed by the night. In the night of my conception, rip the date off the calendar. Delete it from the almanac. oh turn that night into pure nothingness no sounds of pleasure from that night ever may these may those who were good at cursing curse that day unleash the sea beast leviathan may its morning stars turn to black cinders waiting for a daylight that never comes and why?

2:03 Because it released me from my mother's womb into a life with so much trouble. Why didn't I die at birth? Why wasn't I stillborn and buried with all the babies who never saw light, where the wicked no longer trouble anyone and bone-weary people get a long-deserved rest? Prisoners sleep undisturbed. Never again to wake up to the bark of the guards. The small and the great are equals in that place, and slaves are free from their masters. Why does God bother giving light to the miserable?

2:44 What's the point of life when it doesn't make sense? When God blocks all the roads to meaning. Instead of bread, I get groans for my supper, then leave the table and vomit my anguish. the worst of my fears has come true. What I've dreaded most has now happened. My repose is shattered. My peace destroyed. No rest for me ever.

3:15 Death has invaded life. I remember teaching through the book of Ecclesiastes where Solomon lost his way and tried to find happiness without God. Interestingly, some phrases that appear in that ancient book of Ecclesiastes, somewhat like the third chapter of Job, sort of shatter our inner peace, but they represent the thinking of the person at the time of writing. it's all inspired truth, but it doesn't necessarily reflect inspired thinking or a divine viewpoint. But this is a man at the end of his rope, and so it reads as we have heard it today and as we shall hear it later explained.

4:11 Let's pray together. because some days are like that, our Father, and because it seems as though there is no light beyond the darkness of a depressing tunnel in stages of life, it is easy to begin believing that you're no longer there and you no longer care. And since you don't care, why should we? But those all represent such anguished thinking. and really none but the lonely heart can know such anguish. For some, such words are not that unfamiliar. They do not shock, because some who hear these words today have had the similar words fall from their lips.

5:08 It's easy for us sitting in a place like this on a fresh and bright and sunny Sunday morning, dressed up, cleaned up, looking nice. to hide the truth of what is really going on deep within.

5:32 Thank you for the reminder that your book is true, that when you paint your servants, you paint them warts and all. You do not hide from us their depression, their doubts, their grief, even days so dark that some wish they had never been born. and so today while in the midst of this study of a troubled heartbroken grieving life this day I pray that you will minister in a deep way to some who are in that kind of place at this time in their lives you would bring a sense of comfort and remind that there isn't any pit so deep but that you are deeper still thank you for the place of quietness we enjoy here freedom from the interruption of the enemy or the adversary thank you for brave men and women who fight for our cause in places that are hard to pronounce and in locations marked by terror and danger.

6:54 Take care of them and watch over them, and because of them, give us protection. Sustain our liberty. ours is a dark world, one that's fallen and lost its way. And rather than being smug and complacent in it, give us a passion for those who can't find their way home. give us a sweet understanding of such a miserable situation that we might be for them a light in their darkness and hope in their hurt and a rescue from their valley. thank you for the sheer pleasure of the worship of you,

7:49 our triune God. And we would pray that as we are again lost in this sense of wonder and love and praise, that money that flows from our wallets and purses into these offering plates will flow freely and joyfully. because our Father, we believe that this is just as much a part of worship as the reading of your word, the singing of your songs, and time spent like this in prayer.

8:24 Find favor in the giving from motive to action. Superintend the use of these funds that they might be only for your greater glory. as we continue our worship in Jesus' name. And everyone said. great people and grand accomplishments often have tragic beginnings.

8:54 In fact, occasionally when you do a study in depth of those accomplishments or those great lives, you find that they really were birthed in wombs of woe. A couple of occasions this past week, I was reminded of that. Cynthia and I attended a small Dallas Seminary banquet on a Monday night passed, and to my delight and surprise, our chaplain, Chaplain Bill Bryan, who has been at the school many years, told us his story, which was not only surprising, it was shocking to us. Anyone who knows Bill Bryan knows that he is the fun-loving, joyful, very competent trumpet-playing, singing pastor of the campus. He has a personality that is borderline contagious.

