Job 23 - The souls Dark Night

Our reading this morning is taken from Job 23. The previous 20 chapters of this book have been taken up with the conversation between Job and his three friends, Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar. Eliphaz has just finished speaking and it starts Job 23.

Then Job replied, Even today my complaint is bitter. His hand is heavy in spite of my groaning. If only I knew where to find him.

If only I could go to his dwelling. I would state my case before him and fill my mouth with arguments. I would find out what he would answer me, consider what he would say.

Would he oppose me with great power? No, he would not press charges against me. There an upright man can present his case before him and I will be delivered forever from my judge. But if I go to the east, he's not there.

If I go to the west, I do not find him. When he is at work in the north, I do not see him. And when he turns to the south, I catch no glimpse of him.

But he knows the way that I take. When he has tested me, I shall come forth as gold. My feet have closely followed his steps.

I have kept to his way without turning aside. I have not departed from the commands of his lips. I have treasured the words of his mouth more than my daily bread.

But he stands alone, and who can oppose him? He does whatever he pleases. He carries out his decree against me, and many such plans he still has in store. That is why I am terrified before him.

When I think of all this, I fear him. God has made my heart faint. The Almighty has terrified me.

Yet I'm not silenced by the darkness, by the thick darkness that covers my face. Amen. Let's be seated, shall we? Let's make our way in scripture to the 23rd chapter of Job.

When I was at my desk earlier today, I thought of an event in my school days when I used to walk home from school and there was a hill that I had to cope with and also, obviously, at the other side of the hill, a decline before I got to the particular street, a somewhat run-down area in Sheffield where I lived. And I will recall how I used to have a hoop and a stick and sometimes, along with my pals, we'd send the hoop down the pavement and with our stick, we would persuade it to go further down the road. And when the hoop started to go to the left, we'd take the stick and we'd just knock it and balance it on the side, that is, the hoop on the side, so that it didn't fall over.

And when it went to the other side, likewise, we'd take the stick and we'd knock the hoop and we'd get it moving along. Now, you're all looking so knowledgeably at me that I can see that the events of 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 years ago are flowing back into your mind as you remember that you did the same sort of thing. And it occurred to me as I was looking at Job 23 that the Word of God is something like that.

It's like the stick that is applied to our lives, our lives being the hoop. At times, as Christians, in our understanding of Scripture, we can perhaps veer one way and get a little bit out of skew, and then we can veer another way and get a little bit out of skew. So Scripture comes along and says, no, it's not that way, and it's not that way, it's this way, and it keeps us balanced.

Now, why am I saying that? Well, you see, Job 23 presents us with a problem, doesn't it? I mean, here I have been ministering to you on a Wednesday for quite some time, up to two weeks ago when I completed the series, on the fullness of the Spirit, and very often I quoted a very favorite verse of mine from Peter which talks about joy unspeakable and full of glory. And I thank God that there are many times in my life when that Scripture really does summarize the feelings of my own heart. But I would be less than honest, the thing which I wouldn't be in a pulpit, and I trust not elsewhere, I'd be less than honest if I said that every hour of my life and every day of my experience and every week of every month, it's a question, as a Christian, of tripping along with joy unspeakable and full of glory.

There are times when God removes His presence and when, far from being in charismatic ecstasy, I'm in almost despair. And on occasions like that, then I do need the Word of God to come along and show me that that experience doesn't indicate that I have deserted God and that God has deserted me. You see, though it is true, ideally, that the Christian is happy since he let Jesus in and the Lord changed everything.

It's also true to say that there are times when our Good Shepherd, even our Savior, goes into the distance, goes into the shadows, and He does so to enable us to grow a greater faith and a confidence in Him and to realize, yes, there are dark and somber patches in life in which, nonetheless, He can minister to us and He can help us. Now, I use these opening words of preamble because, you see, for some of us, perhaps, it might be very difficult to set Job chapter three in the context of what we believe to be, what we've been taught to be, is valid, genuine Christian experience. And yet my argument is that it's not.

It's not difficult at all and it is part of the whole revelation of God. You see, the Apostle Peter, the one who speaks about joy unspeakable and full of glory, is a man who, likewise, has known much difficulty and much persecution. Read the opening verses of the first letter that he wrote.

