Latest / INSIGHT FOR LIVING: Biblical Wisdom For Everyday Living / The Futility of Unscrewing the Inscrutable, Part 1 - Pastor Chuck Swindoll Insight for Living
Transcript
- 0:08Speaker 1: We like a God we can figure out, a God
- 0:11Speaker 1: who fits neatly into our categories, who always says yes,
- 0:15Speaker 1: who never leaves us in the dark. But that's not
- 0:18Speaker 1: the God of the Bible, and it's certainly not the
- 0:20Speaker 1: God we meet in the book of Job. Today on
- 0:23Speaker 1: Insight for Living, Chuck Swindoll invites us to consider a
- 0:26Speaker 1: God far greater, far higher, and far greater. and far
- 0:29Speaker 1: more mysterious than we ever imagined. Why does he allow
- 0:33Speaker 1: such suffering? Why the silence? Chuck doesn't offer easy answers.
- 0:38Speaker 1: He offers something better.
- 0:40Speaker 2: If you're new with us today, you wouldn't know that
- 0:50Speaker 2: we're in the midst of a study in Job, and
- 0:53Speaker 2: we have come all the way to the 25th chapter
- 0:56Speaker 2: of this book. Which means we only have two years
- 1:00Speaker 2: and four months left to get through it.
- 1:04Speaker 3: Not really.
- 1:06Speaker 2: Job 25, verse 1. Then Bildad, the Shuhite, answered, Dominion
- 1:13Speaker 2: and all belong to him who establishes peace in his heights.
- 1:16Speaker 2: Is there any number to his troops? And upon whom
- 1:20Speaker 2: does his light not rise? How then can a man
- 1:24Speaker 2: be just with God?
- 1:25Speaker 3: Or how.
- 1:27Speaker 2: Can he be clean who is born a woman? Even
- 1:31Speaker 2: the moon has no brightness and the stars are not
- 1:36Speaker 2: pure in his sight. How much less man that maggot
- 1:42Speaker 2: and the son of man that worm. Job responded, what
- 1:48Speaker 2: a help you are to the weak.
- 1:53Speaker 3: You got it. It is sarcasm. how you have saved.
- 1:57Speaker 2: The arm without strength, what counsel you have given to
- 2:01Speaker 2: one without wisdom, what helpful insight you have abundantly provided.
- 2:06Speaker 2: To whom have you uttered words and whose spirit was
- 2:10Speaker 2: expressed through you? And then Job describes the departed spirits
- 2:16Speaker 2: as well as the whole world about us all the
- 2:19Speaker 2: way to the heights of the universe. Verse 13 says,
- 2:25Speaker 2: By his breath the heavens are cleared, his hand has
- 2:28Speaker 2: pierced the fleeing serpent. Behold, these are the fringes of
- 2:33Speaker 2: his ways, and how faint a word we hear from him.
- 2:38Speaker 2: But his mighty thunder, who can understand?
- 2:42Speaker 1: You're listening to Insight for Living. To dig deeper into
- 2:54Speaker 1: Job's story on your own, be sure to purchase your
- 2:57Speaker 1: copy of our Searching the Scriptures Bible Study Workbooks by
- 3:00Speaker 1: going to insight.org slash offer. Chuck titled today's message, The
- 3:06Speaker 1: Futility of Unscrewing the Inscrutable.
- 3:10Speaker 3: A study of Job is essentially a study of God.
- 3:15Speaker 2: For after all, God is the one who struck the
- 3:18Speaker 2: deal with the adversary when he came and pointed out Job,
- 3:25Speaker 2: claiming that if somehow God would remove the hedge from
- 3:29Speaker 2: around this servant of his, Job would ultimately curse his name.
- 3:37Speaker 3: So it was God who released the enemy to Job.
- 3:43Speaker 2: And it was God who set the boundaries saying, but
- 3:45Speaker 2: don't touch him, don't touch his life. And later it
- 3:49Speaker 2: was God who permitted Job the adversary to come back
- 3:54Speaker 2: and to touch him and bring upon him all manner
- 3:58Speaker 2: of pain and suffering. It was God's permissive will, strange
- 4:04Speaker 2: as it is for all of us to understand that.
