Peter Misselbrook's Blog
Jun 11 2019 - Job 19 – Job's torment and hope

Yesterday we looked at the speech of Eliphaz, the first of Job's "comforters",  recorded in Job 4-5. Job's reply is then in chapters 6-7, prompting Job's second friend, Bildad, to have a go at putting Job right in chapter 8. Job then replies to Bildad in chapters 9-10 to be followed by Job's third friend, Zophar, counselling Job in chapter 11. Job's answer to Zophar in chapters 12-14 triggers a second round of debate. Eliphaz speaks in chapter 15, Job replies in chapters 16-17, Bildad returns in chapter 18 before we read Job's reply here in chapter 19.

These rounds of debate between Job and his friends do not seem to be providing any resolution to the question of why Job is suffering, nor are they bringing any comfort to poor Job. Unsurprisingly Job complains, "How long will you torment me and crush me with words?" (19:2).

Job argues that if his suffering is the result of some sin, that is between him and God and it is not to be turned into a matter of investigation and debate by his "friends " (v. 4). Job knows that God has, in some sense, sent all these troubles upon him – it is as if God has thrown a net around him and trapped him in it – but he does not know the reason why (v. 6). Perhaps the greatest pain for Job is that he feels that God is totally unresponsive to his cries for help (v. 7). He feels trapped and humiliated in his suffering and totally without any real friends. It's as if God were treating him as an enemy rather than as one who had loved God and delighted in serving him (vv. 11-12).

Job's description in verses 13-20 of the way in which his remaining family, former friends, and even his servants now avoid him is pitiable. In his sickness he has become a living skeleton; he has only escaped death "by the skin of [his] teeth" (v. 20).

Job has expressed the pain he feels because his cries to God for help go unanswered. But even in his distress, he has not given up hope – hope in God. He longs that his words might be recorded indelibly so that they will stand as a plea before God (vv. 23-24). This leads to Job's remarkable affirmation of faith in verses 25-27:

I know that my redeemer lives,
    and that in the end he will stand on the earth.
And after my skin has been destroyed,
    yet in my flesh I will see God;
I myself will see him
    with my own eyes – I, and not another.
    How my heart yearns within me!

Job cannot understand why such suffering has been visited upon him, but he remains confident in his knowledge of God rooted in his lifelong determination to live a life pleasing to God. He is confident that the day will come when God will rescue and vindicate him. He knows that he will see God; he will stand in God's presence and discover that God is his defender and redeemer whether that be in this present life or when his body is laid in the grave. He knows God will not abandon him.

We have more reason for such certainty than Job. Jesus Christ, God's Son, came into this world to be our redeemer. His resurrection has destroyed the power of sin and death to separate us from God. We can be confident that Jesus our Redeemer lives for us and that through his redeeming work we also will at last see God. We may face death, but we will also share in his resurrection life and in his eternal kingdom and glory. Job warns his friends that they too will face the judgment of God (v.29). But we know that all who trust in Christ need no longer fear the judgment of God.

Father God, thank you for our great Redeemer. May we trust him in life and in death and be used to lead our friends to trust also in him.

6go6ckt5b8|00005AC6389D|Blog|Body|AB534FCB-C099-4147-A012-AEF76191C07C

Jun 11 2020 - Romans 8:9-25 – A groaning creation

There is so much in our world that is beautiful and good and that prompts our praise of God who created it all. But there is also much in our world that is twisted and ugly; much that is destructive and the source of terrible pain; much that is not as it should be and not as it was designed to be; much that cries out to be put right.

In a rather neglected section in the middle of Romans 8, Paul speaks about the way in which our creation has been made subject to vanity and frustration. Creation itself is groaning and is in pain and is longing for the day when it will be liberated from frustration and decay.

Those who have come to trust in the risen Saviour have already begun to experience something of the life of the new creation. Through the Spirit at work within us and among us, we have been given a foretaste of the life of the age to come. We long for the day when that new creation will be complete, for the day of resurrection when we will be made perfectly like the risen Lord Jesus.

And this hope is not self-centred and individualistic; it embraces the whole of creation. Christians, of all people, ought to feel most keenly the pain of our fractured world. We feel the pain of its injustice, brokenness, decay and death. We feel that pain with a real sympathy as those who suffer along with a suffering creation. Above all, we know that Jesus experienced the reality of a broken creation and gave ultimate expression to its pain in his cry of dereliction, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” God does not stand far off and silent in the face of his broken and suffering world. In Jesus he has come to us and has tasted its brokenness and pain. Creation’s suffering has broken the heart of God.

But there is more than sympathy. Jesus’ death is not God’s final word. We hope for a new creation with a hope that is not wishful thinking but which is guaranteed by Jesus’ resurrection from the dead. We know that there is a day coming when our world will be transformed; a day when there will be no more injustice, pain or death and when God himself will wipe away the tear from every eye. Can you imagine the beauty and wonder of that new creation?

In this meantime, we groan along with a groaning creation. But just as God has not abandoned his world, neither do we look to escape from earth to heaven. Rather, we give ourselves to pray for the transformation of our world, prayer prompted by the Spirit who also groans within us. And we give ourselves to work for the transformation of our world even as we seek to grow personally in likeness to Christ. Future hope shapes present action.

John Stott argued that the preacher needs always to have the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other. The message of Scripture is not abstract theology; it speaks into and addresses the world we live in day-by-day. Its message is both one of judgment and of hope, of a world that must pass away and of a world that must be made new.

Creator God, thank you that your heart beats with love for the world that you have made and that your heart is broken by its brokenness. By your Spirit make my heart beat with your heart. Make me sensitive to the tragedy and pain of a broken world that I may weep with those who weep and mourn with those who mourn. Fill me with holy anger and impatience at the injustice of this world and the evil that is done by many. Set me praying and working for a world made new. Help me to bring the hope of resurrection and of new creation to those living in despair.

6go6ckt5b8|00005AC6389D|Blog|Body|39743CCF-9759-49EC-A6E8-3C127C04ACAA

Peter Misselbrook