Job No.4 Hard Questions

Our reading this morning is a continuation of the story of Job and his reply to Eliphaz, and it is found in Job 7. Job 7. Does not man have hard service on earth? Are not his days like those of a hired man, like a slave longing for the evening shadows, or a hired man waiting eagerly for his wages? So I have been allotted months of futility, and nights of misery have been assigned to me. When I lie down, I think, how long before I get up? The night drags on, and I toss till dawn. My body is clothed with worms and scabs.

My skin is broken and festering. My days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle. They come to an end without hope.

Remember, O God, that my life is but a breath. My eyes will never see happiness again. The eye that now sees me will see me no longer.

You will look for me, but I will be no more. As the cloud vanishes and is gone, so he who goes down to the grave does not return. He will never come to his house again.

His place will know him no more. Therefore, I will not keep silent. I will speak out in the anguish of my spirit.

I will complain in the bitterness of my soul. Am I the sea, or the monster of the deep, that you put me under your guard? When I think my bed will comfort me, and my couch will ease my complaint, even then you frighten me with dreams, and terrify me with visions, so that I prefer strangling and death rather than this body of mine. I despise my life.

I would not live forever. Let me alone. My days have no meaning.

What is man that you make so much of him, that you give him so much attention, that you examine him every morning and test him every moment? Will you never look away from me, or let me alone even for an instant? If I have sinned, what have I done to you, O watchful man? Why have you made me your target? Have I become a burden to you? Why do you not pardon my offenses and forgive my sins? For I shall soon lie down in the dust. You will search for me, but I shall be no more. May God give understanding to his word.

Father, we thank you that you are the God who restores dignity to those who feel that they have lost it along life's journey. We thank you that you are the one who restores spiritual riches to those who feel that Bartimaeus rivals them in terms of tenury. And we just ask now that as we come around your word, such a source of great riches that we may excavate from the minds that are there those truths and blessings that should be ours.

Help us as we approach this difficult passage of scripture and make it meaningful to us all. For the Savior's sake, Amen. Please do sit down and will you have your Bibles open at the Book of Job in chapters six and seven.

If you're new to our fellowship this morning, we're glad to have you. We go through a variety of moods in a family service such as this and uh we invariably start on the homeward lap of the family service as we come around the word of God. It's so essential that we spend time asking what God is saying to us today.

Now God can occasionally speak dynamically through his spirit, but what he more often than not does is speak through his word which is relevant for every century. That becomes the word of God for us right now as through the inspiration of the spirit it's applied by the preacher to our own circumstances. This is why, and I say it again I'll be saying it as long as I'm in this pulpit, it's so important that you have a Bible with you.

You check out what he said whether it's me preaching, Tim, Hugh or or anyone else because the important thing is to grasp hold of this inspired word of God. We're going to be looking into the sixth and seventh chapters. Quite a menu for us to try to get through of this uh of this remarkable book.

Look look let's let me put something to you that hit me as I was uh driving my car. I didn't hit anything in my car with my car it's just an idea that uh that was with me. Imagine we didn't have a tabernacle right? Think it away.

Imagine you don't have a Bible despite what I've just said. Think that away. Imagine we don't have any hymns.

Think those away. We've got no organ, we got no piano, we got no instruments. Think all that away.

There's no pastor. Think him away. No elders, no deacons, none none of the infrastructure that is part and parcel of what most of us consider church to be.

Think away the Lord Jesus if that's possible for you to so to do. Think away your knowledge of the prophets and the old testament scriptures. Now you're not left with much are you? That's where Job comes in because he had none of those benefits that you and I have.

We're dealing with a man almost at the beginning of time. We're dealing with three men, four men ultimately he will help him. We're not dealing with jews, we're dealing with gentiles.

And those of you who think that the old testament is just designated to the jews, you could not be more wrong. It obviously involves the jewish nation. They were God's chosen people.

But God's love overspills not just in the new testament but also old testament times to gentiles. So here's the question. How does a man who's not a jew, who never had even the little bit of the bible that was available in some of the old testament times, how does he get to know God? Well Job's your answer.

Job indicates that God has a concern for all people be they jew or gentile. The fact that God is was never questioned by Job. When men question that God is, the bible says they are fools.

