Job 31:35-37, 38:1-7, 40:1-8, 42:1-6
It is not easy to preach from the book of Job. The book is an account of the reactions of Job and his friends to Job's deep suffering. Job's words come straight from his heart as the cry of a man who does not understand why he is called to face the suffering which has come his way. One hardly dares to comment on what Job says for few of us have suffered as he suffered. To comment coldly on his words and to pick out what is good from what is foolish can only be seen as a failing in our concern for Job and his suffering. This was the problem with Job's three friends. They were quite ready to analyse Job's complaint and to pass judgment upon it, but they failed entirely to understand the man and his plight. One is tempted almost to feel that one has no right to comment upon this book unless one has suffered as Job suffered.
Yet we have to remember that this story is recorded for us here in Scripture precisely that we might learn from it. "All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work." (2 Timothy 3:16,17). This verse is as applicable to the book of Job as it is applicable to any other passage of Scripture. We need to learn from this book, though we need to learn with sensitivity.
Let me remind you briefly of the story of Job before we look more carefully together at the closing chapters. Job lived a very long time ago; he was perhaps a contemporary of Abraham. He was a man who worshipped, loved and feared God and who had sought always to live to please God. He had been blessed by God with great wealth, and he sought to be generous with all that he owned using his riches to help others in need.
One day Satan spoke with God about Job. Satan believed that Job feared and served God only because he did rather well out of it. If God stopped blessing Job, if God took away all his riches, Job would soon stop serving God. God was determined to show Satan that this was a lie. God permitted Satan to do whatever he liked to Job, provided Job's life were spared. Soon Job's life is shaken by a series of disasters: first he loses all of his riches, then he loses all his children, and last of all he loses his health, being covered from head to foot with terrible sores. Job's wife urges him to 'curse God and die' (Job 2:9), but Job is content to trust God in the midst of his pain.
Job does not understand why any of this is happening to him. We are told about Satan's conversations with God and of God giving permission for Job to suffer, but Job knows nothing of all of this: he is perplexed. Job's situation is not helped by his three friends, Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar who visit him and argue with him as they try to reason with him concerning the cause of his suffering. They feel sure that God must be disciplining Job for some reason and they urge him to search his heart to discover what he has done to call down such discipline.
Job becomes more and more distressed with the accusations of his friends. At last he cries out, "Oh, that I had someone to hear me! I sign now my defence, let the Almighty answer me; let my accuser put his indictment in writing. Surely I would wear it on my shoulder, I would put it on like a crown. i would give him an account of my every step; like a prince I would approach him." Job 31:35-37. Job's argument is this: he wants God to appear so that his argument with his friends can be settled. Job is so confident of his own rightness that he wants to march into God's presence like a prince, not armed with the accusations of others but crowned with them, confident that God will uphold his case.
After a few more chapters in which a fourth friend, Elihu, gives his opinion on Job's suffering and his argument with his friends, God appears. In Job 38 we read, "Then the Lord answered Job out of the storm. He said: "Who is this that darkens my counsel with words without knowledge? Brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you will answer me. Where were you when I laid the earth's foundation? Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it? On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone – while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy?" (Job 38:1-7). The Lord then continues to ask Job questions – see especially 40:1-8.
What is God doing in these verses? On the one hand, God has not come to explain himself to Job; he has not come to explain the reason for Job's suffering nor to vindicate Job before his friends. On the other hand, God has not come to rebuke Job; he has come to speak with him. God has come to remind Job of who he is, that he is God and that Job is a man.
God speaks of the wonders of creation. He encourages Job to look at the world round about him with all its variety. Whose wisdom designed all of this? Whose hand made it all? Who is it who now cares for all of this? What is God doing? Is he just trying to make Job feel small and insignificant? Not at all. God is seeking to encourage Job to learn a lesson from the created order. Job feels that he has been forgotten by God. God reminds him of his intimate care of all that he has made. If he is the God who takes a delight in the mountain goat the deer and the hawk, etc., then Job ought to know that God cares for him. It is the same lesson that Jesus teaches in Matthew 6 when he urges us to learn from the birds of the air and the flowers of the field. God cares for them and, "Are you not much more valuable than they?" (Matt.6:26).
Through this encounter Job has been reminded that God is the sovereign of the universe and that he cares for all that he has made. More than that, Job has been reminded of the fact that he is a child of God, one who can stand in the presence of the Almighty and not be consumed. Job's questions remain unanswered, but Job has learned that he is not abandoned. He has the assurance that God cares for him and will care for him. The sovereign of all the earth is his Father. He may not understand the suffering that has come his way but he can rest content in the knowledge of God's care for him.