- 4:07Speaker 3: It was his permissive will that allowed.
- 4:09Speaker 2: The enemy to do what he did with Job. And
- 4:13Speaker 2: then it is God who steps behind the shadows and
- 4:18Speaker 2: hides for 35 chapters. He doesn't speak. He doesn't give visions.
- 4:27Speaker 2: He doesn't provide relief. He doesn't offer comfort.
- 4:34Speaker 3: Not only is he absent, he is silent. And it's
- 4:40Speaker 3: tough for us.
- 4:42Speaker 2: We who were reared in Sunday school were taught that
- 4:45Speaker 2: the God we love is the God who is good
- 4:47Speaker 2: and merciful and gracious and kind, full.
- 4:50Speaker 3: Of love and And could never do anything cruel.
- 4:54Speaker 2: And then we happen upon an intelligent and careful study
- 4:59Speaker 2: of Job. And we're confused. And the longer we stay
- 5:05Speaker 2: in the book, the more we realize. Either we weren't
- 5:10Speaker 2: taught correctly the full story about God. Or we're not
- 5:14Speaker 2: understanding the full story about Job.
- 5:16Speaker 3: I think the former. The former.
- 5:20Speaker 2: Paul wrote to the Romans and said, Oh, the depth
- 5:23Speaker 2: of the riches, both of the wisdom and the knowledge
- 5:26Speaker 2: of God. How unsearchable are his judgments and unfathomable his ways.
- 5:36Speaker 2: So even as far back as the first century, as
- 5:40Speaker 2: Paul penned his letter to the Romans, he informed the reader,
- 5:45Speaker 2: ultimately us, that God is unfathomable in.
- 5:51Speaker 3: And unsearchable.
- 5:54Speaker 2: Doesn't mean he isn't good, and it doesn't mean he
- 5:56Speaker 2: stops being loving and merciful. It just means he is
- 5:59Speaker 2: also incomprehensible.
- 6:02Speaker 3: We're getting in deep. And before we know it.
- 6:06Speaker 2: We realize there is a whole lot about God we
- 6:11Speaker 2: were never taught. And now, in the midst of our
- 6:16Speaker 2: study of Job, we are forced to dig deeper and
- 6:20Speaker 2: find out what it is that we were missing. Theologians
- 6:24Speaker 2: call him inscrutable. One of the first times I remember
- 6:29Speaker 2: that word making a dent in my brain, I was
- 6:32Speaker 2: graduating from seminary and the president of the school at
- 6:36Speaker 2: the time, Dr. John Wolvard, made the comment that he
- 6:40Speaker 2: would hope that all of us would continue to remember
- 6:43Speaker 2: that our God is unfathomable. Which means we are unable
- 6:49Speaker 2: to fathom his ways. And our God is unscrutable. Then
- 6:53Speaker 2: he said with a wry smile, so don't try to
- 6:56Speaker 2: unscrew the inscrutable. First time I put the two words together.
- 7:03Speaker 2: But we so want to. Everything within us screams to
- 7:08Speaker 2: explain and interpret and define fully the.
- 7:13Speaker 3: Workings of God.
- 7:14Speaker 2: For after all, we're intelligent. God made us like this.
- 7:18Speaker 2: He tells us that we are to know him and
- 7:20Speaker 2: we long to do that. So we continue to pursue him.
- 7:24Speaker 2: And the deeper we dig, the more unfathomable he becomes.
- 7:29Speaker 2: And that's the way it's to be. But we're not
- 7:32Speaker 2: comfortable with that. We like things fathomable. We like things scrutable.
- 7:40Speaker 2: We like to be able to explain and interpret and
- 7:43Speaker 2: correctly analyze so that we understand.
- 7:46Speaker 3: The whole story. Impossible with God. Impossible. You see, we
- 7:54Speaker 3: think of.
- 7:55Speaker 2: God when no one is around as being maybe the
- 7:58Speaker 2: oldest man we've ever known.
- 8:01Speaker 3: He has a long.
- 8:02Speaker 2: Beard and stands in the north of the old maps going.
