St Theodore's Sermon

Sermon of the Week
Look up the passage

4/8/02

Job and his Friends Job 2:11-13; 4:1-21

For those who weren't here last week and so missed out on the first in this series on Job, what we discovered was that this book seeks to address what is probably the greatest difficulty that's confronted thinking Christians through the ages: the issue of innocent suffering. We don't have any trouble with a God of love. What we have trouble with is when we look at our world and find such things as congenital handicaps, natural disasters, terminal cancer, children and young people dying through accident and mishap, terrorism, child abuse, and the list just goes on and on. How could a loving God allow such terrible things?

Bertrand Russell, the 20th century philosopher, once wrote: "I can imagine a sardonic demon producing us for his amusement but I cannot attribute to a being who is wise, beneficent and omnipotent the terrible weight of cruelty, suffering and ironic degradation of what is best that has marred the history of man." ("Faith of A Rationalist") It'd be easy to sympathise with that sort of cynicism wouldn't it? Yet we proclaim an all-powerful and loving God. So how are we going to respond to criticism of that sort?

Well, it seems to me there are 2 common ways that Christians respond.

One way is to raise the drawbridge. They clutch their Linus blanket of orthodoxy close to their chest, shut their minds to any questions that might threaten their security and retreat into what's called blind faith. This is what might be called the 'bury your head in the sand' approach. Forget the evidence you see around you, just believe!

The second method is to go on the offensive. To look the question of suffering square in the eye; to wrestle with our doubt until we come to grips with it. To say 'If I'm to believe in the real God, I mustn't be afraid to face reality, no matter how hard that reality may be.' This is the approach taken by Jacob when he was faced with the prospect of meeting Esau after having robbed him of his birthright and God came to him in the form of a man. Jacob wrestled with God until God blessed him (Gen 32). So let's call this approach the wrestling with God approach.

So here we have these 2 approaches, represented by the actors in this real-life drama. There are Job's friends, scrupulously sound in their theology but with their heads firmly in the sand; closed to anything that can't be accommodated by their theological framework; and Job, a believer, just as orthodox in his worldview, but pressed by his circumstances into a need to find other answers than those of his friends, to wrestle with God. His is a stance that takes great courage. It's not easy to stand against the prevailing orthodoxy of one's peers. There are social risks in proclaiming one's innocence when such obvious calamity has befallen you. But Job can't run away from his problems. His integrity won't allow it. He has to struggle with his problem, wrestle with God until he finds an answer.

And the affirmation we receive at the end of the book is that of the two approaches it's Job's that receives God's approval, it's Job who's declared righteous. So let's think about these two approaches.

The Friends

The 3 friends are introduced to us in 2:11. They've heard about all of Job's troubles so they set out to sympathise with him. As they approach they're genuinely moved by his plight and join him silently in his grief. Not until Job finally raises his voice to express his pain and distress do they begin to speak to him, to counsel and sympathise with him. And notice they start off very carefully. They acknowledge his wise counsel in the past. Now they're here to offer him the sort of care that he's given to others in the past. It's only as the discussion moves on and the friends discover just how angry Job is with God and how Job won't accept their analysis of the situation that their approach changes from support to direct rebuke.

Remember the book is structured as a series of exchanges. Each friend speaks, then Job replies. This sequence is repeated 3 times but the third time the pattern is disrupted. Bildad's speech is only short and Zophar doesn't speak at all, leaving Job with a long last word. In the end their silence is a sign that they just can't refute him. You see, their problem is that their argument is so superficial that in the end it's totally inadequate for the situation. They're expressing the conventional opinions of the author's day which in the end can't cope with the reality of evil in the world. In fact as you look at them you realise that the three friends represent 3 similar but independent religious approaches.

Eliphaz is a mystic. He appeals to higher powers for his insights: 'I had a dream, a spirit glided past my face, there was silence, then I heard a voice." (4:15f)

Bildad on the other hand is a traditionalist. He's happy to accept what the wisdom of the ages has taught. So he appeals to the church fathers: 8:8: 'Inquire now of bygone generations, and consider what their ancestors have found; ⁹for we are but of yesterday, and we know nothing, for our days on earth are but a shadow.'

