May I add my welcome. It’s great to see Eddie Johnston back. He has been down way too long. And it’s great to have you back, brother. Good to see you up and on your feet. And it’s good to have my family with me today—my mother, my sister, her husband, Neil—with us. I hope you’ll all help them feel welcome. And for the Kuhns, we’re glad to see them as well, and we’ve certainly been in prayer for their family. Just as a heads up, we will be—I’m not sure where it is at at this point—but there is a collection effort underway to help with the Mickles, with all the expenses that they will be looking at with their baby, and we’ll all want to help out with that.
Take your Bibles again and turn to the book of Job. I don’t know if this is number five or six in the series on Job, something like that. We’ll be winding it up probably next time. Today I’d like to look at Job chapter 13 again. The title of the message today again is, “A Well-Informed Faith,” and this would be part two of that, “A Well-Informed Faith.” Job chapter 13. I’ll begin with verse 1. Here Job replies to Zophar and his criticisms and his advice. And Job says:
Behold, my eye has seen all this, my ear has heard and understood it. What you know I also know. I’m not inferior to you, but I would speak to the Almighty and I desire to argue my case with God. As for you, you whitewash with lies. Worthless physicians are you all. Oh, that you would keep silent and it would be your wisdom. Hear now my argument and listen to the pleadings of my lips. Will you speak falsely for God and speak deceitfully for Him? Will you show partiality toward Him? Will you plead the case for God? Will it be well with you when He searches you out? Or can you deceive Him as one deceives a man? He will surely rebuke you if in secret you show partiality. Will not his majesty terrify you? The dread of him fall upon you? Your maxims are proverbs of ashes. Your defenses are defenses of clay. Let me have silence and I will speak and let come on me what may. Why should I take my flesh and my teeth and put my life in my hand? Though he slay me, I will hope in him. Yet I will argue my ways to his face. This will be my salvation, that the godless shall not come before him. Keep listening to my words and let my declaration be in your ears. Behold, I have prepared my case. I know that I shall be in the right.
Let’s bow together for prayer. Our Father, this is your word and we pray that you would make your word live in our hearts and show in our lives. We pray that you would give us, through this fresh acquaintance with this tragic story, a new understanding of who you are, who we are in contrast, and what our obligations before you then will be. We ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.
The wisdom literature of the Old Testament, as I have said, has been given to us to teach us how to live rightly and successfully under God. We do this, of course, for his honor, but we do it also for our own joy and satisfaction, and the wisdom literature is given to help us do that successfully. We insist that the point of the scriptures is a redemptive one, that God has come in Christ to redeem us from our sins, but we must not forget that that redemptive work is broad and inclusive and is intended to restore us to the image of God in us, and has been so effaced by sin. And the wisdom literature is given to us then to teach us as part of God’s restorative process to bringing us back to live as we were intended to live to his glory.
The book of Job is one section of that wisdom literature, and the book of Job intends to tell us how to live successfully before God, in particular, in suffering. And it does this not, first of all, by trying to minister comfort to us in suffering, although it does some of that along the way, but primarily that’s more in other portions of scripture. The book of Job is given to us, first of all, to teach us how to live successfully before God in suffering. That is, it seeks, first of all, not to minister comfort, but to reorient our thinking as creatures to live before God rightly when we suffer.
And so the big question of the book of Job is one of a theodicy, a justification of the ways of God with men. What does suffering say, not only about us in this world, but what does suffering say about God? And why do bad things happen? And why do bad things happen to relatively good people like Job? And how does that reflect on God? Is the world well managed? How are we to think when this kind of suffering comes? How are we to think particularly in relation to God? And then how are we to respond and live rightly before him? And all of this is taught to us through the experience of this man, Job.
