Podcasts about if job

Descartes said "I think therefore I am".We are fixated on what we think. Here I am, literally thinking about my thinking. But the truth is that we are emotional creatures first, we humans. It's a fact of the ways our brains work. The parts of our brain responsible for our emotions literally engage before the parts of our brain that process thought, shape intent or express language. Whether on the surface, or buried deep beneath layers of sediment, we emote our way through life constantly. Our emotions shape how we are in any given situation, regardless what we think we think about it.Thankfully, the Bible portrays a deeply emotive God. Remembering that you and I all were formed Imago Dei ("in the image of God"), and that our emotional life is a good expression of that God-likeness, this week we're going to talk about the 3rd movement of the examen prayer: Prayerfully considering what you're feeling. It's here that we hear this question posed by the Lord: "How are you?"Here's the good news: If Job, Psalms, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, and the Prophets are to be trusted, there are no wrong answers to that question.

“Behold, I am vile.” — Job 40:4 One cheering word, poor lost sinner, for thee! You think you must not come to God because YOU are vile. Now, there is not a saint living on earth but has been made to feel that he is vile. If Job, and Isaiah, and Paul were all obliged […]

As mentioned, Messiah: Biblical Retellings is here. Daughters of Zion: Biblical Retellings is here. Covenants: Biblical Retellings is coming soon. Introduction:  I put the story of Job in a book about covenants, even though God never makes a covenant with Job, because I believe the only way to properly interpret the events in the story is within the context of the covenants that did (and did not) exist at the time. Most scholars place the story of Job after the flood and before Abraham’s covenant with God in Genesis 12. This means that the only covenant Job had with God are those of Adam and Noah. When Adam sinned and obeyed Satan, God was left on the outside of the world He had made, looking in—like a landlord whose tenants had turned Him out. Satan was now the god (little g) of this world (2 Corinthians 4:4). While God had promised to bring the promised Seed of Eve (Genesis 3:15), He would need a people willing to more or less play by His rules in order to do so, and then the cooperation of generations of prophets to speak Him into existence. He hadn’t gotten that far yet. Job is a righteous man, and so clearly favored by God that Satan takes notice. It’s actually God’s blessings that paint a target on Job’s back. While Satan of course comes to steal, kill, and destroy (John 10:10), in this story he does so not for the sheer pleasure of it, but to prove his point to God, almost as if in a courtroom drama. He aims to establish that our love for God is contingent upon God’s blessings. If Satan can establish this for the most righteous man on earth at the time, it would follow that the same is true for all the rest of us.  In Job 1, God brings up Job to Satan before Satan mentions him, which seems to indicate that it was God who placed Job in Satan’s crosshairs. But God is omniscient, and Satan’s immediate rejoinder showed that Satan was already thinking about Job. I suspect God just knew what Satan was thinking and cut to the chase. Many translations of Job have it that God “allowed” Satan’s attack against Job, which would seem to make God complicit in Job’s misery. But the context of the covenants in place at the time indicates that God allowed it only in the loosest sense of the word. Job lived at a time when God had not yet established a reciprocal covenantal protection for His people. God had to allow Satan’s request, even though He hated it. Did He have the power to refuse Satan? Technically yes, but He did not have the authority to do so—because He had given that authority to man in the garden. Man, in turn, had given it to Satan. At that point, Satan became the god of this world (2 Corinthians 4:4) and the prince of the power of the air (Ephesians 2:2). By nature, all of Adam’s descendants were slaves of Satan (Ephesians 2:3). So legally, Satan had the authority to do what he asked to do to Job. Had God refused, He would have violated the integrity of His word. The writer of Hebrews tells us that it is the integrity of God’s word that holds the very universe together (Hebrews 1:3). While in Job 2:3, God said to Satan, “You moved Me against him,” God only moved against Job in the sense that He withdrew the “hedge of protection” (Job 1:10) that He had placed around Job when Satan complained about it. Ecclesiastes 10:8 says, “whoso breaks a hedge, a serpent will bite him.” Without the hedge, the serpent had access to bite.  Satan’s challenge put God in a very difficult position. Satan (meaning adversary in Hebrew) is only mentioned by name 18 times in the Old Testament, 14 of which are in the book of Job. He isn’t even mentioned as Satan in Genesis (maybe because he wasn’t the adversary yet—this was the story of how he became the adversary), or in Isaiah 14, where the story of his fall appears (there he is called Lucifer, meaning “Light Bringer”—his angelic name). As mentioned in the story, I suspect God did not warn mankind about Satan and his angels because there was nothing they could have done about them at this point in history anyway. Why tell someone they have a terrible, bloodthirsty enemy if they are powerless to avoid him? Would that not produce only terrible fear and paranoia, with no benefit? Yet because Job had no doctrine of Satan, that meant he had no context to explain his tragedy. He, and his three friends, believed calamity was a punishment for evil (which sometimes it is, according to the writers of Proverbs and Psalms). Since Job knew he had done nothing specifically wrong to warrant all of this, the only logical alternative in his paradigm was that God did this to him unjustly. Satan was counting on this, and counting on Job to curse God because of it, even though God was innocent. In Genesis, Satan essentially told Adam and Eve that God was holding out on them—that He didn’t truly love them. Job was the story of Satan doing the same thing to God: telling God that Job didn’t truly love Him. The adversary was busily trying to convince each side that they were not loved. It isn’t until the fourth friend Elihu finally speaks in Job 32 that Job (and the reader) learns there is a third option. Andrew Wommack argues that Elihu was the writer of the book of Job, because the rest of the book is written in the third person until Elihu begins to speak in Job 32:15, when he transitions to the first person. This is important for context, because it tells us which chapters we can rely upon as divinely inspired, and which are mere opinions of the speaker. God later rebukes most of what Job and his three friends say, so that leaves only Job 1, 2, and 32-42 as accurate theological representations, at least of what was happening at the time.  Elihu informs Job in 33:12 that Job is not righteous. From the perspective of the New Covenant, we understand that “there is none righteous; no, not one” (Romans 3:10). While Job’s specific sin may not have occasioned this attack, the general sin of Adam, the covenant head of mankind, had rendered all of mankind unrighteous. But then comes the bombshell verse: Elihu prophesies that God is working to provide the savior! “If there is a messenger for him, a mediator, one among a thousand, to show man His uprightness, then He is gracious to him, and says, ‘Deliver him from going down to the Pit; I have found a ransom’… He will redeem his soul from going down to the Pit, and his life shall see the light” (33:23-28).  Today, with the benefit of hindsight and the entire Bible, we have some ability to conceptualize what Job went through, but Job himself did not. He couldn’t read the first two chapters of Job, to learn that he had an enemy who was using him as a pawn to prove a cosmic point. He had no context to understand what God was doing behind the scenes. I think this is why God responded to Job the way He did. Explaining to a man in Job’s day about sin and the need for a savior to be born a man and die as a substitutionary sacrifice for all mankind would have been like trying to explain calculus to an ant. So instead, God’s approach was to remind Job of how much bigger He was than Job, and how little Job truly understood. Even though we can comprehend God’s predicament better than Job could have done, there is still much we don’t and cannot know. The message God gave Job—to magnify His glory and to trust His greater wisdom when He cannot give us a direct explanation—still applies to us today.  Job’s initial responses to his tragedy in chapters 1 and 2 are often quoted by believers today as a godly response. He says, “The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; Blessed be the name of the Lord” (Job 1:21), and then the writer of the book says, “In all this Job did not sin nor charge God with wrong” (Job 1:22). A popular worship song actually quotes this verse, holding it up as an example of how believers should respond to tragedy. But while Job did not sin in what he said, he was still incorrect. God was not the one who had taken from Job; that was Satan. God did remove the hedge of protection from Job, but only because He had no choice: Job had no covenant which would have given God a legal excuse to protect him. We do. The Law of Moses made provision for blessings and protection from the enemy for God’s people, so long as they followed His law. God warned them that He could not protect them if they ceased to follow His law and uphold their half of the covenant, though. Disobedience would allow Satan access to them in order to steal, kill, and destroy (John 10:10). These blessings and curses are all laid out in Deuteronomy 28. In most of the Old Testament, there is no distinction between the curses God inflicts and those inflicted by Satan due to God removing the protection of the covenant from His people—but again, I suspect this was because in the Old Testament, there was essentially no doctrine of Satan at all. That’s part of why Job is so fascinating: it gives us insight into the real chain of causality in Heaven. God was “responsible” only insofar as He withdrew His protection and blessing, and He did that much only when His hand was forced. It was never what He wanted to do. He is a good God!  Even the curses of the law of Moses no longer apply to us today. Jesus followed the law perfectly, fulfilling it on our behalf (Matthew 5:17). He became a curse for us, redeeming us from the curse of the law (Galatians 3:13). Now all that is left are the blessings for those who are in Christ Jesus. Accordingly, Satan’s name changed from the Old Testament to the New. Satan meant accuser, but in the New Testament Greek, he is referred to as diabolos, meaning false accuser. He could legally accuse us to God before Jesus came, but no more! There are no modern day Jobs. God can now protect and bless those of us who have accepted His New Covenant, ratified by the blood of Jesus. Praise the Lord! Even in this time before covenantal protection, it’s helpful to place in Job’s tragedy in context. Job 3-42 takes place all in one day. The whole book covers a little over a week in Job’s life. He still lost his children and his servants, a lasting tragedy—but after this trial, God restored everything to Job so that he was twice as great as he had been to begin with (Job 42:10-17). He had the same number of children (seven sons and three daughters) restored, his daughters were known as beauties throughout the land (Job 42:15), and he lived another 140 years afterwards. God restored the years the locusts had eaten (Joel 2:25). (Side note: what are the behemoth and the leviathan mentioned by God in Job 40 and 41? To me, the former sounds like an herbivorous dinosaur, such as a brontosaurus (Job 40:15-24) while the latter sounds like a mythical dragon. It even apparently breathed fire (Job 41:18-21). This is why I had Noah take some of the dinosaurs onto the ark with him in my retelling: it appears they did survive the flood, at least. Also, particularly in Revelation, Satan is referred to as a dragon. I decided to give him the idea of taking that form as he listened to God wax poetic about how magnificent a creature it was.)   Fictionalized Retelling, from Satan's POV:  This was Round Three: me against God.  My first strategy was a raging success. Adam simply handed me his authority on the earth—it was almost too easy. God cursed the serpent for it, but what was that to me? I wasn’t the serpent; I’d just borrowed its body for awhile.  The only part that bothered me was that Seed of Eve business. I didn’t understand what that meant, but I felt like it was important somehow. Presumably it required a human descendant of the line of Eve, though, whatever else it meant. So in Round Two, using the proverbial carrot of Adam’s authority, I enticed a third of God’s angel army to follow me to earth. My once glorious beauty had become shriveled and warped since my expulsion from the garden, but they crossed over into earth in all their godlike majesty. The daughters of men were helpless before them. So the earth swelled with their demigod progeny, perpetuating down through the generations until contamination of God’s original bloodline was almost complete. Until that damn flood. I never saw that coming. Since the flood waters had receded and repopulation of the earth had commenced, I’d prowled the earth, gnashing my teeth and looking for another opportunity to strike. I corrupted Ham’s progeny with my fallen angels once again, but it was halfhearted this time. I already knew God would not allow me to pollute the entire human race with defiled blood, so what was the point? There was some inherent value in corrupting, maiming, and killing those He loved, though, because it hurt Him. That was always the real goal; they didn’t matter to me one way or the other. I’d have completely ignored them, except for the fact that He loved them.  But what I needed now was another master stroke that would enable me to win the whole human race; not just pick them off one at a time.  As I prowled the earth in my own dimension, a curious flaming hedge drew my attention. It would have been strange enough to see a self-perpetuating wall of flame in the earthly dimension, but what in the world could it be doing in mine? I crept up close, and tested it with my finger, crying out as it singed my withered flesh. Instinctively I shoved my fingers in my mouth to tend the burn. Then I peered through the wall as best I could, ignoring the heat and trying to understand its purpose. It reminded me of the two angels God had placed on every side of the Tree of Life, with their flaming swords. They, too, were in the spiritual dimension. God clearly sent this wall—but why?  Inside the hedge, I saw a man, his household, and the houses of presumably his progeny. The man, whom the servants called Job, seemed middle-aged by the standards of the day, around sixty years old. He also appeared to be fabulously wealthy: I crept around the perimeter of the wall of flame and counted seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred oxen, five hundred female donkeys, and a large retinue of servants. He also had seven grown sons and three grown daughters—who, I noted, took turns holding feasts in their homes daily for all their other siblings. They indulged themselves, and worked very little, as children of wealthy men are wont to do. Their behavior seemed to bother Job, who daily offered ten burnt sacrifices, one for each of his children, after each feast.  Huh, I thought to myself, tapping my fingers against my chin and narrowing my eyes as I peered through the hedge. Then a slow smile curled my lips as I understood several things at once.  Job was a righteous man. God loved him. God loved all his ridiculous creatures, of course, but He prized Job, because Job loved Him back, unlike most of them. Because of this, God had blessed Job hand over fist, on every side. The hedge of fire was in my dimension because God was protecting Job—from me.  But that was illegal. By God’s own decree, He gave the earth to Adam, and all of Adam’s progeny after him. Adam obeyed me, and therefore, it was mine. I had the authority to afflict any man I chose, yet God saw fit to use His power to prevent me from doing so!  I saw my strategy.  God’s angels, those who still served Him, presented themselves before His throne in Heaven daily to receive their assignments. That day, I joined the queue. I went there as little as possible, as the sight of Heaven’s bounty, God’s glory, and the beauty of those who still served Him made me writhe inwardly.  At last I got to the front of the line. Since I had received my new form after my expulsion from the garden, I could no longer look directly at God—He was too radiant. Instead I was forced to slink forward, bent double, with my head down. It was humiliating.  “From where do you come?” boomed the voice of the one on the throne.  “From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking back and forth on it,” I answered. Even my voice, once so resonant and lovely, now came out like a snivel—particularly in the massive and spectacular halls of the throne room. I could feel God’s penetrating gaze piercing through my thoughts, though I could not look directly into His face. He already knew exactly why I was here.  “Have you set your heart against My servant Job?” He demanded. Then His voice softened, like a lover waxing poetic about His beloved. “There is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man. One who fears Me and shuns evil.”  I sneered, “Does Job fear You for nothing? Have you not made a hedge around him, around his household and around all that he has on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. Stretch out Your hand and remove the wall of fire, that I might touch all that he has, and he will surely curse You to Your face!”  God was silent for a long moment. I risked a glance up at Him, and immediately regretted it, as the sight of Him seared. Then He heaved a great sigh, and said, “Behold, all that Job has is already in your power. Only do not lay a hand on his person.”  “Ha!” I gloated, clapping my hands together and vanishing at once. I was eager to get out of Heaven anyway.  I went straight to Job’s estate, and laughed and danced when I saw that indeed, the hedge of protection was gone. I had free reign! I prowled closer, to the home of one of Job’s children. It was the middle of the day, and all ten of them were in there eating and drinking like lazy gluttons. I tapped my chin with my fingers, musing how I might go about this. I could personally appear and wipe out everything Job owned… but if Job knew that I was responsible for his misfortune, that would defeat my whole purpose. He would be miserable, yes, but what did I care about that? I wanted Job to blame God for his tragedies, and to curse Him to His face. I wanted to prove to God that Job only loved Him for His gifts, not for Himself. So I needed to be crafty. Fortunately, that was my specialty.  I roamed a short distance away and found a band of Sabean warriors. I could always use them to my advantage with little prompting. They were greedy, vicious, and bored, and I had trained them well to consider plunder and murder as the only antidote to boredom. So I whispered in the ears of the leaders, and led them straight to Job’s property, where the oxen were plowing and the donkeys feeding beside them. I watched with glee as they stole the animals, and relished the screams of Job’s servants as the Sabeans put them to the sword. This wasn’t even necessary—the servants feared the Sabeans and would not have fought them. The Sabeans slaughtered for the rush of it. It was utterly delicious. I caused the Sabean’s eyes to pass over one of the servants in the group, and whispered into that servant’s ear, “Go and tell your master what you have seen.” It was all the incentive he needed; he ran off in wild terror, as if I myself ran after him.  But would a human raid cause Job to blame God? I mused. No. I needed something more supernatural. Humans called natural disasters ‘acts of God,’ which I thought was just fantastic—they didn’t know who was actually in charge here.  Maybe more than one type of disaster, I decided, just in case he might otherwise think it was a coincidence.  Even though Job had sheep and camels and more servants, I whispered in the Sabean chief’s ear that they were satisfied, and they rode off with their spoils.  Next, I observed the hills where the sheep roamed. I sauntered over to them, and spooked them so that they all ran in the direction of the barn where the servants were. I needed them all in one place. Then I snapped my fingers. A bolt of lightning fell from the sky, setting the barn ablaze. The sheep and servants who had not been hit or already consumed began to flee, so I summoned another bolt and another, until only one servant ran helter-skelter down the hill to tell Job what he had witnessed.  