Labor Day Campout Cabins Available

Announcements:

-Labor Day Campout – Cabins available

-Board meeting moved to next Sunday, August 20th, after church

Dismiss children for Kingdom Kids (4yo-1st grade) and Club 3:16 (2nd-6th grade)

*Last week, we looked at Elihu’s argument against Job and God’s speech to Job. The theme of both speeches is that God is beyond our comprehension, perfectly just, and always good. God allows suffering in the lives of righteous people in order to prune them and make them more like His son, Jesus Christ. Suffering is an intentional prescription from a perfect Father that is for our good and God will not allow it to continue one second longer than it is needed. We can’t always see why God allows suffering or figure out what He is accomplishing but we can rely on His sovereignty and goodness. Today, we are going to see that there is always an end to suffering.

Please stand for the reading of God’s Word (congregational in red)

*1Then Job replied to the Lord: 2“I know that you can do all things; no plan of yours can be thwarted. 3You 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. 4You said, ‘Listen now, and I will speak; I will question you and you shall answer me.’ 5My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you. *6Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.” 7After the Lord had said these things to Job, he said to Eliphaz the Temanite, “I am angry with you and your two friends, because you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has.8So now take seven bulls and seven rams and go to my servant Job and sacrifice a burnt offering for yourselves. My servant Job will pray for you, and I will accept his prayer and not deal with you according to your folly. You have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has.” *9So Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite did what the Lord told them; and the Lord accepted Job’s prayer. 10After Job had prayed for his friends, the Lord made him prosperous again and gave him twice as much as he had before. 11All his brothers and sisters and everyone who had known him before came and ate with him in his house. They comforted and consoled him over all the trouble the Lord had brought upon him, and each one gave him a piece of silver and a gold ring.*12The Lord blessed the latter part of Job’s life more than the first. He had fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, a thousand yoke of oxen and a thousand donkeys. 13And he also had seven sons and three daughters. 14The first daughter he named Jemimah, the second Keziah and the third Keren-Happuch. 15Nowhere in all the land were there found women as beautiful as Job’s daughters, and their father granted them an inheritance along with their brothers. *16After this, Job lived a hundred and forty years; he saw his children and their children to the fourth generation. 17And so he died, old and full of years.

Open in prayer

As difficult as the book of Job is, it ends with redemption. Job repents of his wrong attitudes and his relationship with God is restored. The three friends are forgiven by God for their sins. Job’s possessions are restored and his family is blessed after all the trials that he endured. There was hope on the other side of suffering for Job and there is for us too.

What is Job’s response to God’s proclamation to him? Humility and repentance. God had said, “Brace yourself like a man? I will question you and you will answer me.” (38:3, 40:7) As God describes His magnificent power, creativity, and purposes demonstrated through creation, Job realizes that knows so much less than he thought he knew. Job’s view of God is expanded and his view of himself is diminished. These two things are exactly what we need. *John the Baptist said in John 3:30, “He must become greater; I must become less.” Everything good in us is a gift of grace from the gracious hand of God. Therefore, we have no place to boast in anything but Christ. I can confidently say that you (and I) know less than you think you know and God knows more than you think He knows. God said in Isaiah 55:8-9, “8‘For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,’ declares the Lord. 9‘As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.’” This is the realization that Job comes to, “God, you are so much greater and better than I ever thought.” God’s thoughts and ways are infinitely higher and greater than ours. I often need this reminder when I start to think that I have a better idea of what needs to happen than the Lord.

*God’s plans cannot be thwarted. That is an amazing truth to meditate on. God, in His sovereignty, works out His plans despite the sins of mankind and the work of the devil and his demons. This is why God so confidently says in Revelation 20:10, “And the devil, who deceived them, was thrown into the lake of burning sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet had been thrown. They will be tormented day and night for ever and ever.” *I love Martin Luther’s old hymn (1529), “A Mighty Fortress is Our God.” The third verse says, “And though this world, with devils filled,Should threaten to undo us,We will not fear, for God hath willedHis truth to triumph through us:The Prince of Darkness grim,We tremble not for him;His rage we can endure,For lo! his doom is sure,One little word shall fell him.” This is certain for “no plan of God’s can be thwarted.”

