07-06-2025 - TOUGH TIMES -TOUGH QUESTIONS- SUFFERING - JOB

MESSAGE BY PASTOR  ROB INRIG

 FROM  BETHANY BAPTIST IN RICHMOND, BC.

Of all the challenges thrown at us as Christians, among the most difficult is, ‘How can a loving God allow suffering?’  For those who have endured great suffering, this isn’t an academic question, it’s a deeply emotional one.

In his book, A Grief Observed, CS Lewis observes, Where is God?  This is one of the most disquieting symptoms.  When you are happy, so happy that you have no sense of needing Him, if you turn to Him then with praise, you will be welcomed with open arms.  But go to Him when your need is desperate, when all other help is vain and what do you find?  A door slammed in your face and a sound of bolting and double bolting on the inside and after that, silence.  You might as well turn away.  

Such is the human experience when pain shouts loud, our needs desperate, our answers few. 

Some who come alongside us in times like these, speak the unhelpful – that if our faith were greater, our sin not so large, our choices not so wrong, the things we suffer would be different.  In fact, if we believe some proponents of Christianity, do what’s right and we’ll only be blessed and never suffer at all.  Then there are others who offer their trite, You need to pray to discover the lessons God wants you to learn. These quick with misused, wrongly applied Scriptures like, Being thankful for all things which is somewhat different than being thankful in all things.    

What can be said when life is hard, is that in  a sin cursed world with a spiritual enemy pulling the strings, there IS the ugliness of evil and suffering that mankind was never intended to experience but for now, All creation still groans waiting to be put right.  For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God, for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its enslavement to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God Rom 8:19-21.   The problem is - that pain free world is still to come.  

Of all the people given us in Scripture, no one, other than Jesus, embodies what it means to suffer more than Job.  His suffering is unimaginable – a man who’s known incredible blessing who then has his world turned catastrophically upside down.

In the course of one day, Job receives four messages, each bearing tragic news, one report after another - the preceding report not having enough time to sink in before another awful report is given.  Livestock stolen meaning wealth taken, farmhands killed by marauding invaders, possessions destroyed in fires and his 10 children killed in a natural catastrophe – fires, storms and raids. In response, Job tears his clothes and shaves his head in a time of mourning that you and I can’t even begin to imagine, yet somehow, in the overwhelming grief of all this, he is still able to fall to the ground and worship God. He cries, I came naked from my mother’s womb, and I will be naked when I leave. The Lord gave me what I had, and the Lord has taken it away. Praise the name of the Lord!   In all this Job sinned not, nor charged God foolishly  Job 1:21,22.

He praising God even though circumstances should have us expecting response far different from what we see.  

Scripture reveals to us that Job has suffered these things because Satan is at work, doing his best to have Job curse God.  Satan’s argument, Job only lives righteously as he does because you, God have given him so much.  

And yet, though it is almost impossible to comprehend, despite these catastrophic events, Satan is not able to turn Job against God which brings Satan before God once again seeking permission to torment Job further.  Granted another chance, Satan afflicts Job once again, this time with excruciating sores.  Understand, given Satan’s intent, the pain Job endures is no ordinary pain.  Think kidney stones multiplied by 50.  This pain so great that his wife, compassionate and understanding as she is and acting as Satan’s meme, encourages him to curse God, and die.  Yet despite the horrendous, Job refuses to deny his God.  

Though Job doesn’t deny God, that doesn’t mean he’s not asking a bucketload of ‘Why’s?’  As far as he can see, If I go east, He is not there and if I go west, I cannot perceive Him.  When He is at work in the north, I cannot see Him; when He turns south, I cannot find Him Job 23:8,9.  For him a very accurate assessment - not that God doesn’t exist but that there is no sense of His presence in Job’s life. And  the suffering this brings is of an entirely different level.

I hazard a guess that many of you can relate.  Your Why’s loud and on repeat  When answers you prayed for, didn’t come.  When heartache overwhelmed.  When a diagnosis came.  When a carefully crafted life fell apart.  Sure, maybe the occurrences of loss not as numerous as Job’s, but the pain, no less real, the answers needed, no less wanted.

It’s hard to imagine things could get any worse but then Job had to deal with his friends.  In most cases, having friends close by is a good thing but here, not so much.  At first their efforts were commendable, they wanting to provide support, they hoping to bring comfort.  At the least it could be said, these coming when so many others hadn’t.  Also impressive, they didn’t just come.  We’re told, When they see him, they weep, tear their robes and sprinkle dust on their heads, then remain with him, silent  2:11,12.  

That last part is incredibly impressive.  Sitting there, not quick with easy answers.  No Hallmark assurances.  Just silence – incredibly for 7 days.  As Job 2:13 says, They sat with him on the ground 7 days and 7 nights and no one spoke a word to him for they saw that his suffering was very great.  As John Piper observed, Those first seven days were their golden hour. If they had stopped  there, they would have been heroes.  

But heroes they weren’t because these friends do what we are so inclined to do – speak and give answers.  After a time, the silence incredibly uncomfortable, they coming to conclusions that must be spoken.  They like we, feeling that there must be answers to the Why’s?

