When God Shows Up: Speaking Truth to Sufferers, Part 3

Job 37:14–20 ESV

“Hear this, O Job; stop and consider the wondrous works of God. Do you know how God lays his command upon them and causes the lightning of his cloud to shine? Do you know the balancings of the clouds, the wondrous works of him who is perfect in knowledge, you whose garments are hot when the earth is still because of the south wind? Can you, like him, spread out the skies, hard as a cast metal mirror? Teach us what we shall say to him; we cannot draw up our case because of darkness. Shall it be told him that I would speak? Did a man ever wish that he would be swallowed up?

Prayer

Last week we discussed the importance of speaking the truth to sufferers.

Since sufferers need to hear God’s perspective, we must graciously, prophetically, and impartially speak.

Prior to speaking truth in love… Elihu has...

Sat with Job in his suffering and just wept.

Listened with patience.

He allowed room for Job to lament of his present suffering.

Ask questions and pray.

A sufferer’s greatest sickness is bitterness toward God and others, and their most needed medicine is awe and wonder of God.

Sickness: Bitterness toward God and others is “Soul-Rot”

The Challenge

“Elihu Responds to Job”

Bitterness Set’s In

“What’s the point of being good?”

Job 35:3 (ESV)

you ask, ‘What advantage have I? How am I better off than if I had sinned?’

Elihu’s words closely parallel what Job said….

Job 21:15 ESV

What is the Almighty, that we should serve him? And what profit do we get if we pray to him?’

Elihu’s question reveals Job’s problem.

His problem is that his suffering has caused bitterness within him.

Bitterness can be best demonstrated by a simple example.

Consider we are sitting here in this church, and a person on the street that none of us knows, walks by and curses at us.

Likely none of us would take great offense at this and we would quickly brush it off.

Now consider the person at the end of the pew, who you have known for 10 years looks at you before Sunday morning and curses at you.

What would this produce in you?

Likely it would make you angry likely it would cause bitterness.

The same thing can be observed if a tragedy happened overseas.

We may be upset at what happened, we may be appalled at the travesty.

But we would respond much differently, if the same tragedy happened directly to us.

Bitterness requires a personal offense.

It requires something to be personally done to you.

Bitterness is most easily identified by one simple element.

Review review review.

Bitterness is consumed with reviewing how you have been wrong personally.

Now this can be bitterness toward another person

Toward Other People....

In Jobs case, it would be easy to imagine him, being bitter at the people who came and destroyed his things.

Toward God…

This can also be bitterness toward God, a subtle disposition of anger, because you’ve perceived you’ve NOT been treated fairly.

Example of Naomi in the book of Ruth

Ruth 1:20–21 ESV

She said to them, “Do not call me Naomi; call me Mara, for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me. I went away full, and the Lord has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi, when the Lord has testified against me and the Almighty has brought calamity upon me?”

In Jobs suffering, he is beginning to take offense at the suffering that has come upon him.

Which is why Elihu is speaking on behalf of God and asking him questions...

Job 35:2–3 ESV

“Do you think this to be just? Do you say, ‘It is my right before God,’ that you ask, ‘What advantage have I? How am I better off than if I had sinned?’

Now Elihu will give two hypothetical answers to Job’s bitterness toward God and then move toward relieving the bitterness.

Job 35:5–6 ESV

Look at the heavens, and see; and behold the clouds, which are higher than you. If you have sinned, what do you accomplish against him? And if your transgressions are multiplied, what do you do to him?

Answer #1: “God is NOT affected by Sin” (Job 35:5-8)

Very simply Elihu says that God is not affected by sin.

If Job obeys, God’s not affected.

If Job disobeys, God’s also not affected.

God’s not affected because God is infinitely higher than Job is.

Job 35:7–8 ESV

If you are righteous, what do you give to him? Or what does he receive from your hand? Your wickedness concerns a man like yourself, and your righteousness a son of man.

Elihu’s point is that Jobs sin and righteousness only affect Job.

He is trying to get Job to refocus his perspective from his situation onto the sovereignty of God, who reigns overall.

"We tend to focus on the one who brings the calamity rather than the one who sent the calamity."

Thomas Watson

When we become consumed with the calamity itself, we will inevitably become bitter towards the one who sent it.

Elihu is NOT saying that God doesn’t care about sin.

What he IS saying is God is not controlled by man, but man is controlled by God.

The second answer Elihu gives is seen in verse 9....

Job 35:9–11 ESV

“Because of the multitude of oppressions people cry out; they call for help because of the arm of the mighty. But none says, ‘Where is God my Maker, who gives songs in the night, who teaches us more than the beasts of the earth and makes us wiser than the birds of the heavens?’

Answer #2: God Responds with Perfect Timing (Job 35:9-16)

Elihu is saying here the people who typically cry out in anguish about suffering,

do not ever turn their gaze upward.

They never asked the question, “Where is god my maker?”

Basically he’s saying that these people are crying out selfishly.