Perfect, I thought, rubbing my hands together. Job would have to blame God for that… but quite frankly, lightning wasn’t as fun as watching humans murder each other. What was it about murder? Was it the betrayal? That moment of utter hatred in the victim before the slaughter? Hmm…  The Sabeans had already taken off, but the Chaldeans weren’t far away. I whispered in their ears that there was a cache of camels nearby, if they would only follow me. The leader separated his men into three bands, to sneak up on the remaining servants. Then with a war cry, swords drawn, they descended en masse, capturing the beasts and spilling every drop of human blood, save one. Once more, I protected a single servant, who set out at a run for his master, to share yet more awful news.  “So,” I mused aloud once all was silent again, “Job is a pauper now, and it’s not even mid-afternoon. Now for the last and best blow…” I roamed back to the house where I had seen his gluttonous children. They had conveniently all gathered in the same place. One more ‘act of God,’ I thought—though not lightning again. I wanted to make very sure Job knew this was intentional. I prowled around the structure, observing its foundations. They weren’t particularly strong. A normal storm wouldn’t take them out, but if I sent a wind against each wall from all four directions, that should do it. Also, it had the added benefit of peculiarity. Normal wind blew in one direction or another, or at most, in a cyclone. A perfect hit on all four sides, though—that could only be God. In Job’s mind, at least.  I called upon three of my demonic allies, and stationed one on each side of the house. With the gust of our mouths, the four walls collapsed, killing the revelers within—all except one servant from inside. He crept terrified but unharmed from the rubble, and ran to his master to tell him of the tragedy.  My three demons were too busy cackling with enjoyment at their destruction to notice my disappearance. I enjoyed the death of Job’s children—but I wanted to be there when all four messengers reached Job. I wanted to hear and relish that moment when he cursed God.  I appeared, brimful of delighted anticipation, beside the unsuspecting Job right at the moment that the first messenger reached him. Breathless, he burst out, “The oxen were plowing and the donkeys feeding beside them, when the Sabean raided them and took them away—indeed they have killed the servants with the edge of the sword; and I alone have escaped to tell you!”  I watched Job eagerly, my grin stretching wide at the look of horror on his face. He barely had time to process this before the second servant arrived.  “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!”  I hooted at his choice of words. The fire of God! Job let out a cry of anguish and clamped his hand over his mouth. But it wasn’t over yet… the third messenger right right on his heels.  “The Chaldeans formed three bands, raided the camels and took them away, yes, and killed the servants with the edge of the sword; and I alone have escaped to tell you!” Job groaned and fell to his knees. I danced in place, so eager was I for the master stroke—here was the fourth messenger! He looked bedraggled, covered with soot from the rubble, and he gasped out, “Your sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother’s house, and suddenly a great wind came from across the wilderness and struck the four corners of the house, and it fell on the young people, and they are dead; and I alone have escaped to tell you!”  Job gave an indiscernible wail, and tore his robe in his grief. He lay there in a heap, weeping for some time. My anticipation waned, and I grew irritated.  “Curse God, you fool!” I whispered in his ear. “Come on!”  My whisper did seem to rouse him, and he staggered to his feet, finding a knife. I raised my eyebrows. This might be interesting… but no, he just used it to shave his head, wailing all the more as he did so. Where his hair fell to the ground, he then knelt—and worshipped God!  “Naked I came from my mother’s womb,” he whispered, “and naked I shall return there. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.”  My jaw hung open. I could hardly process this. I’d succeeded in making Job think God had done this to him… yet he worshipped Him anyway?  I let out a shriek of fury, and ran at Job, prepared to tear him limb from limb. But as I got close, I saw the wall of fire spring forth all around him—the same one I had seen around his property in the beginning.  Lay not a hand on his person, God had said.  I shrieked again. “That’s not fair!” I raged at the sky, “he’s mine by right!”    For the next human day, I rampaged, inflicting wanton destruction on any creatures that came in my path, since I could not afflict the one I truly wished to harm. I could have demanded God remove the hedge around Job’s person, but even in my fury, I recognized that killing him would be pointless. Satisfying for a moment, but I’d have ultimately lost the challenge.   But then in a sudden stroke of insight, I realized what I’d missed.  “A-ha!” I cried aloud, and vanished.  I reappeared in Heaven, doing my best to ignore the envy gnawing at me as I beheld all the beauty I had lost. I was here on a mission. I merged in the queue to enter God’s throne room, annoyed that I was forced to wait my turn.  “From where do you come?” God asked when I reached the front of the line.  Bent double, not looking at him, I slunk forward, my voice coming out in the whine I hated, “From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking back and forth on it.”  God’s next words practically radiated with pride. “Have you considered My servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, one who fears Me and shuns evil? And still he holds fast to his integrity, although you incited Me against him, to destroy him without cause.”  I snarled, “Skin for skin! Yes, all that a man has he will give for his life. But stretch out Your hand now, and remove the hedge from around him. Let me touch his bone and his flesh, and he will surely curse You to Your face!”  The One on the throne heaved a heavy sigh. “Behold, he is in your hand—”  “I know he is, Your hedge is illegal! He’s mine!” “—but, spare his life,” God added.  I was just about to tell God that He had no right to withhold even Job’s life from me—he was of the line of Adam and therefore he was mine if I wanted him, and we both knew it. But I bit my tongue. I reminded myself that taking Job’s life would not win me the contest. In fact, it would rather be an admission of defeat. I needed him to live, and fester in his misery, until he railed against God for his misfortune.  “Very well,” I sniveled, and vanished.  Job was right where I found him: robe torn, head shaved, mourning on the ground. I crept up as close to him as I had been before when the hedge of fire popped up around him—but there was none.  “Ha!” I gloated, and poked Job in the cheek. Where I touched him, a deep, angry red boil appeared. Job gasped with the pain of it, and his hand flew to his cheek.  “Yes!” I cried, and planted my hands all over his body, from head to toe. Job cried out in agony. But I afflicted him everywhere, across the backs of his legs and buttocks, to the soles of his feet. He could not sit, stand, kneel, sit, or lie down without pain. He would have no relief.  “Curse Him!” I taunted Job. “Curse God!”  Job rose to his feet, crying out with each step. His hands too were afflicted, but he managed to grab a piece of pottery. It was filled with ashes. He poured them on the ground, and then dashed the pot against the ground where it shattered. He took one of the shards, scraping the boils on his hands and arms to lance the pus and relieve the pressure. This, I knew, would create a new kind of burning pain, particularly as he was now sitting in a heap of ashes. Job scraped and wept—but no curse did he utter!  I let out another howl of frustration. But then I turned around and saw Job’s wife approaching. I’d forgotten all about her. Her face was tear-stained, but I saw that her expression was hardened. I grinned, and slunk up behind her.  “Tell Job to curse God,” I whispered.  As if it had been her own idea, the shrew put her hands on her hips and demanded with scorn, “Do you still hold fast to your integrity?” Job said nothing, scraping and sniffling in the ash heap. “He ignores you, how dare he!” I whispered in her ear. “Job!” she snapped, now shrill. “Give it up! Curse God and die!”  “Yes!” I crowed, pumping my fists in the air, as I watched Job, holding my breath.  At last, as if in a dream, Job turned his disfigured face to her, and managed through infected lips, “You speak as one of the foolish women speaks. Shall we indeed accept good from God, and shall we not accept adversity?”  I stared at Job, dumbfounded.  “NoooOOO!” I shrieked, grabbing fistfuls of my hair. I fell to the ground and began beating it with my fists.    When I’d spent my rage, I regrouped. I needed to step up my game.  Job had been the greatest of the men of the East, so word of his sudden misfortune spread fast. I made sure word got to three of his friends whom I knew well: Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar. Job respected them and would therefore be likely to listen to them. Yet while they considered themselves religious, they didn’t truly know God at all. Moreover, they were were haughty, judgmental, and could not bear contradiction. This made them perfect for my purposes.  Within a day of Job’s affliction, the three of them connected with one another, and together made the rest of the journey to his estate. But unfortunately I could not stop a fourth from joining them from a neighboring city: a much younger man named Elihu. I frowned. I did not like Elihu. I couldn’t use him at all; in fact, he might be a problem. But, perhaps I could use his humility to get him to keep his mouth shut, and let his elders do all the talking.  When the four friends saw Job from a distance, with his head shaved, robe torn, disfigured with boils and sitting in a pile of ashes, they all cried out.  “Is that him?” asked Bildad. “It can’t be,” gasped Eliphaz. “I hadn’t heard he was diseased too, had you?”  But when they got close enough to realize it was their friend after all, they tore their robes also. Each of them took of the dust at his feet and sprinkled it upon his own head as they came. Tentatively they approached Job, kneeling in the ashes beside him.  “Tell him this is God’s punishment,” I whispered to Bildad, Eliphaz, and Zophar in turn. “Tell him he must have committed some great sin to have deserved all this. Tell him!”  But they said nothing at all. All four of them sat with Job in silence. For an entire week! Seven days and seven nights! Nothing I could do could entice them to speak. I paced. I whispered. I screamed. I ranted. On the seventh day, I shook Job by the shoulders and cried out, “Don’t you have anything to say? How do you feel about everything that has happened to you? Speak it out, damn you!”  At long last, the fool opened his mouth. ““Obliterate the day I was born. Blank out the night I was conceived! Let it be a black hole in space. May God above forget it ever happened. Erase it from the books! May the day of my birth be buried in deep darkness, shrouded by the fog, swallowed by the night.” He waxed poetic about his misery, which was gratifying at first, but I quickly grew impatient. I made a reeling motion at him with my withered hands as he went on and on about the stars and the grave and the light and all such nonsense. “Curse God, come on!” I snarled.  But he didn’t. He finished as he had begun, bemoaning his terrible lot in life, but casting no blame. I looked at the friends, and demanded, “Are you going to stand for this? He’s making it out like he’s a victim here! He must be guilty; tell him so!” Eliphaz obliged. “Think! Has a truly innocent person ever ended up on the scrap heap? Do genuinely upright people ever lose out in the end? It’s my observation that those who plow evil and sow trouble reap evil and trouble.” “Yes, yes!” I clapped my hands, turning to Job eagerly.  Eliphaz went on, “So, what a blessing when God steps in and corrects you! Mind you, don’t despise the discipline of Almighty God! True, he wounds, but he also dresses the wound; the same hand that hurts you, heals you.”  I got up in Job’s face. “Are you going to stand for this? Defend yourself! Who’s the real villain here? It’s not you, so Who’s left? There’s only one possibility!”  Job replied with yet another long soliloquy of his sorrow, but at long last he began to get to the point. “Confront me with the truth and I’ll shut up, show me where I’ve gone off the track!” he demanded of his friend. “You pretend to tell me what’s wrong with my life, but treat my words of anguish as so much hot air!”  “God is to blame!” I shouted at him, shaking my fists.  At long, long last, he got there, and started to shout up at Heaven. “What are mortals anyway, that You bother with them, that You even give them the time of day?” he demanded. “Let up on me, will you? Can’t you even let me spit in peace? Even suppose I’d sinned—how would that hurt You? You’re responsible for every human being. Don’t You have better things to do than pick on me? The way things are going, I’ll soon be dead!”  “Finally!” I roared, triumphant for a moment—until I realized that he had not actually cursed God, though he had blamed Him. That was a start.  “Goad him,” I whispered to Bildad next. I was sure that if the others doubled down on blaming Job for his troubles, that Job would eventually do what I wanted in order to clear his own name. But I jabbed a finger in Elihu’s face. “You stay quiet in the presence of your elders, boy!” What followed was a long, exasperating afternoon of high tempers, and no actual progress. I succeeded in getting Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar to accuse and even yell in Job’s face. Job persisted in swearing to his own innocence, and in blaming God—even demanding that God explain Himself. Elihu, meanwhile, grew angrier by the minute, and I suspected I wouldn’t be able to shut him up forever. But if I could just get Job to curse God before Elihu opened his mouth…  Suddenly Job declared, “I know that God lives—the One who gives me back my life—and eventually He’ll take His stand on earth. And I’ll see Him—even though I get skinned alive!—see God myself, with my very own eyes. Oh, how I long for that day!”  “Whaaaat is wrong with you?” I shrieked at him, yanking on the tufts of my hair, “why do you want to see the God responsible for all your misery?”  The sun rose higher in the sky, peaked, and then began its descent. Just before sunset, Job declared, “Oh, if only someone would give me a hearing! I’ve signed my name to my defense—let the Almighty One answer! I want to see my indictment in writing. I’m prepared to account for every move I’ve ever made!”  At last, Elihu could stand it no more. “I’m a young man, and you are all old and experienced. That’s why I kept quiet and held back from joining the discussion. I kept thinking, ‘Experience will tell. The longer you live, the wiser you become.’ But I see I was wrong—it’s God’s Spirit in a person, the breath of the Almighty One, that makes wise human insight possible. The experts have no corner on wisdom; getting old doesn’t guarantee good sense. So I’ve decided to speak up. Listen well! I’m going to tell you exactly what I think.”  I swore and hissed, “Shut up, shut up, shut up—” though I knew it was useless. I had no influence over this kid at all.  Elihu declared, “It’s impossible for God to do anything evil; no way can the Mighty One do wrong.” He held the floor as sunset streaked across the sky, declaring God’s power and majesty, and rebuking Job for asserting his own righteousness at God’s expense. I cringed away from him as he finally declared, “Mighty God! Far beyond our reach! Unsurpassable in power and justice! It’s unthinkable that he’d treat anyone unfairly. So bow to him in deep reverence, one and all! If you’re wise, you’ll most certainly worship him.” All at once, the progressing sunset grew dark, like a snuffed candle. With it, a sound of blowing wind intensified, and condensed into a mighty whirlwind. “Uh oh,” I muttered, knowing what the whirlwind portended. I dashed behind a corner of Job’s barn. Not that it mattered; I just didn’t like standing before God if I could possibly avoid it.  All five of the men stared in awe as the whirlwind descended from heaven, and then fell on their faces. A burnished orange glow emanated from the inside, and I cringed away as the booming voice sounded from within.  “Who is this who darkens counsel by words without knowledge?” God demanded. “Now prepare yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer Me.”  Job managed a tiny squeak, understanding that God addressed him. “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?” God continued, His tone actually sarcastic. I raised my eyebrows at this—I’d never heard God be sarcastic before. I thought I’d invented that technique. “Tell Me, if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements? Surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it? To what were its foundations fastened? Or who laid its cornerstone, when the morning stars sang together, and all the angels shouted for joy?”  I growled under my breath at the reference. All those ‘morning stars’ he referred to were the angelic chorus—who had been under my direction. I had been their leader, the most talented, most glorious, and most respected of them all. The memory of what I had been still made me gnash my teeth. God continued with this same line of questioning, expounding upon the wonder and majesty of creation, while all five men trembled in their pile of ashes. He really drove the point home, starting with the planet, then the animals, particularly the dragon—already the stuff of human legends. I secretly liked that beast, actually. I liked to imagine myself the way God described it to Job: “any hope of overcoming him is false. No one is so fierce that he would dare stir him up. With his terrible teeth all around… his sneezings flash forth light, out of his mouth go burning lights; sparks of fire shoot out. Smoke goes out of his nostrils and a flame goes out of his mouth.”  A dragon, I mused, stroking my pointed chin with my shriveled hands. I might adopt that image, encourage the humans to think of me as a dragon… what a beast to strike terror into the hearts of all who envision it!  Distracted with my own thoughts, I had not noticed that Job was speaking now. I had to creep out from my hiding place to hear his voice.  “I’m convinced: You can do anything and everything. Nothing and no one can upset your plans. You asked, ‘Who is this muddying the water, ignorantly confusing the issue, second-guessing my purposes?’ I admit it. I was the one. I babbled on about things far beyond me, made small talk about wonders way over my head. You told me, ‘Listen, and let me do the talking. Let me ask the questions. You give the answers.’ I admit I once lived by rumors of You; now I have it all firsthand—from my own eyes and ears! I’m sorry—forgive me. I’ll never do that again, I promise! I’ll never again live on crusts of hearsay, crumbs of rumor.”  I gave a snort of disgust, but then remembered myself and darted back into my hiding place before God could address me directly. God upbraided Job’s three pompous friends next, and demanded they repent and offer sacrifices for their sins, but I paid little attention to this. I knew what was coming next, and didn’t care to see it: God would forgive them all, and restore to Job all I had stolen from him and probably then some. I vanished into the wilderness, and there regrouped with a few of my demons. They watched me with baleful eyes.  “Well, it wasn’t a complete failure!” I snapped before they could say anything. “He didn’t renounce God, but he did accuse Him of being unjust.”  “That’s only because Job doesn’t know we exist,” Abaddon pointed out. “I don’t know why God didn’t just tell him…”  I shook my head. “He can’t tell him. He knows if humans understood that nothing restrains us from stealing, killing, and destroying from them, and they have no power to stop us, they’ll be consumed with fear and thus, useless to Him. It’ll be just as if we’d already won the war.”  “We could just steal whatever God restores to Job again?” Abaddon suggested.  “I don’t care about Job! Job’s not the point!” I roared.  No one spoke for a long moment, and I paced. We were all thinking the same thing, but no one wanted to say it. God made these wretched creatures with free will because He wanted them to love Him. To choose Him freely—for Himself, and not just what He could give them. I wanted to prove to Him that the whole exercise was pointless. They would never love Him the way He wanted them to. So I chose the best, holiest, most righteous human on earth, the one specimen He and I both agreed upon as fulfilling that role, as a type of all the rest. If Job would renounce God, it would prove there was no hope for the rest of humanity. God might as well give up now.  But he didn’t. In Job’s logic, the only possible cause for suffering was the sin of the individual, or the wanton cruelty of God, and he knew he hadn’t sinned. He had no understanding of the spiritual world, no reason to think that a third option even existed. Even so, even as he railed against God, he did not ultimately renounce his love for Him.  I had lost.  “All right boys,” I muttered, looking at each of my demonic generals. “That was just a battle, not the war. On to Round Four.”

