1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:04,000 Welcome to Deep Roots, the new monthly podcast from Oak Hill. 2 00:00:04,000 --> 00:00:08,500 My name is Tim Ward and I teach hermeneutics and word ministry here at college. 3 00:00:08,500 --> 00:00:12,500 My name is Eric Ortland. I teach Hebrew and Old Testament at Oak Hill College. 4 00:00:12,500 --> 00:00:14,000 Thanks so much for joining us. 5 00:00:14,000 --> 00:00:18,000 In future months in these podcasts, Eric and I are going to be the co-hosts, 6 00:00:18,000 --> 00:00:21,500 interviewing, chatting with some of our colleagues here at college. 7 00:00:21,500 --> 00:00:24,000 But in this first one, I'm interviewing Eric. 8 00:00:24,000 --> 00:00:28,000 Now we're focusing in on the Book of Job and what it says about suffering. 9 00:00:28,000 --> 00:00:32,000 Eric's been doing a lot of study on that. He's got one book on Job out. 10 00:00:32,000 --> 00:00:35,000 There's another one, because you need two books on this. 11 00:00:35,000 --> 00:00:37,000 There's another one about to come out. 12 00:00:37,000 --> 00:00:40,000 Eric, give us the headlines. What are we about to get into in the Book of Job? 13 00:00:40,000 --> 00:00:43,000 I find the Book of Job unique in all the Bible, 14 00:00:43,000 --> 00:00:47,000 the way it analyzes suffering, for how it reveals what God is up to, 15 00:00:47,000 --> 00:00:51,000 why He allows suffering, what He wants from us in it, 16 00:00:51,000 --> 00:00:54,000 and what promises He makes to us in it. 17 00:00:54,000 --> 00:00:59,000 I think there are very compelling and comforting answers given to those questions in this book. 18 00:00:59,000 --> 00:01:02,000 Now Eric, I need to say, I've heard you preach on the Book of Job, 19 00:01:02,000 --> 00:01:04,000 and I've read the first book that's out. 20 00:01:04,000 --> 00:01:07,000 Haven't you read the second one? Because it's not out yet. 21 00:01:07,000 --> 00:01:09,000 I want to say, I've heard you say things from the Book of Job 22 00:01:09,000 --> 00:01:13,000 that I've never heard anybody say about the Book of Job before. 23 00:01:13,000 --> 00:01:15,000 And I've become persuaded that they're right. 24 00:01:15,000 --> 00:01:20,000 And there's a particular pastoral angle that I don't think I'd ever seen in Job before. 25 00:01:20,000 --> 00:01:22,000 So I've had that advance preview. 26 00:01:22,000 --> 00:01:24,000 I'm really looking forward to what we're going to get into. 27 00:01:24,000 --> 00:01:26,000 I am as well. 28 00:01:31,000 --> 00:01:34,000 Eric, two books on Job. What's going on? 29 00:01:34,000 --> 00:01:39,000 Well, in teaching the Book of Job, it's been my observation, 30 00:01:39,000 --> 00:01:42,000 first of all, that the Book of Job is not very well understood. 31 00:01:42,000 --> 00:01:45,000 I've very frequently, either in the classroom or in church, 32 00:01:45,000 --> 00:01:49,000 had people come up to me after I've been speaking and said, 33 00:01:49,000 --> 00:01:53,000 that's my story, either myself or someone I know. 34 00:01:53,000 --> 00:01:58,000 I recognize myself or the story of someone I love in the Book of Job. 35 00:01:58,000 --> 00:02:04,000 Also, I think English language commentators have not served us well 36 00:02:04,000 --> 00:02:06,000 when it comes to the Book of Job. 37 00:02:06,000 --> 00:02:09,000 Reading commentaries on Job, they are all over the place. 38 00:02:09,000 --> 00:02:12,000 And almost every commentary is something helpful, 39 00:02:12,000 --> 00:02:18,000 but I was very unsatisfied with what I read on Job. 40 00:02:18,000 --> 00:02:21,000 I think there are too many books on the Bible out there already. 