He won’t regard selfish cries of anguish, but he will respond in his own perfect time.

Application - Inspecting the Sufferer

Elihu is addressing the fleshly and instinctive response to suffering that thinks that we somehow put God in our debt when we suffer.

We would never put it like that, but it’s how we live.

We subtly begin to believe that because we have painful cries God is obligated to listen to us.

What is your response when you go through suffering?

Complaining

Argumentative with God

Do you examine your attitude when you endure suffering?

We tend to...

Blame others

Look elsewhere

Find the cause

Do you understand that your trials are under the sovereign control of God?

Complaining shows who we believe is in charge.

If we believe in a sovereign lord over everything, then, even the bitter providences that Job experienced can be endured.

“There are NO maverick molecules in the universe.”

-R.C. Sproul

Sickness: Bitterness toward God and others is “Soul-Rot”

Elihu’s desire is to help reorient his friend...

Job 36:3 ESV

I will get my knowledge from afar and ascribe righteousness to my Maker.

His desire is to show Job the kind of maker he has.

His desire is to reorient and correct Job in his suffering.

His qualified to do this as we see again because of what Elihu says in verse 4..

Job 36:4 ESV

For truly my words are not false; one who is perfect in knowledge is with you.

Elihu has the knowledge because his knowledge comes from afar.

He has the knowledge but is the knowledge enough?

“What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.”

A. W. Tozer

The sufferer, who is sick with bitterness toward God, or others needs medicine.

What medicine could possibly pull a sufferer from this pit?

What medicine could heal the embittered soul?

What medicine could revive a man again?

Medicine: The Cure of Souls is AWE!

That medicine is AWE.

By awe I mean a sense of wonder and amazement.

I too frequently use the word awesome.

But simply it means Awe Inspiring.

The medicine Job desperately needs is the wonder and amazement that can only come from God Himself.

The medicine Job desperately needs comes in two doses and the first is…

God is Mighty

“How God Deals with People” (Job 36:5-25)

If you were to only listen to peoples perspective of God, they may acknowledge Him.

But the god they draw up will be far too “earthly”.

He will not be described as a God, who is mighty.

But listen to how Elihu describes God....

Job 36:5 ESV

“Behold, God is mighty, and does not despise any; he is mighty in strength of understanding.

He is basically saying that people are NOT Gods “playthings” (Ash).

God is NOT simply toying around with people on the earth.

Gods dealings with people on the Earth can be broken into two main categories.

The first is his dealings toward the wicked and the second is toward the righteous.

Job 36:11–12 ESV

If they listen and serve him, they complete their days in prosperity, and their years in pleasantness. But if they do not listen, they perish by the sword and die without knowledge.

or

Job 36:6 NKJV

He does not preserve the life of the wicked, But gives justice to the oppressed.

We will look first with how he deals with the wicked...

Toward the Wicked

“Hypocrite in Heart”

Job 36:13–14 NKJV

“But the hypocrites in heart store up wrath; They do not cry for help when He binds them. They die in youth, And their life ends among the perverted persons.

For Elihu, when the wicked suffer, it reveals the godlessness in their hearts.

They reveal this by simply getting angry and resentful toward God, or toward others.

Rather than turning to the Lord in prayer.

Job—The Wisdom of the Cross The Two Responses to God (vv. 11–15)

“Suffering only intensifies their antagonism toward their God.”

Now we see many of examples of this all throughout Scripture, but one seems to stand above the rest.

Example of Pharoah in Egypt

If you remember, in the story of the exodus, when gods people were in slavery.

The Lord sent Moses to deliver them.

There was just one huge obstacle to the liberation of God’s people: Pharaoh.

Pharaoh stood as the figurehead of the people of Israel’s slavery.

What is striking is with God tells Moses he’s going to do with Pharaoh.

Exodus 4:21 ESV

And the Lord said to Moses, “When you go back to Egypt, see that you do before Pharaoh all the miracles that I have put in your power. But I will harden his heart, so that he will not let the people go.

Who is going to harden Pharaoh’s heart?

God IS!

God is going to be the one who harden pharaohs heart.

But what happens is striking.

He warned him.

Offers him a way to let the people go.

Sends judgment upon him.

And when he pleads for grace, Pharaoh hardens his own heart.

Exodus 8:15 ESV

But when Pharaoh saw that there was a respite, he hardened his heart and would not listen to them, as the Lord had said.

Every time Pharaoh saw that the judgment was relieved, he hardened his heart.

Every time God showed him grace he rejected it.

It’s actually the grace of God that revealed what was in Pharaohs heart.

Elihu is warning Job that he is becoming bitter in his suffering.

Job 36:17–18 ESV

“But you are full of the judgment on the wicked; judgment and justice seize you. Beware lest wrath entice you into scoffing, and let not the greatness of the ransom turn you aside.

He’s acting as a prophet pointing Job to God’s character.

A clear sign of a person rejecting God is how they respond to the grace of God.