Think of the Apostle Paul, the man who knew a great overwhelming of the Spirit of God on the Damascus road. And yet when he's writing to the Corinthians, he rehearses one particular period in his ministry when he said, I, in fact, he uses the plural, we despaired even of life. We gave up.

We almost came to the conclusion that we could not possibly continue along serving God anymore. We were utterly perplexed, utterly distressed. And in the fourth chapter of the second epistle, he sets out the case very, very clearly indeed.

You see, along with the thrills and along with the ecstasy, of which I'm not preaching against, there is also the turmoil and the perplexity and sometimes the experience that is akin to going through Hampton Court Main without knowing how you get through that particular period in your life. So I bring you to Job, with no apologies at all, because here is a man who perhaps will speak in his experience to some folk who maybe are not used to going to church. And for you the difficulty is, well, how do you get faith in the first instance? After all, so many things have happened in your life that you long gave up belief in God.

Well, I want to speak to you particularly. In fact, perhaps this is a word directly from God to you, and maybe your coming to the church this morning was not really just a fluke of circumstances, but ultimately you'll recognize the Spirit of God was working on your heart because the man in the pulpit had got something to say to you. Now here is Job, and he's utterly frustrated.

He's got great difficulties. He's also got great ambitions. Let me tell you a little bit about Job for a moment, just in case I'm running ahead, because not everyone's got a Bible in front of them, and everyone who has has not necessarily read Job during the last few months.

Now Job was perhaps one of the oldest men in Scripture. I mean by that that you've got to place him historically almost in the book of Genesis. That's my view at any rate.

So he's one of the earliest of men, and he's a very influential man. He's done extremely well for himself. He's a good businessman, but he's not just a tycoon.

He's not a grasping materialist. He's a man who's been benevolent and charitable in the way that he's dealt with people and the way that he's handled his home responsibilities. He's a good and a righteous man.

When a good and a righteous man runs into problem, that creates even greater difficulty for sensitive people looking on who can't understand why God allows that to happen to that man or that woman. Job has, in a series of catastrophes, been stripped of everything that he thought was worth living for. His sons, they were killed tragically.

His wealth was taken from him. And that most precious possession of health, that also fled away like a shadow. And there was Job left on his own.

You remember he's well known. Everybody knows at least one thing about Job is that he suffered from boils. If you ever suffer from one boil, then you have empathy with Job because he got them all over the place.

He used to be a very influential man. When the children saw Job, they would stand up and they would tip their caps, so to speak, because Job, this great man, he warranted respect. When the young men of the town saw that Job was around once again, they would give to him the sort of honor that a man of influence commands.

But when Job was alas, inflicted with his boils and stripped of all that he counted precious before, then he goes and plunks himself just by the rubbish tip. Imagine going down to East Worthing rubbish tip and living there for a while, indicating that you're really as bad as the refuse that's in that tip. Now that's how Job was, because he felt that God had deserted him, his friends had deserted him, and his wife, well, she just nagged.

Really, curse God and die. And he had, perhaps somebody could get our dear friend there a drink, can you? Someone's gone. What did happen? Well, Job had three friends who came along and they tried to help him.

Intellectual men they were, but the help that they gave was really not very good at all. They said, curse God. In effect, the same as his wife.

Acknowledge, at any rate, acknowledge that what you have done before God, what you have done that is wrong has brought this particular problem upon you. And Job wasn't prepared to do that because there wasn't anything in the area that they'd suggested that he'd done actually that was wrong. And so here is Job.

Let's try and identify ourselves with him just for a moment or two, shall we? Here is Job and he's in a great despondency. God has removed himself from him. And he says in verse three of Job 23, if only I knew where to find him, if only I could go to his dwelling.

Now, my friend, do you ever feel like that? You may not identify yourself with all that I've just said about Job, but do you sometimes think, if only I knew where to find someone who would listen and understand the burden that grips my heart. This is Job. He's in great difficulty.

And he doesn't want to speak to his wife, particularly, nor his three friends. They're intelligent, but their contribution's not really helped as they've come along and engaged him in conversation. But Job does know that somehow out there there is one who could be to him all that he needs.

And Job says, oh, if only I knew where to find him. Do you remember Mary Magdalene? She comes into the garden where our Lord's body has been entombed and she peers inside and she discovers that the body is no longer there and she starts to weep and the gardener comes along and he says, woman, why are you weeping? What are you crying? What are all those tears for? And she says, they've taken away the body of my Lord. Please, will you show me where he is? Here is Mary with a similar difficulty to that of Job yearning after the Lord Jesus.

