|
|
Blessed is the One Whom God Corrects
Blessed is the One Whom God Corrects Job 2:11 – 5:27 Key Verse: 5:17 “Blessed is the one whom God corrects; so do not despise the discipline of the Almighty.” Last week we began our study of the book of Job. Chapters 1 and 2 are a sort of prologue to this book and are presented from a heavenly point of point of view. We see Satan appearing before God and boldly proclaiming that he had been roaming throughout the earth going back and forth in it. God then points out his “blameless and upright man,” Job. Satan claims he is only blameless and upright because God had put a hedge around him and blessed the work of his hands, but if that hedge was taken away, if everything Job had was taken away, including his health, Job would surely curse God to His face. God gives Satan permission to inflict Job by taking away his possessions and his health, but he does not allow Satan to kill Job. Instead of cursing God, Job palls down and worships God when his possessions are taken. When his health is taken and even his wife falls into despair and tells him to curse God and die, Job still does not do this. He simply tells her she is acting like a foolish woman and asks a very profound question: “Shall we accept good from God and not trouble?” In all of this, the Bible tells us that “Job did not sin in what he said.” In today’s passage the focus shifts from God’s point of view to a human point of view. The middle part, and the largest part of the book of Job consisting of chapters 3-38, is a conversation between Job, three friends and a rather mysterious man named Elihu who shows up right at the end in chapter 35. This part of the book is given strictly from a human point of view. None of the participants in this section are aware of what transpired in heaven between God and Satan, they can only see, and in Job’s case, experience the results of that meeting. As we will see in today’s passage, Job’s three friends, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, came to comfort job in his time of distress. However, instead of comforting Job, they end up accusing him of hiding some type of sin against God and therefore suffering because of it. Some of what they say has the ring of truth to it. In fact today’s key verse come from the words of Eliphaz and these words have strong Biblical support behind them. Yet it must be pointed out, that though these words are true, they are not necessarily relevant to Job’s situation. In the context of Job’s life they may not have applied, but that doesn’t make these words any less true for us today. This passage doesn’t start with Eliphaz’s words though. It begins with a speech from Job, in which he doesn’t curse God, but he comes about as close to it as he will throughout the rest of the book. His speech serves as transition from the heavenly to the worldly viewpoint. Job’s speech is followed by the response of the first of the three of Job’s friends who have come to comfort him. Eliphaz is the first to speak among the friends and at first he seems somewhat sympathetic to Job. However, shortly into his speech he reveals, what could be considered the key verse of the three friends and there initial assumption that makes their words of comfort nothing more than an accusation against Job. May God bless our study of this book and help us to take a heavenly point of view instead of an earthly point of view as we look at the world around us and at the situation we find ourselves in day by day. First, Job’s initial speech (2:11-3.26). At the end of chapter two we are told that three of Job’s friends heard of Job’s trouble and they decided to come together, go to Job and comfort him in his troubles. They were Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite. As I mentioned last week, it is unclear who these men actually were, but we do have some clues. They most likely were not Hebrews, because none of their names were Hebrew names and they all come from lands that are thought to be east of the land of Canaan. Anyway, the Bible tells us that their purpose in going to Job was to try and comfort him in his time of trouble and this is a very good thing. As Christians, we should follow their example in this. Jesus tells us that the second greatest commandment is to love our neighbor as ourselves, and I for one know that when I am suffering I don’t like to be alone. Solomon also was well aware of the benefits of friends in the time of need. He wrote in Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 “Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor: If either of them falls down, one can help the other up. But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up. Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm. But how can one keep warm alone?” This decision by these friends of Job was a noble and good decision and it is an example that we should follow today – we should go to others in their time of need and trouble and not try to avoid them. When these friends saw Job, they could barely recognize him because his condition was so bad. The sight of their friend suffering in this way caused them great alarm. The Bible tells us that wept aloud, tore their clothing and put dust on their heads. They were also speechless because of the horrible condition of their friend. When they saw Job they realized that his situation was so bad that they could do and say nothing that would be of any comfort to him, so they simply sat down beside him and remained silent for seven days and nights. This fact gives us an idea of the level of suffering that Job was experiencing. From a human point of view it must have been unlike anything most of us have ever seen or experienced. It was, in fact, suffering brought on by Satan himself and Satan knows all about how to inflict pain and torment on people. Pain and suffering so bad, that there is nothing we can say or do to ease it. In these situations, perhaps the best thing we can do is simple sit by the one in agony and endure it with them in silence. By doing this for Seven full days and nights I think Job’s friends really demonstrated that they did come there with the intention of genuinely trying to comfort Job in his troubles. It was not one of the friends who spoke first, but Job himself. Look at verse 3:1-3 “After this, Job opened his mouth and cursed the day of his birth. He said: ‘May the day of my birth perish, and the night that said, ‘A boy is conceived!’” In chapter one, Job fell on the ground and worshipped God when all his possession and his sons and daughters were taken from him. In chapter 2 he rebuked his wife for her despair and said, “Shall we accept the good from God and not trouble.” However, after seven days and nights of pure suffering, it appears that Job had fallen into the Slough of Despair mentioned in John Bunyan’s Pilgrims Progress. When Job opened his mouth this time it was not to praise God or rebuke someone who had given up hope in God, it was to curse the day of his birth. This was not cursing God as Satan had predicted, but it as close as Job will come to doing so in the entire book. In fact, if you look at verse 4 I the King James or ESV version it almost sounds like Job is using God’s first words of creation in reverse to undo God’s work of creating that day. In Genesis 1:3-5 God said, “Let there be light … and there was evening and there was morning, the first day.” In the King James version Job 1:4 reads, “Let that day be darkness; let not God regard it from above, neither let the light shine upon it.” Job’s spiritual attitude had apparently changed over this time. The suffering was unbearable and he began to question the sovereign wisdom of his creator. It almost appears as if Satan has one here, but Job did not curse God in what he said, he simply cursed the day of his birth, because that was the day that ultimately led him to where he was now. Job would go no farther than this in all of his subsequent speeches and therefore the devil would not win in the end. In his complaint, Job goes on to say that he wished he had been still born, or died at birth. This would have saved him from the trouble that he was suffering now. He also talks about resting with kings and rulers of old who had built splendid palaces that now laid in ruins and princes who lived in houses filled with gold. It is interesting to note, that from these great men he also talks about the captives and the slave who also enjoy the rest and freedom that death brings. For Job, death was clearly not the end of everything, it was a time of rest and a time of freedom from suffering and enslavement. In verses 20-26, Job asks some piercing questions about life. About why life was given to those who suffer terribly and even long for death. Verse 23 is particularly interesting. It says, “Why is life given to a man whose way is hidden, whom God has hedged in?” This question is so interesting, because in chapter 1 Satan said that God had indeed hedged Job in, but with blessing rather than with trouble which was the sense that Job was speaking of in this verse. These questions of Job are not answered directly by God when he speaks to Job at the end of this book. However, in the end, we see that Job does get through this suffering, he has been heard by God, and God hedges him in again with blessing, even more than he had been blessed at first. Second, Eliphaz the Temanite responds (4:1-5:27). After listening to Job’s opening complaint, Eliphaz the Temanite responds. Who was this man? He was a Temanite, but what is that? If you look over at Jeremiah 49:7 you will see that Teman was a city in Edom known for its wisdom. Eliphaz was likely an elder in this city – in other words a man of great wisdom. Eliphaz begins his speech by praising Job for instructing many and supporting those who stumbled or who had faltering knees. However, by verse 5 he begins to rebuke Job for his words in the current situation. Look at verse 5,6. “But now trouble comes to you, and you are discouraged; it strikes you, and you are dismayed. Should not your piety be your confidence and your blameless ways your hope? As we will see, Eliphaz is the most compassionate of the three friends, but even in the opening moments of his speech, he slides in a small rebuke. If you look carefully at verses 7 and 8 and combine that with verse 17 you begin to see where Job’s three friends are coming from. Look at these verses. “Consider now: Who, being innocent, has ever perished? Where were the upright ever destroyed? As I have observed, those who