Because there is in nature, there is in conscience, there is in every sense that we have a realization if we're absolutely honest that we are creatures of time and we are dependent upon some unseen supernatural power. Job and his friends all credit and honor due to them at the beginning of time without the helps that I've mentioned, come to this conclusion driven to it by the unseen working of the spirit of God upon their lives at that time. Now imagine this man Job who's around without these props, without these helps.

Imagine that he's assailed in his mind, in his body and a lot of things that he's worked for have suddenly been taken from him. And imagine that he sees that as a test as to his faithfulness in this God to demonstrate that he believes despite the evidence to the contrary that there is some rhyme and reason behind his life and he refuses to submit to the temptation to deny or blaspheme God. It's amazing what goes through your mind as you're driving a car and that was the distillation of what came into my mind from leaving Shakespeare to coming to the tabernacle.

You see here confronting us in the sixth and seventh chapters of this book is the developing story of Job as he is assailed by the Lord at least in the sovereignty of God, the temptations and the difficulties come his way. Now you and I have an awareness at least the majority of us who've been following these studies on a Sunday morning that not all that Job sees is responsible for the events that have transpired in his life. In other words we've got a sneak idea that Job didn't have because we've read the beginning of the book and the end of the book as to what these problems are about.

You know that statement in Paul's letter to the Ephesians we wrestle not against flesh and blood but against principalities and powers. Paul is saying that there are malevolent powers forces in our world today which have as their objective to eclipse the glory of God in man and the devil's strategy that Paul isolates in New Testament times is also apparent in Old Testament times. The greatest challenge that anyone represents here in the tabernacle is that God may be glorified in your life and the one thing that the powers of evil do not want to happen is for that challenge to be realized.

So before this book starts in terms of talking about Job and his circumstances on planet earth we get this secret counsel in the heavens made available to us in as far as information is concerned. Consider my servant Job says God to Satan. He's a man of utter integrity.

All right says Satan if his integrity is that good let me get at him. And he comes you remember in two avalanches of difficulty and in the balances will Job be able to cope. Could it be as it will be in the middle of human history that a man will be able to say despite the problems that have broken on the short of his life recognizing the absolute sovereignty of God though he slay me yet will I trust him in the leafy foliage of Gethsemane's garden where the darkness is only interrupted by the beams that play from the full moon.

The blessed Lord Jesus with bloody beads of perspiration coming down his forehead in effect says that nevertheless not my will but thine be done though thou slayest me yet will I trust thee. And amazing amazing though it seems at the beginning of biblical history you've got one Job unique compared with the rest of men though inferior to the example I've just given you who also is able to mouth the same words though he slay me I'll trust him. And you may not appreciate this or even feel that it's fair but in one sense that is what God is wanting from you an ability to mouth those sentiments whatever happens in your life to trust him when you cannot trace him when darkness falls upon you still to believe and apply the logic of what you know to be the truth that God is and that God is sovereign and ultimately he'll bring you from this life into the next and your desire is to praise him and honor him and walk in integrity before him through the years that he gives you.

In the sixth chapter you've got what I'm calling counseling that awaits completing and in the seventh chapter if we ever get to it we've got what I'm calling questions that await answering counseling that awaits completion. Job you remember is sat on these cinders this ash heap outside of the town where he's been the leading man his friends have come alongside from a variety of countries and they've seen him and they've listened to him and one of them has broken the silence and offered him a bit of advice counsel. Eliphaz stung Job you heard something of Eliphaz's advice in the fourth chapter and the fifth as Tim preached on it last week.

The problem with these three men who come and sit around Job and offer their distilled wisdom is they were not men from the watchtower society. They weren't peddling heresy if they had have been it would have been perhaps more easy for Job to cope actually they were orthodox theologians their understanding of God was accurate as far as it went. You know counseling a person who's in difficulty is one of the most sensitive things one of the most sensitive ministries that anyone can ever be called to and there is that there is a fashion in which every Christian person has as a duty to try to help someone else who is in difficulty.

When I was in the states the beginning of last year I spent some time with Professor Jay Adams who wrote a world bestseller in evangelical churches entitled competent to counsel and his thesis is that and he bases it on a verse from Paul's letter to the Romans that every Christian really ought to be able to help another unbeliever or believer who is in distress. But somebody has said this there is no act of pastoral care more unnerving than trying to say the right thing to someone who's hysterical with grief. This is where Eliphaz went wrong not just what he said though a lot of it was accurate but how he said it and the application that he's made.

