March 7, 2026
The Gospel According to Job 7
The Gospel According to Job 7
Welcome to Gospel Rant!
Dr. Bill is going to look at five worldviews of why bad things happen to good people. Important overview. You may be surprised. We will see what you think.
And now, it’s your turn…
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Transcript
00:00:07
Speaker 1: So how do we deal with suffering, lost, violations? How do we deal with such tragedies as COVID and wars and tragic.
00:00:15
Speaker 2: Deaths and justices, human slavery, trafficking. What is our go to strategy? Well, we'll talk about it.
00:00:21
Speaker 1: Welcome to Gospel Ran podcast and doctor Bill Senord YouTube channel. I'm your host, Doctor Bill Senord. We're free wherever you get good podcasts and of course on YouTube as well, so please subscribe. As always, one of the fastest ways you can help us grows by leaving your comments below, and thank you sincerely for that. Also, thank you for making Gospel Rant in the top ten percent of podcasts in the world, and thank you for listening every week and passing this on to others. We hope that it helps to regularly hear about God's love for the unlovable, love the unlovely, the word, and the unlikely. And that's all of us, that's me that you on any given day, if we were just a little bit honest, I want to get right into this. After a brief word from our sponsors, we will be right back. So how do we deal with suffering and loss and violation? And how do we deal with, like I said, COVID and wars and tragic deaths. What is our go to strategy when bad things happen to good people? It really depends upon your worldview, and in particular what we think about God and how he runs this video game of life. There are five world views related to this topic. Number one, there's no God. You know, blank happens, fate, luck, chance, You do what you can. You mourn the loss, You move on heroically. You stop wasting emotional energy blaming this God who doesn't even exist. Sam Harris is the poster child for such a view. We call it atheism. You know, I'm guessing that almost every person who lived through COVID, you know, who believed in an omnipotent, omniscient and compassionate God, wondered what was God doing when all of that laid waste to our population. So all of the atheists, sam Harris says, has the courage to admit the obvious. These poor people spent their lives and the company of an imaginary friend.
00:02:26
Speaker 2: The Biblical God is a fiction, he would say. Only the atheist.
00:02:30
Speaker 1: Has realized that the Biblical God is no different than Zeus and Thor. This is Joseph K of Kafka's The Trial. Joseph K, an average bank teller, is arrested in charged with an offense, but is never told why by the dark, bureaucratic judicial system, and in the end he's taken to a field outside the city and executed, never ever being told what the crime was. Yuck, So bad things happen, it's bad luck if you were there. The number two worldview is there is no God, but there is karma, so we must accept the tragedy as being just and not complain, otherwise karma's going to catch up to you in the next life. And since karma doesn't govern during your life, only after your life, there's no judge for you to go to for bad events. The heavens are going to remain silent. And also the implication is that bad things happen to you in this lifetime because you were self centered and uncaring and a previous life. But what you did is a mystery to you now, so there's no way for you to know what you did or didn't do in order to learn from mistakes. We know that if you don't learn from your mistakes, you're destined to repeat them, so I've heard, but how would you know If you believe in karma, the cycle starts over.
00:03:51
Speaker 2: It's a maddening worldview that's.
00:03:53
Speaker 1: Often used to further a fatalistic world view of bad circumstance and poise.
00:04:02
Speaker 2: It can be so abusive.
00:04:04
Speaker 1: Your next life, controlled by karma is largely dependent upon how you willingly accept suffering in this life without complaining or trying to wiggle out or even improving your lot, because you don't want to tick off karma. So bad things happen because you're being punished for stuff you did in a previous life. There's a third worldview.
00:04:27
Speaker 2: There is a God, but you know what, he's just not very powerful.
