Final reflections (Job pt 17)

Having spent so long on Job here are a few final random reflections:

1. We need this book. If I’m honest I’ve often shied away from the book of Job. When I have read it through a few times I have found myself often lost in the maze of the three friends peculiar mix of wrong theology and right theology wrongly applied. Untangling the mess takes some time. But as I’ve spent more time in Job it is like a precious jewel that is worth the effort to excavate or to polish so we see it’s brilliance and learn it’s lessons. We need it because it reminds us of key things we in our generation forget, even, and maybe especially, in the church.
2. God is Sovereign and Good. Throughout the book God is portrayed again and again as sovereign. He is sovereign over evil in chapters 1 and 2, a theme to which the book returns with the two chaos monsters of evil in chapter 40 and 41. This challenges our theology. We want God to be nice and easily explained to our friends and family and so we default to God ‘knowing of’ or ‘allowing’ evil things to happen. But Job goes so much further than that, and if the Bible troubles our comfortable theology which limits God then that is a good thing. The only comfort for Job in his agony is that God is sovereign even over evil and chaos, that he sets it’s limits and takes responsibility for bringing good from it.
3. We are totally dependent. I wonder if this another reason we don’t naturally love the book of Job. It discomforts us. It confronts us with our lack of autonomy. It shows us how small we are – just re-read chapters 38-39. And it tells us everything we have is not because we earned it but because God has blessed us, and it can all be taken away in a moment. We like to think we’re entitled, but we have no rights whatsoever. That is terrifying, unless God is your father.
4. Job both is and isn’t a book about suffering. Job doesn’t answer our why questions. But it does show us that our greatest treasure in knowing God. Job suffers but his greatest suffering is the agony of the thought that he and God are enemies, he is comforted when he sees God, not when he gets his stuff back. I wonder if in our materialistic culture that’s yet another challenge for us. We so anaesthetize our souls with comfort that we don’t love God like this. We would sacrifice God to have our comfort back, it’s like an addiction and Job is showing us the danger, he stands up under a challenge I fear we might fail. Job calls us to invest all we have in knowing God so we can stand when we lose everything but him,
5. Friendship can be difficult. The three friends get so much wrong. It reminds us our friends need our good theology not our imagined and limited wonky plastic popularist deity. We need a right view of God in all his terrifying power and majesty and goodness if we are to provide comfort. It also reminds us we just need to shut up sometimes and let those suffering but longing for God express themselves to him. We don’t know why? and speculation is spiritually dangerous. In chapter 42 we see friends and family gather to console and comfort and provide help – silver – which enables Job to rebuild as God blesses – that’s a better picture of godly friendship.
6. We need Jesus. Job’s faith in his redeemer in chapter 19 is one of the most staggering examples of gospel hope in the Old Testament. His confidence that his Redeemer lives and will stand on the earth and rise over it conquering the dust/death and then he will see God is astounding. It shows us the believers greatest hope in anchored in Jesus no matter what he faces. and that is the good news we have to share, what a Saviour.

Our future is certain restoration (Job pt 16)

Job 42v10 only comes after v1-9.  Job is comforted in God – his greatest longing is fulfilled.  Satan is proved wrong – Job wants God for God not for the blessings he gives.  He’s comforted and satisfied by God even as he sits in ashes and dust.  He’s proved he loves God alone before he is restored.

And now God showers Job with blessing.  Not because he’s earned it but because God is gracious and loves to bless.  Other family and friends come and comfort Job and offer him practical help, giving him a piece of silver and a gold ring.  And through that and God’s blessing Job is super abundantly blessed, he has more than before.  And God blesses him with children, grandchildren and great grandchildren.

God’s blessing is all of grace.  Is that how we look at what we have?  Job has proven that he loves God for God even when everything else is stripped away.  Isn’t that a challenge?

But this passage also points us forward to a totally undeserved future blessing that’s every bit as tangible as that Job enjoyed for the people of God.  Jesus promises those who believe in him eternal life – not life on a cloud learning how to play the harp, but a life of superabundant joy in a physical new creation where every battle with evil is finished and God reigns.  Where the greatest treasure, the biggest and brightest hope is to live life in the presence of God; Father, Son and Spirit.  Where we like Job will finally see God in all his splendour and glory.

Job points us to our pilgrimage and our home.  Life now on earth will be one where we enjoy God’s blessing, but also where we may suffer because evil though leashed isn’t yet conquered.  It’s the arena where we learn to love God for who he is, to treasure him not just the treasures he gives us.  So that we patiently persevere together until we reach our new creation home.

