When the Righteous Suffer - Part 2

I invite you to open your Bible to the book of James for a moment, if you would like to follow along in looking at several verses. Hebrews, James, 1st and 2nd Peter. James is the one book in the Bible, the one book in the New Testament, where Job is explicitly referred to. Chapter 5, verse 11. James 5, verse 11. Behold, we consider those blessed, or blessed, who remain steadfast. You have heard of the steadfastness of Job, and you have seen the purpose of the Lord. So James is explicit in saying the book is designed to describe the purpose of God in suffering. The purpose of the Lord. How the Lord is compassionate and merciful. Back to chapter 1 of James, verse 2. You might even say that much of James is a meditation on the book of Job. Chapter 1, verse 2. Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. Drop down to verse 12, chapter 1. Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial. For when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love Him. So, standing steadfast under the trial is an evidence that we love Him. And that's what's going on in the battle between Satan and God in the heart of Job. Do you love your children more than me? Do you love your health more than me? Do you love your possessions more than me? If everything is taken away from you and all you have left is me, are you going to curse me or are you going to love me? So, the book of James is built in large measure around his reflection upon the book of Job. Now what we've seen several times is that God has come and Satan has come and there's been a conflict and Job has triumphed. First, all of his possessions were taken away and his children were killed and he said as he fell down, ripped his clothes, shaved his head, and worshiped. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. And that's a great victory because there you see him loving God more than he loved his children. Second, he lost his health. He had these horrible sores or boils from the top of his head to the bottom of his feet and they were so horrible that his wife said, curse God and die and he triumphed again by saying, shall we receive good at the hand of the Lord and not receive evil? And in both cases, the writer says he did not sin with his lips. In fact, the stress falls on the sovereignty of God in Job's suffering. Chapter 1, verse 16, the fire of God fell and consumed those animals and servants. Chapter 1, verse 21, the Lord has taken away the children. Chapter 2, verse 3, you moved me, Satan, against Him, God says. Chapter 2, verse 10, shall we receive good at the hand of God and not receive evil at the hand of God? Chapter 42, verse 11, all this evil that the Lord has brought upon him. So Job leaves no doubt in our mind that the one thing that may not be called into question in our suffering is the absolute sovereignty of God over it. Even though Satan is deeply involved in it, he can go this far and no farther. And that is a great comfort in our lives. If you feel yourselves being harassed and beaten up by Satan, know that God at every moment says thus far and no farther. And He will not let you be tested beyond what you are able. You know that text in 1 Corinthians 10, verse 13, we usually translate, He will not let us be tempted beyond what we are able. There is no difference in the Greek word between test and tempt. They are the same word. Parasmos or parados. And therefore, you may legitimately say, God will not let any test befall me which He will not give me the grace to endure. He may let the jaws of the lion clamp down on my neck, but He will say thus far and no farther, lion. So this is a great comfort to the writers of the Bible and to many, many people in my church and to me personally as I face the challenges of my life. Then He faces months of dragged out suffering. I say months, because in chapter 7, verse 3, He says, I am allotted months of emptiness. We're not told exactly how long this lasts, but it goes on and on. These sores are horrible and they don't seem to come to an end. And Job begins to despair at first and begins to speak of death as just swallowing him up and that'll be the end of that and he shouldn't have been born anyway. And it's all meaningless and capricious and willy-nilly and his faith is starting to break under the strain of this ongoing disease. And the friends hammer him harder and harder, but as their speeches get shorter and their words get more vicious, Job begins to rise out of his questioning and despair. He questions in chapter 14, verse 14, if a man dies, shall he live again? It's only a question in chapter 14. But turn with me now to chapter 19 where I told you in the previous session we would pick it up. Chapter 19, verse 25. This is one of the most famous passages in the book of Job and many people know this from the Handel's Messiah and they don't have a clue where it comes from. Chapter 19, verse 25. Here he's no longer asking the question. He's making the affirmation, For I know that My Redeemer lives and at the last He will stand upon the earth and after My skin has thus been destroyed, yet... And you might see a little footnote there in your Bible. It could be translated in my flesh or from my flesh, that is, from outside my flesh. I might be dead without my flesh or it might be the resurrection after my flesh. In either case, once this disease has had its destructive effect, I will see God whom I shall see for Myself and My eyes shall behold and not another. My heart faints within Me. And so Job, as many struggles as he has to maintain his faith, rises to the level that he has a Redeemer. God is not ultimately an enemy, but He is his Redeemer and this disease will not have the last word. God will have the last word and He will be delivered. So, we come to the end of this long set of cycles of bad theology from Job's friends and Job struggling to maintain his faith under the barrage of their wrong criticism and their wrong interpretation of his life constantly saying the only solution for your horrible suffering is horrible sin. Job protesting his innocence sometimes way too strongly and saying that God has become his enemy when he knows deep down God hasn't become his enemy. And we come to the end and there's been that fierce battle and Job has silenced his friends and their bad theology, but Job doesn't have an answer at the end of that set of dialogues. As far as that set goes, it looks as though God is capricious. I don't know what you're doing. You're God. You're wise. Deep down, I feel at times like you're my Redeemer, but this is making no sense and I can see no purpose in it. That's pretty much all we have by the end of chapter 31. Now, a man arrives. He's been there all along and his name is Elihu. He's a young man. I preached