Scripture Reading: Job 35:9-11
The Book of Job is a book of strength. It teaches us how to be strong when we are faced with trials and suffering in our lives. Most of you know the story of Job, a man who suffered greatly. He lost all his possessions and his children, and the only thing that was left in his life was his wife and himself. Then his body was afflicted with many problems and sicknesses. Ultimately, even his wife lost faith and asked him to deny God and die. That was the desperate situation in which Job found himself.
Yet, even in the midst of all the afflictions and trials he had to go through, Job stood firm in his faith, knowing that there is a God who would redeem his situation and restore everything. He trusted in a living and loving God. Eventually, we see that all his blessings were restored. He received more children, and God blessed him with double the wealth and possessions that he had before. His blessings were restored.
That is the whole gist of the Book of Job, but there are many life lessons that we can learn from this particular man's life as we read from chapter to chapter.
When Job was going through this terrible time in his life, several friends came to visit him. There were particularly three or four friends who came and stayed with him, supposedly to strengthen and comfort him. But instead of strengthening him, what happened was that they tried to find answers for his problems.
A lot of times, we think that we can support and strengthen people if we can find a solution to their problems. Many problems in our lives, as you all know, have no solutions that we can work out. There are certain problems for which we can find solutions, but there are many situations in life where there is nothing we can do to change the circumstances.
Most of us are knowledgeable enough to handle many of the situations we face. We know how certain things can be done. But sometimes something comes before us that is beyond our ability, something that we simply cannot fix. Many of us go through situations like that every day.
Instead of trying to find answers to someone else's problems, especially when they may have already thought through many of the answers we are about to give them, it is often better simply to go and sing songs of comfort, pray with them, and give them something comforting from Scripture.
As Christians, that is one of the greatest things we can do to comfort others. Scripture is the ultimate source of our comfort because God comforts His people through His Word.
Giving advice or trying to find answers to somebody else's problems can be very difficult. We recently visited a friend of ours whose thirty-two-year-old son suddenly collapsed and died two weeks ago. He had just come back from a basketball game. He did not feel well, then suddenly collapsed. They called 911, but he was dead before they arrived, or essentially as soon as they got there.
When I visited the family, I told them, "I don't have any answers for your questions." And they had so many questions. They had only one son and a daughter, and this son was not married. They were waiting for his future plans, looking for a bride for him, and were excited about his future. What kind of answers can you give to a family in such a situation?
I told them about my helplessness. Even as a pastor, with all the training and knowledge that we receive, there is no simple answer to what happened. Why did God allow this? Did God do this? Why did this happen to him? Why do bad things happen to good people? Why do bad things happen to people who work for God's kingdom every day? Can God prevent these things?
These are not questions for which we can easily find answers, and that is not the time to go and discuss such things. Sometimes, the most compassionate thing we can do is simply to be there.
In the culture of Job's time, in those ancient days, perhaps there was a mentality that if you went to someone who was suffering and gave them some kind of explanation, you were actually helping them find comfort. But Job's friends discovered that their explanations were doing the opposite.
This is one of the oldest books in the Bible, and as we read through it, we see that one of Job's friends suggested that perhaps Job had done something wrong and that God was correcting him. You can still hear people say things like that to those who are going through difficult times.
Another person may come along and give some kind of medical advice. We saw plenty of that during the COVID-19 pandemic. How many people came up with all kinds of different solutions? If you looked at YouTube, you could find one doctor saying this, another doctor saying that, natural therapies, this treatment, that treatment, and all kinds of claims. At one point, even bleach was recommended by some people as a solution, and some people actually drank bleach.
People can come up with a lot of answers. But if you don't know what you are talking about, you can actually make the situation worse.
In life situations, we don't know everything about what somebody else is going through. Their life is very different from ours. They are going through something that we may not understand because we are not living their life. Therefore, we should be very careful about giving answers regardless of what someone is experiencing.
But Job's friends were trying to do exactly that. In chapter 16, Job responds to them. They were talking a lot and trying to explain his situation. One told him that he was self-righteous and thought he was more righteous than God. Another suggested that he had done something wrong and needed to correct himself. They gave him various explanations for why he was suffering.
