[0:00] Job chapter 6. Job chapter 6. It would probably be, it would be beneficial if we had time of the accusations, for lack of a better word, of Eliphaz, the Timnite.
[0:35] So it's really Job's response to the conventional wisdom of the day. Chapter 6 kind of gives us a baseline response and then chapter 7 goes a little bit further in detail and consideration.
[0:46] But anyway, we will see it in its context this evening and we'll understand that. Before we do, let's go ahead and pray. Father, we thank you so much for allowing us the opportunity to gather together and we're so thankful that we have the chance to get into the word of God with one another.
[1:04] So we pray, Lord, that you would lead us in our study of it this evening. We pray that you would open our eyes and our hearts and our minds to the truth that it contains. And Lord, as we study it, that we would not only see the plight of man, but the hope that is offered in Jesus Christ and that you would be magnified, you would be exalted, that the cry of the desperate heart would be met in Christ and Christ alone.
[1:31] And Lord, that that truth would resonate within us, that we would be able to declare that to the people around us with confidence. And so, Father, we pray that you'd be with us as we study the word.
[1:43] We pray that you'd be with those in this building tonight, with the children of all ages and the workers that are working with them and those who are teaching the biblical truths and the foundations.
[1:54] May it be a time of discipleship and a time of growth. Just be glorified and honored in all that we do. That is our cry each and every week. And we mean it in all sincerity, Christ be magnified.
[2:07] And we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen. If you remember in the book of Job, in chapter 3, Job declares, it is the declaration of his pain and his hurting and his grief and his mourning.
[2:23] It's the weight of his suffering. And in that declaration, Job really cries out and says, I wish I was dead. To put it in a nutshell, he is despairing even of his life and saying, I wish that God would just allow me to die for the suffering is too miserable, the pain is too grand.
[2:44] And he is still holding fast to his righteousness. He's holding fast to his faithfulness. He does not, or he is not aware of the events that we are that take place in Job chapter 1 and 2, the events that happen in heaven.
[2:58] So he's uncertain about why these matters are coming upon him. He is confident, however, that it is not by his own doing. At least he's assured of that as he has sought to live righteously and favorably with the Lord.
[3:16] And so it is a death lament, literally, in the third chapter where he is longing to perish, just to be free from the burdens that are around him. The answer to Eliphaz the Timnite is the answer of the day's conventional wisdom.
[3:33] And it is really looking at Job and saying, well, Job, surely you have done something wrong because these things wouldn't happen to you if you hadn't done anything wrong. It's your own sin. It's your own wrongdoing. This is God's judgment.
[3:44] This is God's discipline. It even goes so far, the main declaration, is that there is no man that is holy. There is none that is right. There is none that is beyond God's disciplinary actions, and God is disciplining you.
[3:56] So if it was me, Job, I would turn back to the Lord and just trust in his goodness. And all that sounds good on the surface. But essentially what is going on with Eliphaz is he is saying, Job, it's your fault.
[4:08] You know, you've brought it upon yourself either knowingly by sin or just by being man. It is your fault. You deserve what's happening.
[4:21] And that is to an extent true because there is none that is holy. There is none that is righteous. But yet it is not true in the case of Job.
[4:34] It is retribution theology. And by that we mean that if we do good, God is good to us. And if we do evil, God is evil towards us. And we can expect repayment for our actions.
[4:49] Now the danger in retribution theology is that very fact that we expect by our own goodness to earn the favor of God. And we have God figured out.
[5:02] And we know how to walk faithfully. The reality that testifies in our own life is that we know that none of us can do enough good to deserve good in the presence of a holy God. We've said it kind of tongue-in-cheek, but we mean it in all seriousness.
[5:15] None of us get past the fifth chapter in the book of Leviticus and we find ourselves being stoned. Each and every one of us. We have found some offense worthy of stoning. And if God is going to give us what we are due, then we don't make it.
[5:30] Now that's according to the law. Job and his friends are pre-law. They are in the patriarchal time or even the pre-patriarchal time. So they're just dealing much like we as Gentiles would be dealing because by the way, we are not the children of the law, right?
[5:46] We are not Israelites. We are not the nation of Israel. We are not under the covenant of the law. So we are looking at how do we please God? And it's, by the way, the same answer and the same longing that the people around us today have.
[6:03] This knowing and this understanding that there is a God. I can't appease him. So how can I be right? One of the things that I have found just in the few short weeks of being the beneficiary of studying Job intentionally is how relevant it is today.
[6:20] And its relevance is striking even when we understand that it is not only the oldest book in scripture, it is one of the oldest books, if not the oldest book in antiquity.
