Job - Blessed Be the Name of The Lord
Job's friends do what we do when we are suffering, we look for a connection, a cause and effect relationship. We look backwards to try to explain current suffering with prior sin. Then we look around and wonder why us - and why not someone else. But the Bible doesn't look backwards or even seek to explain "why me."
The Bible looks forward at the result or the outcome of suffering.
"The purpose of suffering is seen, not in its cause, but in its result.” -Francis I. Anderson
One of the outcomes of suffering is that it causes us to wrestle with God. We pour out our hearts before him, we ask why, we she'd tears in prayer, we let out our grief and ask God to give us strength because we don't have any more.
When we suffer, we think instinctively that God is far from us, but we have all experienced our closest and dearest times with The Lord in our deepest suffering.
Job 7:11 “Therefore I will not restrain my mouth; I will speak in the anguish of my spirit; I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.
Job 10:1 “I loathe my life; I will give free utterance to my complaint; I will speak in the bitterness of my soul.
What Job does not know is that, "In wrestling with God Job was moving in the direction of right relationship with his Maker."
Job is a real and feeling man. He doesn't close off his grief. He doesn't pretend like his loss means nothing. He is not stoic. He feels real hurt, anguish, disappointment, like he's being treated unfairly. And he tells God about it.
When we take our suffering to The Lord, we find new things about him. We find that he gives strength when ours is gone. He gives peace in the midst of storms. He brings comfort that passes understanding. In suffering, we find that Jesus is a nearer Savior than we knew before.
Job 9:2 “Truly I know that it is so: But how can a man be in the right before God?
How can a man be right before God? Job understands the difference between him and God. Although he is "blameless" before God, he knows he is not sinless.
His friends have told him that God causes the sinner to suffer, not the blameless. Therefore, if he is suffering, he must have sinned. So he needs to go present himself to God confess of sin and plead his case.
He responds, I cannot stand before God. No one is not right before him. He is frustrated at the immenseness of God. He cannot stand before a God so powerful and majestic.
Job 9:15 Though I am in the right, I cannot answer him; I must appeal for mercy to my accuser. I must appeal for mercy. He calls God his judge or accuser. Because he is not right before God, because God is so powerful, the only hope Job has is to plead for mercy.
Job 9:32-35
Job longs for someone to come between him and God, a mediator, an arbiter. A negotiator to bring two parties together. Job touched on the mystery through which God would make men right. He foresaw the need of someone who could "lay his hand on both" God and man. We will talk next week about the arbiter. In chapter 16, Job will refer to his witness, his advocate, his intercessor and friend. Today, I want to point you to Job's need for someone to turn away God's wrath.
1 John 2:1-2
Job sees that even though he is "blameless," he is not sinless. He needs someone who can turn aside the wrath of God. "Propitiation" is the effect of Jesus' sacrifice to God. Jesus took the wrath of God for us. how can a man be in the right before God? Jesus