9:56 When you're around him, you think his life must have been laughter from beginning till now, as he always turns your attention to the bright side of things. The cup is always half full, never half empty. But that's not how things started for him. This great life began in a season of woe. His father suffered deeply depression. And back then, Bill is now 66, so back when he remembers he was three, four years old, his father went through a dark tunnel in his battle with a mental illness. And back in those days, it rarely was brought out of the closet, and there was very little known to do for people who suffered in this way.

10:51 And Bill said he remembered going week after week after week to the Medical Arts Building in Springfield, Missouri, where they would go up the elevator to the sixth floor and he would sit and wait with his mother as his father was going through a time of struggle. And Bill said as a little boy, he didn't understand what was happening. He just knew his dad wasn't at peace. He was troubled. His life was dark. And on one occasion, the father was brought out of the room and asked to stay with Bill as a little boy, age four. and the mother was brought in and they made plans as a result of his getting no better, in fact, getting only worse, that they would admit him to what was then called an insane asylum.

11:41 Unfortunately, you could hear through the walls and the father heard of his future. In fact, the comment was made, they didn't know that or if he would ever get out. Bill said I remember as my mother walked out with the doctors there was more than one that my dad picked me up and held me close and said I love you son put me down on the floor ran and jumped from the window and broke shattered the glass and fell to his death that was the last memory Bill had of his father and he sort of went from home to home as his mother could not quite recover from that. A friend took him home that night and another family or friend would take him for this period and that period.

12:37 Who would have ever expected a man like Chaplain Bill Bryan to come from such a woeful, heartbreaking setting? I'm now reading a fine book by Benjamin Zander and his wife, Roz. Benjamin Zander, in the writing of the book, was the Boston Philharmonic conductor. And in the book, I came across a fascinating story of Mahler's Ninth Symphony. Gustav Mahler lived in the last part of the 19th and the early part of the 20th century, a Bohemian composer and conductor and director for 10 years of the Imperial Opera in Vienna. wonderful, privileged position. And the symphony is a, it just enraptures music lovers. And while talking with Bruce Stevenson, our minister of music, about this particular piece, he says it just seems to contain everything. And those who are serious about classical music are students of Mahler's ninth.

13:47 And as Zander writes, there is a richness and a depth of orchestration and harmonies and melodies and counter melodies. And you would think that the genius who wrote such orchestration would have lived a privileged life. It must have been a magnificent thing to have such a training. But the fact is, says Zander, Gustav Mahler's childhood was marked by tragedy. He lost seven brothers and sisters as he was a child growing up. In fact, Xander says the coffin became a regular piece of furniture in their house. His father was a cruel and brutal alcoholic, and his mother was a vulnerable invalid at the mercy of her husband's blows. and Mahler himself growing out of that womb of woe grew up and married and had a lovely daughter in whom he placed so much of his affection and he lost her at age four and never really got over that loss.

14:55 And yet, On top of all that, because he was Jewish, he was forced to quit his work as director of the Vienna Opera House. Shortly thereafter, was told that he had a bad heart and didn't have long to live. And in all of that he composed his magnificent Ninth Symphony. Benjamin's under ads Mahler wasn't sad all the time he had a great love of nature and a powerful he was a powerful swimmer had a magnificent laugh and a huge love of life and all of this is in his music as well as sadness and anger about his illness and the brutality of his father and the vulnerability of his invalid mother in fact Mahler thought he should put everything in life into his symphonies.

15:51 He wrote a tenth symphony that was never finished. And yet his music, while his life sadly dropped into the cloud of a premature death, his music lives on to thrill the hearts of classic music lovers the world over. Is it any wonder that the man Job has ministered to the hurting for centuries? Is it any surprise that those who go through times of deep, dark depression, is it any surprise that they turn, after a few of the Psalms, quickly to the work of Job? No surprise. none but the lonely heart can feel such anguish. And when you read Job, you have an affinity for his anguish if you have known such.