[6:35] It is considered one of the oldest books in all of antiquity, predating many of the classics. We're not even certain when the date of its writing is.
[6:46] But we know it's much further and closer to the garden than anything else in scripture. And it is this struggle where the wickedness of man has already been seen, but there's a few remnant who want to do right, but there's no law, there's no standard, and it's just trying to find pleasure in the presence of God.
[7:10] Which, by the way, is very equivalent to the day and time in which we're in. Men, the baseline of understanding is that there has to be a higher being.
[7:20] There has to be someone, for we look at, and creation testifies to it, and how can I please that one? How am I, can I be acceptable to that one when I know who I am?
[7:31] What about all these bad and good, and if God is good, why does bad exist, and all these things that are there? So we understand that, and when we look at Job, I think it gives us an understanding of how to look at those around us, and I know this is a long introduction before we haven't even read the chapter yet, but I want you to see in the sixth chapter here the cry of the hurting, and not just the hurting of Job, but if we look at it in its truthfulness, it is the cry of the hurting of all mankind, the heart cry of each and every one of us before we knew Christ.
[8:10] It is the heart cry of those who know their own misery. It is the heart cry of those who realize that no matter what it is they've done, they can't keep it together, and it's exactly how Job responds to this conventional wisdom of the day that if you do good, you can expect good, and it is this cry of one who is hurting with such pain.
[8:37] It says there in verse 1, Then Job answered, Oh, that my grief were actually weighed and laid into balances together with my calamity, for then it would be heavier than the sand of the seas, and therefore my words have been rash, for the arrows of the Almighty are within me.
[8:53] They're poisoned. My spirit drinks, and the terrors of God are arrayed against me. Does the wild donkey bray over his grass, or does the ox low over his fodder? Can something tasteless be eaten without salt, or is there any taste in the white of an egg?
[9:06] My soul refuses to touch them. They are like loathsome food to me. Oh, that my request might come to pass, and that God would grant my longing.
[9:17] Would that God were willing to crush me, that he would loose his hand and cut me off. But it's still my consolation, and I rejoice in unsparing pain, that I have not denied the words of the Holy One.
[9:30] What is my strength that I should wait, and what is my end that I should endure? Is my strength the strength of stones, or is my flesh bronze? Is it that my help is not within me, and that deliverance is driven from me?
[9:43] For the despairing man there should be kindness from his friends, so that he should not forsake the fear of the Almighty. My brothers have acted deceitfully like a wadi, like the torrents of wadis which vanish, which are turbid because of ice, and into which the snow melts.
[9:59] When they become waterless, they are silent. When it is hot, they vanish from their place. The paths of their course wind along. They go up into nothing and perish. The caravans of Tema looked.
[10:10] The travelers of Sheba hoped for them. They were disappointed, for they had trusted. They came there and were confounded. Indeed, you have now become such. You see a terror and are afraid.
[10:22] I have said, give me something, or have I said, give me something, or offer a bribe for me from your wealth, or deliver me from the hand of the adversary, or redeem me from the hand of the tyrants.
[10:35] Teach me, and I will be silent. And show me how I have erred. How painful are honest words, but what does your argument prove?
[10:46] Do you intend to reprove my words when the words, when the words of one in despair belong to the wind? You would even cast lots for the orphans and barter over your friend.
[11:00] Now please look at me and see if I lie to your face. Desist now, let there be no injustice, even desist. My righteousness is yet in it.
[11:11] Is there injustice on my tongue? Cannot my palate discern calamities? Here is the cry of the hurting. And it is not just the cry of Job.
[11:24] Really it is the cry of the hurting among humanity of all ages. And it is the cry that resonates within us. Not just the physical hurt, but the spiritual hurt as well. It is something that I will go ahead and tell you that when Job poses questions, he poses questions that endure.
[11:41] Questions that still remain today. And he is posing questions that have plagued humanity from the very beginning of time. And questions that resonate within the heart. in which we know that the answer can only be found in Christ.
[11:54] We have the grand benefit of knowing the fullness of the revelation of God. And in these latter days, God has spoken to us through his son, the book of Hebrews. We know that God has given the fullness of the revelation.
[12:06] We know the gospel. We know the cross. We know the empty tomb. We understand the reality that there is hope beyond today's time. We know that as believers and people who have read scripture and seen the word of God.
[12:21] But for those who don't, much like Job, the heart cry and the hurt cry is still there. And it is looking for an answer to the misery and the pain and the suffering that exist in their own life and in the life of those around them.
