Trusting God in Suffering

There is a famous line in Macbeth, the drama by Shakespeare that goes: “Each new morn new widows howl, new orphans cry, new sorrows Strike heaven upon the face” -Macbeth

This is literally true, which is why it’s a famous quote. Suffering is inevitable and no there’s book of the Bible or book in human history which faces the question of suffering with the same honesty and realism as the book of Job. The 2 questions that sufferers always feel and pose are the Why question and the How question. The why question is, “Why is this happening to me? And the how question is, “How can I bear it?” We’ll answer these two questions going back and forth in these passages this morning.

As a refresher, remember Job is a devout man, a pillar of his community who lost everything. His family, his health, his prosperity. Keith has explained much of the Why question of suffering but this morning we will look more into the How question. The answer to this is comfort.

But there is a limit to comfort. For example, cars have struts and shocks which doesn’t eliminate the bumps in the road, but it does keep the car from breaking apart into pieces from the bumps. In the same way, we need sources of comfort and strength when we go through suffering so that it doesn’t eliminate the suffering, but so the suffering doesn’t break you into pieces.

Now the usual source of comfort you go to is your friends. See Job had 3 friends: Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar and in cycles they try to comfort him. They do an absolutely awful job of comforting. It’s so bad that at one point Job in Chapter 16 verse 2 says to them, “Miserable comforters are you all!” And yet by even looking at how they don’t comfort very well, we can see where the sources of comfort must come from.

So lets look at this passage under three headings: Bad Comfort, Better Comfort, and Ultimate Comfort The Bad Comfort we get from Eliphaz, the Better Comfort comes from Job, and the Ultimate Comfort comes from someone else.

Bad Comfort The bad comfort comes from Eliphaz and he speaks to Job in 4 and 5. Job responds in 6 and 7. *Read passage* “call if you will…you turn”

What he’s saying is you can stop your praying. The word “call” here means pray with emotion. He’s heard Job crying out in his agony. And he’s saying forget it, stop that. God’s not gonna listen to you because, as you can see in verses 2-6, he’s saying Job you’re a fool. A fool in that context was a disobedient person. They were self-centered and therefore a fool. In verse 2 he says fools die. “I have seen fools take root” verse 3 which means fools can prosper for awhile like Job did but eventually “their house is cursed, his children are whisked away”

Here is what he’s saying, this is really cold. He’s simply laying out the principle that is Eliphaz in this famous phrase: “Remember: who that was innocent ever perished? Or where were the upright cut off? As I have seen, those who plow iniquity and sow trouble reap the same.” What is he saying?

He’s saying innocent people don’t perish, upright people aren’t destroyed. If you are reaping trouble you sowed it. In fact, look at verse 6: “for affliction does not come from the dust, nor does trouble sprout from the ground.” What is he saying?

If you go by a field and see wheat growing up, you don’t say, “Oh! That wheat just sprang up.” There’s no way wheat would spring up unless its planted. If you plant wheat, you reap wheat. If you plant barley, you reap barley. So what is he saying?

If you are reaping trouble in your life, you planted it. If you’re suffering, it’s because you did something to deserve it. He’s telling him in verse 1, “C’mon man, pull yourself together. Quit your blubbering. Forget the praying. You did something.” Figure out what you’re doing wrong, why you’re not praying, why you’re not obeying, make amends and everything will be fine.” Cold and practical. Miserable comfort.

I spent a year overseas in Korea with the Army and one night in the cold of January we had a mission to retrieve shipping containers from a seaport and transfer it by crane to our trucks. It was raining pretty steady as we were out fastening straps and directing traffic directing traffic. All of us were soaked and in the cold with hours of work to do. I then heard one of our squad leaders yell, “Embrace the suck!” And while it did help some of us laugh at our present situation, for others it was miserable comfort.

What is wrong with Eliphaz’s comfort? It doesn’t grasp the complexity of things. Eliphaz saying to grab yourself by your bootstraps and figure it out denies the complexity of human nature. In 1 Kings 19, Elijah cracks and thinks everything he worked for is wiped away. He goes into deep depression and so God sends the angel of the Lord to him. And when he goes to him do you remember what he says? Nothing.

He cooks him a meal, wakes him up, tells him to eat then tells him he needs to sleep more. He wakes him up again, sees he needs more rest and tells him to go back to sleep. If we were just a spiritual being then the first thing you do when you come to a depressed person is to get out your list of things to do and say: “Have you prayed in faith, have you confessed all known sin, have you rebuked the devil, have you thanked God for everything?” Those are all in the Bible, but we aren’t just spiritual beings we’re also physical beings. Sometimes we need a nap, a workout session, a hug, or a good meal.

