Well, hello church. If you would open to Job 23. Job chapter 23. I'll start us in verse 1. And I'm going to skip this forward after that. Job 23 verse 1. This is God's Word. It says, Then Job answered and said, Today also my complaint is bitter, and my hand is heavy on account of my groaning." Verse 8, "'Behold, I go forward, but He is not there. And backward, but I do not perceive Him. On the left hand, when He is working, I do not behold Him. He turns to the right hand, but I do not see Him. But He knows the way that I take. And when He has tried me, I shall come out as gold. My foot has held fast to His steps. I have kept His way and have not turned aside. I have not departed from the commandment of His lips. I have treasured the words of His mouth more than my portion of food. But He is unchangeable, and who can turn Him back? What He desires, He does. For He will complete what He appoints for me, and many such things are in His mind. Therefore, I am terrified at His presence, when I consider I am in dread of Him. God has made my heart faint. The Almighty has terrified me. Yet, I am not silenced because of the darkness, nor because of thick darkness covers my face. Father, Lord, we have a narrow topic today. But Lord, Your Scriptures say that Your Word is not bound. And so Lord, we pray that You would send Your Spirit to come and work in and through the Word, and to apply it to the lives of everyone here in a variety of ways, Lord. You know how we need to hear from You today. We pray you would take the truth of your word and you would disperse it and multiply its fruitfulness in all of our lives. And we pray you do it for the glory of your son. And we pray this in his name, amen. Well today we finish, we'll be finishing this series on common problems. We've been looking at a lot of our problems and how similar they are to those 3,000 years ago, many of these Old Testament characters. And we focused mainly on what we would call psychological or interpersonal problems, things that people would typically go to counselors about. That's been the focus of this study. And so the last thing we're going to come to today, I almost didn't want to deal with, I think I said to Pastor Kent on Tuesday, I'm not going to do it. The issue is too complex, and I'll have to overview about 42 chapters of scripture in the book of Job. I just think it's too much. But we are going to do it. I'm not one to back down from a difficult topic to preach on, and so today we're going to study Job, and PTSD, and trauma, the problem of trauma. I decided to preach on this for two reasons. One is because it needs to be talked about biblically. It's talked about a lot in the culture, in the world, in certain circles, but not talked about enough from a biblical perspective. And then also because there's a lot of people that struggle with this. I don't know how many in this room would necessarily fit the criteria for PTSD. I wouldn't think that many, but you might in the future. And certainly someone that you know, I would imagine either you have, you know someone who already does deal with this or who will in the future. And so I want us to preemptively study this out, think through this so that we can be a help and a blessing to those who who do go through these things. I want to say something else on the front end. I think it's maybe, I said this last week and it may be more important this week to say it. I cannot from the pulpit deal nor will I even try to, with all the unique circumstances and variables to human sin and suffering that apply to all of our lives. That's an impossible task for any preacher to try to make those applications to everyone. And if I did that, it would muddy up what is clear in the scriptures. And so preaching is, I believe from scripture, most of us would affirm this, the primary way that God wants his word to be ministered to his people. But it's not the only way. And many, many times we will need one-on-one ministry from another individual to speak the truth of Scripture with precision into some particular area of our life. And so many of the things we've dealt with in this series are not really best dealt with from the pulpit. They're really best dealt with on a one-on-one level where you can speak very specifically to what often become more complex and difficult issues to work through. There is a need to preach on this. There is a need to study the scriptures together on this. And so I wanna do, I wanna overview 42 chapters of Job. Overview, not exposit, word for word. And then I also want to deal with the issue of PTSD and trauma. And I wanna just ask two questions. The first is, how do we understand trauma? And the second is, what hope does the scripture give to those who have experienced trauma? And for those of you who are like me and don't like the word trauma, I don't like the word either. It gets used in some horrible ways. It tends to be used to lock someone into this victim category eternally, which is not helpful or biblical. And so I hope to root this word trauma in the biblical text and hopefully redeem it, at least for us today. So question one. How do we understand trauma? The American Psychological