So, Job, really the middle chapters, chapter 13 will be our first reference, but we'll turn to a number of different passages, but we're considering, again, as we did last week, the middle chapters, the central chapters. Last week, our interest being, our emphasis being, Job friends, and we found with Job that his friends were miserable comforters. This morning, our interest, our emphasis being, Job himself in these chapters. What he said? How did he react? What did he do? But I have to warn you, Job's faith, that very strong faith, that faith of chapter 1 that said the Lord gives and the Lord takes away, blessed be the name of the Lord, that very strong faith of chapter 2 that responded to his wife when she gave that bad advice to curse God and die, and he said, shall we accept only good from God and not trouble also? That strong faith will go underground, you might say. Only to resurface again, and then to go underground again, only to resurface again, in fact it is in these central chapters. We see Job go through these very painful cycles, but it was through the cycles. It was through this violently moving from one extreme to the other, and if you did your homework, you know that if you read chapters 4 to 31, you saw him violently move from one extreme to the other from absolute hopelessness to great hope, back to hopelessness again and back to hope again, but it was through these painful cycles that Job learned a lot about God. He will walk away from these chapters 4 to 31 with a true knowledge of God, a grander knowledge of God, a greater knowledge of God, a firmer knowledge. And in that what we want, wouldn't you stand up right now where you are and unassamably say as a Christian that the most important thing in all of life is getting to know God better, or would you be able to stand where you are and say unassamably, I believe that life is to know God and have a firmer understanding of a greater knowledge of God. No matter what it takes, that's scary, it takes a lot of faith to say that, perhaps leads us through a greater question, a more probing question, how is your faith? I mean really, if you were 101 with someone in May, they asked you maybe an accountability partner. There's a good question for your accountability groups to ask, how is your faith as your faith gone underground, or perhaps not even, maybe it would be this morning, but perhaps in days gone by, you know what I'm talking about when I say your faith goes underground. What causes your faith to go underground? What causes you to question and doubt? Is it death, the death of a loved one, the death of a child, the death of a spouse, the death of a friend, or perhaps financial hardship, how is it that Satan is able to push the right buttons for you? How is it that he is able to rock your boat and cause you to question things and doubt things? Or could it be that Satan is more discreet with you? Not so much tragedy, it's not so much trouble as it is prosperity. Could it be that prosperity has shoved you away from the dock of God's presence, and you're drifting in a sea of misery and have been so for years. You come this morning, you need to come this morning to God's word, be wise and learn from Joe, be wise and learn from his suffering, learn some things about God and who he is and who he is to you, ask God to teach you, maybe even under your breath right now, offer up a prayer. God teach me from Joe before you drift too far. And again, that's a scary prayer, it can be a scary prayer, it certainly is a bold prayer. God teach me what you taught Joe, specifically in two areas this morning, we just picked to the many things that Joe learned. We pick out of all these chapters, two things, I would suggest that are more or less overarching. The Joe learned that God is for him. No matter the circumstances, no matter what those circumstances said, Joe would say to you and to me, God is for me. And we know that he would say that, no matter his circumstances, because at the lowest ab in his life, he says, and this is what is the meditation upon entering the sanctuary, but it's Joe 13, verse 15, though he slay me, yet will I trust in him. In fact, we would go so far as to say that that was Joe's comfort. He was comforting to Joe to know that what it was happening to him was happening to him by the hand of God, though he slay me, I'll still trust in him. Do you find that comforting? Do you find it comforting? Is it a source of comfort to you to know that whatever befalls you, befalls you by the hand of God? And not only so for Joe, not only a source of comfort, but because he knew that what happened to him happened to him by the hand of God. It was to God that he would seek refuge. Where else are you going to turn? Except to the very one under whose hands you suffer. Joe also said in Job 9, verse 24, if it is not he, then who is it? He knew that. He knew it all the way through, all the way through these central chapters. If it's not God who is doing this thing to me, then who is it? You never find Job trying to get God off the hook. You never find him trying to somehow take up for God, or somehow say that God is not in this thing, or that I'm not suffering by the hand of God, or that God doesn't have anything to do with this. He never says that it doesn't happen to him by the hand of God. In fact, it's the very opposite, that it was indeed the hand of God, and there in Elijah's Job struggle, and our struggle, then how do you