Latest / Pastor John Piper's answers / What’s True and False in Job?

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What’s True and False in Job? · Pastor John Piper's answers

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  Speaker 1: It's Job Week on the podcast Welcome to Job Week.
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  Speaker 1: The Book of Job is a source of a lot
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  Speaker 1: of ABJA questions for us and the source of a
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  Speaker 1: lot of answers to on all sorts of topics. Over
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  Speaker 1: the years, we have eighty episodes now in the archive
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  Speaker 1: mentioning Job on every topic you can imagine. I'm just
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  Speaker 1: surprised how often we return to this very important book,
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  Speaker 1: which is not easy to interpret. As we're finding out,
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  Speaker 1: we're reading the book together in our Bible reading plan,
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  Speaker 1: and today we read Job sixteen together. The whole book
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  Speaker 1: is challenging to interpret because it's littered with errors pastor John,
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  Speaker 1: errors about suffering, errors about providence, and even false statements
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  Speaker 1: about God himself, which is a distortion on full display
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  Speaker 1: for us here in our reading today, in the early
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  Speaker 1: verses of chapter sixteen, there we find a mix of
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  Speaker 1: things that are true and things that are certainly false,
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  Speaker 1: and most starkly in Job sixteen verses seven to nine.
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  Speaker 1: Verse seven is sovereignly true God brought the suffering into
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  Speaker 1: Job's life by his plan and his permission. But then
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  Speaker 1: verse nine seems devilishly false. God did not bring the
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  Speaker 1: suffering because he hates Job. So how do we pastor John,
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  Speaker 1: how do we parse facts from fiction as we read
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  Speaker 1: Job's words, his wife's words, and all of his friends
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  Speaker 1: trying to interpret providence.
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  Speaker 2: Well, that is the right question to ask, I think,
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  Speaker 2: because perhaps the most striking thing about the structure of
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  Speaker 2: the Book of Job is that from chapter three to
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  Speaker 2: chapter thirty one you have twenty nine chapters of back
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  Speaker 2: and forth between Job and his three so called comforters
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  Speaker 2: or friends, both of them speaking a mixture of truth
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  Speaker 2: and falsehood. It's simply stunning to me that the author
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  Speaker 2: would devote twenty nine out of forty two chapters to
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  Speaker 2: a jumble of good and bad statements about human suffering
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  Speaker 2: and God's sovereignty. So the author seems to be especially
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  Speaker 2: exercised that there is so much bad theology about the
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  Speaker 2: sovereignty of God and human suffering that, it seems, is
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  Speaker 2: why he gives twenty nine chapters to it. Now we
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  Speaker 2: can summarize the simplistic theology of the suffering and sovereignty
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  Speaker 2: in the mouth of the three friends with Job four
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  Speaker 2: to seven. They say, who that was innocent ever perished?
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  Speaker 2: Or where were the upright cut off? As I have
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  Speaker 2: seen those who plow iniquity and so trouble reap the same.
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  Speaker 2: In other words, their answer to Job's extended suffering is
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  Speaker 2: that it is owing to his iniquity, the righteous prosper,
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  Speaker 2: the wicked suffer. So in chapter after chapter they accuse
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  Speaker 2: Job of all kinds of sin, from bribery to deceit
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  Speaker 2: to neglect of the poor. And for Job's part, he
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  Speaker 2: despairs of being treated justly by God and says repeatedly
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  Speaker 2: at least three times that God is treating him as
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  Speaker 2: an enemy chapter thirteen, verse twenty four, for example, and
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  Speaker 2: that God in fact hates him sixteen nine. Now what
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  Speaker 2: they all agree on is that God is absolutely sovereign.
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  Speaker 2: That's amazing. They never question that. We moderns, we are
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  Speaker 2: bold and brash enough to get in God's face and
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  Speaker 2: say that He's not sovereign. That's never once question and
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  Speaker 2: by anybody in the book of Job. What they are
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  Speaker 2: struggling with is why a person like Job is enduring
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  Speaker 2: such long and terrible suffering. And the Friend's answer is
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  Speaker 2: his suffering correlates with his sin. And Job's answer is,
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  Speaker 2: I don't understand what's going on, but all I can
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  Speaker 2: tell is that God is treating me as though he
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  Speaker 2: hated me. So I think the way the author intends
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  Speaker 2: for us to sort out what is true and what
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  Speaker 2: is false in what Job and his friends say in
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  Speaker 2: these twenty nine chapters is by letting the rest of
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  Speaker 2: the book what came before in chapters one and two,
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  Speaker 2: what comes after in chapters thirty two to forty two.
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  Speaker 2: Let all of that provide the grid, the framework, the
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  Speaker 2: criteria for separate truth and error in chapters three through
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  Speaker 2: thirty one. So let me try to sketch very briefly
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  Speaker 2: what that grid is. The point of chapters one and
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  Speaker 2: two is that Job was a good man, a god
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  Speaker 2: fearing man verse one, blameless and upright, one who feared
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  Speaker 2: God and turned away from evil. He proved that profoundly
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  Speaker 2: with his godly response, blessing God, worshiping God. In the
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  Speaker 2: midst of the loss of his children, the loss of
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  Speaker 2: his health. He submitted to the sovereign wisdom and justice
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  Speaker 2: goodness of God, even though he couldn't see it all.
