Sermon Tone Analysis

Job 42 Verses 6 to 17 Saving the Best for Last September 25, 2022

Class Presentation Notes AAAAA

Background Scripture: Philippians 4:11-14 (NASB)

11 Not that I speak from want, for I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am.

12 I know how to get along with humble means, and I also know how to live in prosperity; in any and every circumstance I have learned the secret of being filled and going hungry, both of having abundance and suffering need.

13 I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.

14 Nevertheless, you have done well to share with me in my affliction.

Main Idea: Suffering can make us bitter or better-it is our choice:

Study Aim: To learn that we can change our attitude easier than we can change our circumstances.

Create Interest:

· Few adults easily and naturally submit themselves to another’s authority.

This includes submitting to God.

During times of suffering and loss, many adults are more willing to submit to someone who might be able to help them.

This includes human authorities, such as the physician, and the divine authority of God.

But when the suffering is deep and long, hope grows dim and faith asks for answers, which seldom come in expected ways.

Some people of faith are willing to entrust themselves to God even when their prayers were answered in unexpected ways or not answered at all.

This is a test of true faith—trusting and honoring God when some questions remain unanswered.

· Job will never know why all the horror happened to him but in our lesson, we see he is finally humbly trusting in God.

· Let’s see what eternal pearls God has hidden for us to see as we complete the book of Job.

Lesson in Historical Context:

· Following Job’s poem about wisdom in chapter 28, Job summed up his testimony in chapters 29–31.

He proclaimed his innocence of any kind of sin and concluded by standing on his record and challenging anyone to prove him guilty.

· At this point a young man named Elihu stepped forward.

He had been listening to the debates, and he felt the need to respond in chapters 32–37.

He was critical of the three friends and of Job.

He strongly defended the justice of God, but he did not attribute all suffering to sin.

He did share a new thought that proved true….Job had an attitude unacceptable to God.

· Then the Lord spoke in chapters 38–41.

He made two speeches (38:1–40:2 and 40:6–41:34), with a brief response from Job in between (40:3–5).

o In His first speech, the Lord did not explain Job’s suffering.

He said nothing about Satan.

Instead, He asked Job a series of questions.

o In the Lord’s second speech, He asked Job if he still questioned either the Lord’s justice or His power (40:8–9).

Chapter 42 records Job’s response to the Lord and tells us the outcome of Job’s story.[1]

· As we concluded last week’s lesson, we saw that Job’s focus now is on what Job “heard” when God spoke.

In one of the most famous verses in the book, Job contrasts a previous hearing with a new seeing (vs.

42:5).

o Before the terrible events of this book, Job’s knowledge of God was “by the hearing of the ear” (v.

5).

In the context of the book, this must refer to the framework of understanding that he shared with the comforters and with so many morally serious philosophers and theologians throughout history.

o He has heard the traditions of these people; the assured results of their traditional understanding had come into his ears from childhood.

He had heard that there was one Almighty God, that this God was righteous and all-powerful, and that therefore certain things might be expected, morally, in the world by way of crime and punishment, virtue and reward.

o All this he had heard “by the hearing of the ear.” “But now my eye sees you” (v.

5).

On the face of it this is a strange thing to say after God has given him word-portraits of two terrible creatures, the Behemoth, and the Leviathan.

o He has had no mystical vision of God; a radiant vision has not been granted to him.

Rather he has seen in his imagination two terrible beasts or monsters.

o He has not had Isaiah’s later vision of the Lord lifted up in the temple (Isaiah 6) or Ezekiel’s strange vision of the Lord on his chariot throne (e.g., Ezekiel 1).

o He has not literally seen anyone or anything.

o He is still on his rubbish heap licking his wounds, surrounded by unhelpful comforters and the challenging presence of the prophet Elihu.

§ And yet, as he has heard the Lord’s words (by whatever psychological or physical mechanism they might have come), he has seen the Lord with a clarity he has not approached before.

§ And in response to this aural vision (for it is a vision that enters him through his ears) he repents (v.

6), for the first and only time in the book.

