WEBVTT 00:00:02.547 --> 00:00:03.209 Can you hear me now? 00:00:03.209 --> 00:00:03.830 How's that? 00:00:03.830 --> 00:00:04.312 Is that better? 00:00:04.312 --> 00:00:06.825 Let's take our Bible and go over to the book of Job. 00:00:06.825 --> 00:00:08.150 Book of Job. 00:00:10.721 --> 00:00:14.090 How many of you have ever heard a sermon series on the book of Job? 00:00:14.090 --> 00:00:18.710 Huh, two, three, four. 00:00:18.710 --> 00:00:20.925 How long was that series? 00:00:20.925 --> 00:00:29.868 How many of you do your devotions in the book of Job? 00:00:29.868 --> 00:00:34.787 Nobody raised their hand for that one, sometimes. 00:00:34.787 --> 00:00:43.173 Okay, yeah, well, this Old Testament book was a popular book in the hands of many great preachers. 00:00:44.780 --> 00:00:48.570 John Calvin preached 156 sermons on the book of Job. 00:00:48.570 --> 00:00:57.966 Spurgeon preached 88 sermons on the book of Job, but both of them were outdone by another guy by the name of Joseph Carroll. 00:00:57.966 --> 00:01:10.650 Joseph was a Puritan who suffered in many ways, and there are published 12 volumes of his commentaries or his preaching on the book of Job. 00:01:10.650 --> 00:01:18.019 Just to give you a feel for how voluminous that is, there's one volume that covers chapters 1 to 3. 00:01:18.019 --> 00:01:22.772 It's 21 sermons and it's 516 pages. 00:01:22.772 --> 00:01:36.593 Just the first three chapters Chapters 18 to 21, 42 sermons, 886 pages, not to be outdone, chapters 32 to 34, 49 sermons and 916 pages. 00:01:36.593 --> 00:01:48.796 So here's 111 sermons on only 10 of the chapters of the book of Job that cover over 2,500 pages. 00:01:48.796 --> 00:01:58.423 Well, I'm certainly not going to mimic Joseph Carroll tonight, even though you might think I am by the time I finish. 00:01:58.423 --> 00:02:00.608 You might think, well, he came close to that. 00:02:00.608 --> 00:02:12.394 But I hope by the end of the evening you'll appreciate the book of Job more and that you will even look to it as a resource, just like Calvin did and Carol did and Spurgeon did. 00:02:12.394 --> 00:02:17.312 And another guy that I haven't mentioned, durham Charles Spurgeon, said this. 00:02:17.312 --> 00:02:21.045 He said if you are depressed, read the book of Job. 00:02:21.045 --> 00:02:30.881 Some of Job's remarks were terrible, but who could doubt Job's salvation or his redemption Today? 00:02:30.881 --> 00:02:35.752 His name is one of the most illustrious of those who have overcome the world by faith. 00:02:35.752 --> 00:02:38.568 It's quite a remarkable commendation, right. 00:02:39.681 --> 00:02:43.091 Well, tonight I want to give you seven points about the book of Job. 00:02:43.091 --> 00:02:50.538 They all begin with the letter P, so just listen for those P words and count them up, and hopefully I get through all seven of them. 00:02:50.538 --> 00:02:52.342 First of all, it's the place of Job. 00:02:52.342 --> 00:02:53.325 The place of Job. 00:02:53.325 --> 00:02:56.552 Last week Mike took us through the book of Esther. 00:02:56.552 --> 00:03:17.808 Tonight, here we are in the middle of the Old Testament as constructed by our Christian Bible, middle of the Old Testament as constructed by our Christian Bible, and we begin to examine a series of what's known as poetic books that deal with things about everyday life, personal relationships, money, love, doubt, prayer and suffering. 00:03:17.808 --> 00:03:24.424 And once you step into the book of Job, you realize having just come out of the book of Esther. 00:03:24.424 --> 00:03:26.165 You're in a completely different place. 00:03:29.330 --> 00:03:32.854 God is dealing with us in a different way in this book. 00:03:32.854 --> 00:03:39.473 Unlike the other books that we've studied, job doesn't focus on God's dealings with the nation of Israel. 00:03:39.473 --> 00:04:01.707 There's no reference to the Exodus, no reference to the covenantodus, no reference to the covenant, no reference to the torah, no reference to the prophets, no reference to the day of the lord, and in that way we can see that joe belongs in that little group with proverbs and ecclesiastes and song of Solomon. 00:04:01.707 --> 00:04:13.825 Those books don't deal with God's acts in history, but on the questions about the world itself and everyday life within it. 00:04:13.825 --> 00:04:29.225 Now, don't be mistaken All the books that we've looked at deal with life and everyday life within it, but Job and Proverbs and Ecclesiastes and the Song of Solomon approached the question in a different way. 00:04:29.225 --> 00:04:38.386 Instead of appealing to the way God acted in history, it appeals to the way life itself is. 00:04:38.386 --> 00:04:45.156 And so Job, like those other books, reflects on the nature of everyday human experience. 00:04:45.156 --> 00:04:51.992 It deals with God, morality as part of that human experience. 00:04:51.992 --> 00:05:09.430 But in order to understand life with God and how to live life in light of God, we have these books because it helps us understand how life actually and should work, and so that's why these books are sometimes referred to us as wisdom literature. 00:05:09.600 --> 00:05:11.408 Have you heard that phrase, wisdom literature? 00:05:11.408 --> 00:05:18.434 It's because these books bring up those terms quite frequently wisdom and insight. 