What have you learned as we reflect on Job?  What difference will it make to us.  It’s a book that shows us God and why we must make God our greatest treasure, because that’s where comfort is found, where hope in suffering is found, and where a redeemer saves us when we cannot save ourselves and fits us for an eternity of blessing in God’s presence.  As we learn that, as we spend time every day, learning more of God, we’re better able to persevere, to hold on with hope and joy pursuing God as we suffer, and to help others do likewise.

The Apostle James reflects on Job’s life as a call to patiently persevere standing firm in the faith and anticipating Jesus return.  “As you know we count as blessed those who have persevered.  You have heard of Job’s perseverance and have seen what the Lord finally brought about.  The Lord is full of compassion and mercy.”

Our God is full of compassion and mercy (Job pt 15)

What do Job’s 3 friends deserve?  They think you get what you deserve.  That’s what they’ve been telling Job over and over and over again in this book; he must have sinned, this suffering is what you deserve.  But now in a terrifying reversal God says “I am angry with you and your two friends, because you have not spoken the truth about me, as my servant Job has.”(42v7)  God lays his accusation against them again(8).

By their own way of thinking, of understanding how God acts, what do they deserve.  They have sinned so they deserve to suffer.  But what does God say?   (8)take 7 bulls and 7 rams to Job and sacrifice burnt offerings for yourselves and Job will pray for you.  Don’t miss the sheer number of sacrificial animals they must offer! But also don’t miss God’s compassion and grace?  They don’t get what they deserve.  But do you see God’s justice?  Sin must be punished.  And God accepts the sin offering offered by a mediator for their sin.  It points us to Israel’s sacrificial system and through that to Jesus who was both mediator and perfect once for all sin offering.

Sin is serious, it deserves judgment, and God is just he will punish sin, but he also provides a way for justice and mercy to meet.  In Jesus God himself bears the just punishment for sin in love so we are treated with mercy.

But it is also a warning.  We need to be careful and wise in the words we speak, especially when we claim to speak God’s word.  It’s easy to speak wrongly of God, to condemn someone who needs comfort.  To look for sin when we ought to be sharing grace.  God is gracious.  If you are aware this morning of places where you’ve been more Eliphaz that Job why not repent right now, ask God’s forgiveness.

But notice there’s reconciliation not just between the friends and God but between them and Job here.  They must go to Job, he must pray for them.  Job has been shown grace and compassion and so have the friends and that melts any barrier of hardness or resentment or shame between them.

But maybe your question is how can God say Job spoke rightly of him and spoke truthfully about him?  Didn’t Job obscure God’s counsel – questioning how he governed the world?  Didn’t he discredit God’s justice?  Yes he has but he has not sinned.  He never turned away from God.  He is God’s servant.  He longed for God even as he questioned God. As James 5 says Job persevered, he struggled, he questioned, he challenged, yes but he longed for God, he never turned away from him, he always longed for God not stuff, not relief.

God is compassionate and gracious sin how he views his suffering servants.  He’s not like us he isn’t quick to cancel if someone suffering thinks or says one wrong thing.  God sees the hearts longing for him, the perseverance of a wrestle for faith in struggle, and delights in the love shown for him even as he opens Jobs eyes to who he is.

God is more gracious and compassionate that we are both with ourselves and with others.  God sees the heart, the longing for him, he doesn’t cancel us or others.  Will we be like God?  Will we see the longing and help those suffering know and enjoy God even as they raise questions about what their circumstances say?  Will we patiently listen and not jump in and correct but hear the hearts desperate longing for God behind the words?

The comfort of a greater sight of God (Job pt14)

What do you long for when you suffer?  It’s an end to the pain.  It’s what we tell people when they face operations – it’ll hurt for a while but then be better, it’s what we hope for when we take someone to get treatment for an injury – something that will take the pain away and bring healing.  It’s what we tell people when they grieve or suffer a relationship loss – that the pain fades over time.  It’s one of the reasons why I think we find it hard to know how to help those with mental health struggles – because we know that this may be a long term need, with many dark nights of the soul.

And all too often relationship with God is postponed until afterwards.  We’ll think about God when we feel better, are in a better place, have more capacity.  But Job shows us how wrong that is, that we’re missing something.  Job is in a world of agony, he’s lost not one but all of his children, his wealth, he’s covered with sores and hovers near death, wracked with grief and all he has left is a wife who calls him to curse God and die and friends whose comfort only deepens his confusion, questions and isolation.

That’s where Job is as chapter 42 opens.  He hasn’t been restored he‘s still stripped of everything.  Still has nothing.  That makes his words here all the more amazing.  He’s comforted before he is restored – we must see that.  This is comfort in suffering not comfort from or after suffering.  This is the kind of comfort we need, our friends need, in the white hot heat, or pitch black oppressive darkness, of suffering.

