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11/8/02

Job & his God Job 38:1-41

There's no doubt that Job feels free to express his true feelings about God as he confronts the issue of how God could do such terrible things to him when he's always sought to be so faithful to God. But notice he doesn't just go around bad mouthing God to other people. He does the right thing. He takes his complaint straight to God as he finds himself asking the age old question: Why? Why me God?

He doesn't understand why he's suffering when he's totally innocent. He refuses to accept the common understanding of suffering held by his society, that all suffering is a form of divine retribution. As we saw last week, that's how Job's friends interpreted it. There must be some hidden sin in your life that you're not aware of or that you're refusing to admit. God is punishing you for it. But Job is adamant that he's innocent. No, I've done nothing to deserve this trouble. This theory of retribution doesn't fit the facts. In fact, he says, if you look around you there are hundreds of sinful people who seem to prosper, while someone like me suffers in this horrendous way. The theory just doesn't fit the world as I see it.

So he says God owes him an explanation. But then he realises what a dilemma he's in. God is so far removed from him that he can never expect to get a satisfactory response from him. All he can do is cry out in frustration, knowing all the time that if God wants to he can just go on ignoring him for as long as he likes.

Yet that doesn't deter him, does it? No, he goes on and on demanding to see God face to face. He says, "Come and answer my charges." In his final speech in chs29-31 Job outlines the charges he has against God as though he envisages a court case where his complaints can be heard. He reminds God of how everyone used to look up to him as a spiritual leader of the community. He describes his righteousness, the way he kept himself away from evil, the way he cared for the weak and powerless, the way he always treated his workers with honesty and justice, the way he always placed his trust in God alone, worshipping him as the only true God. And as he describes this righteous way of life, he intersperses it with the way God has reversed his fortunes, has brought him hardship rather than blessing, showing just how unjust God's treatment of him has been.

And he finishes his speech in ch 31 with the despairing cry, "Oh, that I had one to hear me! (Here is my signature! let the Almighty answer me!) Oh, that I had the indictment written by my adversary!" He signs his affidavit and asks that his accuser might put his indictment in writing so he could give an answer to whatever it contains. The trouble is, he feels that he has no-one who will hear his complaint, no-one to appeal to. If God is punishing him, what higher court of appeal is there? No, God has all the odds on his side. What kind of justice is it that convicts someone without a trial. Natural justice demands that the accused have a chance to defend themselves. So what are the charges that he has to defend?

And so Job's words are ended. And we're left wondering what solution there might be to his dilemma.

It's clear from what we've seen so far that the prevailing theology of suffering, involving retribution as the explanation, is badly lacking in credibility. Job's friends have tried their best to convince Job and us of how Job's circumstances might fit their theories, but without any success. In the end they're left silent, unable to respond to Job's vehement insistence on the injustice of his situation. Their theology is totally inadequate to explain what's happened to him.

So we're left with this dilemma hanging over us. How can a sovereign God allow such suffering in his world?

Then onto the scene comes another interlocutor. A younger man, named Elihu. He comes with another suggestion of a solution. An intellectual rationalisation that has some truth to it, just like the explanation of the friends, but one that, like theirs, in the end doesn't explain what's happened to Job.

Elihu is an angry young man who's been listening patiently but with growing frustration to the arguments of his elders. When they give up he loses patience completely and begins his own interpretation of Job's suffering. He sets out to refute Job where the other 3 friends have failed. His explanation has some similarities to that of the friends, yet with a subtle difference. Elihu begins from the premise that God's justice in dealing with people must be upheld. It's unthinkable that God would pervert justice. We can't let Job get away with that sort of accusation. Yet, unlike the 3 friends he's willing to admit that Job appears to be suffering innocently. Job's error, he says, is that he's misunderstood his present suffering. 33:8-14: ""Surely, you have spoken in my hearing, and I have heard the sound of your words. ⁹You say, 'I am clean, without transgression; I am pure, and there is no iniquity in me. ... ¹⁰God counts me as his enemy; ... ¹²"But in this you are not right. I will answer you: God is greater than any mortal. ¹³Why do you contend against him, saying, 'He will answer none of my words'? ¹⁴For God speaks in one way, and in two, though people do not perceive it."