explain that? How could you ever say I understand that perfectly? You can't. No one does. But in our church, we're not going to hide behind it, and we're not going to try to get God off the hook as you hear a number of people do. There are many, many people. Many denominations take that approach with God when tragedy occurs, even in funeral. So if you've said it, you've been to various, even within our own city, where the minister has the gall to stand up and say, God doesn't have anything to do with this. And in the wake of 9-11, how many ministers said, this is not of God? God wouldn't want this. God didn't do that. Can you imagine finding comfort in that, comforting a family, a funeral, and telling them, God didn't want this to happen to your child or to your spouse, it's all done in the name of not wanting to blame God. And they'll even use Job as an example and say, you know, Job never blamed God. No, Job didn't blame God, but that didn't mean he didn't know God didn't. To blame is to condemn, it's to censure, to prove, as if to criticize. Job never did that. Job never blamed God, but that didn't mean that Job didn't know God was the cause of it. You understand, it's more than just saying God allowed it. Anybody can say God allowed it. Sure, God allowed it. Job would say, and we would say, God allowed it, God ordained it, and God caused it, because God is the first cause of all things, and you heard me right, all things. That is the, God is the first cause of all things. He uses secondary causes. He uses in Job the lightning and the wind and the cold ends and the civilians and Satan, but we never take away from the fact that God is the first cause of all things without being the author of sin. You can see what you say, well, he's the first cause of every single crime and horrific event that happens in this world, yes, without being the author of it. I cannot explain that, but do I really have to, for you to find comfort in knowing that there's not some force greater than God out there causing these things that happen in your life? That is our comfort, simultaneously it is a source of fear for us, it causes us to fear this God. There's no way I can explain these truths, I tried it, this is a side, as you notice in the outline, what does it mean to blame God? These are theological truths that I certainly don't understand and I would say to you, I don't necessarily like them, but they serve as underpinnings to my comfort before God and with God in God, as well as underpinnings to my fear of Him. If God is not the first cause of all things then you must deny some things that you believe to be true about God, that He's good, that He's all powerful, the very prayer you learn on your mama's knee, God is great, God is good, not if He's not the first cause of all things. That was the case with Kushner, you know, Rabbi Harold Kushner wrote, when bad things happen to good people, how many people have bought into this? I wish this Jewish Rabbi very sensitively and we would never want to take away from his experience, but sensitively talking about the illness of his son Aaron who died at the age of 14 of rapid aging disease and the horror of that disease, the anguish that it caused his mother and Kushner, when he wrote this book, trying to come to grips with his feelings, he said, God wants people to live righteous, happy lives. Sometimes he simply can't bring that about. It's too difficult even for God to keep cruelty and chaos from claiming their innocent victims. That's what someone's preaching when they say to a family that God didn't want this to happen to them, or that God couldn't control this. Kushner also said, I can worship a God who hates suffering but cannot eliminate it more easily than I can worship a God who chooses to make children suffer and die. Those who espouse this teaching, as I've already alluded to this fact, but they say things like God can't be blamed for this, he can't be blamed for that. God couldn't stop this, it's God's hands were tied and that's how you know God loves you or so the argument goes. This is how you know that God loves you that he couldn't stop this thing from happening to you and your family. My friends, if that is true, he couldn't stop it. Or he's not the first cause of all things and two things are certain, and I would have you write them down up the side of the outline, but two things are certain, if God is not great or God is not good or God is not the first cause of all things. First of all, you and I lose all hope of any security in God's protection. There is no security in God's protection, things are happening for which God has no control. There's three molecules out there that God can't control, there are hidden forces out there and things are happening outside of God's plan, outside of God's purposes. There's a competitor to God out there and he's loose and God is not God. And when God is not God, then the understatement of the year is that you and I becomes very vulnerable at that point. Because anything can happen to us and there's no meaning to it, there's no purpose behind it. You can step out of this, out of this sanctuary and under South Hall or a failure and be hit by a car and well it was just some force out there. It had no meaning and had no purpose behind it, just some force. Now, for us to be secure in Him, He must be sovereign. And if He sovereign at all, then He must be sovereign of all. Everything, even our most painful