a whole sermon on this one time on how the young relate to the old in my church because Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar are old men and they're dead wrong and Elihu is a young man and this time the young get it right. Now, that's not always the way it happens, but I preached it because my church, this was about 25 years ago, was filled with gray heads and a lot of young people were starting to come to church and I didn't want these old people to think that young people never have anything to contribute. I didn't want them to think it always is the old have the wisdom and the young are knuckleheads. That's not the way it is. In fact, today it's clear that many young people are studying their Bible so hard and so well that they are far surpassing their elders in what they know of God. We are to learn from the old, learn from the young. At any rate, Elihu's young. And he has kept his tongue because he respects the old as we certainly should do and now he's just burning inside to speak and he's going to speak and he's going to say, Job, you're wrong and friends, you're wrong. And he's going to say that they're wrong because they have this superficial, naive, simplistic theology that says the righteous prosper and the wicked suffer. That's not going to cut it. Elihu knows that. And he says Job is wrong because he's found fault with God and he's protested his own innocence way too much. Job's view of himself has gotten too high at times and Job's view of God has gotten too low at times and so he wants to correct both of these. And he has some very hard things to say and on the face of it, some of them look a lot like Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zohar and that raises the question. Is Elihu just another person in the line of bad theology? Which is the way many interpreters take this book. I'll give you a heads up. My interpretation of what you're going to hear for the next 15 minutes or so is different than some. Not all. I'm going with one school and not another school on interpretation here. Some say Elihu is just more of the same. And I want to argue Elihu is not more of the same. He brings us to a new level in the argument and God approves of what he says. I'm going to give you five reasons for why I believe that. Real quick. Number one. The words of Elihu are introduced in chapter 32 not as a continuation or a repetition of what the three friends have said but as something new. So let's read the first three verses of chapter 32. Go there with me if you want. So these three men ceased to answer Job because he was righteous in his own eyes. Then Elihu, the son of Barakel, the Buzite of the family of Ram, burned with anger. He burned with anger at Job because he justified himself rather than God. He burned with anger also at Job's three friends because they had found no answer although they had declared Job to be in the wrong. So you see what he's being introduced as. Not just another one of them or Job. He's different. That's the way he's being presented. Reason number two. Elihu is more than a continuation of this bad theology because the writer devotes six chapters to him. Now picture that. The cycles of the bad theology went around three times and the speeches got shorter and shorter and shorter until Zophar has nothing to say. Now, if the point of that decreasing ability to address Job was that bad theology is running out of gas in this book, why would he give it six more chapters? It doesn't make any sense. So I think the very fact that Elihu is allowed to speak so long is an evidence that he's going to take us somewhere fresh. He's going to give us something new. Number three. Job does not try to argue with Elihu like he did with the other three friends. In chapter 33, verse 32, Elihu pauses and says, Job, if you have anything to say, answer me. But there's not a word out of Job's mouth. Now Job wasn't silenced with those other three friends. He grew stronger and stronger in addressing them. He has not one single word to say in response to Elihu except to join at the end in chapter 42 and repent in dust and ashes and despise himself because of his sin. Reason number four. In chapter 42, verse 7, God looks back over the period of this suffering and He rebukes Job's three friends explicitly, but not Elihu. Might be good to read that just so you feel the force of it. Chapter 42, verse 7. After the Lord had spoken these words to Job, the Lord said to Eliphaz the Temanite, My anger burns against you and against your two friends for you have not spoken of Me what is right as My servant Job has. Not a word about Elihu. No criticism of Elihu. Finally, fifth argument. Elihu really does take us forward. He really says some new things. Elihu is the one who introduces before God speaks, what Job's suffering is all about. What God is doing in this suffering. Why it is lasting as long as it is lasting. Elihu has a category for the righteous who suffer, whereas the other friends didn't have one. At least it wasn't a functional one. So, let's read one of the main sections back in chapter 33 of Elihu's interpretation of what's going on in Job. What was Job's error? Chapter 33, start at verse 8 for a couple of verses. Elihu says to Job, Job, surely you have spoken in my ears and I have heard the sound of your words. You say, I am pure without transgression. I am clean and there is no iniquity in me. Behold, he finds occasion. This is Job now talking about God. God finds occasion against me. He counts me as his enemy. He puts my feet in stocks and watches all my paths. Here it comes. Behold, in this you are not right. And I will answer you. So, two things are not right. Your protests of innocence and your accusing God of being your enemy. You're wrong on both counts. And I'm here to explain an alternative way of seeing your life. You're overly optimistic about yourself under suffering and you're overly critical of God in your suffering and therefore, I'm angry that you didn't give the right answer to Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar. How does Elihu do this? How does he explain what's going on in Job's suffering? He does it in a passage of Scripture that I think is the key one in his long speeches. And he does it by describing two ways that God addresses the soul. The suffering soul. The proud soul. Elihu believes, and I think this is true of all the righteous people on the earth, that there's a sediment of pride at the bottom of the clear water of our righteousness. So, your life in its best moments is like a beaker or a glass that's clear, but it's not perfect. Down here at the bottom, there's some sediment. And what gets the sediment to be visible is when the glass is bumped or shaken. This is the suffering. And then the stuff starts to come