Like the previous three chapters, much of Job 41 is designed to help Job come to terms with his limitations. If Job admits what he does not know and cannot do—all of which God knows and can do—then perhaps he will be less quick to accuse God.One verse, Job 41:11, demands further reflection. God speaks: “Who has a claim against me that I must pay? Everything under heaven belongs to me.”Is God’s immunity from prosecution built on nothing more than raw power? We imagine the lowliest citizen in Nazi Germany trying to sue Hitler, and Hitler’s brutal response: “Who has a claim against me that I must pay? Everything in the Third Reich belongs to me.” Coming from Hitler, this would have seemed a distinctly immoral declaration. So why should God avail himself of its cosmic analog?First, if this were God’s only declaration about himself, it would not be a very good one. But this declaration comes within the context of the book of Job, and within the larger context of the canon of Scripture. Within the book of Job, there is common ground between Job and God: both acknowledge that in the last analysis God is just. Job is not a modern skeptic searching for reasons to dismiss God; God is not a Hitler. But if God and Job agree that God is just, at some point Job must also see that God is not a peer to drag into court. Trust in God is more important than trying to justify yourself before God—no matter how righteous you have been.Second, within the context of the entire canon, God has repeatedly shown his patience and forbearance toward the race of his image-bearers, who constantly challenge him and rebel against him. He is the God who with perfect holiness could have destroyed us all; he is the God who on occasion has demonstrated the terrifying potential for judgment (the flood; Sodom and Gomorrah; the exile of his own covenant people). Above all, despite the Bible’s repeated insistence that God could rightly condemn all, he is the God who sends his own Son to die in place of a redeemed new humanity.Third, within such frameworks Job 41:11 is a salutary reminder that we are not independent. Even if God were not the supremely good God he is, we would have no comeback. He owns us; he owns the universe; all the authority is his, all the branches of divine government are his, the ultimate judiciary is his. There is no “outside” place from which to judge him. To pretend otherwise is futile; worse, it is part of our race’s rebellion against God—imagining he owes us something, imagining we are well placed to tell him off. Such wild fantasy is neither sensible nor good. This podcast is designed to be used alongside TGC's Read The Bible initiative (TGC.org/readthebible). The podcast features devotional commentaries from D.A. Carson’s book For the Love of God (vol. 2) that follow the M’Cheyne Bible reading plan.

Bildad the Shuhite is scandalized by Job’s response to Eliphaz and offers his own searing rebuttal (Job 8).“How long will you say such things?” Bildad asks. “Your words are a blustering wind” (Job 8:2). We would say they are nothing but hot air. From Bildad’s perspective, Job is charging God with perverting justice. “Does the Almighty pervert what is right?” (Job 8:3). But Bildad cannot let the point linger as a merely theoretical point to be debated by theologians. The implications of his rhetorical question Bildad now drives home in a shaft that must have pierced Job to the quick: “When your children sinned against him, he gave them over to the penalty of their sin” (Job 8:4). In other words, the proper explanation of the storm that killed all ten of Job’s children (Job 1:18–19) is that they deserved it. To say anything else would surely mean, according to Bildad, that God is unjust, that he perverts justice. So the way forward for Job is “to look to God and plead with the Almighty” (Job 8:5). If Job humbles himself and is truly pure and upright, God will restore him to his “rightful place.” Indeed, all the fabulous wealth Job formerly enjoyed will seem like a mere piffle compared with the rewards that will come to him (Job 8:6–7).For his authority Bildad appeals to longstanding tradition, to “the former generations.” The opinions he and his friends express are not newfangled ideas but received tradition. Bildad and his friends, regardless of how old they are, can only have learned by experience what can be tasted in one lifetime. What they are appealing to, however, is not the experience of one lifetime, but accumulated tradition. That tradition says that the godless and those who forget God perish like reeds without water; they enjoy all the support of those who lean on spiders’ webs (Job 8:11–19). Conversely, “Surely God does not reject a blameless man or strengthen the hands of evildoers” (Job 8:20).Of course, this is roughly the argument of Eliphaz, perhaps somewhat more bluntly expressed; and while Eliphaz appealed to visions of the night, Bildad appealed to received tradition. Once again, parts of the argument are not wrong. At one level, on an eternal scale, it is right to conclude that God vindicates righteousness and condemns wickedness. But as Bildad expresses the case, he claims to know more about God’s doings than he really does (neither he nor Job knows the behind-the-scenes setup in chapter 1). Worse, he applies his doctrine mechanically and shortsightedly, and ends up condemning a righteous man.Can you think of instances where premature or unbalanced application of biblical truth has turned out to be fundamentally mistaken? This podcast is designed to be used alongside TGC's Read The Bible initiative (TGC.org/readthebible). The podcast features devotional commentaries from D.A. Carson’s book For the Love of God (vol. 2) that follow the M’Cheyne Bible reading plan.

If Job can hope for redemption in his situation might we also? "For I know my redeemer lives!" Fr. Tom Early joins us as we continue our conversation with Job and his friends and await an answer from God.

