The Epistle
January 2009
Gatherings in Jesus’ Name
602 Oak Knoll
San Antonio, TX 78228
February 1 – 8, Annual Conference for World Evangelism
March 28, Saturday, Ladies Meeting
June 15 – 19, Monday thru Friday, Annual Vacation Bible School
July 9 – 20, Annual Youth Mission Trip
August 7 – 16, Annual Revival Meeting
October 16, 17, Men’s Meeting
November 29, Sunday Thanksgiving Open Meeting
Job’s Curse
After this opened Job his mouth, and cursed his day. Job 3:1
A week before Job cursed his day he had rebuked his despairing wife, saying, “shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil?” I personally do not blame Job’s wife for her reaction. It is hard to see how she suffered much less than Job himself, seeing she lost everything he did, except her health, and even so it is often easier to suffer sickness yourself than to watch a husband or child suffer. But she despaired, while the narrator emphasizes Job’s better reaction, that at least up until that point Job did not “sin with his lips.” He did note that Job went out and sat among the ashes and mourned. When his friends came they found him there, worse off than they had expected, and were overwhelmed with grief. They couldn’t find words to speak, so they sat with Job silently for seven days. For all their insensitivity later on, I gotta say, them’s some pretty good friends.
But a week is a lot of time to think things over. Evidently Job spent the time examining himself, considering his particular situation, and apparently, he came to some conclusions. First, as he had already recognized, this thing came from God. That conclusion wasn’t really a stretch, of course, losing all ten of your children the same day, and all your wealth, and then your health. Job would not be an evolutionist in our day, obviously, because like any true “rationalist” without an agenda, he recognized that too many “accidents” in a row is more than coincidence. This was not bad luck. Nor could this even be ascribed to God’s permissive will, God allowing something to happen that he did not specifically cause. No, Job knew as soon as the evil day unfolded that this was God’s doing.
But apparently Job came to another conclusion, not nearly so obvious as the first, but evidently coming clear after a week’s reflection, this was not Job’s fault. Job had not done anything to bring this disaster upon himself. He couldn’t have known this automatically, of course, since often our sins lie hidden in our subconscious, and often must be pointed out to us by others. But after 7 days of soul-searching and self-examination, Job realized that there was literally nothing he had done that would explain God’s “turning on” him. Up to here, Job is correct.
But Job reached a third conclusion that may be completely understandable, and logical to the earthly mind after such a trial, but is nonetheless incorrect, and simply incorrect from every angle. Job concluded that he would have been better off had he never been born. The human logic of this conclusion is inescapable, and it is something most of us have considered at some point in our lives, even though we haven’t suffered like Job. What is the point of your life? Born, live, enjoy, suffer and inevitably die, for what? Job obviously expected to die soon, and after considering everything he could see, his life didn’t make any sense. No children, no grandchildren, a heart-broken, destitute widow, a gravestone in the desert, with an epitaph that reads, “Here lies a man cursed by God.” I don’t know if Job sinned at all “with his lips” in the disputes that follow in his book, although he repents in the end for having “uttered that I understood not.” But sin or not, this initial deduction, that his life was worse than useless, was wrong, and can be demonstrated wrong merely by acknowledging three facts about God that the simplest faith in God must assume, and that are actually floodlighted by Job’s extraordinary trials, I mean, his sovereignty, his perspective, and his objective.
By God’s sovereignty I do not mean that shallow concept so often intimated by silly proverbs such as Don Quixote’s famous line, “not so much as a leaf falls without God’s will.” I know this is true, of course, I’m just not sure in what context it would ever be useful to mention, no disrepect intended to Miguel Cervantes. Many also ascribe to God’s sovereignty both salvation and reprobation, implying of course that our eternal fate was decided arbitrarily by God before the beginning of the world, which if it were entirely true, would again be a patently useless thing to mention, and an especially tedious subject to teach or preach about. The point about God’s sovereignty that is so forcefully brought out by Job’s case, is that God makes decisions about our lives literally all the time, without asking our opinion, or giving us any say in the matter. God is a decision maker, and like all good decision makers, he knows his own power and authority, and does not need or allow others to make his decisions, nor usurpers to undermine them. This was exactly God’s point when he spoke to Job from the whirlwind (cps. 38-40). God is not a politician. If he were, he’d be out of a job. His finger is not in the air. He is not obsessed with popularity. He is certainly not going to give sinners or idiots a vote.
Job recognized God’s sovereignty the moment his worst fears were realized. God had made a decision in Job’s life without Job’s knowledge or consent. God can do this because only God’s will is of any consequence. When God asserted his sovereignty, Job could not answer except to say, “Behold, I am vile, what shall I answer thee?” (40.4). Exactly. Now you’re getting it. Allowing Job a say in the matter would be like a farmer asking his cow her opinion about milking her this morning. Having not been involved in the decision of her siring, her feeding, her housing, nor anything in her life up to that moment, what point would there be in asking her to participate in any decision now? If there were any real options (it’s either milk or beef, Daisy) how would she form an opinion? Could a sane farmer genuinely care what her opinion might be? Our generation doesn’t get it of course. Their view of God is utterly corrupt. When Copernicus discovered earth was not the center of the universe, the world rejected him, not because they believed the Bible, which never broaches the subject, but because they were human-centric. And they still are. People can’t imagine anything revolving around anything but us. They can’t stand the thought of a sovereign God, not for fear of his power, which cannot but make them shudder, but for love of their own wills. The last thing a natural man will say is “not my will, but thine be done.”