Finally, Zophar is an intellectual. He thinks Job is just talking nonsense. He's responding through his emotions not his brain. If only he'd apply his mind to the situation he'd find out the truth: 11:2f 'Should a multitude of words go unanswered, and should one full of talk be vindicated? ³Should your babble put others to silence, and when you mock, shall no one shame you? ... ¹²a stupid person will get understanding, when a wild ass is born human.'

But notice that although the friends come from different perspectives, they're united in their theological beliefs about suffering. Eliphaz spells it out in his first speech (4:7-8) 'Who that was innocent ever perished? Or where were the upright cut off? ⁸As I have seen, those who plow iniquity and sow trouble reap the same.'

Here is what we saw last week. The easiest explanation of suffering, if you understand the sovereignty of God, is retribution. If people suffer it's because they're evil. Each of the friends says the same thing. So Bildad, in Ch 18:5 says: 'Surely the light of the wicked is put out, and the flame of their fire does not shine.' No room for exceptions, no room for any other explanation. Simple cause and effect. Nothing can contradict it. Except of course, Job. Job doesn't fit the theory. He's a pillar of respectability. Everyone knows it. Yet his property is destroyed, his family killed and he's suffering some dreadful skin disease.

So what do they do? Do they struggle with the issue? No, they bury their heads in the sand. Bildad (8:4) suggests that maybe it was Job's children who sinned. Of course that doesn't explain Job's own illness. Eliphaz points out that everyone sins. We're people of dust. There's no point claiming to be sinless. He says 'What are mortals, that they can be clean? Or those born of woman, that they can be righteous?' (15:14). Zophar suggests that Job has committed so many sins that God has even forgotten some of them. (11:6 NIV)

But the trouble is, all these arguments miss the point. Job doesn't claim to be perfect. His complaint is that he's suffering beyond all proportion to the minor sins that he like every one else has committed. He knows that we all sin. It's just that he's experiencing a level of suffering that's more than he thinks can be justified. In end the only way his friends can explain what's happening to him is to accuse him unjustly of crimes that they say he must have committed. Otherwise why would God be punishing him? 'For you have exacted pledges from your family for no reason, and stripped the naked of their clothing. ⁷You have given no water to the weary to drink, and you have withheld bread from the hungry. ⁸The powerful possess the land, and the favored live in it. ⁹You have sent widows away empty-handed, and the arms of the orphans you have crushed." (Eliphaz, Job 22:4-9) Now, in the end Job refutes these claims in one of his own speeches but his friends can only think there must be something along this line that's caused his suffering. The alternative is unthinkable: that God might pervert justice! No, Job is simply compounding his sin by ignoring God's rebuke and calling God a liar. All that does is to add blasphemy and heresy to his other sins (15:2).

But Job won't be manipulated or pressurised into false confessions. He doesn't fit their rigid theological framework and he won't give in to their pressure tactics. (27:2-5) 'I will never speak falsehood. I will never admit that you are right - I hold fast my righteousness, and will not let it go.'

Someone once said that it's impossible to break down prejudice by rational argument. And so it is here. They know Job must be a sinner. Why else would these things be happening to him? Their solutions are already worked out.

Job

But not Job's. He's not going to rest until he understands what's causing these things to happen to him. He wants a rational explanation but not the one offered by his friends. He prefers to struggle with his uncertainty until an answer is found. So in 10:1-3 he calls on God to explain himself, to tell him what charges he has against him. He says: 'I will give free utterance to my complaint; I will speak in the bitterness of my soul. ... ³Does it seem good to you to oppress, to despise the work of your hands and favor the schemes of the wicked?" Notice that Job understands the common theology of suffering. But he can't see how he fits it. In fact it seems to him that far from punishing the wicked and rewarding the righteous, it's working the other way around. God seems to bless the schemes of the wicked.

Now we'd have to say there's some evidence for Job's contention wouldn't we? We often see examples of people who have become rich and powerful through unjust, dare we say, wicked scheming. We see terrorists who manipulate their followers to destroy the lives of hundreds even thousands of people at one stroke. We see people who are found innocent of terrible crimes on a technicality. We see company managers who fiddle the books to protect their interests and sometimes get away with it. This is an unjust world. Clearly not all who suffer are wicked, and conversely, not all who are wicked suffer.

