00:00 Introduction to the Book of Job

00:44 Theological Insights and Challenges

03:10 Satan's Role and God's Sovereignty

05:08 Job's Suffering and Initial Response

11:24 Eliphaz's First Speech

14:55 Preparing for the Inevitable Challenges

15:56 Closing Thoughts and Prayer

It's time to jump into the book of Job

and boy, I hope you are ready because

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this is a hard way to start the new year.

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I was going to tell you, this is

a heavy book and it's challenging.

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There's so many twists and turns.

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There's so many almost true things

that Job's friends say that it

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really just takes a skillful

hand to work your way through it.

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So I'm glad you've joined me today.

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If you did.

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Well done.

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I'm grateful.

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I'm sure if pastor PJ were here,

he would send his greetings.

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He'd say something like, Hey,

thanks for joining us for another

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edition of the daily Bible podcast.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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Anyway, he's grateful.

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You're here.

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I'm grateful.

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You're here.

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And on his behalf, let me extend

to you a warm welcome back.

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We're grateful that you decided to

join us this year, assuming that

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you stick with us the whole year.

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We'd love to have you do that by the way.

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And we want you to benefit

from this tremendously.

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In fact, that's what we're praying for.

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We're doing this because we

think it's that valuable.

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So without further ado, let

us jump into the book of Job.

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We'll be here for a period of time.

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In fact, all the way through January 15th.

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So we're looking, I don't know,

12 more days here, 12, uh, 11, 12.

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My math isn't great, but I know

it's going to be several days.

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So this is going to take some time and

hopefully you'll walk away with some

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greater theological ballast to carry

you through some of the inevitably

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difficult times that will await you.

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Jesus never promised us.

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An easy, comfortable life.

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In fact, to the contrary, Jesus

promises us that life will be hard.

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Following Him does not turn

everything into easy mode.

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In fact, following Jesus

makes everything pro mode.

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It just becomes that much

harder because now we're working

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with more than just one enemy.

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We have the world, the

flesh, and the devil.

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The devil plays a pretty large role here.

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In fact, that's who we think we're talking

about when we look at Job chapter 1.

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Let's first start with the fact that

in this first chapter, Job is commended

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as being blameless and upright.

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This is a tremendous thing to

say about anybody, but this is

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God's words about this person.

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In fact, when you look at the book of

Job, you're wondering who wrote it,

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and the answer is we don't fully know.

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Job probably didn't, because He's

clueless about the whole thing.

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It seems like someone's

writing it about his life.

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Maybe Moses wrote this?

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But we have every reason to suspect

that this was written during the

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time of Abraham, which would put

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BC, which is why the book is here.

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I guess I should say that.

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I'm looking at this book right now

because it seems to have taken place

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About the same time as the patriarch

Abraham steps onto the scene.

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So that's why this is here Job seems to

portray a kind of understanding about

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God that is really Not remedial but

elementary doesn't seem like he has a

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really robust understanding of Yahweh

Which is another reason that we think

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it's really early on And he uses things

like sheep and goats to define wealth

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again another marker of an earlier time

frame Job, though, is commended by God.

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The narrator says he's

blameless and upright.

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He feared God and turned away from evil.

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This is a great

commendation about anybody.

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I hope someone could say this about me.

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Nevertheless, scripture goes out of its

way to say he's not only upstanding,

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he's also got a lot of money.

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He's got all of it going on.

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This guy is king of the castle.

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His life is great.

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In fact, he seems to also play

something of a priestly function

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with his family when his kids

are hanging out, having parties.

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The next day, he offers burnt offerings

according to the number of them all.

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So this guy's a good dude.

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He honors God, fears God.

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And it says here, Job

did this continually.

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This is the way that he

lived his life in verse five.

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Satan shows up on the scene.

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Satan, the adversary, the accuser.

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He shows up on the scene and God

questions him where you been at,

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bro, or he didn't call him bro,

but he said, where have you been?