Elihu's tack is to say that far from God being hostile to him, or remote from him, a silent pursuer, God is actually trying to communicate to Job through his suffering. He says suffering is just one of the means by which God communicates with his creatures. Sometimes it's by a dream or a vision, sometimes it's through our circumstances. Suffering is God's way of disciplining and directing us into right paths. Even those who are righteous need that sort of discipline from time to time. It's actually God's goodness to us that he puts us through various types of suffering to prevent us from falling away from him. So it isn't that Job is sinful. His suffering isn't a rebuke, it's a reminder, it isn't a punishment it's a provision. Job just needs to learn some humility. Instead of taking an arrogant position before God he needs to ask what is God teaching him through this suffering.

Now we have to say that there is some truth to what Elihu suggests. Just as God does punish people for their wickedness at times, so too, he uses suffering at times as a means of discipline. Hebrews 12 talks about suffering as a way that God disciplines us: "Endure trials for the sake of discipline. God is treating you as children; for what child is there whom a parent does not discipline?" (Heb 12:7). But as with the conclusions of the 3 friends, we mustn't make the connection automatic. Elihu falls into the same trap as they do. He's too quick to solve the dilemma. He's right in affirming that God is transcendent, beyond our ability to comprehend, but he actually forgets that fact when it comes to explaining how God operates in the world. You see, if God is truly transcendent then we can only ever have a faltering grasp on the motivation behind his actions. Unless he's revealed his intentions to us directly we can only ever guess at what he has in mind. Elihu thinks he's worked it out, but he's only found one of the reasons behind the sorts of things that happen in this world. No-one can grasp the full extent of God's intentions for his creation except God. And that's what we discover as God himself appears on the scene. In fact what we discover is not an explanation for innocent suffering. But it is, in a way, an answer to Job's dilemma. Because what Job is given is a fresh experience of the majesty of God.

God comes to Job and speaks to him. (Job 38:1-2 NRSV) "Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind: ²"Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?" You can imagine Job and his friends wilting at the knees as they hear God's voice pointing out the futility of their efforts to understand him and his ways, let alone calling him to account. Their whole discussion has been based on human reasoning, both that of the friends, and even the complaints of Job. Even Job has been working from assumption that blessings flow from righteousness. He thinks God owes him something for his righteous behaviour. He wants God to explain why these things have happened to him. But the trouble is, mere human beings can never grasp the complexities of God's work in the world. There is a degree of arrogance in Job's complaint, in his demand that God answer his charges.

Yet at the same time there's a plea in the way he's expressed his complaint not just for rational explanation, but for personal encounter. "Oh, that I knew where I might find him, that I might come even to his dwelling!" (23:3) And here in chs 38-41 God answers Job by fulfilling that request.

Yet in granting his request, notice that God doesn't provide the answers that Job is demanding. He doesn't criticise Job for his demand, for his incessant questioning, but neither does he answer his questions or give any justification for allowing Job to suffer. Instead, he replies to Job with a whole series of rhetorical questions and challenges. (Job 38:4-11 NRSV) "Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. ⁵Who determined its measurements -- surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it? ⁶On what were its bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone ⁷when the morning stars sang together and all the heavenly beings shouted for joy? ⁸"Or who shut in the sea with doors when it burst out from the womb?-- ⁹when I made the clouds its garment, and thick darkness its swaddling band, ¹⁰and prescribed bounds for it, and set bars and doors, ¹¹and said, 'Thus far shall you come, and no farther, and here shall your proud waves be stopped'?" Has he been to the far corners of the earth? Can he master the weather or the sea? Can he tame the ferocious animals of the world, the lion or the wild ox, the crocodiles or the whales; not to mention the dragons with their fiery breath!? (41:14-25) And have you seen the ostrich and the donkey, and the wild mountain goat. Can you explain why they were created. Why God would make creatures that seem to serve no purpose other than to be an amusement? Yet despite how strange they seem, how irrational, what a delight they are!

