Job

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 even have grass or anything like that. We just thought, you know, up there, it is just, you know, it's all ice.

But you come up here and this is just beautiful country. And this morning, 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.

I've been here a few times now. I've taught down at the Baptist Center, probably, oh, 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 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. Now we're gonna try to cover all 42 chapters, but we're gonna do it in a hurry. So we're gonna move very quickly and try to cover the entire 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 one and verse one. There was in the land of Uz a man whose name was Job. And that man was blameless and upright and one who feared God and shunned evil.

Job’s Character and Family Before the Suffering

Of course, we start off finding out about this man and we find out he's in the land of Uz. That's probably in Edom. And of course, Edom historically is like, if you go back into biblical days, is like the arch enemy of Israel.

You would not expect one of the great biblical heroes to come from a land that was historically 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 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 Uz. Other than that, we don't know anything about his genealogy, but yet we learn from him about his character.

And he's described here as blameless, which in the old King James, it says perfect, but you don't wanna think of sinless perfection here. For even in chapter 13 of the book of Job, Job talks about the sins of his youth.

He does not claim some type of sinless perfection, but when he talks about being blameless, he's talking about being whole or complete in his walk with God. It's not there, it was just a few commandments that he liked, but these other commandments he didn't like, or that he was live godly, let's say on Sundays, but when it came to Monday through Saturday, well, that's a different matter altogether.

No, this man's walk with God was complete, it was whole. This man had integrity is the notion here. He's also described here as upright. And the notion of upright is someone whose life is 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 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, twisted, perverted, but not Job.

His life is in conformity, it's straight to the word of God. And then he's described as one who fears God. And the fear of God's a very important concept in the word of God. Believers, both in the Old Testament and the New Testament are referred to as God-fearers, those who fear 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 we think, what we say, and what we do. And it's also, of course, a very healthy dread of his judgments.

And so here's Job, and notice how he's described as one who fears 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. 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 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.

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 two and three, notice what it says, and seven sons and three daughters were born to him.

Also his possessions were 7 ,000 sheep, 3 ,000 camels, 500 yoke of oxen, 500 female donkeys, and a very large household. 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.

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 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, you can see when they have a feast like this, that Job makes them religious feast.

He makes them feast where obviously they're looking to God and they're honoring God and what they do. 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.

Satan Before God and the First Test of Job

But as you get to verse six, everything changes. It's no longer on earth, it's now in heaven. And something's going on in heaven that Job has no idea what's going on, okay? He has no information about what's going on here in verse six.

This is something beyond his knowledge. And here we have God holding court. Let's look at verse six. Now, there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord and Satan also came among them.

There's a day where God is up in heaven and like a king holding court, that's exactly what God is doing. And what he does is he basically calls in the angels. The angels here are called the sons of God.

So he calls in the angelic beings in order to give them their charge and in order to command them of what they're supposed to do. But also someone else has to come and give an account of what he is doing.

And he must get his charges also, and that is Satan. God very clearly is sovereign over all things, including 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.

You don't just start, when you get in the queen's presence, you don't just start talking to her. 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, 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. He keeps his mouth shut until God addresses him. And God does that in verse seven. And the 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. Basically what Satan is saying here is, look, I'm going everywhere I wanna go and just wreaking havoc.

I'll go where I want to and do what I wanna do. But in verse eight, notice it's God who brings up Job. Notice, then the 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 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 nine, Satan responds with this. So Satan answered the Lord and said, does 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, 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, that's why he serves you.

You see, Satan does not believe in godliness at all. He does not believe in piety. 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, no wonder he honors and serves you. But then in verse 10, you really get 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?

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 I can touch him. So the answer is, of course, no, I haven't considered him.

Because indeed, you have him so protected, I can't even come close to him. You have blessed the works of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. But now, stretch out your hand and touch all that he has, and he will surely curse you to your face.

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 godliness is all about. It'll evaporate once you take away his money.

And the Lord said to Satan, behold, all that he has is in your power. Only do not lay a hand on his person. Notice what God does here. He says, okay, you can take away all his possessions, but you can't harm him physically.

Notice again, God's sovereignty over Satan. Yes, Satan has power. 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, yes, you can take everything he has, but you can't lay a hand on him physically. And so what happens? Of course, Satan goes out and at one time takes out everything Job has.

You know, Satan doesn't just take a little here, and then a few months later, a little more and so forth. 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, Job loses everything. And as you look at verse 20, then Job arose, tore his robe and shaved his head. And he fell to the ground and he worshiped. And he said, naked I came from my mother's womb and naked shall I return there.

The Lord gave and the 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 word of God. This is a tremendous statement of faith.

And what he's saying here, of course, is listen, when 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 grace and his mercy and his goodness to me.

That for that limited amount of time, that he gave me those possessions, 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. He recognizes he had no inherent right to all those things.

They were given by God. And so when God decided to take those things back, instead of being embittered against God, or as Satan would say, curse God and die, that's not what happened at all. He indeed blesses the Lord.