God has just drawn Job’s attention to the two chaos monsters we looked at last week.  Behemoth and Leviathan, savage, uncontrollable, forces of evil and chaos that man cannot tame.  But who as created supernatural beings are on God’s leash, under his sovereignty, only permitted to do what God allows and who will ultimately be destroyed by him.

How does Job react?  (1-3)Firstly, Job confesses God’s absolutely sovereignty and might.  Back in ch38v2 God asked Job “Who is this that obscures my plans without knowledge?”  Now Job confesses that he was wrong, he spoke from what he knew and could see but “I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know.”

It’s always tempting to think we know what’s going on.  To look at the world and see what we can see and draw conclusions from it.  And so to assume it tells us about God, his love, his actions, his sovereignty or lack of it.  But Job confesses that as he did that he was hopelessly short sighted.  He couldn’t see God’s care of creation, he couldn’t see eternity and God’s plans, and it wasn’t immediately obvious to him that God was sovereign but now he knows.  “I know that you can do all things; no purpose of yours can be thwarted.” 

This morning, are you ready to confess that?  Ready to say to God; Lord I have been wrong.  Lord you are the almighty sovereign ruler who is just and does what’s right, who governs creation wisely and rightly and does things I just cannot comprehend, I cannot see it all, but I know enough of you and your goodness and love and so I will trust in you not in what I see or what I think?

But Job isn’t finished because he’s learned something else(4-5), that he had a limited grasp of God.  When God questioned him Job wasn’t being belittled, he was being shown the sheer magnitude of the glory of God.  Before he had heard of God – he knew something of God, he feared him and served him, but now he’s had his eyes open to the sheer majesty and glory of God and the wonder of his works.

This is the God who limits the raging sea, who says this far and no further.  Who perfectly engineers the earth and its orbits and workings.  God who created the sun in all it’s beauty and power.  Who controls planets and stars and weather, and yet cares individually for creatures.  How powerful is God!

It is God alone who can control the forces of evil.  God doesn’t answer Job’s why question.  God doesn’t say it wasn’t me blame him and point to Leviathan.  Look at 42v11 when Job’s friends and family arrive “They comforted and consoled him over all the trouble the LORD had brought on him…”  Let that verse trouble you for a second.  Because we want to say but it wasn’t God!  It was Satan.  God just permitted it.  But God doesn’t point the finger and shift the blame.  God takes responsibility for everything that happens in his creation, he is sovereign over evil, Satan could only do what he permitted.  God set the limits on the suffering.  God doesn’t say it was nothing to do with me.

And that’s a good thing because there is no comfort for Job in a God who takes no responsibility and has no control, who’s not working out his purposes and plans in all his sovereignty as he works good even through the evil Satan intends.  God is so sovereign, so in control, that Satan strikes intending it for evil, and God takes responsibility for what he allows but uses it for our good as he builds his kingdom and makes known his glory.

God has been showing Job who he is in his splendour and glory and might and majesty.  There is no one and nothing that can rival him.  Job has seen God.  That’s what we need.  That is our greatest need every moment of every day to see God in all his splendour and sovereignty and glory.  And it is certainly our greatest need in suffering because only it can bring us comfort that will last through the suffering and out that other side.  Comfort more robust than just things will get better.  It’s what our friends need us to model and share when they’re suffering in our singing, our prayers, our reading, our actions.   

What is Job’s reaction to what he has seen?

“Therefore I now despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.”

What’s your instinctive reaction to that?  Don’t we want to say Job that’s so unhealthy, you need to think more of yourself, you’re worth it.  But Job is right!  He’s not despising himself compared to someone else; a friend, a famous person, someone more beautiful or popular.  He’s despising himself compared to God, compared to what I have seen of God I am nothing.  It’s a healthy re-evaluation of himself in light of God’s glory that leads to repentance.

Job isn’t repenting of sin, he repents of the accusations he’s made against God.  Notice that he doesn’t hide behind an ‘I didn’t know’ like we can or ‘I was having a bad day’ or ‘I was really in pain.’  He doesn’t excuse it, ignorance is no excuse, he confesses and repents.  But that word translated ‘repent’ has a double meaning, and I think Job’s using both, it does mean repent and he does repent of his accusations.  But it also means “comforted”.  Job is comforted in dust and ashes.

All the way through his suffering job has longed not for the restoration of his stuff but restoration of his friendship with God, to be reconciled to his greatest joy the giver not the gifts.  He’s longed to know God as his friend and not his enemy, and that’s what now comforts him – he knows God better than he ever did and is right with him.  God isn’t who he thought he was, he is far greater and more awesomely terrifying but also more good and compassionate and gracious.  And God is enough to comfort in the dust and ashes.