Religious people tend to reduce everything to the spiritual and moral. And so you always get a lecture from them. Secular people tend to see depression as biochemical and so they’ll just give you a pill. They’re both reductionistic. But God never reduces things like that. The Bible presents the complexity of human nature. You can’t deal with depression or discouragement as if it all comes down to one thing. Elisha not only doesn’t grasp the complexity of human nature, but he also doesn’t grasp the complexity of suffering and its purpose.

In Genesis we meet Joseph. He’s adored by his father above all his other siblings and as a result the family is poisoned and the brothers are bitter. Joseph himself becomes spoiled. He’s arrogant, he’s self-centered, he’s out of touch with how people see him. He’s on the road to a miserable life but God brings into his life horrible suffering with years of slavery, years of prayers to God in which God never answers. Have you ever been in one of those situations where it feels like its been years since God answered any of your prayers?

Joseph went through all that suffering but in the end we see him standing as the Prime Minister of Egypt: wise, humble, saving his family from starvation, none of which could have happened without all that suffering. “Wow, interesting, so obviously when suffering comes into your life its because of some tragic flaw in your life that God is trying to deal with you. Is that right?” Well it is according to Eliphaz but not necessarily.

In John 9, Jesus and His disciples are walking along and they see a blind man and the disciples ask Jesus, “Rabbi, who sinned, the man or his parents that he was born blind?” This is a very Eliphaz-type question. A very moralistic question: “I can see so therefore I’m not a sinner or the son of a sinner., BUT he can’t see so he or his parents must’ve sinned.” Who does Jesus blame, the man or his parents? Jesus answers them, “Neither. He’s blind so that the glory of God can be displayed in him.” He didn’t do anything wrong. And see? That’s Job!

In the beginning of the book God and Satan are having a debate about Job, and Satan looks at Job and says, “He’s a phony! Job is only good to God and others for his own sake. He’s obedient because he’s getting benefits. Bring suffering into his life!” Satan wants to bring suffering into Job’s life to expose him as a fraud.

God, however, lets Satan bring that suffering into Job’s life but only gives Satan enough rope to hang himself. God only let’s Satan bring enough suffering into Job’s life to accomplish the opposite of everything Satan wanted. Satan wanted to discredit him and show him as a fraud. But as a result of the suffering, Job has a name that literally lives forever. It’s the opposite of what Satan wanted. God allows Job to suffer to make him one of the most famous figures in history.

Millions of people have been changed by his example. Why? Did Job have a flaw? Was it something God was trying to deal with? No! He was like the man born blind, so the glory of God could be made known. Job couldn’t see it and Joseph couldn’t see it. And Eliphaz was absolutely wrong to tell Job he needed to figure it all out.

Now here’s the problem. This is what concerns us. The problem is Eliphaz’s counsel is awfully close to what you hear in many churches today. Because there are an awful lot of churches where you’re going to hear people say, “If you’re sick its because of a lack of faith. Or if you’re not prospering financially it’s because of a lack of faith, or you’re not really surrendering.” Same thing.

And you know what’s wrong about this? It’s illogical and moralistic. It’s illogical in that the idea when you start to suffer you can figure out what God’s trying to do. To say, “Oh, I know what I need to do. I gotta change this and this and then everything will be alright.” That’s just as stupid as saying, “God doesn’t have any purpose. God has abandoned me. How do you know?

Look at Joseph. Look at Job. Look at these stories we see. No one can know from your vantage point and no one can know many times after years and years of going through it what in the world God is up to so guess what? You’re going to have to trust Him. It’s illogical to think you can figure it out or you can see it. But not only that its moralistic.

The real problem Eliphaz has is he doesn’t understand the meaning of grace. He sees the Bible as a record of people who by living well get God’s reward and blessing. Actually look at the Bible, you wanna know it’s a record of? Yeah, Abraham and Job are relatively better. Jacob, Joseph, and Jonah are relatively worse but they all suffered. And you know why they suffered? Because of God’s love.

They suffered because God was trying to enlarge them. The Bible is not a record of people living right and getting the blessing, it’s a record of people who are so broken and so corrupt that they would have never been able to rise above their own brokenness except the grace of God broke into their life usually in the form of disappointment and discouragement and disaster. That’s what the whole book’s about.

Eliphaz doesn’t see it, but if you see it and you see things are complex, that we have a spiritual nature and relational nature. It’s complex, and if that’s the case, then you should not be going in with an agenda saying “you need to do this and this and that”, but also not just sort of lovingly supporting people. The angel of the Lord lovingly supported Elijah but later on the still small voice came and challenged him with the false premises at the root of his discouragement and therefore you need to always as a comfort go into people’s lives with a mixture of truth and tears.

In John Chapter 11, when Jesus shows up at the funeral of Lazarus there are two sisters, Mary and Martha and both are suffering terribly. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, and said to Him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. Jesus says to her, “I am the Resurrection and the Life.” Truth. Almost a rebuke.