Job finally said that they were adding to his hurt and pain. Instead of comforting him, their words were making his suffering worse.
He called them "miserable comforters." They came to comfort him, but they were miserably failing. Instead of making him feel better, they were making him more miserable with their words.
To those who were giving him medical and other advice, Job essentially said that they were worthless physicians. They were trying to treat a disease without even knowing what the disease was.
Isn't that sometimes what happens around us? There are times when we have people giving advice about things they do not fully understand. Even now, there are many mysteries and unknowns surrounding viruses, diseases, and many things happening around us. If we don't know exactly what we are talking about, sometimes the best thing we can do is simply go there, offer our presence, pray with them, or give them a Scripture verse. That is often the best we can do in many situations.
Of course, if someone is going through a legal issue, a property issue, or another situation where you genuinely know someone who can help, then by all means, point them in the right direction. That is different. But trying to analyze somebody's life and explain why something happened to them is not our responsibility. That belongs to God. We don't want to take God's responsibility upon ourselves. God is able to handle what we cannot.
Then there was another friend named Elihu who came and sat with Job for several days. Finally, he opened his mouth and began speaking. He told Job that perhaps his problem was that he was being too self-righteous and thought he was more righteous than God.
That was not what Job wanted to hear. He was already struggling with pain and struggling with tremendous loss in his life. Instead of being comforted, he was being hurt more and more by the words of those around him. But Elihu asked Job an important question: Did you ever take your problems to the Lord God? Then he said something beautiful: "Where is God who gives songs in the night?"
Look up at the heavens and see. Who says, "Where is God my Maker, who gives songs in the night?" When we go through trials, tribulations, and troubles in our lives, God gives us something to sing about. Even in the midst of our problems, God has a song that He can give us in the night.If you look at the lives of many saints who have gone before us, we know that many of the songs we sing today came out of their afflictions and suffering. That is often when God dealt with them most deeply.
There are many examples of this throughout Christian history. So when do we sing? Can we sing in the midst of difficulties, sickness, and trials? It is very hard to sing when we are going through pain. But people sing in different ways. It is easy to sing when everything is going well. We can sing songs and have a good time together. But when we are going through pain, suffering, sickness, and grief, it is very difficult to sing, especially when we are by ourselves.
When we are in a crowd, it is much easier to sing. Many people do that. It is easy to sing along with others because you can follow the crowd. But when it comes to singing a solo, how many of us would volunteer? Maybe Wayne or Carol could do it, but I don't know if I could sing a solo myself. Many of us wouldn't. But I can certainly sing along with others.
That reminds me of a story about a man named Joe who used to sing in a choir. He loved to sing in the choir, but unfortunately, he was always offbeat. The choir simply could not get him under control. Every time they practiced, the music director would become frustrated and say, "Joe, you're not in the right rhythm."
But Joe was trying his best. He thought he was doing a good job. Eventually, the choir tried to find a way to get him out of the choir because no matter how much they trained him, he was not getting any better. They tried various approaches, and finally they went to the pastor.
"Pastor, we have a problem here," they told him. "Joe is completely turning this choir into a mess. We need to get him out. You have to find a way."
The pastor thought about it and decided to give Joe another responsibility. He said, "Joe, we need an usher. I want you to help with the ushering and take the offering during the service."
Joe was furious. "Pastor, how can you tell me that? I am in the choir. I can sing! I need to sing there. Without me, the choir is not going to work."
The pastor eventually gave up on that idea. Later, he found another job for Joe and said, "Joe, I think this job would be a very good fit for you because of your background."
But Joe said, "No, Pastor, I can't do that. That happens at the same time the choir is singing. I cannot do that job." The pastor found various different ways to get him out of the choir, but Joe would not cooperate. Finally, the pastor told him directly, "Joe, some people have told me that you can't sing. You need to get out of the choir." Joe was shocked. He couldn't believe the pastor had said that. After pausing for a moment, Joe responded, "Pastor, some people have told me that you don't know how to preach."
That's how people think sometimes. You may think you can sing and do a good job singing with other people, but you may actually be out of tune. And sometimes you don't want to hear that from others.But we can sing, even if we are out of tune, in the midst of our trials and tribulations because God is the God who gives songs in the night.