Now how does Job respond to God's revelation of himself? This is the point of our study this evening, for in a real sense Job's response is a prayer – he is speaking with God. Listen to his words in 42:1-6. "Then Job replied to the Lord: 'I know that you can do all things; no plan of yours can be thwarted. You asked, "Who is this that obscures my counsel without knowledge?" Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know. You said, "Listen now, and I will speak; I will question you, and you shall answer me." My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you. Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.'"
Job has gained a new and deeper appreciation of the character of God, his sovereign majesty and wisdom. To him it is as if he never really knew God before. Job's response to God's revelation of himself is one of humble worship. He is able now to trust God even in suffering with a confidence in God's care which robs him of any need to complain.
A W Tozer spoke of worship as the 'missing jewel of the Evangelical church'. We have forgotten who God is. We have small views of him. All too often we are like Job and his friends before God appeared: full of ourselves, of our arguments and our complaints but lacking in a spirit of humble worship. It might almost be questioned whether we truly know God.
We need to be reminded of who God is. We also need to look around us at the wonders of creation, the immensity and variety of the world. Who is it who has made all of this? By whose wisdom has it been fashioned? All of the scientific endeavours of humankind have not uncovered all of the secrets of the universe. On the contrary, the more we learn the more we discover which we cannot comprehend. And think of God's infinite care for the world which he has made: despite the vastness of the universe he knows the number of hairs on my head and knows when a single sparrow falls to the ground. He is God.
Have we neglected worship because we have mistaken a superficial intimacy for knowledge of God? God has revealed himself supremely in Christ. We read of Jesus in the Gospels and we see someone like ourselves to whom we can respond, whom we can know. But if that is all that we have seen, then can we even claim to know Christ? Worship is the inevitable response to a sight of God's glory. Think of Moses on Mount Sinai. Think of Job here in the presence of God. Think of Isaiah when he saw the Lord. Is this Old Testament religion? Then think of the reaction of the disciples on the Mount of Transfiguration when, for the first time, they saw something of the glory of the Lord. Think of how Thomas reacted when he understood at last something of the person and glory of Christ. Think of how Paul reacted on the Damascus road when he saw the Lord. Think of John, the disciple whom Jesus loved, and how he reacted when on Patmos he saw the risen Saviour. Think of how the sinless saints in glory behave in the presence of God and of the Lamb. To know God is to worship him.
A true knowledge of God in the Lord Jesus Christ will promote a spirit of worship. To know God is to know him as Sovereign of all the earth, a God of awesome majesty and holiness. And yet it is to know that he enables us to stand in his presence and to commune with him because we are found in Christ. It is this which promotes worship, that we can stand in the presence of the infinite.
And how will such knowledge of God and worship of him affect our lives? It will affect the way in which we speak about God. The speculative theological arguments between Job and his three friends betrayed a lack of knowledge of God. The three friends felt that they could speak confidently about why God had sent suffering. They spoke as if nothing was hidden from them. All too often today we meet people who speak as if they have inside information on the purposes of God, quite beyond what God has revealed in Scripture – and sometimes even contrary to it. They tell us with confidence that God would not do this; that God does not want that. There are many today who would seem to speak confidently of God's purpose in this suffering or that. They can tell you the reason for famine in Africa or of war in the Middle East. We are liable to show ourselves up as fools when we pretend to a wisdom which we do not possess. "God is in heaven and you are on earth, so let your words be few." (Ecclesiastes 5:2).
Secondly, a spirit of worship should affect the way in which we speak to God. Before God appeared Job had been so upset by his friends that he was eager to put his complaint before God. But when God appeared and Job learned something of the majesty of his heavenly Father his complaint is silenced (see 40:1-5). Do we not have to admit that all too often we are eager to present our complaints to God? We want to know from God why he has treated us in this way or in that; or we want God to vindicate our cause in our argument with others. Such self-centred feelings are inconsistent with a spirit of worship.
Worship needs to have a prominent place in our prayer lives. We need to think more about the character of our God. We need to worship him as God, as our Father in heaven whose name is to be hallowed. Worship puts things into perspective for it puts God into perspective. Without worship we have a distorted view of our relationship with God. Worship puts us into perspective and it puts our complaints into perspective. Worship should play a large part in our prayer life day by day now for it is this and this alone which will occupy us in eternity.
Peter Misselbrook