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What have you been doing?

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And then he says something that you should

expect because you've heard first Peter

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580 says I've been Prowling around like

a roaring lion seeking someone to devour.

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It's not what he says, but that's the

gist And that's what first Peter 5 8 says,

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but then Interestingly God says to him.

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Have you considered my servant Job?

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Did that pick your attention there?

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Because God's the one

who picks the fight here.

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God's the one who says to him,

look, this guy, he gets it.

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He's my servant.

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He follows me.

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Have you thought about this one yet?

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On the one hand, I think that's

really cool because I would love

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for God to be boasting about me.

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Obviously, everything that

happens in my life, that's good.

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It's God's doing, but this is really cool.

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God's so honors.

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Job, he not only calls him blameless

and upright, he picks a fight

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with the adversary to say, Hey,

you haven't touched this guy.

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Have you thought about this one?

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This guy stands up for the right things.

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And then of course the devil

says, look of course he does.

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You give him everything he wants.

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The guy's protected.

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He's got the whole nine.

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He's got everything going

on for you from you.

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Why wouldn't he serve you?

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And then God says, okay,

challenge accepted.

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You can afflict him, but but don't

take it, don't stretch your, stretch

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out your hand against his life.

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You're going to take all that he

has only against him, his person,

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do not stretch out your hand.

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And so Satan went out from the presence

of the Lord to go do the bidding.

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Now, a couple of quick thoughts here.

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Number one, the devil, as Martin

Luther said, is God's devil.

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He is on a leash.

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He can only do what the Lord allows.

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Number two, The devil is still active.

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You have a peek behind the

curtain about what he's up to.

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And clearly his MO is modus

operandi is to take out as

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many of God's kids as possible.

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And sometimes that's at

the initiation of God.

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Which is terrifying and also comforting

in a really serious way, comforting

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by the fact that God knows exactly

what he's doing when he sends you

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through the fire, the devil is God's

devil evil is under God's purview.

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It's never happening on accident.

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God has reasons.

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We may never know, at least this side

of heaven, but there are reasons.

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And so after this, you have

four events take place.

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Two of them are what we call

natural events, natural evil.

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Two of them are moral, man made evil.

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There's human agency behind them.

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I think the reason God does

this is to show us that He's

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in control of both of them.

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Not too long ago, Salina had a

tornado tear through the town.

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And it wreaked destruction,

as you would imagine.

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Tornadoes do this.

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Lots of destruction.

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I don't know how much destruction it

was, but I, we got to see some of it

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up close that night when it was taking

place, I got a sense of, man, what

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would happen if our house is destroyed?

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What would happen if we're taken out?

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Something happens to us as people, my

family, my friends, it was terrifying

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thought, but I took great comfort in the

fact that man, God oversees all of it.

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I don't have to be afraid.

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God is over the evil that happens in

nature, that is the, what we call the

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natural evil, but he's also in control

of the human evil that takes place.

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He's not responsible for it.

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He's not the immediate cause,

but he is the ultimate cause.

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The immediate cause is other things,

whether it be the elements in our

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atmosphere, or whether it be people

incited to do evil in their own hearts.

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God is over it all.

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Which means I can take rest that

God is going to do what God's

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going to do, and He's going to do

it for His glory and for my good.

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I have to fight to believe that.

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In fact, one of the reasons I love that

we're doing this right now is because

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you want to be prepared for the evil day.

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The question is not if it comes, but when.

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And whether, when it comes, you are ready.

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The way that you prepare for those

events is to immerse yourselves in books

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like this that challenge you to think

about God in a complex way, in a way

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that says God has a game, not a game.

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I don't want to say it

like that where it's trite.

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God has plans that require certain

things to take place and he would never

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let those plans take place unless they

were necessary for his ultimate glory

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and honor and for your ultimate good.

