LIVE: "God, Depart From Us!" (Job 22:10-24), Part 4/5

Job’s friends promised a simple formula: get right with God, then the pain stops and the blessings return. But what happens when the blessings return and the formula is still wrong? That tension drives our conversation as we dig into Job, suffering, and the difference between being punished for sin and being corrected by a loving Father.

We talk honestly about what believers do under pressure: we start defending ourselves. Job isn’t guilty, yet his energy gets pulled into arguing with people who refuse to understand him. We explore why that shift matters spiritually, how defending God’s character changes the whole posture of a trial, and why “spiritual graffiti” is such a real problem in modern Christianity, repainting uncomfortable truth to make the gospel seem more acceptable.

Along the way we compare Job to Peter in Gethsemane: a loyal heart paired with a badly timed response. We also name the danger of speaking beyond our knowledge and accidentally distorting God’s justice when we’re hurting. If you’ve ever felt like God was silent, this conversation will help you separate absence from discipline, and emotion from doctrine, while holding tight to the sovereignty of God.

Subscribe for more Bible study conversations, share this with someone walking through suffering, and leave a review if it helped. What’s harder for you in a trial: staying quiet, or speaking without defending yourself?

Transcript

A Promise Of Gold And Defense

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Dust and the gold of Ophir as the stones of the brooks, meaning a lot of gold. Yes, the Almighty shall be your defense and shall and you shall have plenty of silver. Anyone want to give an opinion about this? And there's really one opinion I'm looking for. Well, let me say it, let me say it. I'm not gonna be able to frame the question to get the lit the answer I'm trying to trying to get. Because notice what they say here. If you do this, all these things, these good things will happen. You have all this gold, and God will defend you, and you shall have plenty of silver. Guess what? That's what happens. Not because of Job's sin, but this is exactly what is actually going to happen to Job. This is almost prophetic. It actually is prophetic. And it's gonna happen in short order. You know, but it's not gonna happen because of Job's sin. It's gonna happen. Why? Anybody? Why is it gonna happen? Why is this right here in verse 24 and 25? Why is this going to happen? If it's not because of Job's sin, what is it gonna happen for? Anybody?

SPEAKER_02 1:37

Because Job remained faithful, and God is going to glorify him for doing so.

SPEAKER_00 1:43

Yes, that's it. That's exactly it. He's going to be rewarded for his for his his innocence and also for repentance, but not repentance for salvation, and not repentance um based on the estimation or the assessment made by his friends. He's going to be rebuked by God for his responses, more or less. Not because he is wrong in what he was saying. But Job spends a lot of time with his friends defending himself rather than sticking to vindicating who? Anybody.

SPEAKER_07 2:40

God.

Why Job Is Rewarded

Defend God Not Yourself

SPEAKER_00 2:41

God. God. That's right. Defending God. And so what does he say here? Then shall you have gold as dust, the gold of Ophir as the stones of brooks, and yes, the Almighty shall be your defense. You know, and when you defend God, God becomes your defender. When you defend yourself, you have a world of trouble to deal with, chastisement to deal with. We should always be in the mindset of defending our Lord and not ourselves. And this is why we have, I believe, a wide range of gospel freedom when it comes to dealing aggressively with those who besmirch the gospel, and that paint graffiti on God's truth with these falsehoods and these errors. It is spiritual graffiti to me. It defes the truth. And people call it art. And so um and what I mean by that, I mean in a in a in an analogous way. They think they're saying what they're saying is true, and they think that somehow they're painting God in a more palatable and more presentable light. We are told to communicate the truth. And if the truth hits people in a way that they think is ugly, we are not allowed to go paint graffiti over it to try to make it look better. We let the truth of God stand on its own always. We don't get in the way of trying to make it more appealing than what the gospel has been given to us to do. We're not supposed to do anything except present it simply, purposefully, and sincerely.

SPEAKER_07 5:04

No, I just had a question.

