Job

11“Therefore I will not keep silent. I will speak in the anguish of my spirit. I will complain in the bitterness of my soul. 12Am I a sea, or a sea monster, that you put a guard over me? 13When I say, ‘My bed shall comfort me. My couch shall ease my complaint;’ 14then you scare me with dreams, and terrify me through visions: 15so that my soul chooses strangling, death rather than my bones. 16I loathe my life. I don’t want to live forever. Leave me alone, for my days are but a breath. 17What is man, that you should magnify him, that you should set your mind on him, 18that you should visit him every morning, and test him every moment? 19How long will you not look away from me, nor leave me alone until I swallow down my spittle? 20If I have sinned, what do I do to you, you watcher of men? Why have you set me as a mark for you, so that I am a burden to myself? 21Why do you not pardon my disobedience, and take away my iniquity? For now shall I lie down in the dust. You will seek me diligently, but I shall not be.”

Even after receiving Jesus Christ, we may suffer while we live in this world, and accepting this in faith is never easy. What strikes me as I look at Job’s life is this: Job served God and kept the faith, yet what his faith served was not God but his own salvation.

Job enjoyed wealth and honor by God’s grace and could easily have grown proud, but because his hope was set on heaven he did his utmost not to sin. He was a man of fine character who loved to care for the poor, and those who saw the love he always showed to strangers and the needy held him in high regard. Whenever his children gathered for a feast, he worried that they might have sinned against God and offered sacrifices for them; he was a tender father. And knowing that the world does not last forever, Job always strove to live by God’s law. God loved Job for living by faith and always protected him.

Longing for worldly power and wealth more than for the eternal kingdom, people make the world their measure for everything. But the heavenly council recorded in the book of Job shows that the holy person in God’s eyes is one who, like Job, has laid down human righteousness.

Angels were standing before God’s throne when Satan came among them. Yahweh asked Satan, “Where have you come from?” Satan had been prowling like a roaring lion in search of those he could make stumble, and he answered that he had been roaming here and there on the earth. Since Satan goes about the world looking for someone to trip up, we must never let down our guard. If your heart keeps slackening and growing discouraged even after you resolve to live by faith, it is because Satan is hard at work.

God asked Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job, a blameless and upright man, one who fears God and turns away from evil?” The words ‘my servant’ here are a title of respect and honor. It is astonishing that God should show respect to one of his people for keeping the faith, and it reveals how noble God’s character is. Our God, so rich in love, looks only at a heart that loves the living God, and he lifts up his people and crowns them with glory.

When God commended Job, Satan, whose aim is to make souls stumble, said that Job feared God only because God had given him material and spiritual blessings; had he received nothing, he would not serve God. In other words, Satan was saying that if God took away Job’s worldly possessions, Job would surely renounce God and walk away. When believers today think that faith in God ought to make them prosper, and say that the poor have not been blessed by God, that is Satan’s way of thinking.

Job 1:9-11

9Then Satan answered Yahweh, and said, “Does Job fear God for nothing? 10Haven’t you made a hedge around him, and around his house, and around all that he has, on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his substance is increased in the land. 11But stretch out your hand now, and touch all that he has, and he will renounce you to your face.”

If you are ever tempted to resent God when hardship comes, you must recognize that the thought comes from Satan. Worldly wealth is of course needed to live, but serving God for the sake of the world is a faith that only seeks blessing, like shamanism, so we must cleanse our hearts as Jesus cleansed the temple. God knew Satan’s evil thoughts, and yet he chose to boast of Job, because he knew how absolute Job’s faith was. Satan, however, was confident that if Job’s possessions were taken away, he would certainly abandon God.

As I listened to Satan’s words, it struck me that Satan can never understand the bond between Job, rooted in God, and the God who loves him. This is also the bond between God and you, and between parents and the child they love no matter how much that child rolls in the mud. Because it rests on a love that can never be broken, it holds, however envy tries to drive the two apart.

