Job 2:10 – 31:40

Struggle

SERMONS ON SUFFERING

GOOD FRIENDS

Let the day perish on which I was born. 3:3

JOB’S OUTBURST

Eliphaz… Job

Bildad…. Job

Zophar… Job

Eliphaz… Job

Bildad…. Job

Zophar… Job

Eliphaz… Job

Bildad…. Job

(Silence)… Job

THREE CYCLES

Eliju (Next Week)

WHAT DO WE LEARN FROM THESE

DIALOGS?

If God is almighty and is just, why do the innocent suffer?

ATTEMPT AT THEODICY

WHY THE INNOCENT SUFFER: THEODICY

Three Possibilities:

1.God is not Almighty.

2.God is not Just (He does evil).

3.Man may not be innocent.

THE INNOCENT SUFFER

Job’s Three Friends Blame Job… (Can’t Blame God)

GOOD FRIENDSBAD THEOLOGY

“Hide me in Sheol (hell)”

“Miserable comforters you all!”

“I know…!”

Respectful…. To HARSH

“Who that was innocent ever perished?”

“How much less man who is a maggot… worm!”

PROGRESSIONBLAME of friends FAITH of Job

Confused, but Convinced:

God is Almighty and Just; I am faithful

Yet I am suffering

JOB SILENCES HIS FRIENDS

JOB’S CONVICTION OF FAITH I know that my redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand on the earth. And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God; I myself will see him with my own eyes—I, and not another. How my heart yearns within me! (19:25-27)

JOB’S CONVICTION OF FAITH

I hold fast my righteousness and will not let it go;My heart does not reproach me for any of my days.

JOB’S CONVICTION OF FAITH

Lo these are but the outskirts of his ways;and how small a whisper do we hear of him.

JOB’S CONVICTION OF FAITH

The words of Job are ended.

True theological statements can be false out of context.

"A little learning is a dangerous thing" (Alexander Pope, "Essay on Criticism").

Eternal applied to temporal…

Suffering and prosperity are not distributed in proportion to the evil or good that a person does.

Job is right: the wicked are spared in the day of calamity (21:30). But the just and blameless man is a laughing stock (12:4). Those who suffer most may be the best. And those who prosper most may be the worst among us. Therefore let us not judge one another before the time.

God still reigns and has a purpose (reason) in all the affairs of creation.

“With God are wisdom and might;he has counsel and understanding.With him are strength and wisdom;the deceived and the deceiver are his.” (12:13–16)

There is wisdom behind the apparent arbitrariness of the world, but it is hidden from man.

Where shall wisdom be found?And where is the place of understanding?Man does not know the way to it,and it is not found in the land of the living . . .God understands the way to it,and he knows its place. (28:12–13, 23)

5. Therefore let us trust God.

Sing, pray, and keep his ways unswerving,Perform thy duties faithfully,And trust his Word, though undeserving,Thou yet shalt find it true for thee;God never yet forsook at needThe soul that trusted him indeed.