The Gospel According to Job 9

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Speaker 1: So I started this series with the question if job was the only book you had, what would your image of God be? That it's time to shape your answer. Welcome to the Gospel Ran podcast and Doctor Bill Sendord YouTube channel. I'm your host, Doctor Bill Sinard. We're free wherever you get podcasts of course on YouTube as well, Doctor Bill Sinard to subscribe and as always one of the fastest ways you can help us grow as by leaving your comments below. Thanks for that. Also, thanks for making Gospel Rant in the top ten percent of podcasts and the entire world. Thank you for listening every week and passing it on to friends and relatives and people in your church. We hope that it helps to regularly hear about God's love that loves the un loveable, the love the lovely, the unworthy and likely, and that's all of us on any given day if we were just a little bit honest. Some heads up, I'm writing a book called good Enough Christianity. More to come on that might even pick that up in the next podcast we'll see, but I want to let you know that's coming. It's for people who struggle with their experience of the love of God. Many people who've left church because they weren't experiencing the love of God. So keep an eye out for that good enough Christianity. All right, I'll get right back into Job, the final podcast on Job, after this brief word from our sponsors. We'll see in a moment. So before you answer my question, if Job was the only book that you had, what will your image of God be? Let me give you a thumbnail description of how it all is. We left off last talk with God and Satan seemingly locked in a primordial struggle. At least that's how it appeared to the readers and Satan. It turns out that God has had this under control from the very beginning. From Satan's point of view, he hopes to embarrass and shame God, but that depends upon a supposed weakness in humanity. Can humans really be faithful if the gravy train from God ends the retributive principle worldview four from the last talk, and look Las Vegas odds may have leaned in his direction. I mean, look at our history. Look at Adam and Eve and how easy it was to flip them. Well, they land on the strongest human candidate around Job. If Satan turns him, there a little hope for any of us. And God says twice that Job is a righteous man, right innocent. So odds were changed. If God could tell Job that the trials are temporary, that everything will turn out for good, just hang in there. I mean, we're told that from Romans A twenty eight. But Job didn't have the New Testament. But God can't tell him. God must remain silent at least about the wager, but he can speak. In a surprising narrative turn, the frustrated Job initiates the oath of innocence. Now, if God does not come to defend his position, he will officially be cursed. Satan appears at this point to be poised to win his victory. Speech ready, this is great narrative, great storytelling. After proclaiming the Riddley lie, who disappears and God speaks from a whirlwind. And note God does not respond directly to Job's accusations, of course he can't. Instead, he takes Job to court Chapter forty, verse one, the Lord said to Job, will the one who contends with the Almighty correct him. Let him who accuses God answer him. Brace yourself like a man. I will question you and you shall answer me. Would you just credit my justice? Would you condemn me? To justify yourself? Do you have an arm like God's? And can your voice thunder like his? That adorn yourself with glory and splendor and clothe your off in honor and majesty. Job forty verses one to ten. So God initiates a second trial and puts Job in the witness box. Still no charges. The bottom line of God's interrogation Job, how much of the celestials do you think that you understand? Five percent? Two percent point zero zero zero zero one percent. How can you be so adamant about your perspective when you really have a very small keyhole? Look at the world in the universe, the celestials, Everything in creation is in order, though it appears from the human point of view to be chaotic. The difference between my viewpoint, God says from heaven and yours job from earth is heavenly wisdom. Job, come and find that wisdom. And remember, at the very beginning I said that Job was ultimately a wisdom book. And here we are at the end, and God's point is about his wisdom. What do we mean by wisdom? What do you do when you hit the lottery, Well, that takes wisdom. Your life could be very destructive. It could fall apart, and it has for many people. What do you do when you take a fall and hurt yourself, Well, this too takes wisdom. What do you do when unfair Jobian trials come into your life? Well, wisdom and your wisdom and God's wisdom likely are going to be different. So term with me to the