WHY ARE YOU A BELIEVER?
INTRODUCTION
Start with 20 questions!
Which is the most misunderstood book in the Bible?
Have your read the book of Job?
What is “Job” about?
- 1. BACKGROUND TO JOB
Job belongs to the genre – Wisdom Literature
Job not the author but the subject of the book. Written by an Israelite – he, not Job or his friends – uses the covenant name of God in the prologue and the epilogue.
When was the book written?
Two dates: When Job lived; some time during the time of the patriarchs –
- No mention of Israelite history
- Live for more than 100 years
- Wealth measured in livestock
- Acted as a priest in his family
- Sabean and Chaldean tribes fit into this period in history.
When the book was written about Job; probably at some time between the reigns of Solomon and Israel’s exile in Babylon.
What was the purpose of the author?
The author addressed the problem of suffering. Not intended to be a theological answer but a message to the godly who suffer and don’t know why.
The problem of suffering is an ongoing one typified by Job. He was a man who feared God and shunned evil (1:1) and yet he suffered terribly. If anyone had a reason to ask the question, “Why me?’ Job did.
The author’s purpose was not so much to contribute to the ongoing discussion but to speak to the godly sufferers who struggle with the crisis of faith their ongoing suffering produces. He is more of a pastor than a theologian.
- 2. WHAT IS THE PROBLEM?
Throughout history people have asked the same questions: Why do good people suffer? If God is almighty and God is good, how can He allow this to happen?
The world offer three possibilities:
- God is not almighty, after all,
- God is not just
- Humans may be innocent,
These three assumptions contradicted Job’s belief and that of his friends.
God is almighty; God is perfectly just and no human being is pure in His sight.
The only logical conclusion was that the person who suffered was guilty of sin and that the measure of his suffering was the measure of his guilt.
In their pain, the “wisdom” of the theologians does not answer their dilemma. Their so-called “wisdom” only seems to rub salt in their wounds and creates a stumbling block to faith.
How current is this situation? Preachers and well-meaning Christians glibly give the same arguments as the ancient theologians – God punishes those who sin; you are suffering therefore you must have sinned.
In Psalm 73 Asaph raised the same question: Why do the wicked prosper and godly suffer? Instead of theology providing an answer, it only increases the mystery. The sufferer is doubly wounded, by his circumstances and by the well-meaning responses of people who only drive the knife in deeper and increase the suffering, And for the godly sufferer God remains the biggest puzzle of all. How can God love me when He allows this to happen to me?
Instead of merely contributing to the theology of the day and adding his logical arguments, the author tells a story.
- 3. ENTER A THIRD PARTY
Without the prologue (chapters 1 and 2), the dialogue between Job and his three friends would be a rehash of the age-old argument between theologians and the godly sufferer who were attempting to solve the “God problem” (is God just?) in the face of the “human problem” (they must be getting what they deserve),
The author adds a third party to the mix. The relationship between God and humans is not a closed one. Among His creatures is the great adversary. Since he cannot contend with God directly, he turns his attention to God’s creation who carries His image.
He began his assault on human beings in the Garden of Eden. Through his subtle deception he lured the first woman into believing that God had short-changed them. Instead of focussing on everything God had given them, he drew Eve’s attention to one thing God held back from them, their right to make their own rules, symbolised by eating fruit God said not to eat. He lured them by what he offered without telling them the consequences. Satan’s modus operandi becomes quite clear.
- Lure them into disobedience to God’s way,
- Then load them with guilt through his accusation and condemnation because they did wrong!
Eve was convinced by the devil’s deception. Adam stepped into rank disobedience.
The outcome was that they lost their oneness with God, their God-awareness and became selfishly, self-centredly self-aware, introducing a fundamental flaw into the nature of all mankind.
Satan’s all-consuming purpose was to drive a wedge between God and His beloved humans to bring about an irreconcilable rift between them.
In his story, the author describes the accuser’s bold attack on God and godly people in the special and intimate relationship that is dearest to them both. When God draws Satan’s attention to the righteousness of His beloved creature in whom He delights, he attempts to attack Job’s righteousness and show God up for a fool for trusting him.
He charges Job’s godliness as evil, calling him mercenary and self-serving. The very righteousness in which God delights is Job’s way of getting what he wants from God. Job’s so-called righteousness is nothing but the worst kind of heinous sin!