So Job cries out, declaring his innocence: 'If God has a charge against me let me hear them.' Then in ch31 he presents a moving affidavit in which he swears his innocence. "⁶Let me be weighed in a just balance, and let God know my integrity!" And he goes on and on with all sorts of areas where some are seen to be unrighteous, but not him! He says "I'm innocent. And God knows it. And all the time God is smiling on the deeds of the wicked."

Now notice that he doesn't deny the theological orthodoxy of what they're saying. But something has happened that has changed his theology. He can only conclude that God is being unjust. In fact the more he thinks about the world the more he realises how cruel God is. Far from being just God is so far beyond us that he's unaccountable for his actions. 9:14ff: 'How then can I answer him, choosing my words with him? ¹⁵Though I am innocent, I cannot answer him; I must appeal for mercy to my accuser. ¹⁶ If I summoned him and he answered me, I do not believe that he would listen to my voice." He's thinking, there can be no justice where one's accuser is also one's judge. What hope have I got. Nor can I rely on strength. God is mighty. I'm a mere mortal. Who can oppose God?

Yet, he isn't scared to face the reality of his situation. Even having realised what a hopeless situation he's in, he doesn't give up. So why doesn't he give up? Why doesn't he turn away from God altogether? Why doesn't he take his wife's advice to curse God and die? Why does he continue to call out to God in complaint? Why is it that he never abandons God? That's the interesting thing isn't it. Job is never an unbeliever and he never becomes one. He never comes to the conclusion that Bertrand Russell came to. All the way through the book he's a man of faith, but the sort of faith that doesn't hide from the difficulties, rather wrestles with them.

Job's struggles, you see, are intellectual, emotional and spiritual. And they're evidence not of the weakness of his faith but of its tenacity and resilience. The real difference we find between him and his friends is that they're satisfied with theories. God is an intellectual abstraction for them. A mere explanation that gives order and logic to the universe. But for Job, what matters is the personal relationship he has with God. Only in that context could his desperate questions be resolved. So he turns not to atheism, but to crying out to God for some revelation of himself. He prays - angry, bitter prayers, but prayers nevertheless.

And in response, God's spirit enlightens him every now and then with an unexpected ray of assurance (and we'll see more of this in a couple of weeks time). 13:15f: "I will surely defend my ways to his face. ¹⁶Indeed, this will turn out for my deliverance, for no godless person would dare come before him!" Job longs to meet God face to face. No-one who's rebellious against God would do that. And it's this longing for a personal face to face confrontation with God that at the same time frustrates him and sustains him.

Again in 23:10: "he knows the way that I take; when he has tested me, I shall come out like gold." Even when faith is so hard, God gives him a glimpse of a truth that keeps him going. And so he perseveres in his quest to meet God personally. And that's why Job has come to be known as the quintessential patient man. He isn't patient because he resigns himself to his suffering. No, his patience is that of a relentless pursuit of the face of God when everything is against him. He says "My eye will see him." And as we'll see next week that quest was eventually answered. That patience was eventually rewarded.

In fact God promises that all who long for the face of God will find him. At the beginning of the sermon on the mount Jesus told his disciples: "Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God." He knew, better than anyone, what it was like to suffer unjustly, to be separated from God. And he knew that his followers would be persecuted and would suffer for their faith in him. And he wanted us to have the confidence to persevere under those circumstances. So he encouraged us to continue to seek God throughout our lives.

Well, let's just think for a few moments about how we might apply the teaching of Job to our own lives? One obvious application is to be sure we don't make the same mistake as Job's 3 friends. There's a type of teaching that's actually been around since before the time of Job. These days it's known as Health and Prosperity teaching. It suggests that if only we believe hard enough we'll enjoy any blessing of God we can name. The promise is there - it's just a matter of claiming it in faith. If we truly believe we should be well off. If we have faith we should be healthy. No major illness should beset us. Now it shouldn't take us too long to realise that people who teach these sorts of things are classic descendants of Job's comforters. It sounds spiritual until you realise that there are plenty of faithful Christians in the world today who pray hard for blessings or healing and don't see it. We had a friend some years ago who had an untreatable brain tumour. Our Church and especially a faithful group of his friends prayed for him to be healed and it didn't happen. And there were some people in the congregation who said it was because of his lack of faith and the lack of faith of his wife that he wasn't healed. Well, I believe those people were 'Job's comforters'.