If they respond to the grace of God with bitterness and distain it is likely God dealing with the wicked.

Resentment

“Cherishing Anger”

We can never know in this life for sure those who are wicked in those who are righteous.

Because we know from scripture that those who are righteous or righteous, because of the righteousness of Christ.

And people are wicked, because they lack the righteousness of Christ.

The Grace of God and Jonah

Another perfect example of this happens in the book of Jonah.

When God tells Jonah to go to Nineveh, he runs away.

Jonah goes to the people and tells them what God is going to do...

Jonah 3:4 (ESV)

And he called out, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!”

They all repented from the King on down.

We only find out later why he ran.

Jonah 3:10–4:2 ESV

When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them, and he did not do it. But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry. And he prayed to the Lord and said, “O Lord, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country? That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster.

Do you see it?

The same dynamic takes place with Jonah as it did with pharaoh.

Jonah sees the grace of God and responds in anger.

Application For Unbelievers

What is your response to the grace of God?

Don’t be deceived into thinking that one life becomes easy that you will respond correctly.

So whether you find yourself in a season of suffering or not,

know that the way you respond to the grace of God shows what is within you.

If the grace of God does not humble you, I would ask you to consider your standing place with God.

But God also shows His might toward the righteous…

Toward the Righteous

“Loving Discipline”

When God deals with his children, he is only ever bringing loving discipline.

Job, in his suffering, feels as though God is beating him mercilessly.

But the reality is is that even in his suffering, God is lovingly bringing him to himself.

Job 36:7–9 ESV

He does not withdraw his eyes from the righteous, but with kings on the throne he sets them forever, and they are exalted. And if they are bound in chains and caught in the cords of affliction, then he declares to them their work and their transgressions, that they are behaving arrogantly.

Elihu is unlike the friends in that he does not think Jobs sin put him in the situation.

Like we have seen, but in his suffering, he has sinned and has become puffed up and proud.

Elihu sees God’s treatment toward the righteous as purification…

Purification

“Pruning & Transforming”

Unlike the friends, Elihu does not deny that righteous people can suffer.

But he’s trying to get Job to see that his suffering is for a purpose.

Application for Believers

His suffering is meant to purify him.

Elihu sees these sinful attitudes as a serious danger for Job.

When we suffer, we need to see God’s providential hand working behind it.

We need to do as James says…

James 1:2–4 ESV

Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

The Unlearned Teacher

“Who Teaches Him?”

Job 36:22–23 ESV

Behold, God is exalted in his power; who is a teacher like him? Who has prescribed for him his way, or who can say, ‘You have done wrong’?

He is the teacher, who himself has never learned anything.

I want you to feel the weight of that cosmic reality that God has never learned anything.

That God in himself has never been taught no one has ever shown him some thing he didn’t already know.

Medicine: The Cure of Souls is AWE!

He’s mighty in the way He deals with the righteous and wicked.

He’s mighty in the way that NO body teaches Him.

The medicine Job desperately needs comes in two doses and the first is…

God is Great

“How God Governs the World” (Job 36:26-37:20)

A sufferer desperately needs a bigger view of God.

They need to be pulled out of themselves.

They need the experience of grandeur to know what God is like.

This is the only message which will strengthen and embolden a sufferer.

This last argument from Elihu is that the God, who controls the storms of nature is this song for in and great God overall.

Job 36:26–27 ESV

Behold, God is great, and we know him not; the number of his years is unsearchable. For he draws up the drops of water; they distill his mist in rain,

Lessons from A Meteorologist

“Cause for Wonder”

Job 37:14–15 ESV

“Hear this, O Job; stop and consider the wondrous works of God. Do you know how God lays his command upon them and causes the lightning of his cloud to shine?

Have you ever just looked at a storm and wondered, “How is that made?”

Story from Engineering School

Science does not explain how things come about.

It can only ever explain the observable.

What it CANNOT explain is the question JOB is asking here.

God’s Control Over the Cosmos

Job 37:16–17 ESV

Do you know the balancings of the clouds, the wondrous works of him who is perfect in knowledge, you whose garments are hot when the earth is still because of the south wind?

Medicine: The Cure of Souls is AWE!

Lightning Storm, Snowstorm, and Rainstorm

Job 37:18 ESV

Can you, like him, spread out the skies, hard as a cast metal mirror?

Medicine: The Cure of Souls is AWE!

The last piece that Elihu gives Job is this...

Look at the Sun

“Awesome Majesty” (Job 37:21-24)

Job 37:21–23 ESV

“And now no one looks on the light when it is bright in the skies, when the wind has passed and cleared them. Out of the north comes golden splendor; God is clothed with awesome majesty. The Almighty—we cannot find him; he is great in power; justice and abundant righteousness he will not violate.

Hebrews 1:3 (ESV)

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.

Medicine: The Cure of Souls is AWE!

A sufferer’s greatest sickness is bitterness toward God and others, and their most needed medicine is awe and wonder of God.