00:05:18.434 --> 00:05:26.548 The whole Bible certainly is concerned about wisdom and insight, but these books are isolated out. 00:05:26.548 --> 00:05:33.291 It's called wisdom literature, and the reason is is because it deals with things in two different ways. 00:05:33.291 --> 00:05:45.648 It talks about, on the one hand, life with all of its rules and regularities, that these are the things that should be expected about life and that often are patterns of life. 00:05:45.648 --> 00:05:51.872 This is how things normally work and how life probably ought to work. 00:05:51.872 --> 00:06:08.401 And yet, on the other hand, it also deals with another side to life, that our human experiences don't often fit into those patterns or those rules, that there are as many exceptions to the rules as there are rules themselves. 00:06:08.401 --> 00:06:17.067 Proverbs and the Song of Solomon deal with the rules. 00:06:17.067 --> 00:06:23.831 Ecclesiastes and Job deal with the exceptions. 00:06:23.831 --> 00:06:26.552 Song of Solomon. 00:06:26.552 --> 00:06:29.915 The race is not always to the swift. 00:06:29.915 --> 00:06:38.382 The battle is not always to the strong, the exceptions, the exceptions. 00:06:38.403 --> 00:06:56.875 So, in order to understand Job, we have to understand its place within the poetic books and the wisdom literature, that it focuses on experiences that call into question the rules. 00:06:56.875 --> 00:07:06.360 And that leads us to the pattern of Job, because what we find when we get into the book of Job is the experience of a man that doesn't fit the rules. 00:07:06.360 --> 00:07:09.750 In fact, that's the whole thesis of the book. 00:07:09.750 --> 00:07:20.052 It tells a story about a man who is totally committed to God, with the expectation that his life would continue to be prosperous. 00:07:20.052 --> 00:07:27.968 However, his life falls apart through a series of catastrophes, but eventually is reestablished. 00:07:27.968 --> 00:08:00.672 And so it discusses these questions in the form of a play, which I think is a wonderful, wonderful construct, a pattern of how it's developed, because, in the sense of a play, we're brought into different arenas to capture information, while allowing there to be a separation of understanding in those two places the arena of heaven, the conversation of God with Satan, totally unknown to Job and his friends in this situation on earth. 00:08:00.672 --> 00:08:32.755 And it allows for there to be this interplay of Job with his three friends, and then Elihu later on, and then with God himself, to be able to posit what they think are the rules by which the reality is happening and to be able to offer their explanations of what's going on in Job's life without us necessarily hearing a comment of whether those things are right or wrong at first. 00:08:32.755 --> 00:09:07.880 So chapter 1 and 2, just to give us a bit of that pattern introduces us to a rich and a powerful man, but a thoroughly good man by the name of Job, suddenly stripped of his possessions, his family, his high place in society and even his physical health, all seemingly as the result of this bet that Satan makes with God that you take away all of those blessings, job will turn his face against God and curse him. 00:09:12.408 --> 00:09:18.941 Chapters 3 to 27 bring us into a lengthy argument that Job has with three of his friends. 00:09:18.941 --> 00:09:32.509 They come at first to Job in order to give him some comfort, but they end up insisting that Job is a bad man who justifiably deserves the evil he's received. 00:09:32.509 --> 00:09:53.173 Joseph Carroll summed up their argument this way the whole dispute and argument of Job's friends may be reduced to one syllogism he that is greatly afflicted is certainly either a great and open sinner or a vile hypocrite. 00:09:53.173 --> 00:09:55.666 That's the rule. 00:09:55.666 --> 00:09:59.687 Job, you're afflicted. 00:09:59.687 --> 00:10:07.272 Therefore, you are certainly an unprincipled hypocrite, if not an open sinner. 00:10:07.272 --> 00:10:11.546 That's their argument. 00:10:11.546 --> 00:10:26.778 Job, just as certainly as they are, says this is just not the case, and he stubbornly defends his righteousness. 00:10:30.080 --> 00:10:33.726 Chapter 28 leads us into an interlude about wisdom, a song to the praise of wisdom, a hint of something that's about to happen. 00:10:33.726 --> 00:10:38.114 Chapters 29 to 31, joe presents his last case. 00:10:38.114 --> 00:10:46.114 He asked God to show him, to show his friends, to show the world any wrong that he might be guilty of. 00:10:46.114 --> 00:10:49.370 That would warrant what he's received. 00:10:49.370 --> 00:11:06.653 And just as we think we're going to hear the answer to Job's final argument, the tension builds with this interjection of Elihu in chapters 32 to 37. 00:11:06.653 --> 00:11:25.890 A man who's been listening to the debate and begins to form his own opinions about what's going on and now purposes to give a rather wordy, lengthy exposition of where he thinks Job is wrong, and his friends too. 00:11:25.890 --> 00:11:54.388 And then, right near the end of the book, chapter 38 to 41, after all of these circles and cycles of conversation back and forth, we finally hear the Lord speak and some of the mystery is unraveled for us Enough for Job to humble himself. 00:11:54.388 --> 00:12:02.394 And then, in chapter 42, job is declared totally restored. 00:12:02.394 --> 00:12:14.107 His three friends, however, are ordered to repent and to ask Job to offer sacrifices for their sins, job is vindicated. 00:12:14.107 --> 00:12:23.067 So, with that place and with that pattern, let's now look a little bit more deeply at the people of Job. 00:12:23.229 --> 00:12:37.086 The people of Job, the chief characters of the book of Job. 00:12:37.086 --> 00:12:38.749 Most of them arise in chapters 1 and 2. 00:12:38.749 --> 00:12:43.639 Job, god, satan and Job's three friends, eliphaz the Temanite, bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite. 00:12:43.639 --> 00:12:48.523 And then another person, elihu, shows up later. 