something, Job responds, and they do it again three times. This endless, if you like, getting
at Job about his suffering, and we're going to be looking at that just at different sections. So
we're going to be at Job chapter 4, so you'll need your Bibles open as we flick from page to page.
Well, let's pray and ask for God's help for us this morning.
Father, again, we recognize that in dealing with such a subject of suffering, it is not
only very real for so many people, it's not just an intellectual problem, it is experiential,
whether it's in our own lives or we see it in the ones we love the most. And therefore,
we ask for your help to be able to understand suffering from your perspective and to see
it how we should, and to pray for your Holy Spirit's help to understand your word, the
life of Job and how it points us ultimately to the Lord Jesus and his suffering for us.
So we pray for your help to us all today. Amen.
Amen.
I'm sure many of you have heard of the lady called Joni or Joni Erickson Tadda. She's a quadriplegic.
Basically, it means that she's got no movement from the neck down to her toes. She's been like
this for over 40 years of her life. As a teenager, she broke her neck in a diving accident.
And she's been confined to a wheelchair ever since. And as a follower of Jesus, she's written
and she's spoken many, many times about suffering and has been a means of support to many people
around the world. In her recent book, I have it here, it's called A Place of Healing. And
if you are suffering, I recommend this as somebody who has suffered greatly and is suffering greatly,
but finds great hope in the Lord. An excellent, excellent book. Well, in this book, she recounts
a time where she met this man one Sunday morning after the meeting. Let me read it to you.
It was a beautiful Sunday morning and services were over. I was wheeling across the church parking
lot toward my van when a handsome young man who introduced himself as David stopped me.
Are you Joni? he asked. I smiled, nodding yes. Oh, great, David exclaimed. I'm a visitor here and I was
hoping I would run into you today. I've really been praying for you. My eyes got wide. Really? What about?
You're healing. I've been praying for you to get out of your wheelchair. At that point, my spirit hesitated.
David was a visitor. He came to church hoping to see me and he wanted to see me healed.
Well, I never refuse a prayer for healing, I assured David. The guy wasted no time in getting down to business,
launching into what sounded like a prepared speech. Have you ever considered that it might be sin
standing in the way of your healing? That you've disobeyed in some way? Before I could answer, David
flipped open his Bible, both of us still in the middle of the parking lot, and read from the Gospel of Luke.
Some men came carrying a paralytic on a mat and tried to take him into the house to lay him before Jesus.
When they could not find a way to do this because of the crowd, they went up onto the roof
and lowered him on his mat through the tiles into the middle of the crowd right in front of Jesus.
He closed his Bible and reminded me that the paralyzed man in the story was healed,
and I could be healed too if only I would but confess my sins and have faith to believe.
He added,
Joni, there must be some sin in your life that you haven't dealt with yet.
Now, there is some truth, and hear me out, there is some truth in what David said to Joni.
Sometimes, sin does lead to suffering.
So, if I indulge myself in all kinds of physical pleasures and kind of live the life of Riley,
and I end up with a failed liver, HIV, and a broken marriage,
well then, yes, sin has led to my suffering.
But to say in this instance, as we read from this story,
that sin always leads to suffering,
is a terrible misunderstanding of suffering.
Sometimes, innocent people, like Joni, suffer terribly.
Job finds himself in a similar situation.
His three friends that we met at the end of chapter 2,
Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar,
have come to sympathize and comfort him.
Well, that was fine until they got their Bibles out
and started to preach to Job for 23 chapters.
Their message was simple.
I've put it up on the screen here.
Their summary of all their teaching was simply this.
If you suffer, God is punishing you for your sin.
Job, you're suffering.
Therefore, Job, there must be some terrible sin in your life
that you haven't yet confessed.
Now, while there is some connection between sin and suffering,
to say that Job's suffering was connected to his sin
is really to misunderstand Job's innocent suffering.
Chapter 1 has told us very clearly that he was blameless.
He loved God.
He hated evil.
So what do these three friends have to teach us
in their misunderstanding of suffering?