Similarly there's a school of thinking around that tries to find spiritual causes for people's psychological problems. So if you watched 'Bewitched' as a child (probably 'Buffy' or 'Charmed' or 'Harry Potter' now), or read fantasy literature, or had some connection with the occult, you need to confess it because that's probably the cause of your problems. Now there may be a connection in some cases, particularly for people who have lived in the third world where the occult is a serious problem for Christians, and that needs to be checked out, but to make an automatic connection is to make the same mistake as Job's friends. Rather we need to acknowledge that there are some who need to be counselled not as sinners but as victims. Not as rebels, but as casualties. And counsellors who ignore that possibility are just burying their heads in the sand.

Also as we just said, this is a great encouragement to show the same courage as Job. To face our problems and bring them to God. Not to find excuses or ignore them, but to face them in the knowledge that God wants us to have a personal relationship with him.

And that's our final piece of application. Don't be satisfied with anything less than a personal relationship with God. Don't be afraid to risk everything for the possibility of such a relationship. Because it's worth it! It may not be easy to come to. Faith isn't something we can turn on like a tap. We may have to struggle as Job did. But the result, if we'll do it, will be a far more profound faith. Authentic faith doesn't mean abandoning our personal integrity. Rather, God is the God of truth so he wants us to maintain our integrity at all costs. He says 'I desire truth in the inward being'. So let's learn that there's nothing unspiritual in struggling with our doubts, with our pains, with our complaints or anger with God. What's unspiritual is to run away from our questions. All that does is to deny our faith. As we struggle with our faith we may have to weep as Job did. It may take as long for us as it appears to have taken for Job, but for some that may be the only way to find the real God. God would rather we wrestle with him than abandon him or make him into an intellectual abstraction.

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	Sermon of the Week	Look up the passage
	4/8/02
	Job and his Friends	Job 2:11-13; 4:1-21

