Copy of the Scriptures, the book
of Job. I was going to see if one of you
would read the entire book as we began. Until yesterday, I
thought that was going to be my plan, and I sort of timed
it out last night, and I thought, no, that's going to take all
day. It might be well worth just to hear it rather than me try
to talk about it. Finding something to preach out
of Job is difficult. I mean, because it's so related. It's like going to an epic novel
or an epic saga and just picking a couple of scenes and going,
OK, there we go. We missed so much. There's a lot of debate throughout
history about Job, its authenticity, its purpose, whether it's allegorical
or literal narrative. And I would say that although
I know that Job indeed was a true living human being, the way he's
referenced in Scripture doesn't matter because the truth of God's
Word still remains. But the Scripture teaches that
Job indeed was a man living. And there's some interaction
and some discourse and dialogue that we see in this book that
is very frustrating for many reasons. but primarily it's frustrating
because we cannot grasp the reality of what happens here in this
book. And so what I want to do for
our sake today is I want you to open your minds to your own
life. I want you to consider what it
is that's looming over you. What it is that occupies your
thoughts and your heart and it grieves you to a place where
you're hopeless or you're in despair or you want to give up
or you could care less, you become apathetic. I want you to remind
yourself of the theology that goes along with such feelings
and how oftentimes we as God's people will sit amongst our pestilence,
if you will, and we look around and go, where are you, God? Or worse, we say, why? Why would you allow this to happen
to me? We see it in the life of David.
We see it in the life of Moses. We see it in the life of Noah,
Jeremiah, others who at points of their life were like, where
are you? I mean, imagine Jeremiah preaching,
preaching, preaching the good news of God, and everywhere he
went, they tried to kill him. Noah, the Latin stock of his
day, building a ship, not a boat, a ship in the middle of the desert
where it had never really rained much at all, if at all. Why? One hundred years, God,
wouldn't you tell me to do this? But I'll do it. I wonder how
Abram must have felt as he left earth and went wherever God had
had him go. And the first time he's approached
with calamity or the first time he's approached with conflict. What about the disciples? The
apostles? where Paul himself prayed that
the Holy Spirit of God has given me a vision of what I will endure,
and the only thing that I know about my mission to this next
city is that I will suffer persecution and imprisonment, but I will
not die. It's crazy. And yet we see in our world today
there's a theology that has backed up to what we're going to see
in Job, but has also gone and twisted God into some kind of
a maniacal puppet master and prison guard or executioner. We've twisted the vision in our
culture of the biblical God. And I would say that Anything
else in this world, the one thing that everyone has in common,
well, there are many things, but there is one thing that everyone
can relate to is suffering. I don't care who you are, how
old you are, or how old you will be. You will experience, if you
have not already, a season of extended suffering. Except God kill you on your way
home today. You may escape it. Friends, there
is going to be extended suffering in this life. It is not possible
to escape it. It is not possible to see it
leave you. Nothing you do for God, nothing
you pray to God, nothing you hope for God to do, nothing that
you can buy or no offering that you can give, no amount of ministry
that you can do. The more we live for the Lord,
the more our suffering will come, the greater it will be, the longer
we will have to endure. There is no escape, especially
for the people of God, in regard to suffering. I just don't believe that. Then
you've never read the Bible. The Bible is a collection of
writings from the people of God over a 1,500-year period, and
there's one common thread. The people who wrote this and
the people they represent were impossibly unable to support
themselves faithfully, to live faithfully in a holy way, to
understand the depths of God, nor were they ever, ever, ever
able to establish their own salvation in any act, in any thought, in
any deed or any desire. And yet they all suffered one
after the other, after the other, after the other, after the other,
after the other. And the one time that we see
in Scripture where people are not suffering, it is the wicked
who are not suffering. For they have, I dare steal a
very common quote, lived their best life now. Paul even tells young Timothy,
all who desire to live a godly life will suffer persecution. You know what that means? If
you want to live for the Lord, you will suffer persecution.
If you belong to the Lord and you like to wiggle your little
toes in the wading pool of the world, then God will bring discipline,
which is for your good, which is suffering, to help turn you
back into His way. So where's the hope? Solomon
didn't give us much hope, did he? Solomon, when he wrote Ecclesiastes,
when we see the wisdom there of the kings, and we hear the
words. If you've never read Ecclesiastes,
read it. There's no hope. There's nothing new. We've tried
to do it all. We've tried to find other ways.
The wisdom of man is stupid. The ways of man is foolish. Our
plans are nothing but dust under our feet, rot in the bottom of
the trash can, the residue on the inside of the ring of the
garbage disposals. That's our life, the whole full
of it. It's worthless. It's nothing. Why do we even
live? Why should we just die now and
then at the very close of Solomon's suicidal rant? He says, but the fullness of
all this life is found complete and worthy in the glory of God
for His namesake. He has established it for our
good, for His glory. Now, I know I'm paraphrasing,
and it sounds more like Paul than it does Solomon, but it's
the same message. 2 Corinthians chapter 4 is a
fantastic message of suffering for the sake of the call of God. As a matter of fact, when Saul
of Tarsus was saved on the road to Damascus, he wasn't seeking
Christ. He was seeking to destroy Christ
and everything that Christ stood for. And God found him. Jesus stopped him and He saved
him in his wickedness. He saved him in his depravity.