Let that lesson sink in.  We don’t need our why answered we need God.  We don’t need to know what God is doing in our suffering, what good he will bring about, we need God.  We don’t just need him when the suffering ends but as we sit in the dust and ashes.  And we’ve seen in Job that suffering doesn’t separate us from God, God has always been protecting Job and with Job even when it hasn’t felt like it to him.  If we have God then every other loss is worth nothing.  If we can’t say that yet, we ought to pray for God to open our eyes to who he is like he did for Job.

I need you to remember that lesson, and when I walk through suffering, be it grief, physical agony, or the loss of everything, to model that truth for me – if we have God we have everything we need.  We need to live that reality now because we won’t magically adopt it when suffering hits.  And we come to learn that attitude as we see God in all his glory and splendour and ourselves as dependent in light of it, but wonderfully invited to be God’s friends in Christ.

Seeing evil in all it’s terrifying power so we trust God who is sovereign over it all (Job pt13)

What God does next in Job comes as a bit of a surprise.  It’s like God is writing the script for a horror film as he unveils two terrifying beasts and describes in detail their power and menace. 

Before we get into the descriptions there are two different ways people interpret these descriptions, some suggest that they’re descriptions of the hippo and the crocodile or of dinosaurs.  But as we read through we’ll see why that doesn’t fit.  Firstly the descriptions don’t quite work, but secondly the emphasis on both is that they were uncatchable by man and yet ancient civilisations did catch and kill the hippo and the crocodile – so what God says, the questions he asks in v1-7 would have no punch, in fact they would fall totally flat!  Thirdly, given that God has just used his creation to move Job to withdraw one protest, how would yet more descriptions of yet more animals move Job to repent?  Fourthly most who go down that path place great emphasis on that fact God created these, but God also created the angels and cherubim and seraphim, being created doesn’t limit them to being animals.  And finally how would a crocodile or hippo or dinosaur challenge Job’s discrediting of God’s justice, how would they help Job understand evil and God’s sovereignty?  It wouldn’t.

Instead I think both these terrifying beasts are representations of evil and chaos at work in the world.  God is teaching Job that there are more forces at work in the world that just what we can see and God.  He hasn’t struck Job these malignant forces have, though God is sovereign over them.  So lets look at these terrifying monsters so we see God in his even greater glory and sovereignty.

Behemoth is described(40v15-24) , he’s a created being, he feeds on grass, but has phenomenal strength(16-18) one of God’s greatest creations, yet God can approach it with his sword.  Nothing scares it, nothing can stop it, it lurks hidden and menacing, and no one can capture it or trap it or tame it.

This is beast so formidable that only God can bring his sword against it.  Only God can defeat it.  And the name is significant.  Whereas in chapter 39 God named the beasts, the lion, raven, ostrich and so on, here it’s a give a plural name, behemoth doesn’t mean ‘a beast’, it means ‘beasts’ or ‘superbeast’.  It’s behemoth not as one animal but as a symbolic terrifying lurking untameable threat.  A supernatural symbol of evil, maybe even of death itself as humans are often described as being like grass.

Even more is said in describing the second beast, menacing descriptions pile up in describing Leviathan.  As Job pictures this creature it would be terrifying.  (41v1-11)Leviathan is uncatchable, untameable, and wild.  Harpoons and spears are useless against it, if you fought it you would never do it again(8), there’s no hope of ever subduing it(9), just looking at it is enough to terrify.  No one is fierce enough, strong enough, powerful enough to rouse it. 

(10-11)If no one can stand against this beasts, which belongs to God as everything does because he made it, then how much more can we not take on our, and its, creator?

But God isn’t done with his description.  Leviathan (12-24)is designed for war, it’s strong and moves gracefully, thickly covered with impenetrable armour all over, it has no weaknesses.  And it is equipped to destroy, it’s mouth is ringed with fearsome teeth(14), it shoots fire from its mouth(18-20), when it rises even the mighty are terrified(25).  The sword, sword, spear, dart and javelin are like straw or rotten wood.  Arrows, slingstones, clubs and lance just make it laugh because they can’t touch it, it’s as if it just tickles it(26-29).  It doesn’t have a soft underbelly you can strike at; it is utterly invulnerable and invincible.  The greatest weapons man has made don’t even leave a mark.

And it lives in the chaos of the surging seas, the seas that are so proud and powerful in ch 38, are its home, it stirs them up and makes them seethe churning up a wake behind him.  (33-34)There is nothing else like Leviathan, nothing on earth that is its equal.  It has no fear, it looks down on everything, and rules the proud.

The emphasis just as with Behemoth is that this is a creature untameable and unconquerable by man.  This is a creature God alone made and is sovereign over.

In the polytheistic world of Job people believed in a variety of gods who battled each other for supremacy, darkness and chaos were often the result, no one was in control, no one was sovereign.  In Canaanite legend Leviathan was a supernatural chaos monster defeated by the storm God.