00:12:48.523 --> 00:13:01.043 Job obviously the book gets its title from the main character, man, who is described as living in the land of Uz, which could be on the opposite side of the Jordan River, and he's described as the greatest of all the people of the East. 00:13:01.043 --> 00:13:10.527 We learn that he's a wealthy man, a very wealthy and powerful man who would have been every bit the equal of Bill Gates or Elon Musk in our day. 00:13:10.527 --> 00:13:14.595 He's that wealthy, he's that powerful. 00:13:14.595 --> 00:13:32.551 But that wealth is only mentioned in passing because the Bible and if you will go to chapter one, lands somewhere else in highlighting who Job is, it's his character that matters the most, not his cash. 00:13:34.639 --> 00:13:44.089 And in verse one we find that he's a man of complete integrity, and the word that's used there talks about him being whole. 00:13:44.089 --> 00:13:47.866 Whole, that's what integrity is. 00:13:47.866 --> 00:13:53.533 There's no rip or tear or shard in this man's character. 00:13:53.533 --> 00:13:56.549 There's no rough places or broken places. 00:13:56.549 --> 00:13:58.307 He's a man of integrity. 00:13:58.307 --> 00:14:03.549 Morally he is as God would want us to be. 00:14:03.549 --> 00:14:08.509 There's a simplicity, our wholeness about him. 00:14:08.509 --> 00:14:11.869 What you see with Job is what you get. 00:14:11.869 --> 00:14:17.893 He is by no means a hypocrite, as he's going to be accused a little bit later. 00:14:17.893 --> 00:14:27.414 There's a consistency, a truthfulness, a moral direction, an integrity, a wholeness about his life. 00:14:27.414 --> 00:14:39.852 Now the Christian Standard Bible pulls two words into one, but there's a second Hebrew word there which is related to that, which means straight. 00:14:39.852 --> 00:14:44.270 We see the translation complete integrity. 00:14:44.270 --> 00:14:53.230 But there's a little bit of the wholeness and the straightness, two very similar words but can be teased apart a little bit. 00:14:53.230 --> 00:14:55.006 It overlaps with the integrity part. 00:14:56.559 --> 00:15:09.907 The Old Testament pictures the righteous person walking down a path straight, going down, not turning to the left, not turning to the right, but just on the pathway. 00:15:09.907 --> 00:15:16.687 One that goes off of the path is a wayward person. 00:15:16.687 --> 00:15:18.513 That's not Job. 00:15:18.513 --> 00:15:20.505 He's a straight walker. 00:15:20.505 --> 00:15:23.607 He goes down the path of righteousness. 00:15:23.607 --> 00:15:30.725 God has laid out a straight, moral path in front of him and he's been walking down it. 00:15:30.725 --> 00:15:35.433 We also see that he's a submissive man. 00:15:35.433 --> 00:15:40.784 He's a man of complete integrity who feared God. 00:15:43.128 --> 00:15:49.796 We hear the word fear and sometimes we conjure up in our mind that idea of being afraid of God. 00:15:49.796 --> 00:15:55.370 But then there's the Old Testament understanding of it. 00:15:55.370 --> 00:16:08.599 It also speaks about fear, with the sense of submission and reverence and respect rather than negative cowering and fear and respect rather than negative cowering and fear. 00:16:08.599 --> 00:16:22.914 It's this positive attitude that's being attributed to Job, and the scriptures tell us if you want to be a person who is upright, if you want to be a person who's morally whole, the place to start is here. 00:16:22.914 --> 00:16:29.035 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. 00:16:29.035 --> 00:16:37.879 That sense of submissiveness, reverence, respect and awe of God is the beginning place. 00:16:37.879 --> 00:16:41.809 And then we see he's a man who turns away from evil. 00:16:41.809 --> 00:16:44.192 He's a man of complete integrity who fears God, who turns away from evil. 00:16:44.192 --> 00:16:46.585 He's a man of complete integrity who fears God, who turns away from evil. 00:16:46.585 --> 00:17:06.109 Once again, it shows us this idea of him staying on the right pathway, but he also avoids the wrong pathway, and so his attitudes to life and his relationship to God go together. 00:17:06.109 --> 00:17:19.655 This is Job an upright man, a straight walking man, a respecter of God man, an avoider of evil man. 00:17:19.655 --> 00:17:24.950 In the beginning of this book shows us some of the fruitfulness of that. 00:17:24.950 --> 00:17:44.392 He's a man with a bounty in life a full family, seeming enjoying all that there is about this, and as one of the great examples of this fulfillment and this gratitude toward God is a deep enjoyment over grown children. 00:17:44.392 --> 00:17:47.046 It's a remarkable thing. 00:17:47.046 --> 00:17:50.346 That's one character, job. 00:17:52.221 --> 00:17:54.429 The second character we're introduced to is God. 00:17:54.429 --> 00:18:03.111 There's a lot to say about God in this, so I just want to bring out one unique highlight that's often overlooked here. 00:18:03.111 --> 00:18:13.394 In the first two chapters of the book of Job, god is referenced to with his covenant name, yahweh, the Lord. 00:18:13.394 --> 00:18:22.873 That is the name that speaks of his faithfulness, his grace and his love. 00:18:22.873 --> 00:18:30.327 But once you get past the first two chapters of the book of Job, something dramatic happens. 00:18:30.327 --> 00:18:39.730 The covenant name of God, yahweh, is not used at all in the dialogue that Job and his friends have together. 00:18:39.730 --> 00:18:49.391 What we get instead is Elohim, that sort of common name for God in the ancient world. 