He saved him in his rebellion. He saved Saul in his sin. He did not say, Stahl, do you
want to stop persecuting me? Saul, would you like to change
your life? Saul, would you choose this day
to walk for Me instead of you?" He said, Saul, why do you persecute
Me? And Saul was blinded by the glory
of God. And he fell from space a new
man. And he went to Damascus that
day where he was headed to have the disciples arrested and imprisoned
and hopefully put to death. He went to that same place and
knocked on that door blind. and born again. And they said, it's that crazy
Saul. He's tricking us. He's acting
like he's all chummy with us and now he's going to open the
doors. So God had to send a prophet there to say it's okay. Let him
in. God's Spirit had to send a message
to them. It's okay. Trust Him. And God
sent a messenger to Saul. With these words, go preach to
the Gentiles that the scales may fall from their eyes, that
they might see My face and live. And you will suffer greatly for
My namesake, Saul." That's the ordination of Saul of Tarsus
to the Apostolic Ministry. Oh, go tell him how much he must
suffer for My namesake. Before we see a picture of that,
as Paul rants about how he's shipwrecked and beaten and despised
and persecuted and hated and starved and left stranded on
an island and bit by serpents and beaten several times and
arrested and imprisoned and stoned and left for dead under piles
of rocks, yet he is not beaten, he is not crushed, he is not
perplexed, he is not alone, he is not a failure, for God has
raised him up to suffer. What does he say to the Colossians?
I pray that in my suffering I may fill up what is lacking in the
suffering of Christ for your sake, O children of Christ and
Colossae. What's up with this? This is
different, some people would say. What kind of gospel is this?
This is the gospel. This is the fullness of the glory
of God and the goodness of His message to us. There's nothing
in this Bible that God has established for me to learn how to be a better
financial manager, a better daddy, a better pet owner, a better
worker. Have a better attitude. Dress
better. Smell better. Live better. Have
more money. Less suffering. Better health.
Nothing in here talks about that. It says that I, as a child of
God, called by His grace, sealed by His sovereignty, will suffer
and suffer and suffer and suffer and suffer with joy and exaltation
and exaltation and glory and supreme supernatural power as
I live to love and laugh and just be filled with the greatness
of the sovereignty of God, knowing that every amount of suffering
in this life prepares me for the presence of the holiness
of His glory, so that when I stand there, everything that I desire
on this earth is fulfilled fully in the face of my Savior, who
suffered greatly for my sake. That's the point of the gospel. And so any man that stands in
any pulpit of any church in any place in this world that God
created and says any other message is a liar, is the mouth house
of the devil, is a sinner that has never been born again. And
he is sending people to a hopeless world and a darkness and teaching
them that they have light when they have none, teaching them
to have hope when they are hopeless, teaching them they have delight
when it's only devilish. We do not twist the Word of God,
but by bold proclamation of the truth, we entrust ourselves to
you and your side in our consciousness, and we also entrust ourselves
before our Father, who sees everything about us. For if the world cannot
see the glory of the suffering of the Christ as good news, It's
because Satan himself has blinded their eyes and they cannot see.
They will not see and they're unable to see because Satan has
blinded their eyes. But God, who said, let light
shine out of darkness, has shown in our hearts to give us the
light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus
Christ. So therefore, we have this treasure
in jars of clay that it may show and prove that this is not our
doing, but that the unsurpassing power belongs to God and not
to us. That's 2 Corinthians 4. See,
this is what Job's all about. I believe that Job provided peace
for Paul. I believe Job provided peace
for James and for John. I believe in the Isle of Patmos
as John looked at his life back 80 years and said, oh, I didn't
waste it. And I'm in prison now and I'm
a nobody, going to disappear into oblivion. But I've not wasted
my life, for I've suffered well by the power of God. So that
when Jesus says to Nicodemus in John 3, that those who come
to the light do so, so that it may be clearly seen that their
works have been carried out in God, part of the works of God
and the life of His children is that we suffer well. But you might say, well, I don't
suffer well. What am I supposed to do? Well, usually we're not
suffering well. It's because we're empty in the
well of our joy because our fellowship with the saints of God and our
fellowship with God through His Word has waned. So let's look
at Job. Let's look at Job and just listen
to this discourse in the beginning, and then I'm just going to talk
and tell you the story. There was a man in the land of
Uz whose name was Job. And that man was blameless and
upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil. There
was born to him seven sons and three daughters. He possessed
7,000 sheep, 3,000 camels, 500 yoke of oxen. and 500 female donkeys, and very
many servants, so that this man was the greatest of all the people
of the East. His sons used to go and hold
a feast in the house of each one on his day, and they would
send and invite their three sisters to eat and drink with them. And
when the days of the feast had run their course, Job would send
and consecrate them, and he would rise early in the morning and
offer burnt offerings according to the number of them all. For
Job said, it may be that my children have sinned and cursed God in
their hearts. Thus, Job did continually. Now, there was a day when the
sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, the angels of
God. And Satan also came among them. And the Lord said to Satan, Where
have you come? Satan answered, the Lord, and
said, From going to and fro and from walking up and down on it
in the earth. And the Lord said to Satan, Have
you considered my servant Job? That there is none like him on
the earth, a blameless and upright man who fears God and turns away
from evil. Then Satan answered the Lord
and said, Does Job fear God for no reason? Have you not put a
hedge around him and his house and all that he has on every
side? You have blessed the work of His hands, and His possessions
have increased in the land. But stretch out your hand and
touch all that He has, and He will curse you to your face.