circumstances in our life, whatever that situation, whatever that circumstance was for you, it falls under the umbrella of God's sovereignty in your life because nothing happens outside of His will. Nothing happens outside of God's plan. Our forefathers died for that. They shed blood for it. Would you, if somebody put a gun to your head and said deny that God ordains whatsoever comes to pass, would you head your mat and say, well, I could probably say that and not really be rejecting the gospel. I really wouldn't be rejecting the God of the Bible. Oh, yes, you would. And so would you die for that? We ought to be clinging to it with every fiber of our being. Our passion is the sovereignty of God that God ordains whatsoever comes to pass, Job says in 23, 13, He does whatever He cleanses. And don't let anybody tell you that you carry that burden along. You press material. And all your belief about predestination, you just take that so far and you're all just a bunch of fabulous know. Don't let anybody tell you that because if you believe in God and you believe that God foresees, anybody that believes in God believes that He foresees, anybody who believes in God has to believe that God foreknows everything that's going to happen to not believe that is not to believe in God. It's not to believe in the God of the Bible because that is what defines Him. It distinguishes Him from false God is the fact that He is omniscient. If God foresees an event, is that event certain to happen? Yes. Can anything but that event happen? No. And we say that God allows that to happen certainly, but it's not His will. Rather than that silly, it's heretical to take away from God the fact that it is His will and His purpose behind every event on the face of this earth. And I'll tell you something else, it makes Him out to be very cruel. In all of their attempts to make God out to be this loving God, they take away from Him and they make Him out to be very, very cruel. Our God ordains what He foresees and He foresees what He ordains. And from all eternity past, God and His ordains that whatever is to come to pass must come to pass. And for those who love Him and those who are called according to His purpose, there is purpose. There is meaning. There is reason for it. Not only do we lose security in His protection, if you're writing it down, then the second thing is we rob circumstances of their meaning. If we take God out of it, if it's not His will, then who is it? No one. And that tragedy in your life, tragic indeed. My mother's death and your husband's death and your child's death and that financial reversal and that heartache and that loneliness absolutely meaningless. No purpose in it whatsoever. Oh, yeah, but I forgot. We're letting God off the hook. We're taking up for God. No, what we're doing is robbing meaningful God ordained full of great circumstances of any life whatsoever because you're robbing the circumstance of God. You're taking God out of the equation and whenever you take God out of the equation, you might as well say things like good luck. I hope you're getting out of that habit. You say it's one of my slight boxes it is because there's no such thing as luck. And it's an affront to God that you wouldn't be willing to talk about Him in every circumstances. You might as well just talk about faith and chance and patch a brother on the back and say, tough right, brother, but you have more to say than that. And may I say because you're presbyterians, because you are biblical in your understanding of who God is. And he is according to John Stan, the martyred missionary, the one great circumstance of life. That is a true statement and Job knew it to be true and that's why Job could say, though he's slain me yet will I trust in him. Can you say that this morning? Does your faith go that far? Do you know him? Do you know him like that? Do you have that kind of all of God, that kind of fear of Him? Do you know that kind of compassion and love from God? It is an aside. You notice in the outline it's a planned tangent, but it's a needed one. Even in my notes, as I get back to the main thrust of the sermon, but the point is Job always knew that God was for Him and you need never fear that. You need never question that. So the remainder of the outline which will go much more quickly is examples from these central chapters to very dark, dark events and the moments that followed. And the first being in Job 9, if you'll turn to Job 9, beginning in verse 25, he says, now my days are swifter than a runner. They flee away. They see no good. They pass like swift shifts, like an eagle swooping on its prey. If I say, I will forget my complaint. I will put off my sad face and wear a smile. I'm afraid of all my sufferings. I know that you will not hold me innocent. If I am condemned, why then do I labor in vain? If I wash myself with snow, water and cleanse my hands with soap, yet you will plunge me in the pit and my own clothes will bore me. I mean, what despair this man has. This is an awful time in Job's life. He believes that everyone's against him and that his life is over and his life is in vain until verse 32. Here's where the light begins to dawn on Job in verse 32, for he is not a man as I am, that I may answer him and that we should go to court together, nor is there any mediator. The New American Standard and the Revised Standard used the word umpire. Nor is there any umpire. They are not the arbitrator between