You see Eliphaz believed in God he believed in the sovereignty of God and he believed that what a person does in life they reap. He also believes that what a person reaps is what he sows and that does not follow. You reap what you sow or if you sow you will reap a certain thing if you've so wheat you'll reap wheat if you sow another grain then you'll reap another grain.

But there are circumstances in life where you reap what you don't sow. There are things that can happen to you that you are not basically responsible for. Now this Eliphaz doesn't understand and he accuses Job and reckons that his sinful condition is as a result of his wayward life of things that he has done that are wrong and Job is stung in anguish as a result of Eliphaz's incorrect reasoning.

So when you look at Job's condition in the sixth chapter you find what? Well his burden is intolerable. Look at verse two, if only my anguish could be weighed and all my misery be placed on the scales it would surely outweigh the sand of the sea. He's lost a taste for life.

Life to him has become insipid and unpalatable. Verse six, his tasteless food eaten without salt or is there flavor in the white of an egg? I refuse to touch it such food makes me ill. Verse eight will tell you that he wants to quit he doesn't want to live any longer.

Oh that I might have my request that God would grant what I hope for that God will be willing to crush me and so forth. And his greatest difficulty is discovered from the 15th verse and onwards that his friends who he had looked to to help him in his problem were as undependable as intermittent streams as the streams that overflow when darkened by thawing ice. This is the plight of Job.

I see Eliphaz and the other two as being grandmasters in a chess game. They make a move and another move and another move. They're dealing you see with a problem, the problem of suffering and what they take as checkmate is actually stalemate.

There is no answer that falls from the lips of these men until God sends all the pieces scattering and he smiles at the end and he shows Job that God still is and that God cares for him and any of the questions that Job was going to ask God he never does because when you're in the presence of God when you have that tremendous encounter with the Lord realizing that that that he is a loving and benevolent father the questions don't seem to have any further value or present any problems anymore. Here is Job and we see his plight again take you through chapter 6. His plight in terms of the words which he utters if only my anguish could be weighed all my misery would be placed on the scales it would surely outweigh the sand of the seas no wonder my words have been impetuous. Eliphaz are you homing in on some of the more thoughtless things that I've said? How do you expect a man who's under pressure to react? Of course there will be careless comment.