The story itself is played out for us in two brief chapters of Job chapters 1 and 2. You remember the story. Job is presented to us as a pious man, a righteous man, who is careful and scrupulous with regard to sin. He’s careful to avoid it. He presses the same for his own family, and then because he is righteous—not because he’s a sinner, but because he is righteous—Satan comes after him with attack. Satan reports in to God, and more or less brags on what he’s doing down there, and God says, “Well, have you considered my servant Job? You haven’t been doing too well with him, have you?” “Yeah, well, you build a hedge around him, and I can’t get to him. Let me at him. And he’ll curse you to your face.” And so he makes the challenge. And God says, “All right, have at him. Just don’t touch him.” And in one awful day, Job loses all of his family and all of his possessions.
And God says to Satan, “Yeah, how’s that working for you?” And Satan says, “Yeah, well, you’ve hedged him in. I can’t get to him. Let me touch him. He’ll curse you to your face.” God says, “All right, have at it. Just spare his life.” And so Satan comes at Job again, and this time he is smitten with this awful disease, the skin disease, painful from the top of his head to the bottom of his feet, and we find him scraping his sores and lamenting now not only over loss of possessions and loss over family, loss of all of his wealth, but now loss of his health as well. And even now, after all of this, his wife comes and she is no encouragement and says, “Why don’t you curse God and die?”
But under both rounds of this suffering, we read that Job maintained his integrity. And Job’s response was one of worship. That’s what the text says. Job bowed his head and worshiped, saying, “The Lord has given, the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.” And again, at the second episode, the same: “The Lord has given, the Lord has taken. Blessed be the name of the Lord.” And there, in a nutshell, is the lesson of the book.
Now the book unfolds to stress that lesson and to bring it out at great length, but that is the point. Satan has come against Job. Job has suffered innocently. Satan has gone on the attack. He has challenged God. God has given permission for the assault. Satan has come with it. Satan’s intents failed and God has been vindicated. The strange thing about the book of Job, so far as Job is concerned and his friends, is that the whole explanation of his suffering is left unstated. No explanation is given. We know the explanation because we’re told about this behind-the-scenes stuff in chapters 1 and 2 of Job—how Satan came to God and made the challenge and gave this wager and God took up the challenge and all of that. We know about that, but of all of that, Job is completely unaware.
And so they’re left to grapple with this question: why the suffering? Why did this happen? And from chapters 3 all the way through 37, we find this back and forth debate trying to reason out this problem of evil, this problem of suffering. In chapter 3, we have this rather extended lament of Job, where he says, “Why does this have to happen? Why do these kind of things have to happen? Why did I have to be born?” And he curses the day of his birth. Never mind that; he curses the day of his conception and wonders why in the world these things have to happen to me. And then there’s that little statement we saw at the end of chapter three, where Job says, “You know, I thought about this before, and I thought this kind of thing could happen, and now it has.”
And so he’s grappling with this problem, and his three friends then begin to speak. And we have Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar. Eliphaz speaks, Job responds. Bildad speaks, Job responds. Zophar speaks, Job responds. And then we have Elihu and Job, and we have Bildad and Job. Zophar doesn’t speak again, but then we have Elihu, a younger man, comes on the scene to speak, trying to deal with this issue. And, of course, their counsel is, “You must have sinned greatly, that’s why you’re suffering greatly.” They’ve got these nice, neat theological categories, and it all fits, and “You ought to just recognize it for what it is, repent of your sin, and be done with this.”
Job insists that he is innocent with regard to his suffering—not in an absolute sense, but he is not to blame for the bringing on of this. And he’s right, although he doesn’t know the whys, and that’s what bothers him. He maintains steadfastly his innocence through it all, and that’s what frustrates him in it. And because it is so frustrating, as we’ve seen, Job struggles with his own faith. He responds in a wonderful way when it all happens, but as he works with this counsel of the men back and forth, he himself becomes frustrated and sometimes frustrated with God. God lies behind this, obviously in some sense, and it’s not fair. “I’m innocent, so God has wronged me. If it’s not God, then who is it?” We’ve seen expressions like that in chapter 16 particularly. In chapter 9, Job is frustrated. “I want to argue my case before God, but then again, who could do that successfully? You can’t argue with God and win. He’ll just overpower me.” And Job is frustrated with how all of this is panning out, and he seems in a sense to adopt the theology of his friends: if you live righteously, God will bless; if you live unrighteously, God will get you. But the problem with that is it doesn’t fit his own experience, and that is what is so frustrating, and he begins to question God.
