Job 1-2, Job Part 1

Job as a Drama of Suffering and Divine Revelation

Job chapter 1 and 2. There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job and that man was blameless and upright One who feared God and turned away from evil. There were born to him seven sons and three daughters he possessed seven thousand sheep and three thousand camels five hundred yoke of oxen and five hundred female donkeys and Very many servants so that this man was the greatest of all the people of the East.

His sons used to go and hold a feast in the house of each one on his day and they would send and invite their Three sisters to eat and to drink with them.

And.

When the days of the feast had run their course Job would send and consecrate 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 children have sinned and have cursed God in their hearts.

Thus Job did continually. Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord and Satan also came in among them. The Lord said to Satan from where have you come? Satan answered the Lord and said from going to and fro on the earth and from walking up and down on it.

And the Lord said To Satan have you considered my servant Job that there is none like him on the earth a blameless and upright man Who fears God and turns away from evil? Then Satan answered the Lord and said Does Job fear God for no reason?

Have you not put a hedge around him and his house and all that he has on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands and his possessions have increased in the land but stretch out your hand and touch all that he has and he will curse you to your face.

And The Lord said to Satan behold all that he has is in your hand only against him. Do not stretch out your hand. So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord now there was a day when his sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother's house and there came a messenger to Job and said the oxen were plowing and the donkeys feeding beside them and the Sabians fell upon them and took them and struck them and Struck down the servants with the edge of the sword and I alone have escaped to tell you while he was yet speaking.

There came another and said the fire of God fell from heaven and burned up the sheep and the servants and consumed them and I alone have escaped to tell you while it was yet speaking there came another and said the Chaldeans formed three groups and made a raid on the camels and took them and struck down the servants with the edge of the sword and I alone have escaped to tell you.

And while he was yet speaking there came another and said your sons and daughters were eating and Drinking wine and their oldest brother's house and behold a great wind came across the wilderness and struck the four corners of the house.

And it fell upon the young people and they are dead and I alone have escaped to tell you. Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head and fell on the ground and worshiped and He said naked. I came from my mother's womb and naked.

I shall return. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away Blessed be the name of the Lord in all this Job did not sin or charge God with wrong. Again, there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord and Satan also came in among them to Present himself before the Lord and the Lord said to Satan from where have you come?

Satan answered the Lord and said from going to and fro on the earth and from walking up and down on it and the Lord Said to Satan have you considered my servant Job that there is none like him on the earth a blameless and upright man Who fears God and turns away from evil?

He still holds fast his integrity. Although you incited me against him to destroy him without reason. Then Satan answered the Lord and said skin for skin all that a man has he will give for his life. But stretch out your hand and touch his bone in his flesh and he will curse you to your face.

And the Lord said to Satan behold he is in your hand only spare his life. So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord and struck Job with loathsome sores from the sole of his foot to the crown Of his head and he took a piece of broken pottery with which to scrape himself while he sat in the ashes.

Then his wife said to him. Do you still hold fast your integrity curse God and die. But he said to her you speak as one of the foolish women would speak. Shall we receive good from God and shall we not receive evil.

And all this Job did not sin with his lips. Now when Job's three friends heard of all this evil that had come upon him. They came each from his own place. Eliphaz the Timonite build at the shoe height and so far the name of fight.

They made an appointment together to come to show him sympathy and comfort him. And when they saw him from a distance They did not recognize him and they raised their voices and wept and they tore their robes and sprinkled dust on their heads Toward heaven and they sat with him on the ground seven days and seven nights and no one spoke a word to him.

For they saw that his suffering Was very great. May the Lord had his blessings to the reading of his Holy Word. Well, do you think you have God figure it out? I'm sure you may not be a great theological scholar, but you figure you know God, you know.

Basically how he works you think you know when someone at school or work or a friend mentions God. You're like you are when you know the answer to a jeopardy question, you know, I know this one. After all, is that that how we've been selling God?