SPEAKER_00 5:06

Sure.

SPEAKER_07 5:07

And I don't know if it's a silly question. You know, we talk about that Job should have defended God rather than defending himself to these men. So are are we saying that I'm not sure. Does that mean, for instance, when we're suffering and we're going through whatever it is that that we would say something, let's say someone is coming out at us like um these friends are, we would be to say it doesn't matter what God's will be done, God is good, God is knowing, um, all knowing, his way is right, you know, no matter what what I mean, what do what does that mean? Like what should Job have been saying rather than saying I'm innocent, God will um God will uh defend me. Like you see what I mean.

SPEAKER_00 6:02

I think I think that's a fantastic qu question. That fact that question is far from stupid. I think that's a fantastic question, and I think that I think that when we get to the near the end, this should be a qu this should be the question that everybody should be asking. And it and this and it's one that we should always ask. So, two things. I think that one is this is that God knows things about Job's, what's in Job's heart better than any of us can pick from reading, and certainly even his friends didn't know what was in Job's heart at the time. Now, Job defended himself by saying, I haven't done these things. I haven't. And he's been adamant about it. And he's been explaining them about how they lacked wisdom because they don't understand that this is not his case and on and on and on. And so I think that it has a lot to do with what you just described, with which is that Job, and it's not to say that every word out of his mouth was purely a defense of himself. I mean, because it's clearly we can see we can see points where we can see times where Job did defend God, did and did defend God's truth. However, we do see that that Job is really um taking them to task on their errors in terms of how they are assessing him. And I think this is where Job had an had opportunities to take more of a position and is defending the sovereignty of God. And I say that in this way, and then other people can kind of chime in, um, which is that when they are telling Job, and they get to a point where he realizes, listen, you guys don't get it. I tried to explain to you that there's nothing I've done that was wrong. You get to a part where you get to a point where you're casting pearls before swine in that scenario. And at that point, you turn, you turn to them and you say, Listen, it's clear to me you don't understand me. It's clear to me you don't care to hear from me. But what I do know is that my God hears me. My God, he sees my heart. My God shall be my great defender. Like Brother Joseph says, He is our great defender. If you're not going to help me, all I can do is appeal to him and go to him myself because you are doing me no good. And I think that what's happening here is that we see the situation where um we have this whole narrative, but I think that if Job did what what uh what God seems to bring down on Job when he starts to speak, um we probably wouldn't have this book. We probably wouldn't have this book. But when God deals with him, this that seems to be the overriding thing that God you know reveals to Job. That when he starts going to this whole thing about where were you when I did this, where were you? So the implication is that Job, to some degree, is speaking out of turn. Not that he was wrong, but that he wasn't putting the emphasis where it ought to have been, which is upon God himself. And and I think that this is akin to us in a lot of ways that we need to be speaking to, like we what we try to do often here, is putting a major emphasis on God's control, on God's sovereignty, on the fact that God is involved with all aspects of our lives, which I believe Job is probably like that to a large degree for the most part. But when he deals with a trial this grand, it probably elicited a higher degree of uh, it probably warranted from him or elicited from him a higher degree of personal defense. Um and you know, and there's probably there's probably a lot more than that. So I'll let me see what other people say. Brother, two witnesses, what do you think? And then Meg.

SPEAKER_06 10:04

Well, I I don't know if I'm I'm gonna like backtrack a little bit, but I just have a question, bro. Calm down. Uh seems then the these guys are telling, yield now and be at peace, right? Be at peace with God, return to him, and everything will be okay. So would you guys think that God uh Job had this bro, calm down? Sorry.

SPEAKER_00 10:42

Right. That's what they're saying. That's exactly what they're saying.

SPEAKER_06 10:45

Yeah, but do you think that that's that's what actually like job, because you say job was actually defending himself, right? He was not uh like hiding himself in God, right? Letting him, or like Jesus, uh Jesus said that he was he he was giving himself to him who judges rightly. So if if job was not doing that and he was trying to justify himself before his friends, which is not a sin because he was innocent, otherwise he it would have been a sin. But do you guys think that from Job's perspective, right, that he thought that he was not at peace with God for some reason?