He not only admits he has spoken what he ought not to have spoken—he turns from these words and repents in deep contrition for his sin.

§ It is an extraordinary and surprising response from the man who has steadfastly refused to repent of the supposed sins of which the comforters have repeatedly accused him.

Clearly it signals a climax in the book.[2]

Bible Study:

Job 42:6 (NASB)

6 Therefore I retract, And I repent in dust and ashes."

· Job abases himself and recants, confessing himself to be no better than the dust and ashes on which he has been sitting.

Job has come to a true assessment of himself before the holy God, as indicated by the similarity of his words to those of Abraham when he interceded for the sparing of Sodom and Gomorrah for the sake of the righteous left in those cities: “Behold, I have been bold to speak, though I am but dust and ashes” (Gen.

18:27).

· Job both renounces all false pride and concedes that God has been true to justice in allowing him, the noblest sheikh, to be brought so low that’ he has had to sit outside the city on the ash heap.

o The term recant (niḥam) means to turn from a planned course of action and take up a new course.

§ It implies the strongest resolve to change direction, but not an attitude of remorse.

§ It is affirmative action based on conviction.

§ In recanting Job surrenders to God the last vestige of his self-righteousness, i.e., he withdraws his avowal of innocence.

§ From now on he will locate his self-worth in his relationship with Yahweh, not in his own moral behavior or innocence.

📷 Thus Job commits his fate into God’s hands knowing that he can bear any fate, for he has seen Yahweh.[3]

Thoughts to soak on:

· God extends to us the same gracious invitation He did to Job, that we come to His Holy Word and respond to Him.

When we read or listen to God’s Word, we discover what Job did: God is the great Creator and Sustainer of the universe, including all of life.

· But God did not stop there, turning His back on His creation.

Rather, He is continuously moving in the affairs of people and working out all things for good, in particular for those who believe in and love Him.

· Furthermore, as we study God’s Word, we learn that God is righteous and just and that He will execute perfect justice throughout the universe.

Even more encouraging than this, God’s Holy Word tells us the wonderful truth that Job did not have revealed to him: the fact that God loves the world with a perfect, incomprehensible love.

· God loves the world so much that He sent His beloved Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, to save the world.

In no uncertain terms, God’s Word declares the most glorious news imaginable:

o that Jesus Christ died for our sins

o that whoever believes in Christ will not perish, but have everlasting life (Jn.

3:16; Ro. 5:8)

· When Jesus Christ died upon the cross, He actually took our sins upon Himself and paid the penalty of death for us.

o Therefore, if we will truly trust Christ, God accepts our trust, our faith as righteousness.

o God accepts us in His beloved Son, whom He loves with all of His being.

o Because of God’s love for His son, He will do anything for those who truly believe in and honor His Son by surrendering their lives to Him.

God’s Holy Word clearly and repeatedly proclaims this amazing truth:[4]

§ John 3:16 (KJV)

16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

§ John 1:12 (KJV)

12 But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:

§ John 5:24 (KJV)

24 Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.

Job 42:7 (NASB)

7 It came about after the LORD had spoken these words to Job, that the LORD said to Eliphaz the Temanite, "My wrath is kindled against you and against your two friends, because you have not spoken of Me what is right as My servant Job has.

· It came about after the Lord had spoken these words to Job.

Had the matter been left according to the record in vs. 6, a wholly erroneous impression would have been made.

Job was overwhelmed with the conviction of his guilt, and had nothing been said to his friends, the impression would have been that he was wholly in the wrong.

It was important, therefore, and was indeed essential to the plan of the book, that the divine judgment should be pronounced on the conduct of his three friends.

· The Lord said to Eliphaz the Temanite.

Eliphaz had been uniformly first in the argument with Job, and hence he is particularly addressed here.

He seems to have been the most aged and respectable of the three friends, and in fact the speeches of the others are often a mere echo of his.

· My wrath is kindled.

Wrath, or anger, is often represented as enkindled, or burning.

· because you have not spoken of Me what is right as My servant Job has.