In Job 3v8 he speaks of Leviathan this way but Job is the not the only place to speak of Leviathan.  In Isaiah 27v1 we’re told God will punish and slay Leviathan, the great gliding monster of the sea before he delivers Israel.  In Psalm 74v12-14 as part of God bringing salvation he crushes the heads of Leviathan. And in Revelation 12 Satan is described as a dragon in terms like these.

What is God showing Job?  There are terrifying supernatural forces at work in the world that are the source of pain and suffering.  But they’re not God’s equal.  If they are powerful and terrifying how much more so the one who made them in his utterly unassailable sovereignty and power.  Even fallen angels, death, Satan, un-masterable by humanity, cannot threaten God or his rule.

Seeing this obliterates Job’s protest and moves him beyond silence to repentance and worship(42v1-6).  He now sees the world is more complex and more terrifying that he realised, and so he withdraws his protests, because the terrifying greatness of these supernatural forces of evil has made him even more aware of the greater splendour and glory and sovereignty of God who reigns supreme over them.  Job can only stand in awe and bow in worship and repent of ever thinking he could call such an awesome God to account or accuse him of injustice. 

Will we stand, bow and repent there with him?  God shows us that he sees the world more clearly than we do so we must be humble before him and listen to his word. 

But we also see that there is evil loose in the world, Satan in at work going to and fro on the earth.  But that even though there are supernatural forces far more powerful than us, they’re not remotely on the same level as God.  He alone is creator everything else is creature and so they are utterly under his sovereign control.

The scale and scope of these supernatural forces of evil ought to terrify us unless we know the God who is sovereign over them as our Father.  We can’t tame them or fight them only God can.  And he does.

We catch glimpses of it as we read the Bible; in the demon possessed man who no one could bind who roamed the tomb alone doing what he wanted until Jesus came and with a word sends the demons into a herd of pigs.  We see it in a raging storm that threatens to swamp the boat the disciples are in, until Jesus is woken and simple speaks with the voice that commands nature and chaos is stilled and a raging sea becomes a millpond.  We see it in a murderous Saul intent on persecuting and destroying the church until Jesus meets with him and transforms him.  We see it in the religious leaders who plot against Jesus and think they win as with nails through his hands and feet and a crown of thorns on his head he breathes his last, only for God to crush Leviathan as he raises Jesus to life on the third day.

These forces of evil and chaos are real.  Satan is not a fun figure to play dress up with, he delights in chaos and pain and evil, and if you don’t know the God who slays him, who places limits on him, then be terrified.

But Satan is defeated.  Death is beaten because God the Son crushes Satan once and for all at the cross.  And when he returns he will lead these supernatural forces behind him paraded as beaten powerless enemies because of the cross. 

If this chapter terrifies you turn to Jesus.  He will forgive your sin and welcome you as a Son of the Almighty Sovereign God who alone can bring the sword against Behemoth and Leviathan.

If we’re trusting Jesus, if God is our Father these chapters have so much comfort to give us.  We can rest in the fatherly care of our God for whom nothing is outside of his sovereign control, you’re not forgotten if you suffer, you’re not hidden from him, he is setting limits on what you face.  He hears your prayer to keep us from evil.

But we are not to naively forget this reality.  Satan rages against God and against God’s people and plans.  We need to be aware of that.  God is good, but sometimes he allows Satan to strike with all his evil intent within the limitations God places on him, though God will use it for his glory and our good even if we never know what that is.  We need to learn to live by what has been revealed to us not what we can see or work out.  God is sovereign even when we suffer.  And he is more powerful than we can possibly imagine.

But this evil is only a temporary intruder in God’s creation and the future is certain because Job and our redeemer lives and he has conquered death and he will one day bring the sword against the forces of evil and redeem all things.

And as we walk through suffering now we can do so wisely and well as we remember that reality, evil is real, it is powerful, it strikes but it is on God’s leash.  We have a Saviour who has suffered beyond what we have suffered, who can sympathise with us in our suffering and in our weakness, and who through his suffering gives us the present comfort of friendship with a sovereign God and the certain promise of the redemption of all things.

If I ruled the world what a wonderful world it would be? (Job pt 12)

If you ruled the world what would it look like?  Free ice cream for all?  Every prayer answered yes?  Favouritism towards those you like, instant wrath for those you don’t?  Would it be just?

Job has been wrestling with questions of justice and suffering and evil.  He doesn’t think God is being just towards him.  If he was God then life would be different.  Have you ever thought that?

But God, in chapter 40 draws him up short, as he invites him to imagine what that would be like.  Does Job have a mighty all powerful arm like God’s that can do marvellous deeds(9)?  No.  Can his voice thunder and have the rain or the snow obey it?  No.  Can he put on splendour and glory and honour and majesty like a coat?  No.  God invites Job to bring his justice, pour out his anger against injustice and oppression, and when he has done that then God will admit that Job can save himself(11-14).