And it’s not a bald self-righteousness on the one hand—Job is not claiming that he’s sinless in an absolute sense—and neither is it a contemptuous unbelief on the other hand where he’s come out against God. But he does step over that line on occasion, blaming God that God has been unfair, God has wronged me, God has made all this happen. God is capricious. It seems unfair. And yet, amidst all of that, there are these bursts of faith. Like we see in chapter 13, verse 15, that we’ve read: “Though he slay me, I will hope in him.” Yet I will argue my ways to his face. I wish I had my day in court. Wish I had a mediator to take care of that for me. But still he maintains his innocence and we have these bursts of faith like here in chapter 13 verse 15, also in an extended way in chapter 19 as well. Even if God is the one after me, I’m going to trust him.
Elihu comes on the scene and takes after both Job’s friends and Job himself. He’s the younger man, says, “I’ve been waiting for all this gray hair to speak some wisdom, and I haven’t heard it yet, so I’m going to have to speak.” And so Elihu says, “Let me tell you what the score is.” And he comes after Job’s friends for falsely accusing Job, and now he comes after Job for falsely accusing God. Well, that in a nutshell is these chapters.
Finally then, after Elihu’s speech, chapters 32 through 37, God comes on the scene and God speaks. And it’s not at all what Job was expecting if he could talk to God. He wants to talk to God and argue his case, and God comes along to speak and—well, it’s not what Job was expecting. God begins to talk about himself as creator, and he says in essence, “Job, how did I do all of this without you? You’re complaining as though you know better. How did I make it?” And he reminds Job of the greatness of the created order and all the intricacies of the created order that God himself has done. And it is as much as to say, “Do you think really that I need your counsel, much less your criticism?”
Job responds when God gets done and says—God says, “It’s your turn now, Job, you wanted to argue your case, do it.” Job puts his hand on his mouth. “Nope,” he says, “I’ve spoken too much already. I won’t say anymore.” And then in chapter 40, verses seven and following, God speaks again, which is essentially more of the same. Now it’s important in all of that—and next time we will get to the happy ending, the epilogue in the book of Job, we’ll get to that next time—but it is important then and throughout the book, Job’s righteousness, Job’s suffering as a righteous man, is allowed to stand. That’s a given. That’s maintained. God never charges Job with sin. He never blames Job as his sin being the cause of the suffering. Job’s protest of his innocence is allowed to stand. And that’s a very important part, an important theme of the book.
The fault that God finds with Job is expressed succinctly for us if you look ahead and see it again in chapter 40. In chapter 40 and verse 8: “Will you even put me in the wrong? Will you condemn me that you might be in the right?” The fault that God finds with Job is simply to say, “Job, in order to vindicate yourself, you were willing to go so far as to condemn me.” Now what’s interesting again in all of this—and again it’s important for us to learn from it—is that not only does God not charge Job with the sin that brings on the suffering, it’s not the case, also God does not give the answer. He doesn’t give the explanation for the suffering. He never at any point in these lengthy speeches—chapters 38, 39, 40, and so on—he never stops and says, “Oh, by the way, Job, the reason you suffered is because you’re a good man, and Satan came after you, and you’ve drawn enemy fire because of your righteousness.” And Job says, “Oh, okay, I get it.” It never happens.