The Lord Answered Job Job 38-41 by William Klock Job has cried out to the Lord.  He’s demanded a hearing.  And in the face of God’s silence he’s thrown down the gauntlet.  He’s listed a host of sins and has called down curses on himself should he be guilty of any of them.  If God doesn’t strike him down, he may still be sitting on the ash heap scraping his sores with a potsherd, but at least he can claim that his righteousness has been vindicated.  And so I think it’s safe to say that Job was probably surprised when the Lord did speak. Chapter 38 begins with the words, “Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind and said…”  God coming in a whirlwind is never a good thing.  It means that God is angry.  It’s how he came to Adam and Eve after they’d disobeyed him.  It was how he came to Ezekiel to express his anger with Israel.  And now he comes to Job and his friends in a whirlwind.  And note, it’s specifically the Lord who comes.  In Job the narrator refers to the Lord—to Yahweh—the God of Israel, but Job and his friends refer to him with the more generic Elohim or El Shaddai—God or God Almighty.  It makes sense.  Job and his friends aren’t Jews and so they don’t refer to God by the name he revealed to Israel.  That may be part of their problem.  They lack the full revelation that the Lord had given to his people.  It may be that part of Elihu’s function—the fourth friend who suddenly appears at the end of the dialogues—is meant to bring us closer to the God of Israel.  Elihu wasn’t an Israelite, but he’s so close.  He’s the descendant of Abraham’s nephew.  Elihu brought us closer to the truth about God than Job or the other friends had got, but still fell short.  So close, but not quite there.  And now the Lord, the God of Israel arrives in a whirlwind and speaks.  And it’s not just the whirlwind that communicates his anger: “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? Dress for action like a man;          I will question you, and you make it known to me.  (Job 38:2-3) Job has been arrogant and presumptuous—and not just Job, the other have too as they’ve made wrong pronouncements about God and accused righteous Job of sin.  Finally, the Lord answers, but what will quickly become obvious is that he hasn’t come to teach wisdom; he’s come to rebuke.  It’s also important to remember that God isn’t angry with Job because of unrighteousness.  The Lord himself has defended Job’s righteousness.  That’s not the issue.  The problem is Job’s misunderstanding and misrepresentation of God.  The Adversary’s case was focused on Job’s motivations for being righteous.  Job has won that case for the Lord, but in the aftermath Job has complained and accused and shown that he does not understand God or his ways and the Lord has now come to set Job—and his friends—straight. So how does the Lord respond to the errors and foolishness and presumption of these friends?  Well, his address comes in two speeches with a few lines from Job between them.  Chapters 38 and 39 contain the Lord’s first speech and the Lord’s focus here is on his governance of the cosmos—specifically on his establishing and maintaining order.  Chapter 38 focuses on the big stuff and then in Chapter 39 the Lord zeroes in on the smaller affairs of life.  We’ve got a long passage today, so we can’t read the whole speech, but that’s okay.  The Lord makes his point through repetition so we’ll start with the first stanza, verses 4-7: “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?          Tell me, if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements—surely you know!          Or who stretched the line upon it? On what were its bases sunk,          or who laid its cornerstone, when the morning stars sang together          and all the sons of God shouted for joy?   “Were you there?” or some variation of that is the Lord’s persistent question through these chapters.  Job is righteous, but he’s known horrible suffering and so he’s called the Lord’s justice into question.  Job’s has accused the Lord of not ordering the cosmos, of not running things properly.  Remember the Retribution Principle is his basis for understanding justice.  God is supposed to punish the wicked and reward the righteous.  God’s fallen down on the Job when it comes to Job and so Job has questioned God’s governance.  For ancient people order was key.  The duty of the gods was to maintain order and God clearly, Job as accused, isn’t doing it right.  God, Job thinks, is not just. So the Lord asks, “Were you there when I laid the foundations of the earth?”  The Lord describes his giving order to Creation.  He’s asking Job, “Could you have done that?”  And he goes on: Who brought the waters of chaos under control?  Was that you, Job?  No, that was me.  Who causes the dawn to break every morning?  Have you walked the depths of the sea?  Do you know what’s down there in the dark?  Have you ever been to my storehouses of snow and have you ever cleft the clouds to make a channel for the rain?  Who has begotten the morning dew and the frost?  Was that you, Job.  No, that was me.  Did you set the stars in the heavens?  Can you send forth lightning?  If you were to command the lightning would it even recognise your voice?  This is Chapter 38 in summary. Job has questioned the Lord’s establishment of the cosmos and his governance of it.  Job has presumed to think that, given the opportunity, he could do a better job.  He’s reduced the governance of the cosmos to a naïve and overly-simplistic model.  And so the Lord asks a series of questions.  Were you there?  And Job has to admit that, no, he wasn’t.  Was it you?  And Job has to admit again, no, I wasn’t.  It was the Lord.  Not only that, none of this is even remotely fathomable to Job or to any human being.  If Job were in charge, the earth would have no foundations, no storehouse of snow, and he’d never be able to figure out how to get the rain to the earth. Beginning at 38:39 the Lord continues the speech, but narrows his focus going from big things like the foundations of the earth and the stars in the heavens to the animal kingdom: Can you hunt the lion’s prey?  Do you know how the mountain goat gives birth?  Who has let the wild donkey run free?  Is the wild ox willing to serve you?  Do you give the horse his might?  And finally, in 39:26-30: “Is it by your understanding that the hawk soars          and spreads his wings toward the south? Is it at your command that the eagle mounts up          and makes his nest on high? On the rock he dwells and makes his home,          on the rocky crag and stronghold. From there he spies out the prey;          his eyes behold it from far away. His young ones suck up blood,          and where the slain are, there is he.”   The Lord has ordered the animal kingdom just as he’s ordered the heavens, the rains, the storm, and the foundations of the earth.  Does Job know anything of these matters?  No.  He can observe them and he knows the hawk soars and that the eagle makes his nest on high, but he doesn’t know why and if it were up to him to govern these things, the lion would starve and the eagle would plummet to the ground.  And so the Lord concludes his first speech in 40:2 asking, “Shall a faultfinder contend with the Almighty?  He who argues with God, let him answer.” And Job finally responds with wisdom: “Behold, I am of small account; what shall I answer you?          I lay my hand on my mouth. I have spoken once, and I will not answer;          twice, but I will proceed no further.” (Job 40:4-5) The Lord has answered.  It’s not the answer Job wanted, but the Lord’s point has been made.  Job puts his hand over his mouth and is ready to listen—the wisest thing he’s done all day.  The Lord continues 40:7: “Dress for action like a man;          I will question you, and you make it known to me. Will you even put me in the wrong?          Will you condemn me that you may be in the right? Have you an arm like God,          and can you thunder with a voice like his? “Adorn yourself with majesty and dignity;          clothe yourself with glory and splendor. Pour out the overflowings of your anger,          and look on everyone who is proud and abase him. Look on everyone who is proud and bring him low          and tread down the wicked where they stand. Hide them all in the dust together;          bind their faces in the world below. Then will I also acknowledge to you          that your own right hand can save you.  (Job 40:7-14) The Lord challenges Job a second time.  This time he begins very frankly: You’ve condemned me to justify yourself.  Will you really defame the Lord in order to defend your own righteousness, Job?  And so the Lord challenges Job: How about I hand over control of the cosmos to you and you can impose order on it.  What would happen if Job were to be God for a day?  Could he bring justice on the basis of the Retribution Principle? It’s interesting that the Lord only goes on to talk about Job punishing the wicked, probably because it would be a lot easier to punish the wicked than to protect the righteous from suffering, but the Lord’s ultimate point is that Job would fail all around.  Not only is Job incapable of fulfilling God’s role, his concept of justice, embodied in the Retribution Principle, is flawed.  Job and his friends have been looking to justice to explain the cosmos, but back in Chapter 28 the narrator instead has pointed us to wisdom and the Lord points us to wisdom as well. Beginning at 40:15 the Lord shifts gears a bit.  He’s exposed the shallowness of Job’s complaint and silenced his accusations.  Now the Lord shows us the way forward.  Back in 28:28 the narrator told us that the fear of the Lord is wisdom, and now the Lord’s going to show Job what that looks like.  He does that by describing to mythical creatures, Behemoth and Leviathan.  We could spend a lot of time talking about the identity of these two creatures, but we don’t have time this morning and we’d run the risk of missing the point of the text.  Behemoth and Leviathan were chaos creatures in the thought of Israel and her neighbours.  They were mythical creatures on the periphery of the ordered world.  They’re sort of the tornadoes of the animal kingdom.  They weren’t evil; they were just sort of outside the order of creation.  They might wreak havoc, but not because they’re bad.  It’s just what they do.  And yet the Lord still exercises control over them.  The Lord brings them into the dialogue here, because Job earlier accused God of treating him as if he were one of these chaos creatures in need of taming.  And so the Lord now sort of say, “Okay Job, you accused me of treating you like Behemoth, let’s look at that.” “Behold, Behemoth,          which I made as I made you;          he eats grass like an ox. (So the Lord draws a connection between Behemoth and Job.  He’s made them both.  And Job, just like Behemoth has been well fed.) Behold, his strength in his loins,          and his power in the muscles of his belly. He makes his tail stiff like a cedar;          the sinews of his thighs are knit together. His bones are tubes of bronze,          his limbs like bars of iron. (I’ve made him strong, just as I’ve made you, Job.) “He is the first of the works of God;          let him who made him bring near his sword! (He is first amongst his kid, just as you are, Job.) For the mountains yield food for him          where all the wild beasts play. (I care for him as I care for you.) Under the lotus plants he lies,          in the shelter of the reeds and in the marsh. For his shade the lotus trees cover him;          the willows of the brook surround him. (I protect him just as I protect you, Job.) Behold, if the river is turbulent he is not frightened;          he is confident though Jordan rushes against his mouth. (When trouble comes he is not afraid, just as you should trust me and not be afraid, Job.) Can one take him by his eyes,          or pierce his nose with a snare? (Behemoth is invulnerable and so should you be, Job.  But, instead of trusting me, you’ve accused me of injustice and foolishly left yourself open to my snare.) Job accused God of mistreating him, of treating him not as his friend and loyal servant, but as a chaos creature and the Lord’s response is to say, “If only, Job.  I care for you, just as I care for Behemoth, but when the storms come, Behemoth knows that I have ordered the cosmos well and he remains unafraid—he certainly never accuses me of incompetence.  Instead, you’ve been sitting on your ash heap shaking your fist at me and accusing me of injustice.  Job, you need to be more like Behemoth!”  Brothers and Sisters, be like Behemoth!  Fear the Lord.  Trust in the one who laid the foundations of the earth, who places the stars in the heavens, who provides prey for the lion and causes the eagle to soar.  That is the beginning of wisdom. Then, beginning with 41:1, the Lord compares himself to Leviathan, another chaos creature.  The way most of our English translations work with both of these passages gives us the sense that God is asking Job all of these “Can you do this?” and “Can you do that?” questions with the implication that, no, Job can’t, but God can.  That’s misleading.  That’s what the Lord was doing in his first speech in Chapters 38 and 39, but here he’s addressing how we should approach him.  Unlike the stanzas of the first speech, here the Lord never says what he can do that Job cannot.  The Lord is comparing himself to Leviathan here.  It’s a longer passage so I’ll have summarise it a bit. “Can you draw out Leviathan with a fishhook…? (v. 1) (Job, you cannot control Leviathan and you can’t control me.) Will you play with him as with a bird,          or will you put him on a leash for your girls? (v. 5) (He will not submit or become your pet and neither will I.) Can you fill his skin with harpoons          or his head with fishing spears? (v. 7) (You cannot win a battle with him and you cannot win a battle with me.) No one is so fierce that he dares to stir him up.          Who then is he who can stand before me? (v. 10) Who can strip off his outer garment?          Who would come near him with a bridle? (v. 13) (Leviathan cannot be domesticated and neither can I.) Out of his mouth go flaming torches;          sparks of fire leap forth. When he raises himself up, the mighty are afraid;          at the crashing they are beside themselves. (vv. 19, 25) (You don’t want to arouse Leviathan and you don’t want to arouse me.) Though the sword reaches him, it does not avail,          nor the spear, the dart, or the javelin. (v. 26) (Leviathan is invulnerable and so am I.) On earth there is not his like,          a creature without fear. (v. 33) (No creature is his equal.  That goes for Job and if Job isn’t Leviathan’s equal, he certainly isn’t the Lord’s equal—but that’s more or less how Job has approached him in his demands.) He sees everything that is high;          he is king over all the sons of pride. (v. 34) (The Lord is king over the proud.  They think they can stand up to him, question his governance, and even make demands of him, but the Lord is King.) Job has tried to confront the Lord and what the Lord’s done here is to say, “Okay Job, let’s back up a bit.  Would you dream of confronting Leviathan?  Do you think you could control him?  The obvious answer is “no” and Job knows that.  And so the Lord is saying, if you can’t subdue Leviathan, what makes you think you can subdue and domesticate me and issue commands to me?  In summary the Lord is saying here, “Job, if you can’t even control Leviathan, what makes you think you can control me?  No, you need to be more like Behemoth.  I care for him as I care for you and he knows to trust me when times are tough.  Have faith job.  To fear me is the beginning of wisdom.” We’ll stop at this point today and finish up the book of Job next week with Job’s response and the epilogue.  There’s a lot here to think about.  Maybe one of the most striking things is that Job isn’t really about helping the suffering to find comfort.  At least not directly.  That’s often what we want when things are bad.  In times of trial we often set our faith on asking and believing that God will make everything better.  He’ll heal us or heal a sick loved one.  He’ll heal or restore a broken relationship.  He’ll get us through tough economic times.  He’ll save us from someone who’s out to get us.  He’ll bring an end to a pandemic.  We’ve all been there in one way or another.  Other times we set our faith on God somehow giving us an answer to why we’re suffering or at least expect that he’ll explain how our suffering fits into his working all things for good.  But the book of Job gives us a very different answer and points our faith in a different direction.  Here the Lord tells us that in midst of trial and suffering, in the midst of loss and sorrow we need to point our faith towards the God who is perfectly wise and who has established and governs the cosmos with wisdom.  Not only that, but as we take hold of him in faith, as we trust in him, our first priority ought to be to ask for the grace, to ask for the help to live well before him no matter our circumstances. Wisdom is key.  All through the book we’ve seen Job and his friends looking to justice.  Justice is important.  Justice is good.  But God isn’t subject to or contingent on some external standard of justice.  He is just, but justice flows from him and, ultimately, his justice is governed by his wisdom.  This is the point of the Lord’s first speech.  He is the one who has established and governs the cosmos.  Whatever we think of how he does it, neither you nor I nor Job are worthy to devise a scheme to govern even the smallest part of it.  As this reality sinks into Job it moves him to admit, “You are God.  I am not.”  But that’s only the first step.  It’s not enough.  Knowing who God is and knowing our place ought to foster a certain attitude or posture towards God, and that’s the point of the second speech.  Knowing who God is and knowing who we are, ought to move us to humility and to submission.  Now, that’s not an easy posture to take.  We want to be in control.  We at least want to know why things happen.  But part of knowing who God is, is to move us to faith.  Reflecting on his establishment and governance of the cosmos, even in light of our trials and tribulations, ought to move us to a trusting faith. It’s worth noting that the Lord never does give Job an explanation for his suffering.  If he did, that would undermine this whole exercise, because in the real world we do not receive such answers.  God rules in wisdom.  We create the problems.  He pronounced his creation good.  Then we rebelled and messed it up.  He established order.  We spend out days creating disorder.  And then we complain to God that we suffer.  Could God remove our suffering?  Yes, he could, but in his mercy he’s opted for something else.  In our self-righteousness and short-sightedness we think that others are the problem and forget that God could whip creation back into order by removing evil from it, but in so doing he would have to remove us as well.  Instead, the Lord has lovingly chosen the path of mercy and grace even though it means that we, his creatures, continue to make a mess of things, to hurt each other, and to hurt ourselves.  Rather than wipe us from the face of creation, he draws us back to himself, enfolds us with his grace, and gives us hope that one day he will set everything to rights.  He offers redemption rather than judgement to the very people who have upended his creation, who daily rebel against him, who have made ourselves his enemies.  He has, himself, become one of us and died the death we deserved that we might be reconciled to him.  And for some reason we still want to question his justice and his governance of the cosmos. Brothers and Sisters, we can never fathom the wisdom of God and so he calls us simply to trust.  That, for us, is wisdom.  The Lord’s comparisons here to Behemoth and Leviathan make no comment on righteousness or justice.  In his suffering, Job’s focus was on his righteousness and he angrily accused God of injustice.  But in all that he missed the point.  Behemoth isn’t an example of righteousness.  Behemoth is an example of stability and trust.  Leviathan isn’t a paragon of justice, but an example of one who cannot be challenged or domesticated.  Wisdom lies in recognising that God cannot be challenged and that we can stand secure in the midst of raging rivers as we trust in his wisdom, goodness, and faithfulness. But don’t forget that you and I have so much more reason to trust the Lord than Job did.  Job was not an Israelite and did not know the life of the Lord’s covenant.  Presumably he knew little or probably nothing of Abraham and the Lord’s faithfulness to him and to his family.  Job knew nothing of the Lord’s deliverance of his people from slavery or his establishment of them as his people.  Job was not amongst those who cried out to the Lord and were heard and delivered.  And Job, of course, knew nothing of the faithfulness of God revealed so profoundly in Jesus and his death and resurrection.  Brothers and Sisters, if God could expect Job to trust in his wise governance of Creation, how much more ought we to trust him.  We not only have the evidence around us in the natural world, we have not only the foundations of the earth, the rain and snow, the soaring eagle and the stalking lion, but we also see God’s faithfulness to his people over and over again.  We live in the shadow of the cross, which gives us insight into the relationship between suffering and God’s wise governance the likes of which Job never imagined.  And this morning the Lord invites us to his Table.  As we gather here, as we eat the meal, as we participate in that great exodus from sin and death led by Jesus, let us be moved again to faith, to trust in this God who inexplicably loves us despite our sin. Let us pray: Gracious Father, thank you for your patience with us.  You’ve not only created us, but you’ve show us mercy and grace even in our rebellion.  Even still, we fight, we struggle against you, we question your goodness and your wisdom and you are patient.  Teach us to be more like Behemoth, we ask.  As we look on your creation and as we look at your faithfulness to your people, strengthen our faith and teach us to trust in you, because you are supremely worthy of our trust, even as we stand in the midst of raging rivers.  Through Jesus we pray.  Amen.

