Job No.8 Gold from the rubbish tip

Job 22, Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered and said, Can a man be profitable unto God, as he that is wise may be profitable unto himself? Is it any pleasure to the Almighty that thou art righteous, or is it gain to him that thou makest thy ways perfect? Will he reprove thee for fear of thee? Will he enter with thee into judgment? Is not thy wickedness great, and thine iniquities infinite? For thou hast taken a pledge from thy brother for naught, and stripped the naked of their clothing. Thou hast not given water to the weary to drink, and thou hast withholden bread from the hungry. But as for the mighty man, he had the earth, and the honourable man dwelt in it.

Thou hast sent widows away empty, and the arms of the fatherless have been broken. Therefore snares are round about thee, and sudden fear troubleth thee. O darkness, that thou canst not see, and abundance of waters cover thee! Is not God in the height of heaven? And behold the height of the stars, how high are they? And thou sayest, How doth God know? Can he judge through the dark cloud? Thick clouds are a covering to him that he seeth not, and he walketh in the circuit of heaven.

Hast thou marked the old way which wicked men have trodden, which were cut down out of time, whose foundation was overflown with the flood? Which said unto God, Depart from us, and what can the Almighty do for them? Yet he filled their houses with good things, but the counsel of the wicked is far from me. The righteous see it, and are glad, and the innocent laugh them to scorn, whereas our substance is not cut down, but the remnant of them the fire consumeth. Acquaint now thyself with him, and be at peace, thereby good shall come unto thee.

Receive, I pray thee, the law from his mouth, and lay up his words in thine heart. If thou return to the Almighty, thou shalt be built up, thou shalt put away iniquity far from thy tabernacles. Then shalt thou lay up gold as dust, and the gold of offer as the stones of the brooks.

Yea, the Almighty shall be thy defence, and thou shalt have plenty of silver. For then shalt thou have thy delight in the Almighty, and shalt lift up thy face unto God. Thou shalt make thy prayer unto him, and he shall hear thee, and thou shalt pay thy vows.

Thou shalt also decree a thing, and it shall be established unto thee, and the light shall shine upon thy ways. When men are cast down, then thou shalt say, There is lifting up, and he shall save the humble person. He shall deliver the island of the innocent, and it is delivered by the pureness of thine hands.

The passage which the pastor is going to be speaking on in a moment, Job 23. 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, and consider what he would say. Would he oppose me with great power? No he would not press charges against me. There an upright man could present his case before him, and I would be delivered forever from my judge.

But if I go to the east, he is 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. 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 One has terrified me. Yet, I am not silenced by the darkness, by the thick darkness that covers my face. Please be seated, and I'd like you to have your Bibles open at those two chapters, which have just been read.

When our blessed Lord was on earth, he prefaced some great sermon, the Sermon on the Mount, by certain propositions which we refer to as the Beatitudes. You find them listed in the fifth chapter of Matthew's Gospel, and there is one which says in the tenth verse, Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. And then verse 11, perhaps more pointedly for our purposes this morning, Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you.

Because of me rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven. It seems to me that in one sense you can say that Job was an Old Testament exposition of that New Testament beatitude. Persecution has many forms.

In one sense, perhaps the physical one is not the hardest to cope with. When there is an attack upon the mind, an attack upon the reputation, that can cut more deeply. Many of us here are mature enough to know that the little child's adage is wrong.

Sticks and stones can hurt my bones, but calling names doesn't hurt me. Well, you see, here is this man Job, and in one sense he is going through an experience of persecution. And the end to that persecution, the objective is whether or not Job will be able still to claim to retain his integrity, whether Job will retain his confidence in God, or whether he'll buckle under pressure.

Now, the proposition of our Lord, it's retrospective, it applies not just to people in his day and afterwards, but those who live before him. And here is Job, and he's caught in this sort of pincer movement. There are forces breaking in upon him.

These friends of his have come on the scene as they have seen something of his dilemma. He's a man who has an outbreak of the most painful boils. They've come from three different countries in order to console him.

They try comfort, and then they try philosophy. And they would have been better if they'd have stayed with the former. You know what they do not know, and what Job does not know, that actually his circumstances are as a result of some incident in the heavenlies where God has taken the challenge of Satan and declared that this man Job serves God not for what he can get out of Him, but because he loves Him.