	For those who weren't here last week and so missed out on the first in this series on Job, what we discovered was that this book seeks to address what is probably the greatest difficulty that's confronted thinking Christians through the ages: the issue of innocent suffering. We don't have any trouble with a God of love. What we have trouble with is when we look at our world and find such things as congenital handicaps, natural disasters, terminal cancer, children and young people dying through accident and mishap, terrorism, child abuse, and the list just goes on and on. How could a loving God allow such terrible things?
	Bertrand Russell, the 20th century philosopher, once wrote: "I can imagine a sardonic demon producing us for his amusement but I cannot attribute to a being who is wise, beneficent and omnipotent the terrible weight of cruelty, suffering and ironic degradation of what is best that has marred the history of man." ("Faith of A Rationalist") It'd be easy to sympathise with that sort of cynicism wouldn't it? Yet we proclaim an all-powerful and loving God. So how are we going to respond to criticism of that sort?
	Well, it seems to me there are 2 common ways that Christians respond.
	One way is to raise the drawbridge. They clutch their Linus blanket of orthodoxy close to their chest, shut their minds to any questions that might threaten their security and retreat into what's called blind faith. This is what might be called the 'bury your head in the sand' approach. Forget the evidence you see around you, just believe!
	The second method is to go on the offensive. To look the question of suffering square in the eye; to wrestle with our doubt until we come to grips with it. To say 'If I'm to believe in the real God, I mustn't be afraid to face reality, no matter how hard that reality may be.' This is the approach taken by Jacob when he was faced with the prospect of meeting Esau after having robbed him of his birthright and God came to him in the form of a man. Jacob wrestled with God until God blessed him (Gen 32). So let's call this approach the wrestling with God approach.
	So here we have these 2 approaches, represented by the actors in this real-life drama. There are Job's friends, scrupulously sound in their theology but with their heads firmly in the sand; closed to anything that can't be accommodated by their theological framework; and Job, a believer, just as orthodox in his worldview, but pressed by his circumstances into a need to find other answers than those of his friends, to wrestle with God. His is a stance that takes great courage. It's not easy to stand against the prevailing orthodoxy of one's peers. There are social risks in proclaiming one's innocence when such obvious calamity has befallen you. But Job can't run away from his problems. His integrity won't allow it. He has to struggle with his problem, wrestle with God until he finds an answer.
	And the affirmation we receive at the end of the book is that of the two approaches it's Job's that receives God's approval, it's Job who's declared righteous. So let's think about these two approaches.
	The Friends
	The 3 friends are introduced to us in 2:11. They've heard about all of Job's troubles so they set out to sympathise with him. As they approach they're genuinely moved by his plight and join him silently in his grief. Not until Job finally raises his voice to express his pain and distress do they begin to speak to him, to counsel and sympathise with him. And notice they start off very carefully. They acknowledge his wise counsel in the past. Now they're here to offer him the sort of care that he's given to others in the past. It's only as the discussion moves on and the friends discover just how angry Job is with God and how Job won't accept their analysis of the situation that their approach changes from support to direct rebuke.
	Remember the book is structured as a series of exchanges. Each friend speaks, then Job replies. This sequence is repeated 3 times but the third time the pattern is disrupted. Bildad's speech is only short and Zophar doesn't speak at all, leaving Job with a long last word. In the end their silence is a sign that they just can't refute him. You see, their problem is that their argument is so superficial that in the end it's totally inadequate for the situation. They're expressing the conventional opinions of the author's day which in the end can't cope with the reality of evil in the world. In fact as you look at them you realise that the three friends represent 3 similar but independent religious approaches.
	Eliphaz is a mystic. He appeals to higher powers for his insights: 'I had a dream, a spirit glided past my face, there was silence, then I heard a voice." (4:15f)
	Bildad on the other hand is a traditionalist. He's happy to accept what the wisdom of the ages has taught. So he appeals to the church fathers: 8:8: 'Inquire now of bygone generations, and consider what their ancestors have found; ⁹for we are but of yesterday, and we know nothing, for our days on earth are but a shadow.'
	Finally, Zophar is an intellectual. He thinks Job is just talking nonsense. He's responding through his emotions not his brain. If only he'd apply his mind to the situation he'd find out the truth: 11:2f 'Should a multitude of words go unanswered, and should one full of talk be vindicated? ³Should your babble put others to silence, and when you mock, shall no one shame you? ... ¹²a stupid person will get understanding, when a wild ass is born human.'
	But notice that although the friends come from different perspectives, they're united in their theological beliefs about suffering. Eliphaz spells it out in his first speech (4:7-8) 'Who that was innocent ever perished? Or where were the upright cut off? ⁸As I have seen, those who plow iniquity and sow trouble reap the same.'
