How did your day start today? Did you jump out of bed enthusiastically ready to face what this new day held? Or did you rollover with a groan, reaching for the snooze button to silence the annoying sounds coming from your alarm clock? Was this one of those days where you just wanted to pull the covers back up over your head in hopes that the day would just go away? It you fit into the last category, maybe being a night owl has caught up with you – or maybe it is a little more serious than that. Maybe your life is tightly held in the grip of fear, grief or depression. Whatever is going on in your life one thing is for sure the pressure is sucking all motivation out of your life and robbing you of your joy. Perhaps your trust in God has started to cave in under the pressure of your struggle and your prayers of been reduced to simple cries for help made out of desperation. If this is you, then you are probably sick and tired of well intentioned people tossing platitudes at you; “Well, I’m sure it’ll all work out,” or “Remember, God works all things together for the good,” or perhaps the most popular, “You need to go on with your life.” You smile graciously in response but these platitudes do nothing to ease your pain. Your heart cries out, “God, Are you really there? Am I really going to make it through these struggles?” How do we trust God when a trial has swallowed us whole? What do we do when we are overcome by doubt? How do we hold on to our hope when adversity is beating the living daylights out of us? There are no easy answers, not even in the Bible. There is no magic verse that we can wave over our life like a magic wand to make the pain disappear. But in God’s Word we’re given His wisdom – the mainstays of His truth to secure us to Him when it seems the bottom has dropped out from under us. Many consider Job to be the textbook on how to handle suffering. But as Philip Yancey suggest, the point of Job is not suffering but faith. Where is Job when it hurts? How is he responding? In the first two chapters of the book of Job, Job makes an astonishing response to the avalanche of disasters that literally ripped his life apart. Let’s walk beside him and explore five extraordinary scenes from his life.
I. Five extraordinary scenes from Job’s life that resulted in calamity.
A. The first scene gives us a picture of Job’s relationship with God.
1. The opening scene on earth provides us with a detailed description of Job’s walk with God.
2. God has blessed Job with great wealth and a very large family.
3. Eugene Peterson in his paraphrase “The Message Bible” describes Job this way: “He was honest inside and out, a man of his word, who was totally devoted to God and hated evil with a passion.”
B. Scene two shifts the spotlight from earth to heaven, and we are given a glimpse of the circumstances responsible for Job’s suffering.
1. Job is totally unaware that Satan has wagered that, if pushed hard enough this choice servant would actually curse God.
2. God has designated the man Job as a combatant in this battle against Satan.
3. The first and last chapters make it very clear that Job was unknowingly performing in a cosmic show down before spectators in the unseen world.
C. With the backdrop for Job’s fiery trial rolled into place; let’s look at the third scene – Satan’s all out assault.
1. Without warning, Satan’s fury sweeps into Job’s life destroying life as Job knew it.
2. With three brief events Job’s family, servants and wealth is taken away.
3. However this is just the beginning Satan still has more in store for the man of God.
D. Satan is not satisfied yet so we see him strike Job in this fourth scene.
1. Satan has been allowed to rob Job of his wealth and family and Job’s faith stayed in tact.
2. Satan is convinced that Job will break if God allows his health to be taken away.
3. So Satan states his new scheme to get Job to turn his back on God.
E. In the fifth scene, Satan will destroy Job’s body in order to get him to turn his back on God.
1. As Job tries to pick up the pieces of His life, another disaster knocks the props out from under his life.
2. Satan was convinced that the misery brought on be disease would destroy the faith of even the sturdiest of souls.
3. To Satan’s dismay, nothing caused Job’s faith to waver.
II. Job’s deep resolve to trust God was evident in his responses to the different calamities that hit his life.
A. Battered and worn by Satan’s attacks, Job bows before God in worship.
1. Now not only Job’s body lie before the Lord, his will does as well.
2. Satan is startled to find Job’s resolve to trust God still intact.
3. Job shows wisdom not because he comprehended the mystery of his sufferings, but because, not comprehending, he still trusted God.