16:53 Now, I need to warn you ahead of time as we turn to the third chapter. This will not be a pleasant sermon. This is not easy preaching. I don't know of a person on earth that has ever said Job 3 is their favorite chapter in the Bible I don't know of anyone who has ever memorized a verse out of Job 3 it's one of those chapters you get to and you find yourself saying well let's see what else there is in the book of Job surely there's something unless you have known the black hole of depression yourself. And you read, not with shock, but you read nodding with understanding, because you've been there.

17:44 here the scabs are pulled from the sores and the pus of reality runs down Job's life. If his story were made into a movie and you had rented it for tonight, when you came to this part of the story, you wouldn't want your children to watch. It's unedited and it's raw. And it doesn't sound nice. In fact, some of it is downright offensive. and you don't want to believe a man as great as Job in chapter 1 and 2 is the same man who wrote chapter 3. You just don't want to believe it. Why? Partly because we have this anybody who comes to Christ lives happily ever after concept that God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life and you'll almost sprout wings before your conversion is a week old as you begin to sail and float through life.

18:49 but the wonderful plan of God is wonderful from his perspective, not yours and mine. Wonderful for us is comfortable, healthy, preferably rather well-off, happily married with two well-behaved children, I'm now dreaming. and the joy of nothing but blessing blessing and favor and success and prosperity in fact you say as you go to bed at night naked I came from my mother's womb naked I shall return the Lord gave the Lord has taken away blessed be the name of the Lord and you are the one who says to your mate shall we not accept good from God and also not accept adversity as well and in all this you don't sin with your lips.

19:41 The same man who wrote that in chapters 1 and chapter 2 wrote this in chapter 3 and don't you doubt it. The same man. And we don't want him to write what he writes in chapter 3 because it doesn't seem like he's really walking with God. I mean he has the audacity to say at the end I am not at ease, I am not quiet, I am not at rest. I am in turmoil. How about go? and we are given entrance into a slice of Job's life that is as real as more testimonies who fill this room than any of us would ever believe. even the godly can be depressed. One of my favorite chapters in one of my favorite books is The Minister's Fainting Fits by Charles Haddon Spurgeon in his book Lectures to My Students.

20:43 In it, he admits to depression. He admits to not always being vigorous and wise and ready, not always being courageous and happy. In fact, he even declares in one place, before any great achievement, some measure of depression is very usual for me.

21:04 Such was my experience when I first became a pastor in London, writes Spurgeon. My success appalled me and the thought of the career which it seemed to open up so far from elating me cast me into the lowest depths, out of which I uttered my misery and found no room for a gloria in excelsis. Who was I that I should continue to lead so great a multitude? I would take me to my village obscurity. I thought this was good. Or immigrate to America. And find a solitary nest in the backwoods. Lots of luck, Spurgeon. where I might be sufficient for the things which would be demanded of me. This depression comes over me whenever the Lord is preparing a larger blessing for my ministry. And so it does me.

21:59 Maybe not as deep as some of you, but I have known a deep sense of depression at times. At times when others would think I might be caught up in pride of all things. I have known times when I wondered should I even stay at it but I've never known a death like Job experiences here.

22:24 If Job were in the hospital, he would have written a small sign and hung it on the doorknob when he got to this segment of his life and said, no visitors today, please. I don't want to see anybody else. When I get to chapters like this, I'm always glad that God is no longer writing his word. I'm always glad that he stopped with people like Job Or David or Paul I'm so grateful there isn't a first and second book of Chuck or Bob or Frank or Mark or Bill or Shirley or Doris or your name or your mate's name.

