Introduction
From today until Easter next year, (that’s 33 weeks, not including a break for Christmas), our preaching series at King’s is going to focus on heroes of faith in the Old Testament.
We’re going to be learning together about how very different men and women lived by faith in very different circumstances. And we’ll listen to what God is saying to us through what they did.
I say ‘what they did’ deliberately, because the Bible is consistent in asserting that faith is not so much about what we believe, (even demons believe), but faith is about what we do, or, better still, how we live.
Some of the heroes we will follow are well known; many non-Christians who have never opened a Bible will have heard of Joseph and his amazing technicolour dream-coat. Other heroes in our series are more obscure. I'd bet that many churchgoing Christians couldn't tell you a single thing about Jehoshaphat for example.
But, whether famous or anonymous, all our heroes displayed their faith in a unique way. Joseph; faith when wronged. Moses; faith when leading. Joshua; faith when advancing. Gideon; faith when outnumbered. Samson; faith when faithless. Hannah; faith when desperate. Samuel; faith when young. Jehoshaphat; faith when dismayed. Hezekiah; faith when ridiculed. Josiah; faith when convicted. Jeremiah; faith when discouraged. Esther; faith when in danger. Daniel; faith when persecuted. And Nehemiah; faith when stirred.
But today, and over the next two Sundays, we’re starting with Job; faith when suffering. And we’re starting here for two reasons.
Firstly, because the timing feels right. Many of us have faced affliction and pain and grief recently. Is there a word from God in the midst of our sadness and loss which, for some of us, is still very raw?
Secondly, because our new series is roughly chronological and Job is one of the oldest books we have - not just in the Bible - but in the world, full-stop. And it explores one of the oldest questions; why do bad things happen to good people?
Job is a good person. In chapter 9 he admits he is not innocent of sin compared with God, but he is blameless compared to most of his contemporaries. He’s an upstanding and virtuous man. And yet bad things happen to him. Lots of really bad things…
Why is that? If God is good all the time, and if God is able to do all things, whenever he pleases, why does he let Job, someone above reproach, suffer so much? And how can I trust in the goodness of God when, despite trying to live a holy life, everything around me collapses and my prayers seem to have no effect?
The book of Job explores this question at length and it offers some perspectives but - spoiler alert - it never really solves the puzzle.
Let’s read chapter 1 together.
In the land of Uz there lived a man whose name was Job. This man was blameless and upright; he feared God and shunned evil. He had seven sons and three daughters, and he owned seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen and five hundred donkeys, and had a large number of servants. He was the greatest man among all the people of the East. His sons used to hold feasts in their homes on their birthdays, and they would invite their three sisters to eat and drink with them. When a period of feasting had run its course, Job would make arrangements for them to be purified. Early in the morning he would sacrifice a burnt offering for each of them, thinking, ‘Perhaps my children have sinned and cursed God in their hearts.’ This was Job’s regular custom.
One day the angels came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came with them. The Lord said to Satan, ‘Where have you come from?’ Satan answered the Lord, ‘From roaming throughout the earth, going to and fro on it.’ Then the Lord said to Satan, ‘Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil.’ ‘Does Job fear God for nothing?’ Satan replied. ‘Have you not put a hedge around him and his household and everything he has? You have blessed the work of his hands, so that his flocks and herds are spread throughout the land. But now stretch out your hand and strike everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face.’ The Lord said to Satan, ‘Very well, then, everything he has is in your power, but on the man himself do not lay a finger.’ Then Satan went out from the presence of the Lord.
One day when Job’s sons and daughters were feasting and drinking wine at the eldest brother’s house, a messenger came to Job and said, ‘The oxen were ploughing and the donkeys were grazing nearby, and the Sabeans attacked and made off with them. They put the servants to the sword, and I am the only one who has escaped to tell you!’ While he was still speaking, another messenger came and said, ‘The fire of God fell from the heavens and burned up the sheep and the servants, and I am the only one who has escaped to tell you!’ While he was still speaking, another messenger came and said, ‘The Chaldeans formed three raiding parties and swept down on your camels and made off with them. They put the servants to the sword, and I am the only one who has escaped to tell you!’ While he was still speaking, yet another messenger came and said, ‘Your sons and daughters were feasting and drinking wine at the eldest brother’s house, when suddenly a mighty wind swept in from the desert and struck the four corners of the house. It collapsed on them and they are dead, and I am the only one who has escaped to tell you!’
At this, Job got up and tore his robe and shaved his head. Then he fell to the ground in worship and said: ‘Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I shall depart. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised.’ In all this, Job did not sin by charging God with wrongdoing.
The suspense of the drama
Job has a nice life. But to be fair, he has it easy. What if serious misfortune comes his way? Will he lose his faith?