And that is the greatest teaching of this book and this man towards you and me. When we are happy with God simply because things are going right, then in effect, we are saying, Lord, we don't love you for who you are, but rather for what we can get out of you. And that's not what God is looking for.

He's looking for us to be able to trust Him when we cannot trace Him in the darkness as well as in the sunshine, in pleasant experiences as well as in unpleasant experiences, in sickness as well as in health, in employment as well as in unemployment. How do you say those words stripped from your mouth so easily? You don't, your mouth so easily, you don't understand my circumstances. Well they come to you in love and humility and from someone who tries, though not always successfully, to live by the maxims that are being preached.

Here I suggest, as time is not on my side, I summarize the 22nd chapter in this little title. Here is the tragedy of a wrong diagnosis. And the 23rd, which will become obvious to you the reason why I select this little description of it as I proceed, I summarize that in the form of the eulogy of a mature reaction.

The tragedy of a wrong diagnosis, well here is a gross miscarriage of justice. This man, Aliphas, he's on the third cycle of the argument that he's directing to Job. There will be nothing more he has to say.

But we're coming really to the end of these three men philosophizing and trying to help but actually harm Job in the way that they deal with his problem. Aliphas strikes me as a doctor whose surgical skills are brilliant but whose abilities in diagnosis are faulty. To cut into the body and to discover that there is no malignancy, that doubles the problem of your patient.

Your surgical skills can be in order, but if your diagnosis is wrong, then the person to whom you're directing your help is going to suffer the more. Oh, let me change the metaphor. We have been shaken as far as our English judiciary is concerned in recent times, not so.

We used to almost to feel that the British courts were infallible and we have had to hang our heads in shame. What a predicament to be in prison for 20 years for a crime that you never committed. How awful to live under the pressures of slanders that were directed against you and actually had no substance.

Now, I say to you that this is the problem as far as Job is concerned. He's there on his rubbish tip. He feels that that's the appropriate place because, well, you know, his body is so emaciated he really is rubbish.

He's God's reject, so let him go to the tip outside the place where he's living because his situation and his location now, they seem to harmonise. And this friend comes along and in this third attempt to be of help to Job, he actually puts words to what he'd been thinking for a long time. He's no longer dealing in generalities.

He's coming to specifics. Verse 5, is not your wickedness great? Are not your sins endless? You see, in those days, and to some degree perhaps for some people today, the formula is this, that the pious man can never suffer. If he suffers, he's not pious.

Is it for your piety that God rebukes you? Verse 4. You see, if you were a righteous man, Job, you wouldn't have this problem. So, you know, let me tell you straight. It's your sin.

Verse 5, they're endless. You exploited your brothers. Verse 6. You didn't give water to those who were thirsty.

Verse 7. You didn't give food to those who were hungry. Verse 7b. You were a powerful man, but your wealth was not used in the interest of others.

Verse 9. You sent widows away empty handed. And verse 9b. You didn't aid the fatherless.

Verse 10. That's why. You see, that's why the snares were upon you.

God is great. We know that. The Muslims know that.

The Jews knew that. And here this man, Eliphaz, recognizes this. Verse 12.

Is not God in the heights of heaven? And see how lofty are the highest stars? You question this God, Job, but let me tell you that the reason why you are in this position is because this God is offended with you. Now look, there's nothing generally speaking wrong with Eliphaz's approach to the problem of sin. Provided that the person you're directing your diagnosis has actually committed the crimes of which you accuse them.

And there's nothing wrong at all with Eliphaz when he starts to give his advice. It's positive stuff. Verse 21.

Submit to God and be at peace with Him. In this way prosperity will come to you. Verse 22.

Accept instruction from His mouth. Verse 23. If you return to the Almighty, you will be restored.

This is evangelism. This is, if you like, what Billy Graham has been putting throughout the nations of the world in these last 20, 30, 40 odd years, in such a faithful fashion. Well, Eliphaz, he has an understanding.

How do you deal with a sinner? You deal with him like this. And that's quite right. How do you deal with a man who has a malignancy? Well, you open him up and you cut it out if you can't treat it with chemistry, with drugs.