23:06 But Job is hung out here for all to see. We all have our unguarded moments. We all have times when we reach the end of our tether, when the clouds of doom seem greater than the sun of tomorrow. and our view is blocked and out gushes how we really feel.

23:33 And thankfully, no one is there to hear. But with Job, there were three friends who sat and stared and heard every word and began to put together their thoughts so they could set him straight as soon as they got a chance to talk. How tragic. allow me a couple of somewhat technical comments as we get underway, may I? At this point in the Hebrew text, poetry begins. In the prologue, chapters 1 and 2 are written in prose, just as they appear in your Bible in a narrative form. As you would pick up a novel to read it, that's prose. As you would read a newspaper article, that's prose. It reads just like a book. But when you get to chapter 3 in the Hebrew, you begin to read poetry.

24:28 And it appears in meter. It appears as poetry. And that runs all the way through chapter 42, verse 6. So the greater part of this book is poetry. That's why the book falls in the category of the poetry section of the Bible. It is mainly poetry. Now, you remember from your English literature classes that poetry is full of allegory and wonderful word pictures and duplication of similar thoughts, repetition, as the author, as the writer of the poetry, turns thoughts over in his mind and revisits them from several different angles. No good student of poetry tries to make every line walk on all fours. Some things you leave said and you simply say it's poetry. I've memorized lines of poetry and I love them. And sometime when I quote them to myself or to someone patient enough to listen to me, when I quote it to them, I often think, though I've quoted it many times, I don't really know the full depth of what he was getting at there, but he's a poet.

25:49 So please give yourself the freedom to say when you come to certain things in it, in the poetry, I just don't know. I'm just not sure exactly what he had in mind. And you can let yourself off the hook by saying it's poetry. Now the second, the second little technical comment, Job's outburst, get this, is not prompted mainly because of physical suffering. It's prompted because he's lost touch with God. it's a major difference he doesn't write like he does or he doesn't say what he does in chapter 3 because he has these sores though that's certainly a part of it but that's not the cause it isn't because he can't sleep at night these are not nocturnal meanderings that come because he's restless he is miserable because he's lost his best friend how close he had been with God when he got married to Mrs. Job.

26:53 How happy their relationship was, meaning his and God's, as the first of the few children were conceived, and as the babies were born, and as these seven boys and three girls filled their home with laughter, how near God seemed to him. And as the business grew and the caravans multiplied, and the prophet began to come in, and as he was blessed with the joy of prosperity, and as he and God walked together in the cool of the evening, how close God was until that day. Everything broke loose. Everything broke loose. And he lost camp. He lost livestock. He lost all of the animals. He lost home. He lost all ten children. And he lost his health. And worst of all, the heavens were brass. and God no longer walked with him in the cool of the evening, and God no longer came alongside to say, my son, let me explain what this is all about.

27:53 The devil came, and he dared me to do, and I want you to know I'm trusting that you'll, he knew none of that. You and I know all of that. He's never read the first two chapters of Job. He's just living out the result of the chapters. And he's reached the end of his rope.

28:17 This is the day you slam the door shut. This is the day you say to those even close to you, leave me alone. This is the day in his life. when he cannot find his friend, his heavenly father. One man writes, the third chapter of Job must be one of the most depressing chapters in the Bible. While some might be as depressed as Job was and use these verses to give vent to their feelings, few sermons are made from this chapter. Few verses are claimed as promises, and few are remembered for the warmth of their sentiment. It is the lowest of several low points in the book. Afterward, Job opened his mouth and cursed the day of his birth.

29:17 because you have patiently sat through my opening comments, you're not quite as shocked as the novice would be who reads this and says, aha, there you go. Satan said he would curse God. Now he does. Wait, wait, wait. It may be poetry, but let's read it accurately. He doesn't curse God. He curses the day of his birth. There's a difference. There's a difference. to say why was I ever born is much different than saying I no longer believe in you God it's saying I am so totally and completely alone I regret that I ever drew breath in fact I regret that I was ever conceived in the womb of my mother Verses 1 to 10, he regrets his birth.