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Now, if we believe that just means

that we're going to have to be okay

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with the fact that God's going to do

things in our lives that we may not

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appreciate or desire in that moment.

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In fact, I can tell you for sure,

Job wasn't looking at this and

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saying, great, I love the fact that

I get to honor God in this way.

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No, he was terrified and he was

dejected and we're going to spend a

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lot of time examining his response.

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But nevertheless, you and

I need to be ready for it.

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Maybe the day of Job isn't going

to come for you, not in the same

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way, but we can say confidently

Bad times are always on their way.

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We need to be ready for it, and we

need to be ready by putting some

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theological ballast in our ships.

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A view of God that is so large, so

powerful, that we don't have to worry.

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We can entrust ourselves to Him.

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In fact, I hope when the day comes,

you respond like Job does in verse 20.

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He arose, he tore his robe, he shaved

his head, maybe you don't want to

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do that part, but he arose, he fell

on the ground, and he worshipped.

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This is so beautiful.

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As much as it is devastating, he says

to the Lord, or maybe out loud naked,

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I came from my mother's womb and naked.

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I shall return the Lord gave

and the Lord has taken away.

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Blessed be the name of the Lord.

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And all of this job did not

sin or charge God with wrong.

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What a great way for him to start.

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Satan's not happy with this.

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So in Job chapter two, he returns to

the Lord and says, look, let me have it.

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Let me have Adam in his flesh.

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Let me go after him.

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Even more.

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The Lord acquiesces to the devil's

commands to this, to the Satan's

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commands or requests more likely.

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And he goes after him.

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After this all takes place, he leaves the

presence of the Lord, Satan does, strikes

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Job with loathsome sores from the sole

of his foot to the crown of his head.

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Imagine your whole body

being covered with this.

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Verse eight and Job took a piece of

broken pottery with which to scrape

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himself while he sat in the ashes.

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Job's wife.

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I don't know.

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Maybe this is real.

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Within her character.

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This is the way that she acted or maybe

in a moment of weakness, she tells Job

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something that was really unhelpful.

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Her counsel was not well timed.

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It was not good counsel, but

she says, curse God and die.

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Stop holding fast your integrity.

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But Job says, look, I can't do that.

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I can't do that.

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You speak like one of the foolish woman

would speak, shall we receive good

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from God and shall we not receive evil?

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These are some of the important

phrases that you have to dig down

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deep and put them into your heart and

say, Lord, I just need to be ready.

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I don't want to presume upon

you that you're always going

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to give me good things.

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This is not the prosperity gospel.

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We can't teach that because the Bible

doesn't teach that we need to be ready

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that God might use us in painful ways.

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Painful ways.

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And the only way that we can be ready

again is to just conceive of the fact

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that God has bigger plans than we do.

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And to be a follower and a servant

may mean that he takes us through

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a really challenging time.

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And if he's the Lord, if he's the

maker, and we're the maid, if he's

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the creator, and we're the created,

if he's the redeemer, and we are the

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redeemed, if he knows better than we

do, then can we accept good from God?

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And can we also accept the

challenges that God sends our ways?

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Oh, this is a tough subject,

but well worth our attention.

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Job has some friends that show up.

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They come, they sit with

him for a whole week.

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They don't recognize him.

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He's in the worst position

they've ever seen him.

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And then in chapter three, after

the week of them sitting with him

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and consoling him, Job finally

opens his mouth and he just says,

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look, I'm sad that I was ever born.

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I wish this had never happened.

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My suffering is so great, so deep,

I would rather have never been

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born than have to go through this.

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Why did God receive me?

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Why did I not die at birth?

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I wish I would have just been able

to sleep through this whole thing.

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The pain is so deep.

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The suffering is so great.

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It is better to die than to live,

and I don't think he means that.

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I think in the moment it rings true to his

emotional state, but he doesn't mean that.

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I think none of us, if we've ever

said anything like this ever mean it,

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it just, it comes from a real place,

but it's not really where we're at.