	Here is what we saw last week. The easiest explanation of suffering, if you understand the sovereignty of God, is retribution. If people suffer it's because they're evil. Each of the friends says the same thing. So Bildad, in Ch 18:5 says: 'Surely the light of the wicked is put out, and the flame of their fire does not shine.' No room for exceptions, no room for any other explanation. Simple cause and effect. Nothing can contradict it. Except of course, Job. Job doesn't fit the theory. He's a pillar of respectability. Everyone knows it. Yet his property is destroyed, his family killed and he's suffering some dreadful skin disease.
	So what do they do? Do they struggle with the issue? No, they bury their heads in the sand. Bildad (8:4) suggests that maybe it was Job's children who sinned. Of course that doesn't explain Job's own illness. Eliphaz points out that everyone sins. We're people of dust. There's no point claiming to be sinless. He says 'What are mortals, that they can be clean? Or those born of woman, that they can be righteous?' (15:14). Zophar suggests that Job has committed so many sins that God has even forgotten some of them. (11:6 NIV)
	But the trouble is, all these arguments miss the point. Job doesn't claim to be perfect. His complaint is that he's suffering beyond all proportion to the minor sins that he like every one else has committed. He knows that we all sin. It's just that he's experiencing a level of suffering that's more than he thinks can be justified. In end the only way his friends can explain what's happening to him is to accuse him unjustly of crimes that they say he must have committed. Otherwise why would God be punishing him? 'For you have exacted pledges from your family for no reason, and stripped the naked of their clothing. ⁷You have given no water to the weary to drink, and you have withheld bread from the hungry. ⁸The powerful possess the land, and the favored live in it. ⁹You have sent widows away empty-handed, and the arms of the orphans you have crushed." (Eliphaz, Job 22:4-9) Now, in the end Job refutes these claims in one of his own speeches but his friends can only think there must be something along this line that's caused his suffering. The alternative is unthinkable: that God might pervert justice! No, Job is simply compounding his sin by ignoring God's rebuke and calling God a liar. All that does is to add blasphemy and heresy to his other sins (15:2).
	But Job won't be manipulated or pressurised into false confessions. He doesn't fit their rigid theological framework and he won't give in to their pressure tactics. (27:2-5) 'I will never speak falsehood. I will never admit that you are right - I hold fast my righteousness, and will not let it go.'
	Someone once said that it's impossible to break down prejudice by rational argument. And so it is here. They know Job must be a sinner. Why else would these things be happening to him? Their solutions are already worked out.
	Job
	But not Job's. He's not going to rest until he understands what's causing these things to happen to him. He wants a rational explanation but not the one offered by his friends. He prefers to struggle with his uncertainty until an answer is found. So in 10:1-3 he calls on God to explain himself, to tell him what charges he has against him. He says: 'I will give free utterance to my complaint; I will speak in the bitterness of my soul. ... ³Does it seem good to you to oppress, to despise the work of your hands and favor the schemes of the wicked?" Notice that Job understands the common theology of suffering. But he can't see how he fits it. In fact it seems to him that far from punishing the wicked and rewarding the righteous, it's working the other way around. God seems to bless the schemes of the wicked.
	Now we'd have to say there's some evidence for Job's contention wouldn't we? We often see examples of people who have become rich and powerful through unjust, dare we say, wicked scheming. We see terrorists who manipulate their followers to destroy the lives of hundreds even thousands of people at one stroke. We see people who are found innocent of terrible crimes on a technicality. We see company managers who fiddle the books to protect their interests and sometimes get away with it. This is an unjust world. Clearly not all who suffer are wicked, and conversely, not all who are wicked suffer.
	So Job cries out, declaring his innocence: 'If God has a charge against me let me hear them.' Then in ch31 he presents a moving affidavit in which he swears his innocence. "⁶Let me be weighed in a just balance, and let God know my integrity!" And he goes on and on with all sorts of areas where some are seen to be unrighteous, but not him! He says "I'm innocent. And God knows it. And all the time God is smiling on the deeds of the wicked."
	Now notice that he doesn't deny the theological orthodoxy of what they're saying. But something has happened that has changed his theology. He can only conclude that God is being unjust. In fact the more he thinks about the world the more he realises how cruel God is. Far from being just God is so far beyond us that he's unaccountable for his actions. 9:14ff: 'How then can I answer him, choosing my words with him? ¹⁵Though I am innocent, I cannot answer him; I must appeal for mercy to my accuser. ¹⁶ If I summoned him and he answered me, I do not believe that he would listen to my voice." He's thinking, there can be no justice where one's accuser is also one's judge. What hope have I got. Nor can I rely on strength. God is mighty. I'm a mere mortal. Who can oppose God?
	Yet, he isn't scared to face the reality of his situation. Even having realised what a hopeless situation he's in, he doesn't give up. So why doesn't he give up? Why doesn't he turn away from God altogether? Why doesn't he take his wife's advice to curse God and die? Why does he continue to call out to God in complaint? Why is it that he never abandons God? That's the interesting thing isn't it. Job is never an unbeliever and he never becomes one. He never comes to the conclusion that Bertrand Russell came to. All the way through the book he's a man of faith, but the sort of faith that doesn't hide from the difficulties, rather wrestles with them.
