TEXT: Job 19:23-27; Hebrews 12:1-3

SUBJECT: Spiritual Depression #13: Everything

One day I ran into an old friend I hadn’t seen in several years. When I last talked to him, his father was an old man and in very poor health. I asked how he was after all this time, and he told me, he died.

What from? I asked.

In the last years of his life, the poor man was an encyclopedia of bad health. He had Alzheimer’s Disease, Parkinson’s, congestive heart failure, diabetes, kidney failure, and some other things, too, though I cannot remember what they were.

What my friend said of his father’s death was scientific, of course, but you know what he means. The man died of pretty much, everything.

I tell this story to introduce the topic of today’s sermon. For some we’ve been thinking about spiritual depression and some of its causes, including, guilt, regrets, loneliness, stubbornness, and the neglect of God’s Word and prayer. Any one of these may cause spiritual depression.

But what happens if they—or other things like them—all come together and crash down on your head? They’re almost sure to leave you very sad and for a very long time.

If memory serves me, I know of two men in the Bible who suffered a great many things at the same time. They’re the two men our texts refer to.

One is Job. He was the holiest man in the world, at that time, and also the most blessed. He was the richest man in the east, and his wealth did not corrupt him. He was the proud father of ten children, and his daughters were the most beautiful girls in his country. He was happily married; he had good friends; he was respected by all who knew him; and—best of all—he had a good conscience. His love for the Lord was deep, but not nearly as deep as the Lord’s love for him.

In one day, Job’s wealth was wiped out. First the Sabeans rustled his oxen and donkeys; then a lightning strike hit the dry field his sheep were feeding on and burned them all to death; next the Chaldeans stole his camels. The disasters not only hit his livestock, but also the servants who kept them, only three of whom survived.

As if this weren’t bad enough, that very day, a hurricane blew down the house the children were feasting in, and every one of them died.

With all these burdens on him, its no wonder Job’s health broke, too. He was covered with a leprosy (or something like it), that itched him so badly and made him so rank that he moved to the city dump and scraped the boils with broken pottery.

When his wife learned of his misfortune, she consoled him with these fetching words—

He didn’t, of course, but his ‘friends’ nearly drove him to it, but adding insult to injury. With a special pipeline to God (they thought), they told the poor man that he had it coming and more!

Finally, Job turned to the Lord and found He was not there for him. He was cut off—he thought—from the notice and comforts of heaven.

Job was a deeply depressed man, and the cause of his depression was…everything.

The Other Man suffered far more than Job did. He is our Lord Jesus Christ, whom Isaiah dubbed—

John said if he recorded everything our Lord did, The world itself could not contain the books. This is no less true of His suffering. If all His pains were put in the balance, they would outweigh the universe.

He was born of the Virgin Mary, but this is not how others saw His birth. They took Him for the illegitimate son of an immoral woman, a woman who—if the Law of God was enforced as it should be—would be stoned to death. The reproach that fell on her must have hurt Him deeply.

He was born in a stable or barn (or maybe outdoors) and first put to bed in a manger that had fed livestock a few hours before. As a toddler, He had to flee His own country because the king wanted to murder Him. Till the king died, He had to live in Egypt, a place that sent shivers up the spine of every self-respecting Jew. His parents did not understand Him and made a fool of Him in public.

His brothers did not believe in Him and called Him a lunatic. He had twelve close friends, all of whom forsook Him in His hour of need, one denying Him three times with an oath, and another selling Him for thirty pieces of silver.

Then we have the Garden of Gethsemane with His bloody sweat and troubled soul, and the cross where He was hung alongside two men who took themselves for patriots, but who were—in fact—common thieves whose messiah was an assassin.

Finally, we have the three hours of darkness—from noon to three—where He suffered so much that He cried out—

What the prophet Jeremiah said of himself truly, was even more true of our Savior—

The answer is no. No one has ever suffered even a fraction of what Christ did. And, because He is as human as you and I are, His sufferings lowered Him into a deep and dark sadness. This is what the Apostles’ Creed mean when it says of Him—

I speak of Job and our Lord because I want you to know you’re not alone. Others have suffered many problems at the same time. The same problems you’re now facing. And more. In Greek and Norse mythology, the heroes shrugged off their problems and performed mighty exploits.

