Job’s Final Word – Part 2
Job 26-31 (29-31)
February 14, 2016
Well tonight we are going to hit a rather large portion of the book of Job.
We are in the section that we are calling “Job’s Final Word”
LAST WEEK we saw that Job finally silenced his friends.
They had no more answers for Job’s logic or his questions.
And when Job realized he had silenced his friends
He really pointed both barrels at them and let them have it.
He let his friends know:
• They didn’t understand comfort
• They didn’t understand God
• They didn’t understand integrity
• They didn’t understand judgment
• They didn’t understand wisdom
It was no wonder they were such sorry counselors to Job.
They showed up with worldly wisdom and a limited theology
And accomplished nothing for Job.
And Job let them know it.
Well tonight Job is finally able to get back to the very thing
He first set out to do and that is to air his lament.
You will probably remember that
As soon as Job’s initial suffering was completed he sat among the ashes for a while and when he finally did open his mouth it was simply to air his complaint.
He wanted to lament
He wanted to grieve
He wanted to express his pain
His friends quickly interrupted him and so he was forced into a debate,
But now that they have been silenced Job resumes the lament he began.
You will see as we read through this segment that
Job’s words are not difficult to understand.
What makes the passage difficult to preach is that
Job really doesn’t offer any theological or practical application here.
These chapters don’t tell you what to do or how to do it.
They are just chapters filled with the honest complaint of a righteous man
In the midst of his suffering.
But man will read these chapters and identify with Job’s statements.
I don’t think any of us would claim to have suffered to his degree,
But there are many who will know exactly where he is coming from.
What we also know is that when Job is finished
God is in fact going to answer him and it won’t be pretty.
So we can easily say that Job did not deserve his suffering
But he will deserve the coming rebuke.
And as I’ll show you tonight,
It is not uncommon for people to respond to suffering
In such a way so as to receive a rebuke from God.
It happens much more than you think.
Throughout the Bible in fact we find instances of people who suffered and responded with such an attitude that God had to correct them.
SO, while we may not gain any instruction from Job tonight,
We are going to look at a few other examples of people who responded like Job and see precisely where they got it wrong.
It is going to be a large portion of text tonight,
But as I said, it isn’t difficult and it will go rather quickly.
So last week we saw the first point to Job’s final word.
#1 JOB REBUKES HIS FRIENDS
Job 26-28
Tonight we move on to the second point.
#2 JOB RESUMES HIS LAMENT
Job 29-31
And we can obviously break this down a little further.
Each of these three chapters in fact makes a specific point.
1) MY SUFFERING WAS UNEXPECTED (Job 29)
(READ 1-11)
One can easily hear Job here talk about “The Good Ole Days”
He remembered what it was like before all this started.
He really felt like God was pleased with him.
Well, there is an explanation for that.
God was pleased with him, and the enemy was kept away from him.
Remember what Satan said to God?
Job 1:9-10 “Then Satan answered the LORD, “Does Job fear God for nothing? “Have You not made a hedge about him and his house and all that he has, on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land.”
The only difference now is God is still pleased with Job,
But the enemy has been allowed to afflict him.
But Job remembers those good ole days.
HE ALSO REMEMBERS THAT:
He didn’t use prosperity as a means to grow apathetic (as many of us do)
Job actually used his prosperity as a tool for ministry.
(READ 12-17)
• Job knew that God was for him and he was for God.
• God was allowing him to prosper and he was using his prosperity for God.
Job felt like he and God were in really good relationship,
And were tracking in the same direction.
And that leads to this very telling statement:
(READ 18-20)
“Then I thought…”
Job looked into the future and saw how he expected things to turn out.
He had no reason to assume that
It would be anything but more of the same.
• God was pleased with him
• God was prospering him
• Job wasn’t giving God any reason to change His mind
• So God probably won’t
I’ll go to my grave in peace and prosperity
And incidentally, Job wasn’t the only one who felt this way.
Everyone recognized this about Job and so
It is no surprise that they sought out his counsel and advice.
(READ 21-25)
I mean it is clear that Job saw absolutely no warning signs
That his life was headed for this at all.
JOB’S SUFFERING WAS UNEXPECTED
Maybe you can identify with it in your life.
You would have expected a little suffering if you had been running against God, but you were doing everything in your power to please God.
You might have expected persecution from the world,
But you certainly didn’t expect affliction from God.
That was Job.
2) MY SUFFERING IS UNEXPIRED (Job 30)
That is to say, IT WON’T LET UP.
Notice here the suffering Job speaks of IS PRESENT SUFFERING..
• He doesn’t lament the loss of his livestock
• He doesn’t lament the loss of his children
• He doesn’t lament the pain of his boils
Job has a whole new adversity now – IT IS REPROACH
(READ 30:1-15)
Job speaks of worthless men.
• Men who have no right to reprove anyone.
• Men who have no right to look down on anyone.
• Job speaks of the dregs of society.