I have put this love, which Satan can never understand, into a parable. Someone grew spiteful at the sight of a neighbor’s tree, thick with leaves and heavy with fruit. Thinking the tree would die if only its leaves were stripped off, this person proposed to the owner that they test how weak the tree really was. When every leaf was gone, the fruit only stood out more clearly. Thinking the tree would die if its fruit-bearing branches were cut off, the spiteful neighbor cut them, and there stood a great, broad trunk that the branches had hidden. The more leaves and branches were cut away, the plainer it became how well the tree had grown, until in fury the neighbor cut it down at the base. When the tree vanished from sight, its enemy rejoiced that it was dead at last. But as the years passed, the deep-rooted tree sprouted again, grew, and became a tree that bore fruit. The tree did not live because of its leaves or its fruit-laden branches. Its roots ran deep into good soil and reached the water; that is how it grew into a mighty trunk and could put out fruit and leaves. In the same way, God, who is life, supplied the water of life to his people whose roots went deep in him, and so they could grow to maturity and bear much fruit of faith.

Like the tree in this story, Job had great wealth, children, livestock, and servants, but his faith did not come from them; he had first met God through faith. Not knowing this, Satan thought that if he took Job’s livestock and killed his children, Job’s faith would collapse.

Job was a man who loved God sincerely, with a blameless and upright faith. Had his faith been the kind that curses God over the loss of leaves and fruit, God would not have commended him as an upright man who turned away from evil. True faith does not shift with the circumstances of the moment.

Could you keep the faith steadfastly even if your wealth dwindled, illness struck, or your children did not succeed as you hoped? The question is whether you can set your hope on God and boldly resist Satan’s temptation, whatever suffering comes your way. We must give God the trust that we will never resent him, however much suffering Satan brings. When we suffer, it is because we have been acknowledged as God’s children; illegitimate children would have no reason to suffer, so we should give thanks.

Satan fears those whose faith rises above the world. Job did not know what was happening in heaven, but he went on living, as he always had, with God at the center.

Job 1:21

21He said, “Naked I came out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return there. Yahweh gave, and Yahweh has taken away. Blessed be Yahweh’s name.”

Since Job had brought nothing with him into the world, he had the humility to see that everything he owned was on loan from God. Amid the grief of losing all his children and his property, the first thing Job did was tear his robe, shave his head, and worship God. He uttered no complaint and no wicked word against God; instead, with his robe torn, he worshiped the God who had made him enjoy everything he had until then. God was the one who had given him his children, so Job confessed that even if God took them back, he wanted Yahweh’s name to be blessed. How many people could make such a confession after losing their property and their children?

All the suffering Job endured came in a single day. Job 1:16 records that while he was still speaking, another came; verse 17, that while he was still speaking, another came; and verse 18, that while he was still speaking, another came. You and I, at the smallest problem, would complain and agonize, asking how God could put us through such a trial. We would grumble about why we alone must suffer like this and what we had done wrong, and we would forget all the grace God has given us until now.

In one day, as disaster followed disaster, Job lost his property and his children at once; yet he bowed before God in worship and confessed that Yahweh gave and Yahweh has taken away. Job’s faith is truly astonishing. Only a faith like this does God commend as blameless and upright. What about yours?

We speak very lightly of receiving rewards from God. Some of us think that if we serve, give offerings, and pray, we should naturally be repaid with the things of this world, and at the slightest difficulty we quickly close our hearts. But the faith God approves is a faith like Job’s, which gives thanks and worships simply for having met God, even if it loses everything in the world. None of these disasters came through any fault of Job’s, yet we see him repent deeply.

You too will have had seasons when one difficulty followed another. When troubles keep coming, you need to think spiritually about what God wants and what he means to make you understand through this problem. Do not complain about why such things keep happening; only when you turn quickly in the direction God wants and obey will the winds of suffering cease. In the church, some understand and turn back after a single hardship, while others fail to understand for years, even for a lifetime. I counsel such people from the word so that they need not take the long way around, but because most will not let go of their own ideas, they go the long way. Yet those who will not obey are trained until their rough edges are worn away, so the wisest choice is to break quickly the mold of habit and self-righteousness they have made for themselves.