Well, they teach us simply what we should not say
and what we should not think
about those who suffer through no fault of their own.
So we're going to look at their three friends one by one
and see what they have to say,
how they misunderstand suffering
and how we should be careful not to misunderstand in the same way.
So let's start with their first friend, Eliphaz.
His message is very simple.
Innocent people, he says, don't suffer.
Look at chapter 4, verse 3.
He's speaking to Job.
Job, think how you've instructed many,
how you have strengthened feebled hands.
Your words have supported those who stumbled
and you have strengthened faltering knees.
But now trouble comes to you and you are discouraged.
It strikes you and you are dismayed.
Job, if you're wondering how an innocent man like you is suffering,
well then let me give you an answer.
Verse 7.
Consider now who being innocent has ever perished.
Where were the upright ever destroyed?
As I have observed those who plough evil
and those who sow trouble reap it.
At the breath of God, they are destroyed.
At the blast of his anger, they perish.
You see, Job, it's simple.
Innocent people don't suffer.
And if you had behaved yourself,
then all these bad things would never have happened.
The best way to understand your suffering, Job,
is to see it as God's discipline in your life.
Look at chapter 5, verse 17.
Blessed is the man whom God corrects.
So do not despise the discipline of the Almighty.
For he wounds, but he also binds up.
He injures, but his hands also heal.
Verse 27.
We have examined this, and this is true.
So hear it and apply it to yourself.
Well, Eliphaz is not finished with Job.
He picks up another speech in chapter 15.
Let's have a look at that.
Chapter 15 and verse 17.
He's got more so-called wisdom to pass on.
Chapter 15, verse 17.
Listen to me and I will explain to you.
Let me tell you what I have seen.
What wise men have declared.
Hidden nothing or hiding nothing
received from their fathers.
Verse 24.
Distress and anguish fill him with terror.
They overwhelm him like a king poised to attack
because he shakes his fist at God
and vaunts himself against the Almighty.
Can you see what's happening, Job?
If you would only stop fighting God,
stop claiming your innocence,
and just admit your sin to God,
and everything would be all right.
And in case we're missing the point
that Eliphaz is trying to make,
look at chapter 22, verse 4.
Is it for your piety that he rebukes you
and brings charges against you?
Is not your wickedness great?
Are not your sins endless?
Verse 21.
Submit to God then,
and be at peace with him.
In this way prosperity will come to you.
Accept instruction from his mouth,
and lay up his words in your heart.
If you return to the Almighty,
you will be restored.
If you remove wickedness from your tent,
and assign your nuggets to the dust,
your gold of offer to the rocks in the ravines,
then the Almighty will be your gold,
the choice of silver for you.
It's a little bit like the words of David to Joni.
They completely missed the point.
And this line of thinking, unfortunately,
is not uncommon.
I had a brief watch again of the God channel
just to make sure that what I think
is actually what they teach,
but if you listen to it,
and don't really listen to it
because there's nothing there to listen to,
you will hear speaker after speaker
claiming that if you just confess your sin,
you will be healed.
All you need to tell God is the problem,
and he's going to deliver you from it.
And they'll stand there and say,
in the name of Jesus,
confess your sin,
and don't forget to write a check
and send in a few dollars,
and all your suffering will end.
The idea that innocent people don't suffer
and that sin is the cause
is a common way that people try to explain suffering
in people's lives.
But it's very wrong,
very misunderstood.
Well, let's look at his second so-called friend,
Bildad.
His message is simple as well.
Godless people are punished.
Let's go to chapter 8.
Job, do you want to know
why all your children and all their families
were wiped out in that tornado?
Well, let me give you a reason
for why that happened.
Chapter 8, verse 4.
And let's remember how suffering,
how awful this suffering was for this man
and what has happened to him.
And he gets advice like this.
Verse 4 of chapter 8.
When your children sinned against him,
he gave them over to the penalty of their sin.
