Job The Righteous Sufferer Series

One of the first impressions I gained at the Baptist General

Conference annual meeting in Green Bay was that Christians are

perpetually suffering. Every day we were reminded of leaders in our

conference who are fighting with cancer. Just in our small

denomination there are hundreds who have cancer, and hundreds

more who suffer from other diseases. On top of this,

accidents are taking life, or leaving people injured and maimed

everyday. If this be the case in just one arm of the body of Christ,

how great must be the suffering of the whole body?

It is no wonder that Paul prayed that Christians might be

strengthened in the inner man. Christians need internal shock

absorbers to keep on going in spite of the blows dealt by life. The best

shock absorbers are right thoughts about suffering. Wrong ideas and

theories to explain it only adds to the burden. Helmut Thielicke, the

great German preacher and scholar, who has traveled across America

many times was asked, "What is the greatest weakness of American

Christians?" He responded, "Their views of suffering." American

Christians suffer one by one and have not gone through the holocost of

war with its cities bombed and thousands dying all around them. The

result is, most of the deepest thinking on suffering comes from

Christians in England and Europe where they have been through it.

They will not be comforted when you squeeze rose-water on their

cancer. The facts of life have forced them to rethink the popular

simple views that Christians hold in sunny times. Fortunately for us

God has given us another way to think deeply about the mysteries of

suffering. We do not have to go through the fire to see the light. The

book of Job reveals the debate on suffering as no other piece of

literature on earth. Just as Jesus suffered for us that we need not

experience hell, so Job suffered that we need not go through hell on

earth to come to right ideas about suffering. Thank God we do not all

have to learn by experience. It is possible to learn much from the

experience of others. All of us will experience suffering, but few if any

will have to go the route of Job. His severe experience can help all of

us make our less severe journey smoother by giving to us the shock

absorbers of right ideas.

In the book of Job we learn from the mistakes of others. This is the

path of wisdom, for we cannot live long enough to make them all

ourselves. We can make plenty of them, however, and the fact is,

many go on making the same mistakes made by the friends of Job.

They were good and godly men, but are the great examples of how

wrong good and godly men can be when it comes to suffering. Their

mistake was the common mistake still being made by Christians.

They tried to impose their simple explanation on all of reality. They

followed the path of all who are dogmatic. In order to get all of the

evidence to support their theory, they just ignored the facts that didn't

fit. They hated complexity. They demanded that Job conform to their

nice neat simple formula for explaining his, and all suffering.

Their simple formula was that all suffering was a sign of divine

displeasure. When men are good and godly they do not suffer, for

God blesses them. When they do suffer they have ceased to be good

and godly. They have sinned, and all suffering is punishment for sin.

The beauty of this formula is that anyone can grasp it. It solves the

mystery of suffering and explains everything. If you suffer it is just a

reaping of what you have sown. There is really no mystery to solve. It

has only one major defect-it is not true. This is what Job keeps saying

over and over in his defense.

Many Christians, however never read the book of Job, or do not

understand it if they do. The result is that many Christians suffer

great mental agony because they try to explain everything by this

simple but false formula. They cry out in affliction saying, what have

I done to deserve this? This implies that all suffering is deserved and is

punishment for bad behavior. They may be conscious of some sin in

their life, but there is no way that their sin can be so great as to

deserve such severe punishment. So they get angry at God and accuse

Him of cruelty and injustice. They know people much worse than

themselves who do not suffer at all. Their faith is often damaged, and

they suffer mental and spiritual torment all because they start with

bad theology and a wrong view of suffering.