00:04:32
Speaker 1: It's deistic, meaning that he wound the clock of history a long time ago, but it didn't interfere anymore until the end. Or maybe he's just by nature indifferent, not really loving, or just just distant. Perhaps the most frustrating of the world views, victims are just stuck in a no man's land. There is no powerful just judge that they can run to, that we can run to to complain. This is the realm of all discussions on theodicy. Rabbi Kushners, why do bad things happen to good people, you know, they just do. This is also the category of those who attribute all bad things to Satan. So God's weak, He's indifferent or unwilling to stop evil or to stop Satan. So Satan has this period of time where he just runs amok. And you know, it's just there's not a lot of moral reasoning behind it. And why complain because you can't trust the judge to have the moral authority or the power or the desire to right wrongs now, and it's going to lead to despair. Bad things happen due to human evil. It's not God is human evil or Satan. Perhaps God didn't want it to happen, but just can't stop it because that's the plan. So let's just leave God out of it, you know, the suffering right. Fourth worldview, Hopefully you're tracking.
00:05:56
Speaker 2: I know this could get deep, but stay with me. Worldview.
00:06:00
Speaker 1: There is a God who is all powerful and perfectly just, who only does good and just things. Boy, this is very popular today and evangelicalism, but you'll see it's got some holes in it. This is the retributive principle. This is job's friends, and this is a scary hard judge. All you can do is go to this God and repent, beg, hit your knees, plead for mercy because you did something wrong. Otherwise you would not be punished or disciplined. If you took God to court, your trial would go very badly. It would be frightening to go in front of such a God who demands perfection. There's no place in this worldview for bad things happening to good people. It's only bad things happening to bad people. And stop claiming your good, stop claiming your righteous.
00:06:48
Speaker 2: This is the path.
00:06:49
Speaker 1: Of legalism and makes what Jesus did on the cross really confusing.
00:06:55
Speaker 2: God used the greatest of all evil and injustice. Right hear me?
00:07:00
Speaker 1: God used evil and injustice the cross to usher in the greatest of all good, so God can actually use bad things and work it out for good Romans twenty eight. Right, bad things happen because of sin, God's judgment. This is what the worldview says. Bad things happen because of sin, your sin. This is God's judgment for victims and the nations for some sin, because God wouldn't do injustice to you ever. Right again, but remember the cross God did injustice allowed injustice for his son. This worldview is very, very confusing when you think about the Cross, the idea that only Satan does evil things, so it has to be him God. I'm you know, the Cross the biggest injustice that has ever been, and God used that as part of his plan for good. This the you know that's the friends of Job's talking, right, have to wrap your heads around that. Here's the fifth worldview. There is a God who is all powerful and perfectly just, who uses both good and evil, unjust, unfair events ultimately for his highest glory and purposes and to extend his glory to you, to me, to his beloved children. He puts us in these positions, Joe, he clearly put he claims to put Job in that position. Either puts him in the position or he allows it. Either way, whichever one you can stomach the most. Ultimately for a higher good. This God freely uses trials, pain, loss, suffering injustices to sweep his faithful children into the celestial battle between him and Satan, which they are invited, we are invited to win and to crush the serpent's head, Satan's head.
00:08:56
Speaker 2: This is the path that's the one.
00:08:58
Speaker 1: Promoted In the book of Job, bad things happen because of a combination of God's judgment, his discipline, and his divine plan. And in the end all injustices will be made right. Everyone will see and know at a future judgment even the evil prescribed allowed by God will be paid for, and God does that.
00:09:22
Speaker 2: Job's worldview likely begins with number four and shifts quickly to number five. So what does Job do? First?
00:09:31
Speaker 1: He asked God to tell him what he did wrong, because he believes God cares.
00:09:36
Speaker 2: Job ten two. I will say to.
00:09:37
Speaker 1: God, do not condemn me, but tell me what charges you have against me. And remember, God doesn't have any charges against Job, and there's only silence in the heaven why because God has no accusations.
00:09:50
Speaker 2: Then Job pleads that God would call the trial.
