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What does it mean to be a Christian? Today, teenagers hear many answers to this question. But are they the right answers? Gather with hundreds of Christians ages 12 to 18 on September 19th for Always Ready, a youth conference with Ligonier Ministries. Together we'll explore who God is, why we can trust the Bible, and how the gospel of Jesus Christ shapes our whole lives. Register today@ligonier.org always ReadySanford.
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We can understand, can't we, why ungodly people suffer? At least we want to think that way. The problem of the book of Job is here's a godly man, in fact, the godliest man perhaps on the face of the earth at the time, and he experiences this trauma, this enormous, enormous suffering.
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Since God is sovereign over all things, why does he still allow his people to suffer? Hello and welcome to Renewing youg Mind. I'm Dave Terrio, and I'm glad you've joined us. This week, Dr. Derek Thomas will help us explore the life of Job, a godly man who experienced suffering. And stay with us until the end of today's episode to learn how you can receive this entire series on dvd, along with a lifetime of digital access to the messages. As Dr. Thomas said, job was perhaps the godliest person alive at this point in human history. So why did God allow such tragedy to befall him? Here's Dr. Thomas.
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Let's dive in the first verse. There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job. And that man was blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil. Well, we're introduced in this opening chapter to a scenario. It's a prologue. We have to understand that Job himself isn't given the information that's given in these two chapters. This is information for us. And then there'll be a lengthy dialogue between Job and his three friends, and then Job and Elihu, and finally between Job and God himself. But the opening two chapters provide for us a prologue to the suffering. Three principal characters emerge. Firstly, Job, secondly, Satan, or the Satan, and thirdly, God. First of all, Job. I take Job to be a historical person. Ezekiel 14 mentions him along with Abraham. He probably lives at the time of Abraham, perhaps a little before that, though the book itself was probably written after that period. Comes from Uz in the Arabian desert. He's not an Israelite, perhaps representative of, well, humanity in general. He has no lineage. And three times we are told twice in this opening chapter, once again in chapter two, that he was blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil. Those Four characteristics about Job. Blameless, upright, feared, God, turned away from evil. You see it there in the first verse, the opening verse from the author. And then God himself says this about job in 18 3, his godliness showed he was perhaps the godliest man on the face of the earth. We know that he was very wealthy. We know that he was married. He had a wife, Mrs. Job. We know that he had 10 children, all of whom expire in this opening chapter. But he was also a godly man. It is setting up for us that the suffering that he knows that he experiences is not because he wasn't a godly man. We can understand, can't we, why ungodly people suffer? At least we want to think that way. Ungodly people ought to to suffer. If anyone should suffer in the world, it should be ungodly people. The problem of the book of Job is here's a godly man, in fact, the godliest man perhaps on the face of the earth at the time, and he experiences this trauma, this enormous, enormous suffering. These three statements of the godliness of Job, that he was blameless and upright and feared God and turned away from evil, corroborate Job's insistence that he is innocent. Now, we have some problems with innocent suffering, perhaps, and we might tend to say, you know, nobody's innocent. But Job is innocent. He's not sinless. He's a child of Adam in his original sin. But there's no connection here between any particular sin that he committed and the suffering. So from that point of view, this is an example of innocent suffering. There's another one. In John, chapter nine, the man that was born blind, the disciples ask Jesus, you remember who sinned. Was it him or was it his parents? And Jesus says, neither, but that the works of God might be made manifest in him. So this corroborates Job's claim to innocence, but it also exacerbates then the problem. Why does a godly man suffer? In one day, the floor gave way in Job's life through successive storms, at what appears to be perhaps a celebration of a birthday, Job loses. Well, he loses everything. He loses his wealth, his capital, his income, his 401k, everything. But he loses his 10 children in one day. One fell swoop. It's hard to imagine what it's like to lose one child. Phone call. It's the police. A knock on the door. Uniformed men, and they look somber. Can we come in? And you know, this is not going to be good news. And it's a son. It's a daughter. And in this case, all 10. And they're gone. They're dead, they're killed. An act of immediate pain and suffering and devastating loss. There's Job. You can imagine, perhaps one of his sons works in the World Trade Center. Job is a man of some reputation in the city. One of his daughters works as an American Airlines stewardess and so on. You can imagine this scenario, or maybe it's a scenario