That is one of the verses that inspired me to write my book, "Song in the Night." If you have read that book, you know that even when we go through the dark times of our lives, God is a God who can fill us with songs of joy in the midst of our afflictions.
Singing in the daytime is very easy and very common. The great preacher Charles Spurgeon said that singing during the daytime is easy, but singing in the night, when you can't read a note, is very difficult. A skillful singer is one who can sing without being able to read the notes in the night.
Many times, we cannot see the notes at night. We don't know where to turn. We don't know what steps to take when we are going through the dark situations of life. That is when we can sing.
The Bible teaches us that we are faithful and skillful singers when we can find joy and sing in the midst of our afflictions. There is a beautiful thought expressed by the great poet Percy Bysshe Shelley: "Our sweetest songs are those that tell of our saddest thoughts."
Many of our sweetest songs have come out of the saddest situations of people's lives. We all go through periods of darkness in our lives at one point or another. Illness, broken relationships, the loss of loved ones, conflicts, stress, fear, anxiety, oppression, injustice, and many other things can fill our lives with darkness.
Sometimes we may feel overwhelmed and discouraged. But as Christians, we can look forward with hope because of the promise of God to be with us in the midst of our darkness. When we go through dark situations in our lives, we have a reason to sing and rejoice. God is a God who comes into the midst of our darkness.
In spite of who we are or what we do, God gives us far more than we could ever deserve. Unlike Job's friends, who suggested various solutions and told him that he needed to correct his life to make things better, we know that such explanations are not always the answer. Telling someone that they must have done something wrong or that they need to correct something in their life can only hurt them more.
The real comfort is knowing that there is a loving God who will be there in our sickness, in our grief, and in the midst of our trials and problems. That is the comforting promise God has given us. Jesus promised, "I am with you always, to the very end of the age." We have a God who will be with us until the end of the world.
Here is a God who gives us a song in the night, in times of trials and tribulations and in times of darkness. We are all given opportunities to find things to sing about if we look for them.
When Paul and Silas were preaching the Gospel, they were imprisoned, chained, and placed in jail. While they were in prison, in the darkness of night, they started singing praises to God.
We read about this in Acts chapter 16. "About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God." Suddenly, there was such a violent earthquake that the foundations of the prison were shaken. At once, all the prison doors flew open, and everyone's chains came loose.
That is what happened when the children of God, who were in the midst of darkness, imprisoned, chained, and beaten, were not afraid to sing songs of praise and joy. Then the earth shook, the doors opened, and their chains fell off. That is what can happen when we sing with gratitude while we are in the midst of darkness.
And there was something else that happened. The jailer thought that all the prisoners had escaped, and because he had failed in his duty, he was about to kill himself. But Paul stopped him and told him, "We are all here." Eventually, that jailer and his entire family came to faith in Christ and were baptized.
That is the power of singing in the midst of our trials. The world witnesses what God is doing, and there can be transformation not only in our own lives, where our chains can be broken, but also in the lives of others who are around us and witnessing what is happening.
Paul and Silas sang a song of deliverance in that night.
There is also a song of empowerment.
We know that on the night before Jesus was crucified, He went to the Garden of Gethsemane in the darkness of night to pray. Before He went there, He needed strength. We know that His body was weak, and His tears and sweat were falling like drops of blood as He prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane.
Before He went to pray, we read in the Gospels according to Matthew and Luke that He and His disciples sang praises to God. Matthew 26 clearly tells us that after they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.
In the midst of the darkness and the looming suffering that was about to take His life, Jesus praised God and prayed.
The songwriter Edward Mote, who wrote "On Christ the Solid Rock I Stand," gave us words that many of us sing together: "When darkness seems to hide His face, I rest on His unchanging grace; In every high and stormy gale, My anchor holds within the veil."
We sing that song regularly. "When darkness seems to hide God's face," we can still cling to His unchanging grace. These are songs of hope in the midst of darkness.
There is hope in the midst of darkness because there will be light at the end of the tunnel for those who look for it. Many times, when we get into one problem after another in our lives, we begin to wonder, "Why is there no end? When is this going to end? Where is the end of the tunnel?"