Peter’s Sword And Wrong Timing

SPEAKER_00 11:29

No, I here's what I think. No, Job was definitely at peace with God. Job, because Job, one thing that we can say clearly, that this that we learn in this position, is that Job was a godly man through and through. He was not going through this because of any wrong on his part. Here's let me let's how I here's how I look at Job in this regard. You remember in the Garden of Gethsemane when they came to arrest Christ? Remember what happened? What did Peter do?

SPEAKER_06 12:00

Strike somebody.

SPEAKER_00 12:02

He cut off the ear of Malchus, and Christ told him to put away his sword, and then Christ went to heal the man's ear. Everybody remember this?

SPEAKER_01 12:14

Because if he didn't, man, there would have been a lot of consequences.

SPEAKER_00 12:18

Well, that that's but yeah, but the issue is there wasn't about the consequences. The issue, Christ wasn't worried about that. The issue was that Peter tried to act out against Christ's enemies by through carnal means. You see what I mean? So he pulls out this sword that he was allowed to have, by the way, by Christ. But this wasn't this wasn't the way Christ wanted him to defend him. So I think that I think that Job's situation is that he, I believe that he believes that he's defending God. And I it brother Rodney said it the right way. Uh right option, wrong time, somewhere along those lines. I think that what Job is what Job is going through is a lot like what happened with Peter. His heart was right. His heart was right, but he was not handling the situation in the best way. And I and I really believe that God corrected him the way Jesus corrected Peter. Meg, what do you think? Meg and then Rod.

Speaking Beyond What We Know

SPEAKER_01 13:32

I think that that God is correcting Job because so many times in scripture, even though Job thinks he understands in his situation, he really doesn't. And I and I think that sometimes he's speaking things that he doesn't understand fully.

unknown 13:51

Right.

SPEAKER_01 13:51

And sometimes we do the same. And so if we speak something that we don't fully understand, just like you said, it's better just to be quiet if it's something that you don't have knowledge in. So I think it was the same with Job. He's there because there comes in a point in time, like as we're reading through this, where his understanding ceased, but instead of it ceasing, he spoke and responded. When he didn't have the knowledge to speak or respond, but he did. And so now it looks as though he's speaking beyond what he understood. And that is where you you fall short, because the word of God tells us who can seek him. He he's not fully understandable. So to be put in a position where you think you know and you understand, he's gonna tell Job, gird up your loins. Yep. You know, you know, so and I think that's the same with us. You know, sometimes we, if there's something that we're not familiar with, we do want to speak on it instead of pausing and saying, Okay, Lord, let me go back to the word, get this right, and then speak. And I think that that's the biblical precision, again, like you were speaking of. Um, and if we don't know, then just be quiet and let's learn until we do, you know.

SPEAKER_00 15:14

Right. Yeah. I I I think that like like for me, you know, and and again, I'm I'm open to hear stronger arguments um about this, but I I I I really do think that that the situation in the garden is really akin to what is happening here with Job. And it's and it's and this is the good, this is the wisdom of God. If if Job had nothing to improve upon, we wouldn't have the benefit of this narrative to grow from. And and so in the wisdom of God, Job has this experience so that we here we are, 10,000 years later, 8,000, whatever it's been, to learn from it. But I don't think that, I think that Job, as we know, he wasn't being punished at all. God didn't punish him at all. God um he he he corrected Job and he and he and he he gently corrected Job. And also notice that when God intervenes with Job, he he treats Job very differently than he treats Job's friends. Very different. He didn't tell Job to go to them so that Job could get right with God. Job told, God told them they better go to Job.