So what's God doing here? Is he trying to tell Job that there is a rational explanation in the world that we can deduce from our study of the world if we look hard enough? Well, no. In fact the examples he gives are the very things that we may never be able to explain. For all science's wisdom and great research, there are still things that we can't be sure about. We have theories, but no way to test them. Where did the universe come from? How did it start? How big is it? Why do we continue to have cycles of drought and flood? One of the interesting things that have come out of scientific study over the past century has been the conclusion of quantum mechanics that nothing in this world is entirely predictable.

Yet that doesn't mean there is no rational plan behind the universe or that the creation hasn't come about through a carefully worked out design. In fact the opposite is implied here. But what God wants Job to see is that the design behind the world is beyond human understanding. It's a hidden design and wisdom that governs the universe. It's a secret purpose that guides events. And even the mode by which he answers Job is a clue to the hiddenness of the answer. God speaks out of a whirlwind. If you think about it, a whirlwind is synonymous with chaos. Mathematicians have invented a field of study called chaos theory that's used to try to understand phenomena like whirlwinds, tornadoes and the like. And it's out of that realm of seeming irrationality that God speaks.

Notice too, how God extends what he wants Job to understand in ch40. (Job 40:7-12 NRSV) ""Gird up your loins like a man; I will question you, and you declare to me. ⁸Will you even put me in the wrong? Will you condemn me that you may be justified? ⁹Have you an arm like God, and can you thunder with a voice like his? ¹⁰"Deck yourself with majesty and dignity; clothe yourself with glory and splendor. ¹¹Pour out the overflowings of your anger, and look on all who are proud, and abase them. ¹²Look on all who are proud, and bring them low; tread down the wicked where they stand." Can you see what he's saying. "If you think you can question my purposes, then why not go the whole hog? Why not govern the universe by yourself. Do that and I'll gladly explain to you why I do the things I do. Now, of course, if Job could do that then he'd be equal with God. He wouldn't need God to explain himself, because he'd understand everything for himself.

So how would we expect Job to respond to this confrontation by God? He might have responded that God was being unfair still. All along Job had complained that God was too remote from him, too unapproachable, beyond any accountability. And now God has proved him right. All God's done has been to pour scorn on him for his puniness, for his insignificance, for his finiteness.

Or he might have responded, as indeed he does, in humble submission to the God who made him and the whole universe, to a God who is so far beyond him that he could never grasp anything like the extent of his wisdom and knowledge. (Job 42:2-6 NRSV) "I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted. ³'Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?' Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know. ⁴'Hear, and I will speak; I will question you, and you declare to me.' ⁵I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you; ⁶therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes."" Job's questions have been answered not by rational explanation, but by a personal encounter with the living God. No longer does he demand a hearing. No longer does he accuse God of injustice, of callous manipulation of him. Finally he realises his place in the broader scheme of things. Finally he sees himself not as one who is able to call God to account, but as one who in the presence of God is of little account. And so he withdraws his complaint. He turns back from the path of protest. He submits himself to God in humble acquiescence.

Yet he turns back in the knowledge, not just that God is beyond him, but that God cares about him personally. It's the personal encounter with God, you see, that's made all the difference. He had known of God by word of mouth, but now he's met him face to face. His complaint has been answered in a sense by the knowledge that as transcendent as God may be, he is in no way a remote God. Rather, as we now know, he's a God who comes to dwell among his people. A God who lowers himself to become one of us; who suffers all that we suffer, who is tempted in every way as we are, yet without sin.

Job realises that the God who can bring the universe into being, who keeps it moving along, who sees everything that happens and who oversees the smallest detail, can be trusted to oversee the details of his life, even if Job doesn't understand it, even if Job doesn't like it! And so Job submits to God with his faith, his understanding of God, deepened beyond measure by this personal encounter with the living God. The dilemma is not solved. The questions still hang there, but they're put in the background by a greater revelation of a God who becomes involved with his creation in an immediate and personal way and next week we'll hear more about how that helps us with this problem of innocent suffering.