*4You said, ‘Listen now, and I will speak; I will question you and you shall answer me.’ 5My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you. 6Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.”

Job’s suffering brought him closer to God than he had ever been before (v. 5). *C. S. Lewis famously said in his book The Problem of Pain, “Pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pain: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.” God uses our suffering as a way to draw us closer to Himself. Through it, He makes us aware of our desperate need for Him. When things are going well, we often forget that we need God. We think that we are self-sufficient or that God is merely an added blessing to our life. We need to be reminded that God is the center and substance of our life. *It is in our times of suffering that we can say like Asaph, “25Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you. 26My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.” (Psalm 73:25-26)

Job closes his response by repenting. In Job 40:8, we saw that Job had justified himself and condemned God as being unjust and now he has seen how mistaken he was. *This chapter raises a very important question that people struggle with: Is it wrong to be angry with God? I have heard many people that I respect say that it is ok to be angry with God. They say that it is normal to be angry with God when things don’t go as you hoped. It is true that this is normal. Let me ask you, how many of you have ever been angry with God? Most of us, myself included. However, just because something is normal does not make it right. To be angry with someone is to assume that they have done something wrong. It is to say that you would have done it differently and better than they did. There is such a thing as holy anger as Jesus demonstrated when he drove the merchants and moneychangers from the temple and overturned their tables. In that instance, Jesus was in the right and the people he was confronting were in the wrong. When it comes to a disagreement with God though, we are always in the wrong and He is always in the right. Before we move on, let’s deal with a few important questions:

-Why do we get angry with God? Because we misunderstand His nature and character. We start to believe the lie that God isn’t really goodor that He is simply out to get us. We assume that God must not really love us. When we are angry with the Lord, we need to remind ourselves of the truth of the gospel. God loved us enough that He punished His perfect Son for our wrongdoings. Although mankind rebelled against Him and chose to sin, He didn’t give us the just punishment that we deserved but instead He crafted a rescue mission so that we could be reconciled and have a perfect relationship with Him.

Another common misunderstanding is ascribing evil things that happen to God. Sometimes people begin to believe that God causes children to be murdered, women to be raped, or other evil things. People argue that God must not be all-powerful or He must not be all-good. These horrible things happen because mankind is sinful but God is giving sinful man time to repent of their sins. There will come a time when all evil deeds are judged. Too many people view God’s sovereignty to mean that He is a divine puppet master who makes us do everything that we do. This is a skewed view of God’s sovereignty. What makes God so amazing is that in the middle of mankind’s sinful mess and rebellious choices, He is working out His divine purposes through it all. His promises are always true no matter the sins that people commit. God brings redemption and works all things together for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose (Rom. 8:28). Two weeks ago, I mentioned the murder of Jim Elliot and his missionary friends at the hands of the Auca Indians. What happened on that sandbar by the river was evil. It was not God’s doing. It was the sin of depraved men. But God in His perfect sovereignty worked things together for good.

-What should we do when we are angry with God? We should just try to put on a happy face and stuff it or leave it unresolved. We need to confess our anger to God (He already knows it anyway) and ask Him to help us with it. Confess it to some close friends and have them pray for you and help you work through that anger.

*7After the Lord had said these things to Job, he said to Eliphaz the Temanite, “I am angry with you and your two friends, because you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has. 8So now take seven bulls and seven rams and go to my servant Job and sacrifice a burnt offering for yourselves. My servant Job will pray for you, and I will accept his prayer and not deal with you according to your folly. You have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has.” 9So Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite did what the Lord told them; and the Lord accepted Job’s prayer.