SPEAKER_01 16:26

Can I say one more thing? Sure. Okay. Do you remember in Job chapter 16 where he says, this was a powerful verse for me. He says something like, He tears me in his wrath and he pierces my kidneys, right? Yes, yep, yep. So he was speaking about God. Right? Right. And he was looking, he was speaking. This is one of the verses where I really feel he was, he, he was dead wrong in what he said. He although he didn't curse God, in my opinion, he painted God as though he was an enemy by what he said, and he distorted his character. And so to me, these are the things that if we're not careful in what we say, Lord God, although I'm not cursing you, although I'm not shaking your fist at you, you are God, and I was wrong in distorting your character, and I shouldn't have done that. And I think we can go to if if I go back, we can probably go to a couple more verses where it's like, eh, Job, you're a little out of line there. And it doesn't mean that his heart wasn't in the right spot or that he still was not his servant, but even distorting the character of God, henceforth, when we look at scripture, like you said previously, Brother Jonathan, we have to take things back to the attributes of God, align it with scripture. And if it's not, and if it's something that's distorting God's character, then we're wrong, right? You said that previously, recently, actually.

SPEAKER_00 17:56

Yeah. And you know, you know what else, uh sister, is that when you look at and when you look at what happens to Job later, you do see a lot of parallels with him and Peter. Because like I said already about Peter in the garden, he his heart was in the right place, but the wrong action. And and and Peter, even shortly after that, Lord, I'll die for you. I will die for you. And Christ was like, nah, you're gonna deny me three times before the crock before the cock crow. And he does that. Now you imagine being told that by the Lord Himself, and and not pretend you should have put tape on your mouth so you could never say anything.

SPEAKER_01 18:39

Well, not only, not only did he do that, Jonathan, he told the Lord that he wouldn't deny him after the Lord told him that he would. That's what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_00 18:48

That's what I'm saying. But but see, but here's the thing. Christ uh on another occasion tells Peter that Satan has desired to sift you as we, but I pray that your faith will not fail. That's the same thing that happened with Job. That's the same thing that Job was sifted, but not to the degree that he would compromise, that he would lose his face and compromise his faith. Job was never unfaithful, even with God's correction. And after Peter's denial, Jesus went to the cross. Our Lord went to the cross, died, and he is he came out of that tomb. Who was the first person he wanted to see that he asked to see? Peter. It was Peter. It was Peter. He was the first one he asked to see. Now we know that the ladies saw him first, but the first person he asked to see was Peter. And when God breaks in, he doesn't start with these with these comforters, these miserable comforters. He starts with his servant. He starts with Job. Brother Rod and then Mariah.

Experience Versus Neat Explanations

SPEAKER_04 20:08

Um, I did have uh something to say, but we kind of touched on it. I mean, it's just um like we talked about last night, you know, it doesn't always mean something was wrong something happened bad just because, you know, you're suffering. You know, just because God is silent, you know, doesn't mean he's absent. And it's kind of like I guess like I put earlier, like Eli Foss just couldn't imagine, he just can't imagine that God is working outside of his own theology or his own mindset, you know. And even in the midst of it all, Job is still silent, and Elifast is still talking. I think I put it yesterday, it was like the experience versus explanation, you know. So like Job is literally experiencing the stuff, and Alifast is just here to just talk about it. And look at that, look at that, look at that. And Job's like, I think you said earlier too, Job was like, tell me something I don't know. You know, I'm sorry to be jumping around without the scripture, but you know, I'm just trying to kind of puzzle it together in my head, trying to make sense out of that as the baby that I am. But I'm I think I'm getting somewhere with it. And yeah, that's all I understand.

SPEAKER_00 21:07

Brother, let me tell you something. And I I want you to take this the right, I want you to take this the right way, okay? I want you, when you come to these things, I want you to bring the word with you. And I'm gonna tell you the reason why. Because I like your insights. I like them. And I want I want to hear more of them. You understand? Because you because you gotta you gotta, this is not a this is not a tear down, it's this is a build up. Because I think that there's many things that you have to say that when you put when you put these things together, they're gonna have a profound impact on the rest of us. Because you have a good way of bringing these things together. And I want you to, I want to really foster that with you. I really want you to really build on that. Your notes are amazing when you when you close them. So I want you to add this, bring this other component to it so that we can get that out of that. We can squeeze all the juice out of that. You understand?

