Church: Reformed Baptist Church of Franconia | Text: Job 1 | Date: June 26, 2016 | Speaker: Fred Zaspel

I’d like to add my thanks to all of you who served so wonderfully in Vacation Bible School this past week. It’s really quite an event to behold every year to see so many wonderful volunteers and the wonderful work that they do. We’re very appreciative of it. My wife said to me this morning—she’s ill, she’s staying home—but she said to me this morning that I was going to have to preach really well today in order to keep all those people awake who worked so hard all week.

I think of all of those who worked so hard, there are some, obviously, that deserve special attention and thanks. And, of course, those who led it. Alethea and Amy and Kristen led the whole thing from beginning to end. Yes. And I think the musicians, I think Amy and the musicians were here all evening, all five and six nights. So just wonderful service. I do think, though, that a special sympathy ought to be given to Cheryl and to Kim, who worked in the nursery. I think that maybe it’s not too much of a stretch to say that they have earned the martyr’s crown.

All right, Job chapter 1 again, continuing our studies in Job, Lessons on Suffering. Perhaps appropriate for all of you who worked all week. This morning we have read in the past couple of weeks Job 1 and 2 and 3. Let’s read this morning just Job chapter 1 again.

There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job, and that man was blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil. There were born to him seven sons and three daughters. He possessed 7,000 sheep, 3,000 camels, 500 yoke of oxen and 500 female donkeys, and very many servants, so that this man was the greatest of all the people of the East.

His sons used to go and hold feasts in the house of each one on his day, and they would send and invite their three sisters and eat and drink with them. On the days of the feast had run their course, Job would send and consecrate them, and he would rise early in the morning and offer burnt offerings according to the number of them all. For Job said, “It may be that my children have sinned and cursed God in their hearts.” Thus Job did continually.

Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord and Satan also came among them. And the Lord said to Satan, “From where have you come?” Satan answered the Lord and said, “From going to and fro on the earth, from walking up and down in it.” The Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on earth, a blameless and upright man who fears God and turns away from evil?”

And Satan answered the Lord and said, “Does Job fear God for no reason? Have you not put a hedge around him and his house and all that he has on every side? You’ve blessed the work of his hands and his possessions and have increased in the land, but stretch out your hand and touch all that he has and he will curse you to your face.” The Lord said to Satan, “Behold, all that he has is in your hand, only against him do not stretch out your hand.” So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord.

Now there was a day when his sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother’s house, and there came a messenger to Job and said, “The oxen were plowing and the donkeys were feeding beside them, and the Sabaeans fell upon them and took them and struck down the servants with the edge of the sword, and I alone have escaped to tell you.” While he was yet speaking, there came another and said, “The fire of God fell from heaven and burned up the sheep and the servants and consumed them, and I alone have escaped to tell you.”

While he was yet speaking, there came another and said, “The Chaldeans formed three groups and made it a raid on the camels and took them and struck down the servants with the edge of the sword, and I alone have escaped to tell you.” And while he was yet speaking, there came another and said, “Your sons and your daughters were eating and drinking wine in their older brother’s house. And behold, a great wind came across the wilderness and struck the four corners of the house and it fell upon the young people and they are dead. And I alone have escaped to tell you.”

And Job arose and tore his robe, shaved his head and fell on the ground and worshiped. and said, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, naked I will return. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.” In all of this, Job did not sin or charge God with wrong.

Just by way of review, you’ll remember in chapter two that Satan reports back in to God and again challenges the Lord that Job has served him only for what he can get out of it temporally and says, “You take away his health, you touch him and he will curse you to your face.” God allows that permission to Satan, commands him only to spare Job’s life. He becomes sick all over with sores. His wife, in essence, turns against him, tells him to curse God and die, and then his friends show up with their counsel.

And then remember as well, we saw chapters 38 and following last week, where God finally comes on the scene to speak to Job and challenges Job to think of the accusations that he has made, challenging God’s wisdom and justice in what he has done.

Let’s bow together for prayer. Our Father, we thank you for this wonderful privilege to have your word. What a great privilege, what a treat, what an honor it is to hear from the God of heaven. We thank you for this book. We thank you for your word. We thank you for this privilege that your people all over the world have today to hear the Word of God preached, to come together and to sit under your Word. We ask that you will bless us in that today. Help us to learn from Job what is needful for us to worship faithfully when we suffer. Help us to learn and to understand deeply in our souls necessary truths of what you have revealed about yourself and who you are, so that we may remain faithful. We ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Well, we have seen the story then as it unfolds in chapters 1 and 2. Last time we looked at chapter 3 as well where we saw Job asking the “why” questions. Why does this have to happen? Why did I have to be born? Cursing the day he was born, even cursing the day he was conceived. Suffering terribly. His friends trying to figure it all out, and they’ve got it nailed. They think that, well, it’s obvious Job has sinned greatly, and that’s why he is suffering greatly. And if Job would repent, God would restore him.

All throughout the book, Job protests his innocence, and God himself confirms that before and after the fact that Job is not suffering because of his sin. That does not mean that Job never sins, but it does mean that Job’s suffering is not due to his sin. Job misspeaks through the book, he wrongly accuses God at times through the book, but God himself affirms at the end, as well as up front at the beginning, that Job’s suffering was not because he had sinned.

And so one of the great lessons of the book of Job is that there is such a thing as innocent suffering. There is such a thing as innocent suffering. We need to know that because the tendency can be to wonder, “Why is God punishing me? Why is God doing this to me? What have I done?” But Job has come to tell us, perhaps the first lesson just on the surface of the book, is there is such a thing as innocent suffering.

Suffering Often Comes As The Result Of An Unseen Conflict In The Spiritual World

In fact, the lessons that we are trying to draw from the book, number one, was that suffering often comes as the result of an unseen conflict in the spiritual world. That’s what’s told us up front. And again, one of the distinctives of the book of Job is that we know something about his suffering that he himself does not know. He’s not aware of this meeting in heaven where Satan and his angels have to appear before God and give account of what they have done. They don’t know anything about how Satan has challenged God, challenged Job’s motives, and so on.

They don’t know anything about that, but the lesson is that suffering may come. This is not to discount that suffering may come for other reasons as well, but suffering may come as a result of an unseen conflict in the spirit world. It might be that in our suffering, it is like Job, that we have, because of faithfulness, not because of sinfulness—because of faithfulness—we have drawn enemy fire, that Satan has taken up, charged God once again, and God has taken him up on his challenge. And like Job, we may be called once again to silence Satan before God by means of suffering faithfully. Our first lesson then was just that: the suffering often comes as a result of an unseen conflict in the spirit world.

Human Reason Is Not Sufficient To Account For Tragedy And Suffering

A second lesson that we saw last time was that human reason is not sufficient to account for tragedy and suffering. Human reason is not sufficient to account for tragedy and suffering. And the flip side of that then is that God calls us to trust him. To put it simply, God does not call us to figure it out. God calls us to trust him. Human reason is not sufficient.

The most obvious explanation for what is happening to Job is that he has sinned and God is telling him about it. But that is exactly the wrong explanation and Job is cleared from that. He protests his innocence and God confirms him in that. The trouble with Job was that he couldn’t figure it out either. He recognized that his friends were all wet. As we saw in chapter 16, they are a bunch of windbags, hot air coming from them, and he can’t stand what they’re saying. They cannot speak to his situation.

But the problem for Job was not that they couldn’t speak to it. The problem was that he couldn’t explain it either. There was no explanation. There’s no way for him to figure it out. Now we’ve seen the setup in the first two chapters. Job is unaware of that and he’s unable to explain why the suffering. And so he begins to struggle in his faith. Is God being unfair? Why is God doing this to me? I wish I could explain myself to him. Why would God do this? And if it’s not God, well then who is it? It’s gotta be God. He’s sovereign over all, and he’s struggling with his faith.

And we saw a couple of things there in that. Number one, you will never explain your suffering by finding fault with God. When God shows up on the scene and talks to Job, he stresses that with him. You will never explain your suffering by finding fault with God. And in fact, and here was the thrust of it all last time, that God does not call us to figure it out. He calls us to trust him. It is not important—I’ve said it several times last time, I’m sure I’ll say it again this morning—it is not important that we understand what God is up to. All that is important is that we know that he knows what he is up to, and we trust him in it. And so Job is a call to a robust faith, to trust God even when we don’t know and don’t understand what it is he is doing.

God Is Sovereign Over Satan And Our Suffering

Well, then that brings us to our third lesson from the book of Job. And here we’ll spend our time today. Number three: God is sovereign over Satan and suffering. God is sovereign over Satan and our suffering.

Now before I develop this from the book of Job and show how it pertains to suffering and the lesson that Job has for us in that regard, I want to back up just a little bit and take five minutes or so and just talk about this doctrine of divine sovereignty to make sure we understand what it means, particularly in its implications for suffering. God’s sovereignty, I’ve often defined it in terms of like this, that God’s sovereignty is the exercise of his divine supremacy. I think that’s a right definition. God’s sovereignty is the exercise of his divine supremacy. I think that’s right.

The problem with that definition is it’s a little bit vague, isn’t it? What we mean when we say God is sovereign is that he is able and free to do whatever he pleases. I think that’s it in a nutshell. That he’s able to do and free to do whatever he pleases. He’s unobliged, he’s unaccountable, except only to himself. God presents, the scriptures present God as king.

Now we have a hard time with that concept of kingship. We have it in our memory verse this week: God is king over all the earth. Now we’re Americans. We don’t have a king. In fact, one of the old American slogans during the revolution is, “We have no sovereign here.” That’s great politics. It is horrible theology. But we tend to think, I think, when we read God is King, we tend to filter that through a modern democratic politic in which we have a—not a king—we have a president. Now we have currently a president that acts like king at times. And that’s our complaint. We have no sovereign here.

A president, at least according to the Constitution, is bound by two other branches of government. There’s a Constitution that rules over him. He can’t always get what he wants. And we can vote him out of office if we have the sense. But that’s not what a king is. A king is sovereign. He can do what he wants. Now, anymore, there are not many kings left in modern countries. Even where there are kings and queens, such as in Britain, it’s a constitutional monarchy, and there are limitations imposed, even if, theoretically, the queen still has power of veto, but it’s never exercised, hasn’t been in a couple hundred years.

But in terms of what the Bible presents of kingship, that’s the idea. Supremacy, sovereignty, freedom. He is the law. He is the rule. And of course, that’s open to all kinds of abuse in human kings. That’s why we don’t like the system. But God is king.

A. W. Tozer, I think, explained God’s sovereignty in, I think, one of the best ways I’ve ever seen. And it’s really fascinating because A. W. Tozer was one of the most Calvinistic Arminians you’ve ever seen. He’s got a wonderful little booklet called The Knowledge of the Holy, and it’s an exposition of various attributes of God. It’s a wonderful read. I highly recommend it. And his chapter on divine sovereignty, in the first half of the chapter, he explains what divine sovereignty is. It’s a wonderful exposition. The second half of the chapter he undoes all of it.

But the first half of the chapter he explains it in such a wonderful way. He says God’s sovereignty consists basically of three things. God’s sovereignty consists, first of all, of his omniscience. God knows everything that is. There’s not one datum of knowledge outside of God’s reach. If it were, his rule would end at that point. So first of all, divine sovereignty consists in God’s omniscience. Secondly, he says God’s sovereignty consists in his omnipotence. God’s omnipotence, that he’s able to do… he is all-powerful, that there’s not one speck of power outside of God’s grasp, and if there were, his rule would end at that point. So God’s rule, God’s sovereignty consists in his omniscience, his omnipotence, and thirdly—and this is very important—God’s freedom. He is free to exercise his power how he wants, when he wants, with whom he wants, and he is not answerable to any. He’s unobliged. He’s unpressured. He’s uncoerced. He is God. He’s omniscient, he’s omnipotent, and he is free.

Now I want you to see a few passages just quickly to drive this home a little bit more. Look—keep your hand, we’ll be back into the Old Testament—but look ahead at Ephesians. Ephesians chapter one. Look at verse 11. Paul here is speaking of the saving blessings that we enjoy in Christ. And so he tells us in verse 11, “In him,” that is in Christ, “we’ve obtained an inheritance.” How did we obtain the inheritance? We’ve been predestined to it. How have we been predestined? We have been predestined “according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his own will.” Do you see that? How predestination to salvation is just a subset of this larger idea of God’s sovereignty that he works all things according to his own will. He has an all-inclusive purpose, and all things are done according to it.

All right, look at another one. Look at Daniel chapter 4. A famous one, a wonderful passage. This is after Nebuchadnezzar had been put out to pasture, you remember, and he comes back and his senses return to him. He says that. Daniel 4 verses 34 and 35. He says in verse 36, by the way, that “my reason returned to me.” So he’s looking back on it all, and he says in verse 34, “At the end of days I, Nebuchadnezzar, lifted up my eyes to heaven, and my reason returned to me, and I blessed the Most High, and praised and honored him who lives forever.” Why? “Because his dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom endures for all generations, and all the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing. He does according to his will among the hosts of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth, and none can stay his hand or say to him, ‘What have you done?'”

God is king over all, verse 34, forever. From generation to generation, it’s everlasting. God is king over all forever. And verse 35, it’s all-inclusive and all-extensive. The hosts of heaven, all the inhabitants of the earth—he’s king over all of it. And so he says, verse 35, he does—can we paraphrase it?—he does what he pleases with all of it. He does according to his will among the hosts of heaven and the inhabitants of the earth. And then notice how he pushes it: “And no one can stay his hand.” Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute, wait a minute, hold up there. Can’t be done. And no one can call him into question and say, “What have you done?” His rule is endless and it’s all-inclusive.

Another one, look at Psalm 115. This says the same thing only in very brief statement. Psalm 115 verse 3: “Our God is in the heavens. He does all He pleases.” There it is. God is free and able to do all His will. That’s all He ever does is what he pleases.

Now let’s look at one more verse. Look at Psalm 24. And I want to ask the question here: what is the ground of God’s all-inclusive sovereignty? What gives him not just the power, but what gives him the right to rule over everybody and everything? Think on it a second. What gives him that right? And the answer is: it’s his. Well, how’s it his? He made it, right? He’s the creator. It’s his. It’s his to do with as he pleases. And that’s exactly the logic of the psalmist here in Psalm 24. “The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, the world and those who live in it.” It’s all his. Why? Notice the connective in verse two: “For,” that is because, the earth is all his. Why? “Because he founded it on the seas and established it on the rivers.” He made it. He put it where it is. He’s the creator, and he therefore has rights over all that is.

So this matter of divine sovereignty, then quickly: all things are under his sovereign direction, and he is free. He is unobliged to anyone. He is free to do as he pleases.

All right, back to Job. This cuts two ways now with regard to suffering, and we see this in the book of Job. The first we see in Job chapter 1, in Job’s response. Look at chapter 1, verses 20 and 21. Job has received all of this news in rapid succession and lost everything. Verse 20 says, “Job rose, tore his robe, shaved his head, and fell on the ground and worshiped. And he said, ‘Naked I came from my mother’s womb, naked I shall return. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.'”

Well, the first thing that strikes you here is what he says: “The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away.” What about Satan? I thought Satan did it, right? Isn’t the Satan the one who should be accused here? Yes. And yet Job is saying up front that whatever else is involved, we have to know that God is sovereign over it all. And so we may say, “The Lord has taken away.” And unless you think that Job might have spoken wrongly, look at verse 22: “In all this, Job did not sin or charge God with wrong.”

And the same thing happens again in chapter 2, in verse 10. He said to his wife, “You speak as one of the foolish women speak. Shall we receive good from God and shall we not receive evil?” In all this, Job did not sin with his lips. That is, Job acknowledges when he says, “The Lord has given, the Lord has taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord.” When he says that, he is acknowledging God’s rights over everything about him. It was God who was free and sovereign in his distribution of grace, and God who is free and sovereign in his withholding of grace. The Lord gave. The Lord took away. He has rights in either case. Blessed be the name of the Lord. That’s enormously important. Job is acknowledging, “God has rights over me.”

Now it’s very important to recognize here, lest we misunderstand God and end up accusing Him wrongly as well: God is always fair. And that’s going to be a later message in this series, the justice of God in suffering. But we can say it this way, just up front: God is always fair. But that does not mean that he’s always even in the distribution of his grace and his favors.

Oh, we see this all the time. Some people are born beautiful, like my wife. Some people are not so beautiful, like others. Some are born healthy. Some are not born healthy. Some have generally good health all throughout life to the very end. Others are afflicted throughout life and some very severely. Some are born into wealth. Some stumble into wealth. Others are in abject poverty all their life. Some are born into a home where they hear the gospel preached from their earliest days. Others are born in a land where the gospel isn’t there. God is fair in every case to do his will. But that is not to say that God is even in the distribution of favors.

I want to press this. This is part of what we have to grapple with in Job’s own experience. Did you know that God has rights over everything about you? We like to think that we have our own little kingdom, and we’re sovereign over that, and nobody, not even God, should mess with it. But one of the lessons we come away with from Job is that we have to acknowledge that God has rights over everything about you. We like to say that we own things. “This is my house.” Did you know that that house is going to outlast you and then God’s going to give it to somebody else? Do you know that that house you live in belongs to God? And He can, and He will, and He has done with it as He pleased.

Do you know that that car you drive belongs to God too? He can do with it as He pleases. Did you know that that job you have belongs to God and He can do with it as He pleases? He can give it. He can take it away. Did you know that that income that you have belongs to God? He can give and he can take away, and he has rights in either case. That bank account that you say belongs to you, do you know it belongs to God too? He can give and he can take away, and he has rights in either case. That savings that you have—that belongs to him too. He can drain it, he can give it, he can give you more. He has rights in either case.

Did you know that you belong to God, and everything about you is His? He made you, He owns you, and He can do with you as He pleases, and in fact He will, and He has. Did you know that your health belongs to God and that he will do with that as he pleases, and he has rights to? And in fact, he has done with it as he pleases. And for every degree and every measure of health that you’ve enjoyed, you owe him praise for it.

Did you know that your family belongs to God? Every moment of loving enjoyment you have with your family is because God has willed it so. Your family’s health—that belongs to God. And he will do with it as he pleases, and he has. And for every degree of health, and for every degree of happiness, and for every smile on your face, and for every moment of pleasure and enjoyment, we owe God the thanks for it, because he has willed it so.

Isn’t that what James tells us? “What are you, an atheist? You should not talk like this. You should not say, ‘I am going to go to this and such a place, make these plans, gonna make this much money, come back and have that big of a bank account.’ You shouldn’t talk like that. What you ought to say is, ‘If God wills, we will live. And if God wills, we will do this and that and make this much profit.'” If God wills.

The whole orientation ought to be that God has rights over everything there is, including us, including our own little kingdom that we think ought to be untouchable. And when Job bows before God and says, “The Lord has given, the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord,” he’s acknowledging that God has rights over everything about me and he has done what his will and his pleasure has seen fit and it is good. And that means that on the one hand for every blessing that I enjoy, for every moment of pleasure, for every moment of family enjoyment, for every degree of health, for every degree of wealth—I’m obliged to give God the praise for it because I have it because he has willed it so.

But it also means that if God takes, I owe him worship then also. I want to press this. Did you see how this was the reflex response of Job in chapter one? Notice verse 20 again: “Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head and fell on the ground and worshiped.” And as an expression of that worship said, “The Lord gave, the Lord has taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord.” The Lord has given, and I worship. The Lord has taken, and I acknowledge him just the same, and worship.

You might remember this with David as well. 2 Samuel, you remember? Chapter 12, his sin with Bathsheba, and Nathan comes in and says, “That child is going to die.” Remember what David does? Tears his robe and goes into a room, lies down on the floor and stays there a week, seven days, praying, crying out to God, asking him to spare the child. He wouldn’t be comforted. He wouldn’t get up. They come and try to talk. He won’t hear it. Before God, on his face, and then he sees, remember, the servants whispering. He puts two and two together. He finds out the child has died. You remember what he does? The very next verse: David arose, washed himself, changed his clothes, and worshiped.

This past week, Vacation Bible School, I think it was a Thursday evening, Pastor Boyd and a bunch of the kids, I think it was, walked out of the tent. Big limb fells down the tent just minutes after they had left. And the instinct, the instinct of response that all of us have is “Thank God for his providence.” And God held that branch up another two minutes. Let me ask you, if that branch had fallen five minutes before, would God still have been sovereign? Would that have been providence?

If you wake up tomorrow morning and hear in the news that every adult bookstore in the county has mysteriously crumbled to the ground, you’re going to walk into work with a big smile on your face and you’re going to think, “God is sovereign.” And what if, on the other hand, you woke up to hear the news that every evangelical gospel-preaching church in the county has mysteriously crumbled? Is God still sovereign? And in either case, our response is to worship.

And when we ask, “Why is God doing this to me?” we not only falsely accuse God, but we forget who God is. You are not God. And most fundamentally, God is not here for you. Most fundamentally, you are here for him. He made you for his pleasure and for his purpose. You are not God, and he is not here for you. Most fundamentally, we have to say God is God, and we are here for him. And in either case, we worship.

We have an amazing tendency to forget all of that. We forget that God is God. We forget that he is creator. We forget what his sovereignty really means—that he’s God over all that is, even our own lives and the number of our days, the degree of our prosperity. In all of it, God is sovereign and it is our obligation in every case to worship.

This is part of the evil, just another part of the evil of the health, wealth, and prosperity gospel as it’s preached today. I very much appreciated what Pastor Boyd had to say today about recognizing brothers and sisters in Christ who believe differently on some things, and I want to have that kind of a spirit, but when it comes to things like this and the prosperity gospel, I want to have no patience whatever. It is a hellish doctrine on so many fronts, and here is just one: that this health and wealth and prosperity gospel as it’s preached today has no place in it for the silencing of Satan by means of a worshiping sufferer. It has no place in it for the worshiper simply to say in his suffering, “God is God, I am not, and God has rights.”

Much less does it have any room in it for the sufferer to say, “God is enough.” And ultimately, I don’t need anything but him. And that I have pinned my joy to him. And in every case, I will say, “Blessed be the name of the Lord.” Does it not honor God to say—not like Job’s friends would have him say, “and I serve God because of the temporal pleasures he’ll give me”—does it not honor God more to say even from an aching heart, “God is enough”?

Sovereignty of God cuts another direction in our suffering as well, and we see that in Job here too. Did you notice as we read through in chapter 1 and then in chapter 2, first off the scene, Satan comes in bragging to God. “I’m running the place down there,” that’s what I’m doing. And God says, “Yeah, what about Job?” And you remember Satan’s response to that? “Yeah, well, you put a hedge around him. I can’t do anything to him.” Did you catch that? And then to do anything to Job, he had to get permission. And in that permission from God, certain restrictions were placed in.

And then he comes back and has to report in again, chapter two. And then he complains again. “Yeah, well you put this hedge around him. I can’t get to him, but you do this.” And God gives more permission, but still more restrictions. We need to know that. Job’s frustration was that things seem so out of control. It seems like fate. It seems so random. There’s no sense to it. Even so much as we saw in chapter 9 that he’s frustrated with the very question of it. God is doing this to me. Remember how he’s frustrated and says, “And if it’s not God, who is it?”

And what we need to know is that even if it is Satan himself coming against us, God has even Satan on a leash. The devil may be the devil, but you must remember he’s God’s devil. And he will not go one step beyond divine providence. It is still ultimately the Lord who gives and the Lord who takes away. Isn’t that good to know? Things are not out of control. Things are not happening by blind chance or by fate. It’s not just random. Our suffering never comes beyond the will and the ordering of a sovereign God.

All of this is implicit that we’ve seen this morning. All of that is this presupposition underlying God’s response to Job that we saw last week in chapters 38 and following. “Job, where were you when I created the world? Boy, how’d I ever make it without you? Who orders the storm systems? Who orders the weather system? Who feeds the animals?” Job, there’s so much you don’t know about so much. And the whole supposition underlying all of that is that “I don’t need your counsel. I run the world,” God says, “and everything in it without advice from anyone.”

And that cuts this direction as well. We need to recognize in our suffering that not only does God have rights to touch us in ways that are unpleasant and hurtful, but that we can recognize in that that none of it has come apart from his divine ordering. That not the Sabaeans, not the Chaldeans, not the windstorm, not the firestorm, not some sickness, not anything else has ever progressed one inch beyond the divine will.

What we need to know in all of that suffering, even when Satan may be against us, is that God is not absent. Satan is not God. God is God. and He’s still running things according to His wise and perfect will. And I’ll say it again, as we said last time: it is not important for you to know what God is up to and what His reasons are, what His purposes are. It’s only up to you to trust Him, knowing that He knows.

Now, without this truth of God’s overruling sovereignty over all things, I can understand why people go crazy in suffering. It seems so random, there seems no explanation, it doesn’t make sense. I understand that. But as Christians, with a mind fortified with this understanding of God, is there anything that we can’t face faithfully? Is there ever any excuse really for despair?

It is incumbent on us, like Job, to acknowledge God as God in our sufferings. The Lord gives, the Lord takes away, the Lord has rights in every case. Blessed be the name of the Lord. I bow, Lord, before your ordering of my life and take it as from your hand.

Sovereign ruler of the skies, ever gracious, ever wise,
All my times are in thy hands, all events at thy command.
His decree who formed the earth fixed my first and second birth.
Parents, native place, and time, all appointed were by Him.
He that formed me in the womb, He shall guide me to the tomb.
All my time shall ever be ordered by His wise decree.
Times the tempter’s power to prove, times to taste a savior’s love.
All must come and last and end as shall please my heavenly friend.
Plagues and death around me fly till he bids I cannot die.
Not a single shaft can hit till the God of love sees fit.

We learn this in Job. And I am no prophet, I have no claim to direct insights, but I can tell you: you will suffer. We live in a cursed world. You need to recognize that. The only way to get around it—not suffering—the only way not to suffer is going to be to get hit by a truck, in which case your family suffers. We live in a cursed world.

And when suffering comes, I tell you, you must be prepared for it. You must fortify your mind now. I remember years and years ago in my ministry, it occurred to me that part of the pastor’s job has to be to prepare people for suffering. This is what life is. This is why we see so much of it in the Bible, such a recurring theme. This is a reality of life. And you’ve got to, in order to suffer faithfully, you must fortify your mind with these great truths of God applied to yourself in your own situation.

Don’t overestimate your own importance. Don’t think that somehow you are exempt, that God has no rights. Don’t presume. Thank God for every blessing you have. It has come from his will. Praise God for every blessing that you have, but don’t presume. And determine that you will trust him in his ordering of our lives in every case.

One thing that I’m concerned with after a study like this is that I don’t want you to take this as all there is to know in suffering. There’s more, and we’ll get to those in time to come. But this, you see, is basic. And without this, none of the rest makes any sense. None of the rest is of any profit. We must understand that God is God, God is the creator, we are his creature, that he will do as he pleases and he is right in every case, and in every case as he does what he pleases. It is right and it is just. And we ought to keep in mind as well that one day we will be brought to see that it was not only right and just, it was good, and it was, in fact, the best. Amen.

Let’s pray. Our Father, we need pauses like this to reorient our thinking and to remember that you are God, that we are your creatures. We acknowledge that you are sovereign over all. We also want to acknowledge that you are just and fair in all that you do. We also want to acknowledge that you are not only right, but you are good in all of your actions toward us and that you have once and for all demonstrated your great love for us and your son in sending him to our cross. This is a God we can trust. We pray that you would strengthen our minds so that we may honor you in our suffering. We pray in Jesus’ name, amen.