The world wouldn’t be a more just place if Job was sovereign.  It wouldn’t be a more just place if we were sovereign, it would be a more terrible place.  Job can’t save himself.  Job can’t do what God does and will do.

The point isn’t that Job feels some sympathy for how hard it is for God to bring justice.  No, God is the divine warrior, he has a powerful arm that none can stay, his voice thunders creating and summoning and holding to account.  God is almighty and he is not unjust.  He brings his justice, he stores up his wrath, he will bring down the proud, he will do everything Job cannot, he is the judge.  Job needs to see himself in comparison with God and listen not rage.  God does bring justice but it isn’t immediate but he can be trusted to do so because of who he is.

Job is being invited to see God more clearly and to trust him.  To see his own limitations because it’s a dreadful burden to take on yourself to think you alone can bring justice, you alone can do good, you alone can save yourself.  Because you can’t, it will crush you.  God lovingly shows Job, and us, our limitations so that we trust him because he is majestically glorious. 

That trust brings tensions when we want an answer and he says no or wait and not the yes we so obviously think we need.  Or when we ache for what we perceive as justice but God wisely waits because of things we can’t see.  Trusting God for salvation and for justice in his good time is not easy, it is a wrestle, but it is ultimately the only way to know peace and contentment whether in plenty or in want.

Are we in danger of thinking too highly of ourselves?  Imagining if we ruled the world it would be a better place?  Come and listen to God, eavesdrop on Job’s conversation with the Almighty and be humbled.  Maybe this morning you need to confess to God that’s how you’ve been thinking, that the injustice and mess and pain you see has begun to warp your heart and imaginings about God.  He invites you this morning to see who he is and rest in his salvation and his wisdom, his majesty and his perfect justice that will one day come.

When our theology of evil and sovereignty just won’t cut it (Job pt 11)

What really terrifies you?  I don’t mean what scares you a little bit or what are you afraid of.  But what terrifies you?  You know that moment in the film when the monster is inching its way unseen towards the heroes and you naturally react with that stone in the pit of the stomach sphincter clenching terror.  What makes you feel like that?  What would strip away any pretence of comfort, security, safety and control?

In this second conversation, in chapters 40 and 41, God shows Job two utterly terrifying beasts.  Bristling with a menacing seemingly uncontrollable evil that is terrifying.  Yet the end result is Job repenting and worshipping God.  So what does Job see?  Why do these terrifying beasts melt Job’s questions away and cause him to worship God in a way that seeing the creation and God’s good government of it didn’t?

(6)God speaks to Job once again from the storm, and tells him to get himself ready to answer God because God has more to show him(7).  And this time (8)God deals with Job’s second accusation against him.  “Would you discredit my justice?  Would you condemn me to justify yourself?”  Job has suggested that God isn’t being just.

The problem for Job is his worldview is too small.  As he loses everything and is engulfed by horrific suffering he sees only two possible reasons.  Either God is just and Job has sinned and deserves his punishment.  Or Job is innocent and God is unjust in attacking him in such a way.  Either Job is God’s enemy, or God is Job’s enemy.  In a world where you always get what you deserve they’re the only two possibilities, and in declaring himself innocent he‘s begun to condemn God.  In a world without a right theology of evil and sovereignty it’s only ever God acting.

God has heard Job question his justice, and so God graciously gently but firmly corrects Job.  He shows him these two terrifying visions to open his eyes to reality, to expand his theology, so that he knows who the real enemy is in all his terrifying power and malice but beyond that also sees God’s absolute sovereignty even over evil that terrifies him.  Because that’s what will comfort Job, that’s what will lead him to repentance and worship.

It poses the question how big is our theology of evil and God’s sovereignty? Have we really wrestled with the Bible’s complexity and beauty?

So let me ask again what terrifies you?  Maybe we need to see more clearly what should terrify us so we trust in our God who is sovereign even over the terrifying.

God is sovereign even over chaos, danger and wildness (Job pt 10)

From 38v39 throughout chapter 39 God focuses Job’s attention on a wide array of animals.  Asking the same questions to draw Job into seeing God’s care, attention to detail and goodness.  From the lions who God satisfies, and the mountains goats who God sees. The wild donkey who God gave freedom to and provides for.  The wild Ox, the weird and wonderful ostrich, the warhorse with its might and power, to the hawk and eagle who fly because of God’s wisdom.