us who may lay his hand on us both. Let him take his rod away from me and do not let dread up him, terrifying me, then I would speak and not fear him, but it is not so with me. It is not exactly a breakthrough, but there is hope there as Job cries out in desolation if only there were an umpire. If only there were a mediator and arbitrator someone to bring me and God together and we know the answer. We know that the answer to Job's anguish prayer is vr betrayed her. The only mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus. You know Paul in 1 Timothy 2.5, that was part of our call to worship. He could have said the God Christ Jesus, but he doesn't say he says the man Christ Jesus is the mediator to bring him ever closer to us. In all of this humility to say the man Christ Jesus is our mediator. So the very thing that Job longs for and pray for we know and we experience in our heart in our deepest burdens when I think I can't pray now, I can't have faith, I can't have trust, I can't believe God. There is always Jesus and he always has one hand on me and one hand on the Father, no matter what, whether it's a piece like a river that attended my way or saw rows like sea billows roll. Whatever my life thou hast taught me to say it is well, it is well with my soul. The Satan should buffer the trials should come let this blessed assurance control that Christ has regarded my estate and has shed his own blood for my soul. No matter the circumstance, whatever the pain, whatever the heartache, whatever I am raised with an alcoholic mother or an abusive father, whatever happened to me in my past, whatever happened in my childhood, in a scope of things, it doesn't matter it is well. It is well with my soul, I have an empire, I have an arbitrator, and then secondly as a Kinsman redeemer turned to Job 19, all Job could see is this unpitting God, this unpitting friend, Job 19 at verse 21. Have pity on me, have pity on me, oh you my friend, for the hand of God is struck me, why do you persecute me as God does and are not satisfied with my flesh, and then come these wonderful words beginning in 23, all that my words were written, all that they were inscribed in a book, that they were engraved on a rock with an iron can and led forever. But I know that my redeemer lives, he shall stand at last on the earth, and after my skin is destroyed, this I know that in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another, how my heart yearns within me. And he says, I know my redeemer lives, what is he mainly taught by his Kinsman redeemer? The one responsible for protecting the members of his extended family, they would provide an heir, when a brother would die, like Boaz and Ruth, they would provide someone who would come in and buy the land if one of the relatives that sold it because he was so poor, sold himself into slavery, they would come and redeem that individual. And Joe was saying, I have someone like that, I have a Kinsman redeemer, I have somebody that takes my name and clears my name and stands beside me, and you know the beauty of the words, when he says, when I have seen my Kinsman redeemer, I will have seen God, he says to you and me, the one who is for me is the one who is my Kinsman redeemer, he's ready to stand by me. And how much better we know it, and all these things he had to be made like his brethren, that he might be a merciful and high priest in things pertaining to God to make appreciation for the sins of the people. Job's faith is beginning to prove stronger than the reality of his suffering, people who suffer know a lot about God. Sometimes you know people and you see how much they know about God, you sound never know that much about God until maybe I've suffered like they've suffered. And sometimes that's true, but we can know and we can learn from Joe, and one of the things we learn, one of the precious truths is there's nothing grander than knowing God himself. The second Roman numeral is strictly to say that Joe knew that this was not all there was. In chapter 14, he asked some very hard questions, but he ultimately says, and really you can just write down the verses, particularly seven to 15. And then again, chapter 19, verse 26, after my skin has been destroyed yet in my flesh, will I see God? He has confidence that this one who is for him is the one that he will see again. One of the greatest really conclusions, not only to this sermon, but to the Lord's day, is the fact that we will celebrate the Lord suffered a night. Joe, for Joe, his suffering did too thing, he learned a lot about God through his sufferings he learned in heaven was all the more sweeter. And that's true for us, anybody who's lost someone can say, having sweeter because so and so is there. That's the way it is at the Lord's table. We can say, I sit down with my arbitrator, I sit down with my umpire. So really this sermon continues until tonight, until we sit at the table, I urge you to come back, come when the church meet. Have your children here, I think of high schoolers and things like that. You make sure they're here on the Lord's day evening, particularly as we take the suffer together tonight, as we pray together.
Our God, we simply pray that she would be merciful to us, that she would have pity on us, teach us who you are, teach us truth about you. And be very gentle, as we know, even the godly suffer, that they might be made more like your son, the Lord Jesus. It's in his name we pray, amen.