But if you will look to God
and plead with the Almighty,
if you are pure and upright,
even now he will rouse himself on your behalf
and restore you to your rightful place.
Job, it's simple.
You can't disconnect your suffering
from your sin.
Verse 11.
Can papyrus grow tall where there is no marsh?
Can reeds thrive without water?
While still growing uncut,
they wither more quickly than grass.
Such is the destiny of all who forget God.
So perishes the hope of the godless.
Job, can't you see what's happening?
Your children suffered because they forgot God
and now you're doing exactly the same.
Verse 20.
Surely God does not reject a blameless man
or strengthen the hands of evildoers.
Sort your life out, Job.
Well, Bildad is convinced that
if you live a godless life,
then things are going to go wrong from you.
Look at chapter 18.
Chapter 18, verse 11.
He's saying here,
if you live a godless life,
then the sign of a godless life is,
well, things are going to go wrong.
Chapter 18, verse 11.
Terrors startle him on every side
and dog him his every step.
Calamity is hungry for him.
Disaster is ready for him when he falls.
And look how these next verses
relate so much to his own suffering.
It eats away parts of his skin.
Death's firstborn devours its limbs.
Verse 18.
He is driven from light into darkness
and is banished from the world.
He has no offspring or descendants among his people.
No survivor where he once lived.
Verse 21.
Surely such is the dwelling of an evil man.
Such is the place of one who knows not God.
And if we think they haven't kicked Job enough,
Bildad is ruthless in his final charge.
Chapter 25, verse 4.
How then can a man be righteous before God?
How can one born of a woman be pure?
If even the moon is not bright
and the stars are not pure in his eyes,
how much less man who is but a maggot,
a son of man who is only a worm.
Now this way of explaining suffering
is also very common.
I've heard countless pastors and Bible teachers
and let me say very bad Bible teachers
who come up with suggestions and reasons like this
that the reason why the Twin Towers,
that terrorist attack on 9-11 happened
was well because America allows abortion.
And that's why it happened.
In the same way when the tsunami hit Indonesia,
people were coming out saying
it was God's punishment on the awful sex trade
that there is in Indonesia.
Likewise, when the earthquake destroyed Haiti,
people claimed that it was God's judgment
on all the witchcraft and the voodoo
that was going on.
But I ask ourselves the same question,
who are we in this country
to make such judgments on behalf of God?
Are we really any better to the rest of the world
that we have escaped such suffering?
It's a very dangerous line to pursue
and to make quick judgments
that that is what God is doing.
God hasn't said it,
and neither should we.
Well, let's turn to the third friend, Zophar.
We need to go to chapter 11 for that.
His message is also simple.
Wicked people deserve worse.
Zophar is of the belief
that the greater the sin,
the greater the suffering.
So if you sin lots,
well, then you're going to suffer lots.
Look at chapter 11, verse 4.
He's speaking to Job.
He says,
You say to God,
My beliefs are flawless,
and I am pure in your sight.
Oh, how I wish that God would speak,
that he would open his lips against you
and disclose to you the secrets of wisdom,
for true wisdom has two sides.
Know this, Job.
God has even forgotten some of your sin.
In other words, Job,
it's only because God is so patient
that you are not actually suffering more
than what you are.
Verse 13.
Yet if you devote your heart to him
and stretch out your hands to him,
if you put away the sin that is in your hands
and allow no evil to dwell in your tent,
then you will lift up your face without shame.
You will stand firm
and without fear.
But because you're not turning from your wickedness, Job,
look at verse 20.
The eyes of the wicked will fail
and escape will elude them.
Their hope will become a dying gasp.
In other words, Job,
you deserve every bit of suffering that you get.
And once again,
his final speech in verse 20.
He just heaps abuse upon abuse onto poor Job.
Chapter 20, verse 22.
This is how he understands
what's happening to Job's life.
Chapter 20, verse 22.
In the midst of his plenty,
distress will overtake him.
The full force of misery will come upon him.
When he has filled his belly,
God will vent his burning anger against him
and rain down his blows upon him.