As I mentioned last week, God was angry with the three friends but not with Elihu. Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar had said about God that if you did what was right, He would make the circumstances of your life perfect and if you did what was wrong, God would make you suffer. This idea is not true and so God was angry with them for speaking falsely about His nature. Still, God provides a way for them to receive mercy for their sin because He is merciful. One interesting note here is that Job prays for his friends to be forgiven but through the 30 chapters that the friends were in, never once did they pray for Job. Although the friends were sorrowful at Job’s suffering, they never stopped to pray for Job. We can learn a lesson from the mistakes that Job’s friends made about how to minister to our friends and loved ones who are undergoing suffering.

*10After Job had prayed for his friends, the Lord made him prosperous again and gave him twice as much as he had before. 11All his brothers and sisters and everyone who had known him before came and ate with him in his house. They comforted and consoled him over all the trouble the Lord had brought upon him, and each one gave him a piece of silver and a gold ring. *12The Lord blessed the latter part of Job’s life more than the first. He had fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, a thousand yoke of oxen and a thousand donkeys. 13And he also had seven sons and three daughters. 14The first daughter he named Jemimah, the second Keziah and the third Keren-Happuch. 15Nowhere in all the land were there found women as beautiful as Job’s daughters, and their father granted them an inheritance along with their brothers.

*For the follower of Jesus, there is ALWAYS an end to suffering. 80-90% of the time, that suffering ends on earth and things get better. Although the pain feels like it will go on forever, suffering is usually for a season. For the other 10-20% of situations, where a chronic sickness ends in death or the paralytic is never healed, there is still redemption on the other side of suffering. We know that all of eternity will be spent in God’s glorious presence in heaven where “He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” (Rev. 21:4) *For this reason we are encouraged by 2 Corinthians 4:16-18, “16Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. 17For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. 18So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.”

The ending of Job’s story is not all roses and puppies. All the blessings in these last verses are wonderful but Job came out on the other side of suffering with scars. We come through periods of suffering bearing scars. His possessions were replaceable and he ended up with double the livestock. He became even wealthier than he had been before it was all stripped from him. Job and his wife were blessed with ten children (seven sons and three daughters) just as before but children aren’t replaceable. Job bore the pain of losing his previous children until the day he died. Can you imagine how Job and his wife felt when they got pregnant for the first time after his loss? The immense joy and yet the dull ache of loss that they experienced as they stared into the face of this brand-new life and the faces of their deceased children flashed before their eyes? Those of you who have lost loved ones or endured miscarriages can relate exactly to what I am talking about. When Chelsea and I had our miscarriage, we were overjoyed when she got pregnant with Selah. Selah is such a gift to us and she blesses us daily. But four years later, I still mourn each July when unfulfilled due dates come and go and moms who were due at the same time celebrate their children’s birthdays. It is still difficult to think about the fact that half of our children are here on earth and the other half are in heaven. Job’s ten children were a tremendous blessing that brought joy to his heart but he still bore scars from his great loss. God will carry you through your times of suffering but you will still bear the scars until the day that you enter His glorious presence and every tear and sorrow will be wiped away forever.

*16After this, Job lived a hundred and forty years; he saw his children and their children to the fourth generation. 17And so he died, old and full of years.

Job lived a long life full of family and laughter and blessings from the Lord. Although the number of his children wasn’t doubled like his possessions, in his grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and great-great- grandchildren, they were more than doubled. *Job’s age is one of the ways that we can guess the time period that he lived in as he likely lived 200-225 years. Genesis 11 contains the genealogy between Noah and Abraham’s father, Terah. We see that the ages gradually decline from 950 years for Noah to 600 years for his son Shem to a mere 205 years for Terah. Most likely Job lived around the time right before Abraham was born. *I hope that you have gleaned as much from the book of Job over the last four weeks as I have. When you go through suffering, remember that God is beyond your comprehension, perfectly just, and always good. He will see you through your suffering and there is always hope on the other side of suffering.

Close in prayer