Title: WHEN YOU SEE GOD
Text: Job 42:3-6
I. Introduction
a. The name “Job”
b. The oldest book
c. Theme of book: What Job learns from suffering
II. Exegesis
a. How Job knows (v. 3)
b. How Job speaks (v. 4)
c. How Job sees (v. 5)
III. Conclusion
a. How Job responds (v. 6)
Dominating Theme: What happens when Job sees God.
Motivating Thrust: Never lose your wonder of God. When you see God, it changes how you treat people. One reason people, especially Christians, treat others hatefully is because they either have never seen God, or else they have lost sight of him.
Manuscript:
If you are not familiar with this book, let me give a very brief summary. A wealthy man named Job has a wife, seven sons, three daughters. In a heavenly debate, God brags on Job, whom he calls “perfect.” Obviously, he was not perfect like Jesus was perfect, but it is still quite an accolade to be called perfect by God. He was mature, complete in his faith. Satan responds that Job is only faithful because God blessed him with riches. So God allows a trial to begin. In a single day, Job’s children are killed and his wealth stolen. God shows this to Satan, who argues that if his health is taken away, Job will curse God. So God allows Satan to afflict Job with painful boils and other health problems. The Bible says he took a broken pot and used it to scratch his sores. Now Job has lost everything. His wife even says, “Why don’t you curse God and die.” His friends come and criticize him. He becomes destitute; completely and utterly alone.
Most of the book is an argument between Job and his friends. For twenty-nine chapters they go back and forth about why God allows suffering. His friends criticize Job: surely he must have committed some awful sin for God to have allowed this misery to come upon him. Then God answers. God answers Job, and four chapters later Job is silent. That brings us to our text and our theme: What happens when Job sees God?
You can follow along with me as I read Job 42:3-6.
“Who is he that hideth counsel without knowledge? Therefore have I uttered that I understood not; things too wonderful for me, which I knew not. Hear, I beseech thee, and I will speak: I will demand of thee, and declare thou unto me. I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee. Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.”
Look at verse three: How Job knows. Job spent 29 chapters arguing his case. He wasn’t wrong, but he didn’t really understand the truth either. The first three chapters of Job are set in heaven. Job had no way of knowing that he was part of a cosmic debate. How often have we prayed asking us to remove us from something that he intends to use for his glory? It is worth asking if we would be willing to endure, knowing that God is the one who permits the suffering in the first place. It tests your trust.
Ecclesiastes 5:1-2 has something to say about the words we use. “Keep thy foot when thou goest to the house of God, and be more ready to hear, than to give the sacrifice of fools: for they consider not that they do evil. Be not rash with they mouth and let not thine heart be hasty to utter any thing before God: for God is in heaven, and thou upon earth: therefore let thy words be few.” In the next verse it says “… a fool is known by the multitude of words.” Job laments talking about things that he thought he understood, but he did not. How often do we yak on about things that we really don’t understand? It’s part of our culture. In some places it is still considered a virtue to be silent, but not here. Last week Bill O’Riley was interviewed by Katie Currick on the Today Show. She asked him about some political event in Washington and he replied, “I don’t know.” Awkward silence followed, and Katie jumped in to fill the silence. We don’t like silence. It’s a noisy culture and we like it. But the Bible says it is better sometimes to be silent.
In this case Job uttered nonsense because it involved things “too wonderful for me.” Think of that word: wonder-ful. Literally, full of wonder. Last night we watched a show on PBS about a fish that had big fins. The show assumes evolution to be true, so it pursued the line that this fish was the missing link in Darwin’s theory. They based it on the idea that this rare fish with long fins actually walked along the bottom of the sea, proving that fish eventually over millions of years grew legs and became land mammals. But then they filmed some of the fish deep in the ocean and found that they don’t walk at all, so there must be some other missing link. They even had a graphic, thoroughly confusing for children, that showed the fish becoming a lizard, becoming a monkey, and becoming a man. They never once considered the possibility that God simply made a fish with big fins. God is full of wonder; you can’t explain it all away. Never lose your sense of wonder with God.
