Job

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Well, it's good to be here with you this morning It's I was raised in the south the deep south and We thought the north was so cold you didn't have grass or anything like that We just thought you know up there.
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It is just a you know it's all ice But you come up here, and this is just beautiful country and this morning
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I haven't been up in this area before but to see the reservoir in that area. It's just beautiful country and It's always good to be in New England.
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I've been here a few times now. I've taught down at the Baptist Center probably oh
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Four or five times now, so I've been in this area Yesterday for instance I was downtown Boston, and I went to Fenway Park I've always wanted to get in there, and so got to see that yesterday, so There's a lot to see in this area, and so I really enjoy every time
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I get a chance to Come up here and be in New England Well this morning what I'd like us to do is turn to the book of Job And we're going to look at the book of Job this morning
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Now we're going to try to cover all 42 chapters but we're going to do it in a hurry, so we're going to move very quickly and You know try to try to cover the entire
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Gist of the book we won't be able to do every verse But we will go as quickly as we can in this so let's start with chapter 1 in verse 1
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There was in the land of us Who a man whose name was Job and that man was blameless and upright and one who feared
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God and shunned evil? of course we start off finding out about this man and We find out he's in the land of us
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That's probably in Edom and of course Edom Historically is like if you go back in the biblical days is like the archenemy of Israel You would not expect one of the great biblical heroes to come from a land that was historically
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Hostile to Israel like they were but apparently Job was now again. He could have been someone who? Moved down there from Israel, but the
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Bible never tells us. He's from Israel notice how he's described He's described in terms of his character not where he's from Other than the land of us other than that we don't know anything about his genealogy
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But yet we learn from him about his character, and he's described here as blameless
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Which in the Old King James it says perfect, but you don't want to think of sinless perfection here
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For even in chapter 13 of the book of Job Job talks about the sins of his youth
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He does not claim some type of sinless perfection, but when he talks about being blameless
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He's talking about being whole or complete in his walk with God It's not there was just a few commandments that he liked, but these other commandments
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He didn't like or that he was you know live godly. Let's say on Sundays But when it came to Monday through Saturday well, that's a different matter altogether no
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This man's walk with God was complete it was whole This man had integrity is the notion here
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He's also described here as upright and the notion of upright is is someone whose life is
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Straight it's in conformity to a standard and of course that standard would be the Word of God and therefore this man is living
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His life in conformity to the great rule of God in Scripture oftentimes the idea of sin can have that idea of something like a serpentine a snake like you know twisted perverted
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But not Job his life is in conformity It's straight to the to the Word of God, and then he's described as one who fears
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God And the fear of God's a very important concept in the Word of God Believers both in the
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Old Testament and the New Testament are referred to as God fears those who fear
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God and The fear of God of course is a profound reverence For God and his majesty that affects our conduct it affects the way
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We think what we say and what we do and it's also of course a very healthy dread of his judgments
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And so here's Job and notice how he's described as one who fears
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God he has a reverence for God a profound reverence that affects everything that he does and then finally he's described as Shunning evil he turns away from evil.
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He gets as far away from evil as he can He's not one of these folks who gets as close to sin as they can
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Without getting burned or touched It's kind of like walking to the side of a cliff and he wants to get as close as he can to the edge
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That's not Job at all Job shuns he gets away from it he turns from it and he moves away from evil as far as he can get and Then in verses 2 & 3 notice what it says and seven sons and three daughters were born to him
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Also, his possessions were 7 ,000 sheep 3 ,000 camels 500 yoke of oxen 500 female donkeys and a very large household
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So that this man was the greatest of all the people of the East and His sons would go and feast in their houses each on his appointed day and would sin and invite their three sisters to eat and drink with them
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So it was when the days of feasting had run their course that Job would sin and sanctify them and he would rise early in The morning and offer burnt offerings according to the number of them all for Job said it may be that my sons have sinned and cursed
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God in their hearts Thus Job did regularly Notice Job also has a concern for the spiritual welfare of his children and he's looking after them spiritually and as they get together
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You can see there when they have Feast like this that Job makes them religious feast
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He makes them feast where obviously they're looking to God and they're honoring God and what they do
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And so you can see here the godliness of Job here as it's described He's a man of character and of course character as we know matters so much but as you get to verse 6
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Everything changes. It's no longer on earth It's now in heaven and something's going on in heaven that Job has no
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Idea what's going on? Okay. He has no information about what's going on here in verse 6 this is something beyond his knowledge and Here we have
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God Holding court. Let's look at verse 6 Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the
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Lord and Satan also came among them there's a day where God is up in heaven and Like a king holding court.