- 8:08Speaker 2: And he's blowing this wind across to move the sailing
- 8:11Speaker 2: ships across the seas.
- 8:13Speaker 3: Not so. He is not a little bit like us.
- 8:17Speaker 3: He is nothing like us.
- 8:19Speaker 2: As Isaiah wrote, my ways are higher than your ways
- 8:23Speaker 2: and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.
- 8:27Speaker 3: We are not alike.
- 8:30Speaker 2: Now we need an illustration that helps us understand the vastness.
- 8:35Speaker 3: Of God. Astronomy will help.
- 8:39Speaker 2: If it were possible to travel the speed of light
- 8:42Speaker 2: on a straight trajectory, we would arrive at the moon
- 8:47Speaker 2: in one and one-third seconds. Continuing at that same speed,
- 8:53Speaker 2: do you know how long it would take us.
- 8:54Speaker 3: To reach the first star?
- 8:58Speaker 2: Four years. That's only the first star in this galaxy.
- 9:07Speaker 2: Bear with me. Some of you have been to New
- 9:09Speaker 2: York City and you have visited the Hayden Planetarium. It
- 9:14Speaker 2: has a miniature replica of our solar system showing the
- 9:17Speaker 2: speeds and the sizes of our planets. What is interesting
- 9:23Speaker 2: is that the three outer planets are not even included.
- 9:30Speaker 2: You see, there wasn't room for Uranus, Neptune and Pluto.
- 9:36Speaker 2: Uranus would have to be in the planetarium's outer corridor.
- 9:40Speaker 2: Neptune would be around 8th Avenue and Pluto, another three
- 9:45Speaker 2: long avenues.
- 9:46Speaker 3: Away at 5th Avenue. Oh, by the way, no stars
- 9:51Speaker 3: are included for obvious reasons.
- 9:55Speaker 2: Can you imagine on the same scale where the nearest
- 9:58Speaker 2: star would be located?
- 10:01Speaker 3: Cleveland, Ohio. Vast.
- 10:07Speaker 2: And remember, that's just our local galaxy and the nearest star.
- 10:14Speaker 3: There's more.
- 10:16Speaker 2: A scientist once suggested another interesting analogy. To grasp this scene,
- 10:23Speaker 2: imagine a perfectly smooth glass pavement on which the finest
- 10:28Speaker 2: speck can be seen. Then shrink our sun from 865,000
- 10:35Speaker 2: miles in diameter to only two feet and place an
- 10:41Speaker 2: orange ball on the pavement to represent the sun. Step
- 10:47Speaker 2: off 82 paces, two feet per pace, and to represent
- 10:53Speaker 2: proportionately the first planet, Mercury, put down a tiny mustard seed.
- 11:00Speaker 2: Take 60 more steps for Venus and put down an
- 11:06Speaker 2: ordinary BB. Mark off 78 more steps, put down a
- 11:13Speaker 2: green pea.
- 11:15Speaker 3: That's us.
- 11:19Speaker 2: Step off another 108 paces from there.
- 11:22Speaker 3: And for Mars put down a pinhead.
- 11:28Speaker 2: Sprinkle around some fine dust for the asteroids then take
- 11:32Speaker 2: another 788 steps more and place an orange on the
- 11:34Speaker 2: glass for Jupiter after 934 more steps put down a
- 11:36Speaker 2: golf ball for Saturn.
- 11:48Speaker 3: Now it gets really involved.
- 11:52Speaker 2: Mark 2,086 steps.
- 11:54Speaker 3: More for Uranus, a marble.
- 11:58Speaker 2: Another 2,322 steps from there you arrive at Neptune. Let's
- 12:06Speaker 2: let a cherry represent Neptune. This will take two and
- 12:10Speaker 2: a half miles and we haven't even discussed Pluto.
- 12:15Speaker 3: We have a.
- 12:16Speaker 2: Smooth glass surface, five miles in diameter, yet just a
- 12:21Speaker 2: tiny fraction of the heavens excluding Pluto. Now guess how
- 12:26Speaker 2: far we'd have to go on the same scale before
- 12:28Speaker 2: we could put down another two-foot ball to represent the
- 12:31Speaker 2: nearest star. 6,720 miles. Miles, not paces. And that's just
- 12:42Speaker 2: the first star. Among millions. Maybe billions.