up. It starts to come out of your mouth. And it's more visible now than it ever has been because suffering is drawing out the sediment. You look like such a good person when all was going well. And then when things started to go bad, stuff started to come out of your mouth. Attitudes started to come out of your mouth. Now, Elihu's drawing attention to this, and he's telling us how God gets at that sediment of pride. So let me read this key section. This is chapter 33, verse 14. Chapter 33, verse 14. God speaks in one way and in two, though man does not perceive it. Here's the first one. In a dream. Now, I don't know when this book was written. Nobody knows when this book was written. There is significant evidence it's very early. Like way early. Pre-Scripture early. And so this may be the only way in those days that God had to address directly the soul wasn't in Scripture necessarily. I don't know that for sure, but dreams here are highlighted. In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falls on men, while they slumber on their beds, then He opens the ears of men and terrifies them with warnings that He may turn man aside from his deed and conceal, or another translation is, cut off pride from man. He keeps back his soul from the pit. His life from perishing by the sword. So the first way that God addresses the soul of man who's on the brink of sinning or some deed or some proud attitude is by terrifying him in a dream. To bring him back from some direction he was going. He shakes him up with a nightmare of the outcome of his life. We can still do that today. He has other more precise means, but that was one way. Now here's the second one, verse 19. Man is also rebuked with pain on his bed and with continual strife in his bone. What Elihu is saying is this, when pain comes into the life of a person, you should not jump to the conclusion here's a wicked person under the punishment of God, but rather, here's a person who may be very righteous with a sentiment of pride and he needs to be rebuked and he needs to be cleansed and healed from all of his ways. I think Elihu argues that Job's purpose or God's purpose in Job's suffering is not to punish him, but to save him. Rescue him from deeds and from pride and from death. He doesn't picture God as an angry judge here, but as a doctor, a redeemer, a healer who's going after Job to heal him. Now, let me give you another passage. Let's go to chapter 36. We're still with Elihu. Chapter 36, verses 6-15. And what I want to do here is show that Elihu has a category that the friends didn't, namely, of the suffering righteous or the sinful righteous who need ongoing purification. The righteous sinner. The sinful righteous. He has a category for that. It's like we Christians do. So let's read starting in verse 6 in chapter 36. He does not keep the wicked alive, but gives the afflicted their right. It seems like he's contrasting the wicked and the afflicted, which means, if he is, that he's got this category for righteous afflicted because it's different from the wicked. He does not withdraw, verse 7, he does not withdraw his eyes from the righteous. Now we know that the afflicted are the righteous. Now that's a new category. Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, they didn't think that way. The afflicted righteous. He sets them forever and they are exalted. Now, if you stopped right there, it would sound a little bit like Eliphaz. Kind of like, hmm, really? They're always exalted? But then you keep reading. And if they, that's the righteous, if they are bound in chains, hmm, you've got the righteous bound in chains and caught in cords of affliction, which means clearly now that he's got the righteous suffering. That's hopeful for Job. Then he declares to them their work and their transgressions that they are behaving arrogantly. And he opens their ears to instruction and commands that they return from iniquity. Now focus on that little phrase. He opens their ears. This is Elihu's fundamental contribution to suffering and our understanding of it. He's saying, yes, the righteous suffer. Yes, they are sometimes bound in chains. Yes, they endure affliction. What is God doing for the righteous? For those who have a sediment of pride and wickedness in their lives, but they're basically good people. What is He doing? He's saying God is opening their ears to instruction so that they can know the rest of their sins, so they can know their true condition, so that they can know God at a new level. Drop down to verse 15. He delivers the afflicted by their affliction and opens their ear by adversity. That's His theology of suffering for the righteous. The righteous suffer and they are delivered by their affliction. He delivers the afflicted by their affliction. How is that? Well, because He opens their ear by their affliction. Do you remember that section in Psalm 119 verse 71 that Martin Luther loved? Martin Luther said there were three ways to handle the Bible and to grow in grace. Meditation, supplication, and suffering. You want to know your Bible? Meditate, pray, and suffer. And he based it on Psalm 119 verse 71 which says, It was good for me that I was afflicted that I might learn thy statutes. Luther made a huge deal out of that for his own discoveries. He thanked God for the blessed papacy and all their attacks on him because they've made me a right good doctor of theology. That's what suffering does. I think that's Elihu's theology here. He delivers the afflicted by their affliction. How so? By opening their ear by adversity. I mean, who of you who's lived long enough to suffer some would not say with the Bible, I have discovered more of God, more of His sovereign goodness, more of His grace, more of His wisdom, more of His preciousness, more of His shepherd care in my dark days than all my bright days combined. Who would not say that? That's the way it works. We sometimes wish that on vacation, when we're at the beach and the sun is shining and we're totally healthy, we would have our deepest insights into the glory of God. Actually, we see too much skin. But in the hospital room, sitting beside a dying child, mother, father, friend, walking with people or ourselves through the darkest nights, oh, how our ears are opened and our eyes are opened and God draws near and revelation is shed abroad. Elihu is on to something that the other friends, they just did not seem to understand at all. So, Elihu's basic message, I think, to us and to Job is that Job was wrong to get in God's face and criticize Him and Job was wrong to keep saying, I'm not sinful! I'm not sinful! I'm not sinful! Which was a knee-jerk response to their accusation that that's the only possible solution to this great suffering is great sin. Elihu has another thing to