- 4. SATAN’S ACCUSATION
If God will allow Satan to test Job by cutting the link between righteousness and blessing, he will expose Job and all righteous people as the frauds they are.
This is Satan’s ultimate challenge. He believes he has found the wedge he is looking for to cement the rift between God and man. The fact that humans are dependent on God for their lives and well-being, is the occasion for humankind’s greatest temptation – to love the gifts rather than the Giver, to please God for the benefits and to be righteous because it pays.
If Satan is right, then the very “righteousness” in which God delights is evil and creates a chasm between God and man that cannot be bridged. Even God’s plan of redemption is flawed because the righteous person is guilty of the worst sin and God can only sweep everything away in judgment. All of creation becomes irredeemable.
- 5. GOD’S RESPONSE
Satan’s challenge cannot be ignored or silenced, nor even by destroying the accuser because it exposes the heart of creation and man’s place in it. God has to let Satan have his way with Job within limits so that both He and righteous Job can be vindicated and the accuser silenced.
Out of this contest comes Job’s anguish. He is robbed of every sign of God’s favour and He is silent so that He becomes the great enigma. In addition to that, Job’s so-called friends attack his righteousness according to their orthodox logic until Job feels abandoned and alone.
- 6. JOB’S VINDICATION
In spite of his suffering and the agony of his apparent alienation from God, Job refuses to curse God and die. He may curse the day of his birth, complain bitterly of his lot and chide God for his unjust suffering but he refuses to renounce God, no matter what.
Job does not mourn the loss of his possessions – he focuses on God. ‘I thought I knew you,” he says in effect, “but I realise now that I know nothing. I repent in dust and ashes.”
In spite of his heinous accusation, the devil is silenced and Job is vindicated.
Not only is Job’s righteousness put to the test but also the highest of human wisdom. The best that his friends could come up with fell short of the truth. Neither their wisdom nor Job’s can fathom the truth of his situation, not even the brash “wisdom”’ of the young Elihu who thought he knew better than all of them!
God steps in when every other argument is stilled and every voice is silenced and there is nothing more to be said. He shows His displeasure with puny human wisdom by the way He approaches Job, not in a gentle whisper but by His dramatic entrance out of a ferocious storm!
God has given man the ability to understand creaturely things but he cannot learn the ways of God through the world of nature. Job 11:7 “Can you fathom the mysteries of God? Can you probe the limits of the Almighty?”
“But where can wisdom be found? Where does understanding dwell?” Job 28:12. Job answers his own question from the mouth of God: “And He said to man, ‘The fear of the Lord – that is wisdom, and to shun evil is understanding.’” Job 28;28.
- 7. THE OUTCOME OF JOB’S TEST
Job passed the severest test any human being can undergo. God’s confidence in him was vindicated and Job could be trusted with material things because he had proved that he was trustworthy and did not worship God for things!
CONCLUSION
What can we learn from the story of Job? How relevant is his story for us today?
Job’s story is the answer to some of the pernicious deception in the church today. There are too many “believers” who are in it for what they can get out of it. When God does not give them what they are “believing for”, they walk away disillusioned because He did not make good on the promises preachers made on His behalf.
Abraham faced the same test and passed. God required of him what he treasured most in life – Isaac, his son. When he showed that he was willing to offer him as a sacrifice on the altar, God gave him back with the promise of multiplied blessing.
Why are we believers? Is it because some preacher offered us eternal life if we “accept Jesus as our personal Saviour” and all the benefits that go with that? Is it because we will go to heaven when we die?
If so, then Satan’s accusation is accurate and we fall into the category of those whose righteousness is phoney because it is empty of the “fear of the Lord”.
Jesus gave us the gift of righteousness He won by perfect and absolute commitment to the “fear of the Lord.” It is a gift that is of no use to us if we allow our old selfish nature to rule. It is not our decision to follow Jesus that counts but the evidence of a transformed life lived out in obedience to Christ and under the authority and control of the Holy Spirit.
“For if you live according to the sinful nature you will die; but if, by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live, because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.” Romans 8:13,14.
Beware of preaching that is watered down to what God can do for you! What He does, He does for His glory and we happen to be the ones to whom and through whom His glory is revealed!
God has no qualms about putting us to the test to see whether our faith in Him is about us or about Him!