Look Eliphaz when animals are satisfied when a wild donkey verse 5 brays it only brays when it doesn't require food but when it's got its food when an ox bellows it's because its needs have not been satisfied and the reason for my anguish don't you understand is because of this that certain things have happened in my life and you say I'm responsible for them but I know that I am not and I am giving vent to the feelings within my heart because of the problems that are mine. His plight his prayer verse 8 oh that I may have my request that God would grant what I hope for he prays for death Eliphaz in the fifth chapter in the eighth verses told him to pray as for patience well his patience is running out verse 11 what strength do I have that I should still hope because Eliphaz has said in the final words of the fifth chapter that if Job will just hang on then he'll laugh at destruction verse 22 he'll have a covenant with the stones of the field verse 23 you'll know verse 24 that your tent is secure I says Job you say all these things but but I'm finding that I do not have the patience to be able to wait for the benefits that ultimately you promised will come my way there's a plight the prayer the expressions of patience running out and then the problems with his protectors his brothers are utterly independent are utterly unreliable and so with pathos he says in the tenth verse if death would come he would have this consolation his joy in unrelenting pain that I had not denied the words of the holy one Job represents the failure of human counselors to be able to deal adequately with his condition and don't you see my friend there is a sense when you're in difficulty when human counselors even with a little bit of theology that they may grasp are not able to deal with your deepest needs that's why it was timely that we sang earlier in the spot centered particularly on the children the names of our lord Jesus for he shall be called wonderful counselor the mighty god the everlasting father listen to Joseph Hart he writes in the 18th century he's trying to cope with the sort of position that Job illustrates and he speaks to Christian people he speaks to the Job's come ye weary heavy laden bruised and ruined by the fall if you tarry till you're better you will never come at all none the right not the righteous not the righteous Jesus sinners Jesus came to call lo the incarnate god ascended pleads the merit of his blood venture on him venture holy let no other trust intrude none but Jesus none but Jesus can do helpless sinners good there are circumstances in life that only the son of God is fully qualified to deal with and that was the problem you see for Job his counselors did their best but his situation in the sixth and seventh chapters of the book that bears his name is that of counseling that awaits completion sent Teresa a great mystic from the middle ages says this oh god I don't wonder that you have such few friends when you allow them to be treated so badly there are times when one feels like that but remember you have an insight into the reason behind the difficulties of Job it's not just his problem in terms of his health and his wealth that's gone from him it's this supernatural problem of the powers of evil trying to eclipse the glory of God in the man Job and we wrestle against those same principalities and powers it says someone who knew what it was to be mauled by the evil one the devil is as a roaring lion so it's possible flee from him counseling that awaits completion the seventh chapter questions that await answering you get a catalog of them from the 17th verse onwards Campbell Morgan wrote a book entitled questions that only Jesus can answer it's a good book it was a wonderful thought and in the old testament and especially in this book there are situations that the way the dawning of God's spokesman on this earth and it's interesting is it not that from time to time as you read through Job you see him stretching forward believing that somehow this God in whom he trusts must make a statement to help the sort of person that Job is you see this is the reasoning of Job here I am sitting on my ash heap here I am without my health here I am feeling that God has distanced himself from me and I know that there is nothing that I have done in my life that can warrant that sort of reaction on the part of God the consequences are far greater than the cause this is his difficulty with Eliphaz and the other three they come on on this basis Job you're in the condition that you're in because of what you've done no says Job that can't be true there is something else there is a mysterious thing that I don't comprehend event it seems to eat away at the very vitals of my being and I would prefer prefer death than life but I cannot say that my difficulties are as a result of my disobedience because the consequences of any imperfection in my life they do not merit this there must be something else and you know what that else is Job didn't Jesus once said to his disciples what I do now you do not know but one day you shall know and don't you understand my dear friends I hope I'm making sense this morning that you sometimes have to live in the area of the shall know in other words you wait you anticipate you look forward to the time when God will explain what he allowed to happen in the here and now what I am now doing you don't understand but you will know and that is the theology of Job which is one in advance and it's a great leap forward from the theology of those three other those three men he does believe that God has got some mysterious reason for allowing what has happened to happen and that is the same for you and for me this is why you say you see if I'd have commenced my address as I meant to commence it according to the notes that I that I typed down here I would have argued for some moments that one of the problems of evangelicals is that they think think too shallowly we we sometimes believe that all that is yet to be ours should be ours now there is a if you like a sort of triumphalism you get it in some of our modern choruses not so much the older hymns that's why I prefer in some ways the older hymns to the modern stuff not all the modern stuff but some of it life is wonderful yes it is wonderful life is wonderful now I let Jesus in that changed everything life is wonderful now and now I am happy all the time honest write a book dedicate it to me and send me the first copy because I want to learn Martin Luther said there was the unknown of God which he had not disclosed and the puzzle in the known will be explained by the unknown now it's easier for Luther to preach it than it was for him to practice it and in that I follow Luther one occasion his wife came in to his room she's dressed in black who's dead God is dead Martin Katie how can God be dead he must be why Katie well the way that you're behaving Martin anyone would think he's dead so we may as well accept that he is you see it's easy sometimes to preach and to philosophize it's not so easy when you're Job sitting on the ashtip but he did hold on even though he asked his questions one of the reasons why I like the book of Job is