plow evil and those who sow trouble reap it.” Verse 17 says, “Can a mortal be more righteous than God? Can even a strong man be more pure than his Maker?” What Eliphaz is implying here is that Job has committed some type of sin that God is punishing him for. We must keep in mind that none of them know anything about what went on in heaven between God and Satan before Job ended up in this situation. They don’t know that God himself declared Job to be blameless and upright. What they do know from experience (see 5:27) is that sin brings with it suffering. This is a Biblical truth. In the end sin leads nowhere put to suffering and pain, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that all suffering and pain is the result of some sin that a person has committed. The point here is that Eliphaz and his friends take a known Biblical truth and take it out of context. When they do this, they refuse to look for the true reason behind Job’s suffering or to even listen to Job as he pleads his case. This is a problem that many Christians fall into. They know of one Biblical principal – sin causes suffering – and they try to apply it to every and all situations, when it may not be applicable at all. I like to think that Dr. Ben Toh did this over and over again to me. It seemed all he knew how to say was “Repent! And your suffering will end.” In my case he was probably right, but we must be careful not to simply condemn someone for hidden sin when we see suffering in their life. We must pray, ask God and most of all truly try to comfort our suffering brothers and sisters. Chapter 5 begins by Eliphaz asking a very important question – one which Job clings onto and asks himself. Look at verse 1. “Call if you will, but who will answer you? To which of the holy ones will you turn?” Eliphaz is saying that none of the angels will come to Job’s aid, because they know he is a sinner and they can do nothing to help him before a holy God. This is a crucial point in the book of Job. Job needs an advocate before God to plead his case, but Eliphaz says that there isn’t one. Job doesn’t listen to Eliphaz and repeatedly asks for one. The really good news is that Eliphaz is completely wrong on this one. Jesus is our mediator; he is our advocate before God and he won’t turn anyone away who comes to him. Jesus will not only plead our case before God, but he has already assured us of victory because any case that Jesus takes before God he has already one by paying the price for our sins. Because Jesus has given us the ultimate victory, in that sense he has taken away our suffering – we still might have to endure a lot, just like Job, but in the end, just like Job, we will get the ultimate reward. In verse 8 Eliphaz gives Job some really good advice. Look at verse 8. “But if I were you, I would appeal to God; I would lay my cause before him.” This is precisely what Job does, but then Bildad, Zophar and Eliphaz himself spend the remainder of their dialogue rebuking Job for doing this. Eliphaz gives Job some really good advice and he brings up points that very Biblically sound, but because he doesn’t have a heavenly viewpoint he gets it all wrong. Take for instance our key verse today. “Blessed is the one whom God corrects; so do not despise the discipline of the Almighty.” What Eliphaz is saying is absolutely true, but it doesn’t apply to Job. God is not disciplining Job. God said that Job was blameless and upright – why would he discipline a man like that. But if you look at other places in the Bible, we see that God is our father who does indeed discipline us for our own good (see Deuteronomy 8:5 and Hebrews 12). Eliphaz speaks a lot of Biblical truth to Job, but some of what he says just doesn’t apply to Job, like this verse. We too must be very careful when we are trying to help others. It is true that sin can and will lead to a suffering and unbearable pain in this life and we must help people honestly when we see this result of sin in their life. We also must be very careful though not to take Biblical principles out of context. M. Mark Gave me a small book just last week about expositional preaching. I’ve only read the first chapter, but that first chapter warns about this very thing. As an example of this, the author uses 1 Corinthians 13 – The chapter of love. We often hear portions of this chapter expounded on at weddings – encouraging the husband and wife to love one another and expounding all the good points about love. But have you ever thought of the context of that chapter. What is Paul really trying to say. Well, if you look at in context, Paul is using that chapter as a rebuke to the Corinthians. They needed to have love, to see how Paul acted in love toward them and to accept him. They were eager to accept the super apostles who displayed all types of great gifts of the spirit but they had a hard time accepting Paul who acted primarily out of love. In today’s passage we see how a good and upright man could fall into despondency in the face of great suffering. We also see a friend who truly wanted to comfort fall into rebuking, because he couldn’t see things from a Godly point of view. May God open our spiritual eyes so that we see things from His point of view and truly be a comfort for those who need it. |
| 
|
