The Sufferer Lashes Out
Job 12-14 (13:1-19)
November 1, 2015
Last week we heard the brutal explanation of Zophar.
Job had crossed the line and started to accuse God of being unfair to him
And it was all Zophar could handle.
He basically told Job that there was three reasons for his suffering.
• He was Sinful – “know that God forgets a part of your iniquity”
• He was Stupid -“An idiot will become intelligent when the foal of a wild donkey is born a man.”
• He was Stubborn – “If you would direct your heart right…then you could lift up your face”
And we talked about how very disappointing such a response is.
• Zophar lacked compassion
• Zophar condemned without evidence
• Zophar misrepresented God
And all of these were exactly the opposite
Of what Job needed from his friends.
In fact, there is ample evidence that Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar
Contributed to Job’s accusations of God.
When Job first suffered his response was worship
And to not ascribe any unfairness or unseemliness to God.
We even remember him telling his wife, “shall we accept good from God and not adversity?”
But now Job has started to become aggravated at God.
Job has even started to accuse God of wronging him.
What pushed Job over the line?
Well, if you suffered, and you knew you were upright and a man of integrity but your friends continually told you that only sinners suffered like you are suffering.
Your only recourse would be to assume
That God had gotten in wrong in your case.
Job’s friends are partly responsible for Job’s attitude.
And that is the danger of being a poor counselor to those who suffer.
Well tonight Job is going to sound off again.
First he will answer his judgmental friends,
But ultimately Job will return to his interrogation of God.
In short, tonight we look at a man who has not only suffered,
But who has been burned in the midst of his suffering.
Sadly, too often we can identify.
TONIGHT as we listen to Job, THE GOAL WILL BE
To help those who suffer see the truth about God,
So that your faith can be encouraged.
I realize it’s a lot of text tonight, but it won’t take us that long to run through it.
Three Main Points
#1 JOB’S TWO-FOLD RESPONSE TO HIS FRIENDS
Job 12:1 – 13:19
As I said, Zophar just blasted Job for being sinful, stupid, and stubborn.
And it is his claim that Job is stupid that seems to have really cut Job the deepest for that is precisely what he addresses with Zophar and his friends.
(1-2) “Then Job responded, “Truly then you are the people, And with you wisdom will die!”
Job here picked up on Zophar’s arrogance
And sarcastically called him a man full of wisdom.
(3-5) “But I have intelligence as well as you; I am not inferior to you. And who does not know such things as these? “I am a joke to my friends, The one who called on God and He answered him; The just and blameless man is a joke. “He who is at ease holds calamity in contempt, As prepared for those whose feet slip.”
You can feel the animosity and the pain in Job’s response here.
He is saying, “I’m not stupid, I’m just misunderstood”
I’m suffering, and instead of being comforted by my friends,
I am actually mocked by them.
And then you see Job’s powerful proverb.
“He who is at ease holds calamity in contempt, As prepared for those whose feet slip.”
That is to say, it’s real easy to analyze why a person is suffering
When you are in a position of prosperity.
Job says, It’s not me that’s clueless, it’s you.
You sit there watching me suffer and think you have all the answers.
You think I’m suffering because I sinned.
You think prosperity and suffering are fool proof indicators
Of a person’s integrity.
But Job shoots that down rather quickly.
(6) “The tents of the destroyers prosper, And those who provoke God are secure, Whom God brings into their power.”
The statement “whom God brings into their power”
Can also be translated “He who brings god into his hand”
(speaking of idolatry)
Job is simply saying, that
Suffering and prosperity are not good indicators of a person’s integrity.
We see the wicked and rebellious prosper all the time.
You aren’t as smart as you say you are.
And this (the concept of the wicked prospering and the righteous suffering) is COMMON KNOWLEDGE.
In fact, listen to creation.
(READ 12:7-12)
Even creation knows that the good aren’t favored over the bad.
In creation it is the cruel reality that the strong are victorious.
Ever see a lion kill a baby zebra?
Ever see a leopard kill a baby cheetah?
It’s wrong, but it’s the world.
Job wants his friends to know that God is sovereign over all of it.
(READ 12:13-25)
Did you catch his point?
God reigns supreme.
• Sometimes good things happen, sometimes bad.
• Sometimes the good are blessed, sometimes they suffer.
• Sometimes the wicked are punished, sometimes they prosper.
But God is behind all of it.
He sits sovereign over the whole of creation.
Job’s point?
The prospect of suffering does not depend on the integrity of man
But on the prerogative of God.
He does what He wants, with whom He wants, whenever He wants.
You are blaming this on me, when you should be blaming it on God.
Now this is Job’s first response.