	Job's struggles, you see, are intellectual, emotional and spiritual. And they're evidence not of the weakness of his faith but of its tenacity and resilience. The real difference we find between him and his friends is that they're satisfied with theories. God is an intellectual abstraction for them. A mere explanation that gives order and logic to the universe. But for Job, what matters is the personal relationship he has with God. Only in that context could his desperate questions be resolved. So he turns not to atheism, but to crying out to God for some revelation of himself. He prays - angry, bitter prayers, but prayers nevertheless.
	And in response, God's spirit enlightens him every now and then with an unexpected ray of assurance (and we'll see more of this in a couple of weeks time). 13:15f: "I will surely defend my ways to his face. ¹⁶Indeed, this will turn out for my deliverance, for no godless person would dare come before him!" Job longs to meet God face to face. No-one who's rebellious against God would do that. And it's this longing for a personal face to face confrontation with God that at the same time frustrates him and sustains him.
	Again in 23:10: "he knows the way that I take; when he has tested me, I shall come out like gold." Even when faith is so hard, God gives him a glimpse of a truth that keeps him going. And so he perseveres in his quest to meet God personally. And that's why Job has come to be known as the quintessential patient man. He isn't patient because he resigns himself to his suffering. No, his patience is that of a relentless pursuit of the face of God when everything is against him. He says "My eye will see him." And as we'll see next week that quest was eventually answered. That patience was eventually rewarded.
	In fact God promises that all who long for the face of God will find him. At the beginning of the sermon on the mount Jesus told his disciples: "Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God." He knew, better than anyone, what it was like to suffer unjustly, to be separated from God. And he knew that his followers would be persecuted and would suffer for their faith in him. And he wanted us to have the confidence to persevere under those circumstances. So he encouraged us to continue to seek God throughout our lives.
	Well, let's just think for a few moments about how we might apply the teaching of Job to our own lives? One obvious application is to be sure we don't make the same mistake as Job's 3 friends. There's a type of teaching that's actually been around since before the time of Job. These days it's known as Health and Prosperity teaching. It suggests that if only we believe hard enough we'll enjoy any blessing of God we can name. The promise is there - it's just a matter of claiming it in faith. If we truly believe we should be well off. If we have faith we should be healthy. No major illness should beset us. Now it shouldn't take us too long to realise that people who teach these sorts of things are classic descendants of Job's comforters. It sounds spiritual until you realise that there are plenty of faithful Christians in the world today who pray hard for blessings or healing and don't see it. We had a friend some years ago who had an untreatable brain tumour. Our Church and especially a faithful group of his friends prayed for him to be healed and it didn't happen. And there were some people in the congregation who said it was because of his lack of faith and the lack of faith of his wife that he wasn't healed. Well, I believe those people were 'Job's comforters'.
	Similarly there's a school of thinking around that tries to find spiritual causes for people's psychological problems. So if you watched 'Bewitched' as a child (probably 'Buffy' or 'Charmed' or 'Harry Potter' now), or read fantasy literature, or had some connection with the occult, you need to confess it because that's probably the cause of your problems. Now there may be a connection in some cases, particularly for people who have lived in the third world where the occult is a serious problem for Christians, and that needs to be checked out, but to make an automatic connection is to make the same mistake as Job's friends. Rather we need to acknowledge that there are some who need to be counselled not as sinners but as victims. Not as rebels, but as casualties. And counsellors who ignore that possibility are just burying their heads in the sand.
	Also as we just said, this is a great encouragement to show the same courage as Job. To face our problems and bring them to God. Not to find excuses or ignore them, but to face them in the knowledge that God wants us to have a personal relationship with him.
	And that's our final piece of application. Don't be satisfied with anything less than a personal relationship with God. Don't be afraid to risk everything for the possibility of such a relationship. Because it's worth it! It may not be easy to come to. Faith isn't something we can turn on like a tap. We may have to struggle as Job did. But the result, if we'll do it, will be a far more profound faith. Authentic faith doesn't mean abandoning our personal integrity. Rather, God is the God of truth so he wants us to maintain our integrity at all costs. He says 'I desire truth in the inward being'. So let's learn that there's nothing unspiritual in struggling with our doubts, with our pains, with our complaints or anger with God. What's unspiritual is to run away from our questions. All that does is to deny our faith. As we struggle with our faith we may have to weep as Job did. It may take as long for us as it appears to have taken for Job, but for some that may be the only way to find the real God. God would rather we wrestle with him than abandon him or make him into an intellectual abstraction.


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