If only I knew where to find him. My dear friend, I want to tell you I don't know what your particular problems may be this morning but if you could contact God he would deal with you and minister to you in a way that no one else can deal with you and he can resolve some of your problems. Look at the fourth verse.

I would state my case before him and fill my mouth with arguments. That's the thing about God, you see. When you come to him he's prepared to listen to what you have to say.

I would find out justice. I would get justice, Job in effect says from the Lord. He'd state his case and he would discover verse five that the Lord would answer him because you see, God is always prepared to listen to the problems of his people and make response to what they have to say.

Now not everyone's prepared to do that, are they? I mean, sometimes school teachers don't always seem to be as understanding to children as the children think they ought to be. Nor parents to children, nor parents to children. But here is Job and he is saying to us that if he could contact God and speak to him then God would listen to what he has to say and God would answer him.

God wouldn't crush him. He wouldn't sort of play the power game. Look at verse six.

Would he oppose me with great powers? No, he would not press charges against me. If only, says Job in the seventh verse, if only I as an upright man could present my case before him then, says Job, I would be delivered from ever from my judge. Now that's the sort of thing that you and I want, is it not? To be able to contact God and to share with him all the difficulties and all the problems that sometimes press in upon our lives.

So that's the ambition and that's the reason why it's good to be in church because at least there's a possibility that here within the company of people you might be able to make contact with the Lord. I don't think that there's an intelligent man in Worthing, an intelligent woman in Worthing who would deny the fact that they do need to have help as they make their way through life. And Job at least can give you some assistance because he will tell you if I knew where to find God then all my problems would have resolution as he supplied the answers to some of my difficulties.

I wonder if you've ever heard of Arthur Blessed. He's a rather remarkable man in some ways, a very colorful man, maybe not everyone's cup of tea but I found his ministry and his witness to be quite a challenge to my life. Now a friend of mine, Artie Kendal, who's a pastor of Westminster Chapel, London told me that he was once at lunch with Arthur Blessed in Harrods.

And Harrods is a posh place for those who've not been. I've been told about it. And as they were having a meal a bejeweled lady was on the next table, nothing to do with their luncheon party.

And Blessed suddenly turned around to this lady and said quite out of the blue, Madam, do you know the Lord? Can you imagine that in Harrods? Madam, do you know the Lord? Dr. Kendal told me the staggering thing was that the woman, far from looking shocked at what Blessed had said by way of a question, with tears in her eyes said, No, but I'd love to. But I'd love to. If only I knew where to find him.

You see, when you've contacted God, even though all the pressures are not lifted, you have something to take with you into the future in terms of his strength, in terms of his fellowship, which will make what lies beyond so very palatable. Well, there is Job's ambition, you see, it's all set down. And you can write yourself into Job's experience quite easily by just relating your circumstances and placing them in instead of Job's.

But you see, the ambition, unfortunately, it seems, is frustrated. Let's drop to the eighth verse, because here we get to the heart of the problem. If I go to the east, he's not there.

If I go to the west, I do not find him. When he is at work in the north, I do not see him. When he turns to the south, I catch no glimpse of him.

Now, that's Hampton Court Maze, isn't it? That's a man who has scoured the whole territory, the whole of the horizon of his experience, and he doesn't understand where God is. Or God's a sort of eternal pimpernel. When he gets to the point where God should be, he's gone somewhere else.

Do you find that? You know, Lord, if I look at my problem from this point of view, if I move over it to this direction, then I'll meet you there. And when you get there, he seems to have gone. I move to the east, says Job, and he's not there.

I go to the west, and I still don't find him. When he's at work in the north, I don't see him. Here is Job, and he really just rampages around in his experience, trying to find where God is.

Now, the Lord sometimes allows that experience to happen. You see, you were going through. It was quite nicely.

You'd had a year or two, or maybe more, in your Christian experience, and everything was wonderful. Everything was rosy. But then God went into the pavilion of darkness, and he hid himself there, and you were left on your own, and you started to panic.

Have you had that experience? Clearly, church knew that experience. Oh, yes, they knew the blessings. They knew the answers to prayer.

They knew times when God, in tremendous power, came down upon them. But there were also moments of loneliness, also times when it seemed as though God had moved from the scene. And the surprising thing about Job in chapter 23, or the surprising thing about the man in chapter 23 of this book, is that he was basically a very godly man.