00:09:53
Speaker 1: Job assumes that humanity can't subpoena God. God's subpoena humanity first Chapter thirteen, verse nineteen. Can anyone bring charges against me? If so, I will be silent and die. Only grant me these two things, Oh God, and then I will not hide from you. One withdraw your hand far from me and stop frightening me with your terrors. And two summon me, and I will answer or let me speak, and you reply, how many wrongs and sins have I committed? Show me my offense and my sin? And remember he didn't.
00:10:27
Speaker 2: Job did not.
00:10:28
Speaker 1: There was no offense. God says he's righteous, and God doesn't respond. Remember what the reader knows and Job does not. God is not charging Job with any crime, and there are no charges for.
00:10:40
Speaker 2: God to admit to.
00:10:42
Speaker 1: So I said, God has nothing to say about why Job is being functionally effectively, it feels like he's being punished, and that's how it feels like, right, that's where my head goes to. So then Job tries to pursue an out of court settlement with God nine verse thirty two. Not a man like me, that I might answer him, that we might confront each other in court, if only there were someone to arbitrate between us, to lay his hand upon us both, someone to remove God's rod from me so that his terror would frighten me no more that I would speak up without fear of him. But as it now stands with me, I can't. Also, again, it's not feasible in this case. First, no offense, no crime, and God cannot.
00:11:31
Speaker 2: Settle it doesn't exist.
00:11:34
Speaker 1: Then, in an act that is really sophisticated. Theologically, Job cries out for a heavenly redeemer. Job just knows he's innocent, but if not, he is also convinced that God is so good there will ultimately be a redeemer who will clear everything up in the end, maybe from the grave, but Job and his reputation will be vindicated. And by the way he is the book Chapter nineteen, verse twenty five. I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God. I myself will see him with my own eyes, but only silence from the heavens. Job doesn't need redemption. He didn't need a redeemer for his crimes. He did offerings right burnt offerings reflecting the future Jesus.
00:12:29
Speaker 2: So Job only has two legal options left, wisdom, which is chapter twenty eight, and the oath of innocence.
00:12:35
Speaker 1: I'm going to get to wisdom in a later talk, but let's talk about the oath of innocence.
00:12:40
Speaker 2: This is important.
00:12:42
Speaker 1: The ancient oath of innocence is a legal mechanism design to protect the innocent from false charges and hearsay. The defendant would swear before the court that they are innocent of all charges, and that kicks in a trial requiring the accuser to be subpoened to provide any evidence, and if the accuser refuses to appear, the defendant would be declared innocent by the court and the accuser would be found guilty of all the charges.
00:13:08
Speaker 2: Against the defendant. You see, then it's.
00:13:10
Speaker 1: Really an interesting, interesting process, to be sure. So in the Oath of Innocence, the defendant must make an official written claim of innocence to all charges and they sign it with their signature, and then the plaintiff is required to appear officially before the court to show all evidence. It's a way to force an official charge. So that's what happens here. There's an oath of innocence in twenty seven to two. It's initiated as surely as God lives. Job says, who has denied me justice, the Almighty, who has made me taste bitterness of soul? As long as I have life within me, the breath of God in my nostrils, my lips will not speak quickedness, and my tongue will utter no deceit I will never admit that you're in the right till I die.
00:13:58
Speaker 2: I will not.
00:13:59
Speaker 1: Deny my integrity. I will maintain my righteousness. I'll never let go of it. My conscience will not reproach me as long as I live. Chapter thirty one, verse thirty five. Oh that I had someone to hear me. I now sign my defense. Let the Almighty answer me. Let my accuser put his indictment in writing, And so he signs it, likely with an X. And he boldly believes that he's not guilty. But if he is guilty, the charges will come to light and then he'll know.
00:14:29
Speaker 2: So follow me.
00:14:30
Speaker 1: Now that the oath of innocence was invoked. If God doesn't appear, which remember he cannot do based upon the sting with Satan, then Job must be declared innocent and fully.
