The Revelation of God in Suffering: He Speaks!
Text: Job 40:3–5; Job 42:1–6
Our passage this morning is bringing us near to the end of Job. It may have seemed odd to choose Job so early in our young church’s life, but we chose it for several reasons:
First, Job is hard to preach and study. We could end up going around in circles with Job and his friends for many months or years. Job requires us to think differently about exposition—exposing the meaning of the author and this text. While one way to expose meaning is to look at each word and sentence, we can also expose meaning by looking at overarching points and purposes. We have been trying to expose the meaning Job by showing you the summary statements of each of the large sections of Job and allowing you to do the majority of the reading on your own. Otherwise, we would spend weeks following Job’s friends and their bad logic instead of realizing the main points they are making. Similar for Job and his statements. We pray this series has helped to sharpen your way of thinking about different books of the bible and different ways to tackle and understand each.
Second, Job deals with a hard topic: suffering. We don’t usually try to think about suffering often, except when you are in it. That is usually to our own detriment—we don’t end up having a theology and understanding of suffering until we are knee deep in it. But God is gracious to us to include an entire story of a man who dealt with much suffering, and we see that God is a god who enters into our suffering with us. We pray it has been helpful to you to think about suffering and all the ways God is present even in the suffering.
Additionally, we pray that you are beginning to have a better picture of the purposes of suffering and how to find joy and purpose even amidst the suffering. That is much of what we have been talking about these last nine weeks. We started with this righteous man, Job, and acknowledged that yes, the righteous do indeed suffer. God will allow suffering even to righteous people, for his own reasons. For many of us, the difficulties come in the wrestling we have with our own suffering, and Job is no different. We have looked at several ways that Job wrestled in his suffering: He wondered where was God in his suffering? He had to deal with good and bad counsel. He realized he was guilty, and wondered if there was an arbiter. He realized he deserved punishment, and treasured that he had a Redeemer! He wondered why the wicked prospered, and he wondered where wisdom could be found.
Throughout much of that wrestling, Job didn’t sin. The wrestling, the struggling to see and know God is never sinful itself. Yet Job did sin. As Elihu comes on the scene we saw Job’s fatal mistake: he justifies himself and not God. If God is as magnificent as Job says he is, as righteous and good as he proclaims, then how can Job continue to be upset instead of assuming God is doing what he always does—right and good things that will only be for Job’s good.
When God shows up in Job he reminds Job of exactly the type of God he is: incomprehensible, all knowing, all powerful, and the ultimate arbiter of good and righteousness. He is beyond all comprehension and because he defines goodness, grace, and mercy he deserves our trust and our praise. That is the God Job came face to face with and the God we come face to face with throughout this series.
Today we look at the flip side of this incomprehensible God: the God we know in Jesus Christ who has revealed himself to us. Amazingly, our God speaks and we can know him! Whereas Pastor Luke spoke last week of the God who holds cosmos in his hand and cares for sparrows and even you, think about what it means that this God has spoken to us? It means you can actually know him!
In our section this morning, Job’s response exemplify two main responses we should have when we come face to face with the incomprehensible God who speaks: we should be humbled, and we should know this big God is a very good God.
The God Who Speaks
You and I live today with even less of an excuse than Job. We can’t be sure what all Job knows about God and when he lived, but he quotes from the Psalms and Proverbs in several places (Psalm 8:4 cf. Job 7:17–18; Psalm 107:40 and Isa 41:20 cf. Job 12:21, 24). One guess is that he lives during the time of Ezekiel, prior to the exile of the Jewish people, but we can’t know for sure. What we do know is that he is confident that God has revealed himself to mankind through his very word, and it is that word that Job clings to throughout his suffering. We, now, know fully revealed word of God in his Scripture and through Jesus Christ, THE Word of God who became flesh and dwelt amongst us (John 1:14). We have seen even more clearly who God is because Jesus has made the father known to us (John 1:18).
It is in this context, that Job actually knows God from his word, that God is talking to him. He isn’t the unknown God that Paul describes to the wise men in Athens, nor is he the God only people have barely heard of through stories and distant rumors. Job knows this God. When Job comes into the presence of this God who speaks, he is humbled.