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	Sermon of the Week	Look up the passage
	11/8/02
	Job & his God	Job 38:1-41

	There's no doubt that Job feels free to express his true feelings about God as he confronts the issue of how God could do such terrible things to him when he's always sought to be so faithful to God. But notice he doesn't just go around bad mouthing God to other people. He does the right thing. He takes his complaint straight to God as he finds himself asking the age old question: Why? Why me God?
	He doesn't understand why he's suffering when he's totally innocent. He refuses to accept the common understanding of suffering held by his society, that all suffering is a form of divine retribution. As we saw last week, that's how Job's friends interpreted it. There must be some hidden sin in your life that you're not aware of or that you're refusing to admit. God is punishing you for it. But Job is adamant that he's innocent. No, I've done nothing to deserve this trouble. This theory of retribution doesn't fit the facts. In fact, he says, if you look around you there are hundreds of sinful people who seem to prosper, while someone like me suffers in this horrendous way. The theory just doesn't fit the world as I see it.
	So he says God owes him an explanation. But then he realises what a dilemma he's in. God is so far removed from him that he can never expect to get a satisfactory response from him. All he can do is cry out in frustration, knowing all the time that if God wants to he can just go on ignoring him for as long as he likes.
	Yet that doesn't deter him, does it? No, he goes on and on demanding to see God face to face. He says, "Come and answer my charges." In his final speech in chs29-31 Job outlines the charges he has against God as though he envisages a court case where his complaints can be heard. He reminds God of how everyone used to look up to him as a spiritual leader of the community. He describes his righteousness, the way he kept himself away from evil, the way he cared for the weak and powerless, the way he always treated his workers with honesty and justice, the way he always placed his trust in God alone, worshipping him as the only true God. And as he describes this righteous way of life, he intersperses it with the way God has reversed his fortunes, has brought him hardship rather than blessing, showing just how unjust God's treatment of him has been.
	And he finishes his speech in ch 31 with the despairing cry, "Oh, that I had one to hear me! (Here is my signature! let the Almighty answer me!) Oh, that I had the indictment written by my adversary!" He signs his affidavit and asks that his accuser might put his indictment in writing so he could give an answer to whatever it contains. The trouble is, he feels that he has no-one who will hear his complaint, no-one to appeal to. If God is punishing him, what higher court of appeal is there? No, God has all the odds on his side. What kind of justice is it that convicts someone without a trial. Natural justice demands that the accused have a chance to defend themselves. So what are the charges that he has to defend?
	And so Job's words are ended. And we're left wondering what solution there might be to his dilemma.
	It's clear from what we've seen so far that the prevailing theology of suffering, involving retribution as the explanation, is badly lacking in credibility. Job's friends have tried their best to convince Job and us of how Job's circumstances might fit their theories, but without any success. In the end they're left silent, unable to respond to Job's vehement insistence on the injustice of his situation. Their theology is totally inadequate to explain what's happened to him.
	So we're left with this dilemma hanging over us. How can a sovereign God allow such suffering in his world?
	Then onto the scene comes another interlocutor. A younger man, named Elihu. He comes with another suggestion of a solution. An intellectual rationalisation that has some truth to it, just like the explanation of the friends, but one that, like theirs, in the end doesn't explain what's happened to Job.
	Elihu is an angry young man who's been listening patiently but with growing frustration to the arguments of his elders. When they give up he loses patience completely and begins his own interpretation of Job's suffering. He sets out to refute Job where the other 3 friends have failed. His explanation has some similarities to that of the friends, yet with a subtle difference. Elihu begins from the premise that God's justice in dealing with people must be upheld. It's unthinkable that God would pervert justice. We can't let Job get away with that sort of accusation. Yet, unlike the 3 friends he's willing to admit that Job appears to be suffering innocently. Job's error, he says, is that he's misunderstood his present suffering. 33:8-14: ""Surely, you have spoken in my hearing, and I have heard the sound of your words. ⁹You say, 'I am clean, without transgression; I am pure, and there is no iniquity in me. ... ¹⁰God counts me as his enemy; ... ¹²"But in this you are not right. I will answer you: God is greater than any mortal. ¹³Why do you contend against him, saying, 'He will answer none of my words'? ¹⁴For God speaks in one way, and in two, though people do not perceive it."