00:14:42
Speaker 2: Restored to his old reputation.
00:14:44
Speaker 1: But if Job is declared innocent, then according to the oath of innocence, God must.
00:14:50
Speaker 2: Be publicly declared guilty for he afflicted Job.
00:14:55
Speaker 1: Unjustly and Satan wins. So if God is silent, which he is vowed to remain with regard to the case, he must end up. If you follow the logic being condemned by the court by the justice system as guilty. If he is not silenced, Satan wins the bet. So either way, the oath of innocence plays into Satan's hands, or so it would appear. Are you following me? I know it's getting deep in the weeds, but here we go. It puts God in a legal bind. Narratively, this is a classic conflict motif that has to be resolved. How will God intervene without intervening? How will God defend himself humidly speaking, without defending himself?
00:15:42
Speaker 2: How will it work out?
00:15:43
Speaker 1: Will job let the trial go forward with the obvious end result is that God indirectly gets cursed? Will God intervened? Will Satan slip up?
00:15:54
Speaker 2: All? Right?
00:15:55
Speaker 1: So discussion? What's your worldview? And the two world views without God? There's no appeal and in fact, in the case of karma, appeals and complaints works against you in a future life. But in both number one and number two world views, you just suck it up and deal with it. You know, it just happens. In the case of number three, there's no substantial appeal. You're never sure what you're gonna find behind the bench, and you don't want to. And worldview number four there is no such thing as bad things happening to good people.
00:16:27
Speaker 2: Your claim of innocence is void.
00:16:30
Speaker 1: In fact, your appeal would be seen as unbelief and subject to penalty because how can you say that you're righteous?
00:16:36
Speaker 2: How do you know?
00:16:38
Speaker 1: How do you know what the God's claim? But and consider the amazing but terrifying good news embedded in.
00:16:47
Speaker 2: Worldview number five.
00:16:49
Speaker 1: This worldview suggests the possibility of a good, just, and caring God who can and will use good and bad to accomplish the greatest good for the sake of his beloved children. That's got to be troubling to many evangelicals. That's not how we've been taught.
00:17:06
Speaker 2: We believe that only Satan can use evil and God can only use good. But that's worldview number four.
00:17:12
Speaker 1: Worldview number five is God can use good and evil for good. Satan can only uses good and evil for bad. That's worldview five. And God doesn't need to explain. But in the end, all losses, all suffering, all offenses will be addressed, must be addressed by a good God and redeemed by this good God. There will be consolation where in the end they will all live happily ever after.
00:17:34
Speaker 2: I mean, that's heaven, right.
00:17:36
Speaker 1: So in worldview number five, faithful followers are expected to complain to God because he's good, and God's goal, unbeknownst to Job, is to crush Satan and to use him number two to extend his glory by using Job to do it.
00:17:54
Speaker 2: Job gets the headline.
00:17:57
Speaker 1: Final word and some discussion questions right after brief word from our sponsors.
00:18:00
Speaker 2: We're gonna be right back, So here's.
00:18:05
Speaker 1: Some questions for those of you who are tracking this. Hebrew is an oral language, meaning that when the writings repenned on paper, papyrus, etc. The vowels were not included. The vowels were added as a narrator would tell the story aloud. So for bonus points of two thousand, here's the final jeopardy question with different vowel points. A lie whose name could become the same as another famous biblical character who.
00:18:35
Speaker 2: All right?
00:18:36
Speaker 1: Check out my new teen fantasy book, Shadow Bounus, a C. S. Lewis esque fantasy but also an allegory the Book of Job. All of the weeds that we got into, particularly in this talk, are kind of laid out in a different kind of narrative fiction form.
00:18:49
Speaker 2: You might enjoy it. Adults are gonna be great feedback.
00:18:52
Speaker 1: But as for teenagers, get it for your church's teen ministry, Get it to teens in your family.
