The Key to Overcoming Giant Despair

Let me say a few things about what has directed my life and thinking and where I'm going tonight in my preaching. Number of things, one is just this ongoing trial of COVID seems to have no end to it and then we hear prognosticators telling us to get ready for a long dark winter. For those who have suffered through COVID, those who have done so with loved ones, have been separated from them in hospitals, some who have not had the opportunity to even be near a loved one, and at their bedside when they pass from this life.

I do not diminish the quarter of a million plus people who we are told have died from COVID. It is a very challenging time. There is a spirit of gloom and doom around us. There is a lot of uncertainty. There is a lot of conflicting information.

It is hard to be able to sort fact from fiction. Those things are very troubling. It has disrupted our lives.

It has disrupted our church and its normal ebb and flow. So that has been on my heart and mind. We made a trip to Ohio and as we made that trip we were reminded of how much different winter is. In Northwestern Pennsylvania in Ohio than it is typically here. We were treated to 3 to 4 inches of fresh snow while we were in Ohio and that was a delight.

It was a delight to be able to enjoy it and leave. But we were reminiscing and thinking of winters that we lived through. We spent half of our lives in Northwestern Pennsylvania. There were times that when snow came in December you didn't see the ground again until early April. It would be a long, long winter. And with not only the snow, there would be days upon days upon days, consecutive days of no sun.

And just how the effect that that had on the psyche and on your emotional state and your emotional health. Carly's mother is 96 years of age and every winter. In one sense, I don't know that she dreads winter but it is a season that you enter into knowing you can't change that and you long for it to be over so that spring can come. She has given up her driving.

She is now confined to the home so she can't get out. But there is that effect. Our home church, half the church has been infected with COVID.

That has been an issue. A friend of mine that was influential in me coming to faith in Christ. Not that long. 1979, 20, 40 years ago. A man who invited us and opened his home to a Bible study and it was there that we saw the evidence of the grace of God in the lives of people that attracted us to Christ and created a hunger in our hearts to be saved. I don't know, it's maybe been four weeks or so ago, four, five, six weeks ago.

Ken Miller, he took his own life. And very troubling, very hard to understand, hard to explain. So those were the things that have affected my life and caused me to go in the direction I'm going tonight. We hear talk of canceling Christmas. How do you cancel Christmas, by the way?

You can't cancel Christmas. You know what they mean by that. They're calling for people to stay home and not gather with their families and that's another thing that has created this darkness and gloom and doom. Listen to this hymn that we sing and before I read the words of these four stanzas, Dear Refuge of My Weary Soul, I went through the hymn and I listed some of the words that speak to the subject that's on my mind that we will be addressing from the scriptures tonight. Weary soul, when gloomy doubts prevail, when waves of trouble roll, when hope faints and declines, grief and pain and sorrow and mourning.

Those are all words that are found in this hymn. Dear Refuge of My Weary Soul, Dear Refuge of My Weary Soul, on thee when sorrows rise, on thee when waves of trouble roll, my fainting hope relies. To thee I tell each rising grief, for thou alone canst heal. Thy word can bring a sweet relief for every pain I feel. But oh, when gloomy doubts prevail, I fear to call thee mine.

The springs of comfort seem to fail and all my hopes decline. Yet, gracious God, where shall I flee? Thou art my only trust, and still my soul would cleave to thee, though prostrate in the dust. Hast thou not bid me seek thy face, and shall I seek in vain? And can the ear of sovereign grace be deaf when I complain?

No, still the ear of sovereign grace attends the mourner's prayer. Oh, may I ever find access to breathe my sorrows there. Thy mercy seat is open still, here let my soul retreat. With humble hope attend thy will, and wait beneath thy feet.

Thy mercy seat is open still, here let my soul retreat. With humble hope attend thy will, and wait beneath thy feet. One of the great all-time preachers, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, once wrote, I am the subject of depression, so fearful that I hope none of you ever get to such extremes of wretchedness as I go to. Stephen Lawson writes in his commentary on the book of Job, every person has a breaking point. Even genuine believers have a point at which they can become severely discouraged and even depressed.