00:18:49.391 --> 00:18:52.890 We also get Shaddai, the Almighty. 00:18:52.890 --> 00:19:02.387 Of the 48 times that the word Shaddai is used in the Old Testament, 31 of them are here in Job. 00:19:02.387 --> 00:19:03.642 31 of them are here in Job. 00:19:06.286 --> 00:19:10.473 But when we get to the last part of the book of Job. 00:19:10.473 --> 00:19:34.557 When God speaks to Job and Job replies to him, we find the covenant name of God returning. 00:19:34.557 --> 00:19:35.019 What's going on here? 00:19:35.019 --> 00:19:59.789 This early part and the latter part represent God as he's made himself known to Job God as his Lord, god as his faithful one, god as the lover of his soul, god as the one who is heaping blessings upon his life, enriching him and honoring his servant, keeping his faithful love on this man. 00:20:02.240 --> 00:20:11.150 But when Job suffers and begins to consider his suffering, he now meets God by another name. 00:20:11.150 --> 00:20:36.188 He meets God with another face, and it's this change from the lover of my soul to the Almighty that is part of the disturbing echoes in Job's heart and it's driving him to madness. 00:20:36.188 --> 00:20:45.071 What was once a relationship full of love and blessing is now a relationship that seems to be full of wrath and cursing. 00:20:45.071 --> 00:20:47.844 And for Job this is intolerable. 00:20:47.844 --> 00:20:50.247 He doesn't understand it. 00:20:50.247 --> 00:20:55.602 For his friends, nothing's changed. 00:20:55.602 --> 00:21:03.584 The problem is, job had only been given a temporary sense of the blessings of this world. 00:21:03.584 --> 00:21:09.163 But the reality of who Job is from the Almighty is coming out. 00:21:12.031 --> 00:21:13.698 But for Job, everything's changed. 00:21:13.698 --> 00:21:15.816 Everything has changed. 00:21:15.816 --> 00:21:20.417 He's completely perplexed, he's distraught, he's to the point of being incoherent. 00:21:20.417 --> 00:21:28.263 How can the Lord, my covenant-keeping God be the one who's now cast me here. 00:21:28.263 --> 00:21:35.339 It can't be that I'm dealing with a different deity. 00:21:35.339 --> 00:21:47.019 He doesn't go there, but yet he can't reconcile these two pictures of God, and that causes his deep agony. 00:21:47.019 --> 00:21:58.457 And the question is can he cling to his previous understanding of the Lord in the middle of his present distresses? 00:21:58.457 --> 00:22:06.478 Can he we walk with him through that tension? 00:22:10.111 --> 00:22:19.115 Now, people struggle all the time with what we call theodicy, the justification of God, all the time with what we call theodicy, the justification of God. 00:22:19.115 --> 00:22:23.087 And usually the questions raised are about whether God really wants to prevent situations in our life. 00:22:23.087 --> 00:22:36.205 Is God actually good at all, or is he able to intervene and bring about good and to stop the evil, that is, is God powerful or sovereign? 00:22:36.205 --> 00:22:45.998 Well, job clearly affirms that God is both good and sovereign, and yet evil still happens. 00:22:45.998 --> 00:22:56.318 The author of Job affirms God's sovereignty over all that suffering, and even Job, when he lost his livestock, affirms God's sovereignty over all that suffering. 00:22:56.318 --> 00:23:03.626 And even Job, when he lost his livestock, when he lost his servants, when he lost his children, he said the Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. 00:23:03.626 --> 00:23:09.288 Blessed be the name of the Lord. 00:23:09.288 --> 00:23:13.140 And the divine commentary from the narrator is in all this, job did not sin or charge God with wrong. 00:23:13.140 --> 00:23:25.678 And then when Job loses his health and his wife calls on him to curse God, job says shall we receive good from God and not receive evil? 00:23:25.678 --> 00:23:37.558 And again the narrator immediately interjects in chapter two and verse 10, in all this, job did not sin with his lips. 00:23:37.558 --> 00:23:44.457 Job affirms that God is a creator, job affirms that God is sovereign. 00:23:44.457 --> 00:23:53.002 But what he can't understand is how the one God could have two different names like this. 00:23:53.002 --> 00:24:09.038 Until he gets to the end and he says in chapter 42, I know that you, the Lord, can do all things and that none of your purposes can be thwarted. 00:24:09.038 --> 00:24:14.038 The Almighty is Yahweh. 00:24:14.038 --> 00:24:17.136 It's one of the big lessons. 00:24:19.151 --> 00:24:21.459 Another character that we learn about here is Satan. 00:24:21.459 --> 00:24:34.878 After we're introduced to Job, all of a sudden we're brought into the throne room of heaven, where the myriads of angels crown around the Lord, and Satan also came among them. 00:24:34.878 --> 00:24:44.528 What is this guy doing here? 00:24:44.528 --> 00:24:50.875 Lurking in the divine court, this evil being? 00:24:50.875 --> 00:24:52.115 Think about this for a second. 00:24:52.115 --> 00:24:53.857 We hear Satan speak here. 00:24:53.857 --> 00:25:10.304 There's only three instances and, like someone said, the fingerprints of Satan are all over the pages of Scripture, but there are only three places where we hear him talk. 00:25:10.304 --> 00:25:21.202 One is in the Garden of Eden, the other one is in the temptation of Jesus and here and here is in the temptation of Jesus and here and here where he accuses a man before God. 00:25:24.951 --> 00:25:25.794 What do we learn about him? 00:25:25.794 --> 00:25:28.761 Well, we learn he's totally vicious in his intentions. 