When Life Hurts Part 2

JOB- When Life hurts! - part 2

Veterans Day Clip!

Theme of the Book: How should righteous people suffer?

Key Verse: Job 3:26 "I have no peace, no quietness. I have no rest, but only turmoil.

Key Word: Trials

Introduction:

Job is the oldest book in the Bible. Genesis was not written first, but Job. The time described in Job fit the Patriarchal period of the days of Abraham 2,000 years before Christ. Many believe that the author is Elihu who penned this drama shortly after it occurred.

Job is not a book of answers but rather a revelation of human experience. Job is an everyday man facing circumstances of which he has no control over. They are ordinary life tragedies of human life. Norman Vincent Peale notes:

Everyone, at one time or another, suffers a crisis, or even a defeat. “You can’t win them all, “ someone said. What, then, do you do about the challenges you don’t win? What about the harsh defeats that come? Physical defeats, for example, when you have trouble with your health, when your body begins to give up on you. What do you do about pain, sorrow, suffering, and hardship? What happens when you are defeated in some objective, or in some ambition? Or when you see that some fond hope, cherished for years, is not going to be realized? What happens when life seems to flow away from you, rather than toward you; when things get mixed up and become unhappy; when you are having trouble with yourself, and trouble with everything else? What do you do? The greatest measure of a human being isn’t how he handles himself when things are going well, but how he handles himself when things are going badly, when defeat comes. The attitude a person has in defeat is a great issue in life, for it determines whether one is able to overcome difficulties and be victorious again (In God We Trust, Nelson 1994, page 5).

Job gives us insight into not the why, because we all face trials in life. Friend there are no exceptions to this reality. Job was penned for us to convey insight into how to handle the tragedies of life. It also reveals how to help others who are suffering and teaches what not to do as counselors and care workers. The focus of the book is not on the why Job suffers but how Job handles adversity. Norman Vincent Peale adds this thought:

What are you going to do with defeat? Are you going to let it defeat you? Or are you going to make it a positive, creative experience from which you can extract much know-how and wisdom and from which you will gain strength to proceed? The individual who has placed at the center of his thinking the wonderful affirmation, “I can do all things through Christ” can recover from any defeat and can handle any situation (7).

T.S.- Believe it or not pain with the help of Christ does produce good things. Lets explore the benefits of pain and suffering in life.

I. The positive side to pain and suffering.

a. When pain and suffering comes our way we need to understand that even though it hurts there are benefits.

i. When I touch something hot with my hand I snap back because of the pain. In essence pain helps me from hurting myself more.

1. So we can conclude that in some instances pain helps us from hurting ourselves worse.

2. Philip Yancey in his book When Life Hurts states this about the benefit of pain cells:

a. I confess that I once viewed pain as God’s one great goofs in an otherwise impressive world. Why would He mess up such a world by including pain in it? Without injury and suffering, we would find it so much easier to respect and trust him. Why didn’t he create all the beautiful things in the world, but leave out pain? I discovered the answer to this question in an unusual place. To my amazement I found that a world without pain actually exists-within the walls of a leprosy hospital. People with leprosy, today called Hansen’s disease, do not feel physical pain. But as it turns out, that is the peculiar tragedy of their condition. As the disease spreads, nerve endings that carry pain signals fall silent. Virtually all the physical deformity comes about because the leprosy victim cannot feel pain (14,15).

b. Yancey tells us that leprosy patients have lost their toes because their shoes where to tight. Others have gone blind because they lose the ability to blink when something sprays in their face. Others have gotten sores and open wounds on their hands because of gripping a mop to tightly (15,16).

c. I have heard of others who cut themselves with knives and never knew it. They cut off a finger and don’t realize it. Why because they don’t feel pain.