30:17 Verses 11 to 19, he wished he'd been born dead. Verses 20 through 26, he longs to die. End of sermon. as I said earlier, if you weren't depressed when you started with me, you will be when I finish. Just pause and remember the aftershock of what is included in the word, chapter 3, verse 1, afterward, afterward. Sitting at the city dump, head shaved, wife wringing her hands, three friends sitting seven days and seven nights staring not saying a word chapter 2 verse 13 seeing the pain was very great after loss of all the children and everything he held dear an ability to make a living with sores running and scabs pulling loose from those sores after that he opened his mouth and out came I wish I had never been born and that's not all he said if you like marking your bibles you will have a field day with the words let and may in verses three through nine they appear over and over again these are called jussives j-u-s-s-i-v-e in the Hebrew. I call them wish verbs. They are wish verbs. May this happen. May that happen. Let this happen. Let that happen. Let these things happen. And while I'm at it, let this and let that.

31:58 It's poetry, folks. It's poetry. Let the day perish. Verse four. May the day be darkness. Let God above care not for it. Verse five. Let darkness and black gloom claim it. Let a cloud settle on it. Let the blackness of the day terrify it. Verse six. Let it not rejoice among the days of the year. Let it not come into the number of the months. Take it out of the calendar. Forget my birthday. Let that night be barren. Let no joyful shout enter it. Let those curse it who curse the day. Verse 9, let the stars of its twilight be darkened. Let all that happen. For goodness sake, Job, what is it? It is depression.

32:40 I want none of this thing called life. And interestingly, suicide never enters his mind. Never an attempt, never a word about it, never a warning against it. So far into the life of the faithful. I thought it was interesting while working through this whale to see what he said in verse 3. Not only does he regret the day of his birth, he even regrets the conception. Let the day perish on which I was born, and in good poetic fashion he returns even further, and the night. Let it perish when they said a boy is conceived. a day of easy abortion, isn't it interesting that he does not call the conception of the fetus a tissue or the mass of protoplasm? He calls it a boy because life begins at conception. Soon as the sperm enters the egg, you have a life, a life. And in those days, it was it was applauded by those in the patriarch era a boy a boy we have a boy how wonderful no no no don't say that says job at this age and stage of his life may that day be dark obliterate it get rid of it there's another part of this that sort of fascinates me.

34:19 When I get down in the middle of the blackness of all of this, I come across verse 8. Let those cursed who curse the day. By the way, that means Job is probably not very experienced in cursing, so he offers those who curse well to pick up the day of his birth, and you take over who are prepared. look closely to rouse Leviathan. Now, I would say you've rarely used the word Leviathan in the last year or two of your life. What in the world is Leviathan?

34:59 Read in your Webster's Dictionary this definition, a sea monster represented as an adversary. But it goes further back than that. more specifically, Leviathan was a seven-headed sea monster of ancient Near Eastern mythology.

35:24 In the Ugaritic literature of Canaan and Phoenicia in ancient days, eclipses were caused by Leviathans coming out of the sea, swallowing the sun or the moon and therefore causing darkness to be cast on this earth as Leviathan was roused from sleep in the sea and he swallowed up the sun or the moon. You say, what? And I say, poetry. See, that's a great way to handle this, isn't it? It's poetry. No, it's even more than poetry. It's mythology. And if you travel to Turkey or if you travel to Greece and you have an individual who was a native of that land and you are guided on a tour, you will hear more mythology than you will hear theology.

36:23 The mythology is the whole basis of the gods of that land. And in ancient patriarchal days, it was still a part of that custom or of that literature. and he picks up the thought and says, oh, by the way, I'm at it. Let Leviathan swallow up the sun of the day. Make it dark.