And the Lord said to Satan, Behold, all that He has is in your hand
now. Only against Him do not stretch out your hand. So Satan
went out from the presence of the Lord." Now, I'm going to
stop there, and I'm just going to tell the story of all those
next 28, 30 chapters, 42 chapters. Here's Job, a man who, by God's
Word, is counted as righteous. And because he's counted as righteous,
he's upright. Because he's counted as righteous,
his heart desires to love God. He has much wealth. The Scripture
says He's the greatest of all the men in the East. So that
means that He was respected and esteemed. And when people of
that day thought of Job, they thought of what a great man he
was. But most importantly, they thought
what a great God He serves. He Himself is upright and does
not live in sin. Just the thought of the fact
that His children may sin against God, He weakly goes and sacrifices
a lamb and burns it on an altar that He might consecrate them
before God as an act of purification. That He would trust that the
Lord would accept that sacrifice so that in case His children
did sin, God would hold back His judgment. And the people
of the world knew that. And the friends of Job, as you'll
see, knew that. And the devil, the enemy of God,
came to God and says, I've just been walking around looking to
see who I can, what, devour. We see that in the Scripture.
Who I can pester. Who I can trouble. And God says,
have you considered My servant Job? I want you to hear this.
Satan doesn't come to God and say, could I mess with Job? He was off the table because
God's providence was around him. God's protection was around him
and Satan could not bother Job. And Satan says, he fears you
because you've given him everything. You've protected Him and His
family. You've made Him rich. But you touch His life and take
away what is precious to Him and He will curse you to your
face. God doesn't do this to prove anything to Satan. God doesn't do this to prove
anything to Himself. God doesn't do this to prove
anything to you or to me. God does this to prove to Job
that He is sovereign and that the greatest of joys of this
earth are nothing compared to the greatest joy of Himself.
God Himself. And so what happens as Job prays
every week, every day, every opportunity for God to protect
his family, he prays and he sacrifices this lamb and burns it in an
offering to the Lord. And God has stayed for many years. These adult children. God has
stayed for many years. Any calamity upon this family.
But now God has chosen in His sovereign goodness to touch the
life of Job. Understand this. Satan says if
you were to touch his life, he would curse you. And God says,
I give you the power to touch it. Whose power is it? It's God's power. Satan's a created
being just like us. Different species, but just like
us, created for a purpose. He's not powerful except that
which God has given him to be powerful. You might say to yourself, well,
you know, I grew up thinking the devil was trying to get me
and I had to be strong against the devil and I had to speak
against the devil. That's garbage. It's garbage. And a lot of my friends will
go, well, that's not what I was taught. Well, where did you learn that
in the Bible? When we see Paul in Ephesians chapter 6 saying,
stand firm, therefore, in the power and the might of God in
order to stand up against the fiery flames of the evil one.
Putting on what? The full armor of God. Not fighting,
not charging, not coming to the gates of hell with a water gun
and trying to put out the flames. God is the victor. He doesn't need us to fight His
battles. What does John say? Who is He
that is victorious? Jesus the Christ. Greater is
He that is in you than he that is in the world. The one that
is in the world is the enemy of God, the devil. Lucifer, an
angel who thought because he was so beautiful and so righteous
and so glorious that he'd earned a spot next to God. He didn't
try to dethrone God. He tried to stand next to Him
because in His eyes, He was just as glorious and just as beautiful.
And in comparison to what we probably could have seen, we
would have said, oh yeah, two beautiful beings. Jesus, the
Lord God of all creation, and Lucifer, His right-hand man.
Absolutely, Lucifer, you've got a good argument. And we know
we would have thought that because a majority of the angels in heaven
agreed with it. You're right, Lucifer. I mean,
you can imagine out of the water cooler. You see how good I look?
You know how much praise and honor and glory? I mean, y'all
are all behind me in how I worship God, and I'm just as beautiful
as He is. Look at me. So therefore, I don't
want to take Him off His throne, but I at least need to step aside.
I will ascend the throne of the Most High, Satan says. I will
be like Elohim. I will be like you. I will be
like you. But you know what Satan forgot
to remember? That all that he was was a reflection of God.
He was nothing. He was nothing. God had created
him to be all that he was. And all the reflection of righteousness
and glory and beauty and honor and all the light that he radiated
was just a reflection. It's like the moon is not the
sun. If the sun goes out, the moon is just a rock in the sky.
Who wants a rock? But we look at Him and go, how
glorious is the light of the moon. It's not the light of the
moon. It's a reflection of the sun. In the same way, Satan was
a reflection of God. And he was nothing. But he looked
at himself in the mirror and thought, wow, look how I shine.