00:19:00
Speaker 2: It's on Amazon and Kindle. Yeah, all right, we're gonna pick this up in the next talk. Take our Child of God.
Speaker 1: So how do we deal with suffering, lost, violations? How do we deal with such tragedies as COVID and wars and tragic.
00:00:15
Speaker 2: Deaths and justices, human slavery, trafficking. What is our go to strategy? Well, we'll talk about it.
00:00:21
Speaker 1: Welcome to Gospel Ran podcast and doctor Bill Senord YouTube channel. I'm your host, Doctor Bill Senord. We're free wherever you get good podcasts and of course on YouTube as well, so please subscribe. As always, one of the fastest ways you can help us grows by leaving your comments below, and thank you sincerely for that. Also, thank you for making Gospel Rant in the top ten percent of podcasts in the world, and thank you for listening every week and passing this on to others. We hope that it helps to regularly hear about God's love for the unlovable, love the unlovely, the word, and the unlikely. And that's all of us, that's me that you on any given day, if we were just a little bit honest, I want to get right into this. After a brief word from our sponsors, we will be right back. So how do we deal with suffering and loss and violation? And how do we deal with, like I said, COVID and wars and tragic deaths. What is our go to strategy when bad things happen to good people? It really depends upon your worldview, and in particular what we think about God and how he runs this video game of life. There are five world views related to this topic. Number one, there's no God. You know, blank happens, fate, luck, chance, You do what you can. You mourn the loss, You move on heroically. You stop wasting emotional energy blaming this God who doesn't even exist. Sam Harris is the poster child for such a view. We call it atheism. You know, I'm guessing that almost every person who lived through COVID, you know, who believed in an omnipotent, omniscient and compassionate God, wondered what was God doing when all of that laid waste to our population. So all of the atheists, sam Harris says, has the courage to admit the obvious. These poor people spent their lives and the company of an imaginary friend.
00:02:26
Speaker 2: The Biblical God is a fiction, he would say. Only the atheist.
00:02:30
Speaker 1: Has realized that the Biblical God is no different than Zeus and Thor. This is Joseph K of Kafka's The Trial. Joseph K, an average bank teller, is arrested in charged with an offense, but is never told why by the dark, bureaucratic judicial system, and in the end he's taken to a field outside the city and executed, never ever being told what the crime was. Yuck, So bad things happen, it's bad luck if you were there. The number two worldview is there is no God, but there is karma, so we must accept the tragedy as being just and not complain, otherwise karma's going to catch up to you in the next life. And since karma doesn't govern during your life, only after your life, there's no judge for you to go to for bad events. The heavens are going to remain silent. And also the implication is that bad things happen to you in this lifetime because you were self centered and uncaring and a previous life. But what you did is a mystery to you now, so there's no way for you to know what you did or didn't do in order to learn from mistakes. We know that if you don't learn from your mistakes, you're destined to repeat them, so I've heard, but how would you know If you believe in karma, the cycle starts over.
00:03:51
Speaker 2: It's a maddening worldview that's.
00:03:53
Speaker 1: Often used to further a fatalistic world view of bad circumstance and poise.
00:04:02
Speaker 2: It can be so abusive.
00:04:04
Speaker 1: Your next life, controlled by karma is largely dependent upon how you willingly accept suffering in this life without complaining or trying to wiggle out or even improving your lot, because you don't want to tick off karma. So bad things happen because you're being punished for stuff you did in a previous life. There's a third worldview.
00:04:27
Speaker 2: There is a God, but you know what, he's just not very powerful.