Such despair can cause a person to want to give up on life. John Bunyan, over 300 years ago, wrote the classic Pilgrim's Progress. And in that allegory, the main character, Christian, is a man who overcomes many obstacles in his journey from the city of destruction to the celestial city that is heaven.

Bunyan portrays the adventures of this young disciple. And early in his book, Christian is traveling with his companion, Hopeful, and they are captured by giant despair and thrown into a dungeon inside Doubting Castle. In the morning, they are carried out into the castle courtyard and shown the bones of other pilgrims who never had escaped from giant despair. Christian and Hopeful refuse the giant's demands to recant and are returned to their cell after being severely beaten. And as the pilgrims begin to succumb to despair, Christian remembers a way to escape. He's able to unlock their cell door with the key that he'd been given earlier. And they escape Doubting Castle and giant despair, not by a show of force or innate determination, but by a key given to Christian. And that key is called promise. Well, tonight I want us to consider two chapters in the book of Job, chapters 6 and 7.

We'll be looking at this in a bit of a broad way. But who has suffered in the history of mankind more than this man, Job? In moments, he lost everything that made life meaningful to him. He lost his wealth, he lost his family, he lost his health, and he is outside the city on the garbage dump, the ash heap, scraping himself with pieces of broken pottery to relieve the pain and the itching. And his friends come, well-meaning friends, they come and sit with him and say nothing for a number of days.

They had a ministry to him, a ministry of presence, just to go and be with him and to mourn with him and commiserate with him. And yet, when they began to speak, they added insult to injury because they had bad theology. And in chapters 6 and 7, we have Job speaking to his friends. And then in chapter 7, we have Job speaking to God. And I won't read the entirety of chapters 6 and 7, but let me read Job chapter 7. And I'm reading this out of the New American Standard Bible. So if you'll find your place there in Job chapter 7, let me read Job chapter 7. There are 21 verses. And again, this is the account of Job speaking to God about his situation and his circumstances.

Is not man forced to labor on earth, and are not his days like the days of a hired man? As a slave who pants from the shade, and as a hired man who eagerly waits for his wages, so am I allotted months of vanity, and nights of trouble are appointed me. When I lie down, I say, When shall I arise? But the night continues, and I am continually tossing until dawn. My flesh is clothed with worms and a crust of dirt.

My skin hardens and runs. My days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle, and come to an end without hope. Remember that my life is but breath. My eyes will not again see good. The eye of Him who sees me will behold me no longer. Your eyes will be on me, but I will not be.

When a cloud vanishes, it is gone, so he who goes down to Sheol does not come up. He will not return again to his house, nor will his place know him any more. Therefore, I will not restrain my mouth. I will speak in the anguish of my spirit.

I will complain in the bitterness of my soul. Am I the sea or the sea monster that you set a guard over me? If I say my bed will comfort me, my couch will ease my complaint, then you frighten me with dreams and terrify me by visions, so that my soul would choose suffocation, death rather than my pains. I waste away. I will not live forever. Leave me alone, for my days are but a breath.

What is man, that you magnify him and that you are concerned about him, that you examine him every morning and try him every moment? Will you never turn your gaze away from me, nor let me alone until I swallow my spittle? Have I sinned? What have I done to you, O watcher of men? Why have you set me as your target, so that I am a burden to myself?

Why, then, do you not pardon my transgression and take away my iniquity? For now I will lie down in the dust, and you will seek me, but I will not be. That's Job chapter 7, but before we look at some things there in Job chapter 7, let's consider Job chapter 6. And it's there that Job speaks to his friends. And there are four things here under this heading of Job speaking to his friends. Number one, Job apologizes to his friends. In Job chapter 6, 1 through 3, then Job answered, O that my grief were actually weighed and laid in the balance together with my calamity, for then it would be heavier than the sand of the seas, therefore my words have been rash. There's his confession, or his apology.