Forgetting that he shined that which was most glorious. He was
just a reflection. So God threw him out. The light
of heaven became the darkness of earth. And God is sovereign
over that. The same thing happens with Job. Job is a reflection of the righteousness
of God by the grace and mercy of the Father who created him
and every donkey and camel and mule and servant and child that
he ever owned. Every acre of land that was his, God created
it all. And it was all a reflection of
God's glory. And God had made Job the righteous
one that he was. And therefore, God owned all
of it. Our God is in the heavens. He
does as He pleases. We see in Daniel and other places
in the Old Testament that says, who is to charge God? Who is
to ask Him, why do You do what You do? For God does all that
He pleases, for He owns all things. And a servant came one after
the other to Job. And he said, oh, Job, I alone
have survived. Your enemies have besieged you
and taken your herds and killed all of your slaves. I alone live." Another enemy comes in and besieges
and takes all of the crops. Another wind comes and blows
down the house that Job in his wisdom built, as strong as it
could be, where all of his children celebrated as he went and sacrificed
on their behalf, praying that God would let nothing bad happen
to them. Job's family was crushed and
killed in the home. All ten of his children were
crushed and another slave came and said, Oh, Master, all of
your children have died. I alone live. And then Job's wife comes and
Job is wondering, What has happened to God? Why is this befallen
on me? Why am I suffering this? You
have given me all of these things, but blessed be Your name. For
You give and You take away. You see, Job didn't have a problem
understanding the doctrine that God was the giver and God was
the taker. That nothing that God gives can
be taken by any other means but God. So if God gives the job
and the job is lost, God has given the job and God has taken
the job. If God gives the spouse and the spouse is lost, then
God's given and God's taken. If God gives the children and
then the children are lost, then God has taken them. If God takes
the finances, if God takes the health, if God takes the career,
if God takes the mind or the body, it is God's to give and
it is God's to take. And nothing happens outside the
purview of the providence of God's sovereignty. And Job praised
Him in the death of his children. Praised Him in the destruction
of his livelihood. Praised Him in the besieging
of his property. And then his wife came. How do
you tell a mother that her children are dead? And what does his wife
say? Curse God and die. Curse Him. And Job, I cannot
curse them. He's never fallen wrongly on
me. God has never done me wrong. And then God strikes Job with
sickness. The time frame here is somewhat debated, but let
me give it to you this in a general way. After this week of loss,
Job is stricken with sickness for years. Years! This didn't happen. It took us
thirty minutes to read it, but it took years for Job to live
it. And though his wife did not desert him, friends of his from
far off heard of the calamity that had befallen Job, and they
came to Job. so they could bury Job. For surely
Job would die. Wise men of God. And their theology
was right. They came to Job with a burden
in their hearts as they sat there not knowing what to say. hours
or days. And then they speak and they
don't know what to say. And then they speak to Job and
they start to say, because their theology is right, Job, this
befalls those who have sinned against God. You have sinned
against God. That's why this has happened
to you. They listen to each other. Job listens to them. But Job,
though he agrees with their theology, you're right. Historically, we
see those who obey God are blessed and those who disobey God are
cursed. But in my case, I have not disobeyed
God. I am not living in sin. So you're
wrong. Job's friends are not very good
friends at all. But it's all they understood.
It's all Job understood. Friends, let me tell you about
what happens in just a sense of perpetual sense in our culture
today. Even the greatest of saints,
when stuff befalls our life, we sit back and go, oh, why God
have You done this? I remember in 2009, as we're
talking about specific things about social injustice on a radio
program, I said several things that lit the phone lines up.
Enrage, not support. And one of them was this, that
the only... Now, yes, in a social sense,
there's a lot of injustice. People who prey on the poor and
who prey on the weak and who attack folks and murder and rape
and child molest and kidnap. These are unjust. They should
not happen. But they do. But in the court of holiness,
None of this is unjust. None of it's an injustice. We
deserve far much more. What's worse than the death penalty?
Standing before God alive. What's worse than cancer? What's
worse than being murdered? Standing in our sin before the
judge of the universe and his holiness. I'm saying these things
and then I say, I believe the only true injustice that ever
took place in the physical world is when God the Father put forth
God the Son on the cross to die a sinner's death to satisfy the
judgment of His holiness so that He could forgive me. I said those
are two things that should not have taken place. The Holy Anointed
One of God dying as me, a sinner, and satisfying the judgment of
God. That's an injustice. And it's injustice that God would
forgive me. But He did. And then, of course, I couldn't leave
it at that. I decided to take it a step further. That if someone
broke into my home and hurt my family and murdered them in front
of me, I, in some sense of cosmic holiness, deserved every bit,
if not more. How dare you say that? Because
it's true. It's true. And there's nothing inside the
Word of God that could teach me anything differently. Job
was not only deserving of what he received in this life, he
was not deserving of the mercy that he received prior to this.
And he certainly wasn't deserving of the eternal life that he received
from God's mercy. And he was not deserving of the
restoration of his family and wealth. But God did it. Job responds to his friends. He doesn't say you're wrong,
he just says, listen, we need to get beyond the idea that you
do bad, you get bad, you do good, you get good because it's not
working in my case. And now that I think back, there's
some really wicked people who are benefiting now from my failures.
