The Gospel According to Job 2

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Speaker 1: Hey, welcome back. The Book of Job in the Bible has unnerved, frightened, confused Christians for a hard times. I wonder, I just wonder if we really get the core message. You just may be surprised. We're going to talk about it. Welcome to Gospel Rant podcast and doctor Bill Senord YouTube channel. I'm your host, Doctor Bill Sinyard. We are free where you get good podcasts of course on YouTube as well, so please subscribe. As always, one of the fastest ways you can help us grow is by leaving your comments below. Thank you sincerely ahead of time for that. Also, thanks for making Gospel Rant Podcasts one of the top ten percent podcasts in the entire world. Thank you for watching every week. We hope that it helps to regularly hear about God's love that loves the unlovable and loved unlovely and worthy and unlikely. And that's all of us I need give to day if we were just a little bit honest, if you want to contact me directly, love to get feedback Bill at gospel dash appapp dot com. All right, I want to get right into job, but we're gonna do it after this brief word from our sponsors. Yep, don't go anywhere. We'll see in just a minute on your own read Job one six to two ten Again, I want to begin with something essential. God's assessment of Job is unambiguous. Job is beyond reproach, and humanly speaking, he is as close to perfect as a fallen human can be. He's the real deal. I think that's part of the story. If God can treat Job this way, home, man, what about me? And you'll see what I mean, it matters because Job's righteousness. I mean, but Job's not being punished, right, He's not being disciplined, He's not under any judgment from God. God's not angry with Job. Just get that out of your head as you read the book. And if anything, God is proud of him. Job is God's man on earth. He's and you'll see at the end he becomes a priest for the rest of his community. Apart from Jesus himself. Scripture presents few characters with such moral clarity. I don't know of any other ones. Right, Job was righteous, not sinless, but righteous will make the distinction. Job knew he was not sinless. He understood that when not if sin occurs, rebellion peshah, guilt of own and missing the mark hata. These are the three levels of sin, three types of categories of sin. He is aware that justice, reconciliation with God requires resolution, and in Job's world that resolution was an ollah, a burnt offering. Job knew this, an innocent substitute offered in place of the guilty right of course, shadowing of Jesus. Job regularly acted as a priest for his household verse five. Perhaps my children have sinned and cursed God in their hearts. So when his children had a party, Job responded not with suspicion or judgment, but with priestly care. He arranged for purification for them. He offered sacrifices on their behalf. He ensured that any possible offense, known or unknown was dealt with, and he did it on their behalf, again a foreshadow of what God does through Christ for me and for you. So narratively biblically, the children sins would legally resolve. They weren't sinless, but they were now declared righteous. They were washed, their sins, their crimes, if any, were removed as far as the estes from the west. So the same thing with Job. He's doing it for himself as well. So God was not keeping a file on job, just waiting for the you know, the finger to push the spite button. So there's a reference to curse God in the heart. What does that mean? It's not something that we typically talk about, but here's some examples from scripture. First is taking credit for what God has done. Look at Deuteronomy eight seventeen. Misjudging God's motives, Deuteronomy ninety four, assuming God won't act, zeph and Iah one twelve, arrogance or ingratitude Isaiah forty seven to ten, denying God altogether. Ps I'm fourteen one? All right? Did you hear all that? If we're honest, we all do that. We all do that every day, looks I do? So. Don't let me hang in here. We're all guilty, right, and yet, thanks be to Jesus, there's now no condemnation for those who are in Christ. Jesus right, our high Priest has already offered the final o lah like job did for his children. The breach between us and God, the relational breach, is healed, and not just just healed. There is no longer any possible breach now again it it feels like I've messed up, and guilt and shame creeps in, and a critical inner voice says, God can't love you, or Jesus can't love you anymore. He's disappointed in you. He's just not true, but it can feel that way, and feelings are almost never a reality, not total. And then the challenger enters the story, and by the way he does that our story as well, and the story turns satan. The challenger he raises a devastating, really fascinating question verse nine, Does Job fear God for nothing? See? Have you not put a hedge around him? In his household and everything he has? You've blessed him the work of his hands so that the flock and herds are spread throughout the land, meaning he's extremely sick wealthy. But stretch out your hand and strike everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face Verses nine to eleven. In other words, God, Job's obedience, Come on, that's not faith. He's in it for the benefits. It's like a dog that you pet and the dog gets loyal to you, or you feed him snacks. That's humanity. But strip away all the blessings, right, everything that the retributed principle we talked about a little bit last time. If you do good, you should expect blessings. If