But if there's no malignancy, if a man is not guilty of the things of which you are accusing him, then I say that you are making his situation worse. And that's a problem for Eliphaz and it's an even greater problem for Job. This is the tragedy, I say, of a wrong diagnosis.

You see, what he's accused of isn't true. Job actually, at this stage, doesn't defend himself. Isn't that one of the problems of Christian people? We're always wanting, incidentally, to defend ourselves, aren't we? Our Lord never defended himself, did he? You know, when he was reviled against, he didn't answer back.

That was the case with Joseph as well. You remember when he was maltreated by his brothers and in Pharaoh's household, he waited for the word of God to clear him. We're not like that.

And sometimes, at least not all of us, and sometimes our reaction to being wrongly treated is far beyond the proportion to the problem that's been inflicted on us. You know, I can say this because there's no way that you can check the identity. I'm going back some years now, I'm such an old fogey in this place.

I remember one man who stopped attending church, taking communion, coming around the word of the Lord, singing hymns, simply because we asked him not to park his car outside, so that we could use the car space for buses. Now, it may well have been that we offended him. But you see, the reaction was disproportionate to the problem that he had to face.

Some of us as Christian people need to be a little more mature in handling the hurts that we suffer and not being disproportionately wrong or over-reactive to the problems that we face. Well, here is Job, you see, and it's not true what has been said of him. He's able to say towards the end of the book, verse 16 of chapter 31, if I've denied the desires of the poor or let the eyes of the widow grow weary, if I've kept my bread to myself, not sharing it with the fatherless, but from my youth I reared him as would a father, and from my birth I guided the widow, if I have seen anyone perishing for lack of clothing or a needy man without a garment, and his heart did not bless me for warming him with the fleece from my sheep, if, if, if, in other words Job is telling us at the end, this just was not true.

The tragedy of a wrong diagnosis. So from the depths of a sick body and a broken mind, his spirit thrusts its faith in God, even though his cries sound wild to his friends. And you move from the tragedy of a wrong diagnosis to what I've called the eulogy of a mature reaction.

I say that not only having in mind the beatitude, but that first psalm, blessed is the man. And here is a man who will be blessed simply because his confidence is in God. He may sit in the seat of the scorners inasmuch as Job is having a rough time as far as these so-called friends are concerned, but he does retain his confidence in God and his personal integrity.

And here I say, therefore, is the eulogy of a mature reaction. Now look, Job's problems are not easily resolved, are they? No more than yours. And there is no sense in which I'd like you to go from the tab, nor Pastor Tin, feeling that in some ways we have made light of the problems from which you suffer.

There are no easy answers to some of the difficulties. Why does this dear man who writes this book that I'm recommending, why does he lose his daughter when she's 13 years of age? Why is it that the lady who used to clean the brasses in the church and bring me a cup of tea or a coffee in my early years in the tab has been something like two years incommunicado lying on a bed in a nursing home about 900 yards from here? I don't know. I wish I did.

If I did, I'd tell you. But I think it's more of a problem to me than it is to her. And if I had the mind of God, I'd appreciate it's not a problem to him.

Sometimes the answers, the resolutions of the problems are perhaps so complex that our human minds could not take them in at this side of eternity. Therefore the Lord asks us to trust Him when we cannot trace Him and believe that all things do work together ultimately for our good. Now here is Job and he's replying to this, what I call this tragedy of a wrong diagnosis.

And he does so by bringing at least three things to our attention. There is his own problem. There is a picture and there is a prophecy.

The problem? Well, it's the problem of what I'm calling a lost God. Even today my complaint is bitter. His hand is heavy in spite of my groaning.

If only I knew where to find Him. The man who's lost his God is in great problems, is he not? Look at the eighth verse. 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. Listen to the Amplified Version's translation of that.

I think it captures the original even better. Behold, I go forward and to the east, but He's not there, or backward and to the west, but I cannot perceive Him. On the left hand and to the north, where He works, I seek Him, but I cannot behold Him.

He turns Himself to the right hand and the south, but I cannot see Him. Martin Luther says, send me plagues, send me pestilences, take away my health, but do not be silent to me, O God. It's an awful thing when you lose your consciousness of God, isn't it? Do you know there are two reasons why that happens? Two reasons.