Now when Mary goes to Jesus afterward it says she fell to her feet and said the same thing, “Lord if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” But this time Jesus responds by breaking down into tears. To Martha he gives a rebuke but to Mary he gives tears. You’ll never really handle suffering without a mixture of truth and tears, of telling yourself the truth and weeping your heart out.

Or if you wanna be a comforter to someone, maybe it’s gently telling them the truth and just being there to weep with them. That’s the only humble way to go into suffering when who in the world knows why. We can’t know why. Why? Because God is a god of grace and things are complex.

Now we’ve seen the bad counseling of Eliphaz, so let’s turn and see how Job responds. Now what Job’s gotta do is his own counseling. Now nobody gets through suffering without their own counseling. An example of this is Psalm 42. “Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise Him, my salvation and my God.”

Who is he talking to? Not to God. It’s to himself. Now Job has to do his own counseling unfortunately but he fortunately does a better job than Eliphaz. Here’s what he does: 4 things he does to handle his suffering.

1. Emotional Realism “if only my aguish could be weighed and all my calamity laid in the balances! For then it would be heavier than the sands of the seas.” Now look at this for emotional realism: “the arrows of the Almighty are in me; my spirit drinks their poison; the terrors of God are arrayed against me.” He says, “I feel like God is killing me! I feel like God is against me!” There’s real reality! Not polite. The first thing he’s doing is the exact opposite of what Eliphaz says which was, “Stop your blubbering.” No, no, no. He’s really getting in touch, really expressing how he feels. There’s emotional realism.

2. He’s Praying. Now don’t be misled. It doesn’t look like it at first. Look at verse 8, “Oh that I might have my request, and that God would fulfill my hope.” In those days the way you spoke to a great superior was in the 3rd person. If you went before the King you would say, “Oh, if only the king would hear my request.” You didn’t say, “hey King, answer my request.” You didn’t do that. So you spoke to them in the 3rd person which is what Job is doing… but he’s praying. This is important. Job says some hard things about God. He’s talking about God hurting him and wronging him.

Hmm…… but at the end of the book God shows up and says to Job, “Job, you’ve done well.” And then God turns to Job’s friends and say, “I’m mad at you and you better hope Job prays for you.” Job says hard things about God but at the end God says, “Ok.”

There have been countless skeptics and atheists who say hard things about God and His allowance of suffering in the world. But what’s the difference between Job and the atheists? Job says a lot of hard things but here’s the difference… it’s important: he’s saying them TO GOD. He never stops praying. And that’s the reason why when he’s pouring out his heart to God it isn’t existential despair. It’s just existential. He never stops praying. He stays in the relationship and says, “I don’t understand.” But he never stops praying. Emotional realism, Prayer no Matter What. And the third thing is:

3. He Rejects Suicide as a form of Comfort. In verses 8-9 “Oh that I might have my request, and that God would fulfill my hope, that it would please God to crush me, that He would let loose His hand and cut me off!” He’s asking God to kill him. He’s saying, “Take my life!” Now listen… if you have a steak dinner sitting in front of you, you don’t pray, “Oh Lord please bring me this steak dinner.” If it’s in front of you you take it, right? It would be stupid to say, “Oh Lord give it to me.” It’s right there, take it. Why would you say, “Lord take my life” when you can pickup a knife and cut your own throat?

The answer is Job prays for God to take his life because he doesn’t believe he has the right to complete suicide. And since according to the research, 15% of you have thought about it, you need to realize this is no comfort. There is no comfort in this way to go. Even in the depths of his greatest despondency, Job doesn’t think for a second he has the right to complete suicide.

So.. emotional realism, prayer, refusal to complete suicide, and last of all he says..

4. Well you might be saying, “Why does he want God to take his life?” He says he would still have this comfort. That word comfort is an important word. That is the same word he uses when he says, “Miserable comforters are you” to his friends. “I have comfort” he says. “I got it. I got joy in unrelenting pain.” What is it? “that I have not denied the words of the Holy One.” Now what does that mean?

To deny the words of the Holy One means I’ve repudiated God’s words or I’m ignoring God’s words. What he’s saying is, up to now, “I’ve been holding on, I haven’t turned away from God. I’ve been faithful.” And what he’s actually saying is the one comfort he’s got is that he has a clear conscious. The one comfort he’s got is that he knows God is pleased with him. The one thing he’s got to help him get through suffering is the fact that God loves him. You know what he’s after?

In the 2nd book of the Lord of the Rings, there is a scene where the character Faramir resists the temptation of the Ring of Power. And when the hobbit Samwise Gamgee notices, he goes up to Faramir, bows low, and says to him, “you showed your quality, sir: the very highest”. When Faramir hears this and perceives Samwise’s courage, loyalty, and goodness, he smiles and says, “Master Samwise, the praise of the praiseworthy is above all rewards.”