The gospel and the church for the past few generations. It's it's not about religion. We like to say but a relationship about intimacy with God. That is you can know God like you might know your husband or wife.

You can know how God acts because you know him so well, you know, you can say isn't that just like God? Like you might say about your children. Is it that what we've been suggesting? And this has given rise to a certain kind of person that you might encounter among professed christians.

Whatever you want to call them the friends of God, I guess they and God are best buds. Now they hang out together they know what God is feeling they know what he's going to do. They're sure of it because they're intimate with God.

How do you know? Well, they'll tell you for sure many people claim to want to know God want to have intimacy with him. Some claim to already have it. And some are dangerous because of it. But still it's a noble goal.

Then how are we to reach it to know God? We could go the theological route and discuss all the philosophical proofs for the existence of God. The various attributes of God his complete knowledge his power his perfection in every way go from one isolated verse to another.

All over the bible discussing those qualities of God but out of context and without any practical examples. That's the way of most people who call themselves reformed. Theology is the way to know God they think.

I don't think there's anything wrong with that kind of study. But it does seem to me that if God himself had wanted us to learn about him that way He would have put a book in the bible that talks about God like that, you know one Subject after another one category one aspect of his character after another but he didn't.

There's no book in the bible in which God and his ways are discussed. Like that in sort of a systematic theology way, but there is a book in the bible in which God and his ways are discussed.

Debated.

Directly. And to make it more practical god is discussed right in the midst of a crucial slice of a man's life. And that book of course is the book of job. Now many scholars and poets have praised the book of job is one of the greatest works of literature.

Ever.

I hope it sometime in your life. You'll read the book of job. Not like you might regularly read the bible maybe a chapter or two a day but like you read a book you're really engrossed in. Reading reading it completely through in one sitting.

It might take you an hour and a half to two hours. But job is really. Is it meant to be broken down into verses or chapters? But taken as a whole it would be peculiar. I think I wouldn't know how to preach if I went, you know.

Chapter one one day to the next three and four and you know. Spend the whole sermon talking about how eliphaz or bildad is wrong and this or that that wouldn't make much sense. It's meant to take you on a journey from the beginning with a blameless man who feared god and shunned evil.

We begin with a man so scrupulous. Did you notice he sacrificed? Just in case. His children scorned god in their hearts, you know where he couldn't even see it or hear of it. But in their hearts they thought something Wrong about god.

He's going to sacrifice just in case they did that and then up to the courts of heaven where the lord points to job. As his servant and he takes satan up on a challenge that job is just doing it for the reward.

And so the lord allows. Because satan can't do anything without god allowing him. The lord allows satan to take everything away and yet still Job does not sin. We see the scenes in quick succession of disaster after disaster.

It's a drama meant to engross us and then again back in heaven. The lord points to job. There's no man on earth like him. Satan says skin for skin. He's just doing it for the for the life insurance. Take his health away and then he'll curse you god.

And so the lord allows him and then back on earth job is afflicted with boils and even his wife tells him to curse god.

And die.

Well, that's the scene. Where we'll find out what it means to know god witness the disaster in the land of ooze. Eavesdrop on the proceedings in the lord's court.

You weighed the debate?

Between job and his friends through three rounds of back and forth job speaks then a friend Responds to him and job responds to that and then another friend then job responds to him Then the last friend and then they all start over three rounds of that and then finally Tremble at the voice from the whirlwind.

Then.

You'll never be the same again. You'll never be someone who glibly blathers about how you know god how you figured him out. When you know, he's beyond your grasp. You think you have god figured out? Well job has three friends eliphaz billed out and so far who do they're they're sure of it.

They were good friends at first. Did you notice that sitting in silence with job for a whole week? Those are good friends up to that point, aren't they? But because they were so smug so sure of themselves when finally job breaks the ice and laments may the day of my birth perish.