Motives Job 22-27 by William Klock  Some people don’t know when to shut up.  Right?  And we’ve all been on both the receiving end and the giving end of that problem.  A friend keeps talking when they should have stopped and hurts us deeply.  And on another day I’m the guilty one who should have stopped a long time ago, but just so intent on making my case that I kept going even though I’d lost the argument or missed the point long before.  We’re at that point in the book of Job.  Really, I think we reached that point some chapters back, but it’s just now that it’s starting to dawn on some of the characters in the story.  Today we’ll be looking at Chapters 22-27.  This is the third cycle of speeches between Job and his friends, but it’s a little different than the first two.  The pattern has been for Eliphaz, the mystic, to speak and for Job to rebut him, then for Bildad, the traditionalist, followed by another rebuttal from Job.  Finally, Zophar, the rationalist, speaks and Job responds. In the first cycle, Job’s friends tried to induce him to confess his sins with the promise that if he did so, God would restore all of his material blessings.  Their accusations were vague and non-specific.  And Job stuck to his guns and insisted that it was his integrity that was important, not the “stuff”.  In the second cycle, Job’s friends appealed to what we’re calling the “Retribution Principle”: God blesses the righteous and punishes the wicked.  They were more pointed in accusing Job of some non-specific sin and, again, he stood firm on his integrity.  Along with Job’s wife, who spoke at the beginning, Job’s friends are playing the part of devil’s advocates.  In the prologue the Adversary challenged God’s wisdom, arguing that if God rewards people for righteousness, people will be righteous for selfish reasons, which isn’t righteousness at all.  And so Job has become a witness in God’s defence.  He has refused to compromise his integrity just to get his blessings back.  But Job’s friends aren’t done yet.  The trial isn’t quite over.  And they keep pushing.  At this point there’s nothing left for them to do than to up their game through outright accusations.  The Retribution Principle is how God works, they insist, thus Job is guilty and their job is to persuade him to confess his guilt.  If Job does that, the Adversary wins his case in the divine court. Eliphaz doesn’t know when to stop.  As we’ll see, this cycle is shorter than the others.  Eliphaz goes on at length, but Bildad has only six short verses to say before he sputters out.  Zophar knows when to be silent—finally—and says nothing.  Many Old Testament scholars think that Zophar’s speech has either been lost or that it was transposed and merged into Job’s response to Bildad.  Either is possible, but I think that what we have actually makes rhetorical sense.  Eliphaz, the mystic who thinks that God has given him a vision about Job, just doesn’t know when to quit.  I’ve noticed that that’s often the case with people who are convinced that God has spoken to them.  Bildad, the traditionalist, tries one last time, but really has nothing left to say.  Zophar, the rationalist, hears Bildad sputter out and realises that he’s got nothing more to add and should probably just keep his mouth shut. So look at Chapter 22, beginning with verse 5.  Eliphaz isn’t going to beat around the bush anymore about Job’s supposed sins.  He says: Is not your evil abundant?          There is no end to your iniquities. For you have exacted pledges of your brothers for nothing          and stripped the naked of their clothing. You have given no water to the weary to drink,          and you have withheld bread from the hungry. The man with power possessed the land,          and the favored man lived in it. You have sent widows away empty,          and the arms of the fatherless were crushed. Therefore snares are all around you,          and sudden terror overwhelms you, or darkness, so that you cannot see,          and a flood of water covers you. (Job 22:5-11) These were serious charges in Job’s world, just as they were serious charges in Israel.  They should be serious charges to us, but in our world we’ve largely given up personal responsibility for these sorts of things to the government.  In the ancient world it was expected that people would take care of each other.  Those who had, were generally expected to help the have-nots.  But these charges are pretty silly when laid against Job.  He wasn’t just a wealthy man.  He was a prominent man of his city—an elder who sat at the gate.  Everyone would have known his charity and he would not have had the reputation he had if he’d been truly guilty of these charges.  Whatever the case, Eliphaz accuses Job and urges him to confess in verse 21 and following: “Agree with God, and be at peace;          thereby good will come to you.   Again, the message is: confess and God will restore his blessings to you.  Confess, and you’ll get your stuff back.  The Hebrew of verse 30 is difficult.  The ESV speaks of God delivering the one who is not innocent, but the Hebrew really seems to indicate that Eliphaz is talking about Job delivering the innocent: “who will be delivered through the cleanness of your hands.”  In other words, if Job would only listen to his friends, humble himself, confess and repent, not only will God restore his blessings, but Job could then be an encouragement to others in similar situations to do the same. Job will have none of it.  He doesn’t respond to Eliphaz with anger or sarcasm this time.  I think that at this point Job has given up on his friends.  Instead, he laments his state and expresses his longing for a hearing before God.  Look at 23:3-7. Oh, that I knew where I might find him,          that I might come even to his seat! I would lay my case before him          and fill my mouth with arguments. I would know what he would answer me          and understand what he would say to me. Would he contend with me in the greatness of his power?          No; he would pay attention to me. There an upright man could argue with him,          and I would be acquitted forever by my judge.   Job still has hope in God, if only he can get a hearing.  Surely God would hear him and set things right.  But, alas, Job goes on, God is nowhere to be found, and as much as God seems to be paying too much attention to him, he doesn’t seem to hear Job’s cries.  But, most important, Job continues to stand firm on his claim to righteousness.  Verse 12: I have not departed from the commandment of his lips;          I have treasured the words of his mouth more than my portion of food.   Job continues his lament in Chapter 24.  It’s interesting, because Eliphaz is encouraging Job to think of himself, but Job’s outlook continues to be bigger than himself.  Again, it’s not about “stuff”; it’s about righteousness and as part of that, Job’s asking questions about righteousness and justice that affect the whole world.  In verse 1 he asks “Why are not times of judgement kept by the Almighty?”  People do the sorts of things that Eliphaz has accused him of.  They “drive away the donkey of the fatherless”, “they thrust the poor off the road”.  And, Job says, the poor end up seeking food in the wasteland and lie all night without clothing.  They bring in the harvests of the wicked, but are given nothing to eat in return.  “The murderer rises before it is light,” says Job in verse 14, “that he may kill the poor and needy.”  “The eye of the adulterer also waits for the twilight, saying, ‘No eye will see me’. And yet, says Job—and the ESV doesn’t communicate this very well—this is all for at time.  Look at verse 24: They are exalted a little while, and then are gone;          they are brought low and gathered up like all others;          they are cut off like the heads of grain.   It looks like Job is starting to find a chink in the Retribution Principle.  If the wicked can prosper for a time, but still face justice eventually, then maybe—just maybe—the righteous can face suffering for a time and live with a hope of restoration. Now, Bildad responds in the six verses of Chapter 25: “Dominion and fear are with God;          he makes peace in his high heaven. Is there any number to his armies?          Upon whom does his light not arise? How then can man be in the right before God?          How can he who is born of woman be pure? Behold, even the moon is not bright,          and the stars are not pure in his eyes; how much less man, who is a maggot,          and the son of man, who is a worm!”   God is big and we are small.  Oddly enough, Bildad argues that Job’s claims of innocence are bunk because no one is innocent.  While he is correct, perfection was never Job’s claim.  But in the end Bildad just sputters out: We’re all maggots and worms.  God will never grant you an audience, Job. In his final speech, Job uses Bildad’s talk of God’s ordering of the cosmos as a springboard.  In 26:7-14 he sings a great hymn of creation, speaking of God’s power and authority as he brings order. He stretches out the north over the void          and hangs the earth on nothing. He binds up the waters in his thick clouds,          and the cloud is not split open under them. He covers the face of the full moon          and spreads over it his cloud. He has inscribed a circle on the face of the waters          at the boundary between light and darkness. The pillars of heaven tremble          and are astounded at his rebuke. By his power he stilled the sea;          by his understanding he shattered Rahab. By his wind the heavens were made fair;          his hand pierced the fleeing serpent. Behold, these are but the outskirts of his ways,          and how small a whisper do we hear of him!          But the thunder of his power who can understand?”   God has tamed the primordial chaos—that which was formless and void—and has given it purpose and function.  And yet for all the power and authority God has exerted to bring order to Creation, we can hear but a whisper of him.  We have a glimpse of him, but his ways remain a mystery.  This may be the wisest thing Job has said so far, although I don’t think he realises it at this point.  Our knowledge of God is limited and his ways in this world will always be, in large part, mysteries to us.  God will come back to this point when he finally speaks at the end of the book. But regardless of the mystery, Job refuses his friends’ advice.  He will hold fast to his integrity.  The heart of his last speech is in 27:2-6. “As God lives, who has taken away my right,          and the Almighty, who has made my soul bitter, as long as my breath is in me,          and the spirit of God is in my nostrils, my lips will not speak falsehood,          and my tongue will not utter deceit. Far be it from me to say that you are right;          till I die I will not put away my integrity from me. I hold fast my righteousness and will not let it go;          my heart does not reproach me for any of my days.   When he talks about not speaking falsehoods or uttering deceit, what he’s saying is that he will not make a false confession of sins that he hasn’t committed.  “Till I die,” he says, “I will not put away my integrity…I will hold fast my righteousness and will not let it go.” This is the climax of the dialogue section of the book.  The key point here is that Job values righteousness for righteousness’ sake.  He’s not in it for the blessings.  He’s not in it for the “stuff” and he never was.  This was the whole point of the Adversary’s challenge to God and Job says here that he will cling to his integrity whether he receives benefits or not.  Job, the star witness to the wisdom of God’s policies in the world, proves the Adversary wrong.  God wins the case.  Now, there’s more left to the book of Job.  God has won his case against the Adversary, but Job knows nothing of that.  He’s still got serious questions that need answering. Again, the key point here is that Job affirms that there is really something calling righteousness and that it can be objectively defined.  You see, most religion in the ancient world was defined by what we call the Great Symbiosis.  The gods had needs and people tried to meet them.  In return, the gods would give the people what they needed.  But to know what the gods needed was trial and error.  To a large degree, whatever resulted in prosperity was assumed to be what the gods wanted and was therefore “righteous”.  To them Job’s idea of a disinterested righteousness, the idea of righteousness for righteousness’ sake didn’t make any sense.  Their whole religious lives revolved around serving the gods in order to receive blessings—to have their needs met—in return.  But Job has found something greater.  Job has found a righteousness defined by a God who, as Creator, is worthy of service, of worship, of faith regardless of the blessings he may give.  Even when the world governed by this God doesn’t makes sense, Job knows that this is the God who made fair the heavens by his wind and who shattered the forces of chaos.  We hear but a small whisper of him, but knowing who he is, Job is willing to give him the benefit of the doubt when life doesn’t make sense. I think this is a good place for us to pause today.  Some flavours of “Great Symbiosis” religion still exist.  A lot of people believe in the idea of karma.  It’s hard to think of a better example of righteousness motived by selfish reasons.  Closer to home, there are wide swathes of Christianity that have been influenced and even taken over by the Prosperity Gospel.  It’s a false gospel that turns Christianity into little more than a means to health and wealth.  But even Prosperity Gospel aside, we Western Christians have increasingly over the last couple of hundred years turned the gospel into a primarily therapeutic message.  The gospel is, first and foremost, the royal summons to the King who has given his own life for his people.  If Job, who knew nothing even of the Lord’s covenant with Israel, could see in God someone worthy of service and worship for his own sake, how much more ought we be able to see that in the God who became incarnate in Jesus and died on the cross for our sake?  But all too often we pitch the gospel almost entirely as a therapeutic message: Jesus will make all your problems better.  He may.  But following Jesus also means taking up our crosses daily to follow him.  Jesus may solve some of our problems, but following him is to take the narrow and difficult path.  Brothers and Sisters, if we need to think about our motives and Job gives us a good opportunity to do that.  Even if we haven’t bought into something as off the mark as the Prosperity Gospel, we should still be asking ourselves what motivates our pursuit of righteousness. I remember this discussion hitting me about the time I got into high school.  That’s where it started becoming one of the more common topics of teaching in our youth group.  Up until then we Christian kids just followed the rules.  As kids that’s where the focus usually is.  Things are simple: don’t lie, don’t hurt other people, don’t steal their stuff, and so on.  We learned the Ten Commandments.  But as you get older you start to realise that the Bible doesn’t have a commandment for everything and even when you can find a commandment about something, the application isn’t always clear.  We tell our kids: Holiness means not having sex until you’re married.  Seems simple.  But then what do our kids do?  They start asking what constitutes “sex”.  How far can I go before I cross the line and break the rule?  You see, this is what happens when we try to teach holiness and godliness as keeping the rules without doing the much harder work of teaching our kids the motivations for holiness and godliness, without digging into the gospel of God’s loving grace with them and teaching them that Jesus is the King to be served because he is both our great and loving Creator and our merciful and gracious Redeemer.  Asking how far is too far, pushing the limits of the rules is not holiness.  It reflects a false and self-centred righteousness.  But this sort of minimalistic faith is common today.  It asks, “What’s the least I have to do?” But it’s not just high school kids.  We often continue to carry this minimalist approach to faith with us as we get older.  We see it in our attitude towards giving.  We ask things like, “Am I obligated to tithe off my gross or my net?” and then we calculate that tithe to the penny.  Never mind that the tithe was an Old Testament concept.  Never mind that even when the tithe was obligatory, it was given to support the temple and its priests.  The law also required the people to be generous to the poor and needy on top of the tithe.  But we often fall back on the tithe, because it makes for an easy rule by which to judge.  There’s no easy rule in the New Testament, but if we’re willing to pay attention and if we’re willing to think beyond a minimalist faith we see that the New Testament (and the Old for that matter, too) calls God’s people to a proportional generosity.  No, there’s no number on it, but that’s how holiness is. Another good example is one I never thought I’d see, but that is regularly coming up in some of the clergy discussion forums I frequent.  Pastors want to know how to address cannabis use in the Church.  It used to be easy—falling back on the rules—because it was illegal.  Christians shouldn’t break the law.  But falling back on rules doesn’t teach holiness.  And now, as many jurisdictions lift their prohibitions, how do we address the problem?  I know there’s some debate over this, but this is one of those issues the Bible doesn’t address directly.  There’s no “rule” for it.  I think the prohibition against drunkenness gives us some guidelines that apply particularly to drug use for purely recreational purposes.  I’ve read a number of articles talking about a dramatic upswing in cannabis use during the pandemic.  People are stressed, they’re worried, they want escape.  But does this kind of escape draw us closer to God?  Think of David, the man after God’s heart.  There’s a guy who faced some difficult and stressful situations—some of his own making.  When David was faced with hardship, he went straight to God.  Many of the psalms are the result.  If, instead, David had looked for relief or escape in a pipe full of dope, we’d have no Psalter—and I don’t think he’d gone down in history as a man who pursued God.  And, of course, this goes for anything we might use to escape our problems rather than bringing them to God, but I think the current cannabis problem illustrates this sort of minimalism well. Another example.  A Christian guy I used to work with came to me for advice one day.  His wife was angry at him.  He’d struggled with a porn addiction ever since he was a teen.  He knew it was wrong, but he only decided to do something about it when his wife got fed-up with it and threatened to leave him.  This was the first problem: He wasn’t motivated with the idea of honour God; he was motived by the potential loss of his wife.  He went to his pastor for counselling.  I don’t know if the fault lay with poor counselling on the pastor’s part or if my friend misunderstood, but whatever the case, he fell back on “rules” and convinced himself he was doing the right thing.  He dug up the legal definition of “pornography” and stopped looking at that kind of thing.  He stopped looking at websites with pictures of full nudity and switched to websites that featured swimsuit and lingerie models and convinced himself he wasn’t looking at porn.  And he couldn’t understand why his wife was still upset with him. Jesus gets at this sort of legalistic minimalism in the Sermon on the Mount, in Matthew 5.  People thought they were fulfilling the law against murder so long as they didn’t stick a knife into their neighbour, but Jesus reminded them that the requirement to love one’s neighbour is bigger than that.  If you hate your neighbour, even if you don’t actually kill him, you’ve failed to fulfil the law of love.  Similarly, he says, lusting after a woman—whether she’s clothed or not—is to commit adultery in your heart, even if you don’t actually engage in the act.  Jesus concludes with the words, “Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect”. Brothers and Sisters, that’s what it means to be godly.  That’s what holiness looks like.  Yes, there are times when the Bible gives us clear rules, but our goal isn’t to be slavishly obedient to the rule, while pushing its limit.  It’s to look at the principles of godliness that lie behind it and to recognise that the rule isn’t there to keep us from having fun, but as a guide to holiness.  If we approached the clear rules with that in mind, I think we’d do a lot better in addressing those areas in life where the Bible doesn’t offer clear rules.  Rather than asking what the minimum is to be a follower of Jesus, rather than asking how much we can indulge ourselves before falling into sin, we’d be making our way through life and evaluating everything we encounter, every choice we have to make and asking things like, “Does this bring me closer to God or will it drive me from him or cause me to miss an opportunity to draw closer?” and “Does this look like loving my neighbour or does it look like loving myself?” and “Is this self-centred or is it God-centred?”  Ultimately: “Does this entail sacrifice, giving of myself in a way that honours God and makes him known?” Brothers and Sisters, Job teaches us the importance of following after God for God’s sake and of pursuing righteousness for righteousness’ sake—because both are worthy, not for what we gain, but because God is God and righteousness honour him.  Because God has proved himself worthy of our devotion by his goodness and his faithfulness, seen supremely in the cross, and because pursuing holiness and righteousness in our lives pleases him while exposing the unbelieving world around us to the hope he has given us of a world and a humanity one day set to rights. Let’s pray: Gracious Father, as the Creator who tamed the primordial chaos you are worthy of our service and worship, but you have proven yourself even more in giving your Son to die on our behalf, to die for your enemies, that we might be restored to your fellowship.  You have proved your goodness, your faithfulness, and your worthiness.  Even as we struggle with disordered, sinful, and selfish desires, you have poured your own Spirit into our hearts to turn them to you.  Teach us, we pray, to avail ourselves of the means of grace that you have given—that we would immerse ourselves in your word, live in loving fellowship with our brothers and sisters, be reminded of the grace of the sacraments, that we would pursue godliness in our lives, setting aside every selfish motive and pursuing righteousness solely for the purpose of honour you and of making you known.  Through Jesus we pray.  Amen.

“Behold, I am vile.” — Job 40:4 One cheering word, poor lost sinner, for thee! You think you must not come to God because YOU are vile. Now, there is not a saint living on earth but has been made to feel that he is vile. If Job, and Isaiah, and Paul were all obliged […]