Once while driving the highway we passed a semi-trailer carrying pigs to market. One of my girls asked where they were headed, and when I told her, she got a little emotional over the “poor things.” No, I told her, this is a pigs finest hour, their greatest honor, they are finally about to become useful, because, let’s face it, pigs are not very useful until that moment. If it weren’t for the market, those pigs wouldn’t have existed. Nobody raises pigs just for the pigs’ sake, Walt Disney notwithstanding. The point is, Job’s life was not a waste, even had it ended in such desolation. If Job had so much as entertained God for a moment, and then burned out like a spark, his life had more value in that solitary moment than all the imagined value of human existence without God. Of course, it’s not to be expected that any of us think that way in our worst trials, but faith in God implies belief in creation, a sovereign God making something out of nothing, entirely from his own imagination and for his own pleasure. Only God’s will, only God’s pleasure, is important then. The sum total of our worth is our value to him. Whatever more than that we receive is grace beyond the fierce Cherub’s wildest imagination.
With that the case is proven. But then consider God’s perspective. The narrator makes a point in saying that Job ended up with twice the wealth he had at the moment of his disaster. Plus, he got a whole new set of children, and these may have been better-looking than the first ones. We may even joke about Job being stuck with the same old nag of a wife. Actually, that is one of God’s great mercies to Job. In his wife Job had someone who had shared the same bitter experience, a companion who had endured with him through it all, and had he lost her, as difficult as it is to imagine, Job’s trial would have been greater yet. Still, it seems to many that the point of the book’s epilogue is to say that Job’s case turned out even better than it had been before. I do not believe that is the point being made, for several reasons. For one, no child can replace another. Ten beautiful children who live to be a hundred cannot make up for losing one ugly one before its time. As far as doubling his estate, every wealthy man should eventually realize that there comes a moment in abundance when the sheer amount becomes meaningless. I cannot imagine what I would do with Job’s original three thousand camels, let alone his eventual six. I’m pretty sure riding ten camels is not easier than riding one. And who is to say how many sheep and camels Job would have had after 140 years had disaster never struck? Doubling your wealth in 140 years is not exactly a bull market gone wild. The point being made by the epilogue, of course, is that Job was right, that God had not punished him for sin, and the rest of his life proves it. But reading about Job’s latter wealth and old age does not leave me thinking Job’s story was really a happy one. I guarantee Job and his wife carried their grief with them to the grave, even in the midst of their latter joys. Yet when I consider God’s perspective, it all becomes clear.
You see, what God knew, and Job figured out eventually (19.26), is that nothing is made right in this life. Nothing in this life even makes sense until it is seen from the vantage point of eternity. Blessings and trials on this earth are inconsequential to someone immortal. Job’s case wasn’t happy, much less glorious, if all he got for his trouble was 200 years of life, and too many sheep to bother counting. Job’s case is glorious because of what he has now. His trouble is over now. His wealth is incorruptible now. His body is preparing for immortality as we speak. His former trials are now just a speck in an ocean of blessing, because he sees things now from God’s perspective. If God asked him his opinion now, he wouldn’t trade his experience for anyone elses. It’s a good thing God is sovereign, or we’d all wind up with no blessings at all.
But before Job could legitimately conclude his life was a waste, there is one more thing that he would have had to consider. After careful consideration, Job may not have gotten any extra wealth out of his sufferings, but even that doesn’t mean it was a loss. He got something for it. And I’m not talking about his heavenly reward either. I’m talking about God’s objective. God doesn’t do anything without an objective. There is purpose in this life, and there is always a reason for our suffering. If there were no earthly remuneration for sacrfice and service, nor any heavenly reward for sufferings, Job’s life would still not have been a waste of time. You see, God’s objective is not wealth. The focus of Heaven is not “streets of gold,” believe it or not. I don’t think the emphasis in heaven is even “spiritual capital,” though it exists, by which I mean the glory of having accomplished something on earth, and being acknowledged for it in Heaven. The focus of Heaven is righteousness, and not the petty imitations of it found among the religious on earth, but the real thing, that is actually built into the personality. God’s objective in all of his dealings with us is to grant us his character. What Job obtained from God by his trial was unimaginably valuable, because it imparted character, God’s character, whether it manifests itself as patience, compassion, wisdom, steadfastness, or unspeakable joy.
God has an overriding purpose in everything he does in our lives, and it is to make us like him, so we can actually have a mutually pleasing conversation with him from time to time. Just like God left Job his wife so that he would have someone who could relate to him, who could understand him, who could look at him across the dinner table with a barely detectable smile indicating they were thinking alike, feeling the same emotions, remembering the same occasion, God is preparing his own bride capable of true fellowship, the fellowship of the gospel, of ministry to the saints, of all God’s wonderful mysteries, and yes, even the fellowship of his sufferings. God isn’t going to encode these things into our heavenly DNA, like some who misunderstand his sovereignty might imagine, God guides us through the whole range of earthly experiences, from ignorance to knowledge to widsom, from poverty to wealth and back again, from health to sickness to death, from pleasure to pain, from joy to grief and to joy after grief, all for a reason. God’s desire and design is to make us people he can take pleasure in, and I can’t imagine any greater goal in any creature’s life. If it were possible for Job to understand God’s particular objective at that moment, before actually living through it, Job may not have cursed his day at all, but rejoiced, as Jesus taught us to do in persecution. It remains to be seen whether or not we can remember his objective when our time comes.