But the men of the Bible—including our Lord—are not heroes and their stories are not myths! They were real men, made of the same flesh and blood that we are. And their sufferings hurt them as badly as yours hurt you.

Over the last few months, I’ve tried to tell you what to do about the depression caused by one thing. If stubbornness has made you sad, repent of it, and obey the Lord. If it’s guilt that has you down, believe in the Christ who died bore your sins in His own body on the cross. If you’re lonely, go to church and get involved in its life.

The advice—I think—is good, and if taken will do you good. But what if it’s not one thing that has you depressed but…everything?

How do you handle all these things at the same time?

The short answer is you do not because you cannot.

God will do it for you. He will solve every one of your problems, solve it completely, and solve it forever.

How will He do it? He will do it by…the Resurrection.

The Resurrection will occur at the end of history. The Lord will come, rapture and His living saints and raise the others from their graves. At this time, everything that is or can be wrong with you will be mended and made better than new!

Everything!

Broken bodies will be put back together and raised to a health and a vigor we cannot imagine! Does the Lord save blind people, deaf, deformed, diseased, bedridden? Of course He does! They are His preferred objects of mercy. But He doesn’t save the sick and crippled to leave them as they are! He saves them to make them whole! Revelation 21:4 says—

Broken minds will be put back together. The Proverb says, A man’s spirit will sustain him in sickness, but a broken spirit? No one can bear. Depression, madness, and diseases of the brain and nervous system are far worse than broken legs, or blind eyes, or even terminal illnesses. Because they make you ‘not you’. Alzheimer’s, for example, can make a happily married woman think her husband is trying to murder her! Schizophrenia will make you see people who aren’t there—and not only people, but monsters and demons and all kinds of terrifying creatures. William Cowper, the great Christian poet was so mentally ill the last years of his life that he was sure God had predestined him to eternal damnation!

The minds, so ravaged by sickness and age and other things will be put right in the Resurrection. It is not some, but every tear that shall be wiped away. And all things made new—including broken souls.

Broken fellowships will be mended. Nothing hurts you more in this world than losing a loved one, a friend, a husband, wife, child, or parent. Losing them to death or something even more painful: losing them to bitterness or hate or indifference or to someone else.

Humanity is broken into a billion pieces right now. How can it be otherwise? This is what sin does: it sets everyone against everyone. But when sin is wiped is fully and forever wiped out in the Resurrection, we’ll find a fellowship that is so deep and sweet and wonderful that even the best marriages will be no more because they will be replaced by something far better.

Only two books in the Bible have the human race at peace. Genesis before the Fall and Revelation after the Resurrection.

Best of all, in the Resurrection our worst and longest-living enemy will be no more. I mean death. Some enemies can be laughed at because they’re not nearly as tough as they think they are. No man ever mocked death—not sincerely, I mean. For it is as tough as it claims to be. Someone has called it the King of Terrors and the Bible says it’s The Last Enemy.

But wait, I misspoke. One man did look death square in the face and have a good long laugh. It is the Apostle Paul who, remembering the Resurrection of Christ and—and ours in His—defied death to do its worst—

The sting of death has been pulled and it’s victory forfeited. And this is no mere promise. It’s a fact. For the Resurrection—and the final victory over death, hell, and the grave, has already entered human history…

In the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ!

And, everyone who believes in Him has a part in His Resurrection. This is what He meant when He told His worried friends—

Not every scrap of depression will be gotten rid of in this life. Some will suffer a little of it, others more than a little. But not to worry! This is not the only life.

There is a life to come, a life your Savior has already entered. And united to Him by faith, His life is yours. And it will be a life without sickness, without tears, without sorrows, and without death, for…

The former things have passed away.

I make no cheap promises. You may be depressed until the day you die—who am I to say otherwise? You may be depressed while living by faith or swallowing handfuls of Prozac! I don’t know, nobody does but God.

But whether the fog lifts today or never in this life, it will lift in the Resurrection and never come down again. Put your faith in Christ and your every last hope in His Resurrection, which is also yours.