My great-grandmother was born in 1898. She died in 1993. In her lifetime, born in Shelbyville, she saw horse and buggies get replaced by automobiles. Her fiancé fought in World War I, and after marriage, fought in World War II. She saw men walk on the moon and the birth of the Internet. We have in the last 60 years especially, learned so much from Science. In the next 60 we will learn even more. But in all this learning, we must never become so arrogant that we lose our wonder of God. Never lose your sense of awe. Our greatest accomplishments are child’s play in God’s sight.
Look at verse four to see how Job speaks. “Hear, I beseech thee, and I will speak: I will demand of thee, and declare thou unto me.” Job says he will speak only if he first hears from God. Then he will know what to say. So that I don’t repeat the earlier mistake of speaking what I do not know, this time I’ll demand of thee. That’s not the wrong kind of demand, simply shows the earnestness and gravity with which Job will now wait and listen before opening his mouth again. Often, our greatest barrier to prayer is not listening. Job says, “You declare to me, I will listen. And only then will I speak.
Verse five says how Job sees. “I have heard thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee.”
Think of what Job has been through: the loss of his children, wealth, health, honor, reputation, and he has endured the endless criticism of his friends. His marriage was strained, with his wife telling him to curse God and die. Before any of this happened, God bragged on Job. Job already knew God, but following the suffering his says that this knowledge of God was like only hearing. Now he sees God through the lens of suffering. There is something about suffering that allows you to know God in a unique way. How often have we prayed for God to release us from financial, physical, or emotional suffering, when God wants to use that to teach us something about Himself?
I want you to ponder this with me: it is only through suffering that Job gets to this point of dialogue with God, to this point that he “sees” God. He had to lose everything in order to gain even more. “Things” blind us to God’s presence. We desire wealth and comfort, yet they prevent us from knowing God to the extent we could know God. Last year I found myself complaining about the water not being hot enough, the food savory enough, the house big enough. So I took a “perspective alignment” mission trip to the poorest nation on earth, Sierra Leone. Apparently it didn’t work because I am complaining again.
The great sin of Sodom was not homosexuality; that was the symptom of the disease. The disease was “pride, fullness of bread, and abundance of idleness…” (Ezekiel 16:49). Idleness is the devil’s playground. David encounters Bathsheeba and falls into adultery because he was idle during a time when he should have been on the battlefield. That is the problem with wealth and comfort: it makes you lazy, blurs your vision, and fosters spiritual lethargy.
I don’t advocate burning your house down and living under a bridge by the river. I only say that it took this journey of suffering and loss for Job to arrive at the point where he “sees” God. He now knows God that he never experienced before.
When you see God, you see yourself differently. Look at verse six: Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.” If you read this that Job degrades himself, you misread the text. Job sees God for who he is: high, lifted up, perfection. When looking at perfection, you notice your own imperfection. I may fancy myself attractive until I pick up a magazine with “perfect” models, lacking all the blemishes with which I abound. When you see God, you see perfection.
Job repents in dust and ashes; he repents of placing himself more highly than he ought. They way to feel good about yourself is to find your beauty and your wealth in Jesus Christ.
When you see God, it changes the way you treat people. The book of Job ends in a display of mercy. God convicts the friends that criticized Job. “My wrath is kindled against thee…for ye have not spoken of me the thin that is right… therefore take unto you now seven bullocks and seven rams, and go to my servant Job, and offer up for yourselves a burnt offering; and my servant Job shall pray for you: for him will I accept: lest I deal with you after your folly…” In his most desperate hour, Job’s friends lavished criticism on the man. He could have been angry and refused to pray for them, agreeing with God that they were wrong and should suffer for it. God leaves it up to Job: if Job prays, they will be forgiven. If he does not, then God will pour his wrath on them. In a great act of mercy and compassion, Job does not do what he had the right to do. He prays for them. You see, when you see God, it changes the way you treat people. When you see God it becomes both easier and more imperative to love people. I guess that’s why Jesus commanded us to love people. I suppose that is why he said “…all men shall know that you are my disciples, if you have love one to another.” (John 13:35)
One reason people, especially Christians, treat others hatefully is because they either have never seen God, or else they have lost sight of him. When you see God, it changes the way you treat people.