After all, what has come upon us must be for a reason, a cause, a correction, which is exactly where Job’s comforters went - weighing in soon after Job finally spoke.  They wanting to determine reasons, wanting to find blame. Pent up, had to be shared rationale that soon had them pointing fingers at a man who’d been crushed, at a man who had been broken. He needing embrace, he needing something and someone to hold onto when he had no strength to stand.

It’s easy to speak principles and offer great explanations from afar when we haven’t walked their paths.  It’s easy to question someone else’s actions.  To condemn some decision they have made.  But the truth is, there are Why’s that we won’t have answers for which is really, really hard when pain shouts loud.  And without those answers, even greater pain often miring us in what’s been taken from us – the things we can no longer do, the things we no longer have.  Leaving us to state the obvious - living with pain that refuses to lift is hard - excruciatingly hard.When one friend finally does break the silence to speak, his words were to challenge Job’s faith.  As far as he could see, Job must have been duplicitous, he conveying beliefs that sounded so right but the real truth, Job obviously hiding actions very different from things he was saying.  

A 2^nd friend also can’t resist coming to the same conclusion.  That obviously he is guilty of some great wrongdoing that can be forgiven and made right IF he would just come clean and repent of his wrongdoing.  How else to explain it?  This one’s conclusions coming from his seat of self-righteousness where he can point out the wrongs of others while remaining separate and distinct from being like them, he ‘above’ all that.  So his solution? do the right thing and repent.

We are far less able to call the 3^rd person a friend.  He isn’t there as supporter as much as he is there as judge.  No doubt he’s been enduring his own pain, his teeth clamped down hard, biting his tongue in order to keep quiet.  He’s come to his ‘open and shut’ conclusion long before he gets a chance to speak.  Job is obviously deserving of all the judgment that has come upon him and while his other 2 friends aren’t willing to say it, he's not about to remain quiet.  

Friends like this adding insult to injury.  After long ‘back and forths’, the Lord finally brings the debate between Job and his ‘friends’ to an end, some of which we’ll read later.  In short, Who are they to question His wisdom?  Who are they to conclude the things that they have?

After admonishing the three, God speaks directly to Job, His challenges first appearing tough, even harsh, but in effect, His challenges for Job to better see and understand who God is. It’s interesting that in the process, God never will answer Job’s Why’s? rather what He will focus on is having Job see His greatness so Job will trust in God’s love in which He has been called to live. 

Though we know this to be true, it can be really hard to live with trust when things are hard. It’s why this morning I don’t offer any simple answers to the suffering and pain in which you may now find yourself.  No simplistic answers to our Why’s? just some observations.

First, that all our pain comes as a form of spiritual warfare.  In this I’m not saying that your sciatic nerve is inflamed because you sinned when you lifted that load.  Nor am I saying that the blocked artery is because you sinned having too much dairy.  But what is true, is that life as we know it is characterized by groaning because of a world that is not what it was designed to be.  And in this, the reality that we have an enemy who is against us, whose purpose in bringing pain is to draw our focus away from the goodness of God.  More than that, the enemy’s purpose isn’t just to bring pain, it’s to get us to ascribe our suffering TO God.  To orient us and hopefully fixate us on our difficulties, our struggles, our mess - that God has chosen not to stop.  With pain consuming our 24/7, what sort of God is that?  Certainly not a God who loves, not a God who cares. Deafening us to Jesus’ words, Cast all your cares upon Him because He cares for you.  Let not your heart be troubled, you believe in God believe also in Me.  1 Pet 5:7, Jn 14:1.

 For now under Satan’s rule - pain - God wanting us to bring our pain to our heavenly Father, and fall into His care as the only One who has the power to deal with what we face.  Coming open and honest no different than David who in the Psalms pours it all out before God – in challenge, in despair, in anger then return to look on the One who IS his Shepherd.  What that means is trusting in God’s character that He is good, that His love for us never ceases.  Lam 3:22,23 

All this bringing us back again to a repeated awareness in our pain, We do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places  Eph 6:12.   This telling us that spiritual warfare comes with many faces, some recognizable, most not.   

And if there is one thing that the enemy is good at – it is bringing suffering UPON our lives with the intent of wanting to deposit suffering IN our lives – not just in what is there but IN, so large, that it becomes all we can see, all we come to believe. That a ‘spirit of suffering’ takes up residence distorting and disfiguring, until we become prisoners unable to see life any other way.

And in that, we no longer see God for who He is and His great love for us.  What we forget is that God’s Word tells us, as Christians in warfare, we will suffer.  Peter warns, Don’t be surprised at the fiery trial that comes upon you to test you 1 Pet 4:12. Timothy says, ALL who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus  will be persecuted.  2 Tim 3:12   And Jesus Himself said, In this world you will have tribulation but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world Jn 16:33.  

Second, one of the dangers of suffering is that it can cause us to retreat into isolation and in that isolation making us people marked by contamination - life is bad, there is no hope to live for, no joy to be found.   