Association simply defines trauma as an emotional response to a terrible event in one's past that results in ongoing effects. Psychologists actually used to say that there were certain events or experiences that were traumatic or traumatic events, they would always bring about trauma in someone, and then certain things that wouldn't. Almost nobody talks like that anymore. It's become very apparent through the research that people are affected differently by different experiences. And so, for example, you'll have two kids that their parents will get a divorce, two kids in the same family. One of those kids, it'll affect them for life, deeply, deeply affect that child. The other child seems to be unharmed. unaffected. You have two soldiers that go to war, both of them experience just horrible things on the battlefield. One comes back and he can't function in society, just severe PTSD, and then another one comes back and he seems to be absolutely fine. And so almost everybody agrees at this point that trauma or trials, as the Bible would call them, Some of them are worse than others. Some of them are much worse than others, but people respond differently to them. So for example, two kids, you hear of stories like two children almost drowning, and they're both shaken up at first, and they come out of the water, and then one of the kids runs and jumps back in the water, and he's forgot about the whole experience, and the other kid, a month later, is having nightmares. about drowning and won't go outside when it begins to rain or they get near a body of water and they just have a panic attack and fear. Both experience the same thing. Very, very different responses. And so PTSD means post-traumatic stress disorder. That's the term. Side note here, I would prefer, call it PTS, drop the D, the disorder part, and just call it post-traumatic stress. I'll get to some reasons for that in a moment. But listen to those three words, post-traumatic or trauma, stress. So we're talking about stresses, fears, anxieties that happen after a traumatic event in someone's life. Now think about Job. Did Job experience any trauma? Any traumatic events in his life that we can think of? A few, you know, just a few. There's actually a clinical name for what he experienced. It's called acute adult onset trauma. which is different than complex childhood trauma. The main difference in the child-adult distinction is that a child experiencing trauma is still developing in many ways, and so it harms them and affects them in some different ways than it might an adult. But Job experienced adult or acute adult onset trauma with repeated or compounded traumas. So for example, he didn't just have a financial crisis. He had a financial crisis and then all of his children died on the same day. That's compounded trauma. Let me just set the scene. If we'll go to Job chapter one and begin to think through this. Verse 13, it says, there is a day when his sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother's house. Verse two, so he has seven sons and three daughters, it tells us in verse two, who he deeply loved. It actually says that he would pray for them and consecrate them to God in case they had sinned. He would offer offerings according to the number of all of them. He loved his children, he had 10 children. It says he also was very wealthy. He possessed 7,000 sheep, 3,000 camels, 500 yoke of oxen, 500 female donkeys, very many servants. This man was the greatest of all the peoples of the East. So renowned, popular, successful, intelligent, wise, wealthy man. Now listen to the trauma. Trauma number one, verse 14. There came a messenger to Job and said, the oxen, and they were plowing the docks, feeding beside them, and the Sabians fell upon them and took them and struck down the servants by the edge of the sword, and I alone escaped to tell you. Trauma one. Trauma 2, verse 16, while he was yet speaking, there came another. The fire of God fell from heaven and burned up the sheep and the servants and consumed them, and I alone have escaped to tell you. which by the way, there's no insurance back then, it's gone, right? He's not getting any of this back. Trauma three, verse 17, while he was yet speaking, there came another that said, the Chaldeans formed three groups and made a raid on the camels and took them and struck down the servants with the edge of the sword and I alone have escaped to tell you. So all of his livelihood, all of his work, all of his employees, all of his property, gone. Trauma number four, verse 18. While he was yet speaking, there came another. Your sons and your daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother's house. And behold, a great wind came from the wilderness and struck the four corners of the house, and it fell upon the young people. And they're dead. And I alone have escaped to tell you. That is adult onset trauma with compounded occurrences. And it doesn't stop there. We know in chapter two, verse seven, Job is struck with loathsome sores, a disease comes over his body. Then his wife doesn't come to comfort him in these circumstances. She says, curse God and die. Which may have been the worst trauma that he