00:04:32
Speaker 1: It's deistic, meaning that he wound the clock of history a long time ago, but it didn't interfere anymore until the end. Or maybe he's just by nature indifferent, not really loving, or just just distant. Perhaps the most frustrating of the world views, victims are just stuck in a no man's land. There is no powerful just judge that they can run to, that we can run to to complain. This is the realm of all discussions on theodicy. Rabbi Kushners, why do bad things happen to good people, you know, they just do. This is also the category of those who attribute all bad things to Satan. So God's weak, He's indifferent or unwilling to stop evil or to stop Satan. So Satan has this period of time where he just runs amok. And you know, it's just there's not a lot of moral reasoning behind it. And why complain because you can't trust the judge to have the moral authority or the power or the desire to right wrongs now, and it's going to lead to despair. Bad things happen due to human evil. It's not God is human evil or Satan. Perhaps God didn't want it to happen, but just can't stop it because that's the plan. So let's just leave God out of it, you know, the suffering right. Fourth worldview, Hopefully you're tracking.
00:05:56
Speaker 2: I know this could get deep, but stay with me. Worldview.
00:06:00
Speaker 1: There is a God who is all powerful and perfectly just, who only does good and just things. Boy, this is very popular today and evangelicalism, but you'll see it's got some holes in it. This is the retributive principle. This is job's friends, and this is a scary hard judge. All you can do is go to this God and repent, beg, hit your knees, plead for mercy because you did something wrong. Otherwise you would not be punished or disciplined. If you took God to court, your trial would go very badly. It would be frightening to go in front of such a God who demands perfection. There's no place in this worldview for bad things happening to good people. It's only bad things happening to bad people. And stop claiming your good, stop claiming your righteous.
00:06:48
Speaker 2: This is the path.
00:06:49
Speaker 1: Of legalism and makes what Jesus did on the cross really confusing.
00:06:55
Speaker 2: God used the greatest of all evil and injustice. Right hear me?
00:07:00
Speaker 1: God used evil and injustice the cross to usher in the greatest of all good, so God can actually use bad things and work it out for good Romans twenty eight. Right, bad things happen because of sin, God's judgment. This is what the worldview says. Bad things happen because of sin, your sin. This is God's judgment for victims and the nations for some sin, because God wouldn't do injustice to you ever. Right again, but remember the cross God did injustice allowed injustice for his son. This worldview is very, very confusing when you think about the Cross, the idea that only Satan does evil things, so it has to be him God. I'm you know, the Cross the biggest injustice that has ever been, and God used that as part of his plan for good. This the you know that's the friends of Job's talking, right, have to wrap your heads around that. Here's the fifth worldview. There is a God who is all powerful and perfectly just, who uses both good and evil, unjust, unfair events ultimately for his highest glory and purposes and to extend his glory to you, to me, to his beloved children. He puts us in these positions, Joe, he clearly put he claims to put Job in that position. Either puts him in the position or he allows it. Either way, whichever one you can stomach the most. Ultimately for a higher good. This God freely uses trials, pain, loss, suffering injustices to sweep his faithful children into the celestial battle between him and Satan, which they are invited, we are invited to win and to crush the serpent's head, Satan's head.
00:08:56
Speaker 2: This is the path that's the one.
00:08:58
Speaker 1: Promoted In the book of Job, bad things happen because of a combination of God's judgment, his discipline, and his divine plan. And in the end all injustices will be made right. Everyone will see and know at a future judgment even the evil prescribed allowed by God will be paid for, and God does that.
00:09:22
Speaker 2: Job's worldview likely begins with number four and shifts quickly to number five. So what does Job do? First?
00:09:31
Speaker 1: He asked God to tell him what he did wrong, because he believes God cares.
00:09:36
Speaker 2: Job ten two. I will say to.
00:09:37
Speaker 1: God, do not condemn me, but tell me what charges you have against me. And remember, God doesn't have any charges against Job, and there's only silence in the heaven why because God has no accusations.
00:09:50
Speaker 2: Then Job pleads that God would call the trial.
