Job's suffering
Job 1

Introduction

So we’re looking at the book of Job for the rest of this term. And the book of Job deals with what is arguably the most important issue to modern people. And that is … the issue of innocent suffering. Now you may not have heard of him … but Alex O’Connor is one of the more famous neoatheists today. He’s only 25 years old … but he is in my opinion the most formidable opponent to Christianity today. The reason being … he’s just spent the last 4 years of his life studying theology full time. He’s just spent the last 4 years … knowing his enemy. And Alex O’Connor puts forward 3 reasons why he is an atheist … the third being this … quote:

‘The existence of meaningless or unnecessary suffering does seem to be incompatible with the existence of a God who loves us and has the power to prevent it from happening.’

But here’s the thing. It’s not just atheists who struggle with the issue of suffering. Even committed Christians struggle with it. ‘Why is God allowing ME … one of his beloved children … to suffer like this?’ Now thankfully God KNOWS we Christians struggle with this issue. So he put a whole book in his Scriptures … dedicated to dealing with the issue of suffering.

And the BEAUTY of the book of Job is it deals with this most important of issues using a story. You see the NT tends to explain things rationally. It’s because most of the NT is letters. The problem is … we humans are not primarily rational creatures. Like I said a week or so ago … we’re not won over by logical arguments … like ‘don’t you know that smoking causes heart disease’. We’re won over by what benefits us … like ‘you’ve just had a heart attack … so it’s time to give up the smokes’. We are more emotionally driven than logically driven. And this is the real beauty of the OT. The OT doesn’t EXPLAIN God’s word … it depicts it. The OT illustrates God’s word for us in stories. And that’s what the book of Job is. It’s a STORY about innocent suffering.

And what we’re going to be doing over the next 6 weeks … is looking at the two big questions regarding suffering. And they are (i) why do bad things happen to good people, and (ii) how to handle those bad things when they come. And we’re going to need the whole 6 weeks for this … due to the richness of the book of Job. This book has way more to say about the topic of suffering than can be conveyed in 1 or 2 sermons. So I pray you can join us each week … as we look at how to handle suffering.

Today we’re just scratching the surface of suffering … looking at this little wager Satan has with God. Now on the surface … this chapter makes God out to look a little callous. He LOOKS like a cat that’s caught a mouse … and is just toying with the mouse for some amusement before finally devouring it. But if we are willing to go beneath the surface of this little wager … we find the ISSUE God is dealing with here is THE most important issue to Christians. And believe it or not … it’s Satan who brings this issue up. Now as we’re going to see … God USES Satan to bring about God’s good purposes … in the way only God can. But Satan and God are actually in agreement about this issue. And that fact ALONE … makes this passage worth studying.

So I’ve got 3 points today to try and unpack this incredible issue surrounding suffering … as your sermon outline shows. We’re going to begin by unpacking this little wager God agrees to with Satan … which I’ve titled (i) Satan’s Challenge … v. 1-11. We then see how this little wager actually fulfils God’s purposes for Job … which I’ve titled (ii) God’s Test … v. 12-19. We’ll then conclude with our application … which looks at (iii) Job’s response … v. 20-22. So let’s dive in … and see how we can best handle suffering when it comes knocking.

Satan’s challenge (v. 1-11)

And the book of Job begins by introducing Job to us. And there are 3 things worth pointing out in these opening verses:

The FIRST is that Job is described as ‘blameless and upright’. Now blameless does NOT mean sinless. It means to have a right relationship with God. What that looks like is … WHEN Job sinned … he repented and offered sacrifices for his sin. In fact Job was SO upright that he offered sacrifices for his children JUST IN CASE they sinned at one point or another.

This leads us to the second thing we learn about Job … which is he’s not an Israelite. We don’t actually KNOW where the land of UZ is … but it was EAST of Palestine … probably modern-day Iran or Iraq. But the REASON we know Job isn’t an Israelite is because JOB offered his own sacrifices. In ancient Israel … only the priests could offer sacrifices. So Job probably lived BEFORE the time of Israel … around the time of the Patriarchs; Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

The THIRD thing worth mentioning is that Job was exceedingly rich:

Job 1:3 (NIV) and he owned seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen and five hundred donkeys, and had a large number of servants. He was the greatest man among all the people of the East.

And it’s Job’s riches that lead Satan to challenge God about Job. We read:

Job 1:6 (NIV) One day the angels came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan s also came with them.

Now this raises some pretty big questions … like is Satan just strolling into heaven here … like one of God’s angels? And the answer is ‘probably not’. We can’t know for certain … but given God is omnipresent … i.e. he fills ALL of existence … Satan doesn’t have to be in heaven to ‘present’ himself before the Lord. He can do that from wherever. Yet on this occasion … God asks Satan a question:

Job 1:8 (NIV) … “Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil.”

This then prompts Satan to ask the most important question that can be asked of a Christian. 6 words:

Job 1:9 (NIV) “Does Job fear God for nothing?”