B. Job’s response to his circumstances revealed great humility as he humbly surrenders to God’s will.
1. Satan waited for Job to speak fully expecting his words to show bitterness toward God
2. Satan has greatly underestimated the strength of Job’s faith.
3. Job proved that his hands did not need to be full in order to worship God.
C. Another of Job’s astonishing responses came just after Satan had afflicted him with boils. Silence! He did not say anything.
1. Job’s misery drives him to silence and the town’s ash heap.
2. This was a collection of the ashes from the city’s ovens, broken pots and other garbage. The modern equivalent is the city dump.
3. This was a brutal illness which makes his silent, humble grieving so remarkable.
4. Job did not shake his fists at God he humbly accepted God’s will.
5. Job’s wife also is grieving not only has she lost children too, she is forced to witness her husband suffering in physical agony.
6. Her words offered no comfort to Job, but managed to heap more hurt upon him.
7. This was the time that they needed each other most for comfort and support.
D. Amazingly in his response to his wife Job remains steadfast in his faith, he corrects his wife’s misguided counsel and willingly accepts his miserable plight.
1. With this humble response Job chokes all remaining life from Satan’s diabolical scheme.
2. Job would remain faithful to God regardless of how bleak life had become.
III. Three reasons we discover for how Job’s faith withstood such intense testing.
A. Job looked up and was comforted by God’s sovereignty.
1. Job could have easily concluded from his circumstances that God was cruel and enjoyed allowing His people to endure pain.
2. Job held to the comforting truth that God is in control of every aspect of life.
3. Even though Job didn’t understand why things were happening like they were, he still believed that God knew best.
B. Job looked ahead and was reminded of God’s presence.
1. Job believed that if he endured, one day he would dwell in God’s presence.
2. One day he would be free from evil scheme of Satan.
C. Job looked around and was shaped by God’s instruction.
1. We’ve only seen the beginning of Job’s journey.
2. The pressure eventually did cause Job’s resolve to weaken.
3. He started out seeking an answer from God for the reason behind his suffering, but soon the seeking became a demand for an explanation.
4. God never really answered Job’s questions but instead revealed His complete control over all of creation.
5. Job humbly repents and accepts God’s will.
IV. Two final thought for each of us to consider.
A. We are all faced with a series of opportunities, brilliantly described as unsolvable problems.
1. For Job the battleground of faith involved lost possessions, lost family and lost health.
2. We may face different struggles: career failure, a floundering marriage, an empty bank account or the loss of health.
3. Job’s struggles teach us that at the moment when faith seems the hardest and least likely is when faith is most needed.
B. Worship, humility, silence and acceptance are the responses of faith Job used to help rise above the storms in his life.
1. Our lives and trust in God need to offer these same responses to the circumstances that come across our paths.
2. These responses will enable your endurance to be strengthened and your relationship with the Lord to be deepened.
3. Remember God never turns His back on us, as we saw through His Son, He stays very close when storms test our faith.
Thomas Edison invented the microphone, the phonograph, the incandescent light, the storage battery, talking movies, and more than 1000 other things. December 1914 he had worked for 10 years on a storage battery. This had greatly strained his finances. This particular evening spontaneous combustion had broken out in the film room. Within minutes all the packing compounds, celluloid for records and film, and other flammable goods were in flames. Fire companies from eight surrounding towns arrived, but the heat was so intense and the water pressure so low that the attempt to douse the flames was futile. Everything was destroyed. Edison was 67. With all his assets going up in a whoosh (although the damage exceeded two million dollars, the buildings were only insured for $238,000 because they were made of concrete and thought to be fireproof), would his spirit be broken?
The inventor’s 24-year old son, Charles, searched frantically for his father. He finally found him, calmly watching the fire, his face glowing in the reflection, his white hair blowing in the wind. "My heart ached for him," said Charles. "He was 67--no longer a young man--and everything was going up in flames. When he saw me, he shouted, ’Charles, where’s your mother?’ When I told him I didn’t know, he said, ’Find her. Bring her here. She will never see anything like this as long as she lives.’" The next morning, Edison looked at the ruins and said, "There is great value in disaster. All our mistakes are burned up. Thank God we can start anew." Three weeks after the fire, Edison managed to deliver the first phonograph.