	Elihu's tack is to say that far from God being hostile to him, or remote from him, a silent pursuer, God is actually trying to communicate to Job through his suffering. He says suffering is just one of the means by which God communicates with his creatures. Sometimes it's by a dream or a vision, sometimes it's through our circumstances. Suffering is God's way of disciplining and directing us into right paths. Even those who are righteous need that sort of discipline from time to time. It's actually God's goodness to us that he puts us through various types of suffering to prevent us from falling away from him. So it isn't that Job is sinful. His suffering isn't a rebuke, it's a reminder, it isn't a punishment it's a provision. Job just needs to learn some humility. Instead of taking an arrogant position before God he needs to ask what is God teaching him through this suffering.
	Now we have to say that there is some truth to what Elihu suggests. Just as God does punish people for their wickedness at times, so too, he uses suffering at times as a means of discipline. Hebrews 12 talks about suffering as a way that God disciplines us: "Endure trials for the sake of discipline. God is treating you as children; for what child is there whom a parent does not discipline?" (Heb 12:7). But as with the conclusions of the 3 friends, we mustn't make the connection automatic. Elihu falls into the same trap as they do. He's too quick to solve the dilemma. He's right in affirming that God is transcendent, beyond our ability to comprehend, but he actually forgets that fact when it comes to explaining how God operates in the world. You see, if God is truly transcendent then we can only ever have a faltering grasp on the motivation behind his actions. Unless he's revealed his intentions to us directly we can only ever guess at what he has in mind. Elihu thinks he's worked it out, but he's only found one of the reasons behind the sorts of things that happen in this world. No-one can grasp the full extent of God's intentions for his creation except God. And that's what we discover as God himself appears on the scene. In fact what we discover is not an explanation for innocent suffering. But it is, in a way, an answer to Job's dilemma. Because what Job is given is a fresh experience of the majesty of God.
	God comes to Job and speaks to him. (Job 38:1-2 NRSV) "Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind: ²"Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?" You can imagine Job and his friends wilting at the knees as they hear God's voice pointing out the futility of their efforts to understand him and his ways, let alone calling him to account. Their whole discussion has been based on human reasoning, both that of the friends, and even the complaints of Job. Even Job has been working from assumption that blessings flow from righteousness. He thinks God owes him something for his righteous behaviour. He wants God to explain why these things have happened to him. But the trouble is, mere human beings can never grasp the complexities of God's work in the world. There is a degree of arrogance in Job's complaint, in his demand that God answer his charges.
	Yet at the same time there's a plea in the way he's expressed his complaint not just for rational explanation, but for personal encounter. "Oh, that I knew where I might find him, that I might come even to his dwelling!" (23:3) And here in chs 38-41 God answers Job by fulfilling that request.
	Yet in granting his request, notice that God doesn't provide the answers that Job is demanding. He doesn't criticise Job for his demand, for his incessant questioning, but neither does he answer his questions or give any justification for allowing Job to suffer. Instead, he replies to Job with a whole series of rhetorical questions and challenges. (Job 38:4-11 NRSV) "Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. ⁵Who determined its measurements -- surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it? ⁶On what were its bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone ⁷when the morning stars sang together and all the heavenly beings shouted for joy? ⁸"Or who shut in the sea with doors when it burst out from the womb?-- ⁹when I made the clouds its garment, and thick darkness its swaddling band, ¹⁰and prescribed bounds for it, and set bars and doors, ¹¹and said, 'Thus far shall you come, and no farther, and here shall your proud waves be stopped'?" Has he been to the far corners of the earth? Can he master the weather or the sea? Can he tame the ferocious animals of the world, the lion or the wild ox, the crocodiles or the whales; not to mention the dragons with their fiery breath!? (41:14-25) And have you seen the ostrich and the donkey, and the wild mountain goat. Can you explain why they were created. Why God would make creatures that seem to serve no purpose other than to be an amusement? Yet despite how strange they seem, how irrational, what a delight they are!