received right there at the end. That's a lot of compounded trauma. for someone to receive. I actually know a man, a Christian man, who was a computer programmer at one point, but he had a work injury, fell and injured his head, and was not able to do that type of work anymore mentally. And so he had to begin to work and do some other jobs. Not long after that, his wife came down with cancer and died. And then a year after that, when they were memorializing the death of his wife, he was out with his father and his four children at the beach, and they were swimming. And the children began to drown or be taken out, and the father went to go rescue one of the children, and he drowned and died on the day that his wife died. Now, that's compounded trauma, repeated compounded trauma. and these things happen. And so it leads to a very important question to ask, what hope does the scripture give to those who've experienced trauma? And so whether we are the one that goes through the trauma or whether we are the person helping the one who goes through the trauma, here's what we have to start with. We need a category, a theological category for righteous suffering. for righteous suffering. Job's friends did not have this category. All right, we have Eliphaz tells him, your suffering, Job, is because you sinned. Bildad calls Job to repentance wrongly and repeatedly accuses him of guilt, and Zophar unhelpfully says, you think you got it bad? You actually should have it much worse. All of these men have really, I would call it the reverse, or the flip side of the prosperity gospel. If you're healthy, wealthy, and happy, you must be blessed, everything's good, God's favor's upon you, reverse that. If everything goes bad, God hates you, you've done something wrong. It's bad theology. All three of his friends had it, and they had no category for righteous suffering. That is suffering that happens to you that's not your fault. It's somebody else's sins against you. If you don't have that category, I would encourage you right now, create a category in your head for that. There is righteous suffering, and there is what we would call guilty suffering. And guilty suffering, the jails are full of those who have guilty suffering. They're suffering in jail because they committed a crime. ERs are full today with people who attempted something foolish and now they're in the ER and they're suffering. Those who have repeatedly been unfaithful to a spouse and they're suffering divorce. We can go on and on and on. Suffering that we bring upon ourselves. Guilty suffering. But there's also righteous suffering like Job and like many who actually have PTSD, they didn't do anything to bring this about. They didn't choose to be in that place when that thing happened Or they didn't choose to be sinned against in the ways they were sinned against. They're righteous. And this is Job. It says in chapter one, verse one, he was a blameless and upright man, one who feared God and turned away from evil. He wasn't a guilty sufferer. He was suffering actually because he was righteous. And God's providence. And so first we need a theological category for someone who's suffering isn't their fault. Second, we need to be honest that trauma really can affect the body and the brain, but healing is possible. Now, look, I refuse to read into this text more than is here. I want to be very clear about this. I do think Job is describing in the book of Job some physical effects from his suffering. He talks about sleepless nights. He talks about at certain point, he's saying things that it seems like he has an irrational fear. He's talking about depression and other things. I think there are some physical effects here from his trauma, but we need not read into it more than it says. We don't have to just look at Job as our only example. We have many people who explain these things. We have much research, even scientific research, which seems at this point to be pretty conclusive that there are physical effects that trauma can bring. For example, a decrease in the physical size of the hippocampus, which is a brain region important for memory and learning. It can also affect parts of the brain that deal with emotional processing or decision making. You say, well, why would the brain be affected? Because doctors call it a plastic organ. It is designed by God, our brains are, to adapt to their environment so they can change atomically, that is structurally, and physiologically, that is regarding their function. It's a way that God actually made us, and there are many good reasons for this, but when trauma comes, our brains can and are often affected. Now, some of y'all have probably studied this out on a different issue, some with abuse or not abuse, addiction issues. So substance abuse issues or sexual sins can affect the brain. And there's been more talk on this, that neurological or brain scans actually show that pathways in the brain can be paved out in these addictive behaviors over time. And so, especially when there's high dopamine releases, it can just dig down these deep neurological pathways in the brain that someone just returns to those pathways without even really