Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction:

Overview of the Book of Job:

-Chapters 1-2 the Bet that started the whole poem into motion

-Chapter 3: Jobs Poem of Distress and inner darkness (As he travelled further into himself a nd despair)

-Chapters 4-27 Job & His three friends debate the nature of Suffering and its relationship with Sin

Chapter 28: The great Hymn of Wisdom

Chapter 29-31: Jobs Final Plea to God (Asks God to Speak and reveal His Error that has Lead to His suffering)

Chapter 32-37: Elihu gives his interpretation of events and rebukes Job:

Chapter 38-41: Now We come to the climatic Conclusion: God takes the Stage

Different Interpretations of tone

God Speaks out of "Unparalleled Brutality ..Devilish Scorn”-Cornill

God Speaks “with courteous and Slightly wistful irony” -Terrien

God Speaks with “Playfulness … which is quite relaxing” -Anderson

God Speaks as a Teacher Catechizing His Pupil in things he should already Know.

-Van reed

Over All Interpretations of Meaning

God means to Instruct Job on the reality of things he does not see

God will humble Job through the questions he puts forward

God will be reveled......

I.

The Lord Speaks (1)

We are going to pause here an linger for a moment of this key phrase: The LORD answered.....

The first Point I want us to Linger on in this text is that the Lord has come to Job.

There are 3 things I want us to Quickly see in this one first:

First: The Lord's Revelation of Himself is Personal

-Here for the First time since the chapter 2 does the personal name of God appear.

(up to this point in every speech El Shaddai or Elohim have been used to speak of God, but here an now the Personal name of God is used to speak.

-This is no small feature that is to be dismissed, for here we see the covenantal personal existence of God coming to Job.

Not a distant deity but the personal God.

YHWY

-God was under no obligation to reveal himself Elihu insinuated that God would not answer him.

Elihu:

Elihu:

Job 35:10

Job 37:22

While His other 3 Friends longed for God to Answer and Put Job in his place as a sinner and vindicate their case.

Eliphaz:

Bildad:

Elihu:Bildad:

Zophar:

Job 11:5-6

Job 11:

Second: the Lord’s Revelation of himself is an answer to Job’s Prayer and Petition

Now this may not be the most humble of request Job makes before god but it is the final open that leas to his response.

Job at wits end having dealt with the three friends cries out to God to vindicate him and prove him in the right.

(this of course as we will see is both accurate and inaccurate on Job’s part and something we will see beard out in the final chapter but for now, we have seen Job’s continued desire for God to do two things: Speak to Him and Vindicate Him.

Which leads to the last part of the first verse and that is the means of God’s Revelation

So God

Third: The Lord’s Answer to Job is majestic, Awe inspiring, and fearful, though not necessarily judgment… The word is used in Scripture as restorative.

protective, judgmental, and majestic.

In Kings the revelation of God in the storm is one of power might and grandeur before Elijah and Elisha.

job

For David in it was the mighty revelation of God has his vindicator and judge

In Zechariah its is both Protection for those who are with God and judgement for those who oppose him.

What we must see so clearly in this first part is the reality that God has come to Job in the midst of His suffering, in the midst of His confusion and has spoken.

We will quickly turn to the words he speaks and the counsel given, but it should not be too quickly dismissed as a given that the voice of God has come.

Of course in our Christ saturated post cross context we in our suffering experienced a far greater word from the whirlwind.

We say the Christ, the son of the Living God who has spoke to us in these last days not through storms, but as a brother and a friend.

He spoke to us and gave us a fuller revelation of himself.

He came as the advocate Job longed for and the Redeemer who lives.

In Christ we experience YHWY in an even greater sense then Job, but for now let us not get to far ahead of ourselves into the beauty of Christ, for there is much more of that too come, now let us return to Job as God now opens his mouth and speaks....

II.

The Lord Calls Job to Action (2-3)

God Begins His Speech by calling forth Job to the stand.

-Job has spent some time questioning God .

He now begins by Calling Job to prepare Himself to answer Him.

-A key element that we see is that He asks:

job 318:2

Several Interpretations of this phrase have been put forth:

-It is a recitation of the fact that job has spoken wickedly about God from his own imagination

-Job speaks speaks against God’s design for the world from pure ignorance.

-Job has found himself so lost in his inner depth’s of darkness that he cannot see clearly and speaks without observing and evaluating things truthfully.

All Three can be reflective of the reality of the text depends on your inference of tone and thoughts about Job.

Personally third options has become most persuasive to me as we linger into the discourse for in God’s call to action he addresses him not as lowly worm or as some creature beneath him, but rather as one who can stand an answer.

-God does actually call Him to stand and give a defense, he calls him to prepare himself as a man to answer.

This is not a term of degradation, but one of preparation.

Now as we we div into the whole of God’s speech one of the common observations is that God never deals with Jobs questions raised during his conversations with his friends.

As we will see this is true and yet God is answer Job in some very stark other ways.

As one Hebrew scholar points out (Alter) God in this beautiful poem is actually going to begin by addressing Job’s initial complain, which wasn’t about justice, but about life.

The debate that raged about the justice of God, sin and suffering.

Was not the original charge Job leveled towards God, but rather a complaint against the day he was born.

Before the friends begin charging him with sins and the belief that Job deserved all the suffering that had come to him, Job was seeking death in his pain, in his sorrow, and in his suffering.

Job lost sight of the Light by continually seeking darkness (not evil or sin, but sorrow and depression) he was turning inward on himself not looking to tomorrow or the hope of God for him, but rather was consumed by pain and suffering and yearned to turn back time and nature to undo his own birth.

“He wishes that a man was never born.”

-Yet a man was born, lived served God and suffered.

He spoke without knowledge of the day of his birth and in so doing questioned the wisdom of God but seeking to unravel the created order for his own destruction.

-God steps in and speaks in the midst of jobs own internal whirlwind and calls him to the stand to defend his case of how he would plan to undo the acts of God, and bring this darkness he is looking for.... God is waking Job up out of his stupor that began and in chapter 3 before the friends even uttered a word about sin and justice.

(For as we say in Chapters 1-2 when YHWY was first one the scene that is not what is at play here)

And So With this view of Chapter 3 setting the backdrop God now begins to questions Job, to humble him by bringing him outside of himself.

Lifting him out of darkness to see the Light.

III.

The Lord Questions Job (4-41)

A. He Questions Job’s Existence in Creation(4-11)

-The First area that God brings to Job’s attention is”where was Job when God was building the world?”

-God brings back the conception and birth imagery that Job used of his own life, but now he turns it on Job, you wish to bring these things to and end and plunge them into darkness, well then tell me where were you when I created the first day.....

He is reminding Job that ll these things have a purpose and a plan.

God does nothing capriciously .

Her challenges Jobs own birth with the fact that the one who put you into the womb was the one who birthed forth the universe itself.

In Jobs Suffering he lost sight of the light seeking only the dark night of the soul.

Now just picture standing before the theophany of God and being given a Physical science lesson from the creature of thew universe.