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It's despair speaking.

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It is distraughtness,

discouragement speaking in all this.

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I think the warning for us is to be

aware that if we're not ready for things

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like this, some things can come out

of our mouths that we may not fully

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mean our emotions real as they may

be, may not be telling us the truth.

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And I think that's what's happening here.

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He laments, cries, and no

one holds it against him.

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We all understand he's hurting.

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He's feeling distraught.

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He's feeling disoriented.

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Everything has hit the fan for him.

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And he's wondering what's next.

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In fact, verse 25, he says, for

the thing that I fear comes upon

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me and what I dread befalls me.

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I am not at ease, nor am I quiet.

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I have no rest, but trouble comes.

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You might remember.

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Morning and evening, Job is struggling.

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There's no relief for him.

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He can't go to bed and

experience a good night's rest.

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We're going to see very soon that

even that was taken away from him.

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You ever had a bad night's sleep?

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How that affects you?

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Job had several of those nights,

not to mention the lamenting,

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the mourning, losing everything.

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All of his wealth, all of

his children, everything has

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been stripped away from him.

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In chapters 4 and 5, Eliphaz, the

first of his friends, speaks up.

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Now, Job has four friends.

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Eliphaz, Bildad, Zophar, and Elihu.

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Now, Elihu we're not going to

hear about until chapter 32.

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For the first several chapters here,

we're going to hear from these three men.

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Eliphaz, Bildad, Zophar.

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Eliphaz is going to speak three times.

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He's going to have three statements,

three arguments that he lays out at Job,

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Bill, dad's going to have three so far.

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We'll have two.

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And then again, Ellie, who shows up in

these last several chapters, he's really

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going to have one prolonged argument, but

we're going to hear from Ellie fast first.

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And this first round of speeches,

Ellie fast is going to say,

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look, no one ever suffered.

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That didn't deserve it.

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Job.

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You ought to realize there's no such

thing as an innocent person, number one.

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And really, have you ever seen anybody

who was innocent that didn't get what

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they deserved or someone that was innocent

that suffered because of their innocence?

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He says, that doesn't happen, Job.

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You got to get real with yourself here.

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You got to realize you're

doing something wrong.

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You're at fault.

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He says in verse eight, as I've

seen those who plow iniquity and

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sow trouble, they reap the same.

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You reap what you sow is what Galatians

chapter five says or Galatians

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six, rather you reap what you sow.

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If you're sowing evil, Job, you should

not be surprised that you reap evil.

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Come on, guys, let's

get real with this here.

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That's what he's saying.

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Eliphaz is trying to read into the tea

leaves and to understand or at least

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present this idea that he understands what

God is doing here and what's happened.

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Clearly, Eliphaz is speaking

in an area of ignorance.

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He does not know what's happening here.

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But then he adds to this and he

says, look, God gave me a dream.

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It was a vision.

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God told me basically that no

one can be right in his eyes.

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That's the punchline in verse 17.

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He sees his vision.

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He sees his image.

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And he says, can mortal man

be in the right before God?

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And of course the answer

is a qualified, no, right?

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It's a qualified no.

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And that no, ultimately no, but there

is a way to be right before him.

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There is a way to be blameless in

God's sight because just a few chapters

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ago, that's what God said about Job.

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So even though we don't understand

how yet, we do understand that the

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answer to this is someone can

someone be right before God?

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Yes.

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No, but yes.

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So he goes through this whole this

whole presentation and then he

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continues on in chapter five.

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And he says, verse six affliction does

not come from the dust, nor does trouble

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sprout from the ground, but man is born

to trouble as the sparks fly upward.

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Eliphaz seems to understand a

mechanical universe, like A plus

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B equals C, and I understand that.

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He sees cause and effect and that's

true to the extent that it works,

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but we can never eliminate the fact

that God has plans and purposes that

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are inscrutable to our simple minds.

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Sometimes we think God is not up to

anything and God's up to a million things.