contribute, namely, God loves you. He's not your enemy. He's coming to not only vindicate His worth in your life, He's coming also to purify you more deeply than you've ever known and reveal more things of Himself than you have ever, ever seen. So, what have we seen so far in this book by way of God's purposes in suffering? We've seen two things. In the first two chapters, the main point was this. When we suffer, God is testing us to see whether or not we value Him and will display His superior worth above whatever we lose in suffering. That's the first one. God's glory goes on display when His people hold fast to Him as their supreme treasure, when all around their soul gives way. That's the first thing. And now, with Elihu's help, we've seen that also what is happening in our suffering is that God is not only vindicating His superior worth, He is cleansing us and purifying us of the sediment that everybody has. You're not being picked on here. Everybody has this. It is to our great delight that remaining corruption can be taken more out of our lives and we see God with more clarity. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. If God will undertake to get rid of some more of John Piper's impurity, I should not begrudge the scalpel, because then I'll see Him better. I'll know Him better. This is why we want to be pure. We don't want to be pure to show off. We're not into a legalistic scheme here. We're into a hedonistic scheme here that wants more of God. And if we can get more of God and enjoy more of God and see more of God, then let the scalpel be applied. So much for Elihu. Now, God shows up. This gets really good. God doesn't talk like anybody. Nobody talks like God talks. It just blows me away the way God talks about ostriches, wild donkeys. I mean, what God is about to do is totally unpredictable and unexpected. I mean, Job is still sick. Give him a break, God. What you talking about animals for? Constellations like the bear and Orion. What are you doing? So, I'm jumping the gun here. I'm just so excited about God's talk that we just better let Him do it, okay? So here He comes. This is chapter 38-41. There's a thunderstorm on the horizon that Elihu sees, and he quickly is done. Because out of the storm is coming another voice. And it's now the voice of God. And this is what we want. I mean, though we will tremble and we'll go on our faces, and if we are unbelievers, we will pray for rocks to fall on us and kill us, but if we're His, though it's like going through a hurricane, it's like ending up in the eye of the hurricane so that we can really enjoy the wind from a safe place. That's what we want. We want to be put in the covert of a rock so that as the storm passes by, we can say, that's a storm. That's a storm. I like that storm. I just wouldn't want to be in there getting blown around. I want to watch the storm from a safe place. And I think we have a safe place here, so let's watch it. Now, I've got a lot to cover, so I'm going to go really fast, and I'll just say the verse and give you some things, because I want you to get the big picture of what God has to say to Job. So he starts, Who is this? Well, let me go here and make sure we get this right. Then Job answered, then the Lord, I'm at chapter 38, verse 1. Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind and said, Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? Now, don't think he's talking about Elihu there. Some people say, oh, there he's setting Elihu straight. No, no, no, no. That's not what he's doing. He's answering Job. He doesn't have a word to say about Elihu. No criticism, no commendation, nothing. And we know that because not only does he say he's answering Job in verse 1, but he also, Job, in chapter 42, verse 3, Job quotes this. Who is this that darkens counsel by words about himself? And then confesses. So, he's talking about Job here and he's going to try to lighten, brighten his counsel, which has been dark. How does he do it? Gird up your loins like a man, verse 3, and I will question you, and you will declare to me. I'm going to put you on trial, ask you some questions. Now, let's follow his interrogation. What kinds of questions does God ask Job? Chapter 38, verses 4-7, he focuses on the earth. Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me if you have understanding. You weren't there, Job. Verses 8-11, he focuses on the sea. So he's going to these different parts of nature. Who shut the sea with the doors when it burst forth from the womb? In other words, it was me. It wasn't you. You didn't set any of this up. You didn't set its limits. Verses 12-15, he focuses on the dawn. Have you commanded the morning since your days began and caused the dawn to know its place? No, Job, you never did that. You weren't there. You didn't have anything to do with it. Verses 16-18, he focuses on the depth and breadth of the sea and the land. Job has never been to the bottom of the ocean and he's never been around the world. Now, he moves up above the world into the sky, which is a good thing to do, especially today if you have a Hubble telescope. Then you could really impress Job. But it's impressive enough without it. Verses 19-21, what about the origin of light and dark? Where is the way, Job, to the dwelling of light? And where is the place of darkness? Do you know, Job, where light dwells? Where this mystery called light? Does anybody understand light? Verses 22-30, snow, hail, rain, frost. Do you know anything about how to store up hail for the day of battle? I mean, you could pause here, and I'm blown away by rain. I mean, have you ever tried to measure the weight of rain? I mean, suppose it rains an inch over about 100 square miles in Texas. An inch multiplied by 100 square miles is a lot of water. Millions and millions and millions of tons of water. Where'd that come from? How do millions of tons of water float in the air? Nobody has ever explained this. It was up there, and now it's down here. We couldn't lift it up there for anything. I don't care what it's made of. It still weighs that much. I think this is amazing. Snow, hail, rain, frost. Then He goes up higher. Now He's up into constellations in verses 31-33. Look at the constellations. The Pleiades, the Orion, the Maseroth, the Bear. Do you know the ordinances of heaven? Can you establish their rule on the earth? You really should go online and look at some of these absolutely mind-boggling little YouTube videos that take you from earth going at the speed of light until you're 500 billion years out there and what they know now. I just saw on the internet yesterday that they're going to now map the edges of the universe. I said, oh, really? That's clever. But I'm impressed. I mean, I'm going out there with them as far as I can go with the