Job 7:1-7 * Epiphany 5
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Dear Friends in Christ,
Most pastors have certain favorite sections of Scripture they share with their members on hospital visits; portions of God’s Word chosen to strengthen faith and lift the spirit. The words of our text are not among them…
What did you think when you heard them? Perhaps you thought to yourself that these are not particularly uplifting or encouraging words. And they aren’t. In fact, they are just the opposite. They are sad, almost tortured words. But most significantly, they are real words – and words to which we may be able to relate.
They come from the mouth of a man named Job. Among other things, we might describe Job as a complicated man. Complicated not in a bad sense, but in the sense that throughout his life he presents us with a number of portraits of himself…
For example, in the first chapter of the book that bears his name we see Job the wealthy believer, who did not let his riches interfere with his devotion to God. Later, after he lost all that was of earthly importance to him, we see Job the patient believer, who recognizes and accepts that it is the Lord who both gives and takes away.
Not long after that, however, we see Job the despondent believer, who is down because of his condition and circumstances. Next we see Job the defiant believer, who wants to know why God is letting this happen to him.
But then, after being addressed by God, we see Job the repentant believer, who realizes that he had no right to question God’s dealing in his life because, after all, God is God. And finally we see Job once again the wealthy and now wiser believer, whose devotion to God was deepened through his experiences.
Our text for today fits into that period when we are presented with
JOB: PORTRAIT OF A DESPONDENT
BELIEVER
In considering these words, we’ll find
Let’s begin with just a little more information on Job. Briefly his story goes like this…
Job, a faithful and devout believer who probably lived
sometime in the days of Genesis, was allowed by God to be tested in his
faith. Within a short period of time he
lost everything. First, his possessions;
next, his children; and finally, his health.
Shortly thereafter, Job was visited by three friends who came to commiserate
with him and offer him the wisdom of their advice. Their names were Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar;
and much of the book of Job is a dialogue between Job and these individuals.
All three basically told Job the same thing, and all three were entirely
wrong. What they said in effect was
this: “Job, you reap what you sow. You
must have done something terrible for God to punish you like this. Find out what your sin was, repent of it, and
God will leave you alone.”
The truth is that Job hadn’t done anything more wrong than any other sinful human being, and actually had done quite a bit that was right. In chapter one he is described as being “blameless and upright.” Consequently, one of the great lessons of the Book of Job is that God is not a vengeful, scorekeeping God who dishes out punishment to His children whenever they mess up.
Rather, hardship and times of testing can be and are intended to be instructive in nature, and a part of God’s divine wisdom in refining the faith of His children. Adversity is the instrument God often chooses for the important purpose of bringing His children closer to Himself. We’ll talk more about that later…
At any rate, after his friends provided him with incorrect guidance, another friend named Elihu enters the picture and gives him good counsel. Elihu urges Job not to question God’s wisdom, and finally the Lord Himself speaks to Job and tells him the same thing. Job then acknowledges his presumptuousness in questioning God, repents, and is once again blessed by the restoration of his possessions, health and a new family.
Our text picks up just after Job has heard the “reap what you sow” speech from his friend Eliphaz. He addresses his feelings – and his complaints – to God. “Does not man have hard service on earth? Are not his days like those of a hired man? Like a slave longing for evening shadows, or a hired man waiting eagerly for his wages, so I have been allotted months of futility, and nights of misery have been assigned to me.” Comparing his life to a time of forced labor, Job characterizes his days as being futile, meaningless and with little to look forward to. His nights are miserable.
“When I lie down I
think, ‘How long before I get up?’ The
night drags on, and I toss till dawn.” Hoping
to find relief in sleep, Job instead discovers that night is his worst
time. He can’t sleep, and when he does –
as he tells us in later verses – his sleep is marked by nightmares. This is all apparently part of his condition,
the physical aspects of which he now describes:
“My body is clothed with worms
and scabs, my skin is broken and festering.”
Leprosy or elephantiasis are some of the diseases Bible scholars
suggest, but we don’t know the precise nature of Job’s malady. But whatever it was, it wasn’t good.
“My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle and they come to an end without hope. Remember, O God, that my life is but a breath; my eyes will never see happiness again.” Job sees his life as hopeless, quickly coming to an end, and at this point he cannot conceive of ever seeing happiness again. And on that pained and pessimistic note, our text for today ends...
What are we to make of these words and the situation behind them? What instruction for our lives can we find in them? Here is where a couple of commonly held myths can be dispelled…
Many people – sometimes Christians among them – buy into the philosophy of Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar. You know, the idea that when we experience bad things or tough times God is punishing us for our past or present sins. But that’s a myth. Let’s talk about it.