The God Who Speaks: Humility of Man
“And the LORD said to Job: ‘Shall a faultfinder contend with the Almighty? He who argues with God, let him answer it.’ “Then Job answered the LORD and said: Behold, I am of small account; what shall I answer you? I lay my hand on my mouth. I have spoken once, and I will not answer; twice, but I will proceed no further.”” (Job 40:1–5 ESV)
God speaks and he calls Job a “faultfinder.” One who “argues with God.” It is hard to admit, but you and I like Job, we like to contend with God. It is part of our indwelling sin. Look at Adam and Eve. The first commandment they ever received—don’t eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 2:17)—and they think that they know better. “The fruit looks good. Being wise sounds good. Our plan sounds faster and better than whatever God has in store for us. Let’s just go for it!” they say to each other.
We do the same thing. We are sick with the flu or like me last week, laid up in bed with back pain, and we wonder how God doesn’t know this is a really bad time for this to happen. (He must have missed the memo.) We see conflict in the world around us and we almost chastise God for not snapping his fingers and changing everything, as though he hasn’t suffered millennia with a disobedient people so that some could come to faith and life in Jesus Christ.
We contend with a God, who unlike us, is extremely patient. The God who speaks could have answered us another way. There is a move based on the children’s book Matilda, where a young girl finds she has magical powers. Her dad is played by Danny DeVito, who looks at her at one point in the movie and says, “I’m smart, your dumb. I’m big, your little. And there is nothing you can do about it.” God could actually say this to us, to you and me, but he doesn’t. Rather, he reveals himself and his character throughout Scripture. In Scripture we see a God who has lovingly made people in his own image. A God who wants to be with us and has gone through great cost to provide a way for sinful people like us to be in relationship with him. This is the same God Job sees who cares about snow, lighting, knows the leviathan and every aspect of creation.
When we see this God who speaks and reveals himself, we should be humbled in the same ways Job was humbled.
The Humility of Sin
First, this perfect God reveals to Job and to us that we are imperfect. We are sinners. And that should humble us. In Job 42:1 Job says he repents, which means he acknowledges that he has sinned. God says this is true for all of us:
“Why do you contend with me? You have all transgressed against me, declares the Lord.” (Jeremiah 2:29 ESV)
“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23 ESV)
“Shall the faultfinder contend with God?” (Job 40:1 ESV)
God reveals himself in Scripture as a holy and just God. The one who defines love, righteousness, mercy, and grace. He saves his people from immediate judgement in the garden, in Egypt, in the wilderness, in their sinful life in the land of Israel. He sends his only son even though he knows he will be rejected and killed. He is utterly other than us in his love and compassion.
It might be one thing to question God if we were serving him wholeheartedly and without faltering. Yet we do falter. We fall short, again and again. We don’t measure up to his standard, and yet we want to question his ways and what he brings to us. We should find when we face the God who speaks to us a humility within our sin. Sin alone should remind us that we all deserve suffering—ultimate suffering—were it not for the grace of God in Jesus Christ. Job knows this as well, but justifies himself, and so do we. We think we should be able to contend with the righteous God even though we ourselves are far from righteous.
The Humility of Specific Information
Yet it isn’t just our sin that should have remind Job and us to be humble. It is Elihu who makes a second statement about humility to Job:
“Behold, in this you are not right. I will answer you, for God is greater than man. Why do you contend against him, saying, ‘He will answer none of man’s words?’” (Job 33:12 ESV)
This was Job’s main sin. He presumed he could declare God was in the wrong because Job didn’t have an answer to why he was suffering in this particular instance. He wanted an answer to this question, now, or otherwise God was obviously wrong. There is a humility we should have when we face our God who speaks because we can never know everything. We often forget to be humble when we don’t have all the information: when we feel we deserve a specific answer.
I find it funny what God doesn’t do in Job. He doesn’t show up and simply tell Job what happened. He doesn’t tell him the story we are told and Job doesn’t get to know about the debate with Satan and how God viewed Job as righteous and one he loved, not someone he hates. Rather, God shows up and reminds Job of all the things he doesn’t know about him. Job doesn’t know how snow is made and where God stores it. Job doesn’t understand all the ways of animals, weather, and the world. Yet not knowing the answer to those questions doesn’t mean God isn’t good, that he isn’t in control, or that he doesn’t love Job.