36:46 Does Job believe in mythology? No. Any more than you or I believe in Santa Claus. When Christmas comes, we may refer to something as prompting Santa to do this or that. It's not that we believe in him. Last Christmas, I got a card from a good friend of mine, Paul Sailhammer. He said, I just came across this. He said, we go through four stages with Santa, he said. First of all, we believe in him. And second, we don't believe in him. And third, we are him. And then fourth, we look like him. That's four stages of Santa. And we joke about Santa, and we have fun with the myth of that. So Job, not having fun, but referring to this ancient creature who will return again in the poetry of this text, not here, but later. And while lamenting that he did not perish at conception and grieving that he lived to see the day of his birth, please notice another interesting comment made in verse 11.

37:53 Having said, why did I not die at birth, come forth from the womb and expire? why did the knees receive me? Why the breasts that I should suck? The latter we understand, the nursing of the mother as Job's mother nursed him, but the knees are curious. Some say that it has reference to the passing of the child as the mother births the infant. It passes, if you will, through the knees, but this says receive. It could be a reference to the mother placing the infant on her knees as she prepares to begin the nursing. It probably better refers to the patriarchal process of a father being given the infant shortly after birth. The child was placed on the knees of the father, and he would there give it the family's blessing.

38:50 If you ever saw the television documentary Roots, You will remember the child being held by the father as he holds the child up before God and gives him to the Lord, if you will, in their ancient custom in Africa. In this case, a father would be given the infant and he would bless the child as the infant was placed on the knees. And Job says, why was I ever so blessed? Why did those knees ever receive me? Why wasn't it a corpse that they held in their hands? And then with the thought of becoming a corpse, ghoulish as it sounds, he turns to the blessing of that as he describes heaven, 13 through 19. Look closely. For now, meaning had I died, I would have been laying down and been quiet. I would have slept then and I would have been at rest.

39:49 I would have been alongside kings and counselors and princes, verse 15, who had gold and filling their houses with silver. Verse 17, there the wicked cease from raging. That's true in heaven. There the weary are at rest. Prisoners are at ease. They do not hear the voice of the taskmaster. The small and the greater there and the slave is free from his master. It's a beautiful picture of peace and solemnity and ease. and he said oh that could have been my lot but I lived and I've lost it all and as a result verse 24 he takes us to his everyday experience my groaning comes at the sight of my food my cries pour out like water when someone served him a simple meal he groaned. The Hebrew word means to shriek.

40:51 Ugh! Take that away. I have no interest in anything to eat. The man along with the suffering of the sickness is now starving. And his cries come like water poured out. He speaks of his fears in verse 25 and his dread. The things I dreaded have befalled me. have fallen upon me. This may have reference to those days when he was prosperous and life was good and he in unguarded moments wondered if they would remain that. And my worst fears have been realized and now dread has fallen upon me.

41:33 I am not at ease. I am not quiet. I am not at rest. I am full of turmoil. End of speech. his friends are nearby staring him down, analyzing him from their vantage point of good help and beginning their sermons, if you will, as they will soon rebuke him because he's getting what he deserves, if you can imagine. did you in years past happen to see the elephant man i think many of us did wonderful film a film not for children but a film with an adult theme about a man who struggled with a disease that result in a deforming and defacing of his person.

42:36 And the head is enlarged, and thick, callous-like skin replaces the smooth skin that we have. And he looks like, if you will, a sideshow freak. But he is a great man deep inside. and he's treated like a man who's escaped from the circus. And there's a tragic scene where he's running from the crowd as cameras are flashing and people are grabbing at him and he finds his way to a railway station and races down steps to get away and finally winds up in the latrine, the soiled place of this public station. And they pour into that place and they're flashing their cameras And right at the zenith of the film, he struggles to get the words out. I am a human being.

43:33 you can hear a pin drop in the theater. I hear Job at that level at the end. Oh, God! Where are you? One man writes, these are the harshest words Job utters against himself in the entire book. They startle us. His friends, too, are shocked. They fear his faith in God has melted into distrust. Why would one who refused to curse God be so hostile toward his own life? The contrast between the Job of the prologue and the Job of the poem could not be sharper. Ever felt like this? we've come a long ways in church history in the last four decades.