thinking about it. And addictions affect the brain in that way. Therefore, overcoming addictions often happen when we begin to carve out new neurological pathways in the brain through new thinking and new behavior patterns. Psychologists actually have a term for this. Cognitive behavioral therapy is what this is often called. I think they're stealing from a biblical concept here, where you help a patient learn to think differently in order to act differently. And that begins to slowly carve out new neurological pathways in the brain. In Christianity, we have a word for this, discipleship. This is our idea of discipleship. And here's how we hear people say things like, an addict would say, I feel, you know, an addict that every day they're going to that substance, or every day they're committing a certain sexual sin, and they say, it feels like I'm enslaved. It feels like I can't break free. But then they go a few months without committing that in sobriety or in purity, and then they say, it feels like the power is less. It feels like it has less control over me. Well, why? They're not walking that old pathway, that old neurological pathway. They've carved out a new neurological pathway in the brain, and the old one seems less familiar. We're even able to understand some of these things because of some advancements in science. I think PTSD and addictions are basically being treated in very similar ways. Again, stealing from a biblical concept here, that concept of faith and repentance. which are central in Christian discipleship. So Paul will say many times, put off these old thoughts or these old behaviors and put on these new thoughts and behaviors. That's very common in scripture. So biblical counselors like the apostle Paul helped people retrain their brains and behaviors by finding new God-honoring paths. Another thing that the Bible calls this is the renewal of the mind. Right? Now, what is the renewal of the mind? Well, it's the change in affections. It's the change in beliefs. It's the change in thought and behavior that comes from that. But we could also say, in some sense, we're changing the neurological pathways in the brain. That's being affected as the mind is renewed. So we have Peter and his post-traumatic effects, the immense guilt that came on him when he denied Christ and his life could have been forever affected by that, but Jesus came to him and began to speak words to him that affected him at deep levels, even at the mental level, he began to think differently and he began to be free. David came out of fear and anger, depression through meditation on the Word. He also came out of sexual sin and prevented sexual sin by guarding his heart according to the Word. Paul continually exhorts trauma-induced believers in the first century persecuted churches who were seeing friends suffering who they themselves are suffering. He exhorts them, you need to think differently about these things. He goes to the mind. as the mechanism to help bring hope to the heart. Job was brought through the fires of his trauma ultimately by God's words. And so were all these people's brains affected neurologically? I don't know, doesn't really matter. Because they were all over time transformed by the renewal of their minds. And guys, I was reading a story the other day about a woman who was born to Satanists. And she was abused from an early age by almost everyone in her family, sold into prostitution. She may have received one of the worst lots in life, the family that she was born into. And you say, was her brain affected? Yeah. Oh, yeah. She was later converted, began to receive years of counseling in her church, and her mind began to think differently. Her heart began to trust in ways it had never trusted before. God and then others. And now she's a productive member of society, and she's a faithful believer in her local church. And you say, how hard was it? I don't know how many things could be harder than what she had to endure. I mean, almost at every turn, smells, sights, sounds would drive her into states of panic, into panic attacks and immense fear, just the smell of something. I mean, she talks about being at, she would, in the churches she was in, people would actually have her live with them once she felt comfortable doing that, and they would try and help her, she'd be at like a Christmas gathering, opening presents, and the sight or smell or a certain song would actually put her into a panic attack, thinking just irrational thoughts, and they would have to pray with her and talk her down and help her walk her way through that. Over time, God by the Spirit, through the Word, in the context of loving community, brought healing. That leads to the third thing. Christians suffer in community. Christians suffer in community, not outside of it. I heard a doctor say to those who experience PTSD, he said, for those who experience this, life gets very small. Why? Because they limit their experiences oftentimes. They don't want to go certain places or experience certain things to try to guard themselves from anything getting worse or from triggering back old memories. And this seems to be what happens with Job. He sits