One is your presumption, and the other is God's providence. Presumption, well, as Samson illustrates the point, he wished not that God's Spirit had gone from him. He prayed fast and loose with God.

You know, you can't deal with God like this, and when people fall down on coming regularly to the Bible and around the Lord's table and so on and so forth, when their commitment is perfunctory, then obviously there will come a time when God's Spirit, so to speak, will leave them. They'll feel abandoned. But it's not always like that.

Sometimes it's God's providence. You see, Job has done nothing to deserve this sense of lostness, the lostness of God. It's that God has withdrawn Himself from him.

Look, there's an example of this that could well have fitted Job's case, although it's in the prophecy of Jeremiah. Jeremiah chapter 14 and verse 8, reference made to God, O hope of Israel, its Savior in times of distress, why are you like a stranger in the land, like a traveler who stays only a night? Lord, we want you to be with us all the time. And it's wonderful when God is with us, isn't it? I mean, there is no more delightful experience going through life on planet Earth than knowing God is by your side.

But there are occasions which have got nothing to do with your sinfulness or your disobedience when God seems to absent Himself. He hides Himself in darkness. He makes darkness His pavilion.

Why does He do this? Well, He does it because He's a loving Heavenly Father and He wants to coax out of you a maturity that otherwise you would not display. The Lord loves those that He chastens. And here is Job, you see.

He feels that this God is lost to him. And he acknowledges this. He tells us just as his situation really appears.

He doesn't in any way minimize his difficulty. The problem of a lost God. But then there's a picture.

There's a picture of acceptable prayer. What would you do, Job, if your sensitivity to God had increased? If you were in His condition, if you were in His presence, what would you do? Well, says Job, verse 4, I would state my case before Him and fill my mouth with arguments. I would find out what He would answer me and consider what He would say.

Would He oppose me with great power? No, He would not press charges against me. There an upright man could present his case before Him. Do you know what this is, my friend? It's an Old Testament exposition of that.

New Testament text which tells us we can boldly enter into the presence of God. We can do that, you see. Now again, I remind you, at the risk of being pedantic and tortuous, there is nothing that Job has done to have caused the sense of God being apart from him.

He will discover later on, and he's going to cling to this, that God somehow is involved in all these situations. Ah, but he says, if God was here, this is what I would do. In other words, he'll teach you how to pray, will Job? Listen to a Puritan of yesteryear making comment on this.

He says that when we're in the presence of God, we're allowed not only to pray but to plead, not only to ask but to argue, not to move God but to excite ourselves and enlarge our faith. Or, says Job, when God's presence becomes more real to me, when I find where he is, I'm going to tell him what my problems are. And God can cope with that.

That's what God requires of you. So here is the problem. Here is a picture.

But here is also, thirdly, and quite quickly, a prophecy. You see, Job is battling all the time with his circumstances, but he's not caving in, is he? Look at the 10th verse and the conjunction at the beginning. But, if I go to the east, he's not there.

Verse 8, when he is at work in the north, I do not see him. But, verse 10, he knows the way that I take. Even when my God-consciousness is impaired, even when I'm not sensitive to his presence, this I know, that God is.

And not just that God is. I know that he knows the way that I take. You know, the Apostle Paul has in some of his epistles what we refer to as great sayings, wonderful comments, faithful conclusions that he makes about the Lord.

You find this in Job. I know that my Redeemer lives. We looked at that last week.

Though he slay me, yet will I trust him. The Lord has given, the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.

Well, here's another one. He knows the way that I take. When he has tested me, I shall come forth as gold.

My circumstances may not seem to flow in with this particular thing, but when my circumstances seem to contradict my beliefs, I will cling to my beliefs. I will trust his word. What does he know? He knows the way that I take.

Twin that with verse 11. My feet have closely followed his steps. I have kept to his way without turning aside.

Go back to verse 10. The Hebrew is difficult. It could sustain the translation.

He knows his way that I take. Did you hear that? He knows his way that I take. Job, why are you as you are? I don't understand it, but I believe that that's what he wanted.

Now that is the height of maturity. And coming from a man at the beginning of time, I reckon it's something that we ought to take heed of. Why are you as you are? I don't know.