44:35 My little segment of ministry has happened in about a four-decade period of time. I began seriously to minister a year before I was out of seminary in 1962, and that puts me right about 40 years now. Early, early on, when you suffered from a depression that resulted in this kind of thinking... you never told anybody. I don't remember not just one course. I don't remember one line from one of my professors who ever even addressed mental illness. From 1959 to my graduating in 1963, not once. Christians didn't have that. The first book I read on the mental and emotional struggles of a Christian was Why Christians Crack Up by Dr. Marion Nelson, and it was considered heresy by many evangelicals.

45:44 Christians don't crack up was the common belief. You don't have breakdowns. You know what the word was that was used of those who struggled emotionally back in the early and mid-60s? Nervous. She's nervous. and if you ever, God help you, if you ever had to be hospitalized, There just wasn't a Christian word for it. And you didn't tell us so. Shame upon shame that you didn't trust the Lord through your struggle and find him faithful to help you with your depression. I remember being told by a prof who talked to us about doing funerals that if you did funerals for those who committed suicide and they happened to have been Christians, never mention that they were Christians.

46:52 It didn't sound right then, and it doesn't sound right now. And I didn't know enough to know that Job 3 was in the book back then. Or I would have loved to have said, What about this? but this old salt has come through a number of things since four years ago and I've buried many a Christian who took her own life or his life it's always heartbreaking but I never once would put them down my heart goes out to them and you're not nervous.

47:41 Who knows the reason? The spectrum is broad. I wouldn't even begin to name the possible reasons. I just know that we are still human. We are human beings, even though we claim Christ as Savior and Lord. Ours is a fallen world, and depraved natures run through us too. sometime more obviously than they run through the lost. The ugliest letters I've ever received have come from fellow Christians who wrote me in Christian love, of course. You understand. so I want to say back then, if you sought out help from a psychologist, you were nervous, but I want to tell you today, if you're struggling, you need help and you need a good Christian psychologist, the most intelligent thing you can do is find one and go and go as long as you need to go.

48:42 and be sure that that psychologist or psychiatrist really, really does know the Lord Jesus and really is able to give you direction so that you can work your way through it. And I say to you, God bless you for every hour you spend finding your way out of the hole that you have been in for whatever reason. I don't know that I would have been as mature enough earlier in my life to do this, but I think at the end of hearing Job, as he's crushed with his head in his hands and probably pouring out tears, I could not have restrained walking over and throwing my arms around him and telling him how much I love him and respect him. though I don't understand how terrible it must be. and I say to everyone who is engaged in the work of psychology and psychiatry, who know our Savior and appreciate his word and believe in its truths, I say, go for it.

49:53 Help all you can, as long as you can, and our prayers are with you. Now, having said all that, there are three closing practical lines I want to give you, then I want to tell you a story that's true and I'm true. Rather briefly now, number one, there are days too dark for the sufferer to see light.

50:20 There are days that are just too dark for the sufferer to see light. That's where Job is. Some of you have not seen light for a long time. I'll say more to you in a moment, but just stay with me. Second, there are experiences too extreme for the hurting to find hope. There are some experiences too extreme for the hurting to have hope. And third, along with that, similar sounding words, but the details are different. There are valleys too deep for the anguished to find relief, meaning on their own. There are days too dark for the sufferer to see light. There are experiences too extreme for the hurting to have hope. There are valleys too deep for the anguish to find relief. and the theory that Corrie ten Boom lived out and put in her book, which is so good, there is no pit so deep, but that he is not deeper still.

51:29 Isn't that a great line? Those who are depressed don't know that and can't reason with that. They would deny that because they sense the distance between them and God, and it's confusing. Now, having said all of that and sounding so nice to those who are struggling, let me add, some people like to be victims, okay? Now, wait, wait, don't punch your wife right now and say, listen right here.