1) OPEN YOUR EYES (12:1-25)
He wants his friends to see the natural order of the world we live in.
• Sometimes the wicked prosper
• Sometimes the righteous suffer
• Sometimes kings rise and then fall
• Sometimes priests go barefoot
• Sometimes chiefs are deprived of intelligence
• Sometimes nations are grown and then destroyed
• Sometimes the trustworthy are silenced
It’s just the way it is, and God is sovereign over all of it.
Even creation knows this.
Open your eyes and see what you don’t know.
Open Your Eyes
2) CLOSE YOUR MOUTH (13:1-19)
That is to say, since you don’t know what you are talking about,
You’d be better off not to talk.
(1-3) “Behold, my eye has seen all this, My ear has heard and understood it. “What you know I also know; I am not inferior to you. “But I would speak to the Almighty, And I desire to argue with God.”
Job says, “I know what you know, so I really don’t have any need to talk to you.
I wish you’d be quiet so I can talk to God.”
And there are actually two reasons he’s tired of listening to them.
HE’S TIRED OF THEIR DECEPTION (4-12)
HE’S TIRED OF THEIR DISCOURAGEMENT (13-19)
LOOK AT THEIR DECEPTION.
(READ 13:4-12)
Did you catch Job’s point?
They are speaking what is not true on behalf of God.
(7) “Will you speak what is unjust for god, and speak what is deceitful for Him?”
You think the truth makes God look bad,
So you are saying things that aren’t true
In order to make God look good.
And we’ve seen this in our world.
I’ve heard preachers say that “the doctrine of election would make God look like a monster.”
I’ve heard preachers look at a tragedy and say, “That was not the will of God”
Some say “A loving God wouldn’t send people to hell”
Some say, “God created us gay and loves us being who He created”
They all redefine God
In order to make Him what they suppose looks good.
• Maybe His sovereignty is hard for you to swallow.
• Maybe it’s hard for you to grasp that God would allow the righteous to suffer or the wicked to prosper.
• Maybe it’s hard for you to grasp that God would allow tragedies on the innocent.
• Maybe it’s hard for you to grasp that God would “love Jacob” and “hate Esau”
Well, I’m sorry, but you still don’t get to misrepresent God
Just because you don’t like the way it sounds.
Job’s friends did it and Job says God will punish them for it.
(10) “He will surely reprove you if you secretly show partiality.”
Job says their doctrines are “proverbs of ashes” and “defense of clay” meaning they won’t hold up.
Job’s friends were misrepresenting God to make God look good.
And Job says God will judge you for that.
And that is Job’s point.
• Open your eyes and see that God is sovereign over all things.
• Shut your mouth and quit lying about him.
They should also shut their mouth to stop with all the DISCOURAGEMENT
(READ 13:13-19)
These verses are so wonderful.
We know Job is getting a little bent out of shape,
And at times even angry at God.
But NEVER let that confuse you into thinking that
Job has somehow lost the faith. He has not.
These verses clearly reveal the heart of Job’s doctrine.
Job believes that even if God should “slay” him,
He is still going to “hope in Him”
In short, “I’m not leaving God”
(18) “I know that I will be vindicated”
Job’s position is clear.
I may not know why God is doing this to me.
I may not feel like I deserve it.
But that doesn’t mean I’m leaving God, I’m not.
I’m sticking with God and I know He’ll vindicate me.
That is Job’s doctrine.
The problem is that Job’s friends have sought to discourage that doctrine every time they have opened their mouth.
Every time they speak, they seek to tell Job that God is not for him,
That God will not rescue him, and that he is in great danger.
No wonder Job says, “Be silent”
You’re discouraging words are not helping.
You would seek to turn me against God.
So you hear Job’s first response.
He tells his friends to open their eyes and close their mouths.
Enough with the deception and enough with the discouragement.
And we’d have to agree that he’s pretty right on there.
But he isn’t finished.
Job still wants to speak with God.
Job’s Two-Fold Response to His Friends
#2 JOB’S TWO-FOLD REQUEST OF GOD
Job 13:20-28
(20-22) “Only two things do not do to me, Then I will not hide from Your face: Remove Your hand from me, And let not the dread of You terrify me. “Then call, and I will answer; Or let me speak, then reply to me.”
Very simply Job says, “I’m only asking for two things”
1) Stop touching me (with wrath)
2) Stop terrifying me (with your words)
“Remove Your hand from me, and let not the dread of You terrify me.”
And the reason Job asks for this is because he is confused.
He doesn’t know what he did to anger God,
And so he doesn’t understand why God won’t let up on him.
(READ 13:23-28)
Do you see his point?
You are pursuing me like I am the worst of criminals.