You see, I can understand the criminal, the man who's waiting for the sentence of death to be carried out, the man who, therefore, by virtue of that, has done some dastardly things. I can understand him feeling that God isn't around anymore. Why should God be around? I might logically ask at the human level, but it's the good people that provide me with problems.

Why doesn't God move in their circumstances just then? Now, really, I'm exposing my heart. This isn't clever reasoning. In fact, most of it is spontaneous in my thinking at this point.

You can't be a pastor without being confronted with this problem from time to time. Why does this particular dear soul, you know, she's gone along to the church for 40, 50-odd years, why does she come to this point in her life when, forgive me, Lord, but if I were you, I'd handle her so differently. When he's at work in the north, I don't see him.

When he turns to the south, I catch no glimpse of him. The man who is going through this condition is a godly man, and that makes the problem even worse. If he was a rogue, we wouldn't have so much difficulty.

And we can see that the hapless condition that he's in is, he's like a sheep without a rudder. He's like a sheep without a shepherd. He's a traveler who's lost his map.

This is the problem for Job. And yet, before we move on, having looked at his frustration, can I suggest something to you? I know it's not a final answer, but at least it helps me. And I speak personally and also pastorally.

In other words, from my own experience and from the experience of others. Sometimes when God has lifted his presence from you, it leaves you with a very maturing experience. You see, God's a very good God.

The benevolence of God is fantastic. You can't really define the goodness of God. It just goes into the absurdity of kindness.

And the problem is that when you are confronted with such a kind God, you can sort of sit back on your seat and just let him pour his kindness down on you and you're very passive and you receive it all. You're like a kind parent. A very kind parent.

And you know, there is a sense in which you can kill a child with kindness. You can do so much for him, that ultimately he never does anything for himself. He doesn't mature.

So the day came when I was riding my bicycle, the first time I had a two-wheeler instead of a three-wheeler, when my father took his hand from off the saddle. And I was on my own. Why did he take his hand off the saddle? Well, you see, if he continued with his hand on the saddle being the balance for me, then I'd never have been able to ride a bicycle.

So he takes his hand off, so that I'm mature in the area of being a cyclist. When God removes himself from the scene, it can be, I suggest to you, a very maturing experience. It may be that it will cause you to come to the Bible a little bit more.

Instead of being fed from the pulpit by a variety of speakers, you coming to the Bible yourself and saying, Lord, is this really true? Do you really exist? Are your promises such that I can go to the Word of God and lift them before you and claim them? This business of you presencing yourself with people as individuals and not just corporately with a congregation, Lord, I now want to check you out on this because I'm desperate. You see, when God removes his presence from us, it can be, as I argue, a very maturing experience. Maybe it makes you more attentive to addresses.

After all, we've had a confession this morning that sometimes you can sing a hymn and your mind goes on a trip. Now, it has been known for people at Worthing Tabernacle not to concentrate on what the preacher was trying to say. I mean, I know the occasions are very rare, but it has been known.

But when God has taken his presence from you, maybe it compels you to come along to the church that you're regularly attending and ask, plead, send out a silent prayer, oh, God, speak to me directly from what that man has to say and lift me out of the depression in which I've sunk. Now, Job has some consolation. What is this consolation? Well, he tells us in the 10th verse, and here we'd better be very swift.

He tells us in the 10th verse that despite his difficulties, despite his problems, he does believe that God knows the way that he takes. In other words, he believes that God has his control, has his hand upon the situation even though he doesn't understand God's purposes. In other words, he believes in the comprehension of God, the comprehension of God.

I do believe in that. You see, the universe is a very regular thing, isn't it? I mean by that, there are certain laws which regularly obtain, without which the whole universe would be in chaos, and you can prove that God exists if you like. At least you can demonstrate that God likely exists from the universe that he has created.

Water boils at a certain temperature, it freezes at a certain temperature. There are certain things that indicate that somehow God is in control. But there are other things that an atheist would believe, that would bring into the argument, that would perhaps suggest otherwise.