51:58 Some people enjoy the role of victim and they milk that for everything it's worth and they love to just manipulate people and say they're just strugglers and they can't seem. I'm not talking to you. You need to get your stuff together. That's the other side of me here, you know. Before you think I'm this soft teddy bear, I'm a get your stuff together guy also. And if you milk that, if you manipulate others because of that, you're enjoying your struggle and you're going in the wrong direction. And a real good psychologist or psychiatrist will tell you that, but I'll leave it up to her or him to do that. During Cynthia's and my student years at Dallas, a man in a class just behind ours. I was in the class of 63. Dennis Guernsey was in the class of 64. Dennis and Lucy became friends of ours because we both lived in campus apartments, which, praise God, had been torn down. But back then, we lived right on campus, and when you lived in campus apartments, there were only 10 of them, and so you got to know everybody around, and you hung out. You know how it is in school. You're good friends, and Dennis and Lucy became some of our best and we just loved them.

53:13 And they had a little baby boy whom Dennis just loved. He just loved him. Dennis was sort of jerked up, my mother would say, raised by an irresponsible mother. And I don't know that I ever heard him tell about his father. But this little boy became for him his reason to go on.

53:35 And he and Lucy were such great parents. We had our Kurt by then and they had their son. After I graduated, I went on to ministry, and Dennis, after he graduated, moved to Los Angeles, where he then went to USC to earn his Ph.D. in psychology because he felt courageous decision back then. He felt that he could help people who struggled as he had struggled growing up, and indeed he did. But while studying as a Ph.D. student, their little boy at age four.

54:11 stumbled into a pool of a neighbor and drowned. and they lost him. And it devastated Dennis. He told me the story later. He said, I got in my car, having lost my boy,

54:36 and I grabbed that steering wheel, and I drove about every freeway in Los Angeles, And I screamed out to God. the grief and the anger and the sorrow and the loss. And he said, I said things that I'd never said before to anybody. I said it all. I just vomited it out. About dawn, he drove back into his driveway.

55:17 Shirt was dripping wet with his sweat. He turned the key off, hands still gripping the steering wheel. And he said, I was comforted with one thought. God can handle everything I said. Isn't that a great line? God can handle everything. I just see it. in years to come the Lord gave them two wonderful girls they grew them upright there was no one ever to take the place of that little boy Dennis has since died of brain cancer Lucy lives on. But I'll never forget, God could handle everything I said.

56:15 There is no blast against Job at the end of chapter 3. God doesn't say, shame on you, Job. God understood. and he understands you, he can take it.

56:40 And the best part, he'll never tell on you. Job has it all recorded for preachers to work on for centuries. Yours and mine will remain a secret inside our cars and in the back part of our bedrooms and out under the trees of the forest. He can handle it all. Let it all out. Let it all out. let it out you never fully get over grief until you express it fully Job has to express it and I salute him May we bow our heads. Oh, I don't know where you are today in all of this.

57:42 You might even, in a candid, unguarded moment, say, move over Job, I know exactly where you are. I'm there right now. or it may be that you've come through that kind of thing and how wonderfully fitted you are now to understand those who go through it. you of all people would be the one who would never have a word of criticism for Job you've been there you've done that I just want to say to you who are there and have never found the Lord Jesus, the real sad part of the story for you without Christ is that even when you work through your struggle, you won't have peace. Maybe all this struggle is designed to bring you to the cross.

58:36 I'd like to think that. That he's brought you down to the black hole of where you are and is staying with you through that so that you'll look up and see the one who died that you might know a lasting, in fact, ultimately an eternal peace with him. because you understand if you died today without Christ, you have no idea what misery is about until that moment of your death for the rest of your days.

59:14 So come, please, don't delay. Just understand that the penalty was paid in full for your sins and the sins of the whole world, and he stands ready to receive you if you place your faith and trust in the Lord.