God created each of these animals, he cares for them, provides for them, watches over them.  Whether they are clean or unclean animals, God delights in them.  There’s a sense of divine wonder in what he’s made in God’s description of all these animals.  God is pleased with what he’s made even post fall.  But notice the focus in the animals God chooses to direct Job’s attention to.  It’s not the funny loving puppy, the tame pony, or the loveable hamster.  These animals are wild and powerful, untameable and dangerous.  This is nature red in tooth and claw.  God is showing Job that in his good world that he’s made there is death and danger.  There is chaos in creation but not out of his control or without purpose or design.

And God is good; providing for and caring for even those creatures than would make Job fearful.  Do you see the implication if God cares even for these things how much more for you, Job? 

God allows a wildness in his creation.  He doesn’t deny it exists, he doesn’t look at creation through rose tinted glasses.  But God doesn’t immediately stop every threat, every danger, God allows pockets of chaos within his created order. 

The presence of pain and chaos in the world God has made doesn’t declare God’s absence or call into question his sovereignty or his goodness.  But God cares in the chaos, he rules over it, we can trust in his goodness in it.

Job is being invited to re-examine and re-evaluate his dark imaginings about God and the world that he has made in the light of what he now knows.  Will we do the same?  Will you expose your darkest imaginings about God to these questions?  Will you see God in all his glory and goodness and wisdom and gracious loving kindness as you look at the world he made with it’s wild, dangerous, beautiful majesty.

(40v1-5)Show us Job’s response.   Job acknowledges that he can’t compare to God, he’s humbled.  That it was wrong to talk of putting God in the dock.  That there’s so much more than he realised.  Pain and suffering had diminished his horizons, but now God has opened his eyes and expanded his horizons.  God hasn’t answered his questions but has shown him the flaw in his thinking behind those questions.  Now he sees creation is declaring the goodness of God in it’s wonders and it’s death and danger.

Where he was tempted to see it all as broken, an arena of suffering absent God’s control and goodness.  Now he sees God’s wise foundations, his delight in its goodness, and his sovereignty even over suffering.  And so he withdraws his accusation.  He isn’t yet ready to repent because one question remains, if God is sovereign over everything then what about God’s relationship with evil?  We’ll see God’s answer to that next week.

But for now, God is calling us to hold in tension the truths of his word.  How do you see creation?  It is both full of both goodness and garbage, pain and joy, beauty and suffering.  It declares to us that God is wise and his plans are good in his establishing of stability, in his providing order, and even his care and sovereignty over it’s brutality at times.

That in no way makes evil OK, it will one day be brought to justice, because God cares about that too, more than we do.  God knows every word spoken, every action taken, every thought imagined and it will be judged.  But not yet.

The staggering scale and order of God’s creation (Job pt9)

Suffering shrinks our perspective.  When you stub your toe it feels as if your whole body is crying out in agony.  You’re acutely aware of the throbbing pain so much so that it consumes you.  You aren’t aware of every other system in your body working as they should, its amazing intricacies and order, just the pain in your toe.  Suffering is like that – it shrinks our horizons to just the pain we feel.  It makes it hard to see any good beyond the pain we’re in.  That’s what’s happened to Job and so God in this chapter is opening his eyes to the amazing order and goodness in God’s creation even post fall.  Job wonders is God in control of creation or is it all chaos unchecked, but here God shows him the amazing scale and order in creation.

Every time God asks “Where were you…?”, or “Who marked off…?”, or “Have you ever…?”  Or “Can you…?”  Easy to answer questions.  He’s showing Job that though Job can’t create, mark off, order, bind, or even go to these places or things God has and does.  Every question that invites the answer ‘No, I can’t but you alone LORD can’ is showing Job that his deepest fears about God, those dark whisperings that God isn’t good, isn’t in control, that creation is all chaos and darkness that have begun to wrap their tendrils round his heart aren’t true.

God begins by going back to creation (4-7)and his laying the foundations and marking off the dimensions of the earth, that caused the angels to shout for joy.  The world doesn’t spin off it’s axis or out of its orbit because God ordered it just so.  (8-11)God controlled the surging seas, setting it’ limits, like a parent putting on a stair gate to say this far and no further.  God controls the seas that unchecked would burst out and cause chaos.  (12-15)God directs the morning so the sun rises, a daily reminder that the darkness doesn’t win.  The dawn reveals the earth, exposing and limiting what the wicked have been doing.  A daily reminder that one day all will be revealed, that God cares about justice and there will be justice even though now there is both light and darkness.

God knows the depths of the seas, the gates of hades, even the deepest darkness(16-18), he knows where light dwells(19-21), he is sovereign over the weather(22-30, 34-38) using it to bring life and govern the seasons.  The stars and planets their orbits and existence are ordered by him(31-33).