- 12:54Speaker 3: In this galaxy. Which is one among thousands.
- 12:57Speaker 2: Maybe millions. David in the 139th Psalm. Made the comment.
- 13:06Speaker 3: It is high.
- 13:07Speaker 2: I cannot attain to it. I think it's his way
- 13:11Speaker 2: of saying. This blows my mind.
- 13:15Speaker 3: And so it should. It should.
- 13:18Speaker 2: But we are uncomfortable with blown minds. After all, we're Americans.
- 13:27Speaker 2: We know how to run things until we get to God.
- 13:31Speaker 2: Not only do we not know how, we cannot control him, nor.
- 13:37Speaker 3: Should we try. A.W.
- 13:41Speaker 2: Tozer, on this very subject of God's inscrutability, writes, Left
- 13:47Speaker 2: to ourselves, we tend immediately to reduce God to manageable terms.
- 13:52Speaker 2: We want to get him where we can use him
- 13:54Speaker 2: or at least know where he is when we need him.
- 13:58Speaker 2: We want a God we can in some measure control.
- 14:02Speaker 2: We need the feeling of security that comes from knowing
- 14:04Speaker 2: what God is like. And what he is like is,
- 14:07Speaker 2: of course, a composite of all the religious pictures we
- 14:10Speaker 2: have seen. all the best people we have known or
- 14:13Speaker 2: heard about, and all the sublime ideas we have entertained.
- 14:18Speaker 2: If all this sounds strange to modern ears, it is
- 14:20Speaker 2: only because we have for a full half century taken
- 14:24Speaker 2: God for granted. The glory of God has not been
- 14:28Speaker 2: revealed to this generation. The God of contemporary Christianity is
- 14:33Speaker 2: only slightly superior to the gods of Greece and Rome
- 14:38Speaker 2: if indeed he is not actually inferior to them in
- 14:41Speaker 2: that he is weak and helpless while they at least
- 14:44Speaker 2: had power. If nothing else, the study of Job reveals
- 14:49Speaker 2: to us we do not know his ways. We cannot
- 14:56Speaker 2: explain the inexplicable. We cannot fathom the unfathomable. So we
- 15:04Speaker 2: cannot unscrew the inscrutable. And let's stop If only these
- 15:15Speaker 2: foolish men who saw themselves as Job's friends had simply
- 15:20Speaker 2: acknowledged that, it would have been so much more comforting
- 15:25Speaker 2: to this man in such enormous pain as he sat
- 15:32Speaker 2: longing for at least an arm around his shoulder that said,
- 15:37Speaker 2: we're here. But we don't understand any more than you do, man.
- 15:43Speaker 3: But we're here.
- 15:45Speaker 2: God is up to something phenomenal, and it's high.
- 15:49Speaker 3: We cannot attain to it. It is vast.
- 15:53Speaker 2: We cannot measure it. May I go this far? He
- 15:58Speaker 2: doesn't have a wonderful plan for everybody's life. For some lives,
- 16:05Speaker 2: his plan is Lou Gehrig's disease. For some lives, his
- 16:10Speaker 2: plan is a life of pain and heartbreak and brokenness.
- 16:17Speaker 2: For some, his plan is no to the prayers for healing.
- 16:25Speaker 2: But we don't like that. We won't accept that. In fact,
- 16:33Speaker 2: we'll go so far as to say if you believe that,
- 16:35Speaker 2: you lack faith.
- 16:38Speaker 3: I say if you believe that, you believe the Bible.
- 16:42Speaker 2: Because the God of the Bible includes the lives of
- 16:46Speaker 2: people who do not get well. Who do not quickly
- 16:52Speaker 2: get over the problems. Who do not easily move through
- 16:57Speaker 2: the illnesses. This book pictures its heroes, warts and all.
- 17:06Speaker 2: They fail, they fall, they hurt, and sometime on occasion, amazingly,
- 17:13Speaker 2: they succeed.
- 17:16Speaker 3: But we don't like that. We are Americans. And we
- 17:22Speaker 3: can't stand.