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  Speaker 2: In chapter two, verse ten, he says, shall we receive
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  Speaker 2: good from God? And shall we not receive evil? And
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  Speaker 2: the inspired author puts his approval on those words. In
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  Speaker 2: all this Job did not sin with his lips. So
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  Speaker 2: the fact that we are given a glimpse into heaven
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  Speaker 2: as Satan and God interact about the life of Job,
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  Speaker 2: which Job could not see, is intended to show that
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  Speaker 2: on earth we don't know enough about God's hidden ways,
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  Speaker 2: his hidden plans to pass any valid negative judgment about
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  Speaker 2: his ways. So we have a signal from the author
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  Speaker 2: from the beginning that Job's three friends are not right.
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  Speaker 2: They are treating Job as if they're sin everywhere in
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  Speaker 2: his life. That explains his suffering, and the point of
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  Speaker 2: chapters one and two is that's not true. There must
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  Speaker 2: be another explanation. But for Job, for thirty one chapters,
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  Speaker 2: he can't figure that out. So the next big unit
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  Speaker 2: is Elihu, the young man who steps forward, whom I
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  Speaker 2: believe is speaking the truth in order to correct both
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  Speaker 2: Job and his friends. Here's chapter thirty two, verse three.
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  Speaker 2: Elihu burned with anger at Job because he justified himself
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  Speaker 2: rather than God. He burned with anger also at Job's
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  Speaker 2: three friends because they had found no answer, although they
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  Speaker 2: had declared Job to.
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  Speaker 1: Be in the wrong.
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  Speaker 2: And what's new about eli Hu's theology of suffering is
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  Speaker 2: that he does not correlate suffering merely with a punitive
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  Speaker 2: act of God against Job. But he introduces this new
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  Speaker 2: factor chapter thirty three, fourteen to nineteen that suffering in
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  Speaker 2: the case of God's children is a gracious means by
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  Speaker 2: which he exposes the sediment of pride at the bottom
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  Speaker 2: of our lives, kind of lying there undetected, and then
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  Speaker 2: you get bumped by suffering and the sentiment stirs up.
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  Speaker 2: He exposes that and mercifully leads us to repentance and trust.
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  Speaker 2: That's what's going to happen to Job. Now. I don't
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  Speaker 2: think that contradicts the statement at the beginning of the
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  Speaker 2: book of Job that Job was a good and God
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  Speaker 2: fearing man, but it clarifies that in the best of men,
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  Speaker 2: that God regards us good and god fearing. In the
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  Speaker 2: best of men, there are remnants of indwelling sin. And
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  Speaker 2: one way that God, in his mercy cleanses us and
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  Speaker 2: humbles us and brings us to fuller, deeper repentance, deeper
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  Speaker 2: trust is through suffering. He tests us to see if
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  Speaker 2: we will hold fast to Him in love. Then the
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  Speaker 2: next major unit in the book is the word of
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  Speaker 2: God himself in chapter thirty eight to forty one and
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  Speaker 2: the basic message there is Job, you just don't know
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  Speaker 2: enough to pass judgment on me. You need to put
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  Speaker 2: away your accusations and trust me. Chapter thirty eight, verse two.
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  Speaker 2: You darken counsel without knowledge. And then the final part
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  Speaker 2: of the book is Job's confession of God's sovereignty and
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  Speaker 2: his own repentance for having spoken so badly about God.
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  Speaker 2: Chapter forty two, verse five. I had heard of you
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  Speaker 2: by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye
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  Speaker 2: seize you. Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust
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  Speaker 2: and ashes. So the Lord tests Job one last time
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  Speaker 2: now to see if he has the new fresh grace
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  Speaker 2: to pray for the forgiveness of his three friends who
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  Speaker 2: wounded him so badly Chapter forty two, verse ten. And
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  Speaker 2: the Lord restored the fortunes of Job when he had
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  Speaker 2: prayed for his friends. So I think the author intends
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  Speaker 2: for us to step back and see the god fearing
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  Speaker 2: goodness of Job at the beginning, and the refining of
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  Speaker 2: Job's holiness and faith or suffering, and his rejection of
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  Speaker 2: the simplistic view of the three friends, and his repentance
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  Speaker 2: for having found fault with God, and the beauty of
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  Speaker 2: his humility and love at the end, and the author
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  Speaker 2: expects us to take all of that as the grid
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  Speaker 2: through which we now will be able to sort out
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  Speaker 2: what is true and what is faults in the mouth
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  Speaker 2: of Job and his friends in chapters three through thirty.
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  Speaker 1: One helpful for us to appreciate the whole book of
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  Speaker 1: Job as we read it together. There's so much in
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  Speaker 1: Job to learn about suffering and the power of satan,
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  Speaker 1: the means of endurance, how to respond to suffering, and
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  Speaker 1: God's plan in that suffering. And speaking of where Job
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  Speaker 1: is headed, here's a spoiler too. Job is going to
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  Speaker 1: be materially blessed by God twofold over what he lost.
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  Speaker 1: Everything he lost will be a double blessing in the future,
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  Speaker 1: which at one point caused an APGA listener to ask, well,
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  Speaker 1: then can we pray to God for a doubled income?
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  Speaker 1: Interesting question? That was APGA sixteen thirty three or an
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  Speaker 1: the APGA book on pages one o four to one
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  Speaker 1: oh five if you have a copy of the book.
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  Speaker 1: So many fascinating things about this book of Job and
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  Speaker 1: Job week continues next time when we read Job nineteen together,
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  Speaker 1: which includes verses twenty seven and twenty six, where Job says,
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  Speaker 1: And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in
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  Speaker 1: my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see
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  Speaker 1: for myself. Wow. Will we see God visibly? That's up next.
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  Speaker 1: I'm Tony Ranky. See you on Thursday.