00:25:28.761 --> 00:25:32.595 And he's asked where he's come from. 00:25:32.595 --> 00:25:49.997 And he says roaming through the earth and walking around on it echoes of what Peter says about our enemy like a roaring lion walks to and fro through the earth seeking to whom he may devour right, there's a purposeful echo there. 00:25:49.997 --> 00:25:53.538 He's vicious in his intentions. 00:25:53.538 --> 00:25:56.259 He has no regard for God, no regard for God's servants. 00:25:56.259 --> 00:25:58.759 He maligns God and he maligns God's people. 00:25:58.759 --> 00:26:06.461 But we also learn something else about him that he's limited in his abilities. 00:26:09.012 --> 00:26:14.279 When we read about him, it's important to notice that his attack on Job has to be cleared with the Lord first. 00:26:14.279 --> 00:26:21.521 You may not understand all of that, but that part of it's a certainty. 00:26:21.521 --> 00:26:27.241 Satan could not touch this good man unless God had first given him permission. 00:26:27.241 --> 00:26:30.509 In fact, god is the one who said have you considered my servant Job? 00:26:30.509 --> 00:26:32.270 And Job's like don't mention my name. 00:26:32.270 --> 00:26:38.356 But he did Job's like don't, don't bet your money, but he did. 00:26:38.576 --> 00:26:51.106 Satan is clearly not the free agent here, and there's a danger in Christian circles of being so preoccupied with the evil one that somehow we kind of cast him into this dualistic view with God. 00:26:51.106 --> 00:26:59.957 Just as God is powerful for good, satan is powerful for evil, and we need to be afraid of them both one for good, one for evil. 00:26:59.957 --> 00:27:16.631 When I was working at Grace to you, there was a lady who wrote a letter afraid of an operation on her body that she needed because she was told by her church that if they opened her up, it was an avenue of the entrance of evil spirits into her body. 00:27:16.631 --> 00:27:29.840 Not only was it absolutely ridiculous, it also betrayed an utter lack of understanding of the power of God and the limited access that Satan has to any of us. 00:27:34.872 --> 00:27:37.200 One thing else we learn about Satan he's an accuser. 00:27:37.200 --> 00:27:42.478 Does Job fear God for nothing? 00:27:42.478 --> 00:27:45.435 It's because of all this you've given him. 00:27:45.435 --> 00:27:45.917 He loves you. 00:27:45.917 --> 00:27:47.012 You take that away. 00:27:47.012 --> 00:27:48.298 He won't. 00:27:48.298 --> 00:27:56.538 Satan believes that no one would serve God out of any pure motive, out of any heart of love. 00:27:56.538 --> 00:28:03.521 In his eyes, job only serves God for what he can get out of the relationship. 00:28:03.521 --> 00:28:11.678 He believes that all humans are false and self-seeking. 00:28:11.678 --> 00:28:19.460 Just like he is, watch out for what people accuse others of. 00:28:19.460 --> 00:28:23.941 You'll often find that their accusations are but a mirror of their own heart. 00:28:30.171 --> 00:28:32.451 Satan proposes a bet with the Lord let me have him. 00:28:32.451 --> 00:28:36.413 I'll strip him of everything he has and see if he will not turn violently against you. 00:28:36.413 --> 00:28:44.833 The Lord hands him over this unsuspecting Job to the tormentor, with restrictions, however. 00:28:44.833 --> 00:28:56.622 Job loses his cattle, his flocks, his shepherds, his camels, their retainers, his sons, his daughters, their spouses. 00:28:56.622 --> 00:28:59.375 And that's only the beginning. 00:28:59.375 --> 00:29:10.184 The second attack he loses his physical health and his wife's trust. 00:29:14.011 --> 00:29:29.801 It leads us to three more characters we discover here Eliphaz the Temanite, bildad the Shuhite, zophar the Naamathite that hear about the adversity of their friend, who come from their homes, gather together to sympathize and to comfort him. 00:29:29.801 --> 00:29:36.542 They spend a week in silence as they listen to the moans and sobs of Job. 00:29:36.542 --> 00:29:41.696 They're not insincere. 00:29:41.696 --> 00:29:43.277 They really do care for their friend. 00:29:43.277 --> 00:29:50.760 They've come from a long distance and they sit with him in the middle of his grief. 00:29:50.760 --> 00:29:53.996 That's a friend right. 00:29:58.990 --> 00:29:59.798 They're presented in a favorable light. 00:29:59.798 --> 00:30:01.150 They're sensitive, seemingly compassionate to Job. 00:30:01.150 --> 00:30:03.178 Their whole intention is to try to comfort him. 00:30:03.178 --> 00:30:07.422 They seem to be good and earnest, and even religious men. 00:30:07.422 --> 00:30:17.719 Their speeches start off well-meaning, even though they're striking and there's some of it in there meant to comfort Job, at least push him in what they thought was the right direction. 00:30:17.719 --> 00:30:23.038 But their comfort becomes an irritant to Job. 00:30:23.038 --> 00:30:24.261 Why? 00:30:24.261 --> 00:30:32.234 Because they were used to thinking of the way life normally ought to be, without exception. 00:30:34.171 --> 00:30:39.951 Righteous men are blessed, sinful men are cursed. 00:30:39.951 --> 00:30:40.592 Job, you're obviously in trouble. 00:30:40.592 --> 00:30:41.814 You can't be a righteous man. 00:30:41.814 --> 00:30:45.401 You have to be either a sinner or a hypocrite. 00:30:45.401 --> 00:30:46.763 Which one are you? 00:30:51.971 --> 00:31:02.162 As we think about that syllogism, as Carol talked about it, we realize that that one week of silence was the best thing that they could offer their friend. 00:31:02.162 --> 00:31:13.563 They meet together, they approach Job, they find this common strategy to try to get Job to admit that he's done something wrong. 00:31:13.563 --> 00:31:22.349 Get Job to admit that he's done something wrong. 00:31:22.349 --> 00:31:30.282 Retribution, reward, punishment, all of those things as rules drives their thinking. 