The praise of the praiseworthy is above all rewards… Do you know what that means? Imagine the person in the whole world you praise and look up to the most. And then imagine that person praising you and admiring you the most in the whole world. There is no greater reward than that! The praise of the praiseworthy is above all reward! There is nothing greater than someone you essentially worship, adoring you. There’s nothing like it. And Job says, “As long as I have been able to keep my conscious clear, I can know that God loves me. I have not denied the words of the Holy One. But that is my only comfort.”

And he’s right! In the midst of your suffering if you know God loves you you can handle it. Why? Because you don’t know what’s going on and you’re confused and you don’t know what God is doing but if you know He loves you, then you can handle it. You can trust Him.

And this is what Job is saying, “I would rather lose my life than my comfort.” And he’s afraid it’s slipping away from him. He’s afraid he’s about to do something wrong. He’s afraid he won’t be able to keep the words of the Holy One. And he’s afraid of losing that sense of God with him and His love. And therefore, he says, “I would rather lose my life than my comfort. And I’m afraid I’m about to lose that comfort. So take away my life.”

Now, Job is saying: emotional realism, prayer, not suicide, “I need to be assured He loves me and I can handle things.”

However, Job is right about something. Because the Bible says it everywhere. There is no way he is going to keep faithful to the words of the Holy One. Nobody can keep the Law of God perfectly or keep the Will of God perfectly. Job is absolutely right that he’s going to fall apart. Because after all, we all fall apart.

Psalm 130:3 says: “If you, O LORD, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand?” Nobody! Job knows that and in the end Job’s comfort is a good comfort but not the ultimate comfort because it’s not gonna last. Where is he going to get the ultimate comfort? This is where he’s gonna get it…

Look, nobody in the history of the human race ever perfectly kept the words of the Holy One except one: Jesus Christ came and perfectly obeyed the Law of God and perfectly kept the words of the Holy One. And that’s why there’s a place in John 8 when He looks to His opponents and says, “Who charges me with sin? Have I done or said anything wrong?” Jesus Christ could say that. And that’s the reason why when Christ rose from the waters of His baptism the Holy Spirit came down and the Father said to Him, “You are my beloved Son with whom I am well pleased.”

The praise of the praiseworthy…which is above all rewards. And yet He got it right, but how do we get that? We know we’re going to fail. We know we’re not going to keep the Words of the Holy One. 2 Corinthians 5:21 says, “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” What that means is on the cross Jesus proved Eliphaz wrong.

Because Eliphaz said, “Who being innocent ever perished? Christ. What upright person was ever destroyed? Christ.” Anyone who reaps trouble must’ve sown trouble. Which is not true because Jesus Christ reaped what WE sowed. We sowed trouble. We sowed sin and He reaped it. Therefore He is the true Job: the only truly innocent sufferer and the only One who kept the words of the Holy One.

But we’re told, “God made Him sin who that knew no sin so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” What does that mean? God put our sin on Him so that when we believe in Him, His righteousness comes to us. And that means when God looks at you, even when you have blown it and will blow it, God sees you as a beauty.

And therefore you have what Job didn’t have: Job had a sense of God’s love but it was fallible. You have a sense of God’s love and it is infallible because we are on this side of the cross.

We can trust God because He sent His only begotten Son to suffer the ultimate physical, emotional, and spiritual pain so we only have to endure relative physical, emotional, and spiritual pain. We are reminded of the goodness of God in Jesus Christ: He does not turn a blind eye to your pain. He gives us these lessons to remind us that sometimes we might just need naps and bread like Elisha or we need to hear the truths of God’s character and work like God told Job.

Now as we invite the worship team back I’ve requested we sing The Firm Foundation a capella as a church. I chose this hymn because it captures God’s grace at work within suffering. I want you to think through these words and what they mean. Take this hymn this week and use it in moments of suffering or in your prayers with the Lord. Try singing it once to Him and then a second time sing it but to yourself.

The Firm Foundation 1 How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord,

is laid for your faith in God's excellent Word!

What more can be said than to you God hath said,

to you who for refuge to Jesus have fled?

2 "Fear not, I am with thee, O be not dismayed,

for I am thy God, and will still give thee aid;

I'll strengthen thee, help thee, and cause thee to stand,

upheld by my righteous, omnipotent hand.

3 "When through the deep waters I call thee to go,

the rivers of sorrow shall not overflow;

for I will be near thee, thy troubles to bless,

and sanctify to thee thy deepest distress. 4 "When through fiery trials thy pathway shall lie,

my grace, all sufficient, shall be thy supply;

the flame shall not hurt thee; I only design

thy dross to consume, and thy gold to refine.

5 "The soul that on Jesus hath leaned for repose,

I will not, I will not desert to its foes;

that soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake,

I'll never, no, never, no, never forsake."