Suffering

***Show video clip here - end with fade to black scene (7:30) after he says “but He is good.”

This is the experience of Job. So what are the answers Job gives us to the problem of pain and suffering?

1. God is Good - As we look at the book of Job, we are reminded that no matter what experience may try to convince us of, no matter what circumstances may declare to us, we know that God is good. And because God is good, he can be trusted.

Throughout the book of Job, we see Job calling out wanting a chance to make God answer. He longs for confrontation, he wants to take God to court.

Job 9:32-35 - He is not a man like me that I might answer him, that we might confront each other in court. If only there were someone to arbitrate between us, to lay his hand upon us both, someone to remove God’s rod from me, so that his terror would frighten me no more. Then I would speak up without fear of him, but as it now stands with me, I cannot.

Job 13:3 - But I desire to speak to the Almighty and to argue my case with God.

Job 13:21-22 - Withdraw your hand far from me, and stop frightening me with your terrors. Then summon me and I will answer, or let me speak, and you reply.

But Job finally gets his wish - to confront God - and when he does, he realizes how foolish a thing it is. In Job 38 God shows up:

Then the LORD answered Job out of the storm. He said: “Who is this that darkens my counsel with words without knowledge? Brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer me.

And God starts questioning Job, and very quickly Job sees his own foolishness.

Job 40:3-5 - Then Job answered the LORD: “I am unworthy--how can I reply to you? I put my hand over my mouth. I spoke once, but I have no answer--twice, but I will say no more.”

Job 42:1-6 - Then Job replied to the LORD: “I know that you can do all things; no plan of yours can be thwarted. You asked, ‘Who is this that obscures my counsel without knowledge?’ Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know. “You said, ‘Listen now, and I will speak; I will question you, and you shall answer me.’ My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you. Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.”

Verse 5 is the key to the book of Job, and also the key to accepting our pain: Job knew of God, and knew truth about God, but in the end is taken to a whole new level when he intimately KNOWS God. What he ends up discovering is the first sentence of the Purpose Driven Life book: It’s not about you! It’s not about me! Life is about the purposes of God. It is only in knowing Him that we find we no longer need answers.

Whenever we come to look at life from our perspective, and God doesn’t measure up, we think God is not good. But one answer Job gives us is we need to come believing God is good, and to base our experience and our circumstances upon this truth. It will then cause us to look at things very differently.

The second answer Job gives us to pain and suffering is

2. God is Supreme