	So what's God doing here? Is he trying to tell Job that there is a rational explanation in the world that we can deduce from our study of the world if we look hard enough? Well, no. In fact the examples he gives are the very things that we may never be able to explain. For all science's wisdom and great research, there are still things that we can't be sure about. We have theories, but no way to test them. Where did the universe come from? How did it start? How big is it? Why do we continue to have cycles of drought and flood? One of the interesting things that have come out of scientific study over the past century has been the conclusion of quantum mechanics that nothing in this world is entirely predictable.
	Yet that doesn't mean there is no rational plan behind the universe or that the creation hasn't come about through a carefully worked out design. In fact the opposite is implied here. But what God wants Job to see is that the design behind the world is beyond human understanding. It's a hidden design and wisdom that governs the universe. It's a secret purpose that guides events. And even the mode by which he answers Job is a clue to the hiddenness of the answer. God speaks out of a whirlwind. If you think about it, a whirlwind is synonymous with chaos. Mathematicians have invented a field of study called chaos theory that's used to try to understand phenomena like whirlwinds, tornadoes and the like. And it's out of that realm of seeming irrationality that God speaks.
	Notice too, how God extends what he wants Job to understand in ch40. (Job 40:7-12 NRSV) ""Gird up your loins like a man; I will question you, and you declare to me. ⁸Will you even put me in the wrong? Will you condemn me that you may be justified? ⁹Have you an arm like God, and can you thunder with a voice like his? ¹⁰"Deck yourself with majesty and dignity; clothe yourself with glory and splendor. ¹¹Pour out the overflowings of your anger, and look on all who are proud, and abase them. ¹²Look on all who are proud, and bring them low; tread down the wicked where they stand." Can you see what he's saying. "If you think you can question my purposes, then why not go the whole hog? Why not govern the universe by yourself. Do that and I'll gladly explain to you why I do the things I do. Now, of course, if Job could do that then he'd be equal with God. He wouldn't need God to explain himself, because he'd understand everything for himself.
	So how would we expect Job to respond to this confrontation by God? He might have responded that God was being unfair still. All along Job had complained that God was too remote from him, too unapproachable, beyond any accountability. And now God has proved him right. All God's done has been to pour scorn on him for his puniness, for his insignificance, for his finiteness.
	Or he might have responded, as indeed he does, in humble submission to the God who made him and the whole universe, to a God who is so far beyond him that he could never grasp anything like the extent of his wisdom and knowledge. (Job 42:2-6 NRSV) "I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted. ³'Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?' Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know. ⁴'Hear, and I will speak; I will question you, and you declare to me.' ⁵I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you; ⁶therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes."" Job's questions have been answered not by rational explanation, but by a personal encounter with the living God. No longer does he demand a hearing. No longer does he accuse God of injustice, of callous manipulation of him. Finally he realises his place in the broader scheme of things. Finally he sees himself not as one who is able to call God to account, but as one who in the presence of God is of little account. And so he withdraws his complaint. He turns back from the path of protest. He submits himself to God in humble acquiescence.
	Yet he turns back in the knowledge, not just that God is beyond him, but that God cares about him personally. It's the personal encounter with God, you see, that's made all the difference. He had known of God by word of mouth, but now he's met him face to face. His complaint has been answered in a sense by the knowledge that as transcendent as God may be, he is in no way a remote God. Rather, as we now know, he's a God who comes to dwell among his people. A God who lowers himself to become one of us; who suffers all that we suffer, who is tempted in every way as we are, yet without sin.
	Job realises that the God who can bring the universe into being, who keeps it moving along, who sees everything that happens and who oversees the smallest detail, can be trusted to oversee the details of his life, even if Job doesn't understand it, even if Job doesn't like it! And so Job submits to God with his faith, his understanding of God, deepened beyond measure by this personal encounter with the living God. The dilemma is not solved. The questions still hang there, but they're put in the background by a greater revelation of a God who becomes involved with his creation in an immediate and personal way and next week we'll hear more about how that helps us with this problem of innocent suffering.