Hubble telescope and letting God be God. The heavens are telling the glory of God and more and more and more as we go farther and farther out there. So, he's trying to say to Job, you don't know anything. You don't know anything. Earth and sea and dawn and snow and hail and constellations and rain. The upshot of it all, Job, you don't know anything. How in the world can you call me into question when I know everything about everything and I run the world according to all of my infinite knowledge and wisdom? And you might think, oh, but we're 21st century people. Oh, really? We have advanced so far in our catching up to God. I don't think so. You take the last 200 years of scientific discovery, what does that amount to? Sand pails of water, salt water, hauled up from the ocean of God's wisdom and dumped into a little hole on the beach while the tide is coming in. It's not impressive. I hope when you look at God and then look at science, I hope you are not wowed here and bored here. If you are, you're blind. That is ridiculous. This is impressive. God is impressive. He made it all. He knows it all. He runs it all. He understands everything about it. Over here, you've got sand pails of salt water being poured into the hole on the beach while the tide of God's wisdom is coming in. You better be impressed with the ocean because science is as nothing by comparison. And that's what God's trying to say to Job. Job, all these scientific new atheists, the Dalkins and the Hitchens and the Harrisons, they don't know anything. They don't know anything. They seem so impressive when you're not comparing them with the right person. Now, he comes to the world of animals. You would think, really? You're going to go to the world of animals? Yeah, I'm going to go to the world of animals. Chapter 38, verses 39-41, he asks Job about the lions and the birds. Who provides for the raven its prey? And when its young ones cry to God and wonder about for lack of food? You do that, Job? Do you give the ravens their food? Chapter 39, verses 1-4, he talks about the birth of the young. Do you know when the mountain goats bring forth? Do you observe the calving of the hinds? You don't, Job. You don't know how they do that. They just do that without any of your help at all. I think the point here is when a man sees a work of God like suffering, he should remember it has connections to 10,000 realities he does not know. God is doing 10,000 things in your life at this moment. At this moment. He's doing 10,000 things. Not one thing. And when you suffer or your loved one suffers, you see one or two or three things. Maybe ten. You don't see millions of things flowing into it. Millions of things flowing out of it. That's the feeling he's trying to create. Verses 5-8, what about the wild ass, Job? Who has let the wild ass go free? What about the wild ox in verses 9-12? You don't know how to bind him or use him. He's mine. What about the stupid ostrich? Verses 13-18, she walks away from her eggs. She treats her young cruelly. Who made her forget wisdom? I do. When you see stupid things in the world, Lord, Job, I did that. I'm not taken off guard by the ostrich. The ostrich behavior is my idea. Go to the ostrich, oh fool, and learn something. Like go to the ant, thou sluggard, consider her ways and be wise. Go to the raven, go to the lily, go to the ostrich. The camel drinks a lot before he heads into the desert. Learn things. All these animals. Foolish. Useless. Some of them. But not the war horse. Verses 19-25, do you give him his might? Do you clothe his neck with strength? What about the hawk? Verses 26-30, is it by your wisdom that the hawk soars and spreads his wings toward the south? Is it at your command that the eagle mounts up and makes his nest on high? So, prey of lions, birth of mountain goats, freedom of the wild ass, insubordination of the wild ox, stupidity of the ostrich, the might of the war horse, flight of the hawk and the eagle, the upshot of all this is Job. You don't understand any of this. You don't know how this works. This is all something outside of your kin and I do it. I understand everything. We were talking last night over at IHOP about squirrels. I have a desk in my study and a window to my left. You can see the city and there's two trees and I've watched the trees over the last 15 years meet. And this was the first season when the two branches touched. You plant a tree, I planted this one tree and it has grown for 15 years and I look out every season and I say someday the two tree branches are going to touch. But in the meantime, guess what? Squirrels launch themselves between these trees and I watch them. Now, here's the deal. This little squirrel never went to school. He didn't learn anything about every force has an opposite counter force and he's sitting on this branch and somehow he's calculating how thin this branch is so that when he pushes off of this branch he knows this branch is going to go backward. Like when you jump off a raft in the water, push and you flop on your belly because the raft went and you went nowhere. So why don't these squirrels flop on their belly? Who told them this branch is now big enough and your muscles must twitch exactly this much and that little branch over there is good enough to hold you. He grabs on and goes whoo, whoo, whoo. Where did that come from? That's the point. You don't have a clue where that came from, Mr. Scientist. How did a squirrel ever arrive at the point where he could make those calculations and I've never seen one bump his belly? Well, Job, pause and reflect on how little you know. So he gives Job a chance to respond in chapter 40. Might be good to look at that. Chapter 40, verses 1-5. The Lord said to Job, Shall a fault finder contend with the Almighty? He who argues with God, let him answer it. And then Job answered the Lord and said, Behold, I am of small account. What shall I answer? I lay my hand on my mouth. I have spoken once and I will not answer. Twice I will not proceed. I will proceed no further. He's not going to try to challenge God. He's not going to argue with God. But he said one time, I want to make my case before God. And now God's here. And Job knows better than to do that. So he's silent. And God continues. Verse 6, Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind and said, Dress for action like a man. I will question you and you make it known to me. Will you even put me in the wrong? Will you condemn me that you may be in the right? Have you an arm like God? Can you thunder with a voice like mine? Like his. Now, here's a problem in that text. When he says, Have you an arm like mine? Is he saying, You can't ever argue with me because I'm strong. Which sounds like simply might makes right. This is why some people are not