Now we have to give the Devil his due here. He’s put his finger on what is probably the most important question for believers; ‘Am I a servant of the Lord … or a servant of myself?’ And we can’t overemphasise the importance of this question. Does Job pray to God … and sacrifice to God … and obey God … BECAUSE … as Satan said … God has:

Job 1:10 (NIV) … put a hedge around him and his household and everything he has? You have blessed the work of his hands, so that his flocks and herds are spread throughout the land

Understand this … IF Job only serves God to get health, wealth and prosperity … then he’s not really a servant of the Lord. He’s a gold digger. It’s like a young man who starts dating a young woman. But then after a few dates he finds out this young woman ISN’T going to sleep with him … because she’s saving herself for marriage. So he breaks up with her. That shows he wasn’t really interested in the woman. He was just interested in the sex he could get out of her. And this is the big problem with the prosperity gospel. It doesn’t produce servants. It produces gold diggers … who are only interested in God because of what they can get OUT of Him. And that’s what Satan is challenging God with. Is Job REALLY your servant? Or is he a gold-digger?

And so here’s the million-dollar question. How do you TELL … if a person is serving God for God alone … or serving God for what they can get out of Him? The answer is … you need to put them in a situation … a condition … where serving God gives them nothing. You need to take away whatever it is they value … and see if they still love God. In fact to be REALLY sure … you need to put them in a situation … a condition … where serving God is what LEADS to bad things happening to them. And that’s Satan’s challenge:

Job 1:11 (NIV) … “But now stretch out your hand and strike everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face.”

Now do you SEE what is at stake here? What is at stake … is the most important thing in existence: the glory of God. The reason God created the universe … was to share his glory. The meaning of life … the chief end of man … is to declare God’s glory … and enjoy it. And what Satan is challenging God with here … is whether HIS followers … of whom Job is the greatest … think GOD is the most glorious thing in existence … or are simply USING God to get the things they REALLY think are glorious … like sex, money or power. Is Job a gold-digger?

God’s test (v. 12-19)

What is just as incredible … is God goes along with this. He allows Satan to carry out his challenge … to test whether Satan is right or not. He allows Satan to destroy everything Job has. And Satan wastes no time. In v. 12-19 Satan takes away ALL of Job’s wealth … all of his servants … except the 4 messengers who bring him the bad news … as well as all of his children. And there are 2 important lessons we learn from this episode:

The first is that God is not the author of evil. It is not God who stretches out his hand to destroy Job’s life unnecessarily. It’s Satan. OK … anyone who says God is the author of evil … didn’t get that from the Bible. This challenge is Satan’s idea … not God’s.

The SECOND is that evil is not out of God’s control. He says to Satan ‘you can go THIS far … and no more’. So while we live in a very wicked world … we should never fret that the bad things that happen in this world are out of God’s control. Rather it is GOD who stops things from being as bad as they can get. God is in control.

But this begs the question; WHY would God allow Satan to attack this blameless and upright follower? The reason is … God is using Satan’s evil challenge to bring about GOOD. And this is one of the amazing things about God. While God ALLOWS Satan to carry out his evil plans in this world … God only ever gives Satan enough rope to hang himself. And that’s what he does here. Satan wants to pour out suffering into Job’s life … to snuff out any hint of servanthood in him. God ALLOWS Satan to pour out that suffering … to accomplish the exact opposite; to make Job one of the greatest servants who ever lived. And we KNOW Job is one of the greatest servants who ever lived because we’re sitting here today … some 6,000 miles and 5,000 years away … still talking about him.

And this is the whole point of God’s test for Job here. The question God is asking is … ‘is Job a fragile person … a vulnerable person … who will be overwhelmed when suffering comes? Or is Job a strong person … a resilient person … whom the storm cannot crush … because he’s built his house upon the rock?’ You see IF Job was only serving God for the STUFF God was giving him … like health, wealth and prosperity … then he’s built his house upon the sand. Everything in this world will one day pass away. And God doesn’t want his followers building their lives on such shaky ground. And so He ALLOWS Satan to bring suffering into our lives at times … to SHAKE our foundations … and test whether we’re a servant … or a spiritual gold-digger.

And here’s the thing about God’s tests. 9 times out of 10 … God won’t tell us why he’s doing it. Now sometimes people might be blessed enough to SEE why God is testing them with suffering. But generally he keeps us in the dark. And he keeps us in the dark because IF we were to know the why of suffering … then we can’t pass the test. OK … the whole point of God’s tests is to see if we will serve Him EVEN when it looks like suicide to do so. Telling us the WHY of his tests … takes that ability away. Having the answers to a test before you take the test makes the tests moot … does it not? This is why Job goes through this whole ordeal without ever being told the why. When God shows up at the end … he doesn’t give Job answers. But this is what turns Job into one of the greatest servants who ever lived … who has changed the lives of millions of people down through the ages.

And so while we may be tempted to cry out ‘WHY Lord?’ … I mean Job certainly does throughout the book … we need to understand that God may NEVER give us the specifics. We KNOW that ONE of the reasons for suffering is so God can produce the exact opposite of what Satan wants. Satan wants to extinguish any notion of servanthood in God’s people. God on the other hand wants to strengthen our servanthood. But in order to make us into a great servant like Job … God CANNOT give the ‘why’.