Verse 27.
The heavens will expose his guilt.
The earth will rise up against him.
A flood will carry off his house,
rushing waters on the day of God's wrath.
Such is the fate God allots the wicked,
the heritage appointed for them by God.
Now, unfortunately,
this is also a common philosophy today.
It goes something like this,
that if you do good,
then good will be returned to you.
In Hinduism, it's called karma.
If you do bad,
then bad will be given out to you.
And even within our own Christian society,
we've imbibed that same kind of belief.
So why is it that when something goes wrong in our life,
we immediately think,
I must have done something wrong
and God is punishing me for it.
Or, if we do something good
and we do lots of good things,
then we sometimes think,
well, maybe God is going to bless me
because I did all these good things.
It's a terrible way of thinking.
God does not respond to us like that.
It's a common way to think,
but it's a very wrong way to think.
So that's the wisdom of Job's three friends.
They have failed to understand
that sometimes our personal sin
is actually not the cause of our suffering.
Sometimes innocent people,
just like Joni that we read about at the beginning
and even Sandra shared at her testimony,
sometimes innocent people suffer
through no fault of their own.
Well, I guess the question
that we are all asking now is,
how do we know
when suffering is related to my sin?
Hmm?
I wonder if somebody wouldn't mind
just running around to our lovely spraying friend
and ask him to go past the door a little bit.
Thanks, Rob, very much.
Maybe he could do the front.
I did give him a cup of tea in Buns,
so it's all right.
We're not out against him.
But there's a question that we're all asking,
isn't there,
that how do we know then
when my suffering is related to my sin?
There is a connection,
but how do I know if it is my sin?
Well, let me give three ways
to understand our suffering
so that whenever we get a headache
or we happen to hit our thumb with the hammer,
we're not immediately thinking,
there's some unconfessed sin in my life.
Three things that we'll look at.
First,
we live in a sinful,
broken world.
Genesis records for us
the good world that God created.
We know the story of how God looked out
on the world
and when he had finished his creation,
he said it was very good.
There was unity
and there was harmony within creation.
But when we get to Genesis 3,
we read that man who was created by God
rebelled against his creator, God.
And the consequences of all that
have been felt ever since.
Now we live in a world
where there's death and disease.
There's disorder
and there's brokenness.
Life doesn't work the way it's meant to.
The cogs in the wheels
have got stuck and jammed
and everything grinds and twists
with terrible suffering.
That's why we have earthquakes
and tornadoes and tsunamis.
That's why we have mindless,
violent attacks on children
like we saw in Toulouse this week.
That's why we have terrible tragedies
like the recent bus crash in Switzerland.
Sometimes suffering happens
not because of our specific sin,
but simply because we live in a broken
and a disordered world.
In John's Gospel,
the disciples came to Jesus
on one occasion
and tried to make this connection
between personal sin and suffering.
There was this man
who was blind from birth
and the disciples asked him,
chapter 9, verse 1 of John's Gospel,
his disciples asked him,
Rabbi, who sinned,
this man or his parents,
that he was born blind?
Listen to Jesus' reply.
Neither this man nor his parents sinned.
But Jesus said,
this happened so that the work of God
might be displayed in his life.
You see, sometimes suffering happens
simply because we live
in a broken and a disordered world.
Secondly, then,
we are not treated
as our sins deserve.
We're not treated
as our sins deserve.
One of the underlying questions
that comes out of the book of Job,
and indeed it's raised in the whole Bible,
is not,
why do I suffer?
But why do I not suffer more?
That's the real question.
Not why do I suffer,
but why do I not suffer more?
The reality is,
we are actually more wicked
and more rebellious
than we realise.
And the history of the world
in which we live
is a catalogue of disaster.
Wars and genocide,
greed and corruption,
unjust leaders
and power-hungry leaders.
There's the abuse of children,
trafficking of women,
the oppression of the poor,
relationship fallout,
marriage breakdown,
anger, hate,
slander and lies.
And it goes on
day after day after day.