Otherwise, I wish i'd never been born. He moans. What I feared has come upon me. What I feared has happened to me. In chapter 3 verse 25 The prosperity preacher kenneth copeland said that that was the reason that all these bad things happened to job.

Because he feared them job caused them job himself. I guess he didn't read the first two chapters. I'm, not sure what's going on with him, but job caused them with his fears. Copeland showed that he's no better than the friend.

No, that's not right. He's actually much worse than the friends the at least the friends understood. That god was in control. And I think one of the things that makes job too hard to understand to a lot of modern people even modern christians.

Is that everyone in job? understands the sovereignty of god. Everyone in job understands that everything that happens is under god's control. What they don't understand what they're arguing about is why?

But everyone understands. It all comes from god. He's presiding over it. Well, the friends were so sure that they knew god that they thought that they could correct job that they knew why these things happen.

Now some people believe that the book of job is primarily about suffering. It's partly about that, but I don't think it's primarily about that. I I believe the suffering is the setting. For god to reveal himself the book is really mostly.

Firstly.

About god. Suffering is the context to reveal god to get our attention. Our pains are job's pains are in c .s. Lewis's words god's megaphone to rouse a deaf world. To rouse people who are deafened by their own smugness their own assurance that they have god figured out.

I wonder whether lewis had adapted that got that and adapted it from job because in chapter 36 verse 15 a lie who says That god and I just saw this yesterday. God opens people's ears by their adversity.

He opens people's ears by their adversity.

Here.

The adversity opens our ears to three warnings. Three things were warned against in job first against any potted plans to know god. Second against Moralism and finally against arrogantly questioning god.

The Book of Job Exposes False Confidence in Knowing God

Do you think you have god figured out? The book of job is a warning against any potted plans to gain knowledge of god to master him. With your understanding if you come to god with the cocksure attitude that you haven't pretty much figured out.

That you know, you know mostly about him. You're so intimate with him that he really doesn't surprise you. If that's your attitude job is meant to chew you up and spit you out. So that at the end you're sitting in dust and ashes and saying I spoke of things.

I did not understand. I lay my hands over my mouth and repent. Job will reveal to you what it means for god to be god. Do you think you have god figured out. You have other things figured out. Whatever your occupation is your job.

You probably have it pretty much figured out if we want to gain knowledge of something say say engineering. We know that we can. We can get where we have it figured out. We can follow a certain course of study follow the plan laid out by a university read the right books take the right courses.

Take the right steps and voila. We earn a degree and we can claim to understand Engineering way to get in good physical condition. We can follow a good diet. Like an exercise program and we should be able to achieve fitness even for gaining intimacy with people.

Although it's that's more complicated because we need their cooperation. It is it is possible if you follow the right steps to really Grow to to know someone but it's not that way with god. The book of job destroys any idea that knowing god can be reached just through a plan.

Through understanding some principles. A course that you master and therefore you've mastered him. We cannot have a guaranteed three steps to knowledge of god. In fact, as long as you think you can know god by some strategy or discipline or course of studies, right learning the right Principles you will never really know him.

The book of job teaches us that the first step to knowing god Is that there are no steps to knowing him it cannot be done. He's too far beyond us. Job's friends are the finest examples of those who thinks they have god figured out.

They believe they have learned the laws. That god always works by. And once they found those laws. Well, they figured god out. That is they believe that there is a principle of justice which god always abides by.

Technical kind of philosophical language. That's the law of retributive justice. Learn the laws god is bound by. Then you have mastered god right like like someone studying physics learn the laws of physics physics.

You've mastered physics same with god. They believe that god must reward righteousness and punish wickedness. To the question of why do bad things happen to good people? They say It doesn't. If you see bad things happening to someone You can be sure they are not good people.

Because god who always acts according to the law of retributive justice would never allow bad things to happen to a good person. God's in charge of all things. Everything that happens therefore is is justice is what people deserve so job's friends like a lot of people today see god as Predictable like the laws of science.