The mystery of the suffering is allowed to stand. But what God makes very clear to Job—and this gets to the point of the book—what God makes very clear to Job is that you will never explain your suffering by finding fault with me. That’s extremely important, and I know we’re sitting in church and you would know better than that. I’m telling you that is precisely how you will be tempted to think when you’re in the grips of extreme suffering. I’ve seen it too many times, where people who know better, caught up in the emotion of the moment—and they do know better, good people, I don’t mean to be critical of them, they know better and in their heart of hearts they feel better, but caught in the emotion of the moment: “Why is God doing this to me?” And so God reminds Job of who he is. He is the creator. And he says to Job, in effect, “You will never explain your suffering by finding fault with me.” God has not been cruel. God has not been capricious. God has not made a mistake. God is God. God has reasons that are his own reasons. And you ought to be able to acknowledge that.
And so the answer to unexplained suffering is found in the mystery of God himself. We acknowledge in church, in Sunday school class, in theology class, in those kinds of places, we acknowledge this doctrine of the incomprehensibility of God—that God is too big for us to comprehend entirely. We can know him truly, we can know him accurately, but we can never know him fully. And we acknowledge that in church and say, “Amen, that’s part of God’s greatness.” But when it comes to our suffering, we tend to think that if I don’t know the explanation of this, it must be wrong. It never occurs to us that God may have bigger purposes and bigger understandings than we have yet noticed.
And so the bottom line of the book—I stress this over and again through the series—the bottom line and the point of the book and the fundamental lesson is one of trust. This is how you position yourself rightly before God in suffering. You trust him. He does not owe you an explanation. It’s not important that you understand his purposes. What you owe him is trust, to honor him as the God who does all things well, and you trust him accordingly. Remember that God is God, that you are the creature. And as I think I ended up last time saying, in a sense, no matter how you have suffered, in a sense, nothing has changed. You may not have the same bank account. You may not have the same belongings and wealth. You may not have the same health. You may not have the same life expectancy. You may not have your family. But God is still God, and you are still his creature, and you still owe it to him to trust him. Nothing has changed.
Now the big question then that comes up—and here’s where we’ll spend the rest of our time today, and then I think next time as well—how can we trust God with this kind of faith, chapter 13 and verse 15, “Even though he slay me, yet I will trust him”? How can I have that kind of faith? Or to put it another way, what must I know about God in order to trust him like this in a way that honors him?
There Is Such A Thing As Innocent Suffering
First of all, and I’ve mentioned this throughout the series, so I don’t need to be labored here. First of all, we do need to know that there is such a thing as innocent suffering. Now, it’s not innocent in an absolute sense. None of us is innocent in an absolute sense. But in terms of this tit-for-tat relationship—if you misbehave, God’s going to zap you, and if you behave, he’s going to bless you and make you prosper—the prosperity gospel kind of thing. In those kinds of terms, the book of Job puts a lie to it all.
There is such a thing as innocent suffering. Job was suffering not because he had sinned, but because he had not sinned. Precisely because he had not sinned. Precisely because of his righteousness, he had drawn enemy fire from Satan the adversary. And so it is innocent in a relative sense, but still genuine innocence; but it is innocent suffering with a purpose, even though Job himself was not brought in on what that purpose might be. That’s not to say there might not be other purposes in suffering. I’m considering following up Job with some studies from Hebrews chapter 12 on the subject of chastening that God may set out to teach us through suffering. It’s not to deny any of that, but it is to affirm—and it is an enormously encouraging thought in suffering—that it might be again that God has taken up a challenge from Satan and that we are the means that God is using to silence Satan and to vindicate himself by means of a worshiping sufferer.
God Is Sovereign
Number two, and we’ve stressed this as well, so I don’t have to stress this at length either: we must know that God is sovereign. And that means simply that God has a right and is free in his right to do what he wills with all that is his. We must not think as though the whole world revolves around us. Now you would never put it in such crass terms, but when we complain in our sufferings as though it’s unfair, it is as much as what we are saying: “This whole world ought to revolve around me and my happiness and my pleasure.” And we need to recognize that God is God, that this is his world. He made it, and most fundamentally, he is not here for you. Most fundamentally, you are here for him. He made you, you are his, he made you for his purposes, and it is his right and his freedom to do what he wills for his purpose with all that is his. He does not owe us an explanation. And it’s quite irrelevant whether or not we know what God’s purpose is. The only thing that is relevant is we know that he has the right to do what he will with what is his.