Till We Have Faces Job 4-14 by William Klock We’ve watched as Job’s friends arrived to comfort him, but found the scene—poor Job, afflicted and sitting in the town garbage dump—so horrible that all they could do was sit in silence.  Even though they acted as if they were at Job’s funeral, that may have been their wisest move.  They were at a loss for words and they knew it.  So for seven days and nights they sat with Job until he finally spoke.  And when he spoke it was to lament and to curse the day on which he was born.  Job’s broken the ice and now his friends speak.  And their conversation or dialogue—or maybe we should just call it an argument—is arranged in three cycles that take up the first half of the book. This is the rhetorical strategy of the book.  Each series or round of dialogue between Job and his friends addresses a specific philosophical point.  The four friends discuss and argue their way around that point, ultimately reaching some kind of resolution that then leads into the next series or round of dialogue.  So let’s jump into this first round.  It runs from Chapter 4 through Chapter 14—yes, ten chapters, and we’ll run all the way through this morning so be ready to turn some pages. Eliphaz speaks first.  He starts out with words of encouragement, reminding Job of his wisdom in 4:3-4: Behold, you have instructed many,          and you have strengthened the weak hands. Your words have upheld him who was stumbling,          and you have made firm the feeble knees.   But Job’s forgotten his own wisdom and Eliphaz encourages him to remember: But now it has come to you, and you are impatient;          it touches you, and you are dismayed. Is not your fear of God your confidence,          and the integrity of your ways your hope? (Job 4:5-6) And so Eliphaz reminds Job of what we called the Retribution Principle.  This is how they all—including Job—assume God works.  God punishes the wicked and rewards the righteous.  He says in 4:7: “Remember: who that was innocent ever perished?          Or where were the upright cut off?   Remember the triangle I mentioned a couple of weeks ago—the triangle that we can use to help understand what these four are arguing.  At one point of the triangle is God’s justice, at another is Job’s righteousness, and at the third is the Retribution Principle, this assumption that God punishes the wicked and blesses the righteous.  The problem is that Job’s affliction puts these in tension.  Either Job isn’t really righteous or God isn’t really just or the Retribution Principle doesn’t adequately describe the way God does things.  So already we see that Eliphaz is affirming the Retribution Principle.  He also affirms the justice of God.  So I think you can see where he’s going to say the problem is.  It’s Job’s righteousness.  Job isn’t really righteous after all.  Now, Eliphaz does two things to soften the blow and to hopefully defect the anger he knows is going to come back from Job.  First, he presents what he tells Job as something that came to him in a vision.  In verses 12-16 he describes an eerie scene in the night that set his hair on end.  A voice spoke to him.  Now he passes those words to Job.  Look at 4:17-19: ‘Can mortal man be in the right before God?          Can a man be pure before his Maker? Even in his servants he puts no trust,          and his angels he charges with error; how much more those who dwell in houses of clay…’ Eliphaz says, “Job, God told me to tell you that you’re not as righteous as you claim.”  It’s hard to say why Eliphaz would claim to have heard from God.  It may be that he knows Job won’t like hearing this, so he buffers himself from Job’s anger.  “Don’t shoot the messenger,” and all of that.  Or maybe he’s making the claim to add authority to his words.  But Eliphaz doesn’t seem like the dishonest type.  I think he actually does believe God gave him these words.  But believing God has given you a vision doesn’t make it so.  God will eventually defend Job’s righteousness and expose Eliphaz’s nonsense.  Eliphaz does this and there are a lot of Christians who do it, too—and I doubt that they’re dishonest.  Most are well-meaning and really think that God had spoken to them when he hasn’t.  This should be a warning to anyone who would presume to speak for God.  If you’ve got something to say, never claim God gave it to you unless it came from the pages of Scripture. Even then, there’s a second warning here.  Eliphaz also softens the blow to Job by noting that no mortal is truly righteous.  “Don’t feel so bad, Job, because we’re all in the same boat.”  Except that they’re not.  Eliphaz and Bildad and Zophar aren’t sitting on the ash-heap having lost everything.  Eliphaz is technically correct.  St. Paul says it himself, more or less quoting Ecclesiastes, “None is righteous, no not one” (Romans 3:10).  Like a lot of Christians offering advice, Eliphaz grabs onto a biblical truth as if it were a nail, and with a single massive blow from the hammer, drives it home.  Now, if Job’s righteousness were the problem, great.  Problem solved.  But it’s not.  And rather than healing his friend, Eliphaz hurts him deeply.  He says in 5:17-18: “Behold, blessed is the one whom God reproves;          therefore despise not the discipline of the Almighty. For he wounds, but he binds up;          he shatters, but his hands heal.   “Just repent Job.  Admit your sin and God will heal your wounds and restore what he has taken from you.  ‘Hear, and know it for your good’(5:27),” he says.  But here’s the thing: If Job took the advice of Eliphaz, if he were to give up his claims to righteousness that he knows is right, and made a false show of humility before God just to get his stuff back, he’d prove the Adversary right.  Remember, the Adversary has challenged God’s way of doing things.  He’s said that if God rewards the righteous, people will be righteous for selfish reasons.  And that’s just what Job would be doing if he caved to Eliphaz’s pressure. Notice that everything that Job and his friends say is right.  All of these points in their arguments are good and valid theological points.  We can find all of this stuff somewhere in the Bible.  And yet they all end up being wrong.  Because they’re missing one simple, but profound truth, because they’re camping out on the justice of God as key rather than the wisdom of God, they take all these truths and put them together to create one big error. Now, in 6:10 Job angrily responds to Eliphaz: This would be my comfort;          I would even exult in pain unsparing,          for I have not [hid behind holy words][1].   Job is utterly miserable, he hopes for death, and he finds his consolation in a refusal to hide behind the sugar-coated reality of his friends.  How can a false admission of guilt on his part make anything better when he’s not being punished for his sin?  No, that would only make things worse, because then he’d have lost his integrity too.  So he angrily rips into Eliphaz and defends his righteousness.  In verse 29 he puts it out there plainly, saying, “My vindication is at stake.”  He demands Eliphaz take back his words, then he cries out for death some more.  Finally, in 7:7-21 Job cries out to God: What is man, that you make so much of him,          and that you set your heart on him… (7:17) The Psalmist uses a similar phrase in Psalm 8, where it gives comfort.  God watches over us.  But here Job is accusing the Lord of being overly attentive and finicky to the point of harassing the righteous.  Job wishes God would either leave him alone or tell him what petty infraction he’s guilty of so that he can get it over with.  Job feels as though he’s been through a trial and pronounced guilty without ever having had the chance to defend himself. In Chapter 8 Bildad confronts Job.  And that’s really what it is.  He doesn’t like what Job has said.  Look at verses 2-3: “How long will you say these things,          and the words of your mouth be a great wind? Does God pervert justice?          Or does the Almighty pervert the right?   “You’re a windbag, Job, speaking nothings!”  Bildad’s not stupid.  He knows full well where this is going.  If Job is going to insist on his own righteousness—and since they all know that the Retribution Principle is how God works, no one’s questioning that—then the implication is that God himself is unjust.  Bildad sees that that’s what Job is saying, if not in so many words. So Bildad, like Zophar, urges Job to repent of his sins in 5-7: If you will seek God          and plead with the Almighty for mercy, if you are pure and upright,          surely then he will rouse himself for you          and restore your rightful habitation. And though your beginning was small,          your latter days will be very great.   Repentance is the route to restoration.  In verses 11 and 12 Bildad asks whether papyrus can grow where there is no water.  Of course not.  Without water the reeds wither and die and he says in 13: Such are the paths of all who forget God;          the hope of the godless shall perish.   So he’s accusing Job of having forgotten God—of having strayed from the path of righteousness.  And, of course, this isn’t helping. Job already knows all this, but it doesn’t answer the question.  What he really wants is to bring God into the courtroom as defendant, to bring a charge of injustice against him.  But Job knows that will never happen.  Look at 9:2 and following: “Truly I know that it is so:          But how can a man be in the right before God? If one wished to contend with him,          one could not answer him once in a thousand times….   How can one bring a charge, says Job, against the one who overturns mountain in his anger (9:5), who shakes the earth (9:6), who commands the sun and the stars (9:7), who alone stretched out the heavens (9:8).  No, says, Job, it’s hopeless in verses 13-20: “God will not turn back his anger;          beneath him bowed the helpers of Rahab. How then can I answer him,          choosing my words with him? Though I am in the right, I cannot answer him;          I must appeal for mercy to my accuser. If I summoned him and he answered me,          I would not believe that he was listening to my voice. For he crushes me with a tempest          and multiplies my wounds without cause; he will not let me get my breath,          but fills me with bitterness. If it is a contest of strength, behold, he is mighty!          If it is a matter of justice, who can summon him? Though I am in the right, my own mouth would condemn me;          though I am blameless, he would prove me perverse.   Even if God is in the wrong, I have no chance in court against him!  And so Job is hopeless.  You can hear him getting worked up as he says these things.  His hopelessness mounts and finally out comes the accusation.  It’s been there all along.  Job’s been beating around the bush, afraid to say it, but now it comes out in verses 22-24: ‘He destroys both the blameless and the wicked.’ When disaster brings sudden death,          he mocks at the calamity of the innocent. The earth is given into the hand of the wicked;          he covers the faces of its judges—          if it is not he, who then is it?   There, he’s said it: God is unjust.  It’s the only conclusion Job can draw.  He knows that he is righteous.  He knows that justice requires that the wicked be punished and the righteous rewarded, ergo God is unjust.  He has afflicted a righteous man.  Job goes on to call for an arbitrator.  He wants his day in court.  He wants God to take responsibility for this injustice.  And then he remembers that it’s pointless and Chapter 10 is another lament.  Job pleads for death. As far as his friends are concerned, Job is just digging himself further into a pit.  Zophar is sitting there fuming as Job speaks and now he has his chance to respond.  You can hear the anger in his voice.  Job’s speaking blasphemies.  Look at Chapter 11: “Should a multitude of words go unanswered,          and a man full of talk be judged right? Should your babble silence men,          and when you mock, shall no one shame you? For you say, ‘My doctrine is pure,          and I am clean in God’s eyes.’ But oh, that God would speak          and open his lips to you, and that he would tell you the secrets of wisdom!          For he is manifold in understanding. Know then that God exacts of you less than your guilt deserves.  (11:2-6) Ouch.  Great words from a friend, eh?  “Stop your babbling, Job.  Stop being such a goody-two-shoes.  If God did speak as you demand, you’d finally understand what real wisdom is and find out that God hasn’t afflicted you half as much as you deserve!”  And Zophar goes on, like Eliphaz and Bildad, to urge Job to admit his guilt and to repent.  If he will only do that, all will be well again.  In verses 16 and 17 he says: You will forget your misery;          you will remember it as waters that have passed away. And your life will be brighter than the noonday;          its darkness will be like the morning.   Eliphaz beat around the bush about Job’s sin, but Zophar just comes out and says it in verse 14: “Put away the iniquity that is in your hand, Job!” Poor Job.  He’s miserable enough already.  He thought it was bad when his friends sat for seven days and nights and said nothing, but now they speak and make it even worse.  And he really bites back in Chapter 12.  Look at verses 2-4: “No doubt you are the people,          and wisdom will die with you. But I have understanding as well as you;          I am not inferior to you.          Who does not know such things as these? I am a laughingstock to my friends;          I, who called to God and he answered me,          a just and blameless man, am a laughingstock. (12:2-4)   At this point Job’s thinking starts to shift.  He’s ticked-off with his friends and as much as he’s angry with God for his affliction, the worthlessness of his friends’ advice drives him back to God.  In 12:13 he affirms: “With God are wisdom and might;          He has counsel and understanding.   Job waxes eloquent about the might and power, the strength and wisdom and the sovereignty of God.  He leads away the false councilors, he makes fools of false judges, he overthrows the mighty, he pours contempt on princes.  Suddenly Job’s hopelessness at the prospect of ever bringing his case before God, let alone winning it is gone.  In Chapter 13 Job now looks for hope in God’s court again.  In verse 3 he says: But I would speak to the Almighty,          and I desire to argue my case with God.   But it’s not just his complaint against God for his injustice.  Now Job’s talking about dragging his three friends into court with him, confident that God will vindicate him and rebuke the three of them: As for you, you whitewash with lies;          worthless physicians are you all…. (13:4) Will it be well with you when [God] searches you out?          Or can you deceive him, as one deceives a man? He will surely rebuke you          if in secret you show partiality. Will not his majesty terrify you,          and the dread of him fall upon you? Your maxims are proverbs of ashes;          your defenses are defenses of clay.  (13:9-12) Job sort of gets his confidence and his hope back.  In verse 13 he says: “Let me have silence, and I will speak,          and let come on me what may.   In verse 15 he speaks one of the best-known verses from the book: Though he slay me, I will hope in him;          yet I will argue my ways to his face. This will be my salvation,          That the godless shall not come before him. (13:15-16) Before Job was despairing of making a case at all, but now he pleads with God, “withdraw your hand from me” and let me speak, give me a chance to prepare my case.  His friends keep telling him that if he will only admit that he isn’t as righteous as he claims, God will restore him.  But in Chapter 14 Job envisions himself being restored to God’s friendship, having his righteousness vindicated.  Look at 14:13-17: Oh that you would hide me in Sheol,          that you would conceal me until your wrath be past,          that you would appoint me a set time, and remember me! If a man dies, shall he live again?          All the days of my service I would wait,          till my renewal should come. You would call, and I would answer you;          you would long for the work of your hands. For then you would number my steps;          you would not keep watch over my sin; my transgression would be sealed up in a bag,          and you would cover over my iniquity.   For just a moment there’s a glimmer of hope in Job.  I can imagine him looking up to heaven hopefully.  But then that gross potsherd in his hand, the one he’s been using to scrap the pus from his sores, brings him back to reality.  He remembers his lost wealth and his dead children and the hope is gone in verses 18-19: “But the mountain falls and crumbles away,          and the rock is removed from its place; the waters wear away the stones;          the torrents wash away the soil of the earth;          so you destroy the hope of man.   And thus ends the first cycle of speeches in Job.  What was the point of all that?  Well, notice: Job’s friends are consistently and repeatedly urging him to give up his claim to righteousness, to admit that he has no integrity, and that if he will humble himself and repent, God will restore him.  For Job’s friends it’s all about the benefits of friendship with God.  And now we see that the Adversary’s challenge to the Lord isn’t finished.  We might have thought that God won the challenge when Job refused to curse him for his affliction, but the test goes on.  Now Job’s friends play devil’s advocates.  They don’t urge him to curse God and die, but they urge him to make it all about the benefits, all about the stuff.  They urge him to do whatever it takes to get it all back.  And Job refuses.  His integrity is more important than stuff.  Even if it means accusing God of injustice, Job will not compromise his own righteousness.  Now, that’s put him in a difficult spot.  For a moment we see a glimmer of hope return to Job, but by the end of the cycle it’s gone.  Job has no hope of ever having his day in court.  He will never be vindicated.  But he still holds fast to his integrity.  Job truly does value righteousness for righteousness’ sake. And, Brothers and Sisters, that’s the point.  I think we too often miss the point of the book of Job.  We read Job and we think that the purpose of the book is to hold up Job as an example of how a godly person responds to tragedy and suffering.  Job refused to curse God.  Job refused to sin.  We quote some of those well-known words of Job: “Though he slay me, yet I will trust in him.”  Nevermind that most of those verses we take to be expressions of deep trust in God come from some of the most difficult Hebrew of the book and were poorly translated in the King James.  We gloss over Job’s weaknesses.  We use translation to cover up his theological errors.  And that’s a mistake.  We need to allow Job his faults and his weaknesses.  As grand as Job’s view of God is, it’s still deficient.  But that’s okay.  Well, it’s not, but it does mean that Job is human, just like the rest of us.  His knowledge of God is imperfect, just like ours—although perhaps in different ways.  You see, our problem is often that we make the book of Job all about Job.  Considering the title, that’s a natural mistake.  But at the end of the day, the book is about God, not Job.  Job’s not the one on trial.  God is the one on trial, his policies being put to the test.  Job is his star witness, and for all his flaws, Job does spectacularly well, not because his theology is perfect, not because he always knows the right thing to say, not because he never questions God, but because he values righteousness for righteousness’ sake, because he values friendship with God for the sake of God himself. And that’s precisely why Job is so frustrated and discouraged.  It’s precisely why he cries out to God, demanding a hearing.  And hopefully it’s the same reason we cry out to God in frustrating in the midst of our pain and suffering.  And as I said last week, it often feels like we’re crying out to a brick wall or as if our prayers are bouncing off the ceiling—that no one is listening.  And it may just be that, as he was with Job, God is giving us the opportunity to hear ourselves.  This was the basis for what I think is C. S. Lewis’ finest novel, Till We Have Faces.  Not all that different from Job, the wronged and grieving queen, the main character of the story, rages at the gods.  And then she hears a voice and she stops her raging.  And as she listens, she realizes that it’s her own voice coming back to her—bouncing off the ceiling if you will—and it’s only then that she realizes what idiotic babble she’s been screaming.  And yet the gods, in their silence, had done the one thing necessary.  They’d given her the opportunity to dig those words out of her soul and then to hear her own foolishness.  And the light goes on and she speaks the famous line that gave the book its title, “How can they meet us face to face till we have faces.”  Brothers and Sisters, that’s often just it.  Like Job, we want the God we know and love and who has shown us so much grace and good to come and give us an answer in the midst of our trials, our pain, our suffering, our tragedy—in those times when it seems like he’s retreated to the other side of the wall and bolted the door.  Like Job we cry out and may even rage at the silence and it may just be that God is giving us the opportunity to hear ourselves, to realise our error, to know our smallness, to ponder the limited nature of our knowing—giving us the opportunity to find our face that we might then meet him face to face. Let’s pray: Father, thank you for these difficult words from Job and his friends.  Help us to wrestle with them and to understand.  I pray that having the benefit of the cross of Jesus before us, that we would better grasp the problem of suffering.  But most of all, remind us always of your grace that we might cling to you always, no matter what we face, no matter our fears, no matter our questions, that we might cling to you knowing that you are our life.  We ask this through Jesus our Saviour and Lord.  Amen. [1] A better rendering of כִחַדְתִּי אִמְרֵי קָדוֹשׁ than the ESV’s “denied words of the Holy One”.