He thinks of God's goodness. Job is no stoic. He's no person who says, hey, listen, I can take it. 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.

But at the same time, he recognizes God's goodness, even in disaster. For even in disaster, he recognizes, hey, listen, these things were the gifts of God, and that he decides to take them away. That is his prerogative.

Job’s Suffering, His Wife, and the Comfort of His Friends

Well, in chapter two, there's another day where the sons of God come again to present themselves before the Lord. And Satan again comes among them. And this time, the issue is this in verse four. So Satan answered the Lord and said, skin for skin.

He's talking about health here. Person will give anything for their health. You take away their health. And I tell you what, his piety will depart. And so verse five, but stretch out your hand now and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will surely curse you to your face.

And the Lord said to Satan, behold, he is in your hand, but spare his life. Again, you can see what the Lord is doing. All right, Satan. You can affect him in terms of his health, but you cannot take away his life, but you can take away his health.

And so in verse seven, we see that Satan goes and he strikes Job with these painful boils that go from the top of his head to the bottoms of his feet. 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 obviously the man is in terrible pain. And his wife sees it in verse nine. And she says, do you still hold fast to your integrity?

Curse God and die. Now, let's talk about Job's wife for a second. 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, Satan really knew how to get at Job.

He took away everything but his wife. Needless to say, Augustine didn't get supper for the next month for that crack. You can imagine that. But she has really 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 absolutely no question about that. Her statement here is clearly out of line. 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. In other words, I think what Job is saying here is, you're not speaking like yourself today. You're speaking as one of the foolish women speak.

This is not how you normally speak. You must remember, she lost everything as well. She lost all of her possessions. She lost all of her children. And now she sees her husband suffering in such a way 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. 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. And this can 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, 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 God? And shall we not accept adversity? And all this Job did not sin with his lips. But then in verse 11, his friends come. And he has three of them, of course, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar.

And when they come, 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. Someone comes to see in the hospital and they just come and sit down and look at you and say nothing.

But what this is, is this is a sign of grief. This is a sign of almost mourning for their friend. 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, I mean, they're just for a loss for words. And they look at him and of course, they are greatly grieved for him.

And if you notice in verse 12, and when they raise their eyes from afar and did not recognize him, obviously these boils were disfiguring to Job so that his appearance completely changed and they didn't even recognize him.

They lifted their voice and wept and each one tore his robe and sprinkled dust on his head toward heaven. And they sat down with him on the ground seven days and seven nights and no one spoke a word to him 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 Job greatly 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 try to get Job to forsake the Lord.

And so even though again, these men greatly love Job, Satan is going to use them and try to drive Job from the Lord through these men. Now, what's going on here? I mean, we have this, things are going on in heaven that Job has no idea about, but yet things on earth, 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 he's lost his health. And now he's about to go through yet a third testing. And that is, he's gonna go under persistent suffering.

You know, when you get the stomach flu or something like that, you know if you can just hold on for about 24 hours, you're gonna be okay. But when you know that your suffering is going to go on and on and maybe to the point that you die, 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 some kind of contest? Is this a contest between God and Satan? I mean, exactly what's going on?

Well, I really don't believe it's a contest because first of all, what does God have to prove to Satan? Nothing, nothing at all. But yet, what do we see in the word of God? When we look at the word of God from Adam to Abraham to Joseph, you just keep reading through the Bible.

And I tell you what you will always find, that God puts our character to the test. This is what God does. God tests our character. Now, the Bible says that God does not tempt us to sin. He does not try to allure people or to entice people to sin.

But yet, the Bible is 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. 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. Well, as you start chapter three, you have discussions. And it's kind of a cycle of things.

Job will speak first, and then you're gonna have Eliphaz speak, and then Job will respond. Then you'll have Bildad speaking. Then you'll have Zophar, after Job responds, you'll have 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 three, and you read verse three, may the day perish on which I was born, and the night in which they said a male child is conceived.

May that day be darkness. May God above not seek it, nor the light shine upon it. May darkness and the shadow of death claim it. May a cloud settle on it. May the blackness of the day terrify it. You know, as you read that chapter, you go, wait a minute.

Is this the same Job I read about at the end of chapter one? It seems like two totally different people, doesn't it? I mean, before he's saying things like, you know, the 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, looks like two different people, doesn't it? This is exactly what persistent suffering can do to a person.

If you ever go to the hospital to see someone who is in a persistent suffering condition, this is exactly what you'll see. You'll see a person who one moment will be making statements of great faith. And then the next moment they'll be saying, but why has God done this to me?

Why is this happening to me? 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 God does things. You know, why did God allow this to happen to me?

You know, there's a lot of things in life that will get you to wonder about the way God works. Years ago, I was at the 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, I was in there for a few weeks once.

And I remember that, I don't know why I didn't recognize this earlier, but after a couple of weeks there, I noticed there's very few parents here, very few parents in this place. And so I called over one of the nurses and I said, could you explain something to me?

Where are the parents? And she gave me some line about, well, you gotta understand these kids are flown in here from hundreds of miles away, so the parents can't be here. I'm like, okay. 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, I'd be here. Where are the parents? And then she looked at me rather coldly and she says, you see these kids?