Does God punish our sins? The answer is yes. Does God punish us for our sins? The answer to that is no. Both answers are harmonized in the cross. On the cross God punished Jesus in our place. The Apostle Peter put it this way (1 Peter 2:24): “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed.” Or as Isaiah says in his magnificent 53rd chapter: “… the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.” Spiritually healed, that is.
Let’s be clear on this. Though our sins are deserving of God’s righteous punishment, it is not extracted or exacted from us. Jesus bore our sins as our substitute. Every sin that we have committed or will commit has been nailed to the cross of Christ. And sin, which once barred us from the door to heaven, has been replaced by the perfect righteousness of Jesus – and heaven is ours through Him. We are redeemed, restored, forgiven; free to live for God now and in eternity.
Nevertheless, because of the fact we still have a sinful nature, we will still sin. As Christians this is not our desire, and the fact that it happens can never be used as an excuse (purposely doing something wrong and justifying it because “hey, I’m a sinner.”) And sometimes because of our sinfulness and our sinful actions we bring consequences upon ourselves. And sometimes those consequences can be painful. But that is our doing, not God’s.
On the other hand, sometimes God does allow things to come into our lives which are not connected to the consequences of our own sin. That was the case with Job. Let’s develop this a little farther. In order to do this, we must understand the Scriptural concept of “discipline.” “Discipline” is an altogether different animal than the “punishment” Job’s friends spoke of.
The classic section of Scripture on this topic is Hebrews 12:7-11. Let me read it to you.
What is God telling us here? He’s telling us that in His love for us He will discipline us so as to purify and refine our faith. And that’s a good thing. I recall a prominent European theologian of the last century once commenting that, in his estimation, American Christians have a vastly underdeveloped understanding of suffering. What he’s implying is that we generally always see pain or hardship as being negative and something to be avoided, whereas Scripture speaks of hardship and suffering being – or at least leading to – something positive…
And what could that be? The Lord may bring something – or a number of things – into our lives so that we must rely totally on Him, and then experience firsthand His power to preserve us even in unfavorable circumstances. (Personal trials are often the rich loam and fertile soil where the roots of trust grow deeper and the shoots of faith grows stronger)… Or perhaps the Lord is preparing us for something later on in life… Or maybe because of the experience we’ve gone through we can later be of comfort or strength to another Christian going through the same thing.
Whatever the case, of this we can be assured: God has a plan. And to understand that is to understand the words of the hymnist: “What God ordains is always good.”
I want to briefly take up another commonly held myth, even among Christians. And that has to do with how the believer can or may react during times of adversity, whether from the loving, disciplining hand of God, or simply as the result of living in a sinful world…
The words of Job are the words of a despondent man. There is no way to misunderstand them. Job was down. Depressed. He was still a believer, but he was despondent. And it should be noted that in the record of Holy Scriptures Job is not alone among believers who from time to time became despondent over their circumstances. Others include Moses, Joshua, Elijah, King David, Jeremiah, and the Apostle Paul, as well as some lesser known figures. Stepping outside the Bible, Martin Luther was said to have periods of melancholy…
What’s the point? Just this: Because we carry around our sinful nature, the believer can and will become despondent or down at times.
Now maybe you’re saying, “I know that. That’s not such a brilliant observation.” And it isn’t. But we mention it because there is a myth that real Christians will never get down or depressed. Or that the person who gets depressed must have a defective or weak faith. As a result, some Christians who have low periods begin to question their faith and in the process heap all kinds of guilt upon themselves for feeling low.
But as can be seen from Job and other examples, these feelings can happen. And they don’t mean that God doesn’t love us or that we are losing our faith or even that our faith is necessarily weak. It’s simply part of being the imperfect human beings that we are…
The good news is that there is a cure. Blue times may come, but they don’t have to stay. The early church fathers said you can’t stop the birds of the air from flying over your head, but you can stop them from building a nest in your hair. The cure for going through difficult times is to redirect our focus away from our troubles and back to the wisdom and love and power of God. And the greatest example of that is the cross of Christ. When we do that, the periods of despondency in our lives will be momentary and not lasting. Seasonal, but not terminal.
And that’s where Job finally ended up (that’s also why it’s not fair to judge him solely on this portion of Scripture). He looked beyond his own plight to the wisdom of God. He came to understand that even in difficult times, God had not abandoned Him. As a result, the words of our text, which seem so despondent, later turned to praise and worship as Job, guided by a gracious God, did indeed see happiness in his life again. And that’s the great truth of our text: God will never leave us or forsake us…
Let’s conclude. What have we learned today? First, that the idea of God punishing us for past sins with present hardship is a myth. Our sins have been paid in full on the cross... Secondly, that at times even Christians may become despondent. But this doesn’t mean they don’t have a strong faith – it only means they are human… And finally that the down times in our lives will become momentary and seasonal as we focus not on ourselves, but on the cross. Because there we see the ultimate example of God’s enduring love and wisdom: Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.