“You write bitter things against me”
“You put my feet in the stocks”
“[You] watch all my paths”
“You set a limit for the soles of my feet”
God you won’t let up on me,
And You have still yet to tell me why You’re so angry at me.
(23) “How many are my iniquities and sins? Make know to me my rebellion and my sin.”
I don’t know what I did, and yet You continue to pound me.
So my request of you is simple.
STOP
Stop touching Me and Stop Terrifying Me
And again, anyone who has suffered or is suffering
Can most certainly identify with Job’s request here.
How many have suffered and instantly run to God and said, “What did I do?”
And sure, sometimes we find things.
The confusing part comes when we repent of those things
But the circumstances don’t change.
It’s prolonged suffering that really bothers us.
And that is Job.
Either tell me what I did, or just stop.
And here we are probably still ok with Job.
We certainly understand his outburst toward his friends and we even understand his request of God.
But then we come to chapter 14 and Job once again lashes out at God.
(It is chapters like this that will earn Job his rebuke from God a little later)
Job’s Two-Fold Response to His Friends
Job’s Two-Fold Request of God
#3 JOB’S FOUR-FOLD REBUKE OF GOD
Job 14:1-22
There are four bones that Job seems to want to pick with God.
(They may in fact be thoughts you’ve had in the midst of your suffering as well)
What we need to do is look at them
And then gain some genuine perspective.
1) YOU MAKE LIFE TOO DIFFICULT (1-6)
When you read those verses, Job likens himself
To a hired man who has a boss that can’t be pleased.
This boss is continually scrutinizing everything you do
“You also open Your eyes on him and bring him into judgment with Yourself.”
This boss has expectations that can’t be met
“Who can make the clean out of the unclean? No one!”
This boss puts you in situations that cause you to fail
“Since his days are determined, the number of his months is with You; and his limits You have set so that he cannot pass.”
In short, Job tells God that He has made life too difficult.
It’s just too hard.
You expect too much
You watch too close
You punish too quick
It’s just not fair
Job says that God should leave us alone so we can rest.
But look,
• It isn’t God who made life cruel, it is sin.
• It isn’t God who makes man fail, it is sin.
• It isn’t God who steals rest, it is sin.
In fact, God is the author of rest.
Matthew 11:28-30 “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. “Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and YOU WILL FIND REST FOR YOUR SOULS. “For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”
God is the Savior and Redeemer
Who can give you rest in the middle of your hardship
Because He will do the work for you.
Don’t get angry at God because life is so difficult.
2) YOU MAKE LIFE TOO DELICATE (7-12)
Here Job talks about a tree and specifically that
A tree has the ability to regenerate even when cut down.
You can prune a tree way back and yet still, because of its roots,
It has the ability to sprout life again.
But Job says that we as humans aren’t like that.
We are like a dried up river or an evaporated sea.
(10) “But man dies and lies prostrate. Man expires, and where is he?”
(12) “So man lies down and does not rise. Until the heavens are no longer, He will not awake nor be aroused out of his sleep.”
Job is not there denying the resurrection.
In fact he knows it will occur when the heavens are no longer.
Rather Job is saying that unlike a tree
If you cut down a man, this life is over.
Man doesn’t regenerate.
In short, our life is too delicate to be so difficult.
So you afflict us So you harm us
That would be ok if we had the ability to bounce back, but we don’t.
In this life we often bear the scars forever.
I mean consider Job.
• Yes God is going to reward him in the end,
• But the servants that Job lost, they aren’t coming back.
• The children that Job lost, they aren’t coming back.
And that is Job’s point.
This life shouldn’t be so difficult, it’s too delicate for that.
However you should know that this is part of the point of trials.
It is to teach you this very thing.
Trials do a phenomenal job of
Causing you to hope for eternity over the temporal.
2 Corinthians 1:8-11 “For we do not want you to be unaware, brethren, of our affliction which came to us in Asia, that we were burdened excessively, beyond our strength, so that we despaired even of life; indeed, we had the sentence of death within ourselves so that we would not trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead; who delivered us from so great a peril of death, and will deliver us, He on whom we have set our hope. And He will yet deliver us, you also joining in helping us through your prayers, so that thanks may be given by many persons on our behalf for the favor bestowed on us through the prayers of many.”
2 Corinthians 4:16-18 “Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.”
The pains and hardships of this life actually cause us
To long for the life that is to come.
