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What is Mankind That God Notices Us?
What is Mankind That God Notices Us? Job 6:1-8:22 Key Verse: 7:17 “What is mankind that you make so much of them, that you give them so much attention?” In today’s passage we have Job’s response to the first of his three friends who came to counsel and comfort him in his time of trouble. Eliphaz had tried to sympathize with Job a little as he opened his speech, but he quickly associated Job’s suffering with some hidden sin that God was punishing him for. These words were not a comfort for Job, instead, as we will see, they only added to Job’s distress. Today Job has two main themes for his speech: one is his complaint against God for causing him to suffer for no apparent reason and the second is his complaint against his counselors whose words only add to his suffering. When Job finishes his second speech he is answered by his friend Bildad, who apparently didn’t listen to a word Job said, but had already decided what it was he wanted to say. Bildad, unlike Eliphaz, is not sympathetic to Job’s situation at all. There is a lot to learn in this passage, but I want to focus on just three things. First, Job insisted on his innocence before God, yet he was convinced that God was behind his trouble and he felt that this was not just. His error in thinking, as we know from the prologue (chapters one and two) is that God was the cause of his suffering. Second, Job asks a very profound question, what is man that God pays so much attention to us? This is a question that we must be able to answer, both for our own faith and for our witness to others. Finally, through Bildad in this passage and the other two counselors in other chapters, we can learn how not to counsel others in their time of need. May God bless our study of this passage and open our hearts and our spiritual eyes to see this world from His perspective. First Job’s response to Eliphaz (6:1-7:16). In verses 1-7 Job introduces two themes of this speech. In verses 1-3, Job defends his “impetuous” speech by declaring just how bad his suffering is. He claims that if it were somehow gathered up and placed on a scale, it would weigh more than all the sand of the seas. Clearly Job was in a great deal of distress so it is understandable that he might complain some. His friends could see that Job was suffering unbearably, but they didn’t seem to take this into account when they offered their words of encouragement and advice to him (but more on this later). In verse four, Job explicitly gives the first of the two themes of this speech. Look at verse 4. “The arrows of the Almighty are in me, my spirit drinks in their poison; God’s terrors are marshaled against me.” Whether we like it or not, it is clear that Job is complaining that his suffering is the result of God inflicting it on him. He says that this suffering is the results of God’s poisonous arrows piercing him. He also says that God has brought terrors against him. It is very important to note here, that although Job complains against God and accuses him of bringing these terrors and suffering upon him, Job in no way curses God as Satan said he would. This accusation, that God is behind his troubles, is the first theme of Job’s speech today and we will look at the contents of this complaint a little later. The second theme of Job’s speech can be found in verses 5-7. This theme is hidden behind a metaphor about braying donkeys bellowing oxen and tasteless food. What Job is saying here is that he starving to hear the right words from his friends that will bring him some comfort from his suffering. The words that he heard from Eliphaz did nothing to strengthen or encourage him in his situation. Those words were tasteless and instead of helping him, they made him even more ill. This shows us something about Job: his major concern was for the nourishment of his spirit in spite of the physical misery that he was suffering through. The words of his friends could do nothing to ease his physical condition, but they could encourage and strengthen his spirit. However their words had the opposite effect for reason I will get to later. In verses 8-10 Job turns back to his complaint against God. This time he is not so much complaining as he is asking God to cut short his suffering. Job begs God to end this suffering by ending his life. This seems rather extreme, but in it we can find a great spiritual lesson. Job realized that his life was not his own. Job knew that he had no right to take his own life, no matter how bad his suffering might be. Only God had the right to end Job’s life because it was God who gave Job his life. This is a message that desperately needs to be heard by a great many Korean young people. According to a 2012 study by the World Health Organization, South Korea has the second highest suicide rate of all countries (only Guyana has more). This is a terrible thing. Young Korean people need to hear the Gospel message and study the Bible. They need to know that their life came from God, it belongs to God and eventually it is going back to God for final judgement. They need to know that no matter how bad their situation may seem to themselves, God is sovereign and God loves them. God has provided a way out of their suffering and misery through His one and only Son Jesus. God