And the problem?
(9) “And now I have become their taunt, I have even become a byword to them.”
It is true that Job’s initial pains and problems have not gone away,
But Job is now experiencing even new affliction.
And notice what he has to say about it.
(READ 16-31)
Do you hear him?
(20) “I cry out to You for help, but You do not answer me; I stand up, and You turn Your attention against me. You have become cruel to me;”
(24) “Yet does not one in a heap of ruins stretch out his hand, or in his disaster therefore cry out for help?”
Do you hear Job?
• Why won’t you help me?
• Why won’t you deliver me?
(26) “When I expected good, then evil came; when I waited for light, then darkness came.”
Job is not there talking about his initial affliction.
He is talking about how he expected God
To come to his aid after his affliction and God didn’t do it.
I was hurting
I was in pain
And I cried out to God and I expected Him to come through, and He didn’t.
• My suffering just keeps on going
• My pain just keeps on happening
• It just keeps getting worse and worse and worse
• God has not shown up to help
And we’ve talked about this many times as well.
Sometimes it’s not the initial suffering that is the hardest.
Many of us have come to understand that we live in a fallen world that is prone to the curse and so we know that bad things sometimes happen.
What gets difficult for us to understand is
When God doesn’t just swoop in and instantly make it better.
I mean, after all, our child may fall and scrape their knee, but as soon as we see it and hear their cry, we instantly swoop down and pick them up and try to make it all better.
And it confuses us that God doesn’t seem to do the same.
Sometimes it feels like we fall and are crying
And God just sits there and watches us.
That is what Job is saying.
Not only was my suffering expected,
But it is also unexpired; it just keeps on going.
3) MY SUFFERING IS UNEXPLAINED (Job 31)
And this is another difficult one for us.
If we did something stupid and suffered for it,
At least we’d know why it happened.
What confuses us is when we suffer and don’t know why.
We will rack our brains looking for the reasoning.
That is what Job does here.
You can actually hear him crossing off all the things that he knows it isn’t.
(READ CHAPTER 31)
Do you hear him?
• Am I liar? (no)
• Am I immoral? (no)
• Am I a thief? (no)
• Am I an adulterer? (no)
• Am I unjust? (no)
• Am I stingy? (no)
• Am I greedy? (no)
• Am I without mercy? (no)
• Did I fail to be hospitable? (no)
• Was I a hypocrite? (no)
It’s as though Job is saying, “If I’d been any of those things, then I’d fully understand why God was doing this to me, but I wasn’t.”
And try as he may he could not get an explanation from God
Regarding why all this was happening.
HIS SUFFERING WAS UNEXPLAINED AND THAT BOTHERED HIM.
And again you can probably identify.
Most believers I know, when suffering hits,
Almost immediately go in search of what they did to make God so angry.
They’ll examine themselves like crazy to find it.
That’s what Job was doing,
And he couldn’t come up with anything.
And it bothered him that God wouldn’t explain this suffering.
THIS IS JOB’S LAMENT.
He is upset because:
• His suffering was unexpected
• His suffering is unexpired
• His suffering is unexplained
Now, we aren’t to God’s response to all of these complaints yet.
That is coming in a few weeks.
However Job is not the only person to have these frustrations.
So tonight I want to just quickly examine some others with these exact same issues and see how God answered them.
So, if you’ve felt the same way, you can know what God expects.
FIRST – WHEN SUFFERING IS UNEXPECTED
TURN TO: MATTHEW 11:1-6
You are familiar with this person.
He is none other than the greatest man born of woman.
This is John the Baptist.
This is Mr. SoldOut himself.
No one in the history of the world
Had ever been more devoted to God than this guy.
(Not Job, Not Abraham, Not Joseph, Not Moses, Not David, No one)
Jesus said John was the greatest.
All John ever did was exactly what God expected.
• He turned his back on the world
• He turned his back on the comforts of life
• He stared heresy in the face and boldly confronted it
If there was ever a man who was going in the same direction as God,
It was John the Baptist.
AND HERE WE FIND JOHN IN PRISON
And while John was in prison he heard about all that Jesus was doing.
And John has a question for Him.
(3) “Are You the Expected One, or shall we look for someone else?”
There you have it.
John wasn’t getting what he expected.
It just didn’t add up for John.
Now Jesus, in His compassion, quickly worked all the miracles that needed to be seen for John to know Jesus was exactly who He said He was.
And then Jesus had a rebuke for John.
It’s subtle, but a rebuke none the less.
Jesus says, “blessed is he who does not take offense at Me.”
Another way to read it:
• “Happy is the man who doesn’t fall away on account of Me”
• “Happy is the man who doesn’t stumble because of following Me”
John wasn’t expecting that his life of obedience
Would end up in prison.
Jesus said, “Don’t let your hardship cause you to turn on Me”
And that is really good advice for us all to understand.
Suffering can be shocking
Suffering is most certainly hard
But there are no circumstances
Where we can ever let our suffering cause us to question
If we should continue to be devoted to God.
“Whatever you do, don’t fall away, just because it’s hard”
Suffering can indeed blindside us at times,
But our hardship does not change who God is, or what He deserves.
SO WHEN SUFFERING IS UNEXPECTED, PUSH ON
SECOND – WHEN SUFFERING IS UNEXPIRED
That is to say how we should respond when
Our suffering goes longer than we thought it should.
For that we look to the man named Jeremiah.
Now you should know that JEREMIAH COULD NOT CLAIM
That his suffering was unexpected.
God made that clear to Jeremiah out the outset.
Jeremiah 1:14-19 “Then the LORD said to me, “Out of the north the evil will break forth on all the inhabitants of the land. “For, behold, I am calling all the families of the kingdoms of the north,” declares the LORD; “and they will come and they will set each one his throne at the entrance of the gates of Jerusalem, and against all its walls round about and against all the cities of Judah. “I will pronounce My judgments on them concerning all their wickedness, whereby they have forsaken Me and have offered sacrifices to other gods, and worshiped the works of their own hands. “Now, gird up your loins and arise, and speak to them all which I command you. Do not be dismayed before them, or I will dismay you before them. “Now behold, I have made you today as a fortified city and as a pillar of iron and as walls of bronze against the whole land, to the kings of Judah, to its princes, to its priests and to the people of the land. “They will fight against you, but they will not overcome you, for I am with you to deliver you,” declares the LORD.”
From the day the LORD called Jeremiah he knew difficulty was on its way.
Jeremiah’s problem was that he thought it was lasting a little too long.
TURN TO: JEREMIAH 15:15-21
You can hear Jeremiah talk about the hardship
And it even reads like he was ready for it initially.
But in verse 18 he asks, “Why has my pain been perpetual and my would incurable, refusing to be healed?”
It wasn’t the presence of suffering that bothered him,
It was the continuation of it.
He couldn’t figure out why God didn’t just swoop in and take care of it.
God’s rebuke of Jeremiah is pretty intense.
“extract the precious from the worthless”
If you want to be My prophet.
In short, you’d better let go of the pity party and get over yourself.
This mission you are on, is not about your comfort,
It’s about My glory and you’d better get your head right.
I’ve read that passage on numerous occasions because I am prone to the pity party.
I don’t mind sitting down and feeling sorry for myself,
But you had better know that God will not have it.
God had every intention of taking care of Jeremiah,
But whining about it was not the answer.
James said:
James 5:7-11 “Therefore be patient, brethren, until the coming of the Lord. The farmer waits for the precious produce of the soil, being patient about it, until it gets the early and late rains. You too be patient; strengthen your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is near. Do not complain, brethren, against one another, so that you yourselves may not be judged; behold, the Judge is standing right at the door. As an example, brethren, of suffering and patience, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. We count those blessed who endured. You have heard of the endurance of Job and have seen the outcome of the Lord’s dealings, that the Lord is full of compassion and is merciful.”
And so the advice in the midst of suffering that never seems to expire?
PERSEVERE
What about WHEN SUFFERING IS UNEXPLAINED?
Here we look at a man named ELIJAH.
Remember him?
• He was just certain that revival was coming.
• He’d seen God’s fire fall from heaven
• He’d seen the 450 false prophet of Baal slaughtered
• And he just knew God was doing big things.
But instead of revival he found a death threat
And Elijah took off running into the wilderness
Ultimately ending up a Sinai ready to give God a piece of his mind.
TURN TO: 1 KINGS 19:9-18
There you hear Elijah basically asking God what He thinks He’s doing.
• I’ve been faithful
• I’ve been zealous
• WHY IN THE WORLD IS THIS HAPPENING?
And God’s answer is profound.
(READ 15-18)
I’m doing something bigger than you here.
We are often prone to think that we are the center of the universe
And God’s total redemptive plan revolves around our life and ministry.
Not so.
God was in the process of purifying Israel
And Elijah was but a piece of the process.
God’s answer was basically for him to get over himself
And realize that He had a plan and Elijah should just trust it.
So when suffering is unexplained – PERCEIVE
Perceive that God just might be up to bigger stuff than you could comprehend.
That was certainly true in Joseph’s life wasn’t it?
Many times we are just told to
Rejoice in suffering or to embrace suffering
Simply knowing that God is up to things that we may not understand.
And all of these pieces of advice would have worked for Job.
• I know your suffering was unexpected – PRESS ON
• I know your suffering is unexpired – PERSEVERE
• I know your suffering is unexplained – PERCEIVE that God is doing something bigger than you.
And there is our answer.
We often feel the same frustrations as Job,
But God directs us regarding how we are to handle it.
• Happy is the man who doesn’t fall away because it is hard.
• Extract the precious from the worthless and do your job.
• Trust that God knows what He is doing and it’s bigger than you
There is the answer for suffering.