this that it deals with the cant of those who tell us of the inscrutability of God and smugly say it is not for us to question the ways of the Almighty I ask you what was Job doing all the time and in the last few chapters he's not censored by God censured by God the thing that Job refuses to do however is to curse God or to curse himself he'll curse the day that he was born he will prefer death to life but he won't even contemplate suicide though he would ask that God might in his sovereignty take him out of this world he's a man you see who's who's struggling forward to to faith in God and and where there are difficulties he'll tell you the difficulties and that's another reason why we why we like Job so in the 17th verse he puts up one of several questions which await an answer as far as he's concerned what is man that you make so much of him that you give him so much attention now you know that that's repeated in the eighth psalm and it could well be that the psalmist is quoting from from the book of Job because I think Job came before the psalmist chronologically and and in the eighth psalm it's inverted he's glad that that man is made so much of and that God keeps his eye upon man but but Job he feels intimidated by God's presence what is man that you make so much of him that you give him so much attention you examine him every morning you test him every moment will you never look away from me or let me alone even for an instant see the depression that Job sometimes has and yet over against that depression there is this this conviction of the omniscience and the omnipresence of of God he's waiting for the Lord Jesus to come and answer the questions he puts another one up in the 20th verse if I've sinned now Job never says that he doesn't sin don't misunderstand what he said of Job in the beginning of the book he is a righteous man relative to the righteousness or the unrighteousness of the rest of humanity Job's argument is not that he never sinned Job's argument you remember I told you a few moments ago is that his the problems which he has are disproportionate to anything that he has done that he's wrong and it's on this basis that he questions God and ultimately God gives him the answers why do you not pardon my offenses and forgive my sins do you not sometimes find that as a question that people put up in the 20th century why does this God deal or place so high esteem so important sin well Jesus will tell you you see him dying on the cross of Calvary and and you realize the enormity of sin in the sight of God because the Lord Jesus will teach you that God is is absolutely holy and it is impossible to be comfortable in the presence of God and continue in sinfulness but Job is at the beginning of time you see he hasn't had all this teaching that you have had and so he puts up these questions I give you two of which there are several and they remain unanswered for some time let's draw these remarks to a conclusion one of the things that differentiates Job from his friends is this his friends talk about God Job talks to God and when Job talks to God he's sometimes audacious in his attempts to reach the mind of God he leaves his friends breathless he alarms them Job is passionate they are cold Job is dreadfully earnest transparently honest he tells God exactly how he feels and just what he thinks one commentator says there can be no better prayers than that narrow and inhuman is that religion that bars weeping from the vocabulary of prayer we may sing in our choices 17th 18th century hymns oh for a closer walk with God a calm and heavenly frame but that's not the standard not even for biblical religion Hannah was not with a calm and heavenly frame as with incoherent language she tries to assail the heart of God as to why she is barren whereas the other wife in the family circle has had children I don't think there was a calm and heavenly frame I speak and God forgive me if I'm wrong about our blessed Lord when he's in the garden of Gethsemane and with shouts and groaning says the epistle to the Hebrews he comes before God and asks for respite and for Calvary to be averted narrow is that religion which rules out complaints and the expression of doubt this part of prayer do you remember and with this I come almost to my full start Jesus and Peter our Lord predicts what's around the corner for Peter he's moving into the garden of Gethsemane and Peter has denied that he will ever reject Jesus and the Lord Jesus says Satan will take you Peter and he'll put him in he'll put you in his sieve and he will shake you I know what the Lord was referring to because you've seen one since I am Peter I know what it's like to be in the sieve and yet our Lord Jesus says when that happens Peter remember this I prayed for you that your faith fails not and when you're converted when you fully understand the experiences through which you've been some of which are as the result of your own foolishness then strengthen your brethren then tell them then help them bring them to a state of fortitude and courageousness and don't you see as it was with Peter so it was with Job Satan's got him in his sieve he's shaking him up and down and the man is still wanting to hold on he's still wanting to hold on to truth to to his belief in God in the sovereignty of God so that to his knowledge that God is and despite his friends and despite the the bad advice of his wife he says he would rather go to his grave holding his integrity and not cursing God than to follow the advice that they proffer and the day comes you recall when God breaks in calls the game of chess to a halt and he shows Job that he has his hand upon him and it is pleased with him may that also be our experience there is counseling that needs to be adjusted and only Jesus can do it there are questions which have been answered but still some that remain to be answered and only Jesus can impart the information and God calls you and me to that same expression of faith in him as dear old Job had at the beginning of time though he slay me yet I will trust him and in so doing he glorified God in so doing you can may God help us and let's turn to 391 be still my soul the Lord is on my side bear patiently the cross of grief for pain three nine one equal for us to follow that by singing the doxology father having come around your holy word and confronted some of the baffling situations there transferred them into the 20th century we ask Lord that you will help us to retain that confidence in you be with people for whom this study was no academic thing but who were vitally involved as they related their own lives to the principles which were being taught we ask that we may go out from this church more determined to be faithful to you to maintain our integrity and to believe that in every warp and woof of life you are the hand behind the shuttle you are the one who does the weaving and ultimately your design will prove to have been a perfect one for us so send us on our way in that glad confidence and these things we ask in the name of the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost and the people of God said I'm in good morning God bless you thank you for coming