So what's up with that? It's just a portion of the wicked,
he says. He says it's not enough to think that
just because someone sins, they deserve this. I've not sinned
against God. And in chapter 31, Job begins
to give a list of sins. You know what these sins are
in chapter 31 of Job? Job gives a list of sins. You
know what they are? Sins he has not committed. God,
I have not done this. I have not done that. I have
not done this. If I have walked with falsehood
and my foot has hastened to deceit, And let God, no matter if my
step is turned aside from the way and my heart is going after
eyes, and if any spot is stuck to my hand, then let me sow and
another eat, and let what grows for me be rooted out. If my heart
has been enticed to a woman, And I have lain and waited at
my neighbor's door, then let my wife grind for another, and
let others bow down on her. For that would be a heinous crime,
that would be an iniquity to the punished by the judges. For
that would be a fire that consumes as far as Abaddon, and it would
burn to the root of all my increase. If I have rejected the cause
of my maidservant, or my manservant, if, if, if, if, if." But he had
it. He did. You're saying, God, if
all this is true, then You're just in sending Your judgment
on me. But these things are not true. I have not done this. Why, oh
God, has this happened? And his friends get really aggravated
with him. Job, you're being obstinate.
Something is happening in your life. God would not bring this
suffering on you lest there was a reason. And they were right,
but they were wrong in their understanding of the reason. I want to show you something
here. Even if Job had been wicked, And this came as a result of
that. It would still be good. It would still - and I'm going
to use a word here that's going to rock our worlds - it would
still be kind of God. Why? Why is it kind of God to
bring calamity? Why is it kind of God to bring
recompense in this world. There's no condemnation for those
who are in Christ Jesus, but there is recompense in this world.
You cannot sin against the laws and get away with it forever.
You cannot harm your body and expect God to continue to heal
it. You cannot pollute your ears
and eyes and mind and expect there not to be psychological
and emotional scars. How was it the kindness of God
to bring this calamity upon Job? Because Job had trusted in the
Lord with all of his heart and loved Him with all of his mind,
with all of his soul, with all of his strength. And Job had
loved his neighbor as himself for his entire life. And he gave
to the poor. And he was known as a man of
God. And God brought this calamity
at no fault of Job's. Because God is kind. Because
somewhere in the depths of Job's heart, as we see evidence by
his defense in the court of heaven, before the court of heaven, he
felt as though it was wrong, wrongly applied, but he still
understood that God had his best interest at heart. And so God
took away his wealth so that Job would see that the true treasure
is Christ, not the wealth of the world. God took away his
family so that Job could see that the true family is the eternal
Church of Jesus Christ. God took away his friends so
that his wisdom that he sought after would be righteousness,
who is Jesus, rather than the righteousness of good company
and the wisdom of good company. God killed His children for the
falling of His home so that Job would even be able to say, even
in the things of this world, we know best, but God can fall
them all. Do not put your trust in the
world's ways and in the wisdom of man. How do we do that? I know how I'm going to get out
of this problem. Let me get my list out. And I'm going to do this.
And if I get this and this, we get our ad machine out. We get
our calendar out. We get our contact list out.
And we draw pictures and lines. And we sit there. We don't really
do it on paper, do we? We do it in our minds. OK, when I get this to work out
in my life, all this will fill out. And guess what? God will
throw it like a bag of marbles over a cliff. You'd be better to buy 60,000
die Put them in a dump truck and play against the odds of
rolling a one with $60,000. The lowest number you could roll
would be $60,000. But you're going to gamble on
that one, baby. That's what our plans are in this life. We put our faith in everything
but God. mistakenly and short-sightedly
put our faith in the people of God. We should put our hope in
God alone, and as He gives me and you and you and you the ability
of the heart to do for each other, great, but when we're all gone,
who is there left? And even if I help you or you
help me, in the end, it is God helping us. God does not need
me, nor my brain, nor my body, nor anything about me, nor my
skills or any of my creativity to do anything for His glory.
He did not set forth before the world began and say, I'm going
to create this guy named James to do some awesome stuff. And
I've got to keep him alive because he alone can make that happen.
If I died tomorrow, God's greater purpose would be filled in it.
And everybody would be better off. Because God spoke through
the ass of Baal and His Word did not return void. He could
speak through that drum. Be careful when we put our faith
in the ways of this world. Job has to rebuke his friends.
Job comes to a resolution when God starts to speak. And this is the kindness of God. Maybe we should have just read
all of God's speech, starting in chapter 38. After Elihu starts to talk about
God, he says, you know, we might be right or wrong, but I tell
you what is good, what is right, is that God is majestic. God
is glorious. God is full. He fills the earth.
speech to Job and he asks this question. Listen to verse 1 of
chapter 38. He says, Who is this that darkens
counsel by words without knowledge? Do you know what that's saying?
Who's this little voice I hear asking questions of me? Ignorantly and foolishly. Who are you that speaks with
words without wisdom? He says, dress for action like
a man. Get your clothes on. We're going on a ride and you
better man up because I'm about to do something. He says, I'm
going to question you and you make it known to me. What has Job asked? Why, God,
has this happened to me? When, God, will this stop? What,
God, can I do to bring it to close? And you know what God
does? He doesn't answer a joke. Because
those are the wrong questions. It's like being in a lecture
about jazz chords. We were playing a little while
ago. And someone raises their hand
and the professor of jazz musicians, right? Says, yes, sir. And he
says, how long do you bake a bunt cake? That's the dumbest question.
