Bible Story: Job

Introduction

The book of Job, often called the Man of Sorrows, is one of the most unusual, unique, challenging, and interesting books that I’ve ever read. In James 5 11 in the New Testament, we read of the patience of Job and it’s labeled there endurance. Actually, the book of Job tells of the patience of God and the endurance of Job. How patient God was with Job until he got, as we say today, his head on straight. Finally, Job admitted he had been wrong. He said, I repent and sat cloth and ashes. I abhor myself. For God had blessed the latter end of Job more than his beginning. Read Job 42, verses 5 through 12. Earlier, Job had said in chapter 30, verse 20, I called unto God and he didn’t hear me.

God was listening. Job just wasn’t bending his ear to the will of the Father. Job’s friends came and sat silently seven days. Let’s not belabor them too much, for at least they came. And they sat quietly for seven days. Their mistake was opening their mouths after that seven days of silence, because when they began to speak, Eliphaz, Bill, Dead, and Zophar, just like the wife of Job, proved to be his enemies, were no help of consequence for goodness at all in Job’s life. Evidently, this book is set in the patriarchal age, for Job is offering his own sacrifices. Read the first chapter and the last. Job was a very wealthy man. You remember the story of how his family, his wealth, his land, his crops, his animals were all destroyed.

All of a sudden, beside all that, he was afflicted personally with a very dreaded and painful disease, and even found comfort in sitting on the ash heaps out the edge of the city. Job was in agony. He was all alone. How he needed God. And yet, for a while he seemed to turn a deaf ear to things that are right and proper. You remember the devil came to God and said, Job, your servant, is your servant because he’s hedged about. He cannot keep from being good. You have him surrounded. Incidentally, that’s an apt description of how God surrounds his people with his providential care. Isn’t it wonderful to be loved by God who cares that much for us? There are many verses in Job that are outstanding.

1. The Brevity and Uncertainty of Life

Some of them speak of the brevity and uncertainty of life in such vivid graphic language, they’re never to be forgotten. He said, My day, my days flee away. Job 9 25. No man is sure of life, Job 24 22. Man that is born of woman is a few days in much trouble. Job 14 1. My life is like a weaver’s shuttle that is spent without hope. Job 7 6. And all through the book of Job we read of the futility of thinking we’ll be on earth forever. There are many verses that we would like to notice in Job, Job 3.17, where the wicked cease from troubling, and where the weary be at rest. In Job 19, 15, he says, I know my Redeemer lives and shall stand upon the earth in the last days.

2. We Have What Job Longed For: A Mediator

What great faith this man had. In Job 9 33, he said, Oh, that there were a daisma and umpire, a mediator between thee and me, O God. His wife couldn’t help him. His three best friends made speeches that broke his heart and and ruined his spirit. And so he said, If I only had a mediator between thee and me, O God, an umpire to plead my case. Do you know that we have what Job longed for? Christ is our mediator, 1 Timothy 2 5. He ever lives to make intercession for us, Romans 8 34, Hebrews 7 25. So we have what Job longed for. We have that daiseman, that mediator, that umpire to plead our case. We have an advocate with the Father, Christ Jesus the righteous, 1 John 2 1.

A lawyer to plead our case at the bar of God’s justice and glory. So we have what Job longed for, and that’s one of the blessings of the sunlight of New Testament Christianity is over against the darkness of the old covenant arrangement. In uh the book of Job, we read, What is man that thou shouldest magnify him and that thou should have set thine heart upon him? Job 7 17. Teach me, and I will hold my tongue, and cause me to understand wherein I have erred, how forcible are right words. Chapter 6, verses 24 and 25. Behold, God will not cast away a perfect man, neither will he help the evildoers. Job 8, verse 20. Job tried to justify himself. He became rather self-righteous in vindication against the claims of his three friends who said, You must be terribly wicked because you’re suffering terribly.

3. Suffering Is Not Always a Result of Sin

And men have always tried to answer the problem of human suffering, and always have tried to equate suffering with sin. The Bible teaches that sometimes sin produced suffering as a natural consequence of reaping what was sow. But there have been some great and righteous, and even one perfect one, Jesus Christ, who suffered often and deeply, and yet did not sin. And of course, Paul had a thorn in the flesh, 2 Corinthians 12, the best servant God had on earth. Timothy had a stomach ailment, a faithful preacher, 1 Timothy 5 23. Trophimus, a faithful evangelist, was left sick at Miletus, 2 Timothy 4.20. So we cannot always equate suffering with sin. James 5 says, concerning the suffering man, the one who is sick, if he have committed sins.