Let the Day Perish Job 3:1-26 by William Klock It’s not easy to really understand something you haven’t experienced.  I’d love to be able to hand the book of Job over to someone else—someone who has a greater grasp of suffering than I do.  As we get to Chapter 3 we transition from the prologue into the dialogue between Job and his friends.  The Lord will eventually, near the end, enter the dialogue, too.  But it begins with a great lament from Job.  And I’m not sure that any of us can grasp the depth of Job’s lament, although I’m sure there are some of you who can grasp, who know that kind of lament, better than I do.  Job has expressed his faith.  “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return.  The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord” (1:21).  And, later, when his wife told him to give up, to curse God and die, Job responded, “Shall we not receive the good from God, and shall we not receive evil” (2:10).  We’re told that in all this, Job did not sin.  But that doesn’t mean he wasn’t upset, that he didn’t lament, or that he didn’t ask the big question: Why? I can’t say I’ve ever struggled all that deeply with that question.  In the times that bad things have happened to me and I’ve asked “Why?”, it doesn’t usually take much introspection to realise that the answer is that I did something dumb and brought my problems on myself.  Personally, the deepest I think I’ve ever come to lament was on the birth of our stillborn daughter.  It wasn’t until the nurses brought her back to us, dressed in an outfit made by volunteers, and left her with us to grieve that the life and death of this little person—my child, but still a stranger—was real.  Veronica was still sedated from the surgery, but I was left there with this tiny, lifeless child and had to ask, “Why?”  But I can’t pretend that my asking the big question was anything as deep as Job’s asking or that my lament was nearly as deep as Job’s lament.  He’d lost everything, including his ten adult children, and was afflicted himself from head to foot.  It’s not surprising that as I’ve been making my way through the commentaries on Job, I’ve found the evangelical ones tend to be rather shallow, while the best I’ve found have come out of Judaism—from a people who have known deep loss and suffering.  There seem to be a lot of Evangelicals who struggle to deal with Job’s questions.  How can a faithful person ask the things Job is asking?  But people who have truly known suffering have usually asked those questions of God themselves and they understand. So that’s where Job’s at as we get to Chapter 3.  His friends have come to comfort him, but they’re so struck by the situation and by his appearance when they find him on the ash-heap, that they lose all words.  They simply sit with him.  The language describing their actions suggests that they’re treating this as if it were a funeral ritual.  Job might as well be dead. And Job might wish he were dead, but he’s not ready to give up.  His lament is in three parts and he begins by cursing the day he was born.  Look at Job 3:1-10. After this Job opened his mouth and cursed the day of his birth.  And Job said: “Let the day perish on which I was born,          and the night that said,          ‘A man is conceived.’ Let that day be darkness!          May God above not seek it,          nor light shine upon it. Let gloom and deep darkness claim it.          Let clouds dwell upon it;          let the blackness of the day terrify it. That night—let thick darkness seize it!          Let it not rejoice among the days of the year;          let it not come into the number of the months. Behold, let that night be barren;          let no joyful cry enter it. Let those curse it who curse the day,          who are ready to rouse up Leviathan. Let the stars of its dawn be dark;          let it hope for light, but have none,          nor see the eyelids of the morning, because it did not shut the doors of my mother’s womb,          nor hide trouble from my eyes.   Job doesn’t curse God, but he does curse the day on which he was born and he spares no words to do so.  We get a sense of his overwhelming despair.  No doubt the day he was born was a happy one for his parents.  It had been a happy one for Job, until all this happened.  Now he looks back on the joy with which is parents spoke of his birthday and he says, “Curse the day!”  Curse the day that saw me born and curse the night when my parents conceived me. Next he heaps up words for darkness.  “Let that day be darkness…nor light shine upon it.  Let gloom and deep darkness claim it…clouds dwell upon it; let the blackness of day terrify it.”  This is the language of “de-creation”.  Creation began in the darkness and chaos, and God began his creative work of bringing order and purpose to that chaos by calling for light.  Light symbolises the creative and sustaining hands of God.  Light symbolises his goodness and his care.  Light symbolises the order that God brought out of the chaos of the precreated cosmos.  And so Job calls down darkness on the day he was born.  “May God not seek it out.”  May the day of my birth pass by God unnoticed, unordered, unsustained, for then I might not have been born.  Job laments his very creation.  If only God had been sleeping, not paying attention, or otherwise busy on that day, it might have passed by, Job would never have been born, and he never would have known all this sorrow. While his parents knew joy the night he was conceived, Job calls out to the keepers of Leviathan, the great chaos beast of the sea.  You see, for the Jews—as for many ancient Near Eastern peoples—the sea was a remnant of that pre-creation chaos, a bit of the chaos still untamed.  (This, by the way, is probably why St. John’s vision of the new creation has no sea, not because the sea will literally be gone, but because it’s a symbol of the Lord finishing what he began and leaving nothing to wreak havoc again as the serpent had.)  Leviathan personified the chaos of the sea.  It was a beast of uncreation and Job calls on its keepers to set the great monster loose to curse the day of his birth, wishing that day had never been. Job has lost hope.  Even in the darkest of days, the birth of a child brings hope.  New life coming into the world.  There’s excitement and anticipation.  If you were to ask an expectant mother if she’s looking forward to anything she might think you were crazy.  Of course she’s looking forward to something!  Isn’t it obvious?  Job’s mother and father felt that way once, but Job’s discouragement is so deep that he wishes that day had never happened.  Again, he’s lost all hope.  And so, knowing that he can’t actually curse the day of his birth, he moves from pronouncing a curse to wailing a formal lament for the day.  Look at verses 11-19: “Why did I not die at birth,          come out from the womb and expire? Why did the knees receive me?          Or why the breasts, that I should nurse? For then I would have lain down and been quiet;          I would have slept; then I would have been at rest, with kings and counselors of the earth          who rebuilt ruins for themselves, or with princes who had gold,          who filled their houses with silver. Or why was I not as a hidden stillborn child,          as infants who never see the light? There the wicked cease from troubling,          and there the weary are at rest. There the prisoners are at ease together;          they hear not the voice of the taskmaster. The small and the great are there,          and the slave is free from his master.   If he had to be born, why couldn’t he have been stillborn?  Again, we get sense of the depth of Job’s grief and despair.  He’d rather be dead, in fact, he’d rather know nothing of life itself.  Better the quiet and peace of the grave than the pain he’s known.  He could lie down with kings and counsellors and princes—with great men—and even though dead, they’d be better company than the life he knew. In the grave, the wicked are no longer able to cause trouble.  In the grave the weary finally find rest.  In the grave, the prisoner finally finds release.  In the grave, even the slave finally knows what is to be free.  Had he died at birth, Job would know only the quiet of the grave and, he’s sunk so low, what a blessing that would be! I think that here, if we listen closely to Job, we get a sense of the difference between his perspective and our perspective and we get some insight into where he (and his friends) are coming from as they grapple with the question of justice.  I think, too, that Job offers some push-back against the way that many of us think about this issue as Christians. As Christians Job’s attitude might seem foreign.  Better dead than suffering?  And especially in light of the fact that when Job talks about “dead”, he’s talking about the grave.  As Christians, we may experience evil and pain and suffering in our lives, but we know that no matter how bad it gets, we have a hope the other side of death.  Life—real life, a life that the life we now know is only a shadow of—resurrection to life awaits those who are in Jesus by faith.  Someday, when Jesus has put every enemy under his feet, he will finish the work of new creation that he has begun and the culmination of that will the resurrection of the dead to life in the presence of God.  We may not know justice this side of death, but we can live in hope knowing that all things will be made new someday and that everything that is wrong will be set to rights.  But Job didn’t know that hope and neither did the other Old Testament saints.  Towards the end of the Old Testament period we see a belief in the coming of a future king and of the resurrection of the faithful dead begin to develop—in the writings of prophets like Isaiah—but even then, it wasn’t a well-defined idea.  For the most part, in the Old Testament, there was only the grave.  Their word for it was sheol.  Job doesn’t use sheol in his lament, but he does several times later in the book and that’s what he’s getting at here when he speaks of the grave.  Sheol wasn’t really good or bad.  It just was.  Sometimes it’s used metaphorically to simply point to the grave.  Other times it’s a reference to the afterlife, the abode of those who have died.  It’s neither presented as a place of punishment or a place of reward.  It just is.  Sheol is the great equaliser, the destiny of everyone, rich or poor, good or bad.  The connotation is usually that, at least compared to life, sheol isn’t a pleasant place, but then that really underlines Job’s despair.  To have been still born, to have never known life, to know only this sort of limbo existence in sheol, would be better than his current state. And that there was no punishment or reward to be found in sheol points to Job’s need to wrestle with this question of the justice of God.  For the Old Testament saints, justice was something to be expected in this life.  We see this throughout the psalms, where the psalmists cry out—and expect!—to be delivered from their enemies.  They trust that the Lord will destroy or punish their enemies while they go on to lead a long and happy life.  This was Job’s thinking and it explains his confusion and his frustration with God. Again, I think this can give some needed balance to how we think as Christians.  The Old Testament saints didn’t follow the Lord for or didn’t build their faith around a hope of eternal life with God.  While sheol was not out of God’s reach, it was a place apart from him.  They expected to walk with the Lord and to receive his blessings in life.  And, of course, this is where the Adversary’s challenge came from.  “Is Job only pursuing God for the good stuff he’ll get in return?”  Well, now we’ve seen that, no, Job is pursuing God for God’s sake.  Now, as Christians, Jesus has given us hope greater than anyone knew in the Old Testament.  New Creation has begun and we live in hopeful expectation that Jesus will finish that work and make us a part of it.  But how often are we guilty of the same thing?  We’ve often been guilty of structuring our evangelism around this very problem and when we do that, we lead people astray from the get-go.  We persuade people to faith with the fear of hell and the reward of heaven, but if we leave it at that or if we stress that aspect of things too much, we may very well be making a whole lot of Christians who are serving God not for God’s sake and not pursuing righteousness for righteousness sake, but doing it for the reward.  There are therapeutic ramifications of the gospel, but if we present the gospel as primarily therapeutic, we end up making Christians who are in it for themselves.  Don’t misunderstand.  We need to stand with St. Paul and declare that to live is Christ and to die is gain.  We need to live in hope of life with God in the age to come and we need to declare that hope to the world.  But I think the faith of the Old Testament saints, the faith of people like Job, pulls us back from the future and cautions us against escapist and gnostic fancies and down to earth, prompting us to seek righteousness and justice in life, not just as pie-in-the-sky when we die. Now, in the final part of Job’s lament comes the big question, the one he’s been working towards: Why?  Look at verses 20-26: “Why is light given to him who is in misery,          and life to the bitter in soul, who long for death, but it comes not,          and dig for it more than for hidden treasures, who rejoice exceedingly          and are glad when they find the grave? Why is light given to a man whose way is hidden,          whom God has hedged in? For my sighing comes instead of my bread,          and my groanings are poured out like water. For the thing that I fear comes upon me,          and what I dread befalls me. I am not at ease, nor am I quiet;          I have no rest, but trouble comes.”   “Why is light given to a man whose way is hidden, whom God has hedged in?” asks Job.  There’s some irony here.  Because we, the readers, have been let in on the scene in the Lord’s council, we know that Job had been hedged in.  Job now cries out that the Lord’s hedge is an injustice.  In reality, the Lord’s hedge brought Job incredible blessing, but Job knew nothing of that.  All he can see now, from his vantage point of suffering, is that the Lord has put a hedge between himself and Job.  Job knew the Lord and his fellowship.  He knew the Lord’s blessing.  And now it’s as if the Lord has placed a wall between himself and Job.  Job feels alone and he feels as though he’s in the dark, and from the dark he’s crying out, “Why?”  And it feels like his cries to the Lord are simply bouncing off that wall.  It’s often when we need God the most that he seems the most distant and uncaring.  After his wife died, C. S. Lewis wrote a little book titled A Grief Observed, sort of a journal of his journey through grief.  He experienced this same phenomenon and I think he describes it very well: “This is one of the most disquieting symptoms. When you are happy, so happy that you have no sense of needing Him…if you remember yourself and turn to Him with gratitude and praise, you will be—or so it feels—welcomed with open arms. But go to him when your need is desperate, when all other help is vain, and what do you find? A door slammed in your face, and a sound of bolting and double bolting on the inside. After that, silence. You may as well turn away. The longer you wait, the more emphatic the silence will become. There are no lights in the windows. It might be an empty house. Was it ever inhabited? It seemed so once.” I suspect we’ve all been there at some point.  The door seems closed, but we know that God is there on the other side and we can’t give up.  Somehow we have to keep pushing the door, calling over the wall.  Hope—even if all we have left of our hope is a sliver—our hope demands we not give up our pursuit of God. And we see this with Job.  As he cries out he says he’s lost all hope.  He cries out for death.  But, Brothers and Sisters, that he still cries out to God highlights that he really hasn’t lost all hope.  Maybe he thinks he has or maybe he’s just angry and discouraged, but the hope is still there, otherwise he’d give up, turn away from the hedge, and curse the God behind it.  But he doesn’t.  He doesn’t understand how any of this can be.  How can God bring such suffering on a righteous man?  How can such a God be just?  Job wrestles with these questions because he has known this God, because he has known this God and known him to be good, and so his questions become a lifeline—a way of holding fast to God even when his fingers feel like they’re grasping at thin air, even when Job doesn’t realise what he’s doing. We cry out to God from our grief and ask “Why?”, not because we question his goodness, but because we’ve just experienced something very bad and, yet, we know that God is good.  We know it in our heads, in our hearts, in our guts.  We know that God is good.  The evidence of his goodness is there in Scripture on page after page after page.  We know he’s good.  And so we cry out “Why?”  We want to square the circle, to settle our question, to reconcile our present experience with our experience and what we know of God.  From the darkness we cry. And, once again, the gospel meets us in the darkness.  If Job knew God’s goodness well enough to cry out “Why?”, to seek to reconcile his circumstances with what he knew of God, how much better do we know the goodness of God this side of the cross?  We know the goodness of God demonstrated in his humbling himself to be born a human being and to die on a cross for the sake of his enemies.  Brothers and Sisters, the cross assures us of God’s goodness no matter how dark our days, not matter how firmly shut the door, no matter how high the wall.  And it also points us in the right direction to find our answer.  Job asked, “Why?” because he couldn’t reconcile his understanding of justice with what God had done.  Why had God rewarded righteousness with suffering?  Friends, the same thing happened to Jesus.  He who knew no sin suffered.  And yet there was a reason for it.  He who knew no sin became sin for us.  In Jesus we get a glimpse behind the scenes to see that God is bigger than the retribution principle, that God is not a divine vending machine dispensing blessings in return for service.  In Jesus God shows us that his justice is deeper than we can ever fully grasp.  In Jesus we have a glimpse of the perfect wisdom of God at work to bring goodness and blessing the likes of which the Old Testament saints never knew.  They looked for blessings in this life and then expected nothing more than the grave.  But Brothers and Sisters, because of Jesus we know a hope of the life of the age to come, a life in a world set right, a life in a world where we’ll never have to ask “Why?”. Let us pray: Heavenly Father, keep your Son and his Cross ever before our eyes and especially so as we struggle through difficult days.  Keep Jesus and his Cross before us as we struggle to understand and when we ask “Why?”.  Let the cross of Christ be a reminder to us that even when our vision is clouded, even when we’re stumbling in the dark and can’t see where we’re going, even when you seem distant, we can confidently hold onto the knowledge that you are good and that you are there and that you love us.  Strengthen our faith as we walk through difficult days in the shadow of the cross, we ask, that we might hold ever tighter to Jesus.  Amen.

What is the wise way to respond to innocent suffering? This question is central to the book of Job. No one paying attention to the world can deny the reality of innocent suffering?that our experience of the world is far from what we wish it to be, and often our suffering doesn't make sense. If Job's friends show us how not to respond to this reality, Job's own responses to his friends and to his God model authentic faith in our suffering. Originally 2015-06-21.