has offered them a way to wash away the sin and despair that it brings and to live a new life to the full in Jesus. It is our job to tell them this. In verses 11-13 Job said that physically he had nothing left. He was at the limit of what he could endure as a human. These words appear to be in response to what Eliphaz said in 4:2-6. Job had no strength left to stand and endure this suffering based on his pious and blameless life as Eliphaz had suggested. Job was only a fragile human creature and this suffering had drained him of all the resources he had left to stand up under it. In verses 14-30 Job once again turns to his friends for their comfort and advice. Job pleaded with them to show him kindness in his situation. Eliphaz had tried to do this at first, but he quickly turned and began to accuse Job of covering up some hidden sin before God. This was not kindness, this was an accusation that Job did not need or want to hear. The words of Job’s friends so far had been like an empty river or a disappointed caravan that traveled far to get some goods but didn’t find any when they arrived. There words were of no help to Job. In verses 22 and 23 Job says that he was not asking his friends to do anything or pay a ransom for him, but he did want them to comfort him with their words. Job challenges his friends accusation about his hidden sin and tells them to show him where he is wrong. They can’t do this, but they insist on trying to equate his suffering with this wrong against God. Finally in verse 28-30 Job softens his tone and asks for their kindness once again. Job is begging his friends to support him in his time of misery, but as we will see, they cannot do this because they are blinded by their own human thinking. They couldn’t really listen to him because they were convinced in their own minds about the cause of his suffering. In Chapter 7, Job turns exclusively to God. He asks God a number of very profound question that human beings have struggled with since the fall of mankind. I think many people can really identify with this chapter and with Job’s complaints. He says that man’s time on earth is full of hardships and it is as we are slaves or laborers and nothing else. What’s even worse, is that our time here on earth flies away too swiftly and we don’t have any real hope (6-10). By verse 11 Job can no longer hold back. He declares that “Therefore I will not keep silent; I will speak out in the anguish of my spirit, I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.” He goes on to basically blame God for this suffering, even terrifying him with bad dreams when he gets a little sleep. By verse 16 he is begging God just to leave him alone because his days of suffering has given his life no meaning. Job’s complaint seems severe. How could he accuse God like this? Surely God wouldn’t accept this. However, God does nothing to stop this complaining just yet. Job is bearing his soul to God. He is letting God know exactly what he is thinking. Nothing is hidden from God anyway. God knew that Job was thinking this, but Job was being honest before God and before his friends. Job’s mistake here was not his complaint, but his lack of knowledge about the true source of his suffering. It wasn’t God who was causing this, it was Satan. Job was directing his complaint in the wrong direction. I think this is a very common problem among people today. When I was in college, this was my habit. When something didn’t go the way I wanted I often blamed God. It wasn’t until around the year 2000 that I realized that although God is sovereign and He permits me to suffer, His love for me far outweighs any suffering I may go through here on earth. What made me realize this? I thought of how much Jesus suffered for me. Jesus was sinless – surely his suffering was not a result of some hidden sin he had. Yet he suffered far beyond anything I can even imagine to give me a new life in him. I think many people, Christians included, often forget just how much God has suffered for them. Second, Job’s questions (17-21). Look at verses 17 and 18 “What is mankind that you make so much of them, that you give them so much attention, that you examine them every morning and test them every moment?” This is the same question David asks in Psalm 8. David is asking the question in a very different context. He is asking the question in a psalm of praise, while job is asking the question in the face of unbearable suffering. David is marveling at what God has done for man, while Job is wondering why God is paying so much attention to him and causing him all this pain and suffering. The context for the two questions couldn’t be any different, but the answer is exactly the same. Man is the pinnacle of God’s creation. God created us and gave us a special mission to be stewards of His creation. But even more than this, God created us in His own image. The simple answer to Job’s question is that God pays so much attention to us is because He loves us. Job was thinking that God’s attention was causing his suffering, but it wasn’t. God’s attention was using Job to deliver a great defeat to Satan. Job, of course, did not know this, but we do. Likewise, we can be sure that if we face suffering it is not God’s attention that is causing it, it is His attention that is watching for us to win the victory for