that you are all too familiar with because you've experienced something like this in your own life. And the Bible is addressing it here head on, as it were. Actually, one of the earliest books in the canon of Scripture addresses this very problem. In the next chapter, Job is going to lose his health. We will cover this in the second lesson. Things go from bad to worse. But first of all, we are introduced to Job, a godly man, perhaps one of the godliest men on the face of the globe. And he experiences this terrible, mind numbing loss in his life. Now the second character in this opening chapter is Satan. Literally the Satan the adversary. It's more of a title than it is a name. This is who he is. He's the adversary, he's the opposer. He doesn't appear anywhere else in the book. That's something of a puzzlement. He doesn't appear in the conversation of the friends. He doesn't appear in the conversation of Elihu, this mysterious character who emerges towards the end of the book. Nor does he appear, at least by name, in the dialogue between Job and God in the closing chapters of the Book of Job, though some have discerned that in the characters of Leviathan and Behemoth. And we'll come to those eventually, that behind those characters is an allusion to the Satan. What's it saying? Well, the text tells us there was a day, there was a day when Satan also came among them. Verse 6. There was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord and Satan also came among them. I don't know where this is somewhere in the universe. But the point of it is Satan is giving an account to Almighty God. This is not a case of, well, of dualism. The reason for suffering is because an equal power of evil and good. No, Satan must come and give an account. We read in verse 8, the Lord said to Satan, from where have you come? Satan answered the Lord and said, from going to and fro and from walking up and down on it, he's a vagabond, he has no home, he's a spiritual tramp, he has nowhere where to Call home. And then in verse 8, the Lord said to Satan, have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him? And so on. And Satan answers in verse 9 and says, Does Job fear God for no reason? Well, there are many things that emerge here. First of all, that there is a connection between Satan and suffering. We're not clear yet what that connection is, but there's obviously a connection. The reason why Job suffers has something to do with Satan. It's not the complete answer. Who is it, after all, who introduces the idea of Job to Satan? Well, it is God. Have you considered my servant Job? And you might say, well, with friends like that, perhaps Satan hadn't even thought about Job until God mentioned it to him. But you see, the solution to the problem of pain and suffering is not Satan. Satan is certainly involved. The darkness, the world of evil, the world of opposition. That's certainly a part of it, but it's not the complete picture. We will have to address the sovereignty of God. God is in the suffering. God is in this trial. God is the one who introduced Job to Satan. Indeed, we get the impression here that Satan cannot lift a finger unless God gives his approval. In the course of this first chapter, Satan is given permission. Let's use that word for now. He's given permission to engage Job, but he cannot touch him personally. Now in the second chapter, he'll be allowed to touch Job and Job will become sick. A sickness that is life threatening. But who sets the barriers? Who sets the limits? Who sets the coordinates within which Satan can do his dastardly work? Well, God does. God does. Satan is a liar. Satan is a cheat. He's one who misrepresents. But he has no ultimate authority. He's involved. Why is there suffering? Why is there trial? Why is there difficulty? Because we live in a supernatural world of good and evil. We live in a world where Satan exists. We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world. We have to reckon on that. Job, one tells us, you need to reckon on the presence and activity and reality of Satan. And he hates God. He hates God. He is pure evil. That's almost two words in opposition to each other. He's pure evil. It's hard to imagine what that is. The malevolence. He lives out his existence in order to thwart the purposes of God. And he gets at God's people, gets at people like Job. Well, people like you, people like me. There's Job and there's Satan. And then in the third Place. Well, there's God. We talk about the problem of pain. C.S. lewis wrote a very important book still, perhaps one of the great texts on this issue, the Problem of Pain. Actually, we could refer to it as the problem of God. What is the problem in chapter one? Well, we understand pain. There's pain in the world. There's suffering in the world. The question is, why doesn't God prevent it? Why doesn't God do something about it? If he's sovereign, if he has all authority in heaven and in earth, if he's the creator of the ends of the earth, if he's all powerful, why doesn't he do something about it? Is it a problem relating to his will? Is it that he's sovereign but he's unwilling? He is sovereign, but there is something that is hindering him. Is that the answer? Or is it that he is willing but he is just not sovereign? He wants to prevent it, but he cannot do so. The problem here is, well, we could say it is the problem of God. Does God stand the test of trial? You remember what Job says in verse 21, naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. Those