00:31:30.282 --> 00:31:36.284 Are they right? 00:31:36.284 --> 00:31:39.832 We might read some scriptures and think that they are. 00:31:39.832 --> 00:31:42.896 No harm befalls the righteous, but the wicked have their fill of trouble. 00:31:42.896 --> 00:31:44.378 Proverbs 12, 21. 00:31:44.378 --> 00:31:55.165 We might think well, there's a rule here Righteous are rewarded, the wicked are cursed. 00:31:55.165 --> 00:31:57.434 But that's not the whole truth of Scripture. 00:31:57.434 --> 00:32:10.950 There's something else that Scripture tells us here that life is far too complex to be pushed into that simplistic explanation. 00:32:10.950 --> 00:32:13.432 Psalm 73. 00:32:13.452 --> 00:32:22.786 The psalmist realized that there was something going on beyond this clear this-than-that way of thinking. 00:32:22.786 --> 00:32:27.240 I envied the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. 00:32:27.240 --> 00:32:29.333 This is what the wicked are like. 00:32:29.333 --> 00:32:34.123 They're carefree, they increase in wealth, and all the day long I'm being plagued. 00:32:34.123 --> 00:32:47.904 What good is it to live for God, he says, until he considered something beyond life as he was looking at it. 00:32:47.904 --> 00:32:55.461 That leads us to the final character that we want to look at the people of Job. 00:32:55.461 --> 00:32:59.421 That's what I call this the people of Job, elihu. 00:33:00.589 --> 00:33:08.261 After all these rounds of arguments and defense, we get to the point in chapter 31 where we expect that the Lord is going to answer Job. 00:33:08.261 --> 00:33:11.435 Job's thrown down the gauntlet. 00:33:11.435 --> 00:33:15.490 It seems like it's impossible for God to remain silent. 00:33:15.490 --> 00:33:17.471 God's been put into the box. 00:33:17.471 --> 00:33:19.795 Defend yourself, god. 00:33:19.795 --> 00:33:24.784 And all of a sudden someone else steps in the way, and it's Elihu. 00:33:24.784 --> 00:33:37.643 He's been listening in on the debate and he interjects himself without any invitation, and boy has he got something to say. 00:33:37.643 --> 00:33:43.013 He's the most long-winded of all the speakers in Job. 00:33:43.013 --> 00:33:49.765 He uses twice as much space as any of the other speakers in Job. 00:33:49.765 --> 00:34:02.778 This guy keeps droning on and it seems, as he talks, that some of these guys are trying to interject, but Elihu shuts them down and keeps on talking. 00:34:02.778 --> 00:34:11.184 He's not going to give space once he's gotten the platform to talk to anybody. 00:34:15.231 --> 00:34:32.219 Some people think that Elihu gave some new insight into the situation, but I think there's a case for saying he did nothing but repeat with longer words, exactly what Job's other three friends were saying that Job was being punished for the evil life. 00:34:32.219 --> 00:34:37.414 So what is this? 00:34:37.414 --> 00:34:54.360 Remember, this is a question dressed in a play, and what we have here is this unexpected interjection of a long-winded speaker that continues to build the tension of when is God going to talk? 00:34:54.360 --> 00:34:56.704 When are we going to talk? 00:34:56.704 --> 00:35:05.670 When are we going to hear somebody cut through the morass of all of this? 00:35:05.670 --> 00:35:18.766 And so the suspense is built until the supreme moment of God's speech, and that leads us from the place of Job to the of Job, to the people of Job, to the poetry of Job. 00:35:20.291 --> 00:35:29.322 I'm not going to spend time on this because my time is rapidly running away from me, but when you read Job, it's full of poetic structure. 00:35:29.322 --> 00:35:37.550 You take a look at Go Past, chapter 2, and you can see it's built, even, the way it's typeset into a poetic structure. 00:35:37.550 --> 00:35:48.132 It's because each of these verses are just a few major Hebrew words that are paralleled with the second part of the verse. 00:35:48.132 --> 00:35:50.597 It's Hebrew parallelism. 00:35:50.597 --> 00:35:54.742 It's poetic not only in its structure. 00:35:54.742 --> 00:35:56.643 It's poetic in its succinctness. 00:35:56.643 --> 00:36:09.550 These words are put out without a lot of sort of words that help round out the sentences, and there's a lot of poetic symbols there as well. 00:36:09.570 --> 00:36:15.436 Well, job says the arrows of the almighty are in me, they're poison. 00:36:15.436 --> 00:36:17.260 My spirit drinks up. 00:36:17.260 --> 00:36:18.922 That's very poetic, right? 00:36:18.922 --> 00:36:35.721 That's vivid imagery, and so it's meant to slow us down by some of its difficulty in understanding and some of its complexity in the images, so that we not only just read it, we feel it. 00:36:35.721 --> 00:36:40.478 And that leads us to the poignancy of Job. 00:36:40.478 --> 00:36:41.862 The poignancy of Job. 00:36:41.862 --> 00:36:50.161 What we hear is Job speaking out of the bitterness of his heart. 00:36:50.161 --> 00:37:02.161 We feel these struggles that he's crying over, we're moved by his sufferings that he experiences. 00:37:02.161 --> 00:37:13.961 We capture the expressiveness of his anguish, and especially his spiritual anguish, as he tries to understand what's happened to him. 00:37:15.692 --> 00:37:19.913 Let's go to chapter three for a second Chapter three. 00:37:19.913 --> 00:37:29.846 Job is in such pain that he curses his birthday right On this day. 00:37:29.846 --> 00:37:35.197 That would have risen up with his family and his neighbors all saying it's a boy. 00:37:35.197 --> 00:37:39.724 He said I would rather there was nothing but silence on that day. 00:37:39.724 --> 00:37:44.873 In fact, I would rather that you cast that day off the calendar. 