Him. Look at verses 20 & 21 “If I have sinned, what have I done to you, you who see everything we do? Why have you made me your target? Have I become a burden to you? Why do you not pardon my offenses and forgive my sins? For I will soon lie down in the dust; you will search for me, but I will be no more.” Job continues to ask very probing questions to God. He even asks if he had become a burden to God. Many Jewish scholars have suggested that this question in particular is blasphemous. How could a creature loved by God become a burden to God? How could the creature even think this? However, God seemed to accept Job’s question, although He does rebuke him for it in the end. These question came from the bottom of Job’s heart and God saw this. Job was trying to make sense of suffering that he could not understand, so he asked God these deep difficult questions. It is interesting to note that God has answered Job’s questions and given us all hope through Jesus. Job asks why God doesn’t “Pardon my offenses and forgive my sins?” God did that for everyone through Jesus and has assured us that we will not simply “lie down in the dust… [and] be no more. Like Job, we need to bring everything before God. We can’t hide our feelings and thoughts from Him, so we need to be painfully honest before Him. At the same time we must remember that God loves us and although he may permit some hardships and suffering in our life, He is not the cause of it. In fact, He is watching us in the hope that we will overcome and win a great victory for Him and for ourselves. Third Bildad’s harsh response (8:1-22). The next friend to speak up is Bildad. Unlike Eliphaz, he doesn’t make any attempt to sympathize with Job or comfort him in anyway. Some of his speech has some truth in it, but it does not apply to Job. Bildad’s underlying assumption is wrong; i.e. Job was hiding some terrible sin and God was punishing him for it. Look at verses 2-4. “How long will you say such things? Your words are a blustering wind. Does God pervert justice? Does the Almighty pervert what is right? When your children sinned against him, he gave them over to the penalty of their sin.” Basically what Bildad is saying is “Your children got what they deserve and you can expect the same thing unless you repent.” It is hard to imagine how Bildad thought that these words might be a comfort to Job. However if we look closely at the text, we can see where Bildad’s thinking begins to go wrong. Look at verses 8-10 “Ask the former generation and find out what their ancestors learned, for we were born only yesterday and know nothing, and our days on earth are but a shadow. Will they not instruct you and tell you? Will they not bring forth words from their understanding?” Bildad simply assumes that everything he has heard and learned from his elders is true in all cases. He learned from them that the wicked suffer and the righteous prosper so he assumed this must apply to everyone. The problem was that this didn’t apply in Job’s case at all, but Bildad didn’t listen to Job because he thought the former generations had more wisdom than Job. Bildad’s real problem was that he didn’t listen to what Job said at all. Bildad had a preconceived idea and it didn’t matter what Job had to say. Bildad’s mistake of relying on the wisdom of past generations and applying it universally is exactly the opposite problem we find at work in the culture today. Today people are completely shutting off the wisdom of the past and applying modern ideas to people’s situation individually. There is no universal good or bad, truth or lie. Everything depends on each individual’s thoughts and feelings. This is a major problem, but I want to focus on is why Bildad was such a bad counselor. As Christians Jesus has commanded us to feed His sheep and that means that we will often be called upon to be counselors in the time of other’s need. Bildad’s main problem was that he already had an answered prepare for Job and therefore he thought that he didn’t need to listen to anything Job said. Job brought up some very profound questions that Bildad could have addressed in order to help Job find the answers he was looking for. This probably would have done Job a lot of good. However, it appears that Bildad didn’t even hear these question – at the very least, he didn’t address them at all. To counsel others in need, we need to listen carefully to what they say, so that we can address the problems and question they have rather than the problems and question we think they have. This requires patience and often time prayer. We should never go try and help someone based on what we think the answer is. We need to listen to that person and most of all to God. Bildad and his friends simply did not listen to Job and they certainly didn’t have a heavenly viewpoint of the situation. Today we learned that Job misplaced the blame for his suffering and put on God, who in truth loved Him and was watching Job win a great victory over Satan. We also learned that Job had some very serious questions that we all struggle with. Like Job we need to bring these to God, and find our answers in Jesus. Finally, we learned that in order to be a good counselor we need to be a good listener first – we need to listen to the other person and to God. |
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