central speech of job a rant on wisdom poetically. Chapter twenty eight is the epicenter of the entire book. And I'm going to suggest, after looking at the entire book in the Hebrew, it looks different from the rest of the chapters. It's as if a different author wrote it and kind of shoved that scroll right into the middle of the other scrolls. And the point, the main point of the editor author is that is wisdom. It answers the question what is godly wisdom? Where is it? And how do I get some? Particularly when my life goes south? Job twenty eight one. There is a mine for silver and a place where gold is refined. Iron is taken from the earth, and copper has smelted from oar. Man puts an end to the darkness, He searches the farthest recesses for ore, in the blackest darkness, far from where people dwell, he cuts a shaft in places forgotten by the foot of man. Far from men, he dangles and sways for things of value to us. We're prepared to and willing to go to the ends of the earth at great expense to find treasure verse twelve. But where can wisdom be found? Where does understanding dwell? Man does not comprehend it's worth. It cannot be found in the land of the living, so it can't be found here, can't be found in nateure your brain right, So man's going to do anything to find gold. While God's wisdom, you know, how do I deal with his chaotic and unjust world, is far more valuable. But it can't be mined. In fact, no human efforcn find it. You can't strain and have godly wisdom. It's strictly God sourced, spirit sourced, we now know from the New Testament verse twenty Where then does wisdom come from? Where does understanding? Twelve? Because wisdom can't be found by the usual means. But verse twenty three, God understands the way to it, and he alone knows where it dwells. Right, So follow me. Job is faithful, righteous and innocent. But wisdom is something different. Job is not called wise. Wisdom can make Job begin to figure this mess out, why it happened and why God is silent. Such wisdom is accessible from God. Upon the asking this, wisdom says that there is only one who could possibly see justice amidst such injustices. How could good come from all of this hot mess? Well, only God himself can see that. But he sees it, and he ironically was directly or indirectly orchestrating these events anyway for a purpose. Wisdom, Boy, it doesn't feel like it, does it. And as I said at the very beginning, I can't explain what the higher good is in your life when all of this, When the bottom of your life falls out and cancer comes or someone close to you dies, or war or COVID or sickness or whatever it might be, you get fired unfairly all of those things. Right, But if you're a Christian, you can access wisdom or maybe the assurance to know that God's got this, that God's got this, Jesus has got this. You know that may not bring you immediate comfort, but the spirit can actually give you heavenly assurance to make you satisfies too strong a word, but make you hopeful in this place that yeah, God's got this, and I don't mean taking it lightly. So. Narratively, after God's long monologues it Hurley addresses any of Job's questions at all. Something changes, and it's often portrayed that Job is stunned by God's glory so much that he repents in fear. All right, I get the how you write that out. I get how that script could go that way, but I don't think that's what happened. See. I believe that between forty one thirty four and forty two to one, Job gets a hit of God's wisdom and it's shoved down his throat, this assurance that I was talking about, that God's got this, and then wisely gives the shortest speech in the entire book. Here it is, I know that you can do all things. No plan of yours can be thwarted. Surely I spoke of things. I didn't understand things too wonderful for me to know. My ears had heard of you, but now my eyes have seen you. Therefore I despise. The Hebrew word has my ass myself, and the Hebrew says repent. The ham in dust and ashes in modern English is what he says. I'm tabling my indictment against God, and I return to my grief and sorrow over my losses. The word repent is not there. It's the harm. Repent is a different Hebrew word. It's just a well understood word. This is the harm. Something else is happening. This isn't what we think of repentance or remorse. So he's saying, God has taken away my need for immediate vindication, the experience of justice style. And this is a bizarre, surprising action by Job. God somehow makes him feel justified. So I don't feel the need to proceed with this oath of innocence anymore, at least for now. It's a big turnaround in Job's head. FYI, he's not ending the trial. He's tabling the charge against God until a much later date when he might have even more wisdom. And this is not denial or fear. This is not as as Allah wills fatalism. Something miraculous has happened within