It is his way. And he knows the way that I take. Oh, to be able to say that ourselves.

And so what, Job? What do you do because you know that he knows? Well, my feet stay closely in his steps. I don't turn aside. Not even when my wife tempts me.

Not even when these friends give me advice which I know will cause me to say things which are wrong. I have not sinned against God in the way that they are presuming. So what do you do, Job, positively? I have not departed, verse 12, from the commands of his lips.

I have treasured the words of his mouth more than my daily bread. Job would have preferred to have gone without his physical food than not to masticate upon the word of God. Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.

Hey, so you're a modern Job, are you? So you have known what it's been like to be butchered by the tragedy of a wrong diagnosis. And you find yourself on an equivalent to a rubbish tip, so to speak, at least spiritually. How do you cope? My friend, if you play fast and loose with God's word, if your times of waiting upon the Lord are pushed on one side, then you're exacerbating, you're making your problem worse.

What's your quiet time like? Come on, let's have some honesty. How many minutes this last week, how many minutes did you give to the reading of Scripture? How many hours did you give to watching the television? Ouch! I had to say it, because some of us have problems in this area of not being conscious of the presence of God, because we don't even apply the basic things that Job was still doing, even when he had a lack of spiritual sensitivity. I've not departed from the commands of his lips.

I have treasured the words of his mouth more than my daily bread. I have done what Joseph did. I have piled up my food, my spiritual food, in the past day, so that in the present situation, I can cope.

And that helps us enormously, doesn't it? As we take advice from Job. I come to my conclusion. Here is James, and he's making the only reference that you find in the Word of God to Job in the chapter that bears his name.

And he tells us of Job, that Job was a man who kept faith with the Lord throughout his life. And he gives us an example in the 10th verse of the 5th chapter of Job and his situation. Brothers, as an example of patience in the face of suffering, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord.

As you know, we consider, bless those who have persevered. You have heard of Job's perseverance and have seen what the Lord finally brought about. And one translator puts that, you've seen the Lord's conclusion.

Well, what was the Lord's conclusion as far as Job was concerned? He will bring me forth as gold. That's what he tells us, isn't it? He knows the way that I take. When He has tested me, I shall come forth as gold.

Eliphaz before has said to him in the 25th verse of the previous chapter, Then the Almighty will be your gold. The choice is silver for you. Ah, says Job to Eliphaz, that's right.

There's nothing the matter with your theology. But don't you understand that it's not just that God shall be gold to me. I recognize that ultimately, though I am on my rubbish tip in God's estimation, I am as gold to Him.

I am precious to Him. And He will retrieve me from these circumstances even though I don't know how He will do it. So there we are, and with that we must conclude.

Gold from the rubbish tip? Well, yes. The 22nd chapter, the tragedy of a wrong diagnosis. The 23rd chapter, the eulogy of a mature reaction.

Job's not through with his difficulties. He's still going to have problems with the fact that God does not intervene immediately as He would like. He'll tell you that in the end of the 23rd chapter and into the 24th chapter.

But this He knows. This is His overriding assurance. He knows the way I take.

And when He's tested me, I shall come forth as gold. And I want to say that as it was for Job, so it is, by God's grace, for you. Let's sing number 12 in hymns of faith.

Fill thou my life, O Lord my God, in every part with praise, that my whole being may proclaim Thy being and Thy ways. Let's stand and sing. We ask that you will grant to us an ability to hold on in circumstances which seemingly are inexplicable, and to appreciate that through the suffering and the darker patches of life you enable us to emerge with a greater God.

Help us, Lord, to know your presence. Be not far from us, we pray. Keep us disciplined in our attention to your word and to prayer and to coming around your table.

We ask that our God-consciousness may increase, even as pressures perhaps grow heavier. Now, Lord, send us on our way rejoicing, knowing this, that one day we too, ourselves, shall come forth as gold that's been tried by fire. We thank you for the future that is ours.

We bless you for love that will not let us go. So take us out into this next week, assured in our hearts that God is, that God knows our way, and that God will accompany us to the end of the journey. And this we ask in your name, the name of the ever-blessed God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, now and always.

Amen.