are beautiful words, astonishing words, especially in the context. There's a man who's lost everything and he's lost his 10 children. Unimaginable, difficult for us to fathom the depths of the pain that he's experiencing. And what is his immediate response? The reflex of the godliness of this man's heart. It is to acknowledge the sovereignty of God. There are people, ministers of the gospel. They intend good. They mean well, as we say. And they'll say at a funeral, especially funerals where the circumstances are bad, and they'll say things like, don't blame God. You know, he wasn't there. He wasn't in this. His hands were tied. He wasn't looking. This is someone else, something else. It's Satan. Or it's the universe itself. It's the law of nature or some such thing, some theodicy that is intended to relieve us from attributing any of this to God. Well, we do need to be careful. God is not the author of sin. He's not the author of sin, but God's sovereign hand is involved. Nothing happens without God willing it to happen, without God willing it to happen before it happens, without God willing it to happen in the way that it happens. God is all powerful. He is all sovereign. The problem here is how Can God be sovereign and permit things like this? Well, that's the issue. That's the issue Job himself is going to deal with. This is an extraordinary admission on Job's part at the end of chapter one. He's not going to stay here. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. I've experienced this many times when sudden death has come upon a family and the family have responded with job 1 21. I have experienced this many times. There seems to be a sense of peace, and they rest in the sovereignty, in the safety of the sovereignty of God. I may not understand, I may not comprehend all of the reasons for why these things are happening. But I know the Lord gave and the Lord has taken away, and I trust Him. Now. That's not where Job is going to remain. That's where he starts. He's going to walk into very dark places. And I've experienced that too. Sometimes six weeks after a bereavement, I don't know why six weeks, but six weeks after a bereavement, people are in a different place. Something of the reality of it has begun to sink in, the unchangeability of it. They realize this isn't a dream. They realize that this cannot be undone. They realize there are consequences now that are going to affect the entire course of one's life. Changes that cannot ever be undone. And sometimes it's a very different house when you visit two months, three months, six months, a year later, Job is going to descend into dark places. He's going to ask all kinds of questions. Difficult questions, moral questions, theological questions, philosophical questions. Questions that are, well, accusatory. Accusatory of his friends, but accusatory of God. He's going to question God's ways. He's going to question God's will. He is going to question God's justice. But God is unjust. People lose their faith in circumstances like this. You know, if God is big, why doesn't he stop it? Why doesn't he prevent it? I can't believe that God would allow this to happen. And that's a slippery slide into a loss of faith. People get angry with God, they drift away. They excuse their unbelief, carrying this resentment that turns into, well, a bitterness. How would you want to respond? Let's back away from this chapter. We'll have time to talk about the philosophical issues in the lessons that follow. But how would you want to respond if something of this nature were to occur to you? And we would say, God forbid that it should or what? But supposing it did tomorrow, next week? Don't you want to say, I want to respond like Job responded? I want job 1 21. Then you need to learn it. You need to know this text. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away Blessed be the name of the Lord, so that it becomes an instinct, becomes a reflex. If in the awesome sovereign purposes of God, in His extraordinary providence, something like this should happen, that's where I want to be. That's the well, that's the response I want to give to my friends, to my church family, to myself, but to God, to my blessed Savior, the Lord Jesus. Because I know he loves me, he's always loved me, and he can never cease to love me. The Book of Job is an extraordinary book. We are going to travel into very dark and difficult places, accusations that are quite breathtaking in their nature and character. But chapter one and verse 21 is where we want to be, you and I. Why don't we all pray that this would be the response that we would give if a trial of this magnitude should ever befall us? We would rest in his sovereignty, knowing his love, knowing that nothing ever happens to us that is outside of his gracious purposes for us.
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Isn't that a great reminder? God is sovereign through all things. We can take comfort in that. If you enjoyed this message and would like to deepen your study of the Book of Job, you can call us with a donation at 800-435-4343 or give a gift online at renewingyourmind.org you'll receive a lifetime of digital access to Dr. Derek Thomas series, as well as the complete series on DVD and a digital study guide. Tomorrow we'll continue in our study with Dr. Thomas as the trials facing Job only get worse. What will Job do in the face of such difficulty? Find out tomorrow here on Renewing youg Mind.
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Sam.