And oddly enough, that life will be like that of a tree:
Isaiah 65:17-23 “For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth; And the former things will not be remembered or come to mind. “But be glad and rejoice forever in what I create; For behold, I create Jerusalem for rejoicing And her people for gladness. “I will also rejoice in Jerusalem and be glad in My people; And there will no longer be heard in her The voice of weeping and the sound of crying. “No longer will there be in it an infant who lives but a few days, Or an old man who does not live out his days; For the youth will die at the age of one hundred And the one who does not reach the age of one hundred Will be thought accursed. “They will build houses and inhabit them; They will also plant vineyards and eat their fruit. “They will not build and another inhabit, They will not plant and another eat; For as the lifetime of a tree, so will be the days of My people, And My chosen ones will wear out the work of their hands. “They will not labor in vain, Or bear children for calamity; For they are the offspring of those blessed by the LORD, And their descendants with them.”
Trust me, it’s a good thing that this life is so delicate.
Who really wants this one to last forever?
But you understand Job’s frustration.
You’ve made life too difficult
You’ve made life too delicate
3) YOU’VE MADE LIFE TOO DREADFUL (13-17)
This is actually kind of humorous because on one hand
Job says this life doesn’t last long enough,
And then in the next breath he says he wishes he could skip it.
“Oh that you would hide me in Sheol…”
Sheol was the place of the dead.
(It encompassed both Hades and Paradise)
Job says this life is so hard and so bad,
I wish You’d just let me die and skip it all.
Namely because Job knew there would be a resurrection to better things.
(14-15) “If a man dies, will he live again? All the days of my struggle I will wait Until my change comes. “You will call, and I will answer You; You will long for the work of Your hands.”
Job wanted to just die now because he knew there would a come a day
When God would call him to rise.
This life is too dreadful, just let me skip it in death.
Because right now God seems to watch me close
And keep His thumb on me.
(16-17) “For now You number my steps, You do not observe my sin. “My transgression is sealed up in a bag, And You wrap up my iniquity.”
Those verses are a little tough to decifer.
The NIV says “for then” sounding as though he is referring to the next life.
I looked up this verse in the Hebrew to try and make a little more sense of it.
It seems that what Job is saying is this:
I want to skip this life and move on to the next because right now You number my steps. Do you not observe my sin? In fact, you seal it up and wrap it up as if to preserve it.
The idea is that this life is too dreadful
And so Job just wants to skip it by going on to death.
It’s true that trials cause us to think on eternity and to set our hope there.
But there is a necessary tension here as well.
While we long for heaven we are also called to rejoice in today.
Psalms 118:24 “This is the day which the LORD has made; Let us rejoice and be glad in it.”
Philippians 4:4 “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice!”
Furthermore, we are called to be thankful.
1 Thessalonians 5:18 “in everything give thanks; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”
See, the hardship of today is for the betterment of eternity.
If you want a truly glorious eternity,
Then thank God for the hardships of today
For God is using them to make your eternity perfect.
But again, if you’ve ever suffered, you understand Job’s complaint.
You’ve made life too difficult
You’ve made life to delicate
You’ve made life to dreadful
4) YOU’VE MADE LIFE TOO DISCOURAGING (18-22)
Here Job actually says God destroys “man’s hope”
That is to say, You just beat us down and beat us down
Until we give up and no longer even hope things will get better.
• We lose hope of the day ever getting better.
• We lose hope of ever seeing our children prosper.
• We lose hope of ever feeling better.
You just put man in this difficult, delicate, dreadful life and then squeeze on him until he gives up any and all hope of things ever getting better.
A little pessimistic wouldn’t you say?
And people legitimately feel this way when they suffer,
Especially when their suffering lingers.
But again let me remind you of what is true.
God doesn’t steal your hope, God is the source of hope.
Jeremiah 29:11 “For I know the plans that I have for you,’ declares the LORD, ‘plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope.”
Romans 8:28 “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.”
Job is frustrated because he doesn’t know why he is suffering.
But don’t let your confusion or your friend’s counsel
Cause you to misunderstand the goodness of God in your pain.
DON’T LET YOUR TRIALS TURN YOU BITTER.
Tonight we’re going to close by singing one of my all-time favorite hymns.
“How Firm a Foundation”
It is a song that reminds us that God is for us
Even when life seems like it is spiraling out of control.
“How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord, is laid for your faith in His excellent Word! What more can He say than to you He hath said, to you who for refuge to Jesus have fled?”
“Fear not, I am with thee; O be not dismayed, For I am thy God, and will still give the aid, I’ll strengthen the, help thee, and cause thee to stand, upheld by My righteous omnipotent hand.”
“When through fiery trials they pathway shall lie, My grace, all sufficient, shall be thy supply; the flame shall not hurt thee, I only design they dross to consume, and thy gold to refine.”
“The soul that on Jesus hath leaned for repose I will not, I will not desert to his foes; that soul, though all hell should endeaver to shake, I’ll never, no, never, no, never forsake!”