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That's exactly what's God. God is doing and what he does is he? Basically calls in the angels the angels here called the sons of God So he calls in the angelic beings in order to give them their charge in an order to You know command them of what they're supposed to do
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But also someone else has to come and give an account of what he is doing and he must get his charges
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Also, and that is Satan God very clearly is sovereign over all things including
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Satan and so Satan comes also in the presence of the Lord Now when you get in the presence of royalty, you know that you just don't start talking to royalty
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You don't just start When you get in the Queen's presence, you don't just start talking to her
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You don't do that at all You stand at attention and you wait until she talks to you and then you can talk to her
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But you don't start speaking first and that's exactly what you see here with Satan Though Satan's in the presence of God, he doesn't say a thing
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He keeps his mouth shut until God addresses him and God does that in verse 7 and the
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Lord said to Satan And where do you come from? So Satan answered the Lord and said from going to and fro on the earth and from walking back and forth on it
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Basically, what Satan is saying here is look I'm going everywhere. I want to go and just wreaking havoc
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I'll go where I want to and do what I want to do, but in verse 8 notice. It's God who brings up Job Notice then the
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Lord said to Satan have you considered my servant Job? That there is none like him on earth a blameless and upright man one who fears
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God and shuns evil Of course here the Lord testifies to the godliness of Job and that he is indeed unique in the earth in his piety or in his godliness and In verse 9
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Satan responds With this so Satan answered the Lord and said does
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Job fear God for nothing? Hey, listen, there's a reason why Job serves you and it's because he's on your payroll as a matter of fact
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He's the number one person on your payroll. You pay him more than anyone else and Because he's the highest man on the payroll.
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That's why he serves you you see Satan does not believe in godliness at all He does not believe in piety.
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He believes that piety or godliness is simply a higher form of selfishness That look it's only for what you can get and since he is being paid so well.
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No wonder he honors and serves you But then in verse 10 you really get
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Satan's answer when the question is have you considered my servant Job? The answer is have you not made a hedge around him around his household and around all that he has on every side
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Satan is confessing here. You know, I couldn't get to him if I wanted to You've built this hedge about him and there's no way
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I can touch him. So the answer is of course. No, I haven't considered him Because indeed you have him so protected.
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I can't even come close to him You have blessed the works of his hands and his possessions have increased in the land
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But now stretch out your hand and touch all that he has and he will surely curse you to your face
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Take away all those possessions you've given him Take away that paycheck take away all that wealth and I tell you what we'll see what what godliness is all about It'll evaporate once you take away his money
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And the Lord said to Satan behold all that he has is in your power Only do not lay a hand on his person
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Notice what God does here. He says, okay, you can take away all his possessions But you can't harm him physically
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Notice again God's sovereignty over Satan. Yes. Satan has power.
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He's very powerful no question about it, but he's under a power far greater and God can limit him at any time in any way he pleases and as you're seeing it right here
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Yes, you can take everything he has But you can't lay a hand on him physically and so what happens, of course
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Satan goes out and at one time Takes out everything job has you know,
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Satan doesn't just take a Little here and then a few months later a little more and so forth
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Satan knows what he's doing and in one instant takes away everything including all of his children and so basically in a very short time
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Job loses everything and As you look at verse 20
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Then Job arose tore his robe and shaved his head and he fell to the ground and he worshipped and he said
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Naked I came from my mother's womb and naked shall I return there the Lord gave and the
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Lord has taken away Blessed be the name of the Lord What you see here is one of the greatest statements of faith that you're gonna see in the
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Word of God This is a tremendous statement of faith and what he's saying here, of course is listen when
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I came into this world I didn't have anything when I leave this world. I'm gonna have nothing Anything that God gives me in between that is just simply his
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Grace and his mercy and his goodness to me that for that limited amount of time that he gave me those possessions
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That he gave me those children for that period of time I'm going to praise him and glorify him for that time that he gave it
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He recognizes he had no inherent right to all those things They were given by God.
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And so when God decided to take those things back Instead of being embittered against God or as Satan would say curse
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God and die. That's not what happened at all He indeed blesses the Lord. He thinks of God's goodness
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Job is no stoic. He's no person who says hey, listen, I can take it.
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Whatever punch is given to me I'm just gonna toughen up and take it not at all Job is definitely a person here who is hurting hurting greatly
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But at the same time he recognizes God's goodness even in disaster
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For even in disaster he recognizes. Hey, listen, these things were their gifts of God and that he decides to take them away
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That is his prerogative well in chapter 2 there's another day where the sons of God come again to present themselves before the
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Lord and Satan again comes among them and this time The issue is this in verse 4 so Satan answered the
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Lord and said skin for skin He's talking about health here Personal give anything for their health you take away their health and I tell you what his piety will depart and So verse 5 but stretch out your hand now and touch his bone in his flesh and he will surely curse you to your face and The Lord said to Satan behold.