My words have been rash. To paraphrase what Job is saying, he is responding to his friends and he's saying, Hey, listen, man, I know that I'm speaking reckless words, but understand that if you put my grief and calamity on the scales, it would outweigh the sand of the seas. And again, as I said earlier, few men in the history of mankind have suffered like this man suffered.

His calamity was great. And it's, I think, a reminder to us that when we come alongside people we know and love and care about and we see them devastated by life and tragedy and difficulty and sickness and death and other things, we need to not be critical of people. We need to back up and assess where they are, what has happened to them, and allow people to have an emotional reaction. Sometimes people react emotionally and what they say and how they respond is not the most favorable thing. But it's been my experience that after a while, after the emotional response, people's feet hit the ground and they land on solid ground if they're Christians. So let's not be critical of every word, every thought, every action with people. Let's give them space.

Let's allow them to react and respond to life because our turn will come. And we want people to be as gracious to us as we need to be toward others. So Job is confessing, and keep in mind who this man is. This is a man God bragged on about a man perfect, not perfect in fact in sense of sinless, but a very outstanding man. And yet he's saying, confessing, that in the midst of his calamity he had spoke words that were rash.

Secondly, I want you to see that Job admits to his hopeless vulnerability. Verse 4, he says, For the arrows of the Almighty are within me, they're poison my spirit drinks, the tares of God are arrayed against me. What is he saying? He's saying there's nowhere left to hide. If God is firing his arrows at me, where am I going to hide? He never misses.

He has perfect aim. And then he says, there's nothing left for me to enjoy. As I think about where my life is and all that's been taken from me, there's nothing left for me to enjoy. Listen to how he expresses that in verses 5 through 7. He says, Does the wild donkey bray over his grass, or does the ox low over his fodder? Well, of course they do.

It's their way of expressing their satisfaction and enjoyment of that. Verse 6, Can something tasteless be eaten without salt, or is there any taste in the white of an egg? Verse 7, My soul refuses to touch them, they are loathsome food to me. Job is saying there's nothing left in life to enjoy, not even the simple pleasure of a boiled egg.

There's no enjoyment in life for him. And then Job's final remarks about his condition in verses 8 through 10. Oh, that my request might come to pass, and that God would grant my longing. Would that God were willing to crush me, that he would lose his hand and cut me off. But it is still my consolation, and I rejoice in unsparing pain, that I have not denied the words of the Holy One.

Notice that? In the midst of his pain, in the midst of his loss, in the midst of his calamity, in the midst of his distress and despondency, this man still has faith. He's still clinging to God, a bit dimly, but he's still confessing.

Notice what he said. It is still my consolation, and I rejoice in unsparing pain, that I have not denied the words of the Holy One. Now Satan must have been upset and hated those words because he was hoping that Job would turn on God and blaspheme God and attack the character of God, and yet Job doesn't do that. Job appeals to his friends for real compassion. Listen to what he says in verse 14 of chapter 6. He says, For the despairing man there should be kindness from his friend, so that he does not forsake the fear of the Almighty.

What is he saying? In the company of my friends, what I need, what I want, what I long for more than anything, is a manifestation of kindness. For the despairing man there should be kindness from his friend. Kindness.

Apparently he didn't believe that his friends were being very kind to him in their condemning, condescending speech toward him. In fact, he says in verse 15, My brothers have acted deceitfully like a wadi, like the torrents of wadis which vanish. What is he speaking of there? Well, I've been to Israel and I've stood in a place and looked down on a deserted-like place and seen a place where there was green grass in the midst of nothing but stone and brown dirt and rocks. And that green was the evidence of a wadi. A wadi is a desert stream, a stream bed that rushes with water during the rainy season, but it dries up in the summer.

Notice how this is carried on. Verse 16, he's talking about these wadis, which are turbid because of ice and into which the snow melts. When they become waterless, they are silent. When it is hot, they vanish from their place. The paths of their course wind along.