00:09:53
Speaker 1: Job assumes that humanity can't subpoena God. God's subpoena humanity first Chapter thirteen, verse nineteen. Can anyone bring charges against me? If so, I will be silent and die. Only grant me these two things, Oh God, and then I will not hide from you. One withdraw your hand far from me and stop frightening me with your terrors. And two summon me, and I will answer or let me speak, and you reply, how many wrongs and sins have I committed? Show me my offense and my sin? And remember he didn't.
00:10:27
Speaker 2: Job did not.
00:10:28
Speaker 1: There was no offense. God says he's righteous, and God doesn't respond. Remember what the reader knows and Job does not. God is not charging Job with any crime, and there are no charges for.
00:10:40
Speaker 2: God to admit to.
00:10:42
Speaker 1: So I said, God has nothing to say about why Job is being functionally effectively, it feels like he's being punished, and that's how it feels like, right, that's where my head goes to. So then Job tries to pursue an out of court settlement with God nine verse thirty two. Not a man like me, that I might answer him, that we might confront each other in court, if only there were someone to arbitrate between us, to lay his hand upon us both, someone to remove God's rod from me so that his terror would frighten me no more that I would speak up without fear of him. But as it now stands with me, I can't. Also, again, it's not feasible in this case. First, no offense, no crime, and God cannot.
00:11:31
Speaker 2: Settle it doesn't exist.
00:11:34
Speaker 1: Then, in an act that is really sophisticated. Theologically, Job cries out for a heavenly redeemer. Job just knows he's innocent, but if not, he is also convinced that God is so good there will ultimately be a redeemer who will clear everything up in the end, maybe from the grave, but Job and his reputation will be vindicated. And by the way he is the book Chapter nineteen, verse twenty five. I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God. I myself will see him with my own eyes, but only silence from the heavens. Job doesn't need redemption. He didn't need a redeemer for his crimes. He did offerings right burnt offerings reflecting the future Jesus.
00:12:29
Speaker 2: So Job only has two legal options left, wisdom, which is chapter twenty eight, and the oath of innocence.
00:12:35
Speaker 1: I'm going to get to wisdom in a later talk, but let's talk about the oath of innocence.
00:12:40
Speaker 2: This is important.
00:12:42
Speaker 1: The ancient oath of innocence is a legal mechanism design to protect the innocent from false charges and hearsay. The defendant would swear before the court that they are innocent of all charges, and that kicks in a trial requiring the accuser to be subpoened to provide any evidence, and if the accuser refuses to appear, the defendant would be declared innocent by the court and the accuser would be found guilty of all the charges.
00:13:08
Speaker 2: Against the defendant. You see, then it's.
00:13:10
Speaker 1: Really an interesting, interesting process, to be sure. So in the Oath of Innocence, the defendant must make an official written claim of innocence to all charges and they sign it with their signature, and then the plaintiff is required to appear officially before the court to show all evidence. It's a way to force an official charge. So that's what happens here. There's an oath of innocence in twenty seven to two. It's initiated as surely as God lives. Job says, who has denied me justice, the Almighty, who has made me taste bitterness of soul? As long as I have life within me, the breath of God in my nostrils, my lips will not speak quickedness, and my tongue will utter no deceit I will never admit that you're in the right till I die.
00:13:58
Speaker 2: I will not.
00:13:59
Speaker 1: Deny my integrity. I will maintain my righteousness. I'll never let go of it. My conscience will not reproach me as long as I live. Chapter thirty one, verse thirty five. Oh that I had someone to hear me. I now sign my defense. Let the Almighty answer me. Let my accuser put his indictment in writing, And so he signs it, likely with an X. And he boldly believes that he's not guilty. But if he is guilty, the charges will come to light and then he'll know.
00:14:29
Speaker 2: So follow me.
00:14:30
Speaker 1: Now that the oath of innocence was invoked. If God doesn't appear, which remember he cannot do based upon the sting with Satan, then Job must be declared innocent and fully.
00:14:42
Speaker 2: Restored to his old reputation.
00:14:44
Speaker 1: But if Job is declared innocent, then according to the oath of innocence, God must.