Even if, like Job, you suffer for a while and lose everything, as long as your faith in God does not change, you have lost nothing at all. Job never betrayed God to the end, and later he received back all the wealth and children he had lost: he had won the victory by faith. The suffering we meet is a fine opportunity to show how faithful our faith is. Their hope set on heaven, those who are in Jesus Christ know that suffering is a passing wind, a hill every life must climb. A high hill may be hard to cross, but with the wind of grace pushing from behind, it can be crossed with ease. Job showed God that kind of mature faith, and he received a blessing that cannot be taken away.

Job 3:1-3

1After this Job opened his mouth, and cursed the day of his birth. 2Job answered: 3“Let the day perish in which I was born, the night which said, ‘There is a boy conceived.’

Chapter 3 records Job’s lament that it would have been far better never to have been born. Listening to Job curse the day of his birth, one might think he was complaining about the bitter reality he was enduring. But taking as given that Job was a man God approved, I read it as Job feeling sorry that all this had happened because of his own shortcomings. Job, whose faith now stood on the rock, cursed his birth and lamented, not because he resented God, but because he was tormented by his own inadequacy.

Job had lived by faith all his life, but now that he had lost everything he could no longer proclaim the word fully as before, and he was so sorry before God that he cursed his own birth. He could bear being mocked himself; what tormented him was the sense that he was hiding God’s glory.

Can you understand this heart of Job’s, agonizing that if he had done better he would not have brought dishonor on God? The anguish of being unable, through his own shortcomings, to speak boldly of God was beyond comparison with the pain of losing his wealth and his children. He was disgusted with himself. Why had he not lived out his faith better when God gave him the opportunity and the time? Why had he come to this place, where he put God to shame?

When her husband kept the faith to the end even through such suffering, Job’s wife cried out, asking whether he was foolish enough to go on believing in God after such a disaster, and told him to renounce God and die. The suffering we meet in this life may be a scale that weighs our faith, or a good tool brought in to plane away our rough edges quickly. Since Job’s wife had also lost her property and her children, her pain is understandable. But to curse God and her husband when she knew it was not his fault was to commit a sin that would never be forgiven. She took no responsibility for what happened in her life; she poured out her raging emotions and sinned greatly against God. When they were rich and lived in comfort, all that was now lost had been her pride; once it was gone, she turned on God and her husband. That is why we must be trained as the Holy Spirit teaches, and learn to meet our problems with the word rather than with our emotions.

Job 4:6-7

6Isn’t your piety your confidence? Isn’t the integrity of your ways your hope? 7“Remember, now, whoever perished, being innocent? Or where were the upright cut off?

Job’s three friends came and told him that, although he claimed always to fear God and live by his word, his present suffering showed that he had lost his property and his children because he had sinned. That hardly seems the thing for a friend to say to someone in agony. Yet I often hear people in the church say the very things these friends said to Job. Rather than comfort and encourage someone who is suffering, they assume that the suffering itself proves the person has sinned. This is not sound faith. Reaping what one sows is a law of nature, and the idea that the wicked suffer while the good are blessed is merely the hope of worldly people. One may sow diligently and reap nothing; one may work hard and still be poor. In this life a wicked person may have great wealth, and someone who lives earnestly in the spirit may still be poor. The conversation between God and Satan makes this plain.

I hope you will consider whether, when trouble struck a brother or sister in the faith, you have ever made it more painful by using your own judgment and experience, ethics and morality, or the word as a measuring rod. Job met suffering he never wanted, yet his friends, though they knew his faith, condemned him by the world’s standards. While Job was wealthy they would not have presumed to speak like this; now that they thought he had lost his power, they condemned him freely. We need to understand that judging a person of faith without knowing the situation actually harms our own faith and can leave us spiritually darkened.