- 17:23Speaker 2: The thought of failing or falling or losing or not
- 17:27Speaker 2: getting what we want. And so we should not be
- 17:31Speaker 2: surprised when we turn again to the book of Job
- 17:33Speaker 2: and And we wade through Bildad's nonsense of chapter 25.
- 17:39Speaker 2: We hear more of the same garbage that has been
- 17:42Speaker 2: going on since chapter 4, chapter 5, chapter 6, chapter 8,
- 17:47Speaker 2: chapter 10, chapter 12, chapter 15, chapter 18, chapter 23,
- 17:52Speaker 2: chapter 25. Bildad the Shuhite answered, dominion and all belong
- 17:58Speaker 2: to him who establishes peace in the heights.
- 18:00Speaker 3: That's true.
- 18:01Speaker 2: That is true, Bildad. Doesn't help Job, but that's true.
- 18:07Speaker 2: Is there any number to his troops and upon whom
- 18:09Speaker 2: does his light not rise?
- 18:11Speaker 3: True. Absolutely. Doesn't help Job, but got a point.
- 18:15Speaker 2: How then can a man be just with God?
- 18:17Speaker 3: Oh, that's comforting.
- 18:19Speaker 2: I mean, how can he be clean who is born
- 18:22Speaker 2: of a woman? Understand that's good theology. We are not
- 18:26Speaker 2: clean having been born of a sinful person. Romans 5, 12,
- 18:31Speaker 2: wherefore through one man, Adam, sin entered into the world and.
- 18:35Speaker 3: Death through sin. So death passed.
- 18:38Speaker 2: Upon all men and women for all have sinned. We
- 18:42Speaker 2: are sinners by nature. We are sinners by choice. We
- 18:45Speaker 2: are sinners from Adam. It's called the Adamic nature in
- 18:48Speaker 2: theological writing.
- 18:49Speaker 3: He's right.
- 18:50Speaker 2: We are not pure, having been born of impure parents.
- 18:54Speaker 2: Not wicked necessarily, not immoral necessarily, but at heart sinful.
- 19:00Speaker 2: And so he says, how can anybody be just before God?
- 19:02Speaker 2: How can he be clean who was born of a woman?
- 19:05Speaker 2: Even the moon lives with borrowed light, doesn't have light
- 19:08Speaker 2: of its own. Even the stars that shine have light
- 19:11Speaker 2: generated from their creator.
- 19:13Speaker 3: How much less man, that.
- 19:15Speaker 2: Maggot, and the son of man, that worm.
- 19:21Speaker 3: Wow, thanks a lot.
- 19:23Speaker 2: Boy, it's helpful, Bill Dad. Hadn't thought about that lately,
- 19:27Speaker 2: but it's true. Let me say three or four things
- 19:31Speaker 2: by way of general observation. First, this is Bildad's third
- 19:35Speaker 2: and last presentation.
- 19:38Speaker 3: Thank the Lord.
- 19:41Speaker 2: We will not miss him. Second, this is the shortest
- 19:45Speaker 2: chapter in the entire book.
- 19:48Speaker 3: Six verses.
- 19:49Speaker 2: Third, Zophar, the third friend, doesn't bother to speak during
- 19:55Speaker 2: this third cycle. Remember, he spoke in the first cycle.
- 19:58Speaker 2: He spoke in the second cycle. Spoke third each time.
- 20:02Speaker 2: And when you get to this third round, he doesn't
- 20:05Speaker 2: speak at all. I think the discussion has pretty much
- 20:09Speaker 2: run out of fuel. I think they really thought by
- 20:13Speaker 2: now Job just isn't teachable. And number four, having run
- 20:18Speaker 2: out of arguments, Bildad doesn't attempt to prove Job wrong.
- 20:21Speaker 2: Now he simply lectures. He just unfolds sharing with him
- 20:27Speaker 2: a piece of his mind he can't afford to lose.
- 20:30Speaker 2: And so out comes Bildad's last shot at it. He
- 20:35Speaker 2: speaks first of God's power and greatness, verses 1 to 3,
- 20:39Speaker 2: and then of God's justice and man's sinfulness, verses 4
- 20:43Speaker 2: through 6. Remember, Job, that God is all light and
- 20:49Speaker 2: you are all darkness.
