Is God good,
even when everything goes bad? Is God worth trusting when
you lose everything you have? That is the question at
stake in the book of Job. At the beginning of the book, God
calls together a heavenly counsel. Among those present with God and the
angels is the accuser, Satan, known as the devil. And God asks the accuser if he had
considered bringing an accusation against a man who was
blameless, a man named Job. For there was no one
else on earth like him. A man above reproach who feared
God and turned away from sin. And so, immediately, the
accuser begins to accuse. “Job only worships you because you’ve
blessed him and kept him from abuse." "But take everything away from him, make
him lose, and he will undoubtedly curse you.” So, in order to show that he is still good
when everything goes bad, that God is still worth trusting when you lose
everything you have, God allowed Job’s fields to be ransacked,
his livestock to be killed. God allowed Job’s children
to die and his body to fall ill. Even his own wife
seemed to be a test of his will. For she told him to curse God and
die for all the pain he had instilled. And as Job suffered, heaven listened to see
if Job’s suffering would result in faith or denial. It’s almost as if there
was a heavenly trial, and Job was brought as a witness
after losing everything he had. And the charges were
brought by the accuser, is God good when
everything goes bad? Is God worth trusting when
you lose everything you have? Surely God can’t be good if he
removed his protective covering. Surely God can’t be trusted if he
allows so much pain and suffering. What would Job say? How would he respond after he lost
everything to disaster, death, and the sword? Job says, “The Lord gives, and the Lord
takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.” Well the heavenly debate was laid to rest, for
Job lost everything and still called God blessed. And yet Job’s
suffering wasn’t solved. Unlike the accuser’s accusations, his
pain and questions were not laid to rest. So, to help answer these questions
and to ease Job’s pain, we are introduced to three guests, Job’s friends who
come to aid when they hear he is bereft. And after seven days of sitting with
their friend silently, Job finally speaks. And it sounds to his
friends like blasphemy. He wishes God would have
simply never let him been born than for him to have to
go through all this suffering. Why would God allow him to live if he
knew his life would come with such agony? The friends then respond to what
they believe is Job’s heretical theology. And it is these conversations that
make up the majority of Job’s story. As it was with the trial in the heavenly
counsel, this theological debate between Job and his friends also sounds like a court case
where Job accuses, and his friends defend. I mean, you can picture it. Job holds a trial where he is the
plaintiff and his pain is the evidence. His friends join the court as God’s
attorneys to take up the defensive. The only problem is
there is no defendant. God is not present in the courtroom. Nevertheless, throughout the trial
there are three cycles of statements and rebuttals between
Job and his friends. Each of which repeat the same basic
argument but get more pointed and belligerent. The friends maintain that Job must
have sinned to have fallen under such pain. They believed God uses
suffering to punish evil. In fact, they thought he always
makes the universe function that way. The friends believed that Job is suffering
because he sinned and needs to repent. The only way to explain God,
suffering, and their relationship is to say that Job did evil and
his pain was God’s punishment. But Job’s rebuttal
remains consistent. Job says the friends are looking at
the argument from the wrong side of it. The problem is not that
God punishes the wicked, but that Job is suffering even
though he knows that he is innocent. Why do bad things
happen to good people? Job wants God to
answer this question. He wants God to take the stand, to be
cross-examined, to tell Job why this happened. But the position of the
defense remains abandoned. And so, as Job realizes that his friends don’t
understand and that God won’t take the stand, he starts to beg for a
mediator, a representative. Someone who could represent him not
in this earthly court, but in the heavens. But that is not what happens.
Instead, God puts Job on the bench. God asks Job to give a defense
and begins asking him the questions. “Answer me, where were you when
I taught space and time to blend? Tell me, how did I
stitch together the wind?” “Answer me, if you can, where were you
when I populated every inch of the astronomic? Tell me, how did I construct
molecules down to the subatomic? Answer me, reveal
to me, your knowledge.” Unlike Job and his
friends, God’s questions were not moral or philosophic,
they were huge and cosmic. They were not meant to answer Job’s
questions but to show by comparison that Job did not even possess the logic necessary to
understand the answer he sought even if he got it. The point of all of this is not to answer
Job’s questions but to show that, in suffering, God is doing something greater than anyone
can comprehend or even begin to know. And so, the only way for Job to respond was
to repent, to take back his argument and accept that trusting God through
suffering was enough for him. And yet God is gracious, so he not only restored
what was taken from Job, but even doubled it. While Job’s story has helped many, the
relationship between God and suffering is still difficult and
many find it troubling. How can God be good
when things are so bad? How can he be trusted when
we lose everything we have? For everyone since Job
has wrestled with pain and many find themselves bringing
their claim before God’s court. And while we would be wise to take Job’s
advice and realize that the answers we seek are far beyond the reach of
our minds, God is gracious. So, Job was not the last story
about suffering he would write. Instead, God would take
the relationship between himself and suffering to the
most unexpected heights. He would come to us in the person of Jesus,
and God the Son would suffer. He would die. You see, God understands why
so many accuse him for their pain. He has compassion on those
who hurt and say he is to blame. And we know this because
of the cross of Jesus. For he did take the blame for
the wrongs that were not his. He did suffer the penalty
that was reserved for our sins. He was made guilty,
though he was truly innocent. He took our griefs and with
our sorrows became a participant. He is the representative
for which Job pleaded. He is the answer to suffering
that we all have needed. For in the cross of Jesus
we see God’s goodness at the very place where
everything seems to be going bad. In the cross of Jesus, we learn that we
can trust God when we lose everything because, for us, he lost
everything that he had. Hey, I’m David with Spoken Gospel. Thank you so much for watching our
video introduction to the book of Job. This is the first video in our
Wisdom Series, and we can’t wait to walk you through the rest of
the books in the Wisdom genre. We are Spoken Gospel. We’re a nonprofit dedicated to speaking
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