They believe god always responds in an automatic way when people sin. He always punishes when people are good. He always rewards in this life. Therefore god is pretty easy to know.

Listen to them.

Eliphaz says in chapter 4 verse 7 remember. He says remember like this is something everyone understood everyone knew. Who that was innocent ever perished? Who that was innocent ever perished never happens.

If you're innocent, you don't die young or tragically it doesn't happen. Someone dies young or tragically. They weren't innocent. They were bad people. How would that sound. How would that sound alex.

If we're talking about your brother parker. How that sound to you rachel. Talking about your cousin jordan. Bill dad says in chapter 8 verse 4 if your children have sinned against god against him He has delivered them into the hand of their transgression.

Almost joe your children are dead because of their sin. Don't you know that? So far says in chapter 11 verse 6 know them that god exacts of you less than your guilt. Which he's just assuming that your guilt deserves.

You're guilty joe. In fact, you actually deserve worse than this. I'm pretty sure you deserve worse than you're getting. God's been easy on you so far joe. And so on they go for three cycles like that each getting shorter and shorter like they're kind of petering out.

They believe they have gone figured out, but they don't really know the most important quality about god. That he really is god. That he is the ultimate. They believe in a god who can be Manipulated. A god who is subject to certain laws whom they can you can make a flow chart of how he will react.

They believe god is a blessing and punishing.

Machine.

If you go to a soft drink machine you put in the right amount of coins push the right buttons outcomes. If it's working properly outcomes the right drink. So to joe's friends thought that if someone lives a righteous life And says the right prayers like punching the machine the buttons on the machine God will always bestow the right blessings.

On the flip side if someone lives a wicked life scoffs at god. God will bring curses god will punish them. So if someone wants god's blessings, all they must do is be be good and pious make the right sacrifices say the right prayers.

It's really quite simple. And so joe's friends believe that joe Must have sinned because he is suffering. You can just you can count on it. We know for sure look at his suffering. Therefore we know he deserves it.

They don't know of any sin that he has committed, but they're utterly convinced that they that he has committed something because They figure god out. They think That they conclude That job simply must be guilty Of some horrible sin.

And so they assume that the way for him for job to be restored Is for him to confess that horrible sin that he keeps denying and repent. They don't understand that by the end their words are so worthless that the only way god will forgive them is if joe sacrifices on their behalf.

They've impugned the dignity and the freedom of god. And this is the main lesson of the book of joe that god is free. Almost all the time in theology today people are obsessed in proving that that they are free that we sinners are we're the free ones.

We have free will or we would or do we not we debate that back and forth we desire something. We can choose anything. We want whatever it is. We can do anything we want. God has to respond to to our actions.

In our Religion god is bound by our free will people argue. But in job the issue is whether god is free. Can he do whatever he wants or is he controlled? By our.

Actions.

Well, he is revealed to be The almighty. El shaddai the name for god frequently used in the book of joe and job is Different from most of the rest of the bible in in this and that most time god is called El shaddai sometimes just the shaddai part.

It means almighty. You'll see over and over again read job the almighty. The almighty that in hebrew. That's shaddai. It's usually translated in typical western abstract fashion as is god almighty. It literally means something like god the mountain one as though we're comparing god to a huge mountain imposing.

Overwhelming. He's so powerful satan. Can't do a thing without the lord's permission. Do you notice that? Satan may be our adversary as we saw last week in first peter chapter five, but he's no competition for the almighty and the big picture.

Satan is such a minor character. He disappears from the scene after chapter two. It's god who looms large. So do you think of god. Figured out first were warned about potted plans to know god. Second.

Were warned about moralism. Now many people assume that the key to know god Is by being moral. Our moral acts. Control god. We think doing moral things are the coins you put into the god machine. To get the result you want.