alone. His wife has left him, at least emotionally and spiritually. His kids are deceased, his work and his reputation is gone, and it feels to him, even if God has left him, Job 30 verse 20, I cry to you for help, and you do not answer me. Guys, those suffering from trauma really do need someone to move near them. They need someone to call them, to text them, to pursue them. It's very important for someone who suffered in this way. And in this case, Job's friends got this right. They pursued Job. Job didn't pursue them. They were actually right about that. They go find him. It says in chapter 2 verse 11, now when Job's three friends heard of all this evil that had come upon him, they came each to his own place. So it lists Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar. And it says in verse 11, they made an appointment together to come to show him sympathy and comfort him. They didn't go in unannounced. I don't know how much we want to read into this. Maybe it's cultural, but it seems respectful. They set an appointment to meet with him. Verse 12, when they saw Him from a distance, they did not recognize Him. And they raised their voices and wept, and they tore their robes and sprinkled dust on their heads toward heaven. They sat with Him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to Him. For they saw that His suffering was very great." And guys, oh, for more. bearing the burdens with others like this. That we would even have the spiritual maturity to know when to not speak, but cry instead of say something. They at least started good. Because sometimes those tears, when someone is suffering like this, are more helpful than our initial words. And I know a lot of people, you hear that or see that and go, man, it would be really nice to have somebody who would care for me when I'm suffering. It'd be really nice to have someone who would come and weep with me when I'm suffering. Look, if you lost 10 kids and your health and everything you owned in one day, I bet you would have people come. And they would be right too. Because that's a lot to take in. Suffering is bad enough, but suffering alone is worse. Isolation always amplifies suffering. I've had to tell church members in the past, and I've said this over the years, for whatever reason, people have reasons, they feel it better to suffer outside of the local church, apart from the church. I'll say, you can't do that anymore. Can't do that anymore. You're not allowed to go suffer alone. You got to come suffer with us. You just gotta suffer here. If you're gonna suffer, just come suffer with the church. Because the Bible doesn't give a category of a Christian going and suffering alone. We suffer together. We need each other in our suffering. That's where we suffer. And someone goes, but if I do that, people may say hurtful things to me and make it worse. Like Job experienced. That's what he had. I mean, most of this 42 chapters of the book, Job's three friends are mainly saying wrong and hurtful things to Job. Most of the book, that's what he's getting. And it's really actually hard to understand the book of Job because you're going, is this right or is this wrong? How do I take what they're saying to him right now? And it becomes difficult to discern. Here's a little clue, a literary clue. with interpreting Job, in chapter 42 at the end of the book, God rebukes the three friends. And so we can bank on those three friends' advice was probably not solid, or at least not appropriate in the moment. All three of those men are rebuked. What's interesting is there's a fourth man that shows up, the last person that comes to Job, Elihu, I believe is how you pronounce his name. He didn't receive a rebuke from the Lord. And Job seemed to actually receive what he said. Proverbs says a fool speaks before he understands. It's interesting that the fourth guy got it right. The guy who waited long enough to hear and to understand. That he waited long enough to get all the facts and know what he was dealing with, then he spoke. I think we need to learn this from Elihu. Be the last person to come, maybe. Wait until you get all the facts right. And you know what? The other reason that Job probably heard this guy is because this guy was actually right in what he said. It does help when you're talking to someone to actually say something truthful rather than false. And Job received it. Guys, I really think we need to ask this question. each one of us individually. Am I a cynical and judgmental person? When I see somebody suffering, especially my spouse, my kids, somebody at work, somebody in the church, is my immediate response a harsh judgment on them? Or is there compassion? Is there a desire to enter into that and walk with them Look also here at Job's humility. James 5 actually says this about Job. He says, you have heard of the steadfastness of Job, the patience of Job. A lot of people, suffering will hit them like it hit Job's life, or somebody will come to them and say things to them in their suffering. And you know what they'll do? They'll deconstruct their whole faith because of that. A church member or somebody in the church or in their Christian community says