So the book of Job certainly does enlighten us on the fact that sometimes righteous men suffer, and that suffering is not always a result of sin. My favorite verse in the book of Job, because of its dynamics, Job 13, 15. This faithful, enduring one, Job said, Though he slay me, yet will I trust him. Yes, trust in the Lord with all thine heart. Lean not to thine own understanding, and all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy path. Concerning man is born a woman a few days in much trouble. Job said in Job 14 2, He cometh forth like a flower and is cut down. He fleeth also as a shadow and continueth not. Psalm 90 says, Man is like a breath. Our life is but a tale that is told.

We’re here just a short time. Remember how short my time is, Psalm 89, 47. There’s but a step between me and death, 1 Samuel 20, verse 3. For we must all needs die, and our is water spilt upon the ground that can never be gathered again, 2 Samuel 14, 14. One of the haunting cries, one of the pressing questions of Job is Job 14, 14. If a man die, shall he live again? Jesus answered that at the resurrection of Lazarus at Bethany at the graveyard there, John 11. He said, I am the resurrection and the life. If a man believe in me, though he die, yet shall he live. If a man believe in me, he’ll never really die. You know one of the great lessons learned in the book of Job, and you need to listen carefully or you’ll misunderstand.

4. Never Put Too Much Trust in Any Human Being

We learn the book of Job, we should never put too much trust in any human being. Now that isn’t to say we’re to be skeptical and wary of all humanity. But Job, if he had put too much trust in humanity, his wife and three best friends would have forever discouraged him. We’re to put our ultimate trust in God. I’ve run into people who have said, I quit the Lord because my best friend forsook me. Well, your best friend’s Christ, and he’s never forsaken you. He’s promised that, Hebrews 13 6. And when we allow the frailty of humanity to separate us from divinity, we’re not thinking very clearly. In chapter 16, verse 19 of Job, we have what some call the classic verse in the book. Behold, my witness is in heaven and my record is on high.

How true that is of us today who are in Christ. Christ is in heaven, and our record is emblazoned there in the book of life. In Job 19, 25, I know that my redeemer lives and shall stand upon the earth in the last days. In chapter 20, verses 4 through 9 of Job, we learn of the short-lived prosperity of the wicked. Knowest thou this from old, since man was placed upon earth, that the triumphing of the wicked is short, and the joy of the hypocrite, but for a moment, though his excellency mount up to the heavens and his head reach into the clouds, yet he shall perish forever like his own refuge. They which have seen him shall say, Where is he? He shall fly away as a dream and shall not be found.

Yea, he shall be chased away as a vision of the night. The eye also which saw him shall see him no more, neither shall his place any more behold him. In chapter 22, verse 21, one of his dear friends in a monumental speech, made this statement Acquaint now thyself with him and be at peace. And then in chapter 23, 10, Job says, But he knoweth the way that I take. When he hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold. When gold is tried in the furnace, dross, chaff, impurity fades away, and only the true gold remains. And Job said, I’ll still be standing when it’s all over. It’s in the book of Job that we have the famous utterance, save by the skin of our teeth.

5. Not Why Job Suffered, But Who God Was

In the book of Job, Job becomes despondent. He cries out to God, and he said, Why have you forsaken me? But he learned that his latter end would be blessed more than the beginning. In verse 28 of chapter 28, and unto man he said, Behold the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom, and to depart from evil is understanding. In the book of Job, God says, Job, why are you replying against me? Why are you questioning me? Did you make the earth? Did you help me? Did you sit in the council halls of heaven and give me advice on how to make these huge animals that you’re afraid of but are subject to me? Did you tell me how to make the world? He says, Job, if you’ll be quiet, I can take your little puny life and make it worthwhile if you’ll submit to my will.

Surely, if I can take the world out of chaos and make it something systematic and orderly, I can take your one life if you’ll just hush, turn loose and let God have it. That’s the whole point of the book. We need to turn loose and let God rule and have dominion in our lives. For if he can make the world, he can surely take care of our problems, whatever they may be. So the whole gist of the book of Job is not an answer to why Job suffered, but who God was. And if we know who God is, we’ll not question what happens day by day, for it’s just for the moment anyway. And we’ll never be guilty of saying as Job did in chapter 30, verse 20, I cried unto thee, and thou didst not hear me.

Conclusion

At the end of the book, after the three friends and a young self-appointed prophet speak up and give Job advice, Job says, I now know thee. And I abhor myself. I repent in sackcloth and ashes. I know that you only do that which is right, and I submit to your will. Then it is stated: God bless the latter end of Job more than his beginning. The book of Job tells us who, if not why.