There is a temptation when reading or studying the book of Job to want to get to the end of the book. We are people who just want to get to the bottom line. We will be tempted to cut out the middle of this book and run to chapter 38 where God shows us or to chapter 42 where the resolution is offered. But the discussion that Job and his three friends have in chapters 4-27 are really important to understanding God and suffering. One of the reasons it is important to read these chapters is because these four people are talking about why Job is suffering. They are trying to come up with answers for suffering. They are trying to explain why Job is going through this trial. I want us to think about how this is exactly what we do. When trials come, what we also try to do for ourselves and for others is to explain why the suffering has come. We try to explain what God is doing. We are trying to make sense of our faith in God and how that relates to the suffering we are experiencing. We noticed in Job 3 from last week’s lesson that Job thinks that God has hedged him in (cf. Job 3:23). Job believes that this suffering indicates that God has turned on him and they are no longer friends with one another, but enemies (cf. Job 13:24; Job 29:2-4). So the friends now open their mouths and they are going to try to explain to Job why he is suffering. They are going to give Job the answers they think he needs to hear.
Before we look at some of the things these friends tell Job about what God is doing, we need to hear what God says about the counsel of these friends. Please notice in Job 42:7 that the Lord declares that what the three friends said about him was not right. The way these three friends explain the Lord and what he is doing in suffering is not correct. Now here is what makes this complicated. The three friends are going to say things that are true. You are not going to read their words and see complete and utter lies in every word that they say. They are going to say things that are false. They are going to say things that are true and apply them those truths in false ways. This sets up a very important premise as we introduce the lesson today. We can know the truth and improperly apply it to ourselves and to others. We can know the truth but misuse the truth in our own lives and in the lives of others. This happens all the time in our world today. People will take a truth and misuse it for sin. For example, people will say that God is love and then use that truth to suggest and even teach that it acceptable to break the law. In the Disney movie, Aladdin, the movie opens with Aladdin being justified in stealing because he needs to eat. We take a truth like love and then justify sin based on that truth. We are supposed to be tolerant and accepting of sexual sins because God is love and we are to love our neighbor. So we must be aware that it is possible to take a truth in the scriptures but misapply that truth. We are told in Job 42:7 that the anger of the Lord burned against these three friends because what they spoke about the Lord was not right, even though they will use many truths to support their teachings. So what are some of the wrong answers these friends give to Job?
You Reap What You Sow
One of the points that the friends will repeatedly make to Job is that you must have done something wrong. You must have sinned. You must have brought this suffering on yourself. Eliphaz combines to truths to give this explanation. No one is righteous (cf. Job 4:17) and you reap what you sow (cf. Job 5:6-7). In Job 5:6-7 Eliphaz states that suffering does not come from nowhere. Affliction does not come from the dust. Trouble does not come from the ground. People are born for trouble just as sparks fly upward. Do the scriptures teach that no one is righteous? Yes. Do the scriptures teach that you reap what you sow? Yes. But does this mean that everything you reap you planted? Does this mean that if there is trouble or affliction that I must have planted something to cause that? This is what Eliphaz is saying. In fact, notice how strongly Eliphaz tells this to Job. Look at Job 4:7-8.
Remember: who that was innocent ever perished? Or where were the upright cut off? As I have seen, those who plow iniquity and sow trouble reap the same. (Job 4:7-8 ESV)
Eliphaz states that there is never a time when an innocent person has perished. There is never a time when the upright were cut off. A repeated point that these friends will make is that only the wicked suffer (cf. Job 15:20; 18:5; 20:5). Don’t you know, Job, that only the wicked suffer! Don’t you know that you reap what you sow! Don’t you know that you must have done something wrong for all of your blessings to be removed and for you to experience this kind of suffering!
There are so many ways where this application from these two truths is wrong. We cannot forget that we are wrestling with the forces of evil in the heavenly places and that Satan is throwing his fiery darts at us (cf. Ephesians 6:11-13). We cannot forget that there are evil people who are going to cause difficulties and persecute those who are righteous (cf. Matthew 5:10). We cannot forget that the prophets of God proclaimed God’s word and each of them were mistreated for doing God’s will (cf. Acts 7:52). But then today we have the greatest proof that this principle can be misapplied. What did Christ Jesus do wrong to have him murdered on the cross? Christ Jesus our Lord was the ultimate picture of innocence and blameless and he was cut off from the land of the living (cf. Isaiah 53:8). Jesus shows us that just because you reap affliction and suffering does not mean you planted it. Jesus suffered because of the evil of others. Suffering does not automatically mean that you did something wrong.
You Should Receive Worse
The second point that these friends try to use as counsel for Job is to tell him that things could be worse. Now I think when we read about Job’s suffering it is hard to think about how things could get any worse than they already are. Listen to what Zophar says to Job about what God is doing in his suffering.