Good film directors and bestselling authors know how to work with suspense and tension - and this drama is no exception. We know, as readers, all about the strange conversation between God and Satan in v7-12. We know what’s behind Job’s sufferings. But neither Job nor anyone else are ever told the reasons for it, even at the end of the book.
Chapter 1 tells us that, in a single day, Job loses all his flocks (which are his livelihood), all his servants (who represent his status), and all his children, his own flesh and blood.
In modern terms, we might say his employer goes bust, leaving him jobless, his entire savings and pension are wiped out, leaving him penniless, his house collapses leaving him homeless, and all his offspring are killed leaving him childless – all that in less than 24 hours.
To add insult to injury, v5 tells us that these personal tragedies all occur shortly after Job gets up early to specifically pray for blessing on each of his children.
Three separate disasters, all on the same day, each leaving one survivor to break the news. That's... strange. Later in the book, three ‘comforters’ speak in turn, in flowing poetic verse. That's even stranger. It makes you wonder, “wait a minute, is this just a story?” And there has been no shortage of scholars who dismiss the book of Job as a myth or a fable. Because it sort of reads like one.
But Ezekiel in the Old Testament, and James in the New, both refer to Job as a real person who actually lived, and Job appears in other ancient writings as well outside the Bible.
How should we understand the book of Job as Christians with a high view of scripture? Most Bible-believing commentators see it as a dramatization of historical events, like The Crown on Netflix or Stephen Spielberg’s film Saving Private Ryan, or a Shakespeare play like Henry V.
Like those three examples I just gave, Job is about real people and true events. And like those three examples, a gifted writer later crafted a work of art from it for us to appreciate. Except in this case, the Holy Spirit inspired the author to write up the ancient oral tradition of the story, and so what we have is not just an epic poem, but the word of God.
Why suffering?
Does the Bible offer us any clues as to why a loving God allows suffering in the good world he made? Yes, it does, and not just in the book of Job.
Firstly, it says that some suffering is caused by personal sin. If I regularly consume cocaine, my financial problems, addiction issues and possible early death are on me. The Bible says, even if it’s in the next life, we reap what we sow. So, some suffering is caused by personal sin.
But chapter 1 is clear that this isn’t the case for Job. He lives a good life, and his suffering is not a consequence of his sinful choices. And it’s not necessarily on you if you are suffering either.
The Bible says that there is a second cause of suffering; other people's sin. Since the fall of Adam and Eve, nothing works like God intended it to. The Covid pandemic, like all sickness, was a consequence of living in a broken and disordered world. So are hurricanes and acid rain and droughts and tsunamis.
Our paradise planet is disfigured by rotting garbage and discarded plastic and toxic waste and unbreathable air. We are vulnerable to earthquakes and floods because people build cheap houses on geological faults and in flood plains. God is one day going to put it all right again, when he renews the heavens and the earth, but in the meantime, some suffering is just what comes from sharing a messed-up world with messed-up people.
Job’s suffering is partly down to this. He is a victim of terrorism in v15, a lightning strike in v16, more terrorism in v17, and a storm in v19. Next week, we’ll see that Job will suffer from ill-health too. Then his wife will turn against him. Then three so-called friends will spend eight chapters judging him and blaming him.
By the way, even in natural disasters, we can find grace. When the Haiti earthquake hit in 2010, people sitting comfortably at home in the UK said, “Why? This is terrible. If there is a God, why would he allow this?”
But on the ground, Tearfund reported that everywhere they went they found people saying, “God is with us in the most amazing ways.”
Throughout this book, as his suffering increases, amazingly Job actually grows in his relationship with God.
The Bible speaks of a third source of suffering; the demonic. There is a spiritual realm all around us that we cannot see.
In Luke 13, we meet a woman whose body is bent over and contorted so that she cannot straighten up at all. Luke specifically says that she had been crippled by an evil spirit. Jesus says that Satan had kept her bound for eighteen long years.
We have a spiritual enemy, Satan, who hates God, who hates us, and who has power to afflict us, though Job 1 and 2 tell us that he is permitted to harm us only up to a limit set by God.
But, let’s be honest, the revelation here that God sometimes allows Satan to afflict innocent people leaves us with more questions than ever.
Response - you give and take away; blessed be your name
What about Job? He never finds out, even at the end of the book, why God lets him suffer like he did. Likewise we may never know why in this life.
But faith is trusting that God does know why and that’s enough for now. Job’s faith is going to wobble as the book goes on as we’ll see over the next two weeks. But his faith just about holds out, even if his patience is tested and hope fails him at times. He will have ups and downs. Not many ups to be honest. And some of the lows will be really low.
But his very first reaction in v20-21 is to fall to the ground, not in despair, not in self-pity, but in worship. “The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised.” God is still God, he still reigns, he’s still good and, whatever happens, he is forever to be praised.