- 20:51Speaker 3: That's why you're suffering.
- 20:53Speaker 2: Matter of fact, Job, maggot and worm pretty much says
- 20:57Speaker 2: it best. There are times my heart truly goes out
- 21:01Speaker 2: to Job. This is one of those times. I doubt
- 21:06Speaker 2: that anyone has ever called you a maggot or a worm. Well,
- 21:11Speaker 2: maybe your wife or maybe your husband behind closed doors
- 21:17Speaker 2: when things were really, really thin. But I think the
- 21:22Speaker 2: difference is I think Bildad really meant it. I think
- 21:26Speaker 2: Bildad had absolutely no use, no use for Job.
- 21:31Speaker 3: Get out of my life.
- 21:34Speaker 2: His final speech ends with this kind of major put down.
- 21:41Speaker 2: There are a lot of sideline lessons to learn from
- 21:44Speaker 2: our studies, and one of them is whenever you have
- 21:47Speaker 2: the opportunity to minister to whomever, putting them down never helps.
- 21:55Speaker 3: Never.
- 21:57Speaker 2: But that's what these men seem to be so good at.
- 22:01Speaker 2: So is it any wonder that Job begins with a
- 22:03Speaker 2: series of sarcastic verbal slams in return?
- 22:08Speaker 3: What a help you are to the weak. How you
- 22:11Speaker 3: have saved the arm without strength.
- 22:13Speaker 2: Seems like the Hebrew is saying how you have saved
- 22:16Speaker 2: with your arm the one without strength. That seems to
- 22:19Speaker 2: be the idea. The way it appears doesn't make good
- 22:22Speaker 2: sense in the English. I believe that's what the original
- 22:24Speaker 2: text says. How have you saved.
- 22:27Speaker 3: With your arm the one without strength, namely me? What counsel?
- 22:31Speaker 3: You have given to one without wisdom. What helpful insight.
- 22:35Speaker 2: What helpful insight you have abundantly provided.
- 22:38Speaker 3: My, my, my.
- 22:41Speaker 2: To whom have you uttered words? And whose spirit was
- 22:45Speaker 2: expressed through you? You have really got the corner on truth, Bill, that.
- 22:51Speaker 2: Eugene Peterson's paraphrase. Well, you've certainly been a great help
- 22:55Speaker 2: to a helpless man. You came to the rescue just
- 22:59Speaker 2: in the nick of time. What wonderful advice you've given
- 23:02Speaker 2: to a mixed-up man. What amazing insight you've provided. Where
- 23:05Speaker 2: in the world did you learn all this? How did
- 23:08Speaker 2: you become so inspired? By the way, the Hebrew pronouns
- 23:16Speaker 2: in verses 2, 3, and 4 are all singular, so
- 23:19Speaker 2: they're directed only to Bildad.
- 23:22Speaker 3: Only to Bildad.
- 23:23Speaker 2: When you get over to chapter 27, the plural begins.
- 23:29Speaker 2: Verse 5 of chapter 27. Far be it from me
- 23:32Speaker 2: that I should declare to y'all.
- 23:34Speaker 3: Right.
- 23:35Speaker 2: It's plural there. It's y'all through the chapter 27. But
- 23:40Speaker 2: it's you when you're here in chapter 26. What Job
- 23:45Speaker 2: lacked in tact, he made up for in total honesty.
- 23:48Speaker 2: By the way, sores will do that to you. Ask
- 23:52Speaker 2: any nurse. Any nurse will tell you, especially those who
- 23:56Speaker 2: work at the bedsides, There's something about pain and the
- 24:00Speaker 2: continuation of it that finally removes most of the tact
- 24:04Speaker 2: and just gets down to the red, raw facts.
- 24:09Speaker 1: Of life.
- 24:09Speaker 3: Someone wrote, pain plants the.
- 24:12Speaker 2: Flag of reality in the fortress of a rebel heart.
- 24:17Speaker 2: Even those who are stubborn and rebellious, when they have
- 24:19Speaker 2: a lot of pain, there's then a lot of reality.