But job's friends are apparently they're apparently very moral. They assumed that they were moral enough to accuse job and job does not accuse them back of sin. And the folk religion of our day the moralistic therapeutic deism.

If you're moral. If that is you're a decent person or at least try to be then you can be sure that god is on your side. That you'll go to heaven. You can take that pretty much for granted if you're a relatively decent person.

Hell is really only for hitler Paul pot. You know who else tom brady, maybe. You know god is tame. He automatically rewards our good behavior like a dog who sits on command. He helps us to feel good. He'd never take all our family and our stuff.

And give us boils so that the only relief we can get is by scraping ourselves with broken pottery. He's not really in control of the bad things either. He's the footprints god who wants us to feel better going through the hard times even carrying us when necessary.

That's the modern god. Many people think they know. But in job we're shown to god who presides even over our tragedies. Who isn't tamable with our morality. And the chronicles of narnia c .s lewis writes of the three children.

And seeing aslan, you know this enormous Lion who is a symbol for christ and one of the children ask if aslan is aslan a tame lion.

They're told no.

Aslan is not tame. But he is good. And that's the god of job. In chapters 40 and 41. He's the creator of behemoth and leviathan. He's gargantuan magnificent fearful wild Beast. And god asked can you put a rope in his nose or pierce his jaw with a hook?

No, you can't. You're too small too too weak for that. You can't capture or subdue or domesticate him. No one is so fierce that he dares to stir him up. God says how much more the implication god is saying how much more me?

I'm much more fiercer and that you dare not stir me up. I created his fierceness as enormity and his strength. God is saying i'm his maker else should I Is not tame. Our morality our religion doesn't train him to do the tricks We want from him.

So in job though the friends think they think that morality is the solution. They conclude with absolute certainty that job must have been immoral because they believe with absolute certainty that morality manipulates god being good is how we just kind of pull his levers in the contemporary folk religion of america the the religion of the folks.

Moralistic again therapeutic deism god must exist to help us be good. He wants us to be good like job's friends here. The folks today believe that they can figure god out and manipulate him with good behavior.

He'll respond well to me acting right. They think we're told they are like job's friends though, perhaps with even less reverence toward god than than them. The original liberals by the way that the rationalists believe the same thing.

Be moral. God wants you to be dutiful do good things and he will respond well to you. But when the great awakening came about 270 years ago, the evangelical preachers rejected this idea. They understood that god was else should I he was sovereign?

He was the king and the good works do not obligate god to do anything for anyone that god will not be bound. One of the evangelical preachers criticized the rationalists the beginning of the liberals as always he said Driving driving to duty duty.

Evangelicals on the other hand emphasize that instead we must simply trust god. And be born again. So today we make a great mistake if we teach that morality is the main thing at a chinese church in philadelphia, they asked me to give a little talk to their youth about.

Violence.

I assume being against it. They didn't specify but I assumed they wanted me to teach the kids to be against violence. I thought to myself though That sounds awfully boring. I mean talk to a group of chinese american teenagers.

Probably all of them aiming to go to some ivy league university to be doctors or scientists or scholars talk to them about Why you shouldn't be a violent gangster like that's really their need. But that's what the religion of the folks today.

The moralistic therapeutic deism is all about tell the youth about why they should be moral. Why they should be obedient and quiet and polite kids do your homework. Graduate with honors and then go make a lot of money.

That's your life. Instead I took matthew chapter 11 verse 12 where the lord jesus says the kingdom of god suffers violence and the violent. Take it by force. And and so they these youth they need to violently seek god's rule.

They're just like violent people. It's actually a virtue to violence. You know, it is violent people just throw caution to the wind and they rush headlong. They're only thinking about their one goal. And that's what jesus said we should be about the kingdom of god.

Think about that one goal. It doesn't matter if you give up everything else even your life you're going to get The kingdom of god in your life and if we tell our children and those outside that they can earn a blessed life.