When his friends pressed him, insisting that he was suffering for his sin, Job began to explain in detail how he had kept the faith. However much he explained the faithful life he had lived, his friends did not understand, and Job sighed that God alone knew the way he took, and that when God had tried him, he would come out like gold.

Even if our faith, like Job’s, swerves neither to the right nor to the left, and we treasure the word, we may still pass through a tunnel of suffering if God has a purpose in it. Because God knows every part of each of his people that needs cutting and shaping, he sometimes puts them through a fierce fire in order to use them as spiritual soldiers. If you mock those who are being refined just because you have not suffered as Job did, what excuse will you offer when suffering comes to you? Rather than judge and mock another’s pain, wisdom gives thanks for the peaceful time and circumstances entrusted to us and brings great comfort to the brother or sister who is being refined.

To preach the book of Job, as precious as a jewel, in a single sermon is certainly too much to attempt. But if we read Job with his faith at the center, the faith of a man who lived as one alive in God and dead to the world and who in the end never resented God, we will see clearly why God loved him.

As I read Job, there was one thing I wished had been otherwise. When Job tried to persuade his friends that prosperity and poverty are not decided by sin, he kept stressing his own deeds of faith. To them this looked proud and sounded like boasting of his own righteousness, so the friends pressed their point about sin all the harder. Job did not mean to boast of his deeds, but because he kept repeating them by way of explanation, it seemed as though he were displaying his own righteousness.

If, instead of trying to persuade his friends, Job had exalted God by saying that all he had lived through was God’s grace, the conversation would have gone far more easily. Even when we keep the faith, life has its ups and downs, and we meet joyful days and sorrowful ones alike. In a life that vanishes like a mist, to be able to live as a child of God is cause for deep thanks; but however he explained this, his friends had no ears to hear, and as he watched them, Job must have realized how worthless humankind is before God.

God, who knew Job’s heart, began to speak of the work of creation in order to break the friends’ belief that every suffering is a punishment repaid in kind. Setting forth his cosmic transcendence and absolute sovereignty, he made it known that they had no right to judge God, or the faith of Job, whose faith was whole.

After hearing God speak of creation, Job came to realize that in keeping the faith he had only been working hard for his own salvation; he had not given glory to God. Keeping the word had been something he needed in order to enter God’s kingdom one day, not some great help to God’s work. He had thought he had lived well by the word, but when he heard God’s vast words, he realized how futile and empty human life is.

When he realized how much like dust he was in God’s sight, he began, in shame, to repent from his heart. Until then he had served God through religious tradition and the teaching of his ancestors; now, through God’s direct revelation, he came to see how great God’s glory and power are.

We too need to meet spiritually, face to face, the God we first knew through Bible knowledge, and to come to know him deeply. Then you will be able to thank the God who made a tunnel of suffering in order to save you, one person out of so many.

Though Job suffered, he came to a far more mature faith than he had had before, and he was able to meet the living God face to face. Even before his suffering, God delighted in Job’s upright faith; but now, matured in faith, Job became to God like a precious jewel.

Whether we have much or little, anyone may pass through a tunnel of suffering in life; perhaps life itself is suffering. The tunnel may be longer or shorter than we expect, but when we come out of it we will have to give an account to God of the road we have traveled. While we are in the tunnel, then, our faith must stand firm. If it is a tunnel of suffering we must go through anyway, I hope you will be humble as Job was, and say: even if I am righteous, what could I give to God, and what would the great God receive from me?

When Job offered burnt offerings for the sin of the friends who had mocked him and tried to lecture him, God accepted Job’s faith and forgave them. Job’s faith, which had always striven to overcome sin, saved their lives. Every time he met suffering, Job left behind the fruit of love and faith, and he received the wonderful blessing of having his lost children and wealth restored to him just as they had been. The worldly and spiritual blessings Job received again are eternal blessings that Satan can no longer take away, whatever scheme he devises.

God described in detail the work of creation, which no one could know unless he had created it himself. May you trust that God as Job did, take after Job’s faith, which never doubted God’s eternal kingdom, and receive great grace as Job did.