[12:35] And it is a cry that resonates, one that we have been invited by God to step into. so it would do us well to remember the cry of the hurting that was evident in our own life and at times still is evident in our own life and the cry of the hurting of those around us so that we would take the opportunity to respond to them appropriately.
[12:58] And we've looked at this last week when we were together. Conventional wisdom is not always the right answer. The conventional wisdom to look at someone and say, well, the reason you're experiencing all these problems in your life is maybe because you did something to deserve it.
[13:13] Now, maybe they did and if you've seen that, then that's okay. That's called discipleship, admonishing one another, walking beside each other. But just to say, well, I'm sure you deserve it and to walk off like that is just a poor response.
[13:27] And it really does nothing to aid the individual and it does nothing to benefit the individual and more appropriately, it was in no manner the answer of Christ.
[13:40] He never denied the reality that judgment was fitting upon some people. He never denied the reality that some people were deserving of that. But it was also him who said, do you suppose that those who were killed when the tower fell upon them that their sin was greater than any others?
[13:57] Right? That there's something beyond just conventional wisdom for the wisdom of Christ's day was the reason the tower fell on them and they died was surely they had done something wicked or the reason this man was born blind was because his parents had sinned.
[14:11] No, maybe not. It is the cry and it's something that we need to pay attention to and something we understand. And in that cry, the first thing that we have to comprehend is the weight of the despair.
[14:24] And look at what Job says. He says, oh, that the grief that I actually spent, that my grief were actually weighed out, laid in the scales.
[14:35] And what he's inviting his friends to do is to understand the weight of his despair, to not belittle the reality that he's going through, to not, he will say in the next chapter that his, it's a mental image that is kind of hard to comprehend, but the way he describes his own appearance would be the description that you would give a body that had died and been left exposed in the elements, the infected sores with worms and oozing and death and of a body that is beginning to decay.
[15:09] That's what he looks like. But he's asking them to really consider the weight and he says that if the true weight of my grievance and my annoyances were set in a scale, then they would tip the weight of the sand, the sand grains could not outweigh the pressure that I feel and he even says this reality that it's like God is shooting me with arrows and they're not just arrows that are pricking me, they're arrows that have poison on the end so they're bringing about this misery and this suffering and all these things and he makes this description and he says and that is why my words have been rash.
[15:47] He said that's why I've spoken the way I have because the greatest accusation of Eliphaz is Job, who are you to talk like this? Who are you to make these accusations to God?
[15:59] Haven't you been the one who's helped others? You better check your talk and this is one thing that I've understood. It's okay to let people talk through the weight of what they're feeling and those words aren't always church words and sometimes I appreciate that in the counseling or the pastoral setting because then I really understand what they're going through.
[16:26] Instead of somebody who goes, oh I'm okay and everything's good and everything's great and all the things are wonderful, you know our good Sunday morning answers, Job says, I've just spoken from the depth of this despair and the weight that is there and all I'm asking is that you consider it and so we need to be those, first of all, when we hear the heart cry and the hurt cry, those who permit others to speak truthfully, even rashly.
[16:57] This week, or not, this week I had an opportunity to meet with pastors, I met with pastors at pastors meeting and I was on the phone with a pastor today and one thing that I try to do when I talk to pastors is I ask, you know, how are you really doing and letting that individual tell you the truth about how they're really doing because so often pastors are really good about putting on a front but to give them a space to, man, even if it doesn't sound very pastorally, just say it.
[17:35] You know, if it doesn't sound very, it's okay just to say it every now and then and give that safe space and just allow that. I'm not a very emotional guy, you know that. I'm not a really compassionate guy at times but I understand that people underweight, under pressure, sometimes need to just say it and it be okay without any judgment, without anything else.
[17:55] Aliphaz is passing judgment on Job because his words weren't fitting for a man of his stature and it didn't sound very righteous, didn't sound very churchy even in a day when there wasn't churches. I mean, you know, if you are such a faithful man of God, why are you wanting to die?
[18:08] That just doesn't sound right and what Job is saying is you need to understand the weight of the despair that is upon me and you need to understand the pressure and the feeling and the misery and so the first cry of the hurting is please, just consider the weight of the moment.
[18:26] By the way, conventional wisdom doesn't do that. Conventional wisdom likes to pack everything into a box and say, well, this is happening, okay, since that's happening then this must be taking place and it never considers the individual, right?
[18:37] It doesn't consider what that person is going through. It considers the circumstances but it doesn't consider the person. So Job says, look at this weight and in the weight of this he really gives this great cry and this is the cry by the way of the believer is the cry of Job is the cry that we found ultimately fulfilled in Christ and it is the anticipation of an end.
