The Bible Binge: The (un)Prosperity Gospel (Job 1:6-22)

Introduction

If I asked you to give me a reason this street would be named “Eye” street, what would you say? If I told you that the street was originally the location of one of the first optometrists in the city, that would be a pretty good guess. Or maybe it’s the street where a surveillance business named “Eye Surveillance, Incorporated” was located. Something having to do with an eye. However… what if I told you that the street one block to the east was H street, and the street one block to the west was J street? Now, why do you think the street is named “eye”? That is a street sign in Harlingen. With H street to the east and J street to the west. “Eye” has nothing to do with the eyes in our head… it is the given name for I street in the alphabet to avoid confusion at the post office. Context is everything.

Context is absolutely everything in the book of Job. That’s where we are in our Bible Binge for the next two weeks. Before we start out looking at the book of Job, we have to say this up front… Job may be the most mishandled book in the entire Bible. If you begin to read the book of Job with the wrong assumptions, you may end up missing quite a bit of what the book has to say. And it really is all about context.

The story starts in the passage we read moments ago. Job is someone who lived, most likely some time during the 400 years that Israel was in Egypt. The locations and names given suggest that Job was a descendent of Esau, Jacob’s brother who we read about in the book of Genesis. Job is a very wealthy man. And Job is one who has faith in the Promise, one who believes the Promise given to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Job was a real guy, and everything in the book really happened.

His story begins with a scene unlike any scene we have in our Bibles. The writer of the book gives us a glimpse into a conversation that takes place in heaven between God and Satan. We’re not going to get into all the speculation as to what is happening there, and again, this story was not meant to convey a bunch of theology about Satan and angels and all the inner-workings of history. In fact, because this is a rare instance, it is best that we leave it right there… this isn’t normal. Entire books of have been written just off of these verses… that isn’t how we’re supposed to be reading our Bibles. At the very least, we can say that Satan still answers to God, he is not free to do whatever he wants, and since his defeat at the cross, he is an already defeated enemy. But other than that… there’s nothing to say here. We end up with a lot of bad theology and bad assumptions about God when we make more of what the text tells us for the reasons the text is telling us.

In this instance, God and Satan have a conversation. God brings up Job:

Job 1:8 The Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job? No one else on earth is like him, a man of perfect integrity, who fears God and turns away from evil.”

Have you considered Job? We’re not told why God brings this up. But the question is a set up if there ever was one. Ever have one of those moments where someone says something like, “hey, did you notice State Farm got a new sign a few weeks back?” And you’ve driven by State Farm a dozen times since… and no, you really didn’t notice, but now, every time you drive by, you’re going to see it, right? Have you considered Job? But here’s Satan’s answer:

Job 1:9 Satan answered the Lord, “Does Job fear God for nothing?”

The entire book hangs on that question. Every man has his price… and I’ll bet Job has his. Job can be bought. And we read what happened. Job loses it all… you get to chapter 2, there’s another conversation between Job and God and Job is still hanging on to the Promises and Satan says, let me at him again.. and God says OK, and Job gets painfully sick. He’s lost his wealth, his family, and his health. He lost it all.

And he lost his wife, even though she didn’t die. Satan isn’t finished. When Job has lost his health, lost it all, this is what his wife says:

Job 2:9 “His wife said to him, “Are you still holding on to your integrity? Curse God and die!”

Curse God and die. Job doesn’t have a price, but his wife does. And she is speaking the words of the serpent. God had already told Satan that Job still held on to his integrity and now his wife is reciting those same words verbatim to him, encouraging him to give in. There are echoes here of what Eve said in the garden. God is not someone to be trusted. She has seen and felt everything that Job has seen and felt. In her grief, she does what all of of would do… hang up the phone on God.

But Job doesn’t… here’s his response:

Job 2:10 “You speak as a foolish woman speaks,” he told her. “Should we accept only good from God and not adversity?” Throughout all this Job did not sin in what he said.

In chapter 1, Job says “Blessed be the name of the Lord.” Here, he runs to the heart of the issue… and failure to really understand God. “Should we accept only good from God and not adversity?” OK, now there’s a thought. And that thought is going to be challenged throughout the rest of the book.

Job’s wife is not the only temptation from Satan. Job has four friends. They are a little more subtle. But they end up pretty much where Job’s wife does. They don’t ask whether or not Job is hanging on to his integrity. By the time their conversations end, they are convinced that Job not only doesn’t have integrity, his lack of integrity is to blame for all the terrible stuff that has happened.

Job, throughout this book, isn’t just under physical and psychological attack, he is under spiritual attack. The attacks are relentless. And while Job doesn’t curse God and die, he talks along the way about wishing he had never been born and wishing he were dead. The suffering here is that great. But there are some things we need to say about this suffering, if we’re going to understand this book rightly:

This book never answers the question of suffering.

Here’s where much about this book goes off the rails. God never tells Job why he is suffering. And as we read through the conversations between Job and his friends, a lot of reasons are given for the suffering, but none of them are right. And when God finally does speak, he never mentions the suffering. This isn’t to say that this book doesn’t have anything to say about how we handle suffering. It has a lot to say about it. But, we cannot arrive at a satisfactory answer for suffering, even knowing the backdrop of the conversation between God and Satan. Which leads to this:

Job’s wife and friends presume a false view of God’s justice.