SPEAKER_05 22:07

Yep, I do. I gotcha. We'll do. We'll do. All right, brother. All right. That's blessing. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 22:16

All right, brother. Because you bless us. I want I want I want some more of that. I'm a little greedy, so you gotta just roll with me for a minute.

SPEAKER_04 22:23

No problem, no problem, no problem. I don't mind. I don't mind.

SPEAKER_00 22:27

Sister Mariah, go ahead.

SPEAKER_03 22:30

I was just gonna say, it's like God wanted to know. I know that Job knows that God is sovereign, but he wanted to make sure that he knew in every single way that no human was there at any point, at any time, for him to discuss or want or uh um convey his will and that his will will be done. So I think that it's just like God really just showing how sovereign he is. Like I don't think men really actually get it, and they're little, they're willing to give him a little bit of sovereignty. Yeah, he yeah, he's sovereign, but no, he is sovereign. Like people need to understand that, you know?

unknown 23:16

Yep.

Why God Corrects His People

SPEAKER_00 23:16

You know, and you know what else? Because um um I almost forgot who I forgot who asked me the original question, because it's I'm scatterbraining old, but the the It was Lisa. It was Lisa, yeah, Lisa. Here here's here's the the one area that I think one particular area, and there are probably more, and um, and and and and because of this question, I I'm gonna take a good I'm gonna I'm gonna take a good uh glance through the the whole book again when we get to chapter 38 and try to be to answer more of this because but I think initially I would say that I think one of the issues that God probably had with Job were because there were several times, if you remember, where Job talked about God not answering. You know, God not answering, God not being and see, God is always there, as we all know, but I and I also think that's probably one of those elements that that God was probably correcting him about. Um because there were many times where Job was like, God is not, you know, he's not speaking, and and I think that Job is felt kind of isolated because remember, he lost his children, his wife turned on him, his three friends turned on him, and as we discussed in the previous chapters, he didn't feel that God was like around, you know. He knew God was there, but he couldn't understand why God wasn't engaging, you know. And I think that Joe probably felt like I need to do something. And so I think this may have part of it, be part of it. But I'm gonna actually uh uh um really go through this again, Lisa, because I I really want to um, when we get to that part, I really want to have a more comprehensive um perspective on it for you and for the whole group. And I want to challenge everybody, everybody, to do the same thing because I think it's an excellent question. Um uh it's an e it's an excellent one. I think we should all really be seeking to answer um what Job's problem was that God was, what was the problem Job was having that God was addressing? So let's make this an exercise for us all. And I think that even going from now on, from this chapter, you know, we got another 16, whatever chapters it is, to get to that part, so we may find many things between now and then. So um we it I think it's a it's a great question, Lisa. Great question. Um, two witnesses and then Meg.

SPEAKER_06 25:57

Yeah, you know what? I just want to piggyback on what pretty much uh this just became this because right, the problem of job, why was God uh and enticed pretty much the devil to do this, right? And and and and I just I encourage you, I don't I don't I cannot read it all, but I encourage you to read Jeremiah chapter 16, and I'll separate it in three parts. Uh from one to 13 is utter merciless. God is destroying everything and everyone. If you go through it, it's it's ruthless, you know, it's it's gruesome. And then from 14 to around 19, uh this is uh you can correct me if I'm wrong. This is the gospel. God is preaching the gospel. He's literally saying uh everybody's gonna forget why I did in Egypt because of the thing that I'm about to do. And then he says that he was gonna pay double for the sins of the people and so like that. So, but all this happened, uh the last verse of that chapter, 16, Jeremiah 16, is chapter 21, uh, verse 21. I'm just gonna read it. Because this is the reason why God did this, right? He says, Therefore, behold, I am going to make them know. This time I will make them know my power and my might, and they shall know that my name is Yahweh. So the reason he does this is that we might know that he is God.