- 24:23Speaker 3: There's no tact here with Job.
- 24:26Speaker 2: When you're covered with sores and you're running a high
- 24:28Speaker 2: fever and you haven't gotten the sleep you need and
- 24:31Speaker 2: you haven't gotten the food you should have and your
- 24:33Speaker 2: body is emaciated, you're candid.
- 24:36Speaker 3: A lot of help you've been, Bildad.
- 24:40Speaker 2: You know, I'm just going to be painfully honest here
- 24:44Speaker 2: and say, sometimes we who give wrong counsel need that
- 24:47Speaker 2: kind of response. We who have those big answers need
- 24:52Speaker 2: and long, drawn-out, sometimes put-downs and shame-based comments for things
- 24:57Speaker 2: they were going through, we need to.
- 24:58Speaker 3: Be told off.
- 25:06Speaker 1: There's a strange comfort in admitting we don't have all
- 25:09Speaker 1: the answers. God is higher than our ways, deeper than
- 25:13Speaker 1: our understanding, and He never promised to explain Himself. But
- 25:17Speaker 1: He is good, He's in control, and He can be
- 25:20Speaker 1: trusted even in the dark. That's the heart of what
- 25:23Speaker 1: Chuck Swindoll has shared in his message called The Futility
- 25:27Speaker 1: of Unscrewing the Inscrutable. Here at Insight for Living, we
- 25:31Speaker 1: know you may come to this daily program with complicated
- 25:33Speaker 1: problems that seem impossible to solve. In fact, maybe you're
- 25:37Speaker 1: frustrated with an impasse you can't get around right now.
- 25:40Speaker 1: You're stuck, you're confused, and your thoughts are cycling through
- 25:44Speaker 1: your mind all day and all night without resolve. Well,
- 25:48Speaker 1: all of us here at Insight for Living care deeply
- 25:51Speaker 1: about you. It's our prayer that today's message and this
- 25:54Speaker 1: complete series on Job will provide a daily reassurance that
- 25:58Speaker 1: God knows your story. We've produced a variety of creative
- 26:02Speaker 1: resources to help you be at peace with God's inscrutable ways. First,
- 26:06Speaker 1: Chuck wrote a full-length biography of Job. It brings his
- 26:10Speaker 1: suffering and confusion to life. But more importantly, it helps
- 26:13Speaker 1: you understand how to cope with unsolved mysteries. Second, the
- 26:18Speaker 1: brand-new Searching the Scriptures Bible Study Workbook for Job is ready.
- 26:22Speaker 1: This spiral-bound Bible study series is designed to help you
- 26:25Speaker 1: dig deeply and reflectively into the biblical account of Job.
- 26:29Speaker 1: And third, all 22 of Chuck's full-length sermons are available
- 26:33Speaker 1: on CD and MP3. Or you can stream or download
- 26:37Speaker 1: the sermons at your convenience. You can find all the
- 26:40Speaker 1: details about this bundle of resources for the life of
- 26:43Speaker 1: Job at insight.org slash offer or call us at 800-772-8888. Finally,
- 26:52Speaker 1: I want to let you know that behind the scenes,
- 26:55Speaker 1: Chuck has been working on a personal memoir. The title
- 26:58Speaker 1: is Awakened by Grace, and we'd like to send you
- 27:01Speaker 1: a copy as soon as it comes out. You can
- 27:03Speaker 1: purchase your copy now on presale at insight.org slash memoir.
- 27:17Speaker 1: I'm Bill Meyer. Join us when Chuck Swindoll continues his
- 27:20Speaker 1: message called The Futility of Unscrewing the Inscrutable. Friday on
- 27:25Speaker 1: Insight for Living. The preceding message, The Futility of Unscrewing
- 27:32Speaker 1: the Inscrutable, was copyrighted in 2002, 2004, and 2025, and
- 27:35Speaker 1: the sound recording was copyrighted in 2025 by Charles R. Swindoll, Inc.
- 27:38Speaker 1: All rights are reserved worldwide. Duplication of copyrighted material for
- 27:49Speaker 1: commercial use is strictly prohibited.