I think that's how God is answering Job. You're not even asking the
right questions. Because Job, it's not about you,
but you reap the benefit of my kindness toward you. You now
see, and I'm going to answer you ask you things that you are
going to have to answer. And let's just look at some of
them. God starts at creation. Amazing. Where were you when
I laid the foundation of the earth? Do you have understanding
who determined its measurement? Surely you know, Job. Who shut the sea within its doors
when it burst out from the womb? And when I made its clouds its
garment, and thick darkness its swaddling band? Have you commanded
the morning since your days began and caused the dawn to know its
place? Have you entered the storehouses
of the snow? Or have you seen the storehouses
of the hail? which I have reserved for the
time of trouble, for the day of battle and war? What is the
way to the place where the light is distributed or where the east
wind is scattered upon the earth? Who has cleft a channel for the
torrents of rain? Do you know the ordinances of
heaven? Can you establish rule on earth? Can you lift up your
voice to the clouds that a flood may cover you? Can you hunt the
prey for the lion or satisfy the appetites of their young
when they crouch in their dens or lie in wait in the thicket?
Who provides for the raven and its prey when its young ones
cry to God for help and wonder about for lack of food? Do you
know when the mountain goats gave birth? Do you observe the
calving of the does? Can you number the months that
they fulfilled? Their yearning has become strong.
Is the wild ox willing to serve you? Do you have the wings of
the ostrich wave proudly, but are they the pinions and plumage
of love? Do you give the horse its might?
Do you clothe its neck with a mane? Shall a fault finder contend
with the Almighty? He who argues with God, let him
answer it." And Job answers God in chapter
40. And this is good. Behold, I am
of small account. What shall I answer you? I lay my hand on my mouth and
I have spoken once and I will not answer twice, but I will
proceed no further. And then God answered Job out
of a whirlwind again. He says, transfer action. I'm
not done. Will you 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 over the overflowing
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 and all that us together. Bind their faces in the world
below. Then will I also acknowledge to you that your own right hand
can save you. See what God's saying there? You want to compare yourself
to the wicked and their joy and bliss. Who are you? When you
set them straight and you put your hand over them and you reconcile
their evil, then I'll sit there and listen to you. And God even talks about creation.
Think of the Bohemians. Think of this great, huge creature
that I've created that you can't tame. Think of the sea creatures
that I've created that you couldn't even kill with everything that
man could offer. You can't stop. And with His
tail, I can take the fleets of all the armies and all of the
navies and just wipe them out. Who do you think you are? Can you even handle that which
I've made? If he sneezes, it'll burn the world."
Cut sentence. In chapter 42, and finally, Job
says to the Lord, I know that You can do all things and that
no purpose of Yours can be thwarted. Who is this that hides counsel
without knowledge? Therefore, I have uttered what
I did, not understand things too wonderful for me, which I
did not know. Hear, and I will speak, I will question you, and
you will make it known to me. I had heard of you by the hearing
of the ear, but now the eye sees you. Therefore, I despise myself
and repent in dust and ashes." Now, what's happening? What's
going on? Where's the clothes? That's what
I'm saying. It's a lot. God has said to Job, Job, and He's proven it to him,
Job, I love you. That is why you belong to Me. But Job, you cannot understand
My ways. and how they may be good, though
they seem so bad, because you are not Me. And Joe, do not bring
accusation to Me, lest you are Me. Joe, even the animals that
I have created can overpower you and destroy you. And you cannot understand these
things How is it that you are going to understand me?" And
Job confesses and says, I knew of you. I had learned you. I had your word in me. I had
all the knowledge of you. But now, what does he say? I see you. Now I see you. Is he saying I see you because
of what God has called him? No. He's saying, I see you because
what God has revealed to him gave him the picture of what
he was experiencing. Job now firsthand sees the power
and the ineffability of God's glory. And Job now sees firsthand
how kind and gracious suffering from God is for those who love
Him and are called according to His purpose. Because it takes
our focus off the idols of life. It takes our focus off of self-worship. It takes our focus off of glorious,
manly futures that are nothing but garbage. It takes our focus
off of this blissful, Americanized, white picket fence, front porch
swing, lot of barbecue and beautiful woman on our left arm. Idealism. It takes our focus off of having
the great collection and the great wealth and the great clothes
and the great health. It takes our focus off of all
of these things which ruin our worship, which ruin our love,
which ruin our lives, and it puts it on the one thing that
is steady and focused and able to bring us through and has promised
to do so to give us the fullest of our heart's desires, which
is the Christ. Jesus, the Messiah, who is the
God of heaven, who took our place on the cross. That is why God is kind in our
suffering. That is why Job was chronicled. That is why God did what he did
so that Job would worship God in spirit and in truth without
any idol blinding his way. And when God restored the latter
part of chapter 42, when God restored Job's family, He didn't
give him back his other children. He allowed him to have more children.
So that every time he looked at these children, he didn't
forget about the ones he'd lost, but he remembered them deeply.