There is a humility that comes in knowing that we cannot ever know all God knows, nor do we need to, to trust him and know he is good and for us. The fact is, we know a lot about this God through Scripture. Most importantly, we know how much he has loved us through Jesus Christ and how he has given everything, even his life, that we might know and love God.
Seeing that God speaks to us should create humility. Whether it is through knowing we are sinners or knowing that God is big, in control, and lovely in the mystery, we need to find humility.
“The fear of the LORD is instruction in wisdom, and humility comes before honor.” (Proverbs 15:33 ESV)
“Seek the LORD, all you humble of the land, who do his just commands; seek righteousness; seek humility; perhaps you may be hidden on the day of the anger of the LORD.”(Zephaniah 2:3 ESV)
“Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience.” (Colossians 3:12 ESV)
Friends, where are you contending with God today? For some of you, it might be that you don’t yet believe that God is speaking, that you are a sinner, and that he has given you the only answer you need—Jesus Christ! If that is you, turn to God this morning in faith and trust that Jesus Christ’s righteous life and death for your sins on the cross is all you need to come back into right relationship with God in humility.
Yet even Christians can still contend. Are you contending because you think God owes you, a sinner, more insight, more knowledge, more answers? Perhaps it is in the timing of life with relationships, jobs, friendship or children. Perhaps it is in suffering. Suffering makes our contending very real: are you okay that God is good even if you don’t see all the answers?
The God Who Speaks: A Big God
It is through this humility that Job, and we, have a chance to see a very big God!
“Then Job answered the LORD and said: “I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.
‘Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?’
Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know.
‘Hear, and I will speak; I will question you, and you make it known to me.’
I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you; therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes.”” (Job 42:1-6 ESV)
In knowing the God who speaks, the God who has revealed himself to us, Job found humility. Job has said he is small (Job 40:4) and here he says he despises himself and repents in dust and ashes. But don’t mistake Job’s repentance for worthlessness. Job rightfully realizes that he has wronged God and repents. He has been wrongly contending with God, but now see himself rightly. However, Job doesn’t feel worthless or simply put-down.
It isn’t unlike that feeling you may get sometimes when you look at the stars. I don’t know if you have had this opportunity before. I can remember multiple times in my life that I have been out away from the city in the mountains. The lights of the city are far away, and after the fire dies down and your eyes adjust, the entire heavens open up before your eyes. Lying on the ground staring up at the sky you can feel so small. Billions of stars, whispering trees, you are a spec of dust dancing in a sunbeam as Luke quoted last week. The enormity, grandeur, and beauty of God’s creation doesn’t have to make you feel insecure—in fact, it can be incredibly comforting.
This is Job’s experience. Even in his repentance he is not feeling small in a bad way. Listen to the words he uses here to describe God.
I know that you can do all things, no purpose of yours can be thwarted
In seeing the God who speaks and realizing he is a big, incomprehensible God, Job has realized that he is all powerful and nothing can stop what he wants to do. That is great comfort for you and me. If God really is for us in Jesus Christ, our Redeemer and Arbiter, then nothing can ultimately stop his love from securing our salvation and bringing us back into relationship with him.
Things too wonderful for me
This God who speaks is more amazing and wonderful than we could ever imagine, and that is such good news. Problems we have never even dreamed of, paths in our life that we never took because of the sovereign hand of good, these are all wonderful and beyond our imagination and such a blessing.
Now my eye sees you
This seems like a right phrase from which to conclude today. In hearing the God who speaks Job can actually say, “Now my eye sees you.” He knows God. Last week Pastor Luke talked about the incomprehensibility of God and much greater than us he is, and that is very good and true. Our God is totally incomprehensible, but he is intimately knowable.
Our God is a god who speaks and so he is very knowable in a multitude of ways—ways crucial to our salvation and redemption. He is a totally incomprehensible God but intimately knowable to you and me today through his Word and through Jesus Christ! In humility we can know God as we turn and repent of our pride.
That is what we want to celebrate in communion this morning, this whole process of knowing our God who speaks! He came and spoke directly to us. He lived a righteous life, and he died our sinners death that we might know God! Hearing our God who speaks should humble us—it should remind us of our sin, how we contend with God, and it should remind us that we do not need to know the answer to everything to trust that he is good and that he is for us! That is what we see so clearly in Jesus Christ. Very God and very man, who sacrifices himself for me and you.
Benediction
“Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs.” (Hebrews 1:1–4 ESV)