Job 3. 24 – 4. 9
24 For my sighing comes instead of my bread,
and my groanings are poured out like water.
25 For the thing that I fear comes upon me,
and what I dread befalls me.
26 I am not at ease, nor am I quiet;
I have no rest, but trouble comes.”
4.1 Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered and said:
2 “If one ventures a word with you, will you be impatient?
Yet who can keep from speaking?
3 Behold, you have instructed many,
and you have strengthened the weak hands.
4 Your words have upheld him who was stumbling,
and you have made firm the feeble knees.
5 But now it has come to you, and you are impatient;
it touches you, and you are dismayed.
6 Is not your fear of God your confidence,
and the integrity of your ways your hope?
7 “Remember: who that was innocent ever perished?
Or where were the upright cut off?
8 As I have seen, those who plow iniquity
and sow trouble reap the same.
9 By the breath of God they perish,
and by the blast of his anger they are consumed.
Sermon quotes and References:
… the basic error of Job’s friends is that they overestimate their grasp of truth, misapply the truth they know, and close their minds to any facts that contradict what they assume. The book of Job shows (by the opening scene in heaven) how small a part of any situation is the fragment that we see; how much of what we do see we ignore or distort through preconceptions; and how unwise it is to extrapolate from our elementary grasp of the truth.
Derek Kidner, The Wisdom of Proverbs, Job, and Ecclesiastes
We seek an explanation of suffering in cause & effect. We often look backwards for a connection between prior sin & present suffering. But the Bible looks forward in hope & seeks explanations, not so much in origins as in goals. The purpose of suffering is seen, not in its cause, but in its result.
Frances Andersen, The Message of Job
The reason that causes are not the ultimate explanation for things is that God is not ultimately a Responder but a Planner. In other words, when God ordains that something happen, He is not responding to human causes. Rather He is planning a purpose. The implication of this for your life is profound. No matter what mess you’re in or what pain you’re in, the causes of that mess & that pain are not decisive in explaining it. What is decisive is God’s purpose. Yes, there are causes. Some of them are your fault, perhaps, and some of them not. But those causes are not decisive in determining the meaning of your mess or your pain. What is absolutely decisive is God’s purpose.
Turn away from your fixation on causality as the explanation of suffering. Turn away from any surrender to futility, or absurdity, or chaos, or meaninglessness. And turn to the purposes & plans of God.
John Piper, The Works of God & the Worship of Jesus