And he remembered that the Lord took them and gave me these. But one day, these also will
be taken from me. because it's temporal. So whatever
we think we have in our hand, it's just dust. It will be gone. Our life, our
plans, our future, our homes, our livelihood, our happiness,
it will go. It will not last. Even when it leaves and comes
back, it will go again. So what is there? There is the beauty of God's
sovereignty over it all. Let me give you a nutshell of
what we learn in God's responses. One, God is sovereign over all
of the devil's doings. God is the author - I want you
to hear this - the author. He writes the script for all
that the devil does. All of it. We've looked at Amos. We've looked at Daniel. We've
looked at Proverbs. We've looked at the Psalms. We've
looked at Jeremiah. We've looked at Isaiah. We've
seen some of these things over the last few weeks. We've looked
at the Old Testament. We've seen how nation after nation
came against Israel. And everywhere they do, who sins? God. God even says that these
Babylonians will be the rod of correction in My hand. I will
give My people over to them to be sieged. In Isaiah 6, as we
see in John 12, Jesus alluding there, we see that God tells
Isaiah that I am going to annihilate My people. But there will be
a remnant that I will hold and I will keep. Do you think when
torrential rains as we're seeing in Athens now that are flooding
the streets, people dying, being washed away, do you think there
are no Christians in that flood? Do you think there are no corpses
of believers washed out to sea? Do you think there were no Christians
in the towers and the attacks on 9-11? Do you think there were
no Christians in Palestine and in Israel during the fighting?
Do you think there are no Christians being beheaded by ISIS? Do you
think there are no Christians being burned alive? Do you think
there are no Christians being swaddled up by earthquakes? I'd
say a lot of them were Christians. And I would say that if we look
at our crises in this world, we would see they're not necessarily
crises in this world. As hard as it might be, God is sovereign over all of
them. God is sovereign. That's why
I disagree passionately, theologically, worshipfully, when people see
things like terrorist attacks, calamity and natural disaster
and say, oh, this is the judgment of God, I disagree. Because in that, I see the kindness
of God reminding us that this world is just a vapor. It's just a vapor. The sovereignty of God, rests over His creation. It rests over the creatures of
His creation, the sea, the sky, the wind, the wealth, the health. And it's not an easy thing to
swallow. Now, let me take you, in closing,
to a parallel that is perfectly seen in John's Gospel, chapter
3, where Jesus Himself is speaking
to the religious leader, Nicodemus, a holy, righteous, upright man,
much like Job, who knew the oracles of God and said to Jesus, You
are the one come from God. And Jesus says to him, That confession
doesn't help you. Your knowledge of Me doesn't
work. Your reception of Me in your
brain will not give you life. You can't see heaven because
you agree that I'm Jesus and you believe that I'm Jesus and
you believe in Me that I'm going to save you. You must be born
again. And Nicodemus, just like Job,
says, I've got the knowledge of all this, but that doesn't
fit with the knowledge I have with you, sir, or with God, and
I don't know how to make that recipe work. What am I to do? Find my mom, go back inside and
be born again. That's what Nicodemus says. Absurd. He didn't think that. He's just
thinking that's the best thing I can come up with. Jesus says, You must be born from above by
the Spirit of God. You must not just know of Me,
as the last two verses of John 2 say, for many believed in His
name that day, but Jesus Himself did not entrust Himself to them,
for He knew what was in man. No one had to tell Him about
the heart of man. You must be born again. It's not about sincerity that
teaches us about God. It's not about academics that
teach us about the Gospel. It's about the power of the supernatural
God who created even the syntax that I use to make the sound
waves audible and recognizable to your eardrums, which are a
miracle in themselves, taking you and changing you from
sinner to child, from dead to alive. Faith means God has made you
new through the hearing of His Word. You don't pull your bootstraps
up and go, I'm ready. Because God even somewhat humorously
said, be a man and dress like a man and be ready for action
like a man. Stand up, put your boots on, let's go. Now, you
tell me everything about me, buddy. That's what Nicodemus
did. We know! Jesus says it's like the wind. Let me tell you something that
you do understand. You see what the wind does. You can't see
the wind blowing, but you see what it does. You see the leaves.
You see the trees. You see the sand and the dust.
You feel the breeze. You feel it cool in your face.
You feel the wind. You see the wind's work. But
you can't see the wind. You don't know where it's coming
from. You don't know where it's stored. You don't know when it's
going to come or which way it's going to blow. But you see what
it does. So it is for all who are born
of God. The Spirit of God blows where
it wishes. And if it doesn't blow in you,
Nicodemus, you won't see Me. You'll just know about Me. Job
learned that lesson. And in some parallel, we see
the life of Job, a metaphor of the life of Christ in this way,
that Jesus then says to Nicodemus, He says what? He said, You're
the teacher of all Israel. And you don't understand these
things? I'm speaking your language, man. I'm quoting your seminary
courses that you teach, Professor. I'm teaching you your own material. But you don't understand these
things. How are you going to understand heavenly things if
you can't understand a simple reality about the wind? Here's
another one for you. You think that it's all about
Israel, but I say that just as Moses lifted the serpent in the
wilderness, So must I be lifted up, that I will draw men of Myself,
that whoever looks and believes is healed and lives. So I will
be lifted up, and whoever believes on Me will not perish, but have
eternal life." Moses wrote of Me. Jesus says
that in John 5. I'm not going to bring an indictment
against you, Sanhedrin, of whom Nicodemus was a part. But Moses
is going to indict you. Because He spoke of me. Moses
spoke of me when He raised the serpent in the wilderness. Moses
spoke of me when He talked about the promised land. Moses spoke
of me when He talked about the wealth and the milk and the hermine.