More or less, focused on what they could see, this is where Job’s comforters were taking him, where what his wife promoted was the only reasonable place to go.  Appearances telling him - no hope.  Our enemy persuasively convincing, no hope.  

And yet God’s truth?  God comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God God .

God redemptively wanting to work in ways we can’t see.  Do I always understand this?   Nope.  Which is why I need you to help me in what I can’t see.  Not to put my thinking right.  Not to smarten up and not make it all about me.  But to be surrounded by ‘one another’ people - who love me, care for me, hold me, walk with me.  As Christians we are called to be one another people who: love one another Jn 13:34, honor one another Rom 12:10, care for one another 1 Cor12:25, serve one another Gal 5:13, bear one another's burdens Gal 6:2, forgive one another Eph 4:2, 32; Col 3:13, who rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep Rom 12:15.  And a host of others. The point being, we are a people who live in a community of  faith, caring for one another, crying with one another and carrying one another.

What Job’s friends got right, was being there.  What they got wrong was speaking FOR God when they hadn’t been listening TO God. 

Instead their call and ours is to be present with someone who is suffering, the Lord using our presence to lift spirits and strengthen resolve.  Our presence to communicate compassion and love.  Our presence to encourage and comfort.  Those in the battle in need of support.  

Not in words but in presence.   Job sums up what his friends had to say, I have heard many such things; miserable comforters are you all  Job 16:2.

In order not to be one of the miserable comforters of which Job speaks, it’s important to understand some wisdom Solomon gives, He who answers before he hears, it is a folly and shame to him Prov 18:13. In the novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, Atticus wanting Scout to understand a reclusive and mysterious Boo Radley, says much the same, You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view -until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.

And how that applies to our look at pain and suffering this morning?   

Third, when someone is  experiencing a time of great suffering, it is not uncommon for them to say things that are untrue, things spoken in reaction.  Sometimes things completely out of character for them to say.  In the immediacy of grief, people are in a freefall trying to make sense of the loss.  This is not the time for theological correction or to challenge incorrect thinking unless these thoughts are dangerous.  At times like these, a caring hand on the shoulder and a heartfelt, I can’t begin to imagine the pain you are in will bring far more healing than almost anything that can be said.  It’s also true that this disordered world will take more than a few days and nights of re-set. 

We hear words of disorientation when Job say he wishes he’d never been born and why hadn’t he died at birth Job 3:10,11.  These words coming from raw emotion that in his grief were real and needed to be said.  Far better that than denial and covering these feelings with nicer thoughts we think ‘should’ be true for a good Christian.  The point is Jesus knows our pain and isn’t put off by our expressions of deep grief.  He isn’t alarmed by our initial reactionary denials of truth.  Jesus didn’t condemn Thomas for his refusal to believe, didn’t rebuke Peter for denial spoken to a slave girl, didn’t revile disciples for abandoning Him as they ran for their lives.  Instead He re-assured of His love. 

Like He did with Job, pointing us to Who He is.  Powerful - yes.  Beyond our understanding - yes.  Doing things we don’t understand - yes. Acting differently in our world of suffering than we may want - yes.

His immediate answer to Job, 38-41, Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?  Tell me, if you understand.  Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know!  Who stretched a measuring line across it? On  what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone — while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy?  “Who shut up the sea behind doors when it burst forth from the womb, when I made the clouds its garment and wrapped it in thick darkness, when I fixed limits for it and set its doors and bars in place, when I said, ‘This far you may come and no farther; here is where your proud waves halt’?   38:4-11.

This powerful picture of His power only the beginning of how God responds to Job.  In short, I am so much greater than you think Me to be.  His greatness so far beyond anything we can represent.  Far greater than any conception we may have.  And Job in response, I know you can do all things; no purpose of yours can be thwarted. Surely I spoke of things I didn’t understand, things too wonderful for me to know. 42:2,3.

But His invitation to us doesn’t come in His power, it comes in His love.  In Jesus wanting us to know, I will give you the treasures of darkness and the riches hidden in secret places, so that you may know that I am the LORD, the God of Israel, who calls you by name.  Is 45:3.

Satan wants us to believe that God has abandoned us.  But where was God? - with Job in all of his suffering, watching and listening.  We knowing in ways Job didn’t, God’s great love for His servant He was allowing Satan to test.  God fully FOR Job knowing he would pass Satan’s test.  In that test, Job kept talking to God pouring out his heart not yet understanding that in his suffering, God’s heart was pouring out on him. The sufferings of this present time not worth comparing with the glory to be revealed to us. Rom 8:18 all because of the suffering God would pour out on His beloved Son so we could come to God.  Immanuel - God with us. 

With us in our darkness.  With us in places where we think there is no hope.  With us in our pain when life no longer makes sense, His love pointing us to the Cross.  Jesus’ love – not conditional for what you will do or who you will become.  But His Cross of suffering given to us where we are, His love lavished upon us that we might be called children of God.  God demonstrating His love for us that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.  Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God  1 Jn 3:1; Rom 5:8, Heb 12:2.

Assured of this, Job can lay hold, Though

He slay me, yet will I hope in Him Job 13:15

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