impressed with the argument of God here. God is coming to Job who's suffering and feels like he's suffering unjustly. Righteousness is the issue. And God says, Look at my arm! It's strong! Is that what he's saying? Is that an adequate response to say, Keep your mouth shut because I'm stronger than you are. I don't think God in his speech means for us to end there. Might makes right. I'm stronger than you are. Therefore, I'm always right. Therefore, keep your mouth shut. In a sense, that's true. There is nobody outside God who can bring to God any counsel or any law to which God must submit. God is the final court of appeal. God does decide what's right. But he's not capricious. That is, he doesn't want you to come to him and when he says, I am good, think, all he means is, I am God. Good is meant to mean something. And yet, the good can't be defined from outside him. So there we are. Does might make right? And that's just it. Or is there something outside him that he says, I'm good, like that? No. So something in between these two, I think, God wants us to see. And so I'll read you the passage in God's words that I think get at it. So let's go to chapter 40, verses 10 to 14. Adorn yourself with majesty and dignity. Clothe yourself... He's taunting Job here. Adorn yourself with majesty and dignity. Clothe yourself with glory and splendor. Pour out the overflowings of your anger and look on everyone who is proud and obey Him. In other words, this is what I... Can you do this? Look on everyone who is proud and obey Him. Look on everyone who is proud and bring Him low and tread down the wicked where they stand. These are the sorts of things I do. Hide them all in the dust together. Bind their faces in the world below. Then I also will acknowledge you that your own right can save you. Now, I think in drawing attention to the fact that I use my power not capriciously, but I have purpose for my power. My right arm is not an arbitrary arm. It's not a capricious arm. It does things that have design and purpose that accords with my excellence. And what accords with my excellence is that those who exalt themselves against me should be humbled. And that those who reverence me and delight in me should be exalted. And therefore, I humble the proud and I abase him and I lift up the downcast. I think that's God's basic way of saying my righteousness consists in my purposeful way of acting in accord with my supreme value and excellence. And the way I do it is that I make sure that my value and my beauty and my excellence and my knowledge and my wisdom and justice and truth and grace and wrath and knowledge are lifted up and that people who see them and delight in them and treasure them are affirmed and embraced and those who despise them are brought down. And there's a complete coherence and wisdom and purposefulness to the way God uses His power. And so, God's two answers to Job's mistake of criticizing God and exalting Himself are number one, and he's simply saying this in addition to what Elihu said. That still stands. And now God adds, Job, you don't know anything. John Piper, when it comes to grumbling and murmuring or criticizing me, you don't know anything about what I'm doing. You're so ignorant of the vastness of what I'm up to in the world. That's the first response. Close your mouth until you have .001% of my total knowledge and wisdom of what I'm up to. Don't criticize me. And the second thing he said was, I act always purposefully. I'm not capricious. I'm not whimsical. I don't flip coins. I act in accord with my excellence and I do things with purpose. And if you can't see the weight in due time, you will know. So, just a few lessons before we turn to the resolution of everything in chapter 42. Number one, believe with all your heart in God's absolute power and sovereignty over all things. And pray that God would give you that conviction. If you didn't come to this conference with that conviction and you find it troubling, ask the Lord simply to help you embrace it. Nobody is born a lover of the sovereignty of God. We are born lovers of our own sovereignty. We all come to love the sovereignty of God through crises. It's never easy. I remember days in the fall of 1968 coming back from classes in seminary when I was being simply shown from the Bible. Nobody was pushing a theology on me. They were just reading text to me from Romans and Galatians and the Sermon on the Mount and Job. And I was coming back putting my face and my hands on my desk and crying because I felt my world was coming undone. I had not seen these things. And they felt painful at first, not pleasant. And through the crises and through enough suffering of your own, certain things in the Bible that at one time had seemed distant and foreign and why would anybody go there? Now they are the most precious of all things. You've been there. You understand why God would reveal these things to us. So if you came, pray that God would help you see what's really there. Believe with all your heart that in everything He does right and He does good. It doesn't do any good to believe in the sovereignty of God if you think He's evil. He's got to be sovereign and good. Sovereign and wise. Sovereign and merciful, which is the word that James 5:11 says is the point of the book. Repent of all the times that you have questioned God and found fault with Him. It isn't right to question God. God can handle it and He can forgive it. It's just not good. And we should repent of it. And we should be satisfied, be satisfied with His holy will in your life. Let me read you just a little quote from George Mueller, one of my heroes, the man who in Bristol, England, remember two centuries ago, built all the orphanages and his wife died after 39 years of marriage and he preached her funeral sermon. And this is what he said, I miss her in numberless ways and shall miss her yet more and more. He's not naive. The pain is real. The pain is deep. Please let nothing that I say in these hours together in any way imply that you shouldn't feel the full force of the pain of loss and weep and shave your head and tear your clothes and fall on the ground. I will miss her in numberless ways and shall miss her yet more and more. But as a child of God and as a servant of the Lord Jesus, I bow. I am satisfied with the will of my heavenly Father. I seek by perfect submission to His holy will to glorify Him. I kiss continually the hand that has thus afflicted me. That's a very common phrase two centuries ago. Sarah Edwards used it when her husband Jonathan was taken away at age 54 because of a smallpox remedy that backfired and he couldn't swallow water and she watched him, I mean she wasn't there, but they watched him dive what's it called when you don't get enough water? Dehydration. And