She goes, about 80 of them are on crack cocaine. And she says, come here, I'll show you some things. And so we start walking around and she shows me these kids. It was terrible. I mean, she showed me one child.

She says, see that? You couldn't hardly tell it was a child. 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 she goes, you see this child? 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.

And you look at these things and you go, Lord, how can this be? You know, how can this be? When we look at the last century, I mean, it's a century of death. 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, sometimes we don't think about it too much, but when these things affect us directly, then we do start to wonder, 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, wait a minute, why them? You know, there's people out there who don't even want kids, you see?

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? 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 Lord is going to talk about here. So Job, under persistent suffering, you see how he starts questioning 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 Lord in a courtroom and could argue my case, 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, 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.

It's like, aha, what did they do? That happened. You know they must have done something bad for that to happen to them, you know? And so as they speak, the first time around, what his friends say to him is, listen, we all believe in the depravity of man.

We all believe in man's sinfulness. And it's, yes, amen, absolutely. But Job says, wait a minute. I don't have the flu, okay? This is not just a cold. My sufferings are far beyond anything like this, you see?

So that's not gonna answer it. So they come back to him the second time and they say, okay, Job, listen, we've listened to you. You have blamed God for many things. You said God is not right in the way 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 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, you see? And so they finally come back to him the third time and they say, okay, Job, you know, we've tried to be nice about this, but now we're gonna tell you the truth.

You're the most wicked man's ever lived. You are, you're just the worst guy that's ever been. 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, there's only, you know, you're suffering that much.

You must've done all these, you had to, or you can't suffer like this, you see? So they start listing his sins out for him. And if you notice 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 questioning God.

He'll go back and forth, back and forth. Now his friends have a lot to say. And when you read what the friends say, a lot of it is very good. It is fantastic theology. The problem is they're applying their fantastic theology improperly.

But to prove to you that it's very good theology, the apostle Paul quotes it in 1 Corinthians. He quotes them in a very positive way that what they were saying theologically, Paul's like, boom, that's scripture, see?

But yet they're misapplying it. As good as their theology is, and it's very good. Now the one part, the one problem with their theology is, again, that you suffer in just proportion how weak you are. Now that's wrong.

Scriptures don't teach that. But yet, as you look in here, you can see that Job here is struggling with that himself. That's the theology he's holding to as well. He does not understand. He hasn't done anything to deserve this.

But yet when you turn over to chapter 19, this is where Job really gets the victory, 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.

And so let's look at chapter 19. Verse 21, have pity on me, have pity on me. Oh, you, my friends, for the hand of God has struck me. Why do you persecute me as God does and are not satisfied with my flesh?

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. 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.

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, okay? And therefore, what I want is I want written, listen, I'm innocent, and one day my name is gonna be cleared.

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 with an iron pin and lead because he wants it to be there forever. Kings in the old days, just like our politicians today, they like to put their names on roads and monuments and so forth.

That way we live forever. And so when one king in the ancient days took over from another king, the first order of business was this. Let's get rid of all those old inscriptions and start putting up my inscriptions.

And some kings became pretty wise about that. They knew what was gonna happen. And so one king in particular, a man named 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 can efface my glory on this mountain.

And it's still there, by the way. Well, Job's wanting to do the same thing. He doesn't wanna write this on some kind of papyrus or something like that. No, no, no, no paper for me. 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. 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 my Redeemer is going to come.

Now, a Redeemer in the Old Testament was very important. You wanted a Redeemer in those days. Your Redeemer was your rich uncle, your lawyer, your financial advisor, your doctor, everything combined. 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. Your Redeemer can come and get you out of that trouble. And so you needed a Redeemer in the old days.

But if you notice, when he talks about his 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. He's not talking about some kind of relatives who would come and bail him out of trouble.

That's not gonna happen. 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, after my skin is destroyed, this I know that in my flesh, I shall see God.

You see, God is his Redeemer. Whom I shall see for myself and my eyes shall behold and not another, how my heart yearns within me. What he's saying here, of course, is listen, God will be my vindicator.

God knows the truth of the situation. He knows the facts of my case. And one day he is going to redeem me. 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 vindication is coming.

And again, that's exactly why he wants it written on the rock. It's gotta be there a long time. He's not expecting vindication in this life. By talking to his friends, he realizes the chances of vindication in this life are almost nothing to him, but he's looking down the future.

Now, when he talks here about God as his Redeemer, what person of the 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, Redeemer, that's the office of the second person of the Trinity.

And so indeed, he's looking for a Christ to one day vindicate him from all of his problems. Well, when you get to the end of their discussions, turn to chapter 32. When they get to the end, you expect Zophar, the third of the friends, to have one more speech to make, but apparently he's so frustrated he decides not to speak.

He just stays quiet. And so now Job has finished speaking and it's like a standoff. It's like a draw, a stalemate. Neither side is giving here, neither side is budging. And when you get to chapter 32, a new man comes, Elihu.