Job do you see?  The world around you is ordered.  It’s amazing.  It works.  It’s not all chaos and darkness.  It bears the fingerprints of a Good God who created, designed and maintains.  Job lift your eyes, smell and touch the grass, listen to the wind and the water, star at the stars, see the order and care.  That everything isn’t out of control, that chaos isn’t winning.  When our life feels out of control, creation reminds us it isn’t.  When we’re tempted to think evil wins, sunrise reminds us the dawn is coming when justice will be done.

The world is not a sinister chaotic place.  Is that how you see it?  Has suffering shrunk your horizon so you can’t see the good, the beauty, the order, the care God has lavished on his creation?  God invites us to look up, go out and touch grass and to see and rest in his care and goodness and wisdom.

Do we despise what the angels rejoice in?  They see more clearly than we can.  We live in a world that is disconnected from the physical, we’re more likely to watch a nature programme than go out into it.  But the physical world declares the glory and goodness of God.  Maybe a really practical out working of this is to go out and see, and smell and touch God’s world, to refresh your soul in the sheer expanse of God’s ordering, providing, and caring beyond your suffering.  Not to minimise it, but to remind yourself it is not all pain.  Creation is not unrestrained or disordered chaos.  It is good and God cares.

If only his friends rather than berating him had spoken of this, or simply walked with him in God’s creation.

But God isn’t done yet.

When coming face to face with God is not how you imagined (Job Part 8)

What tone do you read these chapters 38 of Job onwards with?  As God questions Job what’s he doing?  Is he harshly putting Job in his place, showing him how insignificant he is?  Or gently teaching Job how great God is so he humbly trusts him?  Is it a harsh rebuke or gentle yet firm instruction?  Is it spoken with biting sarcasm or gentle care? I wonder if how we read them says a lot about who we think God is and how we think he treats us and others.  Maybe this morning that’s the first challenge to us?

Don’t rush past the opening words of v1 “Then the LORD spoke to Job…”  Each of Job’s friends have been introduced in the same way, friends coming to speak to Job, and amazingly YAHWEH, the covenant keeping, always faithful, almighty God speaks to Job just like his friends did.  Job’s been longing for God to speak and now God does, to him, not to his friends, but directly to Job.  Job isn’t abandoned, he hasn’t been speaking to the wind or the sky, as he has wondered about God and his care and character and what’s happening.  God always hears his people, and what he’s heard hasn’t put God off Job, it hasn’t made him turn his back on him or reject him.

And notice where God speaks from “out of the storm”, don’t think summer thunderstorm, this is a mighty towering tempest, a raging storm cracking with power and menace.  A storm that speaks of God’s amazing power and might.  But the storm also spoke of God coming in power to enter the fight on behalf of his people, coming to win the day, triumphing over enemies they faced.  God is both with Job and in his corner.

And (2)God has heard Job’s words.  The biggest danger for us in suffering isn’t ceasing to believe in God, it’s suffering warping and twisting our view of God so we believe dreadful things of him, things that aren’t true.  God is gentle with Job but he has come to correct that twisting, because Job has obscured God’s plans with his words.  Job has questioned how God governs his creation, suggesting God lets wickedness run free.  And God has come to challenge Job, to teach him what he doesn’t know.

God isn’t bullying Job, he’s not berating him.  He is using question and answer as a teaching tool, to show him God’s ways in the world.  That his agonised wonderings about God are built on faulty foundations.

Job wanted to question God, to put God in the dock.  But when God appears his sovereign power and majesty means Job (3)needs to get ready to answer God’s questions.

God is gentle with Job, he isn’t harshly cutting him off at the knees but showing him how little he’s understood and so how wrongly he’s spoken.  He’s in danger of having his view of God so twisted by suffering that he believes dreadful things of God that aren’t true.  And God won’t let that happen, he’s too gracious for that.  Job in ch 9 worried that when God appeared he’d so terrify him that he’d be dumbstruck, or crush him from a storm, or that God would overwhelm him with impossible to answer questions.  But God doesn’t, he is gracious and gentle yet firm and challenging.

How has your view of God been shaped by your experiences?  Or by the actions or words of others?  Abuse, bad parenting, terminal illness, chronic illness, relational collapse, people and things disappointing us and life not being what we thought it was, death and grief and loss.  Has suffering warped your view of God so that you believe dreadful things of him?  So you hear him speak in the demanding words of someone else instead of hearing God’s voce?  Do you think he doesn’t care, or doesn’t see?  Or that creation is falling into chaos and God doesn’t intervene?  Or maybe; that there’s no justice?  Or that evil is winning and God can’t or won’t do anything about it?  Or that God simply isn’t good?

We’d never say it out loud, but there’s always that whisper.  Be honest with yourself.  God wants to help us see above and beyond our pain and suffering, to learn to read the world so we see him, to graciously and gently yet firmly challenge us that we are reading the world and our situation and him wrongly, so that we trust again in his care and love and purposes.