Now that is presupposed in Job’s response in chapter 1 to the initial onset of suffering. Job bowed his head and worshiped and said, “The Lord has given, the Lord has taken away”—to paraphrase—”he is right in any case. Blessed be the name of the Lord.” That is presupposed in his response at the end of chapter two. “The Lord has given, the Lord has taken away. Shall we accept good from the Lord and not evil?” He’s right and in every case he has rights. Blessed be the name of the Lord. And that is presupposed in all of God’s speech from chapters 38 and following. God has a right to do with his as he will.
Now that means that every mercy that we have, every moment of pleasure, every favor that we enjoy, we have because it is mercy—that God has determined in his own good pleasure, freely, without obligation, to give us that amount of prosperity, that amount of health, and happiness. And for every moment of pleasure, for every smile on our face, we owe God thanks for it. But it also means that in every disappointment and in every suffering, we may be sure that it has come to us filtered through the will of a sovereign God who does always what is right.
I want to follow up on that with our next point in just a minute, which is closely associated with that, but I want to take a bit of an aside in regard to that because we should think of all of that—of God’s sovereign right to do what he will with what is his. We should think of all of that in connection with all that gave rise to Job’s suffering in the first place. We speak of Job’s suffering as arising from—in the language we use—as arising from a wager between God and Satan, a challenge that Satan issues to God, and that God takes him up on that wager, and that’s what explains the suffering. And I think that language is fine as far as it goes, but we are not to think about that as though the outcome were uncertain in God’s mind. It’s not as though God were capricious and unfeeling, and it’s not as though the outcome of it all was uncertain. God knew very well how it would turn out. God knew how he had made Job. God knew how he would provide for Job and what grace would be available for him in it all. So it’s not as though the outcome were in doubt. God was not up there wondering, “Boy, I hope he comes through on this for me.”
But we’re not long into considering that before we’re reminded of 1 Corinthians chapter 10 and verse 13. There’s no temptation taken you, but such is common to man. God is faithful, will not allow you to be tempted above what you are able, but will with that testing make a way to escape that you may be able to bear it. If God has allowed that suffering in his sovereign will, we may be sure that with that suffering he will give every needed grace.
God Is Just
So we must know there is such a thing as innocent suffering. We must know God is sovereign. And we must know, very closely associated with that in this context, we must also know that God is just. Now again, that is presupposed in Job’s responses at the very beginning, chapters 1 and chapter 2. “God has given, God has taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord.” God is right in all that he does, and I acknowledge it even in my suffering. It is presupposed in Job 38 and following when God speaks. “Do you think I really need to answer to you, Job? Would you really vindicate yourself by condemning me?”
In all of this, we’re reminded that God not only is sovereign and free to do what he wills to do, but he is just in all that he does. And so in Job chapter 40, as we’ve just seen—in chapter 40 and verse 8—”Will you put me in the wrong so that you will be made right?” It is interesting in the first six verses there of Job chapter 40, Job’s response to God is not, “Oh, now I get it. OK. I understand.” God doesn’t give an explanation. What’s Job’s response? “I repent. I have not thought rightly about God. I have not spoken rightly about God. I have not honored God in the way that he deserves to be honored. Of course, God has done what is right. I should have just rested in that.”
In other words then, as I’ve said before, these are kind of anchor points that we have to have in our minds when it comes time for suffering, because the emotion of the moment is going to make us think in all kinds of crazy directions. But we’ve got to have as anchor points in our mind: God is free and God is right in all that he does. It is his very nature that he is just. He never acts in a way that is out of keeping with his righteousness. Never has, never will. And I must remember that in my suffering.