By just living a moral life by being decent I've been their behavior and mild and always cautious we're sounding an awful lot like like job's friends. We're telling people that god is a blessing machine.

Don't break open the machine with a sledgehammer. Just put in the right coins. Instead we need to tell our children and those outside that god Is el shaddai that he is the lord that he is gracious. He's good.

Sure. But he's not tame. He holds satan's leash he speaks out of storms. He's violent. Now morality is not nothing but it's not the main thing. It's not a tool for knowing god or manipulating god. God will not be controlled like a puppet or ourselves.

With ourselves pulling his strings with our morality a righteous life is what we live as a fruit. Of having been made righteous by a righteous god and in this book and job. We see that we need to learn that the issue is not.

Ethical.

It's not morality. The question is not.

Why?

And the need is not.

Understanding.

The issue is spiritual. The question is who? And the need is trust. So there's a limit To morality. Job's friends thought that they had figured out god and their morality was the key. But their need and our need Are not fine theologies which purport to explain god to us are the illusionary promise that if you just understand those principles And you practice the right discipline you be a moral person.

You will have mastered god. No, the book of job shows that what we need is a personal revelation of god that makes us Tremble and stand amazed. And the result of that will be That we will no longer have that smug belief that we have figured god out that we have him domesticated like a good pet.

But that he is so much larger Than we have we can comprehend that he is utterly out of our control. That he overshadows us like an enormous mountain. And that we can only Worship him. Do you think you have god figured out?

Do you think you understand him so well if things don't go exactly like you want. You can you can question him you can interrogate him. For not doing what you thought what you thought you earned from him by your good behavior and your good religion.

God Is Free, Almighty, and Not Controlled by Moralism

Finally were warned about the folly of arrogantly Questioning god that's job's fault. Job assumes that god almighty should be more interested in giving us explanations than in being worshiped and trusted.

Job reduces god by asserting that god owes him an explanation. As though god was obligated to anyone he owes us anything. Job didn't even go so far as to challenge god to a court case. He says in chapter 13 verse 18 Behold, I have prepared my case.

I know that I shall be in the right. I'm going to go into court. I'm going to win God's sight. Now job is not so presumptuous As to put god on trial. He's not saying he's putting god on trial. He's going to convict god.

But he does believe that god owes him an explanation and that if only they could meet in an orderly court Job would be exonerated. God is the judge. Job rightly thinks. But even a good judge He thinks owes an explanation for for his verdicts to the plaintiffs.

Now others particularly in our day have been far less respectful than job.

At his worst.

They have put god on trial. As c .s lewis wrote that they have they put god In the dock that is in the place of the accused in a trial. In british courts, so, you know understand. In british courts where the accused stand is called the dock.

So the dock is the place for the person who is on trial. Modern people have put god in the dock. They put him on trial as as though god was the accused. We human beings. Were the judge maybe the jury or both.

Even many of the smug believers today who think that they are intimate with god that they're the best buds They often talk about how they can argue with god. Even in that epitome of modern evangelical spirituality the footprints poem.

It begins with the narrator questioning why jesus left me alone here on the beach.

With us.

Being god's fault finders. Why were there only one set of footprints on the beach. God you owe me an explanation. People who think that god must stand before us answer our questions. The questions we ask of him.

Do not understand. The first thing about who god is. God is the judge. He's not the accused. He's not on trial. Like any good judge if you start talking to him like he is on trial.

At best.

He'll just ignore you. Or at worst he'll find you in contempt of court and punish you. But this is what a lot of theology does these days trying to put god on trial justify god to a jury maybe of unbelievers.

Maybe to to show that he really is innocent. Or maybe some atheist prosecutors to try to show that he really is guilty and there he doesn't exist. Whatever they try to say, but even if you defend him You try to take the position of god's defense attorney.

You're still assuming That he's on trial. But he isn't. You assume that that's the problem. So it is impossible for us to really know god if we imagine that god answers to us. That we're the judge or the jury.