41 00:02:21,000 --> 00:02:23,000 No one has enough time to read all of them. 42 00:02:23,000 --> 00:02:25,000 I didn't want to add to the pile. 43 00:02:25,000 --> 00:02:30,000 At the same time, I thought there was justification to have a book on Job 44 00:02:30,000 --> 00:02:35,000 that made a long argument about a particular reading of the book 45 00:02:35,000 --> 00:02:39,000 and why it was better than other current alternatives out there. 46 00:02:39,000 --> 00:02:44,000 That'll be this one, Pia Singh Leviathan, just out with IVP. 47 00:02:44,000 --> 00:02:47,000 But there's a second one which I don't have a copy of because it's not yet out. 48 00:02:47,000 --> 00:02:48,000 It's called Suffering Wisely and Well. 49 00:02:48,000 --> 00:02:50,000 It's coming out with Crossway. 50 00:02:50,000 --> 00:02:55,000 And that book is everything pastoral, pastorially helpful in the Book of Job, 51 00:02:55,000 --> 00:02:59,000 stated in as simple and direct and clear and helpful a manner as possible. 52 00:02:59,000 --> 00:03:02,000 So some people will be interested to see the nuts and bolts. 53 00:03:02,000 --> 00:03:05,000 They will be interested to see different ways the Book of Job has been read 54 00:03:05,000 --> 00:03:07,000 and why I think those are wrong. 55 00:03:07,000 --> 00:03:11,000 Some people, for very good reasons, won't be as interested in that. 56 00:03:11,000 --> 00:03:16,000 And they will simply want to be ministered to from this part of God's Word. 57 00:03:16,000 --> 00:03:18,000 So people should not read both. 58 00:03:18,000 --> 00:03:22,000 They will get the same argument in both books, but they're geared for different audiences. 59 00:03:22,000 --> 00:03:25,000 Great. And the title of the real practical one that's about to come out? 60 00:03:25,000 --> 00:03:28,000 So the title of the practical book is Suffering Wisely and Well, 61 00:03:28,000 --> 00:03:31,000 the Grief of Job and the Grace of God. 62 00:03:31,000 --> 00:03:34,000 Brilliant. And I've had the privilege of hearing you preach parts of Job, 63 00:03:34,000 --> 00:03:36,000 which I think have really fed into that. 64 00:03:36,000 --> 00:03:39,000 So I'm really looking forward to that coming out. 65 00:03:39,000 --> 00:03:42,000 Now, we are going to get into some of the detail of the Book of Job itself, 66 00:03:42,000 --> 00:03:45,000 but let's kind of jump to the end point first and then we'll rewind. 67 00:03:45,000 --> 00:03:46,000 Sure. 68 00:03:46,000 --> 00:03:48,000 I know from hearing you and talking to you, 69 00:03:48,000 --> 00:03:51,000 you think that within the whole Bible, 70 00:03:51,000 --> 00:03:57,000 the Book of Job has very particular and actually unique things to say to us 71 00:03:57,000 --> 00:04:02,000 about our understanding of suffering, about our experience of suffering. 72 00:04:02,000 --> 00:04:05,000 Tell us what you think is unique in the message of Job in this. 73 00:04:05,000 --> 00:04:08,000 Yes. Yes. So the Bible has a lot to say about suffering, 74 00:04:08,000 --> 00:04:12,000 and it makes many glorious promises to Christians who are suffering. 75 00:04:12,000 --> 00:04:14,000 I think that there is something going on in Job 76 00:04:14,000 --> 00:04:18,000 I don't see anywhere else in Scripture that does not contradict those other parts of Scripture. 77 00:04:18,000 --> 00:04:22,000 But, and I feel a sense of urgency about this 78 00:04:22,000 --> 00:04:25,000 because the book is not very well understood as far as I can tell. 79 00:04:25,000 --> 00:04:28,000 I think there are four really important truths in the Book of Job. 80 00:04:28,000 --> 00:04:32,000 First of all, why does God allow these Job-like experiences 81 00:04:32,000 --> 00:04:36,000 of very intense suffering that do not seem to make any sense? 