you do evil, you should expect curses and discipline. But if you reverse that to strip away the blessing, Satan says, and Job's going to curse you. This is the charge. Human piety is transactional. We follow God because it pays, We follow God because there's binnies. That's what Satan is saying. Interesting, I mean, Satan's not totally wrong. That is my tendency. And when life doesn't come my way, who am I going to blame? You know, God, I've been going to church, I've been praying, I've been doing all these things. But even if I didn't do all those things, I don't deserve that for tribute to principle. And this is what scholars refer to as the RP. Obedience, you get blessed, disobedience, punishment. It's a formula, and Saved is claiming that all faith ultimately operates that way. God Job's serving you because it's to his benefit. So you're tragically pimping mankind, says the challenger. Your image in them is cracked or shallow at best, is two dimensional, not deep. They are nothing more than animals, pets. They can do tricks for reward, but that's it. If there's no faith capital s that you seem to be implying. You see among mankind that internal motivation that makes us, makes them want to love and trust you believe you out of a pure motive with nothing expected in return. You know, this faithfulness that will believe you, follow you even if they get beat up. See so humans, says Satan or religious mercenaries, and you know it's not necessarily evil. Our pets do it. But Scripture insists that humans are capable of war, were made in his image. Scripture insists that we're capable of war. And the Book of Job is really an exploration of that. So the Book of Job says, or ask is there such a thing as faith for nothing? The word is hanan faith without treats, faith without benies. Yeah, and look, that's a test that I don't want. I'd like to think my faith is since it comes from the Holy Spirit. I'd like to think it's that strong. But I've failed so many times. I'd have to do a whole separate podcast on how many times but here we go to answer that question biblically. God's going to remove the blessings and from one who actually deserves the blessing. You see how the narrative is set up and why it has to be Job. And if Job has it, you know faith, this faith that's not limited by the RP. So can you and I? It's accessible, it is part of us. We can rise to that level. So the challenger says to God verse eleven, stretch out your hand and strike everything he has, and he will, surely, without any doubt, curse you to your face. And that's the bets right. If Job curses God to his face, God loses the bets right. And so Job can't have an explanation because that just makes it confusing. No warning, no moral failure required. This cannot be understood as punishment. And the shocking part is that God not only allows it. Are you sitting down? He instigates it right. As a matter of fact, he admits that chapter two, verse three, you Satan incited me against him to ruin him without a reason, Handaan, without any reason. So I did it. You incited me, But it's by choice, my responsibility, my authority. I did it. You know, so many interpreters try to soften that God's role, but scripture doesn't. God says I did it, and not because job deserved it or there was fair or right, not because job failed, but because something else deeper was being revealed, and something else is going on. And you'll see what I mean. This is suffering for nothing, suffering with no purpose, suffering with no explanation, suffering when God feels absent, Job is crushed Hanam for no reason. He's right. When he's complaining, he says, show me what I did. God first of all needs to remain silent because of the bed. But even if God was able to speak, there would be no reason. That wasn't the point of these trials. I mean, this is troubling, right, it's unnerving. I get it. He Ballah's job, he swallowed him. But a fair translation it would be ruined, destroyed, attack, chewed up, grounded dust, crushed into pieces. If that wasn't bad enough, he added the sad truth for no reason at all. Handa one commentator says, Hannam reflects the crux of the test, and that's the hardest kind of suffering, and it suffering with no explanation suffering I don't deserve. And here's that commentator. It's difficult enough to endure hardship to achieve specific gold, but to suffer misfortune for no apparent reason plunges a person into agonizing self doubt. Coping with a sense of meaninglessness is more difficult than coping with the material loss. Not knowing why it's worse than the loss itself. Often meaninglessness is more painful than pain. Often, if you know suffering has a purpose, man, we can rise up and heroically endure it. But when heaven's silent, when God's not doesn't feel like he's around, there's no explanation. When it's anam and faith, this thing that comes from the Holy Spirit and us, it's tested at the roots. So let me ask again. It was one of the questions last time, who would follow this God? Let's be honest. This God is frightening, unnerving by the way, and comforting at the same time. As we'll see in the Book of Job. You'll see why. But it's not what you were thinking before. But honest question, at this point, I give you permission. If this is how God treats his best servant, who would who would want to sign up right, hold that question. So Test one is loss of blessings, and Job grieves deeply. This is not stoicism. Verse twenty at this Job got up towards robe and shaved his head. Then he fell to the ground and worship and said, naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I will depart. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. May the name of the Lord be praised. And all this Job did not send by charging God with wrongdoing. And all this Job did not send by charging God with wrongdoing official legal charge God. This is important. This isn't going to be a trial. And that's this distinction. Charge God with wrongdoing. He'll question God a lot, and that's kosher, but he will not break the bet, lose the bet for God by cursing God to his faith legally. I just wonder if my faith would survive all of this anyway. Test number two, loss of health is still not enough. Job's body has attacked his wife, who shared all the blessings, can't endure it and says, curse God and die. And Job says to her, shall we accept good from God and not trouble? No sin, no curse, no legal condemning God, proclaiming God is guilty. In test three, we're gonna pick that up next time. Key two kinds of faith. It's a little simplistic, but hear me. Faith number one with a little F is the retributive principle. I follow God because I'm ex expecting blessings. I can tell you about God blessing me in the past, and that's motivating me to follow. Again, that's faith, little F. It's human, not evil, but it's not what we're required to do or expected to do as His image bearers. And when blessings disappear, anger, confusion, loss of faith, that that little F meaning I'm not so happy with God anymore. Resentment, it's so common, it's understandable. But that little F is biblically paganism. Now there's faith number two. Again. We get this from the Holy Spirit. We know in the New Testament, but here it is this is Jesus's prayer Father, not my will, but yours be done. And this faith is not stoicism. It doesn't deny pain or ignore pain. It grieves deeply, but it does not, in the end condemn God of being guilty. Of accusing, not just accusing, but blaming God, finding God guilty, charging God with unfaithfulness, because the blessings were never wages. See, when we begin to think blessings or wages of what we do, we slide into that paganism. And because it is this God who is beyond our capacity to explain, who has promised that all things will somehow work together for good, we can accept that something is at play, something that we will never be able to imagine enough to explain. And I repeat, we can't explain it. It's too big. So I can't tell tell you. You know, all right, doctor Bill, tell me this happened to me. Weave the story. You're a story writer, you're award winning story writer, so we've a story that would explain why this could actually be good. I can't. I got nothing. I got nothing, and I'm so sorry that happened to you. I believe God has something, but I can't on his behalf explain what that might be. I can just tell you I believe it it will turn out to be good, and you will agree with that then. But there's no way, no way other than this faith, and you'll be able to process it now. Yeah, and where does the faith come from? Not from effort, not by discipline. Calvin, I think he got it right. He called it a secret work of the Holy Spirit. Paul calls it a fruit of the Spirit, where you often translated faithfulness, but it's actually faith. It's heaven sourced and assures through the asking. And when all hell breaks loose that it will. You're going to need it. And I know I do almost like I can't bank it, right. I got to keep asking for more from the Holy Spirit who lives in my inner being. All Right, one more message from our sponsors, and I'll give you some thought questions that you can use to process this amazing book and everything we've talked about. We'll be right back. So here's a reflection questions and discussion comments. I think you'll find this interesting because we've got to process this right, because it seems so strange. Here we go when suffering comes upon us with no reason or explanation, and it will and feels like it happened for nothing, no reason. What kind of faith is revealed in you? Yeah, all right, we're going to pick this up next week. Some of you regulars know that I've been writing teen fantasy Christian fantasy books the Kingdom Quest Award winning We're grateful for that, Thank you. It's been described as the modern Chronicles of Narnia or Narnia meets Princess Bride. Get them for teens in your life and church. But here's something on point. The latest book, book number five in the series, is called shadow Bound. It came out of January sixth and twenty twenty six. It's not only a great adventure with great characters and stories, it's an allegory of the Book of Job. And this is the back cover. A wager forged, an arrogance, a kingdom hanging in the balance, a boy caught in a cosmic test. In the glittering throne room of Garden City, the ancient gorgon Dolos dares to confront the great King with a chilling claim humanity is unworthy, broken, faithless. He offers a twisted wager strip a single loyal servant of every blessing, and watches devotion crumbles. That servant is Reggie, an orphan magician with an unshakable heart, a knighted hero whose story has already become legend, but now without knowledge of the celestial bargain made above him. He is thrust into seven harrowing trials, alone, forsaken and bound by the shadows, while gods and monsters watch from the wings. Reggie's soul becomes the battlefield for the fate of mankind itself. Can one flawed human prove that love, loyalty, and faith are more than illusions? Or will he fall just as the Borgan predicted. Check it out on Amazon and Kindle. Now, yeah, all right, we'll see you next week. Take heart, child of God.