Job that made him trust God even within the mess think of Jesus on the cross, think of Us in the New Testament. It's heaven born faith. Okay, the elephant of the room. Am I saying that your over the top suffering pain injustices, losses and questions are somehow constructed by God out of as immeasurable love and a rational, crazy pride in you to give you an opportunity, even an ordained and unique quest, to put you without asking your permission, in the position to crust the serpent's head. Yeah, that's highly likely. That's certainly one of the major options in all of this. Yes, that's the point of the Book of job And if he had asked you, would you have agreed? Would you have said, yeah, yeah, go ahead give me cancer. No, of course you wouldn't. But God wants to honor you with joby and glory, and surely there is great comfort in that. And if this is right, God is near and his arms are surrounding you. Intimately, He has got this for good, for greater good. His love for you is not a function of your success or your righteousness. It's a function of Jesus' success and righteousness. There's something very special, very particular to you. Your gifts, your makeup, and your many foibles. Now I also should say you may also need to evaluate if there are selfish and hurtful ways that are being exposed in your life and your choices as well. Job was innocent. I'm going to suggest you're not. So there's discipline here right to be aware of that. But God's got much bigger plans for you than discipline. Do I have some proof that God actually does this? Yeah? Across the infinitely perfect Righteous was ordained to suffer in perish, smothered by horrific injustice, betrayal, indifference, pain, denial. Why the ultimate crushing of the serpent's fat skull. This was his ordained quest and we're commanded to carry that cross as well. It's part of our glory, even though it's ridiculously painful. But we have an advantage over Job. We have both his story, including the behind the scenes invisible look, and Jesus's, so we should not be surprised that our God does such things. That doesn't mean we like it, but we can believe that God's got this for our good and the greater good of the kingdom. But we also know that we can ask God for his wisdom, and we can ask for Holy spirit, fruit of faith to survive such a great and horrible quest and survives. Probably the right word that heaven born faith will make you, make me no and feel that in the end, God will fix all the mess in your life is what he innately does. Ask for wisdom, ask for power, ask for this pleariphoria, this assurance that He's got this, that He's got you, this hope, and you can feel a foretaste. I think of the eventual eternal justice and consolation beginning now, and I imagine that I will have long and complicated conversation with Jesus and Heaven about what was really happening. You know, why'd that happen to me? What good came out of that? How did Satan yelp when the club came down on his head again? Because I didn't hear it, And even if Jesus would explain it all now, I don't have the gray matter to comprehend all of the complexity of what God is doing just now. Anyway, that's godly wisdom. So scorecard one. Satan's head gets wildly crushed and loses the bet. Two job gets great glory as one of the heroes who FLI bill the ancient prophecy and three. God used Job's quest to tell other victims like me, like you, we need wisdom even more than we need justice. For now we will get justice too. Wisdom will inform our reactionary mid brain that justice is coming, but not yet, not like we want good news. Yeah. God not done. He slams the three friends and not Ali who slash Elijah, and he publicly vindicates Job. He commands the friends in Job forty two eight, So now take seven bulls and seven rams and go to my servant Job and sacrifice a burn 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 to me what is right, as my servant Job has. But God gives Job a new job with great glory. He has become the regional high priest right before the temple, before the tabernacle, charged with doing atona for the Friends, a Jesus like figure. He the foreshadow of Jesus and Jesus's atonement. Shouldn't they be punished? Yeah? And they were, by the way on the offering. But God's justice is so much higher than ours. Their punishment has put on that offering, and they're learning a lot about Job's God, and interestingly, from God's very lips, Job has still spoken of me what is right? Meaning everything Job said was right, He was being treated unjustly. What he didn't know and now seems to know a little bit, is that God could use injustice for his good, for his glory. God put him on a heroic quest, one that no one would want. I mean, I wouldn't want it. But if God participated in injustice, even using it for good purposes, shouldn't that be dealt with? Check out in later law Exous twenty two to