I mean, if God is in control, then why the Mexican earthquake? If God is in control, then why do we have floods in Bangladesh? If God is in control, then why do so many people starve in the Sudan? Now what Job is coming to realize here is that though there are things he can't understand, they are a minority compared with the things that he does understand. Even though he can't work his way out in his personal experience at this point of time, nonetheless he believes that somehow God has comprehension, God has cognizance, he takes stock of what is happening and God will work out his purposes in the life of every man and particularly in the life of Job. What's more, he believes that in one sense God is managing the whole of his affairs.

Go again into the 10th verse in the heart of it. When he has tested me, I shall come forth as gold. Did you know that? That God does manage your affairs.

I don't care who you are, 70 or 17, influential or with little significance or so other people may think though God feels everyone has significance incidentally. God does manage your affairs. He tests you.

He tests you like in Johannesburg they test the gold. Do you know when they've dug the gold up? Then they have to purify it and sometimes they put the gold into the most intense heat in order to burn off all the dross. But as hot as you can heat that furnace, you will never injure the gold.

In fact, the gold is better because it's been exposed to heat because the dross then has been released from it. And this is what Job comes to a realization of and the whole of the biblical revelation underlines this as it deals with the affairs of many men and many women that when God allows a person to be tested he ultimately demonstrates his wisdom in permitting that experience. When he has tested me, says Job, I shall come forth as gold.

And how many of you would confess to that in your own life? You know, the thing that you went through, the thing that was abhorrent to you now because the years have gone by and it's been lost in the history as you reflect upon it you're glad that God allowed that to happen because it helped to mature you. You came to a greater understanding of who God was. Now it's not easy in the process of being tested to accept this.

But when the test is over and if you've had many tests and you're going through one now as you look back upon the past tests and realize something of the sovereignty of God and the way that he planned all ultimately for your good then you can come to a realization that Job came to that ultimately he too will prove that what God allowed to happen to him in his life was for his benefit. Do you remember there's another point in Job's prophecy he has this to say I know that my Redeemer lives and that in my flesh I will see God whom I will see for myself and not with the eyes of another. Whatever happened Job said even though death was an experience through which he would have to go ultimately God would bring him forth to understand that his purposes for Job were right and that he was tender and that he was concerned about Job's ultimate well-being.

Now I'm arguing this and these are my final words that is exactly the case for you and for me. You may have come into the tab as I said this morning and maybe it's the first time you've ever been and you think these Christian people well, you know, they do have a sort of charmed life they never have the they never have the questions and the problems that I seem to have don't believe it. We do have questions and we do have problems there are times when we feel elated in the presence of God there are times when we feel like Job but in the times when we feel like Job then we look back upon the way that God has helped us out of our difficulties in the past and we know that ultimately the future is in his control.

So I put this question to you Have you ever trusted the Lord God as your Savior? Do you realize that you can find God through Jesus Christ and that the reason why Jesus died on the cross of Calvary was for your sin and for my sin and he takes that away so that ultimately when you stand before God you'll not stand before him as your judge but as your Savior do you realize these things? and do you appreciate this that God can be found in the reading of Scripture he can be discovered in listening to the adequate words of a preacher like myself he can be found as you listen to a fellow Christian tell you something of his dealings with him in his life Job was a man who went through an experience the Puritans called the dark night of the soul and yet he was able to say I am not silenced by the darkness by the thick darkness that covers my face and in the morning God justified himself and showed to Job that he had his hand on his total situation as God take my word for it has his hand upon your life stall judgments on things you don't understand cling on to things that are clear and realize this that the God of all the earth as Abraham tells us is a just God and the end will prove that he has dealt fairly with every son and daughter of Adam and in every circumstance that has ever confronted this world in the dark night of the soul trust the living God let's sing about our confidence in the Lord 291 I'm sorry, 391 be thou my vision O Lord be still my soul the Lord is on thy side bear patiently the cross of grief or pain 391 be still my soul my secret 392 be still my soul my secret be still my soul the hour is near be still my soul the Lord blessed the latter part of Job's life more than the first nowhere in the land were there found women as beautiful as Job's daughters and their father granted them an inheritance along with their brothers after this Job lived 140 years he saw his children and their children to the fourth generation and so he died old and full of years father, many dear friends here have known or are knowing at this moment the dark night of the soul draw alongside them and help them to realize that sooner or later and most certainly in the eternal age you will vindicate all that you have done and up to this point of time and on throughout their earthly pilgrimage you will manage every experience and bring all things to the conclusion that you intended now send us all away with your blessing the blessing of the triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit now and always Amen