Moses spoke of me when He gave you the law. Moses spoke of me,
Jesus says. Now what's the point? The point is, as long as we continue
to try to figure these fleshly answers, these worldly answers,
these temporal answers, we're never going to see the face of
God. And worse, we're not going to see the joy of God in the
midst of our suffering. Friends, I'm not saying it's
sinful to pray for God to take away suffering, because Jesus
in the Garden of Gethsemane prayed that in His humanity. He said,
righteously, O Father, take away this cup from me. If there be
another way, let this cup pass. What cup? Physical death and
most certainly, spiritual judgment of sinners. But in the same breath, he says,
but not my way, not my desire, not my will, but yours be done,
O Lord. Now, wasn't it Jesus' desire
to not go to the cross? No, it was Jesus' desire to go
to the cross because it was Jesus' fullest satisfaction to do the
will of the Father. We see that in John chapter 4.
when they come back from Sychar with food. And they say, here,
Teacher, eat. And He goes, I have food that
you do not know of, that you know not of. And the disciples
say, who gave Him food? And Jesus speaks to them and
says these words. He says, My food is to do the
will of the One who sent Me. And then later in John 6, He
says that He is the food of heaven that satisfies the souls of men. So what are we looking for? What
are we longing for? What are we desperate for? Are
we desperate for our circumstances to change? We pray, Oh God, take
away the suffering. Rather, let's pray as Jesus and
Job finally came to see, Oh God, thank you for the suffering,
for it is an act of your kindness to show me the worthlessness
of this world, and to show me the glory of that that You've
promised me. This is the right prayer, Church. But Lord, we do want to be out
of it, but Your will be done in it. Because what do we do? We jump out of the frying pan
into the fire? Out of the fire into the coals? Out of the coal
into the ash? It's not like we're moving up
in this world, is it? One suffering to another. Yet
in Paul's words, he says we're being transformed
from one state of glory to another. How? Because God has given His
Son that we may receive grace upon grace upon grace upon grace. And friends, I will promise you,
there is great, deep, inexpressible joy in suffering when we see
that. So, some application. And I promise
I'm done. We got started a little late. How am I to hold fast in these
things? I'm suffering. I'm sick of it.
I've ebbed and flowed. I feel like I'm in a whirlwind,
up against concrete walls, and I'm being pressed through the
mortar, and I'm tired, and I'm giving up. Where do I go from
here? God's grace is sufficient. Step one. Knowing that. That's
what we've preached on this last hour. Then the question is, where
do I get it? Friends, it doesn't happen through
osmosis. You can't just sort of rub a
Bible and get it. You can't go and rub a cross
around your neck and pray with some bees and get it. You can't
go out and bow down to the sun and get it. You've got to eat. Just as we eat in the mornings
and in a few hours we're hungry, we've got to eat again. Or our
body will get tired, we'll get sluggish, and if we go days and
days and weeks and weeks, we die. We don't just walk, drive
by a restaurant, yeah, I see that menu, that's good enough
for a couple of hours. We treat our faith that way when
we're not committed to the body of Christ as our family when
we need to get up and walk out of a circumstances, but we're
an arm and we have no legs. And finally, we don't realize
that the grace of God comes through the fellowship of faith around
the Word. The Word of God. And you know
what's crazy? It's just like medicine. When
we're by ourselves and we're sick of swallowing pills and
the symptoms haven't subsided, we just flush them and say, heck
with it. I felt better before I started taking it. The same
thing is true when we think we can go on our own and just forever
be filled by just reading or listening to the Word of God.
God has created the church to be together in suffering. That's why Hebrews says it is
a matter of public discipline when people refuse to be reconciled
to the church. Because it's dangerous for them. How was Paul able to hold fast
in his suffering? How was he able to really say
Christ said His grace is sufficient for my suffering, for my physical
suffering. How was He able to do that? Because
He knew Job. Not in person. He knew the God
of Job. He knew the grace of God of Job. Hold fast to our confession of
faith in Christ Jesus. That is our hope. Jesus is our
hope. Church, there's no other way. There's no plan B. There's no
plan A, too. There's no subset of hierarchies
of getting to the plan. There's no other way but God's
grace and favor through Jesus Christ alone, who suffered unworthily
so that we could live eternally. Lord, Your holiness is unbelievably puzzling. We are so twisted to think every
bad thing is evil and every good thing is blessed that we forget
about You and the proper understanding of what the gospel is all about. Your good news is that even in
suffering, You're there. Lord, Your hope in Christ Jesus
is all we need. And as simple as that is to say,
it is so hard to grasp. So Lord, if we don't pray for
each other, if we don't know how to pray for each other, we're not going to pray. But
even in that, Your Spirit gives us what we
need to pray for each other as we wake up in the middle of the
night, as we are driving, as we're sitting, as we're thinking.
Whatever we might be doing as you bring to mind those who need
prayer. Father, You are working out Your
plan. Help us to see that even our
current suffering may not be for our good, and is the cause
of your kindness, that you reveal to us your beauty and your sufficiency. That when it's all taken away,
all we have is Christ. Let that be our song. In Jesus'
name we pray.