Great Old Testament Prayers: Job (Job 42.1-6)

Introduction

A guy wakes up after surgery and his doctor says, “Well, I’ve got some good news and some bad news. Which do you want first?” So the guy says, “Let’s start with the bad news.” So the doctor says, “We amputated the wrong leg. So you’re going to lose both of them now.” The patient pauses in shock and then he starts screaming and shouting. Then he remembers. There’s good news as well. “So what about the good news, doctor?” “Well the good news,” says the doctor, “the good news is the bloke in the next bed wants to buy your trainers.”

We can laugh but of course for many people the news is only ever bad news. I know a couple who lost their three children to leukaemia before they reached adulthood. I know a man whose wife has been in a vegetative state for two and a half decades. All those people are committed Christians and live surprisingly free and happy lives, though the pain never really goes away.

We all know people who suffer greatly. It can be the woman whose husband’s mind is fragmenting with dementia. It gets worse every day. This is the man she married, but he doesn’t recognise her any more, his personality has changed beyond recognition, he shouts all day and she is exhausted but she can’t bear to put him in a home.

It can be the man or woman who was abused sexually all their childhood. The identity crisis and the shame that broke them as a child has stalked them all their adult life and they feel they’ll never be able to commit to a stable relationship.

Over the next few weeks we are looking at some great Old Testament prayers. Last week it was Abraham’s haggling prayer of intercession. Next Sunday it’ll be David’s beautiful expression of trust in God’s provision. We’ll come across the prayer of a disgraced woman and a desperate man. In these prayers there’s passion, there’s faith, there’s sorrow, there’s restlessness, there’s joy, there’s brokenness - all the emotions of life.

Because prayer is about God being real to us when we allow ourselves to be real with him.

Introducing Job

But today, it’s the prayer of a man called Job from the book in the Bible that’s named after him. On Valentine’s Day, it’s the prayer of a man who became unloved and unloveable.

What do we know about Job? There are two basic things you need to know. First, Job is a good man who lives right and loves God. He’s a model citizen. The Bible calls him “blameless.” Secondly, he suffered a great deal – more than most of us here today will suffer all our lifetimes added together.

One of our most celebrated poets Alfred Tennyson once called the book of Job "the greatest poem in ancient or modern times." That’s quite a complement coming from him.

Some of our colloquial English expressions, even today, come from this book. No one wants to be consoled by a "Job's comforter" and the "patience of Job" is proverbial. It’s the book in the Bible that says, “I know my redeemer lives.”

Job is one of the oldest books we have -not just in the Bible- but in the whole of world literature and it deals with one of the oldest questions of all; why do bad things happen to good people? That’s what we all want to know isn’t it? If God is both perfectly loving and all powerful, why doesn’t he stop children getting cancer?

That’s what the book of Job explores. Most of the book is a long, quite repetitive dialogue between Job and his so-called friends. And the two questions they keep coming back to are these; 1) how can you believe in a good God when everything around you is falling apart? And 2) what goes around comes around - if you suffer badly, how can this not be some kind of karma? And the book of Job shows that easy answers are not helpful at all. Things are a lot more complicated than that.

So here’s how the book goes. In chapter 1, God and Satan are talking about things and the question arises as to whether Job would abandon his faith and curse God if he had to go through hell on earth. Satan says “I think he would.” God says “I know he wouldn’t.” So Satan says “I bet you.” God says, “OK, you’re on.”

Every good drama has suspense and tension - and this is no exception. Because we get all get to hear about the discussion in heaven and the reason why this good man is suffering so much. But Job and his friends never do - even at the end.

In 2011, a video about a man who got struck by lightning, not once but twice, went viral. As it happens, it turned out to be a fake. If ever you see something amazing on the Internet, check it out on snopes.com before you share it around. Christians should really care if stuff is true or not. So this story about an amazing misfortune turned out to be false.

But the truth is that in one day, Job lost all his flocks (which were his source of revenue), he lost all his servants (which were a symbol of his wealth), and his house collapsed on his children, killing them all. If you checked this out with a bit of basic internet research at the time it would be shown to be true. Other Bible authors speak of Job as a real person who actually lived and this man appears in other ancient writings outside the Bible too.

What’s Job going to do? Curse God? Write an angry book called “The God Delusion”? Will he abandon his faith? Will he become a bitter old man?

What happened to him in chapter 1 is bad enough, but to add insult to injury, it also tells us in that all these disasters occur just after Job specifically prays that they won't.

Not long after that, Job breaks out in painful and itchy sores from head to toe and he ends up sitting on an ash heap because nobody wants to see his unsightly appearance.

At which point we're told his wife begins to nag him. "Why don't you just get it over with? Call God names; go on! Perhaps he'll put you out of your misery." Poor old Job. He probably feels like he just wants to be left alone.

Which is when his opinionated mates turn up. By this time, Job is so disfigured by his sores that they don't recognise him at first. When they realise it’s him they get upset – and start to weep and mourn as if they were at his funeral, which I'm sure must have cheered him up no end. What a tonic that would have been. Wailing and dirges, what a blessing.

In modern terms, this one man loses his job, his savings, his home, his family and his health – all in less than a week. His whole world collapses around him in a matter of days.

Most of this book is Job’s response to the battering he gets in chapters 1 and 2. He goes round and round in circles with his friends who try over and over again to tell him that he must have done something bad to deserve what has happened to him.