They go up into nothing and perish. The caravans of Timah looked. The travelers of Sheba hoped for them. They were disappointed for they had trusted.

They came there and were confounded. You see, travelers knew where wadis were and had the anticipation and the expectation that they would find water. And these caravans would travel to these wadis only to be disappointed and find them completely dried up and travelers would perish. And Job is likening his friends to a deceitful wadi that promised water, promised refreshment, but provided nothing. Job is saying, I'm following after you, hoping for refreshing water, but at the end of the day you have nothing to offer me. You haven't even given me a little drop of compassion. And then the fourth thing in this chapter, Job says that his friends have not been helpful in their counsel.

They have not been helpful in their counsel. He says in verse 24, teach me, teach me and I will be silent and show me how I have erred. Show me. Job is saying to his friends, listen, I don't need accusation, I need illumination. Show me my fault, show me my sin and I'll readily confess and repent of it.

But they were mistaken. They had created a theological cause and effect in their minds and were convinced that Job's suffering was due to his great sin. And Job knew himself that he wasn't a sinless person, but he knew that he had not sinned grievously to provoke God to deal with him the way he had. So again, Job is speaking to his friends.

They had not been helpful to him in their counsel to him. But now let's turn to chapter 7 where we find Job speaking to God. He turns his attention away from speaking to his friends and now he is speaking to God. The first thing I want you to see is Job mourns the misery of his suffering. He mourns the misery of his suffering. He says, is not man forced to labor on earth and are not his days like the days of a hired man? And as a slave who pants for the shade and as a hired man who eagerly waits for his wages, so I am allotted months of vanity and nights of trouble are appointed to me.

What's he saying? He's saying, Lord, even a slave who works in the hot sun eventually gets a chance to rest in the shade. And a hired hand who works hard at least has his paycheck to look forward to, but I don't have any relief.

There is no shade tree under which my sorrow can find rest. And there is language here that shows us that Job's physical condition is worsening. My flesh is clothed with worms and a crust of dirt. My skin hardens and runs. Open boils. Infection.

It's hard to imagine. From the top of his head to the sole of his feet, this man is covered in boils. He mourns the misery of his suffering. Secondly, he bemoans the brevity of his life.

Listen to what he says in verses 6 and 7. My days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle and they come to an end without hope. And then he says, remember that my life is but breath.

My eye will not again see good. What is he saying here? He's saying, Lord, since my life is so short anyway, why let me linger? Why not end it, Lord? The grave would be better than my painful life.

And things can get to that place for us. Again, I don't have explanations for my friend Ken Miller taking his life. I just know some of his life's experience and what he was dealing with. He was married as a young man and had three children to a lovely wife and his wife died of cancer and left him a widower. He remarried and God gave him a son to this wife and they were married for nearly 40 years. But his oldest son had cancer and was dying with cancer and Ken had just found out the day before he took his life that he had prostate cancer.

And again, I don't know. I'm thinking in my mind he couldn't stand to see his oldest son die of cancer. He'd seen his wife die of cancer. He dealt with pain, excruciating pain, chronic pain for years and years and years.

Back pain, he did back surgery, so I don't know whether that was a factor. But there came a point in his life that he thought, you know what, life is not worth living. My life is short.

I've lived my life. I'm going to end my life. And God allowed him to do that. It's troubling. It's troubling. I was very troubled when I got that news that he would do that to his wife, his children, his grandchildren. That that would be a legacy that he would leave.

It's troubling. But we see Job here basically saying that since my life is short anyway, why let me linger? Why not end it, Lord? The grave would be better than my painful life. And then he says this in verse 15. So that my soul would choose suffocation, death, rather than my pains. This is the verse that John Bunyan put into the mouth of Christian as he languished in the cell deep in the dungeon of Doubting Castle. Christian says to his companion, shall we be ruled by this giant? I know not whether it is best to live like this or to die. The grave is easier for me than this dungeon. And, you know, you cannot escape the reality that as Bunyan penned Pilgrim's Progress from a prison cell, he was imprisoned because he was holding unauthorized church services, that Bunyan was not just writing allegorically, he was writing autobiographically.