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He is in your hand But spare his life Again, you can see what the
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Lord is doing. All right, Satan You can affect him with in terms of his health, but you cannot take away his life
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But you can take away his health and so in verse 7 We see that Satan goes and he strikes
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Job with these painful boils That go from the top of his head to the bottoms of his feet
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And so what he does is he takes these potsherds This is pieces of broken pottery and with great force over and over again he is scraping himself to try to get relief from the great pain that he's in and And Obviously the man is in terrible pain and his wife sees it in verse 9 and she says
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Do you still hold fast to your integrity? curse God and die Now let's talk about Job's wife for a second
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She has Been discussed quite a bit in history and if you go back to the time of Augustine Augustine made this famous statement about her said, you know,
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Satan really knew how to get a Job He took away everything but his wife
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Needless to say Augustine get didn't get supper for the next month for that cracked you can imagine that but She has really
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Been Attacked quite a bit down through the ages and there's no question that her statement is out of line I mean, there's an absolutely no question about that Her statement here is clearly out of line
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But when you look at Job's response to her you see something different I think notice what he says here, but he said to her you speak as one of the foolish women speak
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In other words, I think what Job is saying here is you're not speaking like yourself today
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You're speaking is one of the foolish women speak. This is not nor how you normally speak You must remember she lost everything as well.
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She lost all of her possessions. She lost all of her children and Now she sees her husband's suffering in such a way
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That I'm sure to anyone who was looking would say this is a terminal situation Job's death is inevitable, but yet he's in this great pain
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Now again, no one will defend what she says But yet I think we have to understand that her faith fell under a cloud for a time
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And this could happen to any of us I think she loves her husband and I think when she sees her husband suffering like that for a time her faith becomes weak and Indeed the way that Job responds.
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I think that is so true You're not speaking as you would normally speak you're speaking as foolish women shall we indeed accept good from the from God and shall we not accept adversity and All this
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Job did not sin with his lips but then in verse 11 his friends come and He has three of them, of course
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Eliphaz build dad and so far and when they come
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The first thing they do is sit there and for seven days say nothing And when you read that You think that's very strange
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Someone comes to see in the hospital and they just come and sit down and look at you and say nothing
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But what this is is this is a sign of grief. This is a sign of Of almost mourning for their friend.
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This is not an insult. This is not something where they are in any way trying to Hurt Job But indeed what they're doing is they see him and basically he doesn't even his form is disfigured to them they're looking at him and it doesn't even look like the same individual that they know and they sit there and they have this for a loss for words and They look at him.
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And of course they are greatly greed for him and If you notice in verse 12 and when they raise their eyes from afar and did not recognize him
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Obviously these boils were disfiguring to Job So that his appearance completely changed and they didn't even recognize him
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They lifted their voice and wept and each one tore his robe and sprinkled dust on his head toward heaven
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And they sat down with him on the ground seven days and seven nights and no one spoke a word to him
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For they saw that his grief was very great Now his friends are truly his friends you can see by this they truly love this man and to see him suffering like this it grieves them greatly and Though they love
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Job greatly and so and you can tell by what the scripture says here But yet the friends will be the ones that Satan will use to that last
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Try to get Job to forsake the Lord and so even though again these men greatly loved
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Job Satan is going to use them and try to drive Job from the
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Lord through these men now what's going on here? I mean we we have this
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Things are going on in heaven that Job has no idea about But yet things on earth.
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Oh, he knows what's going on there He's suffering greatly and he's going through these terrible times of testing He lost everything now.
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He's lost his health and Now he's about to go through yet a third testing and that is he's going to go under persistent suffering
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You know when you get the stomach flu or something like that You know if you can just hold on for about 24 hours
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You're gonna be okay But when you know that you're suffering is going to go on and on and maybe to the point that you die
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I Tell you that type of suffering that type of testing Really tries the soul and it just zaps the strength and even it can affect us in so many ways in this situation and Yet when you look at this you wonder is this a kind of contest it is is this a contest between God and Satan?
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Exactly what's going on? Well, I really don't believe it's a contest Because first of all, what does
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God have to prove to Satan? Nothing, nothing at all But yet, what do we see in the
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Word of God? when we look at the Word of God from Adam to Abraham to Joseph you just keep reading through the
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Bible and I tell you what you will always find That God puts our character to the test
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This is what God does God test our character now the Bible Says that God does not tempt us to sin.