[19:03] He says, oh, that my request might come to pass and that God would grant my longing. So he has this anticipation and again, he's going to go into this thing that makes everybody around him uncomfortable but I want you to stay with me in this, okay?
[19:15] He says, I wish that my life was over but know this, understand this, this is why God is still very much in control here and this is why we can say that Job is walking in his righteousness.
[19:27] Look at this, but Job still cast his life upon God. He says, I wish that God would bring it to pass and I wish that he would release his hand and crush me.
[19:41] What Job never does is he never says, I'm going to take this in my own hands and do it myself. Never does. Now there's the difference.
[19:51] He still makes it, he still has this comprehension even in his suffering, even in his misery that God is still the giver and the sustainer of life.
[20:03] It will be Job who says that if God calls his spirit back to himself that all men will perish. In the midst of his suffering it was his wife who said curse God and die and so the insinuation there is that he should go commit suicide.
[20:19] Let's just say what it is, that go take his own life. Job never does that. He may say I wish that God would crush me but he never ever crosses the line and says and if he doesn't I will.
[20:32] There is still this reverent acceptation of the fact that life is indeed controlled by the almighty. And it is completely laid up in his hands.
[20:44] He is the giver and the sustainer of it and therefore Job has this anticipation and anticipation is that his life would end that the suffering would end in his anticipation of the believer because he says that that would be a release from this suffering.
[20:58] Verse 10 says but it is still my consolation and I rejoice in unsparing pain. Notice this he said I have joy in this unsparing pain it's still my comfort. What joy is there in unsparing pain and what comfort is there in this anticipation of an end and he says it here that I have not denied the words of the Holy One.
[21:17] his own faithfulness his own steadfastness now here's a man who never heard the gospel who knew nothing of the cross but yet he said my confidence and my un my rejoicing and unsparing pain is I have not failed the words of the Holy One I'm living according to his word.
[21:42] it is the psalmist who cries out and says you are my rock and you alone are my salvation and I trust in you as my rock. I believe it's Psalm 62 you are the rock that is higher in me and you are my salvation and I'm trusting in you and you alone are the one who would deliver me and the sustainer of my life and then Job says what is my strength that I should wait and what is my end that I should endure is my strength the strength of stones or is my flesh bronze is it that my help is not within me and that deliverance is driven from me?
[22:16] here's the reality of his anticipation Job knows that this cannot be endured on his own and he cannot be delivered from it on his own. For the believer we understand that as well for those of us who have trusted in Christ death is an anticipated event rather than a dreaded event.
[22:35] It is the anticipation that Christ is our redeemer. And the closer we get to it the more we anticipate the release from this pressure and this suffering and this mourning and unto his glory.
[22:50] We have a greater anticipation than even Job. But there is another matter in which we stand just like Job because the weight of his suffering produced an anticipation of the end but really in the midst of that anticipation there was a need for others.
[23:08] and it is this need that is so prevalent and this is really the great accusation or the great answer of Job to the accusation of Eliphaz.
[23:20] Scripture is full of one another's. I have somewhere in my office it'd be hard for me to find it I had it in one of my classes I took of every one of the one another's.
[23:31] It was a biblical counseling class that I took to bear one another's burdens to love one another to pray for one another to care for one another all those one another's right and scripture is full of one another's and the reason scripture is full of one another's is because humanity was created for fellowship.