Here he was in a prison cell. And perhaps suffering from despondency and despair and doubt and all the rest. The natural cry of the believer under great suffering is, how long? How long, oh Lord, is it for the rest of my life?

If so, take me. Take me and take me on to heaven. We're considering Job's talk to God. He, number one, mourns the misery of his suffering. Number two, he bemoans the brevity of his life. Number three, Job laments a loss of communion with God.

Notice what he says in verses 20 and 21. Have I sinned? What have I done to you, O watcher of men? Why have you set me as your target so that I am a burden to myself?

Why then do you not pardon my transgression and take away my iniquity? For now I will lie down in the dust and you will seek me, but I will not be. It's obvious, I think, to us that at this point in the life of Job, he is bound, he is in the depths of the doubting castle. But has Bunyan found a way for Christian and hopeful to escape doubting castle? It happens to be the same method that we find in the scriptures, the same method of escape that God has provided for all of us when we find ourselves in a place of despair and despondency and gloom and doom and depression. We sing this wonderful hymn penned by Chris Anderson, Relentless Love. My thoughts were drawn to the third stanza that says, Relentless love preserves my life from unbelief, sustains me through my sin, my doubt, my grief. It's God and His grace that has saved us, it's God and His grace that keeps us, sustains us, sustains me through my sin, my doubt, my grief, since Christ has done it all, though feeble I'll not fall, His wounded hands hold me, the sinner's chief. You see, there are people who read the book of Job and come away with an amazement of this man Job and how he maintained his faith, he never turned on God, he never gave up, he endured, he persevered, he kept on, and there's another way of looking at it. Because the reality is, Job was feeble, Job was weak, Job had doubts, Job had grief, and the God who granted him faith is the God who sustains that faith. So as we come to the book of Job, we shouldn't be shocked, or we shouldn't be in awe of the faith of Job, we should be in awe of a God who sustained the faith of Job. Because he who begins a good work in us has promised to continue it until the day of Christ Jesus. So it's encouraging for us to think about this, that yes, our faith is weak, sometimes our faith is sorely tried, but the God who granted us faith is the God who's promised to sustain our faith. Find hope in that.

Yes. Earlier in Pilgrim's Progress, Christian had been given a small key, and told that whenever he needed to open the door, he should use this gift. And that special key had a name, and that name was promise. That night, in their dungeon cell, Christian suddenly remembered he had the key in his pocket.

And he pulls it out, and indeed, he is able to unlock the cell door and the outer gate as well. And he and his companion escape, doubting castle and the clutches of giant despair, again, not by their own strength or determination, but by the key representing the promises of God. Well, as I bring this message to a conclusion, I'd like to direct our thoughts to, not Job speaking to his friends, and not Job speaking to God, but what does God have to say to us? What does the Word of God have to say to us if we find ourself in a place of gloom and doom and despair and grief and sorrow?

Here are some things. 2 Peter 1.4 tells us that God has given us what? Exceedingly great and precious promises. So when you conclude that God isn't present, that God is nowhere to be found, that God has abandoned you, He hasn't. He hasn't abandoned you. God is a very present help in time of trouble. Hebrews 13 verse 5 says, I will never leave you nor forsake you. You see, we have got to listen to the Word of God and not to our fleeting emotions that can speak so loudly to us and have the capacity to so control our lives.

It can feel like, it can feel like God has abandoned us. But don't live by your feelings. Live by the truth of the Word of God. God has said, I will never leave you nor forsake you. Let that be an anchor. Let that be a foundation. And when you feel life is hopeless, it isn't.

It isn't. Jeremiah 29 and 11, for I know the plans I have for you declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for calamity, to give you a future and a hope. Our hope is so full of anticipation and bright and glorious.