Job’s response (v. 20-22)

So … we know what Satan is doing … he’s questioning whether Job will serve God for God’s glory alone. And we know what God is doing … he’s strengthening Job’s servanthood rather than crushing it. The only question left to ask is … how does Job respond to this suffering? Because suffering WILL come knocking for you and me. Death and taxes are not the ONLY certainties in life. If you live long enough … you WILL encounter health issues … wealth issues … relationship issues … etc. So what do we do? Well according to Job chapter 1 … Job does the right thing:

Job 1:20-22 (NIV) At this, Job got up and tore his robe and shaved his head. Then he fell to the ground in worship 21 and said: “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will depart. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised.” 22 In all this, Job did not sin by charging God with wrongdoing.

So there are 2 things I want to point out about what Job does here. The FIRST is … Job is not stoic about his suffering. He doesn’t show a stiff upper lip … and just endure it like nothing is wrong. He tears his clothes and shaves his head … which was an ancient form of mourning. Job is deeply distraught by his suffering. So when bad things happen to us … we’re ALLOWED to get sad or angry. Job did not sin in his grief.

The SECOND thing I want to point out is that IN his distress … Job doesn’t put God in the witness box. He doesn’t charge God with wrongdoing and demand that God answer for that charge. I believe it was C. S. Lewis who said that ancient people approached God like an accused criminal approaches the judge. Ancient people KNEW they didn’t deserve blessing … and simply begged God for mercy. Modern people on the other hand think WE’RE the judge … and that God has to give us a reasonable explanation for what he’s doing. OK … Alex O’Connor … the neoatheist I mentioned at the start … says ‘I’ll only believe in you God … if you can give me a reasonable explanation for innocent suffering’. The Bible says ‘you may NEVER get an explanation for suffering’. OK … the Bible allows God to be God … and ALSO allows the mystery to remain. We created beings … finite beings … CANNOT fit it all together. There is a mystery to suffering in this world.

Our response … is to TRUST God in this. That’s our take-home for today. We are to trust God. We are to accept the mystery of suffering WITHOUT putting God in the witness box. And the beauty of this response is it NOT only shows God the proper respect … as our creator … it’s also incredibly liberating for US. You see IF we put God in the witness box … there are only 1 of 2 outcomes. Either we end up hating God … or we end up hating ourselves. And we see BOTH these responses in the book of Job:

The first is from Job’s wife … who says ‘curse God and die’ … Job 2:9. Have you ever wondered why Satan doesn’t kill Job’s wife? There’s a Christian comedian called Tim Hawkins … who says Job’s wife must have been a real piece of work. Like one of Satan’s demons is saying ‘look Satan … there’s Job’s wife. Let’s kill her’. And Satan says ‘ha ha ha. No … no. Leave her alone. Trust me … I know what I’m going’. And he’s kind of right. What Job’s wife is saying is God has not given a reasonable enough explanation for this suffering. So God must be unjust.

The SECOND response from putting God in the witness box comes from Job’s friends. As we’re going to see over the coming weeks … Job’s friends say ‘YOU’RE the problem Job. The reason this suffering has come into your life is because YOU’VE sinned in some way’.

The ONLY 2 outcomes from putting God in the witness box is we end up either (i) hating God, or (ii) hating ourselves. We hate God because we think we know better than God … which is self-righteousness. Or we hate ourselves because we think I should have done better … to make God my debtor rather than my jailor … which is ALSO self-righteousness. Both options lead to a life devoid of love and joy.

And this is what we SEE in the book of Job. As well as Job’s handles suffering in chapter 1 … he doesn’t stay there. He goes on in the middle chapters to charge God with some serious crimes. Now this should be comforting to you and me … because if the book of Job ended at chapter 1:22 … it would lead to despair. None of US have handled suffering like Job did in this chapter. But here’s the thing. WHEN God shows up at the end of the book … Job repents. In Job 42 he says:

Job 42:3 (NIV) I spoke of things I did not understand

Job 42:6 (NIV) Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes

And God forgives him. He forgives Job for putting God in the witness box regarding his suffering. And do you know WHY God can do that? It’s because centuries later … another man cried out ‘why’ to God … while hanging on a cross. Now unlike Job … Jesus is the ONLY truly innocent sufferer. And the reason Jesus suffered … was to end ALL suffering … without ending you and me. The cross is God saying ‘IF I could just snap my fingers … and get rid of all suffering without getting rid of YOU, don’t you think I would have done so?’ The cross is God putting HIMSELF in the witness box … and declaring himself guilty … so that you and I don’t have to be put in the witness box about our sin.

Conclusion

And that’s HOW we can trust God with our suffering. OK … the take-home for today is to trust God. When suffering comes … allow God to be God … WHILE allowing the mystery of suffering to remain in this life. That trust comes much easier … when we see a God who was willing to put his only beloved Son in the MIDDLE of suffering … infinite suffering … he that he can end all suffering without putting us in the witness box for our sin. So WHEN suffering comes our way … may we respond like Job in chapter 1. Grieve over your suffering … by all means. But don’t let that grief turn into despair. May we trust that God will use this time of suffering to transform us into even better servants … servants who can say:

Job 1:21 (NIV) The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised