Rebuked in Suffering: The Purposes of God in Suffering

Text: Job 33:14–30 ESV

This is a heavy text. It's a heavy topic because we are going to talk about how God is not only sovereign over suffering, but he is causing our suffering on purpose. But I want to argue that the statement is not just heavy, but good news. For believers, the fact that God has a purpose in our suffering gives us hope.

On September 11, 2001, I was walking down the hallway of Timberview Middle School in Colorado Springs when my friends began to talk about the Twin Towers.

You probably remember where you were when this “random” act of terrorism happened. Random because it was meant to kill as many “random” people as possible. These were not two militaries fighting on the front lines. These were moms and dads and kids and firefighters—dead. What did they do? Show up to work. 

It just feels so random. I think this is a tension most of us feel when suffering comes. It can feel random. It can feel like it has no purpose. 

When you look at Job’s story, you may wonder if God has a purpose in this suffering. Or is Job just a pawn in this game between God and Satan? Well, I believe that our text answers this question by showing that God indeed does have a purpose. 

We are going to see that suffering is not random. God is not just doing it because he is angry. Here's the main point of the text: God uses suffering for good. In the words of this text, the purpose is “to redeem from the pit.” Said another way, God uses suffering to save us from our sin. 

Meeting Elihu

We're going to be in chapter 33 of Job today, but before we get there, let me catch us up to where we are. We began, of course, with meeting Job and witnessing his tragedy chapters 1–3. Then we meet his three friends, and from chapters 4 all the way through 31 we go back and forth in conversation from Job to the friends.  

What happens in those chapters is there's this back and forth dialogue, one friend will speak then Job responds. Then the second friend speaks and Job responds. Then the third friend speaks, and Job responds. We see this three times, three cycles. 

But with each cycle, Job's friends’ speeches get shorter and shorter, until finally we get to Job 25 when you Bildad only speaks for six verses. Then when it is Zopher’s turn he actually says nothing.  

At this point, they've written Job off, saying, “Job, you don't understand that the reason you're suffering is because you did something wrong.” But Job rightly refuses to accept that answer. 

Then after all of these speeches, we are introduced to a new friend — Elihu. So before we turn to chapter 33, let’s meet Elihu. Look at chapter 32:1–5:

“So these three men ceased to answer Job, because he was righteous in his own eyes. Then Elihu the son of Barachel the Buzite, of the family of Ram, burned with anger. He burned with anger at Job because he justified himself rather than God. He burned with anger also at Job’s three friends because they had found no answer, although they had declared Job to be in the wrong. Now Elihu had waited to speak to Job because they were older than he. And when Elihu saw that there was no answer in the mouth of these three men, he burned with anger.” (Job 32:1–5 ESV)

Clearly we see that Elihu is angry, but we also see that he is younger than these three other friends. This is why he hasn't spoken yet. He was respecting his elders. But once he realizes that they have not answered Job, instead all they've done is declared Job to be wrong, he speaks. He speaks because he finds their answer quite unsatisfactory. Elihu has an answer for Job. 

Now, I think we are supposed to listen to Elihu as wise council. Job’s other friends had some parts of their answer that was flat out wrong (and Job butts in and tells them that). But when we get to Elihu, we get six chapters of uninterrupted speech from Elihu. Job doesn’t say anything, even though Elihu invites him to. God then picks up right were Elihu leaves off. But most convincingly. God rebukes Job's friends in Job 42:7, but he does not rebuke Elihu:

“After the LORD had spoken these words to Job, the LORD said to Eliphaz the Temanite: “My anger burns against you and against your two friends, for you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has.” (Job 42:7 ESV)

So Elihu is a wise voice, but what is his problem with Job? He mentions it in Job 32:2.

“He burned with anger at Job because he justified himself rather than God.” (Job 32:2 ESV)

Job's problem is that he fails to “justify” God. Instead, he says God is wrong for inflicting suffering, and he concludes that God must be his enemy. In this, Job justifies himself. He concludes that there's no reason God should be able to bring this suffering. The suffering is meaningless, purposeless, according to Job: “Since I haven't done anything wrong, then God must be just angry at me.”

Elihu says that's incorrect. Job rightly understands that he didn't do anything wrong to deserve punishment. But Job is incorrect in saying that his suffering is because God is his enemy.

Job has talked himself into thinking God must hate him and that he must be punishing him for no other reason than that he's declared Job his enemy. Job cannot see that there would be good that God would want to bring from this suffering.

Elihu wants to remind Job what he's forgotten. He wants to remind him that God always has a purpose in our suffering. Though we cannot go verse by verse through six chapters this morning, what we can do is focus on a passage that sums up Elihu’s argument — chapter 33:14—30. Now let's turn to chapter 33:14 to begin to see Elihu’s answer. We're going to see this in two sections. The first I’m calling God using “loving nightmares,” and the second section I’m calling “redemptive pain.”

Loving Nightmares

Let's first look at loving nightmares. Look at verse 14–18. 
“For God speaks in one way, and in two, though man does not perceive it. In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falls on men, while they slumber on their beds, then he opens the ears of men and terrifies them with warnings, that he may turn man aside from his deed and conceal pride from a man; he keeps back his soul from the pit, his life from perishing by the sword.” (Job 33:14–18 ESV)

I call this section loving nightmares because of the language: “in a dream, a vision of the night, deep sleep, and slumber.” What he does while this person is sleeping is he opens the ears of men, and he terrifies them with warnings. He issues warnings: “don't go there, and don't do that.” But he's doing it in such a way that it would terrify them at night — hince nightmares.

But I called it “loving nightmares” because the text gives us clear statements as to the purpose of this suffering. Look again at verse 17–18:

“That he may turn man aside from his deed and conceal pride from a man; he keeps back his soul from the pit, his life from perishing by the sword.” (Job 33:17–18 ESV)

The purpose of these nightmares is to wake up man to warn him so that pride doesn't consume him, and he walk down a destructive path.

Though the specific purpose of this suffering seems to be to issue a warning that is connecting to pride, we know the ultimate purpose of this suffering — because it is the purpose of suffering throughout this section — the purpose is to rescue him from the pit, or as I said, to save him from his sin. 

Job says that his suffering can only be the result of God wanting to torture him because he is God’s enemy. Job denies that God could have a righteous purpose in giving suffering to Job. But Elihu is pointing Job back to the fact that God is using this suffering to save Job’s soul from the pit. For example, you can see Job's got some pride in himself because he justifies himself not God. And the purpose of this suffering would be for cleansing that out. 

There's this analogy that if you fill a glass jar full of water and some dirt but you just let that glass jar sit there, eventually that dirt settles and actually if you look at the “surface level” the water itself looks nice, clean, and pure. 

But all of a sudden, when you start jostling it around, you start terrifying it, you start shaking it up, what's going to happen in that water? It's gonna get dirty and ugly. All of that ugliness is revealed. Elihu is saying. God's revealing that ugliness, to take it out and save you.

I said we zoomed in on this section because it is a good summary of Elihu’s argument. He says something like this in multiple places. Let’s look at just one. Look at Job 36:15: 

“He delivers the afflicted by their affliction and opens their ear by adversity.” (Job 36:15 ESV)

Elihu is trying to say that God afflicts the “afflicted” to deliver them. Or even clearer from our verse: “he opens their ears by adversity.” Our section says that God is speaking terrifying things to open ears so they can hear and you can see and can wake up to reality, lest the sufferer suffers for eternity. So that's number one. Loving nightmares. 

Redemptive Pain

Let’s look at number two, redemptive pain. Look at verse 19–22:

“Man is also rebuked with pain on his bed and with continual strife in his bones, so that his life loathes bread, and his appetite the choicest food. His flesh is so wasted away that it cannot be seen, and his bones that were not seen stick out. His soul draws near the pit, and his life to those who bring death.” (Job 33:19–22 ESV)

We've now gone from a very specific example of nightmares to something far broader — pain. The pain in this verse is so deep and wretched that they don’t want to eat and their bones are sticking out. It feels a lot like Job. You can't even recognize them because the suffering is so deep. 

Again, God is doing this for a purpose. If the first one was a specific purpose of warning him from pride, this one is focused on calling him to a redeemer. But once again, we see the main goal as redeeming him from the pit. Here's what it says in verse 23–28:

“If there be for him an angel, a mediator, one of the thousand, to declare to man what is right for him, and he is merciful to him, and says, ‘Deliver him from going down into the pit; I have found a ransom; let his flesh become fresh with youth; let him return to the days of his youthful vigor’; then man prays to God, and he accepts him; he sees his face with a shout of joy, and he restores to man his righteousness.  He sings before men and says: ‘I sinned and perverted what was right, and it was not repaid to me. He has redeemed my soul from going down into the pit, and my life shall look upon the light.’” (Job 33:23–28 ESV)

The suffering happens so that the suffer may turn to this angel, this mediator, the one who would go before God and say, “I've got a ransom for this one.” All the sudden, because of the suffering, the sufferer looks to God and repents of sin that would have led him to the pit.

The conclusion is in verse 28:

“He has redeemed my soul from going down into the pit, and my life shall look upon the light.” (Job 33:28 ESV)

I mean this is just incredible that this verse is filled with words like “redeemer” and “ransom.” This is before Jesus. What we know now in light of Christ is how true this is in the person of Jesus. The idea here, in Job’s day, is just very simple. The idea is that this suffering that you're experiencing on your bed, when you're so miserable you won't even eat, the purpose is to bring you to a redeemer. That you would repent and turn from your sin and accept this ransom.

We don’t need to get stuck on the exact purposes of suffering in these two examples. But what we need to see is that God is using suffering for our good and his glory.

Here’s maybe a helpful image. Picture the difference between a surgeon’s knife and an enemy’s sword. Both cut, both make wounds, both can be deadly, but one is for you good — ultimately for your healing, the other is for your harm. Job thought God was out to harm him. Elihu is saying God is out to heal him. Look at 2 Corinthians 1:8:

“For we do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead.” (2 Corinthians 1:8–9 ESV)

The purpose of suffering here was to make them rely on God who raised his Son from the dead: “We can't trust in ourselves, but in Christ.” And we learn to trust that he will raise us from the dead, just like he did Christ.

In this passage, we have two examples of suffering: suffering through loving nightmares and through inflicting pain. Elihu’s point is that this suffering is not God’s stamp of being an enemy, but rather suffering always has a purpose. Both of them are, in this case, to rescue “your soul from the pit of hell.” So here's a summary, in verse 29 to 30:

“Behold, God does all these things, twice, three times, with a man, to bring back his soul from the pit, that he may be lighted with the light of life.” (Job 33:29–30 ESV)

Elihu’s response to Job is that you are wrong, Job, to think God is your enemy and that's why you're suffering, as if God intends harm to you. Far from it. In fact, what God's doing is loving correction. Elihu cannot explain all of the reasons why this suffering is happening. But he knows God is using it for Job’s good. 

This is not just true for Job, this is true for everyone. Your suffering is not meaningless. It has a purpose. It's doing something. Here is 2 Corinthians 4:17–18

“For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.” (2 Corinthians 4:17–18 ESV)

I heard a pastor talk about this verse this week. He noted that it doesn’t just say that after your momentary affliction you will receive glory. No. It says this affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory. The suffering is what God is using to prepare this gift. 

If you wake up tomorrow and you find out you have cancer or when your mom passes away or when your kids are sick for a whole week and you can't get any sleep — whatever your suffering — no matter what it is, it has a purpose. It is doing something. 

Your suffering could have a hundred different purposes. But the overarching purpose is to rescue you from the pit. It is for your good and God’s glory. It may be just a warning so that you don't go down “that road.” It may be because God sees sin in you and through the suffering it is bubbling up and it needs to get out. It may be that the sin is not there, but if he does this, then you won't go there. Your suffering has a purpose. 

You may not know exactly how your sufferings is working for you. I mean Job could not see all of what God was doing. This passage in Corinthians says we cannot look with our fleshly eyes or we could look with the eyes of faith. 

If you look with just your eyes, your suffering is going to seem meaningless. Instead, you can look with the eyes of faith and trust that God is doing something, or you can look with fleshly eyes and fall into Job’s trapt of thinking God is just doing this because he is your enemy. 

You may not know all of the ways that God is using suffering in your life. But know this, you're suffering, it is preparing for you an eternal weight of glory.

If you haven't accepted Christ, suffering is trying to point you to a redeemer. As a believer know that this is a blood-bought truth. Christ suffered in order that our suffering might be purposeful. May we preach this truth to our soul when suffering strikes so that we can have hope in God.