So the question
is not,
why do we suffer?
But why is God
so patient and long-suffering
with us
and with this world?
If God was being just,
he would wipe us all out
and the world would end.
That's the real surprise.
Well, why is God
so long-suffering
and patient with us?
Well, the answer comes
through the Bible story
as he shows his character.
If you want,
you can turn to Psalm 103.
We actually sang
from this psalm earlier on.
Psalm 103,
verse 8.
verse 8 of Psalm 103,
the Lord is compassionate
and gracious,
slow to anger,
abounding in love.
He will not always accuse,
nor will he harbor
his anger forever.
He does not treat us
as our sins deserve,
or repay us
according to our iniquities.
For as high as the heavens
are above the earth,
so great is his love
for those who fear him.
As far as the east
is from the west,
so far has he removed
our transgressions from us.
As a father has compassion
on his children,
so the Lord has compassion
on those who fear him.
Of course,
that love and compassion
is shown supremely
on the cross,
the place where God died
for my sin
and for your sin.
The God who suffered
for you
and for me.
So we live in a sinful
and broken world.
Second,
we're not treated
as our sins deserve.
And third,
we can look forward
to a world
without sin.
God made a good world.
We see that in Genesis 3
and he's promised
to renew
and restore
this sin-infested,
broken world.
God promises
that there is a world
to come
that's going to be
without sin
and without suffering.
However,
between this point
where we are now
and the point
of Christ's return,
he also promises us
that there will be suffering
and that we should
expect suffering.
But to give us hope
and to help us
through our journey
in this life,
he gives us
these pictures
of this wonderful promise
to all those
who will turn to him
and those
who will trust him.
One of those pictures
is found in Isaiah
chapter 65.
And all I ask
is just that you
just be quiet
for a minute
and just listen
to these words here
that paint a picture
of a world
without sin
and without suffering.
Just meditate
and think
on these words.
behold,
I will create
new heavens
and a new earth.
The former things
will not be remembered
nor will they come
to mind.
But be glad
and rejoice
forever
in what I will create.
For I will create
Jerusalem
to be a delight,
its people
a joy.
I will rejoice
over Jerusalem
and take delight
in my people.
And the sound
of weeping
and of crying
will be heard
in it no more.
Never again
will there be in it
an infant
who lives
but a few days.
An old man
who does not
live out his years.
And we can add
to that
there will be
no more shootings
in Toulouse
and there will be
no more sudden death
of a nephew.
They will not
toil in vain
or bear children
doomed to misfortune
for they will be
a people blessed
by the Lord.
They and their
descendants with them.
Before they call
I will answer.
While they are
still speaking
I will hear.
The wolf
and the lamb
will feed together.
And the lion
and the ox
will eat straw.
But dust
will be
the serpent's food.
They will neither
harm nor destroy
on all my
holy mountain
says
the Lord.
Let's pray
together.
Let's pray
together.
Let's pray
together.
Let's pray
together.
Let's pray
together.
Let's pray
Father
we thank you
for this
amazing picture
that one day
there will be
no more
weeping
no more
crying
there will be
no more
sin
and there
will be
no more
suffering
things will
never go
wrong
there will be
no wheel
chairs
and there
will never be
another car
crash
we thank you
that one
day
Christ
will come
and he
will put
all things
right
we thank you
that you do
not treat
us
as our
sins
deserve
but we
praise you
and we
thank you
that you
have entered
our suffering
world
to do
something
about it
help us
with the
eyes of
faith
to look
to the
Lord
Jesus
help us
to trust
him
help us
to walk
with him
and we
pray this
in Jesus
name
amen
before we
share together
around the
Lord's
supper
we're going
to sing
a song
that
it's the
next song
could you
go on
to
yep
there's a
place
where the
streets
shine
it points
us forward
to a
world
without
sin
and a
world
without
suffering
and the
chorus
reminds us
that all
our sins
have been
washed
away
and that
is why
we have
that hope
let's
stand
together
as we
encourage