something unhelpful or hurtful or wrong even. And who do they blame? God. All of Christianity. All of their Christian faith. Job heard all kinds of bad stuff from his friends in the context of a Christian community. He rejected what was false. He held fast to what was true. And he even listened to Elihu at the end and received good doctrine when it came. We need to be able to reject and let the bad stuff go and take what is true and hold on to it as Job did. Number four, resist the temptation to either play the victim or become cynical and bitter. Guys, this is such a temptation. It was a temptation for Job. I believe he fell into this at some measure. You see in Job 27.2 that God, he says, God made my soul bitter. He even blames God for his bitter soul. Job 29.26, when I hoped for good, evil came. When I waited for light, darkness came. Job 31-23, for I was in terror of calamity from God. I could not have faced His majesty. He's going, when is He going to strike me again? What's coming next? He says, I'm terrified of His presence. I'm in dread of Him. And then listen to this in chapter 23, verse 2. He says, today also my complaint is bitter. My hand is heavy on account of my groaning." Notice he uses the word today, which I think implies maybe that wasn't what I was feeling yesterday, but today I am. I wasn't bitter toward God yesterday. I wasn't struggling in this way yesterday, but today my complaint is bitter. That's how suffering often works, right? You can have good days. You can have ups and then you have downs. He says, today my complaint is bitter. And then look what he says in verse 8, chapter 23. Behold, I go forward, and he's not there. Backward, and I do not perceive him. On the right and on the left, he's working, and I do not behold him. He turns to the right hand, and I do not see him. It feels like God's not there. But he pushes through that feeling, and he, by faith, says this. But he knows the way that I take, and when he has tried me, I shall come out as gold. Job knew the tests were from the Lord, and that the Lord was doing something in and through his suffering. He says, when He has tried me, I shall come out as gold. 1 Peter 1 says the same thing. In this I rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, or we could say traumas, so that the tested genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold, that perishes though it is tested by fire, may result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ." Job knows the fires of suffering are testing him. They're testing him. We sang earlier, and we'll sing this the rest of the month, that hymn that says, when through fiery trials thy pathway shall lie, my grace all sufficient shall be my supply. The flame shall not hurt thee. I only design thy dross to consume and thy gold to refine. Job knew when he has tried me, I shall come out as gold. Not because I wallow in self-pity, but because, listen to what he says next, my foot has held fast to His steps. I have kept His way and not turned aside. I have not departed from the commandment of His lips. Listen to this, I have treasured, keyword, treasured, the words of His mouth. When God brings the fires of trial into our life, it has this way of revealing what we love most. What we love most. Many times, the temptation in trial is that people will use the trial and the suffering from that to justify sin. So for example, in Job's life, his wife isn't there for him. and his worst moment. His wife is not there. Many men, when their wife isn't there, in whatever way they may think, she isn't there. Justification for sin. But what does Job do? He says, I have made a covenant with my eyes not to gaze at a virgin. He doesn't justify sin because of someone's sin against him or neglect of him. He says repeatedly, I hold my integrity. And you say, why did God allow all these things to hit Job? To reveal. Where's his treasure? Where's the treasure of Job's heart? Did he love the gifts of God or the God who gave them? That's what fire reveals. Even Satan knows this. Satan actually is very aware of this. In chapter one, you remember what happens? The Lord said to Satan, have you considered my servant Job? He's blameless. He fears me. He's the godliest man alive, Satan. And then Satan goes, of course he is. You've blessed him. He has a great family. All these kids. All this wealth. He's rich. He's successful. He's respected. Why would he not worship you? He says, take it all from him and he'll curse you to your face. And then God says to Satan, take it all. Just don't touch him. And then we know Job loses everything. And Job responds rightly in that moment. He says to God, you give and you take away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. And then Satan comes again in the presence of God. And God says, you know, Job is still faithful to me. He didn't curse me when his suffering came. And then Satan said, yeah, that's because he still has his health. Take his health and he'll curse you. And then God says he won't. and his health is taken. And Job says in verse 10, shall we receive good from God and not receive evil? And in all this, Job did not sin with his lips. Guys, can you really