It would be nice and easy if mass murderers and sadistic tyrants all died slow, painful deaths and good people all lived to a good age and slipped away peacefully in their beds. But we know that they don’t, at least not always.

Life is a Test

One of the Bible’s most repeated truths is this; life is a test. It’s a series of challenges about trusting God. And how we handle all the rubbish life throws us is important – as is how we deal with the good stuff.

A friend of mine, also called John, was betrayed by a work colleague  – stabbed him in the back – the test for him was this: am I going to make it worse by getting my revenge – which is what he really wanted to do – or am I going to break that cycle of sin by blessing instead of cursing?

When you’ve been deeply disappointed and your hopes have been dashed the test is this: are you going to mope around and feel sorry for yourself and turn to drink or lash out with angry words – or can you break that cycle of disillusionment by finding joy in the Lord, which is your strength?

When you’re sick and you’re not getting any better and it’s dragging on, when you’re facing death and you can’t stop the dark thoughts, when you can’t find work and you’re struggling with not enough money, or when singleness is painfully lonely, or when your marriage is emotionally suffocating, or when the children are driving you mad – these things are tests. We all face them. And God is looking for character.

Well, in chapter 29 Job finally gives it both barrels. In his final discourse he longs for the days of his youth, when he was in his prime and everything was fine and dandy. He’s at the end of his rope. He says, “I cry out to you God, but you don’t answer. I stand up and you just look at me. I hoped things would get better, but everything just keeps getting worse.” He says, “You’re going to let me die here aren’t you?”

Then he goes on to say once again what a good life he’s led and how he doesn’t deserve any of what has happened to him and he finishes with a challenge. “I have led a good life. I have suffered more than anyone I know. It’s not fair. I don’t deserve this. Why is it happening? So answer that then, God.”

Life is a mystery

In chapters 38-41 God gives, not an answer but a reply. It’s a reply of 77 questions, none of which Job is able to answer.

God shows Job that he is above him and beyond him and over him. His ways are greater, grander, nobler stranger, and wiser than Job’s ways. Here’s a quick summary:

·         Do you understand the amazing intricacies of my creation, the staggering complexities of it all?

·         Were you there giving me advice when I put it together?

·         Do you care for and provide for the variety of flora and fauna in my creation, how they operate and interdepend?

·         Do you think you could manage the shop in my absence?

·         Can you master my creation? Think of the blue whale for example. Do you have the power and wisdom to control one of them?

·         Do you they listen to you and go where you say?

·         You question my wisdom in my dealings with you, but what wisdom do you have to deal with all of this?

And after those 77 questions, to which the answer each time is “no,” it all falls silent. In chapter 42 Job makes his response.

“I know that you can do all things; no purpose of yours can be thwarted.
You asked, ‘Who is this that obscures my plans without knowledge?’
Surely I spoke of things I did not understand,

things too wonderful for me to know.

You said, ‘Listen now, and I will speak;
I will question you, and you shall answer me.’
My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you.
Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.”

There is wisdom in a prayer that says to God:

“What am I doing comparing my ideas of what’s right and wrong with your eternal wisdom?

Who am I to flex the muscles of my knowledge before the might and power of God who made the heavens?

Who am I to nurse a grievance against the righteous judge of all the earth?

I’ve been mouthing off like God owes me a favour – the truth is I don’t know what I’m talking about and every good thing I have is a gift.”

Ending

I want to draw to a close with some words for anyone here who is going through a season of suffering. Like Job, you’re asking questions day after day and no answer seems to come.

I think we all suffer to some extent just because we live in a fragile, broken, fallen, messed up world where everybody, believers included, are hit by the tragic consequences of sin. We don’t live in Paradise. It’s only in heaven that there is no more mourning, crying, pain and death. But there might be a more specific reason behind suffering.

In my experience, people ask four questions when they suffer for a prolonged period.

1. Someone once asked me when he fell ill for six months, “Am I being punished by God for sin in my life?”

My answer is this: God doesn’t punish Christians for sin, but the Bible says that he does sometimes discipline us, with the goal of restoring us to a right relationship with him, which is what is good for us. If that’s the case for you, confess any known sin to him. Repent of any wrong attitudes you know about. The blood of Christ cleanses from all sin and restores health to our souls.

2. A question I sometimes ask when everything seems to go wrong at once is this: “Is this an attack from the devil as I try to press an advance for Christ?”

My answer is this: The Bible says that Satan can and does attack us with personal criticism, doubts, temptations, afflictions, dark moods, fears and more. It says to resist him in the faith and he will flee. Call on God for strength in the time of spiritual battle.

3. One woman once said to me “Maybe I am being selected for a time of testing like Job was?”

My answer is this: It could be. Testing is to refine faith, make it purer and stronger. If you are being tested, seek encouragement and accept help and from your brothers and sisters in Christ. Testing is for a time and it will end. Prove yourself faithful and pass the test. You will be stronger afterwards and blessed.

4. Another woman reflected with me a few years ago about a time of suffering she had just come out of. She said, “I think God allowed me to suffer to soften my heart and teach me compassion for others who are hurting.”

My answer is this: Yes, God does use our pain to increase our compassion and empathy for the broken-hearted. The Bible talks about God being “in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.” Resist feeling sorry for yourself. Ask God to open up doors of opportunity so you can bless others through your testimony of how God lifted you during your own season of pain.

Let’s stand to pray…

Sermon preached at All Saints' Preston on Tees, 14 February 2016