[23:49] Humanity was never created for isolation it was never created for independence and it was never created for I and we understand that the further we get into isolation and I generation and all these other realities the lower we go as mankind because we were created for fellowship we were created for koinonia is the word there the sweet fellowship of the church and the reality is as a matter of fact because some people say well I'm just not a people person and well that's okay I am a people person and I know some of you aren't and some of you are you know extroverts like me praise God for us extroverts because it'd be a very quiet world without us and some of you are introverts praise God for the introverts because it'd be a very very loud world if we were all extroverts and so we need each one of us right and we need this great balance but even if we say well I'm not a people person but the reality is in the very core of our being we need people and that's that's something that is put inside of us in creation more than any other creature and the reason is because in the beginning
[24:51] God said let us make man in our image the plurality of God and God was never in isolation as Father, Son and Holy Spirit we're always there and if we're in the image of God we're not made for isolation I know they got very deep doctrinally for you for just a moment but that's exactly what Job needs and he has three friends that have gathered around him and look at what he says here in verse 14 for the despairing man there should be kindness from his friends when I'm under this type of weight this type of despair and the anticipation is that my life would just end what I need at that moment is kindness from my friends and then he goes into this great poetic imagery and said but you have not offered that they had gathered together to bring comfort and ease to his suffering remember that was their intended purpose but Job says you've not done that you stared at me for seven days seven nights
[25:54] I spoke and now you accuse he said you're like the wadis that surround that region that give a promise of water but there is no water because who needs water in the wet season right he said it's full of water and the ice and storm and all that other but in the dry land when the caravans are going through there and they desperately need a drink all it is is a dry river bread and they are let down because there's no water in it because it disappears when man needs it and he said exactly what he says he said you've been a fair weather friend when I didn't need you you were there now that I need you you're offering me no hope no comfort no ease to my suffering it got hot in my life and it dried up in which you supplied so the cry of the hurting is that they need others around them and they need others to be intentional and Job gives us the answer and you say well how could his friends do that how could his friends just not be of any help and Job gives us the answer he says you came and you looked upon all my suffering and you became afraid you were scared of what I was going through like it was some plague that you might catch like my suffering might become your suffering like I had a problem that was untouchable the New Testament tells us to snatch those that are going into the fire hating even their sin and smelling the smoke on their clothes like to snatch them from the fire one of the sermon series that I remember most I remember the title of it the most of 20 years of pastoral ministries is the untouchables that Christ made a habit out of touching the untouchables those that nobody else would touch the woman with the flow of blood the lepers the blind man he touched the untouchables the ones that society said if you touch them you're going to be unclean and he would do it why because they need someone who will relate to them in that moment not in fear but in understanding and the reality is is because in every one of our lives each one of us have been untouchable there's something inside of each and every one of us that have made us unclean at that moment and while we were yet sinners
[28:10] Christ died for us and he touched us in our untouchable condition and therefore he has called us as ambassadors to be those who are not afraid or struck dumbfounded by the suffering and misery of others and his name fails me right now but I remember the account of a missionary that went to a particular region and he wanted to minister in this area and everyone in that area had leprosy and it's modern day leprosy not leprosy that we find in scripture so there is a difference by the way so it was more of a modern day leprosy and he went there to minister to them and he ministered there for like two years three years and nobody came to Christ and nobody would ever hear him out nobody would ever acknowledge him and he was kind of downcast and he was out and the day he was boarding the plane to leave the island that he was on it became evident that he had leprosy he had contacted leprosy while being there trying to minister to the people from that moment on the people began to respond to the gospel and the church began to thrive on that island because now this individual could relate to them in their suffering and God used that identification with those people to completely change the eternal destiny of those he had been seeking to minister to apart from those people and what Job is saying is
[29:30] I need you but you're so afraid to get near me you won't help me because you're afraid of what I've got maybe not be those afraid of what other people have and then finally the last thing that we see in this passage this need for others brings us to this last reality that he declares and it is a longing to be seen Job says teach me and I will be silent Job by the way never rejects the teaching of his friends but what he does do and by the way this is intentional if we're going to walk beside other people and I expect we will because we want to be disciple makers and we want to be discipled right so if you're going to walk beside other people we cannot speak in generalities Job says tell me what I've done wrong that's all I'm asking Job said don't look at me and say well you have to have sin in your life because all this bad thing is tell me what the sin is I can take it name it so that I can repent of it if there's some unknown sin in my life call it out
[30:42] I try to tell people listen I'm a big boy I can take it just tell me the truth right that's what Job is saying here Job said if you see sin in my life if there's something I need to change tell me what it is but if you just say well Job you must have sinned that means nothing to me because I know of no sin in my life and unless you point it out there is none and he asked for that right he says give me specifics and teach me how I should give me true instruction when we walk beside people listen love them enough to tell them the truth and if you don't see any reason for what's going on in their life then tell them that too don't jump to an assumption and then he brings us to this last great cry and it's really telling verse 28 look at what it says now please look at me and see if I lie to your face what does
[31:51] Job say look at me look at me not my circumstances not the problems not the sickness not the suffering not the storms look at me see me the ones that are hurting are individuals they're not a circumstance they're an individual and when Christ came for me and I was crying and hurt he saw me and his words spoke to me he spoke to you and he sees us as we are and here's the cry look at me don't give me some boxed up good answer about why bad things happen tell me what's going on in my life this is something that I have found more and more in today's day and time people don't want generalities they want us to look at them and tell them what's going on and we need to say okay we need to be present for that and we need to have an answer for that ultimately we know the only answer is Jesus
[33:14] Christ Christ is the only one that can be the friend who honestly sees you as you are understands the weight of your suffering and the weight of your misery and has an answer to it heal him we know that the reality is we are his ambassadors and we have the opportunity to lead others to him and we see this in the cry of the hurting in Job 6 thank you my brother