nine, the guilty party must pay the victim back twice what they took. Here's forty two to eleven. All 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, literally in the Hebrew, all the evil that Yahweh caused to come upon him, And each one gave him a piece of silver and a gold ring. Verse twelve. The Lord blessed the latter part of Job's life more than the first. He had fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, the thousand yoke of oxen, and a thousand donkeys. And also he had seven sons and three daughters. So first, here it appears that God accepts responsibility for the stiing I mean there it is. This is worldview five. He was the one who caused or allowed whichever one you can stomach, the evil the adjustice to come upon Job, and unjustly short term, in the long term created great glory. And remember, one of the lessons of Job is that God freely uses good and evil for the ultimate good, and second as a recompense, as a foretaste of the glory that Job will have. God blesses Job with twice the number of sheep, cattle, and oxen that he had. At first he lost seven sons and three daughters. The Lord gave him restored them. Are we to understand that the Lord is humanly speaking and directly confessing to be the guilty party and accepting the punishment of paying Joe back. No, it's a symbolic teaching gesture demonstrating his innate desire to restore victims to wholeness and to see justice done it last. He's setting a template, including when it is his hand that caused it, so there will be justice at last. That's the idea. That's what we take away from the last portion of Job. Yeah, last word, after a word from our sponsors, we'll be right back. Well, what about Job's children? What about the bad things that happen to them? In some ways I wish that the book dealt differently with that. But here's my stab at it. Back when Job was written, there was not a clear understanding of heaven or the afterlife. But now, in hindsight, knowing God the way we do, based upon what we know about Jesus, I'm going to go out on the limb and say that he likely took the kids to be with him, and if so, they're doing great. And they would say so when we you know, when we finally talk to them in heaven. Now, if given a choice, so, hey, you know, after the whole thing was over, so would you like to stay here with God and Jesus rather than return to earth for now? What do you think they'd say? You know, I'd say, look, we miss our dad. We'll see him again. This is great let's stay here. Remember, God is the god of the living and the dead. What about not asking Job or you for his permission? God didn't have to ask permission, He's God. What about the thing with Satan? What we we now see is a lot more fun. He played Satan like a fiddle. Well. I started this series with the question, if Job was the only book you had, what would your image of God be? Well, you must decide for yourself. But here are some of the wisdom tidbits from the oldest wisdom book in the Bible. Job what we can glean Right, I'm gonna call him wiz bits. One, there are two realms, one visible and the other invisible. Two, the universe and God are ultimately moral. Though God doesn't necessarily close the books in our lifetime, in the end there will be consolation, God says so. Three. God freely uses both good and evil, good and injustice, justice and injustice for good purposes. Satan freely uses both good and evil, but only for destructive purposes to undermine God and his people in that terrifying and comforting Four. Since bad things happened by designing to good people, it is a moral imperative for the followers of the Judge to complain boldly, learn how to complain to God. Five. We need the wisdom that only comes from God. How we ask Proverbs aren't wisdom, they point to wisdom. Wisdom is from God and is not of human dna. Ask God to give you wisdom and faith through the Holy Spirit and your inner being today, tomorrow and the next day, particularly when bad things happen in your lives. Well, thanks for hanging out with me in the series of Job is powerful, heady stuff, I get it, but hopefully it has helped to explain some of the darkest parts of your life so far and to give you hope and some assurance that Jesus has got this. I'm sorry for what you're going through. I hope, I hope these words have been an encouragement to you. If I had a magic wand by the way, I would slap you with it and fix what went wrong. I don't. But Jesus has got this. If you're a child of God, I can tell you he's irrationally crazy about you. How you deal with your quest, He's got you, even if you try to let go. Well, next time we're going to start a new series I'm not quite sure what we're doing. I have a couple of directions I can go h So please check it out and make sure you check out the podcast gos Brant and the YouTube doctor bilfigure dot com and enjoy yep take Heart, Child of God,