Please get your Bibles now and turn with me to Psalm 10 to the first verse. Somewhat rare for me to preach from one verse, and indeed, we could have turned to almost anywhere in the Psalter. There's many other cries Similar to the one that we find here in verse one of Psalm 10. We're going to be considering the subject or the cry. Why, O Lord? Let's again give our attention to the reading of God's word, just this one verse. Why, O Lord, do you stand far away? Why do you hide yourself? in times of trouble. Please bow with me briefly in prayer. Our Father, as we open Your Word this morning and wait upon You to speak to us, we pray that You will soften our hearts and expand them so that we might know your ways and your will a bit more. That our lives would be brought closer in line with what you call your people to and. What you desire of them in their lives, may we be freed in a sense from the facade of of a shallow Christianity. And we brought deeper in our faith As a result of being in your word this morning. Remind us that we serve a a suffering Savior who is well acquainted with grief. May he be exalted now as we consider his word. We do pray in Christ's name. Amen. There was a bumper sticker that I used to see some years ago, a whole lot more than I see today, which was a critique of the then present presidential administration, and I think particularly a critique of its foreign policy. Many of you have probably seen that same bumper sticker. It went like this. It said, if you are not outraged then you're not paying attention. Despite the intended political overtones, there is much truth in that statement. There are a lot of injustices in the world. There's a lot of pain that we experience in life. We see a lot of oppression and violence and foolishness around us. And the thought or the point of that bumper sticker is that if you are a thinking person, if you are aware of these bad things going on in the world, then you will be outraged. Outrage or something like it is is actually the only possible response that you can have because things are that bad. And therefore, if you're not outraged, if you are not troubled. By reality. And you are simply a naive person. You are simply not aware of how bad it really is out there. You are not paying attention. But the. The truism. of this statement often rings hollow because it's applied to petty political hobby horses and shallow trendy causes. People will invoke it over things like pesticide use and economic policy, and they feel themselves to be really engaged in purposeful movements. But most often it is simply misspent, immature passion that this phrase gets used for. You see, if you really if you really want an issue to get passionate over, if you really want a problem that will keep you up at night, and that will shake you to the core of your being and that will make you question everything you think, you know, and everything you think that you believe. Try being a Christian in the real world. If you are a Christian. And you have not struggled with the realities of tragedy and suffering, if in fact, if you're not outraged By then. Then you are not paying attention. First of all, if you're not outraged or at least shaken and troubled by what goes on in our own lives and what goes on in this world. You are not paying attention to who God is. There is much that passes for Christianity in the world today that is decidedly a total cop out on the matter of pain and suffering. And to be very bold, but I would also qualify that. With saying that, I also want to understand that this is a very hard matter, but to be very bold, this kind of religion that cops out on this matter is frankly not biblical Christianity. It is, at best, a Pollyanna, godless rip off of the true faith. It's an alternative that does not read the Psalms and it doesn't take serious God's revelation of himself in the Bible, wherein he says, and I think it should hit us each time we hear these passages. He says, shockingly, like in Isaiah 45 verse seven, I form light. and create darkness. I make well-being and create calamity. I am the Lord who does all these things. The prophet Amos in chapter 3, verse 6 of the book of Amos says, if a calamity occurs in a city, has not the Lord done it? And we read after the loss of all ten of his children. When when his son's house collapsed and killed all ten of his children. Job says the Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Our text this morning also affirms that God has something to do, at least in allowing evil to happen. It assumes that he has the ability and the power to stop it, but for some reason he has decided not to help. Why, oh Lord, do you stand far away? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble? Notice a couple things here. In these two short lines of the verse, first of all, I want you to notice the name of of God that is used here. It is the name Lord. This is the proper name that God gave to Israel to call him by back in Exodus chapter three, verse 15. This name assumes a special, intimate, personal, covenanted, bound relationship. In other words, this is not the atheist raising their fist in the air saying, God or whatever you are, you don't exist. Now, this is this is the cry of children to their father. This is the cry of believers to their God. This is there isn't in this at all a question of God's existence. Rather, this is a complaint to God. This, this is a cry of complaint that the one that they knew could have helped them didn't help them. This is the one that had delivered them out of Egypt. This is the one who had defeated the Egyptians by manipulating nature and drowning the Egyptian army in the Red Sea. This is the one who had already shown himself to be sovereign over all circumstances and over all of creation. They knew him by name. They knew his power. They knew him personally and thus the reason for the cry. Why aren't you doing anything. Why don't you stop this? Some of you might have heard that a very well known and and beloved deacon in our college Hill, our P. Church back in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania, passed away suddenly two weeks ago tomorrow, leaving behind a good friend of many, his wife Nellie, and their four children. At Blake McMahon's funeral just two weeks ago, my wife and I were very close friends with he and his wife. We actually went back to participate in the funeral. But at Blake's funeral, Pastor Titus Martin, Blake's pastor there at College Hill, preached from John Chapter 11 and Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead. And he pointed out that these are the very same questions that everyone was asking Jesus on that occasion as well. And sometime today, I would encourage you to go back and read John Chapter 11 and the account of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead. In other words, when he showed up, everyone was asking him, particularly Lazarus's sisters, why didn't you come sooner? Why did you delay in coming after we called you and told you that Lazarus was sick? You could have saved him if you had had been here, but you you effectively abandoned us in the great hour of need, and because you chose to stay away, Lazarus died. You see, it doesn't matter where you are in the Bible, whether in the Old Testament with Israel or whether it's in the New Testament with Jesus, the realities of this life, if we are paying attention, if we know God for who He really is, the realities of this life raise the exact same questions with the people of God, no matter where in time you live. Over and over again. Why, O Lord? I find it ironic that the atheists think that they are so clever when they raise the problem of evil with us. They don't have to raise the problem of evil with us. The scriptures have brought it up long before they ever thought about it. Our own hearts struggle with it. In fact, the problem of evil is not the atheist's problem. The problem of evil is our problem. It is a particular problem for believers. This is one of the major themes of the Bible. It is one of the major subjects of the Psalms. It is one of the most perplexing problems that we deal with as believers. And so the name in this cry is important. These are believers calling out to their God, asking him why he is allowed this. This brings us to consider secondly, and And it's just a little more carefully the assumption that God could have prevented it. And again, this is already been mentioned, but I want to put a point on it just very briefly. The God that is revealed in the Bible is a God that controls and has decreed. Whatsoever. Comes to pass. It is a lie. And it borders on blasphemy when we try to reassure people. In the face of tragedy that this could not have been God's doing. But that somehow it was the devil who did it. I want to be really sensitive here because I realized that sometimes it is the awkwardness of the moment. Sometimes we struggle because we just don't know how to articulate what we want to say. We want to be helpful. We know God can't sin. We know God can't do evil. We know God doesn't tempt us. We know he's loving and he's kind and he's gracious. We know that the devil is the primary agent of sin and sorrow and death. And so sometimes we say these things. but to imply that God didn't ordain and decree every event and to take that power and sovereignty of God and give it to the devil. It's simply not the way that we are to go. And it is not the way that the Bible directs us, nor the way that the people of God actually pray and cry out in tragedy and affliction. In this complaint, there is a confession of the sovereignty of God. Although evil in the world and the person and power and goodness of God seem impossible to reconcile, notice that the psalmist does not seek resolution in a retarded view of God. So we can't go that direction in our struggle and our search for answers. He is a known God that has revealed himself to be all powerful, all loving, all wise and all sovereign. There is a way that I'm not going to spend really any time on that some people have have sought to deal with the problem of evil, and it's frankly a ludicrous option is to try to pretend that pain and evil are simple illusions. And it's to try to simply ignore it and deny that pain and evil actually exist. We are not those kinds of people though. We have had too many fires, too many suicides, too many heartaches, too much bad news, Too many tragedies, too much, too much pain. To pretend that evil things and bad things don't exist. In fact, the best response that I've ever heard to this was an account of the late, somewhat notorious Christian apologist, Dr. Walter Martin. He was debating a an advocate of Christian science. belief, the false belief of Christian science, which is where you find this this option. And the person was denying that pain and evil actually exist. And so Walter Martin just simply walked over and smacked the guy across the face in the middle of the debate and said, Deny that pain is real. God is real. Evil exists and therefore we cry out Why Oh Lord? Do you stand far away? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble? So what is the answer? If you are in some pain this morning and If you have questions or have experienced tragedy in one form or another, hear me right, then this knowledge of who God is and his power will not satisfy you. In fact, it should not satisfy you. It should actually frustrate you to some degree and add fuel to the fire of your concern. It should bring the very question that we are considering here to our lips. Why, oh Lord? Why does he hide himself in times of trial? Isn't there a biblical answer for that? Don't we get more than just the cold, hard message Deal with it. God does what he wants. Indeed, we are given more than this, and the answer is primarily given. In the revelation of what God has done. What God has done, this is really the crux of the matter. Indeed, this is the essence of faith. But before you dismiss me and say, what are you are we supposed to just blindly trust God with no reasons why we should trust him? You're saying that the answer to all of this is just blind faith. My response to that is no, we are not called to. Blind faith. God has provided ample reasons to trust him. And he gives us an answer. But the answer comes not by way of propositional phrases. But it comes in his personal and his public acts of love and deliverance. What I mean by this is that it is God's character, as he has revealed it in his works, that gives us the ground upon which to trust him and to stay the course. In fact, we need to realize that this is a far more powerful answer for us, and it is actually the only one that will make any sense to us. In other words, think about it this way. When a child needs, let's say, a serious operation. It will do them no good. It will not comfort them. To go through all the technical details of what will be involved in the surgery and why. What they need to know is that their loving parents will be there with them. And that their loving parents would not put them through this were it not for their good. They are scared. They will cry. But the most effective answer. At the moment is that the one who loves them so much. Who have brought them to the hospital will be there with them. In fact, we could take that parent child analogy a bit further. Sometimes in all of you who are parents. And you if you haven't experienced this yet, you will. Sometimes our children ask us why. And we know that the full answer is simply over their heads. that if we were to tell them the details, they could not handle the answer. Indeed, God knows this about us. He listens to our cries of why. And our prayers for answers. But his answer is often to not tell us why. And that is because We would not be able to handle the answer. In Habakkuk chapter one. Verse two. The prophet cries out as we do. Oh Lord, how long shall I cry for help and you will not hear? And then the Lord answers in verse 5. I am doing a work in your days that you would not believe if told. In other words. I love you. But you can't handle the answer. But we know God. And we know that he would never allow us to go through anything if it were not for our good and for his glory. And in fact, he doesn't just stand on the sidelines and coach us and yell platitudes to us. Telling us, oh, it'll it'll be OK. But he came into this mess and he felt our pain and he bore our grief. He speaks when God speaks to us and tells us these things in his word, he speaks from perfect love and wisdom. And he speaks from real pain and real suffering. I know at times we might be tempted to cry out and say, yes, Lord, but you don't know what it's like to lose a child. But he does. You don't know what it's like to to live in pain all of your life. But he does. You don't know what it's like to be abandoned and to be betrayed by someone who is close to you. But he does. You don't know what it's like to suffer injustice. You don't know what it's like to suffer extreme temptation. You don't know what it's like to suffer the darkness and depths of sin. But he does. Indeed, the answer to all of these questions is the cross of Jesus Christ. Everything that we need to know to be able to trust God through the trial that we are going through is right there. God loved us so much that he willingly gave his only begotten and beloved son to die on the cross for our sins and a God who has done that for us can be trusted in the current painful trial that we are experiencing. It is the cross of Christ and nothing less that can keep our eyes on Jesus and Our trust in the Lord and our faith secure in the storms of life. Congregation, Jesus himself cried out, why? While he hung on the cross, the opening words of Psalm 22, so similar to the opening words of Psalm 10, were pouring out of his mouth. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? It's not that we. Can't ask that. We can. But when God is silent, when, like a loving father, he determines that we can't handle the answer, we must hold fast to who he is and the truth that he loves us and the proof that he does love us. Is the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ, in fact, We have also in the cross an example of an unspeakable tragedy resulting in the most glorious blessing of all. No one on that side of the cross could have imagined it being a good thing, but nobody on this side of the cross can deny that it has been. I realize that none of this makes the problem of evil any easier, though. The pain doesn't lessen, the hurt does not just go away. The problems are no less excruciating to us personally. This is where we need to be and this is where our faith needs to rest. This is not a blind faith Any more than a child's trust in their loving parents is a blind trust. And he has promised that he will be with us and he will uphold us by his word and spirit through the valley of the shadow of death. The problem of pain and evil is our problem. And if you haven't figured that out and struggled with it as a Christian, then you haven't been paying attention. God is sovereign. He is all powerful. He is all good and evil exists, and thus, frankly, folks, we have issues. And we're going to have issues. But God has promises and he has answers and he has a purpose. It is just that we can't handle those right now. And so, where do we go from here? Going back to Pennsylvania a couple weeks ago, my wife, Elka, and I, and then Jill Mann, some of you know Jill Mann from the Springs Congregation, we were able to see firsthand the reality of God upholding his people in the midst of tragedy. We saw that God can be trusted to take care of us. We saw that a daily walk with Christ will bear fruit, even in the most awful circumstances. We saw that years of quiet sowing in faith will reap a harvest of blessing, even in the midst of tragedy. It has been said that nobody dies a martyr's death Unless they've been living a martyr's life. In like manner, if you are living by the promises of God each day, you'll be able to live by the promises of God, no matter whatever comes your way. And the first promise that you must believe to start living the life of faith is that glorious promise. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and he is just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. When you know the blessing of forgiveness and the love of God in Christ, you can know the peace that he has for his people in the midst of tragedy. The thing about pain and evil is, is that it is an interesting thing. And we see this every day whenever you see pain, whenever you're close to it. The thing about it is, is it has this dual effect on people. It has this dual effect of drawing some closer to the Lord and pushing others farther away from him. And usually it's the case that those who know the love of the father already. They draw near and they trust him in those great times of trial. But those who don't like him in the first place and are far from him. Tend to push him further away and harden through tragedy. Congregation, where are you at today? Are you ready for tragedy or will you be reeling from it? Do you know him? Do you know God? Or is he a distant being to you that you are not comfortable with right now? And you will be uncomfortable. Trusting because you simply don't know him. When trial hits. Friend, Jesus is the answer. And the call is to come to the cross of Christ and find rest for your soul there. The Christian faith is no easy life. In fact, if you're looking for an easy life, you should not become a Christian. It will raise issues in your life that you never struggled with before. It will be one of the most painful walks you ever endure. But it's the most glorious and blessed life that you can imagine. For the glory set before him, he endured the cross. He bore the shame. We are promised if we suffer with him, we will be blessed, we will be glorified with him. And he tells us that God is able to keep you in the midst of that tragedy. Jesus himself promises that. Let's pray together. Our father in heaven, we we do struggle and our faith is imperfect, and so it is hard at times to trust you. But we do thank you for how you've revealed yourself, we thank you that you would give your only begotten son. We thank you that you are well acquainted with grief and pain and suffering. That we don't serve a God who is distant. And disinterested. In our daily lives. But we serve and we have one who gave himself up for us, who is one well acquainted with sorrow. Thank you for drawing us near to yourself. Thank you for the effective and effectual comfort that you do give your people in the midst of pain and suffering. Lord, draw us near, teach us how to walk by faith, make your promises clear to us so that we can cling to them, make us faithful each day to walk in light of those promises, to lay hold of them and know their truth in the day in and day out so that. In the day of trial, when when we really need. To be held. We know you will hold us. Father, we pray that you will manifest yourself more and more as we walk in this life and we feel the pain of a fallen world. We pray that more and more you would manifest yourself to us as the God of all comfort. And that we might come to love you more. Knowing that you do love us. Again, thank you for Jesus. May it be that if folk see us today, they might know that we've been with him. We pray in his name. Amen.