When you, again, when you feel like it's hopeless, it isn't. You know the story of Corrie Ten Boom, young Dutch Christian who helped hide Jews from the Nazis during World War II. She survived the horror of a Nazi concentration camp and she said this, there is no pit so deep that God is not deeper still. That was true for her.

That is true for us. When you believe that God doesn't care, oh friend, He cares. He cares. Cast all your anxiety on Him because what? He cares for you. He cares for you.

And the tense there and the verb, continually, He continually cares. He constantly, without ever stopping, cares and is concerned for us. When you think you know better than God does, you don't. When you think you know better than God does, you don't. I hear people say, well if I were God, I would do this or that. No, if you were God, you would do exactly what God has done.

Okay? We have such narrow focus. We have a finite mind. God is infinite. God sees things we can't even begin to have consideration for, bring into the equation.

When you think you know better than God does, you don't. Psalm 18, 30 says, As for God, His way is blameless. The word of the Lord is tried.

He is a shield to all who take refuge in Him. His promises have been tried. They've been tested.

They have been found true. When you don't feel loved, you are. You are. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor heights, nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Again, that whole business of feelings. When you don't feel loved, you are. Just think of the cross. Think of what God has done for us in Christ Jesus. You see, we're not alone. We're deeply loved whether we sense it or not, whether we conclude it, whether we feel it or even believe it.

God loves us. When George Matheson was a teenager, he learned that he had poor eyesight and that that eyesight would eventually deteriorate until he could no longer see. He finished his studies at Glasgow University in Scotland. He graduated from college when he was 19. He began graduate studies, but at the age of 20, George Matheson became totally blind. He had two sisters that loved him so dearly that they learned Greek and Hebrew so that they could assist him in his studies.

I'm amazed by that. He persevered despite the fact that the woman he was engaged to marry ended their engagement because she did not want to be married to a blind man. And the pain of that rejection never totally left George. He never married, but he graduated. God called him to the pastorate and he served in the pastorate for 31 years. Queen Victoria often invited him to preach to the royal court. In fact, she paid to have his sermons on the Book of Job published.

After his youngest sister married, leaving him entirely alone, George became overwhelmed with sorrow. But instead of languishing in his sorrow, he sat down and he wrote the words to a poem that since has become a beloved hymn of the church. Listen to the words.

I don't know if I can even speak them to you. O love that will not let me go, I rest my weary soul in thee. I give thee back the life I owe, that in thine ocean depths its flow may richer, fuller be. O joy that seekest me through pain, I cannot close my heart to thee. I trace the rainbow through the rain and feel the promise is not vain that mourn shall tearless be. O cross that liftest up my head, I dare not ask to fly from thee. I lay in dust life's glory dead and from the ground there blossoms red, life that shall endless be. Folks, this is the way we escape doubting castle.

This is the way we escape the clutches of giant despair. While I was in seminary, one of the professors was Chip Davidson. Not Davidson, Chip. His last name escapes me right now. But he suffered from a muscular disease and he could barely walk. He had braces for his arms and his legs and he would hobble to the front. And in pain he would lecture. And it was a seminary class filled with about 14, 15 men. And we would open every single class by singing a cappella, a hymn. And this is one of the hymns that we sang. And he would tell the history of these hymns. And it was so motivating and moving and inspiring to see this man traverse around the campus with great difficulty because of MS is what he had. And never complain, live the life of joy and satisfaction and contentment. And I was inspired as much by his life as I was the teaching that he gave in the classroom. Here it is 20, 25, somewhere between 25 and 30 years ago and his mind, his name and his person and his life comes to my mind even as I bring this message to a close. And the impact that that man had as he faithfully served the Lord and maintained his faith. So may God help us in these difficult days as we are told we're going to enter a dark, a long dark winter. While some perhaps have entered a long dark winter and it was long before COVID ever arrived.

Here's help. We have the promises of God. We have a God who is faithful. When we are faithless, he remains faithful. Shall we pray? Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing. So that by the power of the Holy Spirit, you may abound in hope. Amen.