Job 46:1–6

Introduction

From D. A. Carson’s How Long O Lord: Reflections on Suffering and Evil.

One of the major causes of devastating grief and confusion among Christians

is that our expectations are false. We do not give the subject of evil and

suffering the thought it deserves until we ourselves are confronted with

tragedy. If by that point our beliefs…are largely out of step with the God who

has disclosed himself in the Bible and supremely in Jesus, then the pain from

the personal tragedy may be multiplied many times over as we begin to

question the very foundations of our faith.[1]

Summary of the Book of Job

Narrative (1–2)

Poetry (3–42:6)

Narrative (42:7–17)

· Job is introduced

· There’s a couple peculiar conversations that take place in heaven.

· Job loses his property, children, and health.

· Job’s initial lament.

· 3 cycles of conversations between Job and his friends.

· Where does wisdom come from?

· Elihus’s speech.

· God’s speeches.

· God’s words to Job’s friends.

· Job’s restoration of property and family.

Outline

I. God is All Powerful and Able to Manage Everything that Happens in the Universe, Including All Its Evil Events (vv. 1–2).

a. Omnipotence & Sovereignty

b. Evidence in the book of Job

o Job 1:21

o Job 2:10

o Job 42:11

c. Evidence in other places of Scripture.

o Deuteronomy 32:39

o Lamentations 3:37–38

o Isaiah 45:6–7

d. A warning

II. Mankind Has No Right to Question How the Creator Operates Within His Creation (vv. 3–4).

a. God’s plan for the universe does not revolve around man, it revolves around His own glory.

§ “Girding the loins means tying a belt around the loins and tucking into it the skirt of the outer garment, the robe, like the modern qumbaz [a robe], to prevent it from getting in the way of vigorous activities…Yahweh’s call to Job to gird up his loins is a call to combat, to the combat between warriors, to the combat of heroes. If he is to gird up his loins, he must be expected to fight, or at least, to be attacked.”[2]

b. God, as divine Designer and Director of human history, is under no obligation to share with us anything more than what He has already revealed.

III. Mankind is to Humbly Submit to God’s Plan and Trust His Judgment (vv. 5–6).

a. Job’s Example

b. Christ’s Example

[1] Carson. How Long O Lord: Reflections on Suffering and Evil, p. 11.

[2] Clines. Job: Word Biblical Commentary, p. 1096.