00:37:44.873 --> 00:37:45.916 Job when you were born. 00:37:45.916 --> 00:37:48.862 Let me show you that there's no date. 00:37:48.862 --> 00:38:01.101 There's literally no date on the calendar, verse 6. 00:38:01.101 --> 00:38:03.804 If only darkness had taken that night away. 00:38:03.804 --> 00:38:08.909 May it not appear among the days of the year be listed in the calendar. 00:38:08.909 --> 00:38:10.789 Yes, may that night be barren. 00:38:10.789 --> 00:38:12.898 May no joyful sound be heard in it. 00:38:15.670 --> 00:38:19.541 He curses the day that he was born. 00:38:19.541 --> 00:38:23.059 Erase it from the calendar, blot it out. 00:38:23.059 --> 00:38:41.880 All that he enjoyed in his former life, the material fortune, the high place in society, the sweet enjoyment that he describes in chapter 29 as being drenched with cream and the rock pouring out from his streams of olive oil None of that. 00:38:41.880 --> 00:38:43.672 None of that brings him any joy right now. 00:38:43.672 --> 00:38:50.230 It's all been faded away in the present reality that's dominating his current thought. 00:38:50.230 --> 00:39:00.994 And here he heaps line upon line, trying to pull together all the forces that would throw away his birthday into oblivion. 00:39:03.456 --> 00:39:08.605 And he says in verse 8, may those who curse days curse that day. 00:39:08.605 --> 00:39:20.047 In biblical days, professional mourners would come around a funeral and they would curse the day of someone's death as part of the funeral. 00:39:20.047 --> 00:39:27.757 Right, job is saying I wish they'd rather curse the day of my birth, not the day of my death. 00:39:27.757 --> 00:39:37.878 This is how bitter he is. 00:39:37.878 --> 00:39:40.003 This is the poignancy of Job. 00:39:40.003 --> 00:39:42.246 We feel it. 00:39:42.246 --> 00:39:52.963 We don't just disinterestedly look at it. 00:39:53.003 --> 00:39:55.385 And that leads us to the sixth point. 00:39:55.907 --> 00:40:02.505 Not just the place and the pattern and the people, the poetry and the poignancy of Job, but the perplexing purpose of Job. 00:40:02.505 --> 00:40:06.998 What's going on here? 00:40:06.998 --> 00:40:07.943 Why was this written? 00:40:07.943 --> 00:40:21.262 When we read the first two chapters, we might think that we're about to read a book that talks about the patience of a good man, but that's not what shows up in the rest of the book. 00:40:21.262 --> 00:40:33.818 The questions that Job raises and the questions his friend raise and wrestle with are questions we all wrestle with. 00:40:33.818 --> 00:40:35.242 Why me? 00:40:35.242 --> 00:40:40.400 Why now, right, don't we ask those questions? 00:40:43.876 --> 00:40:48.887 So there's been a lot of people who have put maybe some themes on Job. 00:40:48.887 --> 00:40:52.684 Maybe it answers why the innocent suffer. 00:40:52.684 --> 00:40:59.407 Maybe it's there to talk about the tragedy of life itself in a fallen world. 00:40:59.407 --> 00:41:05.748 Maybe it's there to simply posit the perplexing nature of God with humanity. 00:41:05.748 --> 00:41:10.204 Maybe it's there to show us the bankruptcy of a dead orthodoxy. 00:41:10.204 --> 00:41:18.186 All of those things certainly say something true and can be found in Job. 00:41:18.186 --> 00:41:19.561 But is that what it's about? 00:41:23.815 --> 00:41:31.585 So many different ideas have been laid out here, this puzzling purpose of Job that some people say we shouldn't even be looking for a purpose at all. 00:41:31.585 --> 00:41:39.697 But I think there is one the book of Job. 00:41:39.697 --> 00:41:51.467 If it doesn't say anything else to us, it says this that there is not an inevitable link between an individual sin and their personal suffering. 00:41:51.467 --> 00:42:12.210 Right Now, job doesn't give us a comprehensive answer as to why people suffer, but it does make it clear that there are many things besides a person's personal sin to explain their suffering. 00:42:12.210 --> 00:42:30.302 And so this rule of retribution for wrong and reward for right Job knocks over Life is more complex than that. 00:42:30.302 --> 00:42:38.148 It's inadequate as a comprehensive explanation of life in this world. 00:42:38.148 --> 00:42:56.809 And so, as Job and his friends struggled to understand the reason for Job's suffering and they tried to identify reasons that they think he's suffering, they don't even get close to what we know as the readers of why it's all happened. 00:42:56.809 --> 00:43:07.228 They've never been able to enter into chapter one and chapter two, the throne room of heaven and God and Satan's talk. 00:43:07.228 --> 00:43:18.414 Not once does that idea enter even slightly into their imaginations. 00:43:18.414 --> 00:43:23.210 All of their reasons are wrong. 00:43:27.175 --> 00:43:32.905 Chapters 1 and 2 make it clear that there are aspects about reality that have a spiritual explanation, that are outside of our understanding. 00:43:32.905 --> 00:43:46.639 And can you continue to trust a God who doesn't tell you the answer to your why? 00:43:46.639 --> 00:44:00.190 That question continues to gnaw the human race. 00:44:00.190 --> 00:44:05.101 John, chapter 9, disciples ask about a man born blind. 00:44:05.101 --> 00:44:08.528 Who sinned, this man or his parents? 00:44:08.528 --> 00:44:16.864 The rule, remember the rule Righteous reward, wrong retribution. 00:44:16.864 --> 00:44:18.347 Who sinned? 00:44:18.347 --> 00:44:20.880 What did Jesus say? 00:44:20.880 --> 00:44:30.364 It was not this man who sinned, nor was it his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him. 00:44:30.364 --> 00:44:36.606 Can you trust God to have a better reason than you can understand? 