ever know what your treasure is until the fire comes? It's what reveals it. We can say all day, oh, I love the Lord. I love the Lord. but let the suffering come and it'll show you what you love. Let all your kids be taken away, all your possessions, all your health. It reveals a lot. And that's why number five is so important. We must have a view of life. We must view life through God's providence. This is really the biggest question. So people go through trauma and I think this is the primary question that's being asked. Causality. Who do I blame? Who do I blame? Do I blame myself? Do I blame God? Do I blame the devil? Do I blame these evil people? Do I blame just the randomness of nature? What do I blame? And I think this is where many people get very helpful. Many theologians will talk about layers of causality or primary and secondary causes to evil and suffering in the world. So there are secondary causes in Job's life. Think about the evil people. Verse 15 and verse 17 in chapter one, it talks about the Chaldeans and the Sabeans who attack with the sword out of the evil of their own heart. You think about the fire and the wind it talks about. Natural disasters brought about Job's suffering. The painful disease, a broken body brought about his suffering. The untamed tongue of his friends and his wife brought about his suffering. Satan himself afflicted Job. Secondary causes. Here's what's shocking about the book of Job to me, maybe the most shocking thing. Job never once blames the devil. He never once blames a person. He never once blames the doctor that can't heal him. He never once blames anyone but God. He sees God as the cause, the primary cause of all of his suffering. That's shocking. That's shocking. Well, why would he do that? Because he knows Satan isn't in control of the weather. People aren't completely autonomous. God has control over diseases and sickness and death. There's no secondary cause that's independent of God. Job is 100% aware that God is the primary cause behind all of his suffering. God. You know, and so many people get embarrassed by that. For God's sake, they get embarrassed. That's why liberal theology exists, by the way. Coming up with ways to get around hundreds of passages of scripture that say Jesus is Lord of all. Clear passages like Psalm 103, 19, the Lord has prepared His throne in the heavens and His kingdom rules over all. 1 Samuel 2.6, the Lord kills and makes alive. He brings down to the grave and brings up. The Lord makes poor and makes rich. He brings low and lifts up. The pillars of the earth are the Lord's. He has set the world on them. He makes rich and brings low. Amos 3.6, if there is calamity in a city, has not the Lord done it? And so many are utterly embarrassed that God would take full responsibility for the existence of evil. Ignoring Isaiah 45, 5 that says, I am the Lord, there is no other besides me. There is no God. I am the Lord. There is no other. The one who forms light and creates darkness, causing well-being and creating calamity. I am the Lord who does all these things. And at this point, the Armenians are squirming, palms sweaty. How do I get this preacher out of this terrible theology? How could he say such a thing? And it's amazing the doctrines that are created to get God off the hook for what the Bible says about God. wanting to reinvent a God how they think He should be rather than how Scripture reveals Him to be. They want to reconstruct a God and diminish and bring Him down when the Bible says, lift Him up. He's higher and more sovereign and in more control than you think He is. And you say, well, how could someone bring Him down? Well, there's two ways that people do it. They say He has limited power. So he's watching the evil happening in the world like us. He just can't really, he doesn't have the power to do anything about it. Or he has the power to do something about it, but he's limited in his knowledge. Or he has himself limited his knowledge of what's going to happen. So it catches him by surprise. He's operating on the back end. He isn't able to control it on the front end, doesn't know what's gonna happen. So he comes on the back end and then he tries to figure it out. It's called process theology. That God is in the process of being God. He's not fully God. He isn't fully what he should be. He's in the process of getting there. Because nothing's as good a teacher as experience. And the more he experiences in the world, the better he gets at being God. These are real theologies. It's called process theology. These are different branches of liberal theology. It's all embarrassment of God and how He reveals Himself in Scripture. And our Baptist forefathers rejected all of this. The Second London Baptist Confession says this, God hath decreed in Himself from all eternity all things whatsoever come to pass. Yet God is neither the author of sin, nor hath fellowship with it therein." And secondary causes are not taken away. Do you hear the category? People are evil and do evil things. The devil is really at work. All of these natural disasters are really happening, right? Secondary causes. But there's a primary cause behind all of that. In