Evangelist to Burundi Simon Guillebaud talks about how humbling it is to live alongside people who have suffered much. He has a colleague called Sarah, whose husband was murdered, so she is now a widow with four children to feed and no Social Security. Yet, he says, her face beams every day, and she constantly praises God for his many blessings to her.
“The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised.”
I heard just this week about a short-term mission team that went to the Caribbean island of Tobago to serve in a Christian leper colony. During a worship meeting, the team leader asked if anyone had a favourite song they wanted to sing. A woman raised her hand straight away.
When he looked at her, he was taken aback by her appearance. Her raised hand was a fingerless stump. Her face was disfigured; her nose, lips and ears had gone. But she shone with joy, and asked, “Could we sing, Count Your Many Blessings?”
The team leader started the song, but he was so overcome with emotion that he couldn’t finish it. He said afterwards, “I’m sure that won’t be the last time I’ll sing that song, but I’ll never again sing it the same way.”
“The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised.”
In the recent weeks and months, in this church, I’ve been humbled to see grandparents of a child who died and parents who miscarried their baby, standing just days after their devastation with hands raised in worship, singing out praise to God with all their hearts.
“The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised.”
Professor Sir Norman Anderson was an outstanding academic with a brilliant legal mind; he lectured on Law at Cambridge University. He was elected to the British Academy of leading scholars, honoured for their distinction in the humanities and social sciences.
He was also a Christian and he wrote a book called The Evidence for the Resurrection which argues from a forensic perspective how compelling the case is for Jesus’ rising from the dead as the four Gospels describe. Anderson was a man of high intelligence and great faith.
But that faith was severely tested when his only son, Hugh, an exceptionally gifted young man, undergraduate at Cambridge, suddenly became ill and died of a brain tumour. A few days later, Anderson spoke, as planned, on Radio 4’s Thought for the Day. He explained why he believed that God raised Jesus from the dead and then he said, “On this I am prepared to stake my life. In this faith my son died just a few days ago." One of the last things he said was, “I'm drawing near to my Lord.” Anderson said, “I am convinced that my son was not mistaken.”
“The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised.”
Yes, but why? What a waste! A Christian in the prime of his life, with such a future ahead of him, a great gift for the church and the world – taken, apparently randomly.
We have to admit and accept, along with Job, that a lot of suffering is simply a mystery to us. Deuteronomy 29.29 says that the secret things belong to the Lord alone.
There is a bigger picture that we cannot see now, but which we will in eternity and the time between now and then is where we live by faith, not by sight.
We may have to wait until the next life to understand fully why bad things happen to good people. And this was Job’s experience.
Ending
In the five minutes or so I have left, I want to say this: Job chapter 1 teaches that suffering can expose the genuineness of our relationship with God.
I have known people who I thought had a real heart for God become hardened away from faith because of suffering. But I have also seen others with angry hearts, hardened against God, soften because of affliction.
I know a man in France for example called Jacques who, like Job, had three daughters. Like for Job, each of Jacques’ daughters died. All three in fact died of leukaemia before reaching adulthood.
He told me once that, decades later, he still felt utterly bereft. He and his wife never recovered emotionally, nor will they I believe until they get to heaven where all pain and tears wash away.
But Jacques thanks the Lord, with tears in his eyes, that in the strange mercy of God, that triple tragedy is where his journey of faith started.
He had been a communist militant, always agitating, always protesting, always in an angry crowd with a placard and a clenched fist. After his third daughter died he met a Christian who gave him a Gospel to read. When he met Jesus, reading Luke's Gospel, he became one of the most soft-hearted, grace-filled, joyful Christians I have ever met. And a great evangelist too who has led many to Christ.
When as Christians we ask, “Why? Why do bad things happen to good people?” we ask it, like Jacques does, in the shadow of the cross.
This morning, I’ve shared stories of parents whose children died. Like for Job. I think this must be the most unbearable pain humans ever experience.
It’s also the deepest agony that God has ever experienced. He watched his Son, who lived a perfect life, better than Job’s, better than anyone’s, suffer the worst fate anyone ever has.
And on the cross, just like we do, at the point of his greatest distress, Jesus asked, why? “My God, why have you abandoned me?” Why?
As Jesus took upon himself the wrath of God for the sin of the whole world, the spiritual shock was so traumatic, the physical agony was so excruciating, the mental torment was so harrowing that he suddenly felt thirsty because he was passing through hell taking the condemnation and separation from God our sins deserve. Such is his love for us.
As pastor and theologian R.C. Sproul has said, “Why do bad things happen to good people? That only ever happened once, and he volunteered.”
So let’s respond now in praise and worship. Because the Lord gave… his only Son. And the Lord has taken away… our sin and shame. May the name of the Lord be praised.
Sermon preached at King's Church Darlington, 5 July 2026.
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