SPEAKER_00 27:31

Yes. Amen, brother. Excellent. That's that's that's excellent. Um I believe it was Meg. Meg, go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 27:45

I think one more thing, like when we're getting into like this wicked part, I mean, like the wicked when when Job and Eliphaz and we get into the wicked, there was also a verse in Job chapter 9, he says something like, He destroys the blame, the blameless, and the wicked. The earth is given into the hand of the wicked. So when he's talking about the wicked and well, the wicked, it's it's the wicked the whole time for me. But I think that he's making absolute claims about God's justice too, and where he shouldn't be, because he's perfectly just. And some of the things that he says when we go back, when he's talking about his about the wicked and the in the righteous, um, and destroying them alike, I think it was kind of distorted a little bit as well. And the fact that his justice is perfect, and so even in their finite, even in their finite minds speaking about God's perfect justice, it's still misunderstood because of who God is.

Chastisement And Learning To Suffer

SPEAKER_00 28:53

Right. I think that's good. And I think, you know, listen, this this is really going to be a good, a good, because it is hard for a Christian, any of us, brethren, it is hard for us to look at Job and find fault with him. But one thing that I will say, and this will be a good exercise for us all, because when we get to chapter 38, I want us all to be able to have some idea, some ideas about where we can see fault on the part of Job. And I think this will be a really good exercise because God definitely finds some things that get that needed to be fixing. So let's challenge ourselves between now and then to try to figure out, put a list together of why uh and what we think God was correcting with Job. Because it's consistent with our own lives, you know, about, you know, because what Job got wasn't retribution, he got correction. He got he was chastised. God was building him up, and God was being what God is a father to his people. We're his children. And he corrects us. Job was his child, and he corrected. I was his son, our brother. You know, and so we need to look at this like like I'll give you an example. My mother was brutal in a good way. You know, single mom, four kids, I'm the oldest, and we were young. So my mother didn't play around. And she knew, based on how we grew up, that she needed to be tough because the streets were tough, all these things. So my mother did not have a problem sparing the rod. Some of you guys may you heard me talk about this before. But one of the things about my mom is that when one of us in trouble, when one of us got in trouble and she broke out the rod, the other three of us were afraid that she was coming after us next, even though we didn't do anything. We used to be worried that maybe she might think of something and then continue and just make the rounds. It was a scary thing. It was just as scary when one of my siblings was getting it because the rest of us would think we were gonna get it too, even though we had nothing to do with why they got in trouble. You know, but it was always out of love and it was always out of correcting us, and it was always out of trying to put get us in a mindset to understand that the world is not going to is not going to deal with us the same way she does. You know, and she was preparing us so that when things don't go right in the world, we will reflect on how she raised us, and we would be less fearful, you know, and we would not expect to be entitled to certain things, you know? So she so and I think that God does this. And now here we are looking at reading about our elder brother, Job, who was before us. We see what God did to him, and it should make us all also afraid in a reverential way. You see what I'm saying? It's like we see what happened to him, like my siblings when one of us was getting it, we should be like the other siblings going like, oh, we need to be careful about doing make making that mistake because we don't want no part of this.

SPEAKER_01 32:25

I don't want to get chastised. I don't want to get chastised. Yo, no, I don't. Especially by the Lord.

SPEAKER_00 32:32

But that's that's that's but it's a it's it's a great thing. And and uh, like um Joseph says, suffer well. And uh I know when we first started, Michael DeSilva was in here and he used to say that a lot, but he jumped ship. That's all right. Yeah, but brother's spreading things around there. But the issue that we need to do, we need to have here is to learn how to suffer well. And and God um has to do these kinds of things, or we don't grow, or we don't grow.