Job 23.13, he is in one mind. God's not double-minded. He is in one mind, and who can turn Him? What His soul desires, He does. So many want to get God off the hook. You know what? He doesn't want to get off the hook. So many want to rescue God who doesn't want to be rescued from what the Bible says He is. And some of us are beginning to learn that's a good thing. George Mueller. One of my heroes, I would imagine many of ours, two centuries ago in England was responsible for building all these orphanages for thousands of orphans. His wife of 39 years in marriage died and he was preaching the funeral and he said this, please let nothing that I say in these hours together in any way imply that you shouldn't feel the full force of pain and loss and weeping and shave your heads and tear your clothes and fall on the ground. I will miss her in numberless ways. And I shall miss her yet more and more. But as a child of God and as a servant of the Lord Jesus, I bow and I am satisfied with the will of my heavenly Father. I seek my perfect submission to His holy will to glorify Him. I kiss continually, listen, the hand that has afflicted me. That's what spiritual maturity begins to look like. That you see God as sovereign, but not just sovereign, good. A sovereign God that's not good is terrifying. But Job began to learn he's sovereign and he's good. And what he ordains is best and it's for his glory. Here's a question, is God more glorious because evil exists? Or is He made less glorious because evil exists? And I would say He's infinitely more glorious because evil exists if you trace that all the way to the cross in which His Son died. At that point, He is much more glorious. Lastly, Number six, those suffering with trauma, and this is a quick point, but the most important one, those suffering with trauma must look to Jesus. You must look to Jesus, like Job did. Listen to Job 19.25. I know that my Redeemer lives, and at last He will stand upon the earth And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God." That is an amazing amount of doctrine. Do you know when he was living when he said that? Do you know how long ago this was? Most historians put this between the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11 and Abraham in Genesis 12. All right? Those are conservative estimates that he fits in there. That's hundreds of years before Abraham and Moses. That's thousands of years before David and the prophets. What does that show us? It shows us, number one, that trauma is not new, and it shows us also that the solution to look to Jesus is not new. Job is looking to Jesus over 4,000 years ago in the midst of his trauma. And I'd say looking to Jesus, that's important, because those who struggle with trauma, especially PTSD, they struggle to look, how am I going to handle this thing that's five minutes in front of me? Or ten minutes? And it almost seems paralyzing to just take the next few steps forward. Job struggled with that, but then he learned, I've got to look farther. I've got to look a hundred years ahead. Better yet, ten million years ahead. where my Redeemer lives, and where I will stand with Him on the earth, in my flesh, not the broken flesh, not the flesh that's been sinned against by others and bears the marks of that still, but the flesh that's glorified on the earth that's removed of evil, that's where my Redeemer lives, I'm gonna look there. And all of us know who've done that, that actually does change us. And it actually does help us. It's called believing the gospel. And it has a liberating and transforming effect on our souls. And we must continually do it. As we come to the table. This table as we come, we're very aware we're not fully well. We come here as people who are not fully well because of our own sins and how people have sinned against us. But if you know Christ, if you've been baptized into His name, if you're trusting that living Redeemer like Job, please come to the table. For those of you who will not be coming to the table, there is a bulletin in it, some prayers you can pray that I think will be meaningful for you. But let me say once more, as you come to the table, church, recognize, I am not what I should be. There are parts of me still broken. There are parts of me that have been deeply wounded by sin. Bring that to Jesus and eat and drink, celebrating what He has done and will do for you. Let's pray. Father, oh Lord, we just worship You, Lord. You are the living Redeemer. Your Son, Jesus Christ, He has come down and He didn't escape trauma Himself. He didn't escape suffering and being mistreated unjustly at the hands of wicked people. Christ, You endured that. You endured that on our behalf, and You went to the cross, not just to sympathize with us, not merely to say, I know what it's like, but to liberate us from a state of being like that eternally, to bring us into Your eternal kingdom, to give us new bodies, and an inheritance that's imperishable. And so we praise you. We praise you for the hope of the gospel, Lord. Renew us and remind us of these things as we come to the table, and then send us out of here strengthened by your grace. We pray it in Jesus' name, amen.