A friend of mine once said, as he continued to go through one trouble after another, "It looks like somebody has turned off the light at the end of the tunnel." Sometimes that is exactly how we feel. But as Christians, we have hope. The problems, trials, and darkness are only in this world. Heaven is full of light.
There will not be any darkness anymore. That is what we read in Revelation. God Himself will be our light, and there will be no more darkness. There will be no more pain, suffering, or sickness when we get to be with God.
As we sing the song of hope after the service today as our closing song, we are reminded of this hope. If God gives songs to His people during the night of our lives in this world, how much more will we sing in that world where there will be no darkness?
The sun will set no more, and there will be no night there. As we read in Revelation, we will be singing forever and ever because God will be our light. We will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, because the Lord God Himself will give us light.
We are looking forward to an eternity with God where there will be no darkness, where we can sing together with God forever.
God sings over us.
In the book of Zephaniah, the prophet tells us that God rejoices over His children with singing. God is a God who loves music. That is why the music ministry is such a blessed ministry. You will continue that ministry in heaven.
I don't know if preaching will be needed in heaven because they don't need preaching in heaven. But music can continue in heaven.
So, Wayne and Carol, you are blessed in a special way. Continue that ministry. I am glad that you are doing it.
Thomas Andrew Dorsey, a Black musician from Atlanta, is another beautiful example. I have told you this story before. He wrote the beloved hymn "Take My Hand, Precious Lord, Lead Me On."
He went through an incredibly difficult time when his wife died while he was away in another town for a music program. She died during childbirth, and their newborn child also died.
Dorsey was grief-stricken. He returned to the stage, but he didn't know what to do. Out of that deep grief came the famous song we all sing:
"Precious Lord, take my hand, Lead me on, let me stand. I am tired, I am weak, I am worn. Through the storm, through the night, Lead me on to the light. Take my hand, precious Lord, Lead me home."What a comforting song that is.
All these songs that we sing are comforting songs that came out of the experiences of darkness in some people's lives. Those songs are still giving us comfort and hope today. That is what we need to understand.
So let us find time to sing songs during our trials, sickness, disease, problems, or whatever darkness we may be going through. We have reason to sing.
Fanny Crosby was always in darkness because she became blind when she was about four years old. Yet from that time onward, she began writing songs. Do you know how many songs she wrote? I believe it was more than 4,000.
She wrote famous hymns such as "Tell Me the Story of Jesus," "To God Be the Glory," and "Blessed Assurance." These were written by a blind woman who could not physically see the light, but who saw the glorious hope of heaven.
According to her testimony, one day she saw a glorious heaven opened before her, and it was filled with light. That vision encouraged her to write more and more hymns.
What a blessed faith we have! We can look forward to the blessed hope of eternity with God, where there will not be any darkness, pain, or suffering.
There will be singing there as well, together with God and the angels. So, even when we walk through the darkest nights of our lives, we do not have to lose hope. We may not understand why certain things happen. We may not have answers to every question. We may not know how the story will end.
But we know who holds our future. We know that God is with us in the night. He is with us in our suffering. He is with us in our grief. He is with us when we cannot see the way forward.
And the God who gives songs in the night can put a song in our hearts even when we cannot see the light.
Our circumstances may change, our health may change, our possessions may disappear, and even the people we love may be taken from us. But God remains faithful.
Job discovered that God was still there. Paul and Silas discovered that God was still there. Jesus discovered strength in prayer and praise in the darkness of Gethsemane. Thomas Dorsey found a song in the deepest grief of his life.
Fanny Crosby found light even though she could not see with her physical eyes. And we, too, can find a song in the night. The night may be long, but it will not last forever. The darkness may surround us for a season, but the light of God is greater than the darkness.
One day, we will enter a place where there is no night, no sickness, no suffering, no tears, and no death. Until that day comes, let us trust the God who gives songs in the night.
Let us sing when we can see the light, and let us sing when we cannot see the light. Let us sing in the daytime, and let us sing in the night. For our God is with us, and He is faithful.
And when our earthly journey is finished, we will enter into the eternal light of God's presence, where there will be no more darkness and where our song will never end.
May the good Lord bless us with these words of hope.
Amen.
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