Brothers and sisters, if that was the case for Job, that side of the cross, can we ever, ever imagine that God would somehow be unjust in anything in our suffering? This is the God who has not only entered into our suffering in sending his son to bear the curse of our sin, but it was precisely in order to uphold the demands of his justice that he sent his son. And if he would go to those kinds of lengths to maintain his justice in all things that he does, and in order to save us, would pour out his just wrath on his own son, would that God ever do what is wrong?
God’s Timetable Is Not The Same As Yours
And so in order to trust God implicitly—”though he slay me, yet will I trust him”—I must know there is such a thing as innocent suffering. I must know God is sovereign, and I must know that God is just. And this next one, this fourth one, I’m going to have to spend a couple of minutes here and enlarge on it because I think we need this reminder so badly: God’s timetable is not the same as yours. And just to press it a little further, let me say it this way: God’s timetable is not the same as yours, and it doesn’t need to be.
The tendency in suffering is to think that if God is going to help at all, it must be now. That delay is denial. And it never seems to occur to us—at least in suffering—it never seems to occur to us that God just is not constrained by our timetables. Never has been. Never will be. He may have a purpose that is in view that extends well beyond what we can ever see or even imagine. And I think it’s so interesting that in Job 13 and verse 15, the word choice that Job takes—”Though he slay me, I will hope in him.” I think the older version translates that “I will trust in him.” The word here in my version, translated hope, it’s a standard language for faith and hope and trust, but it’s the word that’s regularly translated “wait”—the longest word in the whole Bible. Now in Hebrew, it’s got three consonants like any other verb, but the longest word in the whole Bible: wait. Wait for God. It’s a standard language of trust in the scriptures. Waiting for God, waiting for him to accomplish his purpose and trusting him in that sense.
Pictures Job then as hopeful, yes. Trusting, yes. Determined to wait. God is doing what is right. His timetable is not the same as mine. Job was tempted throughout all of this, back and forth, to think that because God did not intervene immediately, he was being unfair. You can think of other examples of that in the Bible, can’t you? Joseph, in the book of Genesis, waits 20 years for vindication. You might remember Revelation chapter 6, the saints under the altar: “Lord, how long, how long before you avenge our blood?” Waiting.
Probably most famously, the story of Naomi. You remember she goes out with her husband and her boys. She comes back with the daughter-in-law. She comes back and Bethlehem—”Is that Naomi?” You can just hear the bitterness in her voice. “God has afflicted me. I went away full. The Lord has brought me back empty. Don’t call me Naomi (pleasantness). Call me Mara (bitter).” The irony, of course, is what she was not able to see is those last verses of the book that record her story when we are told in so many words that it is through this daughter-in-law that she brought back and the new husband that she will find that David’s greater son, the Messiah, has come for the redemption of the world. Now, it’s no fault on Naomi’s part that she couldn’t see that. But you see, that’s just the point. We can’t see.
God’s timetable is often larger than ours. The fact is we simply don’t know what God is up to. And brothers and sisters, it is arrogant—we have to see it—it is the height of presumption for us to assume as though we know better, as though we can see things whole and large as God does. We must have—and this is the lesson of the book of Job—we must have the kind of faith that is able to recognize that God in his time is working out his sovereign, just, wise, good purpose in his time. Now it may be, it may be that in this life we’ll be able to see that. It’s usually not. Hence irrelevant. The point is we are able to trust God and his timetable.
Now this, I think, helps explain some otherwise puzzling statements in the New Testament regarding suffering. Have you ever noticed those passages that speak of suffering with a redemptive value? As though you could suffer with a redemptive purpose? Or that you could enter into Jesus’ sufferings to save people? Strange kind of talk. So for example, we share in his suffering. We fellowship in his sufferings. We participate in the sufferings of Christ. Or let’s take the time to look at this one: Colossians chapter one. Colossians chapter one, verse 24. Paul writing from prison. I’ll wait till you get there so you can follow along. Colossians 1:24: “Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake. And in my flesh I’m filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body that is the church.”