What is the wise way to respond to innocent suffering? This question is central to the book of Job. No one paying attention to the world can deny the reality of innocent suffering—that our experience of the world is far from what we wish it to be, and often our suffering doesn't make sense. If Job's friends show us how not to respond to this reality, Job's own responses to his friends and to his God model authentic faith in our suffering.

Job laments about injustice. He argues that the world is not the way it should be. If Job is right, and in the main he is, what does this mean for God who rules this world? Is God unjust? Is his lordship somehow corrupt or broken? We consider three important truths: (1) sin has entered the world; (2) justice is delayed as a kindness of God; and (3) this is not the end of the story. We must remember these things as we see suffering and injustice in the world today. Questions to consider: 1. Can you give a scriptural defense on why there is suffering and injustice in this world? 2. How do we have confidence that Christ will return and usher in his kingdom? 3. How do the three truths from this sermon bring comfort, peace, and rest?

22 Eliphaz describes Job’s wickedness: he has not given the weary water to drink, withheld bread from the hungry.If Job returns to the Almighty, he will be built up. 23 Job would present his case to God if he could find Him. Job asserts his own righteousness. Noone can compel God to change the way he acts. 24 The wicked oppress the poor. The wicked perform their deeds in darkness, in apparent security. 25 Bildad: How then can man be righteous before God? Or how can he be pure who is born of a woman? If even the moon and stars are not pure, how much less so is man? 26 Job describes God’s power over all creation. How small a whisper we hear of Him!

December 1, 2019 Job Is A Righteous Man Probably, around the time of Abraham, we read of a man named Job. This man was very wealthy, and he had seven sons and three daughters. Job was a very righteous man. He fears God and lives his life trying to please God and do good for others. In Chapter 1 of the book of Job, we read that God recognized Job’s righteousness. He is the most upright man on the earth. He tells Satan about him, and Satan says, “You have put a hedge around him... You have blessed the work of his hands... touch all that he has, and he will curse you to your face.” So God lets Satan touch all that he has. Satan Destroys Job’s Possessions In one day, Job loses all of his possessions and all of his children. Job responded by saying, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” Job did not sin when Satan attacked him and took away all of his possessions. This is an amazing testimony to Job’s love for God and his perspective on the things of this world. Satan Covers Job With Pain Satan returned to God again and told God that Job would curse God to his face if he touched his bone and flesh. God allowed Job to be covered with boils from head to toe. To make matters worse, Job’s wife, seeing his torment and agony, tells Job to curse God and die. But Job resists this temptation and says, “You speak as one of the foolish women would speak. Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?” The text says, “In all this Job did not sin with his lips.” The temptation was even greater with his own wife tempting him to curse God, but he remains steadfast and faithful. Three Friends “Comfort” Job However, time is the ultimate test of one’s faithfulness. If we were to skip ahead, we would find in Chapter 7:3 that months have passed by, and Job is still in misery. Three of his closest friends, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, come to comfort him. When they show up, they didn’t even recognize the man they once knew. Immediately, they begin to weep and wail. They tear their clothes and sprinkle dust on their heads. Then, they sit in silence for seven days. Finally, Job speaks up and tells them that he wishes that he had never been born. He wishes that he had died at birth and that he could die right now so that the misery would be over. Satan accused God of hedging Job in blessings, and in 3:23, Job accuses God of hedging him in suffering. This does not sit well with the three friends. Job’s words of distress begin a series of discourses where the friends try to find Job’s problems and solve them. People take these discourses in many different directions, but I will try to summarize my understanding of them. Discourse 1 Eliphaz The first discourse begins with Eliphaz pointing out the only cause that he can find for suffering like this. Surely, God has decided to punish Job for the sins he has committed (4:7-9). This is a common idea to us today. We all sin, and it is evident that the worst sinners will suffer as a result of their sins. Proverbs writes much about that. There is a lot of truth to what Eliphaz is saying. The wicked do suffer, but we know that Job is not wicked. We know that can’t be the reason behind his suffering because we have the first two chapters of this book. Eliphaz is convinced, so he tells Job to call out for God and see that he won’t answer because Job has sinned (5:1). Then, he self righteously tells Job that he should do like Eliphaz would do and seek God (5:8, 17-20). Again, these would be valid words if Job’s sin was the reason he suffers. Job Job responds to Eliphaz by saying that he wishes God would crush him (6:8-10). Eliphaz has not comforted Job at all. Job points out in verse 21 that everyone sees his fall and is afraid because the righteous aren’t supposed to suffer like this. In 6:24-26, Job says that Eliphaz should tell him what to repent of. He feels like life is hopeless, so he decides to speak without restraining what is on his mind (7:11). This is never a good idea. James tells us that the tongue is a fire that destroys. Opening his mouth like that is asking for trouble. He then accuses God of continually attacking him and wants to know why (7:19-21). This will only fuel the friends because they do not understand what Job is feeling. Bildad Bildad tells Job that God does not pervert justice. If Job will repent and seek God, he will be blessed again. Essentially, he believes Eliphaz over Job, and he attempts to encourage Job to repent. Job Job knows that God can see his sin, and he wishes God would wipe him out for it. Again he states that he is blameless, and he accuses God of destroying the innocent. In 9:32-35, Job says that he wants to argue his case before God, but he needs someone to stand as an arbiter between him and God. In Chapter 10, he starts to argue against God, saying that God does not understand what he is going through (10:4-5). At the end of this response, he asks God to leave him alone so he can die. He feels like God is keeping him alive to punish him (10:20-22). Zophar Zophar cannot take these words from Job. He claims to have the truth as he says, “God exacts of you less than your guilt deserves.” He claims that Job is a great sinner who deserves worse than all of this calamity. He needs to repent and find God’s blessings. At this point, these guys sound like a broken record player. They keep saying the same thing over and over. Job Job says that he knows all of these things are true. But he has not rebelled against God to provoke God to wrath. As he answers Zophar, we start to see Job slip off into faithlessness. He starts to point out the difficulty of this life beyond himself in an attempt to argue against his friends, and in the midst of this, we see that he is swelling up with pride as he accuses God of being unjust. Job 12:1--6 (ESV) --- 1 Then Job answered and said: 2 “No doubt you are the people, and wisdom will die with you. 3 But I have understanding as well as you; I am not inferior to you. Who does not know such things as these? 4 I am a laughingstock to my friends; I, who called to God and he answered me, a just and blameless man, am a laughingstock. 5 In the thought of one who is at ease there is contempt for misfortune; it is ready for those whose feet slip. 6 The tents of robbers are at peace, and those who provoke God are secure, who bring their god in their hand. This shows how Job is struggling to understand what God is doing. Apparently, he feels like God has been slipping and not protecting the blameless. From this point, he will continually wonder why the wicked are getting away with everything, and he suffers what they should receive. Discourses 2 & 3 In Chapter 13, Job begins the second round of discourses. The second and third rounds sound a lot like the first, but we start to see a progression in Job and his friends. As the friends hear Job, they become more and more convinced that he is wicked. They double down on their accusations, saying that Job has “crushed and abandoned the poor; he has seized a house that he did not build” (20:19). They say all of the horrible judgments God will give to the wicked. Then, they conclude by saying, “So you better repent Job!” Job Quiets His Friends Job still feels like there is no hope, and he wishes that he could die, but eventually, he starts to get angry (18:4). He presses his friends more and more about why the wicked are blessed while the righteous suffer. He pushes them and pushes them, but they cannot answer him. Job 21:23--26 (ESV) --- 23 One dies in his full vigor, being wholly at ease and secure, 24 his pails full of milk and the marrow of his bones moist. 25 Another dies in bitterness of soul, never having tasted of prosperity. 26 They lie down alike in the dust, and the worms cover them. Job also accuses his friends of trying to defame him so that they can take his property legally. It certainly seems that way as they keep bringing up how God takes from the wicked and gives to the righteous. (20:10, 18, 29, 21:27-29). Job has no one to give his inheritance to, so he thinks they have come to take his land on top of everything else. Apparently, all of this argument by Job has had its effect. Bildad only gives a few short words in his defense, and this shames Zophar so much that he doesn’t even speak when it is his turn. Job Wonders, “Can Man Live Again?” One interesting thing does happen in the second discourse. Job starts to wonder about whether something could be possible. In 14:7, he says that a tree has more hope than he does because after it is cut down, it can sprout again at the scent of water. This seems like Job understands how God could renew him, but he ends up saying, “Man lies down and rises not again.” He even asks the question, “If a man dies, shall he live again?” If he knew this was true, he would wait for that time of renewal. He says that if that were true, then surely, God would cover his iniquity. But in the end, he concludes that God destroys man’s hope. There is no hope for Job until Chapter 19. Job 19:25--27 (ESV) --- 25 For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth. 26 And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God, 27 whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another. My heart faints within me! Job is begging for someone to come and plead his case before God. He feels that even though he has suffered as a wicked person, he is not evil. He keeps asking for the court scene with God (23:3-7). At the end of Job’s final rant, he lays out his understanding that the wicked ought to suffer, and the righteous ought to be well off. But that is not the case with him. In Chapters 29 and 30, Job describes his greatness, his fall, and he tells of all the sins he has not committed. This section ends with Job once again calling for God to hear his case and give him an understanding of his sin. Elihu’s Words of Wisdom His three friends have nothing to say to Job. But then a new Character arrives on the scene. This character has been there all along and heard all of the conversations. The first thing that we read about Elihu is that he is burning with anger. He is angry with Job because Job was constantly justifying himself, and he was angry with Job’s friends because they have done all of this talking without answering Job’s questions. The first thing Elihu does is explain his silence up until this point. Elihu is a young guy who wanted to be respectful of his elders. He wanted to let them have time to work it all out, but they have gone nowhere, and the conversation has gone from bad to worse with no comfort for Job. In Chapter 33, he commends himself as being on the side of God, and he states that he believes Job is as well (33:6-7). Even so, he points out Job’s failures. Job 33:9--13 (ESV) --- 9 You say, ‘I am pure, without transgression; I am clean, and there is no iniquity in me. 10 Behold, he finds occasions against me, he counts me as his enemy, 11 he puts my feet in the stocks and watches all my paths.’ 12 “Behold, in this you are not right. I will answer you, for God is greater than man. 13 Why do you contend against him, saying, ‘He will answer none of man’s words’? The next words out of Elihu’s mouth explain why Job has been suffering. He tells Job that there are two ways that God speaks to man. He speaks to man through visions (33:14-18), and he speaks through pain and suffering (33:19-22). Then, he says that the man who is in pain needs someone to come and show him what he is to learn from his suffering. He needs a mediator to tell him what is right. God provides this mediator so that man can live again and have the “light of life.” Then, Elihu says, “I desire to justify you.” He wants to be the man who helps him address God in a way that will profit him. The next two chapters point out how Job has failed by claiming to be righteous and simultaneously falling into the sin of pride. In Chapter 36, Elihu wants Job to understand that the righteous and the wicked suffer differently. The wicked perish, but the righteous learn how they are failing. In verse 8-9, he says that they learn their transgressions. In verses 10 and 15, he says that their ears are opened to instruction. Elihu wants Job to learn that he thinks too much of himself and too little of God. God Speaks As Elihu is finishing his words, a storm is coming. In the midst of the storm, he tells Job that he has no idea what purpose God has in giving this storm. It could be for correction, or for his land, or for love (37:13). He says that men have no idea why God is doing what he is doing in the weather. Like the weather, thinking that we understand the purpose God has in suffering is arrogant and foolish. Job 37:23--24 (ESV) --- 23 “The Almighty---we cannot find him; he is great in power; justice and abundant righteousness he will not violate. 24 Therefore men fear him; he does not regard any who are wise in their own conceit.” As it turns out, this storm has come in to correct Job. The Lord speaks to him through the tornado that the storm produces. Can you imagine the fear that this would create? The first words from God Job 38:2--5 (ESV) --- 2 “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? 3 Dress for action like a man; I will question you, and you make it known to me. 4 “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. 5 Who determined its measurements---surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it? God goes on to ask Job what he knows about making this world work. He basically restates the words of Elihu. But God uses his infinite wisdom and knowledge to talk about how he created the world, how he maintains the universe, and how he created every living creature on earth. When he speaks about the creatures, he mentions explicitly the animals that Job and his friends have been talking about. He is trying to help them understand that they don’t know the first thing about these animals. Then, in Chapter 40, he asks Job, what fault he finds with God since he is so wise. Job says, “I am of small account, what shall I answer you? I lay my hand on my mouth. I have spoken once, and I will not answer; twice, but I will proceed no further.” God is not done yet. He tells Job to dress for action like a man and put up a fight. If Job can bring down the proud as God does, then maybe he will stand a chance. If he can conquer Behemoth or Leviathan, perhaps then he can stand a chance. Job repents saying, “I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know.” Then, the book ends with God rebuking Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar and restoring the fortunes of Job’s by doubling his wealth and giving him the same number of sons and daughters. Job would go on to live another 140 years. The Message I think the message of this book is unmistakable. We cannot stand against God. His righteousness will always be beyond us. We cannot trust in our own wisdom and knowledge to comfort us when times get hard and when we suffer. We must humbly admit that we have no clue what God is doing. But as we look at this story, with the information of chapters 1 and 2, we see that God allows his righteous one to suffer so that he has an opportunity to receive glory. Satan sees through Job that God is worthy of praise and honor just for being God. It’s not about the blessings Job receives. It’s about honoring God for who he is and the mere fact that God has given us life on earth. We also see that as our suffering goes on, it becomes hard to focus on God and give him the honor he deserves. Job’s righteous response to his suffering was only foiled when his friends tried to help him. His friends put him through a third test, which revealed his pride and arrogance. Fortunately, Elihu stepped in to serve as a mediator for him. This became a learning experience, and he humbled himself. What About Us? We all go through a lot in life. We all need someone to help us understand what God is doing and why this life is so hard. Jesus is our mediator. He is the one who steps in to help us approach the throne of God with humility and find acceptance with him. Whatever our suffering and whatever our trial, we can trust in Jesus to bring us out of it, and through his word, we can come to know how we ought to live and find God to be our Heavenly Father. This is a great book to help us deal with the difficult stages of life and overcome feelings of doubting God’s righteousness or of pride and self-reliance. We all need someone to justify us, to help set us on the path to glorifying God, and to receive his blessings.

When faced with a negative situation, your first response determines the path you walk to get out of that situation. Speak the Word of God into it and wait for the peace of God that passes understanding. If Job had known what we know, he never would have gone through all that.

When faced with a negative situation, your first response determines the path you walk and the process you take to get out of that situation. Is your first reaction to ask, “Why is this happening to me?” No matter what hits you or where it comes from, you must navigate in a way not to lose your footing in the battle through hesitation or inaction. You want to have a readiness of mind and to guard your heart in the gospel of peace which means this is your first reaction. Speak the Word of God into a situation and wait for the peace of God that passes understanding. If Job had known what we know, he never would have gone through all that.

In Week 6 of our Beauty From Ashes series on Job Lee Woodmansee walks through Chapter 28, which is all about wisdom. Lee talks about how valuable wisdom is, why it is unattainable through simple human effort, and why we have to go to God in order to get wisdom. After the time in Job has concluded Lee then begins to take questions from the crowd. The specific questions answered are: What is the difference between joy and happiness? (42:37) Did God allow Job to suffer, or did Satan cause it? (46:17) Did Job end up sinning? (50:17) If Job didn't sin, why did God have to rebuke him? (51:54) Is fear good or bad? (53:08) Why did God do this to Job? (56:22) Why do we not see Satan at the end of the book of Job? (57:20) Did God have something to prove to Satan? (58:19) Is Biblical Inerrancy important? (59:34) Are there good and bad translations of the Bible? (1:00:03) Is there ever a good reason to have an abortion? (1:06:07)

What is the wise way to respond to innocent suffering? This question is central to the book of Job. No one paying attention to the world can deny the reality of innocent suffering?that our experience of the world is far from what we wish it to be, and often our suffering doesn?t make sense. If Job?s friends show us how not to respond to this reality, Job?s own responses to his friends and to his God model authentic faith in our suffering.