The View from the Caildron (4)

Job 4, 5, 15, 22

We have all kinds of expressions: “push your luck,” down on your luck,” “luck out,” try one’s luck,” “out of luck,” lucky in love.”  There’s no such thing as “luck,” good or bad.  Luck is not part of the Christian’s vocabulary because it’s like the unicorn.  ( Rom. 8:28. the book of Job.)   These things didn’t happen to Job because he was “unlucky,’ they happened to him because God allowed them in his life. 

Let’s do some detective work about the three friends who come to help Job while he’s in the cauldron.  They come to see him as good friends should and do.  Give them credit for that.  Have you ever seen someone who’s deteriorating and you haven’t seen them in a while?  You’re stunned when you see them.  Same thing with these friends.  They’re so awestruck by his condition, how bad he looks and what’s happened to him that they don’t get down to any discussion for seven days, the normal period for mourning. 

When they do, look at what they say.  Job 15: “Then Eliphaz the Temanite replied:

 But you even undermine piety
       and hinder devotion to God.

 ⁵ Your sin prompts your mouth;
       you adopt the tongue of the crafty.

 ⁶ Your own mouth condemns you, not mine;
       your own lips testify against you.”

Let’s investigate another of his friends: Then Bildad the Shuhite replied:

 ² "How long will you say such things?
       Your words are a blustering wind.

 ³ Does God pervert justice?
       Does the Almighty pervert what is right?

 ⁴ When your children sinned against him,
       he gave them over to the penalty of their sin.

 From our investigation, we see that his friends are saying, “You’re suffering for sin in your life.  Not true.  God has said this about all of Job’s suffering, “. . . though you (Satan) incited Me (God) against him to ruin him without any reason."  There’s nothing that Job has done which would prompt this. 

When Christians suffer or face problems, stupid people like Job’s friends come into their lives.   These three friends and the remarks they make are not only stupid, but cruel, and nobody can be as cruel as a Christian in the remarks he makes.  You haven’t had somebody be properly cruel to you until a Christian has done it. 

Stupid/Cruel Remark #1:  “You’re suffering because you have unconfessed sin in your life.”  This was and is a popular idea, thousands of years old; even the disciples believed we see in John 9:1: “As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. ²His disciples asked him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?"  They aren’t asking if the man committed some pre-natal sin.  They didn’t know for sure that the man was born blind.  They ask if the man sinned or perhaps his parents sinned in some way that he was born blind.  Jesus says it was neither: “"Neither this man nor his parents sinned," said Jesus, "but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life.”

The man wasn’t unlucky.  He was blind for a purpose that neither he nor his parents knew about. 

We can’t say that all physical problems are the result of sin directly.  Some are (I Cor. 11)

Stupid/Cruel Remark #2: “You’re suffering because you don’t have enough faith.”  The Bible shows us that God sometimes doesn’t heal a person despite great faith and intense prayer.  Cf. Paul’s 3 time prayer.  Three times Paul prayed for the removal of a “thorn in the flesh,” but God didn’t remove it.  There’s no hint that his faith was deficient in any way.  God can have a higher purpose for your problem, a purpose, like Job, like the man born blind. 

The Bible records the fact that Jesus healed people who had no faith because some didn’t even know who He was at the time.  In John 9, the man born blind doesn’t know that the Person who healed him is the Christ, the Son of Man: “Jesus heard that they had thrown him [the former blind man] out, and when he found him, he said, "Do you believe in the Son of Man?"  

“Who is he, sir?" the man asked. "Tell me so that I may believe in him." Jesus said, "You have now seen him; in fact, he is the one speaking with you." Then the man said, "Lord, I believe," and he worshiped him.” He didn’t know who Jesus was until after the miracle.

 Please, if I have to beg you, I’ll beg you, but don’t tell someone that if they just had enough faith they could be healed.  To do that is not only wrong, it’s cruel.  To say that to sick person is to put them into despair and defeat because you’re telling them that something is wrong with them. 

God is not a free health care insurance policy.

What should these three friends have said to Job? 

     1.  They should have reminded him that being a believer doesn’t give us a pass from suffering.  There is no promise that you won’t have problems.  There are statements that you will: “Think it not strange when fiery trials shall come upon you.”  “In this life you will have tribulation.” 

Faith never prevents problems. 

     2.  They should have told him that suffering can be a mystery which lingers all our lives.  Job’s did, since God never told him about the battle we know of from Job 1-2.  Living with a mystery entails walking by faith.

     3. They should have told him that, no matter what the problems are, that he was to trust God for who He is, not what He does.  It’s a tragedy that so much preaching today encourages people to come to Christ for bonuses they’re told they can get.  Saved marriages, renewed health, and robust bank accounts.  But these aren’t promised to those who come to Christ.  The one thing that is promised is everlasting life, not temporal health.  God is not a health care policy. 

At the end of the story, God intervenes, and we think, at last, at long, long last, Job is going to know the REST of the Story.   But God doesn’t intervene to tell Job why, but to show Job who He is.  (Job 38-41)  This was to assure Job that things were under His control and part of that control was that He knew the answers, when Job didn’t and never would in this life. 

He wanted Job to learn that it’s better to know God than to know the answers.  Job didn’t need to know why, he needed to trust the God who knew why.   He needed to know that God loved him and was with him in the suffering.  Job needed to know that God was enough even when he’d lost everything. 

This is hard.  Problems can either strengthen your faith or shatter it.  It will either cause you to run to God or flee from Him and quit.

The question often comes: is my suffering from Satan or from the fact that things or normally falling apart, or from God’s discipline because of my sin?  Does it make any difference if you know?  It doesn’t matter from what source it comes, the issue is, are you going to be faithful and trust Him.  That way, even if it is discipline, you’ve learned what you’re to learn. 

Truth to Take Home:

The arms that are open to you in your suffering are nail-scarred.