Now, you gotta say, there’s a way to read this that makes it rank heresy. Filling up what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ? Don’t we insist that the sufferings of Christ are complete? Isn’t this what he said when he said, “It’s finished”? That Christ has done all the work that saves? That he suffered alone and by himself accomplished the redemption of his people? What in the world is this talk? That I’m not just suffering with Christ, but in my suffering I’m filling up what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ. And I think we have to see it in this broader redemptive sense that our sufferings, on the one hand, of course, can in no way accomplish salvation in a judicial sense. Christ died in our place and paid the penalty of our sin by himself. But there is a kind of redemptive value in our sufferings as well. In enduring suffering faithfully for Christ and to Christ, God may be at work in us to bring men and women to himself. And so in that sense, we are participating in the sufferings of Christ in a redemptive kind of way. By enduring suffering faithfully, God may be at work to bring men and women to himself.
So there’s a sense in which we may suffer for the world. And there is what has been called a ministry of suffering. How would you like that? I’d rather have a ministry of music, thank you very much. But perhaps, perhaps the way you hold up under suffering will so impress someone else that they notice and it brings them to bring up their children faithfully for Christ, and one son may become the next Whitefield. We don’t know. That’s just the point, isn’t it? I think I’ve told you before the testimony of my friend Don Theobald. He was a teenager, had nothing to do with the gospel, wanted really nothing to do with it. A friend of his landed in the hospital. I think it was a serious accident of some kind. It may have been a sickness of some kind. But in any case, it was a very serious matter. He went up to the hospital to visit his friend and found his mother sitting there in the hospital room, of course, crying. And he said she just couldn’t stop talking about how good God is. He thought, “What? What kind of crazy talk?” That got his attention. And it is through that that God brought him to the gospel. And you’ve got to know that for all of Don’s faithful ministries, when rewards are doled out, she’s going to receive her share for them.
Our faith must be willing to acknowledge that God is just not constrained by our timetables. He is indeed committed to our good. And next time, we will see how that plays out in the end—that God is committed to our good. But he is always also able to see that delay is not always bad. In fact, it is a lesson that we have learned once in a while, haven’t we? In our own observation, we’ve been able after the fact to look back and see how God has used this or that suffering for his own glory and for his own purpose. And at that point, we feel like the spoiled brat kid. I’m learning now. I’ve said it this way before. I think it’s helpful. God has a greater theater in which to display his glory than the short span of our lifetime. Or we can say it this way: God has a greater theater in which to display his purpose and accomplish his purpose than the short span of our lifetime, and it is presumptuous to judge God by our calendar. He’s just not constrained by it.
The whole thrust of this in Job has been to tell us, yes, you may suffer, and yes, you may suffer innocently, but you must know in every case that God is free. He does not owe you health. He does not owe you wealth. He doesn’t owe you that job. He doesn’t owe you recovery from that illness. He doesn’t owe you life expectancy. He was free and unobliged when he gave you those children. He didn’t have to. And he’s free and unobliged at any point after. God is sovereign. And he is right in all that he does. And he has his timetable to accomplish his purpose that we may or may not see yet. And that is irrelevant. He does not owe us explanation. We owe it to Him to trust Him implicitly. This is the God who has given us His Son. This is the God who in maintaining justice sent His Son to bear the curse of our sin that He could redeem us to Himself. Surely this is a God that we can trust implicitly. Amen.
Our Father, we need so to be reminded of who you are. We are so tempted and so prone to think of ourselves as ultimate, or think of ourselves as God. We need every day to learn afresh to bow before you, to recognize that you alone are God. And Father, we gladly position ourselves this morning with Job as he did in those first two chapters of his book. Acknowledge in worship that you are the God who is right, the God who is free, and we trust you in every case. Blessed be your name, in Jesus’ name, amen. Amen.
In closing this morning, let’s turn to number 27 in our Trinity hymnals, and we’ll sing together, “Great is Thy Faithfulness.” Let’s stand and sing this final hymn together, number 27.