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He does not try to allure people or to entice people to sin be at the Bible's very clear that he tests our character and with Job he is testing his character and Here he is the most righteous man on all the earth
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But yet even the most righteous man his character is going to be tested and God is doing this to work grace in his heart and To even purify this man's faith even to a much higher level than it is at this time
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Well as you start chapter 3 you have Discussions and it's kind of a cycle of things
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Job will speak first and then you're gonna have Eliphaz Eliphaz speak and then Job will respond then you'll have
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Bildad speaking then you'll have Zophar After Job responds you have
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Zophar speaking and then Job will respond again and then that whole cycle will turn over again and they'll do it three times and so there's quite the discussion that goes on between these folks and when you look at chapter 3 and You read verse 3
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May the day perish on which I was born and the night in which they said a male child is conceived
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May that day be darkness May God above not seek it nor the light shine upon it
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May darkness and the shadow of death claim it may a cloud settle on it May the blackness of the day terrify it.
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You know as you read that chapter you go. Wait a minute Is this the same Job I read about in at the end of chapter 1?
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It seems like two totally different people doesn't it? I mean before he's saying things like You know the
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Lord gave and the Lord has taken away blessed be the name of the Lord and now he's saying I wish I was never born and You look at that and you go
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Looks like two different people doesn't it? This is exactly what persistent suffering can do to a person
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If you ever go to the hospital to see someone who is in a persistent suffering condition
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This is exactly what you'll see. You'll see a person who? One moment will be making statements of great faith.
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And then the next moment they'll be saying that why has God done this to me? Why is this happening to me?
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I don't understand what God's doing here. Why is God treating me this way? And indeed they'll have a lot of questions about God and the way
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God does things, you know Why did God allow this to happen to me? And there's a lot of things in life that will get you to wonder about the way
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God works Years ago I was at the
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University of Cincinnati Hospital and you walk in there and They have this intensive care ward for children and at any given time there's about 80 beds in there for the infants and When you go in there, it's usually pretty full and when you look around and see all these children,
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I was in there for a few weeks once and I remember I Don't know why
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I didn't recognize this earlier. But after a couple of weeks there I Noticed there's very few parents here
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Very few parents in this place. And so I called over one of the nurses and I said, could you explain something to me?
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Where are the parents? And she gave me some line about well, you got to understand these kids are flown
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Oh flown in here from you know, hundreds of miles away. So the parents can't be here. Okay?
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And I thought about that for a few moments and I called her back over And I said, you know if I were from Russia If I was from Moscow and my child was in here fighting for its life.
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I'd be here Where are the parents and then she looked at me rather coldly and she says you see these kids
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She goes about 80 % of them were on crack cocaine And she says come here.
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I'll show you some things And so we start walking around and she shows me these kids. It was terrible.
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I mean, she's Showed me one child. She said see that And you couldn't hardly tell it was a child
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She goes that's what happens when a mother smokes crack cocaine until she has an abortion. That's exactly what it looks like Then she took me around this corner and here was this almost one -year -old child and that really shocked me and I she goes you see this child
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The parents were just coming through town had it and just kept going they could care less We don't have the heart to give it over to The orphanage yet, so we keep it here
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And you look at these things and you go Lord. How can this be? You know, how can this be?
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When we look at the last century, I mean, it's a century of death It's a it's a century of Holocaust and of genocide and so forth and we look at these things and if it doesn't affect us directly
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Sometimes we don't think about it too much But when these things affect us directly then we do start to wonder
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Lord What about these things and especially when it happens to us as individuals? Or when it happens to one of our loved ones directly when they start suffering we start wondering.
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Wait a minute Why them, you know, there's people out there who don't even want the kids you see
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Why doesn't it happen to those kinds of people? Why does it happen to the righteous? Why do these things happen to the righteous?
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And so when you come to a book like this There's a lot of issues here. There's a lot of questions that the
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Lord is going to talk about here So Job Under persistent suffering you see how he starts questioning
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God and at times he'll say hey God is treating me like an enemy God is persecuting me and You can see that Job's Idea is this if I could get the
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Lord in a courtroom And could argue my case. I would win the
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I would win the case. I haven't done anything to deserve this Now when you look at the friends and when you look at Job Here's what they believe they believe that in this life.
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You suffer in just proportion to how wicked you are and in this life You're blessed in just proportion to how righteous you are that's what they think and So as you see these conversations, it's kind of like something happens to someone.
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It's like aha What did they do? That happened, you know what they must have done something bad.
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And so as they speak the first time around What the his friends say to him is listen
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We all believe in the depravity of man. We all believe in man's sinfulness and it's yes.
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Amen. Absolutely But Job says wait a minute. I don't have the flu
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Okay, this is not just a cold My sufferings are far beyond anything like this
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So that's not gonna answer it so they come back to him the second time and they say, okay Joe Listen, we've listened to you.
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You have blamed God for many things You said God is not right in the way.
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He's treating you. You said some things about God that were out of line You know, you need to repent of these things and maybe
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God will make you better and he goes listen You need to have sympathy with me You need to understand my position where I am if you were suffering like me you would understand my statements
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And so they finally come back to him the third time and they say okay Joe, you know, we've tried to Be nice about this, but now we're gonna tell you the truth.
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You're the most wicked man's ever lived You are you're just the worst guy that's ever been you've you've been mean to the widow and You've taken money away from the orphan and they start listing his sins because in their mind
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There's only you know, you're suffering that much You must have done all these you had to or you can't suffer like this
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You see so they start listing his sins out for him And if you notice
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Job, he keeps going back and forth in his mind. He'll make a great statement of faith and Then he'll make a statement
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Questioning God he'll go back and forth back and forth Now his friends have a lot to say and When you read what his friends what the friends say a lot of it is very good it is
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Fantastic theology. The problem is they're applying their fantastic theology improperly
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But to prove to you that it's very good theology the Apostle Paul quotes it in first Corinthians He quotes them in a very positive way that what they were saying theologically
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Paul's like boom that's Scripture But yet they're Misapplying it as good as their theology is and it's very good
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Now the one part of the one problem with their theology is again that you suffer in just proportion how weak you are now
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That's wrong. The Scriptures don't teach that but yet As you look in here you can see that Job here is struggling with that himself.
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That's the theology. He's holding to as well. He does not understand He hasn't done anything to deserve this
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But yet when you turn over to chapter 19 This is where Job really gets the victory.
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Okay. This is where Job really achieves the victory He's going back and forth back and forth, but it's in this chapter that Job Achieves a victory that's going to sustain him to the end.
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And so let's look at chapter 19 verse 21
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Have pity on me have pity on me. Oh you my friends for the hand of God has struck me
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Why do you persecute me as God does and are not satisfied with my flesh?
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Oh that my words were inscribed. Oh that they were inscribed in a book That they were engraved on a rock with an iron pin and lead forever
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Now what he's talking about here is When he's talking about his words being inscribed and so forth the words that he's talking about here is his words of integrity
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The words that listen, I'm innocent. I'm not the most wicked man on the earth I'm not this sinner that deserves this kind of punishment
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Okay, and therefore what I want is I want written listen, I'm innocent and one day my name is gonna be cleared
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I'm gonna be vindicated one day and So what he wants to do though as you can see here is he wants to go to a rock
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With an iron pin and lead because he wants it to be there forever And Kings in the old days just like our politicians today.
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They like to put their names on roads and Monuments and so forth that way we live forever and So when one
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King in the ancient days took over from another King the first order of business was this
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Let's get rid of all those old inscriptions and start putting up my inscriptions and some
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Kings became pretty wise about that They knew what was going to happen. And so one King in particular a man named
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Darius Said I've got a great idea I'm gonna go to the side of a mountain Carve my glory on the side of a mountain and then shear off the rest of the mountain so that no one
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Can he face my glory on this mountain and it's still there by the way What Job's wanting to do the same thing?
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He doesn't want to write this on some kind of papyrus or something like that. No, no, no, no paper for me
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Put it on the side of a mountain I don't want anyone to erase it because my name one day is gonna be cleared
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I'm gonna be vindicated one day. I want it on the side of a mountain. I want it to be there forever You see because one day
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My Redeemer is going to come Now a Redeemer in the Old Testament was very important you wanted a
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Redeemer in those days Your Redeemer was your rich uncle your lawyer your financial advisor your doctor everything combined
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I mean, this is the guy you wanted you see the Redeemer would help you out when you became financially strapped and Sold into slavery or something like that.
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Your Redeemer can come and get you out of that trouble. And so you needed a Redeemer in the old days and But if you notice when he talks about his
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Redeemer for I know that my Redeemer lives and that he shall stand at last on the Earth he's not talking about a rich uncle here
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He's not talking about some kind of relatives who would come and bail him out of trouble. That's not gonna happen
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He's talking about his heavenly Redeemer. He's talking about God God is going to vindicate me at last and After my skin is destroyed in other words after my death
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After my skin is destroyed this I know that in my flesh. I shall see God you see
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God is his Redeemer Whom I shall see for myself and my eyes shall behold and not another how my heart yearns within me
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What he's saying here, of course is listen God will be my vindicator
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God knows the truth of the situation. He knows the facts of my case and One day he is going to Redeem me.
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He's going to vindicate me from all of my troubles. Maybe not in this lifetime It's going to be maybe at the end of time, but my day of vindications coming and that's again
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That's exactly why he wants it written on the rock. It's got to be there a long time He's not expecting vindication in this life by talking to his friends.
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He realizes The chances of vindication in this life are almost nothing to him, but he's looking down the future
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Now when he talks here about God is his Redeemer What person of the
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Trinity would we be talking about who is the Redeemer of God's people Christ Indeed, he's talking about Christ when you look at the office that God here is described as having here
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Redeemer That's the office of the second person of the Trinity and so indeed he's looking for a
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Christ to one day Vindicate him from all of his problems
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Well when you get to the end of their discussions Turn to chapter 32
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When they get to the end you exact that you expect so far the third of the friends to have one more speech to make
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But apparently he's so frustrated. He decides not to speak. He just stays quiet and so now
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Job Has finished speaking and it's like a standoff. It's like a draw a stalemate
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Neither side is giving here. Neither side is budging and when you get to chapter 32 a new man comes
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Elihu Elihu seems like a young fellow who's full of zeal and has a lot to say and He's a very important character here in the book a very important person here in the book
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Because he's going to be like a John the Baptist He is going to prepare the way for the
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Lord and he's going to change The theology a little bit he's going to make a shift in the way they're looking at things
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And of course, he says some things about Job very negatively and he says some things also against the friends
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He's not pleased with either side and what they're saying and when you turn over to chapter 33 verse 15
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You can see his argument that he starts to build Let's look at verse 14
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For God may speak in one way or in another Yet man does not perceive it.
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God can speak to man in many ways Okay, one way or the other he can speak
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He's gonna list two ways in particular notice the first one in verse 15 in a dream in a vision of the night
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When deep sleep falls upon men while slumbering on their bed Then he opens the ears of men and seals their instruction in order to turn man from his deed and conceal pride from man
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The first way he speaks to him is through his word and in that day it was through dreams and visions
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Okay, that was the way God communicated They didn't have the Bible obviously and God would give he would seal their instructions through dreams and visions
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And so that's what's described here is one way in which God speaks to man
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Be it there's another way that's verse 19 Man is also chastened with pain on his bed and with strong pain in many of his bones
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There's another way God can talk to us and that's through some of the hard knocks of life through sufferings through things like sickness through the loss of health have a very good friend who's a
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Critical care doctor in Indianapolis, Indiana, and he has the
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Difficult job of walking into rooms and saying you basically have three months to live things like that he has some very difficult things to tell families and He's a very godly man.
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And so once he has to tell them that he starts telling about say listen I really can't do much for you from here on in only
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God can through Jesus Christ and He's told me he says, you know, I walk into all kinds of rooms and He says
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I'm sure some of them are atheistic and everything else when I give them the news That they have just a few weeks or months to live and then
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I mentioned to them. Listen only God can help you now When I say that to them, he says
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I don't get anybody wanting to throw me out of the room Probably if I met him on the street and said this, you know, just talk to him in general about the
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Lord You know no telling what they would say to me But after I tell them the news Tell you what, they usually tell me.
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Thank you doctor, and they want to listen even to what he has to say suffering and Loss of health it can do many things for us
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One thing it can do is it can help us to focus our mind on what's important? We're people of this world and we get caught up in the world and the things of this world and when we do that Our priorities get messed up But when the
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Lord communicates to us sometimes through suffering it can get our attention and it can refocus our priorities and what's important and what's not important and Even the sickness of a loved one can do the same thing
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Even when a loved one is sick, it can help us to think about what's really important in this life and what's not
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So God can also speak to us with chastening with pain on the bed
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Look at verse 20 so that his life abhors bread and his soul succulent food but keep reading down and Notice in verse 28 he that he might redeem his soul from going down to the pit and his life shall see the light
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In other words what he's saying here is listen God communicates to us through suffering
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And it's not necessarily a sign of his judgment upon us. It can be a sign of his grace upon us again in verse 28
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He will redeem his soul from going down to the pit and his life shall see the light
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God sometimes do this to redeem our souls from going down to the pit suffering can help us to see again the important things of life and God's grace can be through this kind of communication
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So what Elihu is doing here is he's saying listen, it's not necessarily a person suffers. Aha.
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They must have done something wrong They're suffering in just proportion how wicked they are no Suffering can be a sign of God's favor.
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He can be doing a work of grace in you to draw you back from the pit He might be doing a work of grace in you
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To as it says in verse 30 to bring back his soul from the pit that he might be enlightened with the light of life
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Job this can be nothing less than the grace of God upon you Don't see the suffering is simply the judgment of God, but it might be also the grace of God Well when
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Elihu comes to the end of his argument if you look at chapter 37 when he comes to the end of his argument he starts to describe a storm and the storm apparently is out there on the horizon and he sees the storm on the horizon and he starts comparing the
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Ways of God to a storm and how God uses storms Because later on the next chapter when
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God starts to speak The storm has come very close and God is now speaking out of the storm out of the whirlwind out of the tornado
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And so there's that storm in the distance. And so he starts talking about that. And again, this is very highly poetic language here
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Look at verse 5 God thunders marvelously with his voice. He does great things Which we cannot comprehend for he says to the snow fall on the earth likewise to the gentle rain into the heavy rain of his strength and So he starts talking verse 9 from the chambers of the south comes the whirlwind and the cold from the scattering winds of the north
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Verse 10 again, very nice poetic language here in the Bible by the breath of God ice is given
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Yeah, I just love that. That's excellent By the breath of God ice is given and the broad waters are frozen
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But look at verse 13 because that's a very key verse to his argument. He causes it to come by it
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He's referring to rain. He's referring to the storm He causes it to come For a correction or for his land or for his mercy.
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You see the same storm God can use for a correction. He can bring it for judgment.
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He can bring the tornado through a neighborhood in Order for his judgment in order to punish the people as they can
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But he can also bring it for the sake of his land or for his mercy, you know for the storm doesn't come
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Famine is going to come terrible things are going to happen. So God can use the storm either for judgment or for mercy for his grace and Obviously what
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Elihu is getting across here? It's the same with the sufferings the sufferings can be the judgment of God but the sufferings also can be the mercy and grace of God and so As we turn to chapter 38
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God appears Now it's interesting that Elihu comes and he corrects
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The incorrect teaching. Okay, he corrects the errors of the teaching That you suffer in just proportion to how wicked you are and so forth.
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Okay, he corrects that But yet Elihu himself, he can't explain the ways of God and when
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God comes it's interesting God doesn't sit down with Job and say now Job. Let me explain
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What I have done and why I have done it and hopefully you will approve of it No God's ways are far above our ways.
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His thoughts are far above our thoughts and We're simply not going to Fully comprehend the ways of God and when
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God comes God doesn't explain all of his ways to Job For Job's approval or something like this.
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No the theological problem. He was having has been corrected
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So why should God come now? Because what God wants to do is far more important than just correct a theological point to correct
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Let's say a mental Problem he had about this.
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Okay, he had a certain objection in his mind now that objection has been settled fine books finished, right?
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No God wants to do something far deeper than that and that is
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God is now going to work in the soul of Job, okay.
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In other words You can have great teaching about the Word of God But unless it gets in the heart and Less the
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Lord unless the Holy Spirit takes the Word of God and changes your heart with it. It's not going to do you any good
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The Word of God is not like any other work Yes, we can we can memorize the entire thing
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I had professors who had the entire Bible memorized in Hebrew the whole thing, but they didn't believe it
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They didn't believe it They didn't But they had the whole thing memorized
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The key is the Holy Spirit has to take the word To your soul and apply it to your soul
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That's when the Word of God has its real effect That's when the Word of God is the power of God unto salvation as the scripture says
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I'm a teacher. I can teach facts. I Can teach errors too, by the way, but I can teach facts.
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I Can't do anything about your heart only the Holy Spirit can do that No professor no preacher can do it.
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It's the Holy Spirit Yes, we want to put out the Word of God in its most pure form but it's the
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Holy Spirit that has to take it and change the heart change the soul and That's what
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God is doing here. He now comes to him and it looks like you know, Job wanted his day in court
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Well, he's getting it now But God's the prosecuting attorney it looks like and he just fires question, you know, we have all these questions for God Well, God has a few questions for us
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And he starts firing them One right after the other explain this to me explain that to me.
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Where were you when I did this? Do you understand why I did this and you look at this and you go what is going on?
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I thought we were the ones that had all the questions God's got a few for us Yeah, he does he's got a few for us and he's gonna get his questions in first when you can answer his questions
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He'll be more than happy to answer your questions So answer mine first is what God is saying and he starts a boy
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He starts firing the questions and Job doesn't have a lot to say he was very talkative loquacious
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If you like he would boy he could talk He's not talking now He's doing a lot of listening
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And in chapter 40 he does say something shall the one who contends with the mighty this is verse 2 of chapter 40
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Shall the one who contends the still God speaking here shall the one who contends with the
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Almighty correct him? Yeah, you want to correct me? He who rebukes
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God let him answer it You've been rebuking me and so forth. But now
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Job answers the Lord and said behold I am vile Although he's saying basically
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I am NOT I am so small. I'm so insignificant. I am nothing
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I will lay my hand over my mouth Once I have spoken, but I will not answer.