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In fact, for any one thing that happens,

there's always probably 10 billion

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things that God is doing in that one

event that we just don't realize.

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Eliphaz offers him some advice.

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Look, if I were you, I would seek God, and

I would go to God and commit my cause, and

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I would basically repent and turn to Him.

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And then if you do that, Job, God's going

to do good things for you, essentially.

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God will release His hand from you.

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He will deliver you from six troubles,

and seven, no evil shall touch you.

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In other words, you're

going to be restored.

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That's Eliphaz's promise.

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If you do what I say, things

are going to be better for you.

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Trust my counsel is as good as gold.

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I got the vision from my sleep,

which is to say that God divinely

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showed me the right thing.

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So you ought to respond to this.

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In fact, in verse 27, it says, He says

this here, and no, it is for your good.

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Ah, this guy's smug.

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Eliphaz may have good intentions.

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And in fact, some of the

things that he says is right.

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Some of the things he

says is partially true.

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It's a qualified, yes, it's true.

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And it's a qualified that's

not exactly right.

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So as you read through,

understand Job is innocent.

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God declares so.

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Eliphaz thinks that God works

mechanically in the world.

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A plus B equals C.

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This is always the way it's going to work.

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And that's just not true.

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There are complexities and there are

situations where we're never going to

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fully understand what God is doing.

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Our job, as we read through this book, is

to really build, again, some theological

376

ballast to prepare for the evil day.

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And that's inevitable for all of us.

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That evil may look like sin, it may

look like death, it may look like

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some kind of tragedy in your family.

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I don't want to scare you.

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Of course, what I'm trying to

do is prepare you, and I want to

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prepare you with the book of Job.

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I want to help you.

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I want to help you say,

I want to be ready.

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I want to be able to worship the Lord

when he gives, when he takes away.

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How do you do that?

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How about right now?

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You thank God for the good

things he's given you.

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And you ask him to prepare you

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We count on 80 years.

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We count on a good retirement.

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We count on certain things happening.

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There's nothing inherently wrong with

having an optimistic outlook, but a

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Christian has a realistic outlook as well.

395

We recognize that the world is

broken and only God can fix it.

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So let's get ready by preparing ourselves

for whatever happens in the future.

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Let's get ready by reading our Bibles,

committing a lot of it to memory

398

and letting it change our outlook.

399

Not to make us cynical, not to make

us I don't know, expecting the

400

next shoe to drop, but trusting that

no matter what happens, he's good

401

and he can be trusted with that.

402

Let's pray.

403

God, we want to trust and

believe that you are good.

404

And if we confess, honestly, so

many times our hearts can feel

405

something that is inherently wrong.

406

It feels the wrong thing.

407

We feel like you're not faithful to us.

408

We feel like you don't hear us.

409

We feel like you're doing some kind

of disservice to us when you don't

410

give us what we think is best.

411

Oh Lord, we confess we only are so short

sighted that we can't see eternity.

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Only you can do that.

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And so we ask that you would show us

mercy by not giving us what we deserve and

414

give us the grace to trust you and cling

to you even now before the storm hits.

415

Let us be well prepared for

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Let us hope for great

and wonderful things.

417

Let us be prepared for

hard and difficult things.

418

Why?

419

Because you're good, Lord.

420

We want to trust you more.

421

I want to love you better.

422

And of course, Lord, we do say we

welcome with open hands, whatever

423

you want to bring into our lives,

whatever will bring you the most

424

glory and do us the most good.

425

We say all these things

in Jesus name, amen.

426

Thank you for joining me today for another

edition of the Daily Bible Podcast.

427

Man, I am grateful that

you decided to join.

428

I think this was a much needed

starting place for us in the new year.

429

And I pray that as you walk away thinking

about some of these things, that God will

430

help you be well prepared for the next

challenge that awaits you until tomorrow.

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I'll look forward to seeing you then.