But oh, that God would speak and open his lips to you, and that he would tell you the secrets of wisdom! For he is manifold in understanding. Know then that God exacts of you less than your guilt deserves. (Job 11:5-6 ESV)
The friends tell Job that he getting off easy and his suffering should be even greater if God were to fully pay us what we deserve. Is it true that God pays back to us less than what we deserve? Of course this is true. No one should be alive right now except little children because all of us have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. All of us are worthy of God’s wrath and God could certainly exact his justice against us right now. The answer Zophar is giving is that God is punishing you a little now and just be glad that he is not punishing you more. We all understand that we all experience the grace of God and are getting less than we deserve from him. We all recognize that we are being blessed from God far more than we deserve. But these things are not an explanation for suffering. God is not taking his chance to punish Job. God is not saying that Job needs some of his wrath but not all of it. While there are certainly consequences for our sins, we are not to interpret this to mean that since we may have lived a bad life that God is taking his chance to work out some of his punishment on us.
Job will argue against this idea repeatedly as well. Job will point out how often the wicked prosper and do not seem to get what they deserve (cf. Job 21:7-9; 9:22-24; 12:6; 24:1-25). How can we look at suffering as a tool of God to punish people when the wicked seem to prosper and the righteous do not? This is the exact problem Job has with what the three friends are saying. If God is exacting punishment on me and I am getting less than what I deserve, then what should we say about the wicked on the earth? Such thinking would indicate that God is not just and is partial.
Seek God and Your Problems Will Be Solved
The other repeated teaching from these three friends is their insistence that if Job would repent, then life would return to blessings, peace and rest. Eliphaz’s answer in Job 5 consists primarily of this idea. Look at Job 5:8.
“As for me, I would seek God, and to God would I commit my cause.” (Job 5:8 ESV)
Why should Job seek God and commit his cause to him? As you read Job 5 you will see Eliphaz saying the life will go back to the way it was. The lowly will be set on high and those who mourn will be lifted to safety (Job 5:11). God will then deliver you from trouble and no harm will touch you (Job 5:19). You will have peace, prosperity, and children again (Job 5:24-25). Your life will have all the physical blessings restored if you would seek the Lord. Zophar says the same thing. Zophar says if Job would just stretch out his hands to God, he will forget his misery and will have rest and security again. (Job 11:13-20). Bildad says that Job’s joy will be restored if he returned to the Lord (Job 8:20-22). Eliphaz will say this again in Job 22:21-30. If Job would return to the Lord, then he would be built up and delivered from this suffering.
Here again we see truths that are distorted and misapplied. Are there scriptures that say that God does good to those who love him and seek him? Yes. There are scriptures that tell us that God cares for his people and answers their prayers. Does this mean that we will never experience any hardships or suffering if we follow Jesus? Does this mean that if we turn our lives to God that all the physical problems we face in this life will be solved? No. As we noted before, we read about many people in the scriptures who had problems because they obeyed the Lord. But this is the problem of what is called the prosperity gospel. Sell people on the idea that you can have your best life now and the riches of this world if you would follow Jesus. You will have more money, better relationships, and more stuff if you would just seek the Lord.
I want to make a critical point right here because this idea is at the heart of the book of Job. Satan said people only follow God for the stuff. Satan said that people only obey God because he does good to them and protects them from trouble (cf. Job 1:9-11). Satan said that people only follow God when they have good health and long lives (cf. Job 2:4-5). What Job’s friends are saying falls into this trap. They are telling Job to repent so they can have the stuff. They are telling Job to turn so he can have the physical blessings again. This is not why we follow Jesus. This is not why we obey God. We do not follow him because we want wealth and health in this life. We follow God because we know he is our joy and hope. We follow God because we want the better life to come, rather than the emptiness of this temporal world.
No Easy Answers
One of the important messages that we are to learn in the discussion between Job and his three friends is that there are not easy answers for suffering. We cannot look at suffering and immediately declare that you are reaping what you have sown. We cannot declare that only the wicked suffering so your suffering means you are wicked. We cannot say that God is punishing you and you should be getting even more punishment than you are receiving now. Nor can we say that if we would just seek the Lord, then all our problems would be solved. There are no easy answers to suffering. The anger of the Lord burned against these three friends because they tried to explain God and what he is doing through suffering by taking godly truths and misapplying them. We need to realize that truth can be misused. Truth that is misapplied is now false. Sometimes in our desire to provide an answer we make up false answers, based on scriptures, but false nonetheless because we are not applying these truths properly.
Friends, faith means we accept that we do not have all the answers. I cannot give a direct reason for why you are experiencing what you are going through. I cannot say this is what God is doing and I know it. For some reason we think we should be able to have all the answers in suffering, even though we admit that faith means we do not have all the answers. But suffering somehow makes us think we need to know why, how, and what God is doing. There are no easy answers. The book of Job shows us this because God never gives Job the “here’s the answer” moment. We can be tempted to forget a key attribute about God that Paul praises.
Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! “For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?” “Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?” For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen. (Romans 11:33-36 ESV)
We must remember that we cannot speak where God has not spoken. His judgments and his ways are not only not our ways, but they are unfathomable. His ways are untraceable. We think we can trace his ways. We think we can explain what God is doing. Paul says, “Who has known the mind of the Lord?” Who can tell God what to do? Faith does not ask for all the answers. Faith asks for a deeper faith to trust God even further. We accept that we do not know why. We accept that we do not understand why God did not answer. We understand that all things are from him, through him, and to him and the glory belongs to him. We live with faith in Jesus’ words:
“It is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” (John 11:4 ESV)