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Yes twice, but I will proceed no further Basically, he's gonna be quiet Then God goes right back to asking more questions
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Then you get to chapter 42 and Job speaks again.
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I know that you can do Everything and that no purpose of yours can be withheld from you.
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You asked who is this who hides? Counsel without knowledge therefore I have uttered what
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I did not understand things too wonderful for me, which I did not know Listen, please and let me speak.
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You said I will question you and you shall answer me Listen to this. I have heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eyes sees you
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Therefore I abhor myself and repent and dust and ashes Now if I start asking you
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Bible questions or history questions or math questions and I ask you a math question like, you know, what's two and two and you say five and I say no you don't say
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I Repent in sackcloth and ashes. You don't say that You repent in sackcloth and ashes when
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God does something to your soul This is not just a matter of I didn't know those answers. That's not what's going on here
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Again, the key of what he says is I have heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eyes sees you
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Now God was speaking out of the whirlwind. He's not literally seeing him. He's seeing a whirlwind and God's speaking out of it
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But he's saying, you know through these questions through your word that you have spoken to me.
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I See you like I've never seen you before I See you as the infinitely wise and perfect God that you are and Though God never explains to him the whys that we all want to know what
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God says to him is listen You can trust in me. I'm the one who created the universe
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I'm the one who put it all together and everything that's happening. It's in my hand and What Job when
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Job sees him it changes everything and he goes Listen I repent,
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I can't believe I questioned you in this way because You are so infinitely powerful
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Infinitely wise that if this is part of your plan It must be part of an infinitely wise plan.
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I See, there's a lot of children out there. I got three and remember when you take them to the doctor and And What goes to their little minds
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I wonder You take them there and the doctor starts poking them with needles things like that I'm sure my children also think when we sit down to dinner at night
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Why is it that I cannot have ice cream for every meal, you know? Why does my father and my mother force me to have broccoli and asparagus and all these other things?
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I don't understand, you know, they're little minds Why does he take me to this guy who tortures me, you know with needles why why and As in as adults we could explain it to him.
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Well, you see there's these diseases like polio and dirt up No, yeah, it won't make any sense to them.
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I mean it doesn't forget it, you know, forget it Well, you see there's vitamins in those broccoli
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Forget it. Just eat your broccoli. You see that's what we're gonna have to say to them Their little minds don't understand but here's the one thing they do understand they understand it very well
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They trust us as parents They trust that what we're doing is best for them
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And that's exactly what Job is here Job's mind just like our mind the greatest of human minds on a very small level
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God's mind is far above our mind. And if this is the way he's working we can trust him
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Tell you what the days are coming Where there's going to be tragedies to happen to every person in this room great tragedies and on that day
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We're gonna have to remember who is God is he infinitely wise and powerful?
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Is he one that we can go to in days when? Our loved ones are dying or when we're dying and can we trust him?
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Can we trust him in those difficult difficult times? We have a lot of questions for God There's no doubt about it.
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But when we read the Word of God Do we see him as Job sees him? I've heard of you by the ear but now my eye has seen you and as we read the
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Word of God and As the Holy Spirit takes that word and applies it to our heart and it changes us should make us people of faith
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So that when that difficult day comes We can say listen Lord. I don't understand this.
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I don't understand any of this But I trust in you because you're indeed a great
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God we owe a lot to Job Job was that great example for us and he blazed the trail for all of us who are going to suffer after him
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He didn't have the advantage of having some other Job to look to But we can look to him and we can see how
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God purified his faith in such a way To make him one of the great heroes of faith and though he's the most righteous man on the earth
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His faith could be even purified even more and so can our faith as well
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God is going to test the character of every person in here He tests it with everyone all who comes to him
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He chastises the scriptures teach and so we must recognize that but always we should look to him in faith and by the reading of the word and by The preaching of the word and by prayer we can look to him in faith in those difficult days.
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Let us pray Father we thank you for who you are We know that you are infinitely perfect in all your ways and especially in this book
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You've revealed yourself as infinitely wise and perfect and Lord Obviously you do not owe us any explanation for your your works and your deeds
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But yet you love us and we can trust in you as a child trust in their parents
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May we have that type of trust and faith in you this day We pray even now that you would prepare us
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For any testing of our character that you would have for us and for that difficult day that may come in the lives of each one here