FBC Morning Light – April 13, 2022

The Comfort of Presence in Suffering

Well, a good Wednesday morning to you. I hope your week has been going well for you so far. Here we are in the middle of the week. A reminder that at our church tonight there will be no midweek service because tomorrow evening, Thursday evening at 7 o 'clock we're gathering together for a special Maundy Thursday service.

We started this several years ago and it's just always been a blessing. It's just been a good way to prepare for Resurrection Sunday. We come together, we read the scriptures related to the Last Supper, the night before the betrayal, and read through to the point of the crucifixion, some selected passages.

We commemorate the Lord's Supper together. We sing hymns and songs that are related to both the Last Supper, the night in the Garden of Gethsemane, the crucifixion. We have a little devotional together.

This is about an hour-long service. It really is a good way to prepare for the celebration of the resurrection. If you can make it tomorrow evening at 7 o 'clock, you're in the Sterling area. I would encourage you to join us for this special service.

Job, Innocence, and the Limits of Human Suffering

Today in our Bible reading plan, we're reading in the book of Job. Because I spent so much time talking about Esther, we didn't really talk about the first few chapters of the book of Job. If you're familiar with the story of Job, you know how it all begins.

This man who is essentially a good, upright man, has everything taken from him. Everything taken from him, other than his life, his health, his children, so much of his possessions. He still has his wife, but she's not much of an encouragement.

The man has suffered great loss and is enduring great hardship and pain and agony. He has these three friends come along who, the smartest thing they did, the wisest thing they did when they first arrived, was sat with him.

They just sat with him and said nothing for quite some time. Smart thing to do. When someone is hurting and you go to be with them, just go to be with them. Don't feel like you have to have answers for the pain, because you probably don't.

The Faulty Logic of Eliphaz

Oftentimes, when we try to explain the pain, we err, just like Job's friends. In the case of Eliphaz, whom we read of in chapters four and five, he comes to Job and he offers his advice. He makes his observations or he gives his counsel based upon a faulty presupposition.

Here's the problem, and it's so easy to fall into this trap. We know, the Bible makes it clear, that sin hurts. The way of the transgressor is hard, the writer of Proverbs says. We know that, and that way of hardship that comes to the transgressor, though, may happen now, it may happen sometime down the road, some unknown time down the road, it may be a long time before what one sows, he ends up reaping.

There are some who, in their sinfulness and their rebellion against God, they may not really suffer the deepest extent of that pain of the sin until eternity, until the final judgment. That's a truth, that sin hurts, the way of the transgressor is hard.

The problem comes when we try to make a logical leap and flip that around, that the way of the transgressor is hard. Therefore, if you're dealing with hardship, then you must be guilty of some transgression.

Misapplying Truth to Job's Suffering

That's the logical fallacy that Eliphaz made, and you see this in verses 7 and following of chapter 4. He says this, he says, remember now, whoever perished being innocent, or where were they upright, ever cut off?

Even as I have seen, those who plow iniquity and sow trouble reap the same. Okay, there's a way of saying the truism, the way of the transgressor is hard. Those who plow iniquity and sow trouble, they're going to reap iniquity, they're going to reap trouble.

By the blast of God they perish, he says, this is true, and by the breath of his anger they are consumed. Okay, that's true, but is it also true if you turn it around? Is his opening statement true? Has anyone ever perished who was innocent?

Have they? You stop and think about it, you realize, well, yes. Think of the millions of babies that have been slaughtered in their mother's wombs. What iniquity did those children commit to have faced such a fate?

None. They were, in that sense, innocent. They didn't do anything to deserve such a fate. Have you ever experienced the tragic death of a young child? I mean, man, there have been cases even recently in our area of some pretty brutal stuff that has happened to young children who were really innocent of any great transgression.

Yes, they were born in sin as every human being has been from Adam's fall, and they're sinners by birth, but in terms of what Eliphaz is talking about, they were basically innocent. They didn't deserve such a fate.

Do good people ever suffer? His argument would be, well, if you're suffering, then you must not be good. There must be something not good hidden in the closet somewhere. The same line of thinking comes out with the disciples, right?

When they were walking along and they see this man who's born blind with Jesus, and they ask Jesus, who sinned, this man or his parents that he's born blind? Jesus has to correct their thinking. That's a faulty deduction that you're making there.

Neither this man nor his parents have sinned causing this malady. This malady is inflicted upon him so that God may be glorified, and then Christ turns around and heals the man of his blindness. Here's the thing.

Truth can be rightly perceived, but it can be wrongly applied if our presuppositions regarding that truth are in error. This is the case of Eliphaz. He sees a truth that sin hurts. He makes a presupposition based on that truth, that if you're hurting, therefore you've sinned.

Then in chapter 5, he goes in verses 8 through 27, he makes a whole list of applications to Job regarding those presuppositions. He's saying that because you're suffering, God's frustrated you. He's frustrated you because of your craftiness.

For example, in verses 12 through 14 of chapter 5, he says that God frustrates the devices of the crafty so that their hands cannot carry out their plans. He catches the wise in their own craftiness and the counsel of the cunning comes quickly upon them.

They meet with darkness in the daytime and grope at nighttime as in the night. Just like you're experiencing, Job, is what Eliphaz is saying. God's caught you in your craftiness, is his application. He makes a few others along the way.

Applying Scripture with Care and Humility

What I want to encourage us today is to be careful about our presuppositions and to make sure that our understanding of truth is not distorted by faulty logic and faulty conclusions so that we then turn around and make wrong applications and end up hurting people rather than helping them.

This is the problem of Eliphaz and his other two friends as they try to, quote-unquote, help Job. Let's not be that kind of helper. Our Father and our God, I pray that you would challenge us with this today, and I pray that we would be careful with our applications of Scripture, that our presuppositions are not faulty, but we apply truth in the right and proper way.

We ask in Jesus' name. Amen. Have a good rest of your Wednesday, and I trust God will bless you in it. Good day.