00:44:36.606 --> 00:45:09.657 So, all these lessons of Job revealing the character of God, guiding us to see his sovereign hand in the dealings in the world, this exposure of the reality and yet the limited reach of Satan, the comfort of God's people during their pilgrimage to give them some hope of something beyond life itself, which we'll get into in just a moment, all of these things are great and wonderful, but Job's doing something bigger than all of that. 00:45:09.657 --> 00:45:36.431 Job is raising the question which we think demands an answer, but refuses to give it to us, because it wants to point us beyond our understanding, into a trust of a God who has passed our ability to control or to fully comprehend. 00:45:36.431 --> 00:45:39.800 Can we trust him? 00:45:39.800 --> 00:45:46.266 And that leads me to the last point, the prophetic nature of Job. 00:45:46.266 --> 00:45:51.293 To the last point, the prophetic nature of Job. 00:45:51.293 --> 00:45:55.545 And we can never treat any of the Bible as though Christ is never being pointed to in it. 00:45:57.615 --> 00:46:11.465 Spurgeon said back when London was a lot smaller than I experienced, that in all the villages of Surrey, which is the county next to London, you'll find a London road in all of those villages. 00:46:11.465 --> 00:46:11.876 Why? 00:46:11.876 --> 00:46:17.849 Because all of those villages had a connecting pathway to the major city Right. 00:46:17.849 --> 00:46:22.822 And so all the roads, he said in the Bible, lead to Christ. 00:46:22.822 --> 00:46:25.608 All of them. 00:46:25.608 --> 00:46:28.081 The book of Job leads to Christ. 00:46:28.081 --> 00:46:31.402 What is the main point of the Bible? 00:46:31.402 --> 00:46:34.403 The same as it is in every one of the books. 00:46:39.215 --> 00:46:51.262 Listen to Job for a second as he yearns for someone to take up his case, a mediator, in Job 9 and verse 33. 00:46:51.262 --> 00:46:54.702 But listen to his despair. 00:46:54.702 --> 00:46:59.826 There's no mediator between us to lay his hand on us both. 00:46:59.826 --> 00:47:06.465 Let him take his rod away from me so his terror will no longer frighten me. 00:47:06.465 --> 00:47:11.304 I need a mediator to do that for me. 00:47:11.304 --> 00:47:14.422 Then I would speak and not fear him. 00:47:14.422 --> 00:47:17.903 But that is not the case and I am on my own. 00:47:17.903 --> 00:47:40.326 If only Job is saying if only there was someone to stand in the middle between God and me, someone who could lay his hand on his bow, someone that would remove God's angry rod so his terrors wouldn't frighten me anymore. 00:47:40.326 --> 00:47:41.929 But I don't have that. 00:47:41.929 --> 00:47:45.695 I'm by myself, I'm doomed. 00:47:50.163 --> 00:47:51.403 What is he calling for? 00:47:51.403 --> 00:48:15.005 He's calling for what we in Christian language, theological language, call the theology of propit his behalf, and he knew that if he had that he'd be safe and wouldn't have to fear God's wrath anymore. 00:48:15.005 --> 00:48:17.923 I need a mediator. 00:48:17.923 --> 00:48:23.021 Do you hear an echo there? 00:48:23.021 --> 00:48:28.519 Do you hear something in some wry, ironic way? 00:48:28.519 --> 00:48:37.800 Now that we understand the fulfillment of the revelation of prophecy in the coming of Jesus Christ, do you hear it? 00:48:37.800 --> 00:48:39.599 Of course you hear it. 00:48:41.135 --> 00:48:45.487 But for Job that was still a wish, still a need. 00:48:45.487 --> 00:48:57.625 We know that through faith in Christ, that God has presented him as a propitiation, that is, a sacrifice of atonement or satisfaction by his death. 00:48:57.625 --> 00:49:03.884 Once you come to faith in Christ, you don't need to fear the terrors of God anymore. 00:49:03.884 --> 00:49:14.688 There's no condemnation, the scriptures say to those who are in Christ Jesus, for the law of sin and death has been taken by him. 00:49:14.688 --> 00:49:22.967 Once you come to faith in Christ, you don't need to fear his terrors any longer. 00:49:22.967 --> 00:49:32.320 But there's Job still in that place of saying I need one, I need one, I need one. 00:49:32.320 --> 00:49:40.780 And if only we could scream across the centuries Job, there is right. 00:49:40.780 --> 00:49:43.686 Well, hang on. 00:49:43.686 --> 00:49:44.208 We're not done. 00:49:44.208 --> 00:49:44.389 Yet. 00:49:46.755 --> 00:49:47.467 Job speaks a little bit later. 00:49:47.467 --> 00:49:48.324 That was chapter nine, chapter 17,. 00:49:48.324 --> 00:49:48.389 We're not done yet. 00:49:48.389 --> 00:49:48.628 Job speaks a little bit later. 00:49:48.628 --> 00:49:51.284 That was chapter 9, chapter 17, verse 13. 00:49:51.284 --> 00:49:56.664 His hopelessness is still sweeping over him. 00:49:56.664 --> 00:50:05.355 If the only home I hope for is the grave, I spread out my bed in darkness. 00:50:05.355 --> 00:50:12.547 If I say to corruption, you're my father, and to the worm, my mother, my sister, where's my hope? 00:50:12.547 --> 00:50:20.065 Who can see any hope for me there? 00:50:20.065 --> 00:50:25.344 Will it go down to the gates of death while we descend together in the dust? 00:50:25.344 --> 00:50:27.282 Even if I die, I don't have hope. 00:50:27.282 --> 00:50:35.708 Yes, I wished for my birthday never to have been, but now I realize even death's not really going to do it. 00:50:35.708 --> 00:50:38.297 This is pretty depressing. 00:50:38.297 --> 00:50:55.186 He's suffered great calamities, he's lost his wealth, he's lost his loved ones, he's lost his health, he's lost his respect, and here he's thinking about losing his life and there's still no hope. 00:50:55.186 --> 00:50:59.115