Context is king. We have to keep that in mind as we listen to the words of Job’s friends. Job’s wife and his friends all presume that Job is suffering because of some major sin in his life. Job’s friend Eliphaz sums it up:

Job 4:7–8 “Consider: Who has perished when he was innocent? Where have the honest been destroyed? In my experience, those who plow injustice and those who sow trouble reap the same.”

In other words, if you were innocent, this wouldn’t have happened. This has all happened because you’ve sinned.

And then Bildad, one of the others, says this:

Job 8:4 “Since your children sinned against him, he gave them over to their rebellion.”

Job isn’t the only one who has sinned… Job’s children were wicked and so they were killed in the tornado.

The problem with all of this is… it isn’t true. We know this because we have been clued in from the beginning that Job was simply part of a conversation between God and Satan, and both of them agreed that Job was a good guy. In fact, Satan is the one making this argument through the friends. Part of the big temptation for Job to curse God and die is hearing from his friends that God punishes people who sin badly in this lifetime.

Remember how I said context is everything. We have to be very, very careful that we don’t take Job’s friends words as the entire truth. There is a kernel of truth in some of what Job’s friends were saying. But these conversations don’t reflect people who are thinking rightly about God. I don’t know how many times I’ve heard verses used from these friends to defend how sinners are going to get theirs. The problem is that these guys had it all wrong and the reality is that God doesn’t promise that bad sinners are always going to get theirs. In fact, God’s got a lot of grace for sinners. The wicked will get theirs, but it may be at the last judgment. And we don’t even know people’s final destinies.. only God knows that.

Job is making that argument and it falls on deaf ears: God blesses the wicked, and many times, the righteous suffer. We cannot know the reason for our suffering. There are times we know that our bad decisions have caused suffering, but for the most part, we cannot say that “if you’re a good boy, God will give you presents” and “if you’re a bad girl, God will give you coal”. And there’s a lot of Christians out there making those claims. Those claims are false. Wicked people will live long lives enjoying the benefit of their badness. Good people will die early for seemingly senseless reasons. When the Bible talks about God’s justice, that justice is either at the cross or at the end of time. Sometimes, there is justice for the wicked. But even then, we can’t read the events as if they were tea leaves. We don’t know.

We cannot know the "why" of suffering. We are not God. God doesn't tell us.

This is why Jesus says what he says to the crowd in Luke 13. Here’s what was read earlier:

Luke 13:2–4 “Jesus responded to them, “Do you think that those eighteen that the tower in Siloam fell on and killed—do you think they were more sinful than all the other people who live in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish as well.”

Jesus never says “why” the tower fell… other than it wasn’t because these people were more sinful. That’s the same mistake as Job’s wife and his friends. And that’s the same mistake many make today. This understanding of God’s justice and his blessing isn’t popular. We have Bible teachers making millions telling people if they are good and have enough faith, you’ll enjoy a lot of prosperity. Ask Job how that turned out for him. Those claims are false.

This suffering is a problem for us. I heard someone say a couple of weeks ago… if God is good, he can’t be all-powerful. And if God is all-powerful, he can’t be good. We live in a world that believes both can’t be true at the same time. If God were good, there wouldn’t be suffering. If God were just, there wouldn’t be evil in the world. The witness of Job suggests that God is just, and God is good in the middle of all the suffering all at the same time. And we can’t explain it.

Job has faith in the Promise.

Here’s what we are supposed to see from Job. In the absolutely relentless attacks and temptations of Satan against Job, Job has fear. Job has doubt. Job gets angry. He goes through all of the emotions. But here’s where he lands. Two statements stand out:

Job 13:15 “Even if God kills me, I will hope in him.”

This is fascinating… even if God kills me. Job doesn’t know why he’s suffering, but he’s pretty sure God is behind it all. And instead of blaming God, Job doubles down. This kind of faith is absolutely rare in the Bible. Moses, Habakkuk, Job, and St Paul… less than a handful. All willing to place all their bets and all their destiny on God’s Promises, even if he kills them. And here’s why Job is willing to go to the wall in his suffering:

Job 19:25 “I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the end he will stand on the dust.”

Remember how I said, there’s no way to know whether or not you’re suffering because of sin, or that all of your blessings are because you did something right? You know what is for sure? Job hangs onto the one thing that is guaranteed: a Savior. A Redeemer. His whole world burned down. Job isn’t sure of anything. He’s not even sure God is listening. But he is absolutely sure that there is a Redeemer who loves him… and even if he dies in shame and sorrow and in despair and depression, that Redeemer will never let him go… he will stand at the last day.

Who's to blame when God's grace goes missing? Can we even trust a God like that? If Jesus really is good, he wouldn't do XYZ (fill in the blank), would he? There are no guarantees. We don’t have all the answers for suffering. And if we did have the answers, we would be God. That’s kind of how God finally answers Job. He has the knowledge. He has all the wisdom. We don’t. You know what we have? A Promise. We have Jesus. Jesus is our hope. Jesus is our guarantee. We know that our Redeemer lives… and that he will have us at the last day. Guaranteed. Jesus had Job. Jesus has you.

Let’s Pray.

The Table

This Table right here is a guarantee. No matter what life throws at you, no matter your suffering, no matter all the questions.. when God seems distant, Jesus guarantees that he will be right here at this Table to give you Himself, to give you his assurance, to give you his forgiveness and peace. This Table is a promise. Just like Jesus is a Promise. He always has you.

Benediction

Numbers 6:24–26 May the Lord bless you and protect you;

may the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you;

may the Lord look with favor on you and give you peace.