00:14:50
Speaker 2: Be publicly declared guilty for he afflicted Job.
00:14:55
Speaker 1: Unjustly and Satan wins. So if God is silent, which he is vowed to remain with regard to the case, he must end up. If you follow the logic being condemned by the court by the justice system as guilty. If he is not silenced, Satan wins the bet. So either way, the oath of innocence plays into Satan's hands, or so it would appear. Are you following me? I know it's getting deep in the weeds, but here we go. It puts God in a legal bind. Narratively, this is a classic conflict motif that has to be resolved. How will God intervene without intervening? How will God defend himself humidly speaking, without defending himself?
00:15:42
Speaker 2: How will it work out?
00:15:43
Speaker 1: Will job let the trial go forward with the obvious end result is that God indirectly gets cursed? Will God intervened? Will Satan slip up?
00:15:54
Speaker 2: All? Right?
00:15:55
Speaker 1: So discussion? What's your worldview? And the two world views without God? There's no appeal and in fact, in the case of karma, appeals and complaints works against you in a future life. But in both number one and number two world views, you just suck it up and deal with it. You know, it just happens. In the case of number three, there's no substantial appeal. You're never sure what you're gonna find behind the bench, and you don't want to. And worldview number four there is no such thing as bad things happening to good people.
00:16:27
Speaker 2: Your claim of innocence is void.
00:16:30
Speaker 1: In fact, your appeal would be seen as unbelief and subject to penalty because how can you say that you're righteous?
00:16:36
Speaker 2: How do you know?
00:16:38
Speaker 1: How do you know what the God's claim? But and consider the amazing but terrifying good news embedded in.
00:16:47
Speaker 2: Worldview number five.
00:16:49
Speaker 1: This worldview suggests the possibility of a good, just, and caring God who can and will use good and bad to accomplish the greatest good for the sake of his beloved children. That's got to be troubling to many evangelicals. That's not how we've been taught.
00:17:06
Speaker 2: We believe that only Satan can use evil and God can only use good. But that's worldview number four.
00:17:12
Speaker 1: Worldview number five is God can use good and evil for good. Satan can only uses good and evil for bad. That's worldview five. And God doesn't need to explain. But in the end, all losses, all suffering, all offenses will be addressed, must be addressed by a good God and redeemed by this good God. There will be consolation where in the end they will all live happily ever after.
00:17:34
Speaker 2: I mean, that's heaven, right.
00:17:36
Speaker 1: So in worldview number five, faithful followers are expected to complain to God because he's good, and God's goal, unbeknownst to Job, is to crush Satan and to use him number two to extend his glory by using Job to do it.
00:17:54
Speaker 2: Job gets the headline.
00:17:57
Speaker 1: Final word and some discussion questions right after brief word from our sponsors.
00:18:00
Speaker 2: We're gonna be right back, So here's.
00:18:05
Speaker 1: Some questions for those of you who are tracking this. Hebrew is an oral language, meaning that when the writings repenned on paper, papyrus, etc. The vowels were not included. The vowels were added as a narrator would tell the story aloud. So for bonus points of two thousand, here's the final jeopardy question with different vowel points. A lie whose name could become the same as another famous biblical character who.
00:18:35
Speaker 2: All right?
00:18:36
Speaker 1: Check out my new teen fantasy book, Shadow Bounus, a C. S. Lewis esque fantasy but also an allegory the Book of Job. All of the weeds that we got into, particularly in this talk, are kind of laid out in a different kind of narrative fiction form.
00:18:49
Speaker 2: You might enjoy it. Adults are gonna be great feedback.
00:18:52
Speaker 1: But as for teenagers, get it for your church's teen ministry, Get it to teens in your family.
00:19:00
Speaker 2: It's on Amazon and Kindle. Yeah, all right, we're gonna pick this up in the next talk. Take our Child of God.