she said, I bless, I kiss the rod, I kiss the rod, who has thus struck me. May the Lord give us the grace to do that. Now, one final little section here. Reversal comes. The point of the reversal in chapter 42 is not that everybody gets a reversal in this life. It's not the point. It would make superficial the whole book if that were the point. He said in chapter 19, when this disease has done its work, then apart from my flesh, I will see God, I have a Redeemer, there's going to be life beyond this. That's the word addressing death. But, God did grant Job a reversal. He had his sons and daughters back. Not the same ones, just new ones. Jemima, little girl, that I talk about in the poem. And he doubled his animals. It was an amazing reversal. But, that's not the main point, I don't think, of the last chapter. I think there are two other things going on that have to happen before the reversal. And these are beautiful things. Oh, what God often does. Oh, what He does in our suffering. Relationally. I don't know if you've experienced it yet, but you will. In the midst of suffering, amazing healing can come in relationships. I got a phone call a few years ago from an old professor at Bethel. We worked together for six years, and we just knocked heads continually. Because he said so many off-the-wall things. Right? And I was right! Oh, we just locked horns over and over again. I loved him, and I think he loved me. And he moved, he retired, and I left and became a pastor. And I read that he had a heart attack. Didn't die, had a heart attack. He recovered. Pretty serious one. And he called me one day. We hadn't talked for 15 years, I suppose. He called me. He said, Hi, John. He said, You know I had a heart attack? I feel very, very fragile. Like I could die any day. And I just want to make sure you and I are okay. I love you. You okay? Got any grudges? I just laughed out loud. Grudges? I love you, guy. You know, what's the deal? You're cool. I love to argue with you. And we had a good talk. And he died. Not on the phone, just a few weeks later. I didn't mean to say that. But he's in heaven now. But do you see what did that? A heart attack did that. How many of you become really good witnesses for Jesus in the hospital? Because you feel how bad you've been all the rest of your life. And you know you're going to meet Jesus soon. You better start telling people about him. Everybody has that experience. And a lot of other sweet things. One of the simple reasons for that is the air clears and what matters matters. And all the little stuff that you've been beefing with about your wife. Why did I constantly get on her case about that? Why did I constantly get on his case about that? It doesn't matter in the big picture. And now I'm seeing the big picture because I'm about to go to the big guy. So, we got some relational things going on here in chapter 42. The first thing he needs to deal with is he needs to bring. God needs to bring Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar to the dust along with Job. He's brought Job down. Got him fixed. Humbled him to the dirt so that he can repent, get right, enjoy God again. And he's got to do the same thing with Eliphaz. They're not evil people. They're just stupid about their theology. They're so ill taught and they're so insensitive. You know people like this. They're badly taught and they're pastorally insensitive and they're just bumbling through life hurting people. And that's the way these poor blokes are. So, let's read verses 7 through 9. After the Lord had spoken these words to Job, the Lord said to Eliphaz the Temanite, My anger burns against you and against your two friends, for you have not spoken of Me what is right as My servant Job has. Verse 8. Now therefore, watch what he's doing. Take seven bulls and seven rams and go to My servant Job. Offer up a burnt offering for yourselves and My servant Job will pray for you, for I will accept his prayer not to deal with you according to your folly, for you have not spoken of Me what is right as My servant Job has. Now, he's already said much to criticize Job. There he's commending Job. Not everything Job said was wrong. And in regard to what these fellows said, what Job said was right. They had said, you're only suffering greatly because you've got great hidden wickedness. And Job's saying, I don't. I haven't done those horrible things you say I did. And that was true. Job spoke what is right at that point. Now, what is God doing here? He could have said to Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, okay, you guys have sinned. You've hurt My servant. Your theology is poor. If you're going to get right with Me, you take seven bulls and seven rams and you go to an altar up on the mountain and you get on your face and you offer those bulls and I will receive their blood and I will cover your sin. That's what he could have said. And he didn't. He said, you take those seven bulls, those seven rams, you go to My servant Job and you offer them with Job. And you tell Job, God said to us that you have to pray for us for us to be accepted with God, so would you please pray for us? That's humiliating. The very man that they said was far from God, out of touch with God, sinning against God, has become their mediator with God, their priest. Why do you do it that way? Because the way back to God, folks, is very often through a healed relationship. You can't do an end run around the relationship that you've messed up. You can't say, okay, I spoke all kinds of horrible things and I did all kinds of horrible stuff and God now convicted me for my sin so I go into my closet and I repent and we get on with life. It doesn't work like that. Jesus said, if you forgive your debtors their sins against you, your Father will forgive your sins against Him. Matthew 6. So they do. Job prays, God, accept them. And God does. So he humbles his three fins and he restores them to Job. But there's more. What about Job himself? What's required of Job? He has already said, let's read his humiliation, chapter 42, verse 1, I know that you can do all things and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted. Then he quotes God. Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge? And he answers, therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me which I did not know. Then he quotes God again. Here I will speak, I will question you and you make known to me. And then he answers, I had heard of you with the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you, and therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes. Now you would think that's enough. God, my words were so wrong in the way I called you my enemy, and my words were so wrong when I said, I'm innocent, I'm innocent, I'm innocent, I'm having sin. I overstated that. I minimized my sin and I maximized your fault, and I'm just despising myself. I feel horrible about what I did in responding to those men. Now you think that'd be enough. It isn't enough, because now what he's calling on him to do is love his enemies. It's a relational thing that's got to happen here, not just a vertical thing. When they come to you in lowliness and humiliation, saying God said you have to pray for us, you pray for them. You love them. You ask them. Ask me to bless them. Ask me to forgive them. This is Jesus talking, right? You have heard that it was said unto you, love your neighbor and hate your enemy, but I say unto you, love your enemy, and pray for those who abuse you. This is early Jesus. You go to them, and I have appointed their humbling before you, and I have appointed your humbling before them. Both of you are sinners, you know. And if James is right, Job, if James is right, the whole point of the story is mercy. Will you show it as well as receive it? That's where the book ends. Yes, his life is restored, but it's restored after that magnificent reconciliation through a sacrifice to his enemy. Summary. The book closes with a sediment of pride substantially strained out by the sieve of suffering. The book closes with bad theology rebuked and corrected in the three friends. The book closes with a brotherhood of servants restored. They were friends. They were introduced as friends. They came from long distances. They loved Job. What happened to this relationship? It was a horrible thing. Those things happen, and God doesn't like it when they happen. He uses suffering often to restore us to our friends that we have become alienated from. And the book ends with God's name honored and vindicated as of superior worth. And in all of this, the purpose of the Lord, James says, is compassionate and merciful because Job, Eliphaz, Bildad, Zophar, Elihu, and Job's wife and everybody else are all sinners, righteous sinners. Now, how can that be? How can that be? Because he had a Redeemer and he had a Savior. How will he redeem? How will God redeem him and save him? How will he pass over his sins? How will he remove his guilt? How will he satisfy his own righteousness? How will he not crush him for his God-belittling attitudes? How does God rescue you and me from Satan's legitimate accusations? And the answer is, for Job it was future, for us it's past. He will send his Son, Jesus Christ, into the world to die. In Job's place, Eliphaz's place, Bildad's place, Zophar's place, Elihu's place, Job's wife's place, your place, Jesus Christ has come into the world to deal with sin and guilt and wrath and Satan. How? Oh my, we only have a minute left. So let me close with two passages of Scripture and I'll just recite them briefly and try not to say too much about them. One is a new and increasing favorite and the other is an old, old favorite. The new favorite is Colossians 2, 13-15 that goes like this, and this is how he did it, for Job, you, me, you who are dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with Christ. Now how did he do that? That's verse 13. How did he do that? By or having forgiven all our trespasses. How can he do that? How can he just let all of our trespasses go? Next verse. He canceled the record of debts that stood against us with its legal demands. So there's a record, a record of all Job's sins and all your sins, a long record. And Satan loves to read from it in the presence of God and your own conscience, read you from this record. And this text says in Colossians 2, 14, cancel it. And the question rises, how can he do that? How can he just cancel the record of my debts? And he gives the answer, this he set aside, nailing it to the cross. So where is the record of all Job's debts and all my debts? It's nailed into the hands of Jesus Christ who bore my debts. He died for my debts. The record of my debts is nailed through His feet and His hands. What about Satan? Still coming into the presence of God. Still marauding throughout the world like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour. What about him? And then comes verse 15. God disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to an open shame, triumphing over them in Him. Now what's the connection between the disarming of the devil who brought all this mess on Job? What's the connection between the disarming in verse 15 and the canceling of the debts in verse 14? There is one damning weapon which the devil has in his hands in the courtroom of heaven. And that is the record of your debts unforgiven. And if he could stick your conscience with that, or if he could put it on the bench of God at the last day, we would go to hell. He's disarmed. God has nailed that on the cross and the one weapon with which the devil could damn Job or you or me is taken out of his hand. Now, finally, my deep old favorite. Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn Job or you or me or Job's wife or Eliphaz or Bildad or Zophar as they trust in Christ? Who is to condemn? It is Christ Jesus who died. Yes, who was raised from the dead. Who this day is interceding for us in heaven. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Get the list. Shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famine let that hit you, or famine or nakedness or peril or sword as it is written, we righteous in Christ Christians are being killed all day long somewhere in the world. We are being handed over like sheep to be slaughtered. No! In all these things, we are more than conquerors. What does that mean? It means that our enemy Satan doesn't just lie defeated at our feet, he serves our sanctification. He's a lackey in the hand of our loving, compassionate, merciful, murky, cleansing out of my life God. No! In all these things, we are more than conquerors. Our enemies don't just lie dead at our feet, they serve our holiness. And therefore, I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. So Lord, as we conclude now this conference together, O grant, I pray, that the massive sin-bearing, guilt-removing, wrath-assuaging, righteousness-imputing, God-vindicating death of Jesus Christ and resurrection of King Jesus will give these friends such a stability, such a strength, such a hope, that when the devil tries to lie to them in their conscience at their last hour, that they have been hopelessly sinful and cannot hope that there would be any salvation at the last day before a holy God, may they take the gospel of Jesus Christ and slay this life and enter into paradise with a clean conscience because Christ has loved them to the uttermost. Spare us, O God. Spare us, I pray, from unbelief in your majestic provision for our suffering. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.