82 00:04:36,000 --> 00:04:39,000 An essential quality of a Job-like ordeal. 83 00:04:39,000 --> 00:04:43,000 And one way to know if the Book of Job is a good book to turn to in the Scripture 84 00:04:43,000 --> 00:04:47,000 is this horrible sense of confusion and inexplicableness 85 00:04:47,000 --> 00:04:51,000 where God let your life fall apart, and you can't match that up 86 00:04:51,000 --> 00:04:54,000 to any increase in sin in your life. 87 00:04:54,000 --> 00:04:57,000 It doesn't seem to be making you a better Christian. 88 00:04:57,000 --> 00:05:01,000 And this sense of bewilderment as to why God would let something so terrible 89 00:05:01,000 --> 00:05:04,000 and nothing good is coming. 90 00:05:04,000 --> 00:05:08,000 I think Job chapter 1 show us that God sometimes allows 91 00:05:08,000 --> 00:05:12,000 terrible suffering, nightmarish suffering, 92 00:05:12,000 --> 00:05:16,000 that has nothing to do with letting the sin in our lives catch up with us. 93 00:05:16,000 --> 00:05:19,000 He is not angry with us, he is not punishing us. 94 00:05:19,000 --> 00:05:22,000 And strange as it might sound, it has nothing to do with making us better Christians. 95 00:05:22,000 --> 00:05:25,000 And we'll have a chance to go into why I think that's the case. 96 00:05:25,000 --> 00:05:29,000 Okay, that might be a slight draw drop moment, because okay. 97 00:05:29,000 --> 00:05:30,000 Yes. 98 00:05:30,000 --> 00:05:32,000 Let's leave that hanging, we're going to come back to that. 99 00:05:32,000 --> 00:05:35,000 It's a surprising thing to say, but I think that's what's going on there. 100 00:05:35,000 --> 00:05:39,000 Rather, God allows these times to deliver us into and seal us 101 00:05:39,000 --> 00:05:43,000 in the only kind of relationship with God that will actually save us. 102 00:05:43,000 --> 00:05:47,000 Where God is loved and valued for his own sake, 103 00:05:47,000 --> 00:05:50,000 irrespective of what he gives or takes away. 104 00:05:50,000 --> 00:05:53,000 And that is the only kind of relationship with God that will save us, 105 00:05:53,000 --> 00:05:56,000 as opposed to treating him as a means to some other end, or a big Santa Claus, 106 00:05:56,000 --> 00:05:57,000 or something like that. 107 00:05:57,000 --> 00:06:02,000 I think that's very relevant to every Christian, Job 1 and 2. 108 00:06:02,000 --> 00:06:05,000 Secondly, in the book of Job, we see what God wants from us 109 00:06:05,000 --> 00:06:08,000 in a Job-like ordeal. And it's really very simple. 110 00:06:08,000 --> 00:06:09,000 He just wants us to stay a Christian. 111 00:06:09,000 --> 00:06:13,000 Don't curse him, don't cut off your relationship with him, 112 00:06:13,000 --> 00:06:16,000 don't say, Lord, you betrayed me, and walk away from me. That's it. 113 00:06:16,000 --> 00:06:19,000 Job is deeply ashamed of some of the things he says by the end of the book. 114 00:06:19,000 --> 00:06:22,000 God sets the bar very low. Just stay a Christian. 115 00:06:22,000 --> 00:06:24,000 Thirdly, how do we talk to Job like suffering? 116 00:06:24,000 --> 00:06:29,000 Again, it would be great to come back to some of this stuff at the end, 117 00:06:29,000 --> 00:06:32,000 where we see the people on the book, I'm just kind of picking out the lines 118 00:06:32,000 --> 00:06:33,000 that are jumping out at me. 119 00:06:33,000 --> 00:06:34,000 God sets the bar really low. 120 00:06:34,000 --> 00:06:35,000 Yes. 121 00:06:35,000 --> 00:06:37,000 I can't remember having said that in a sermon. 122 00:06:37,000 --> 00:06:41,000 At least as regards Christian experience and Christian growth. 123 00:06:41,000 --> 00:06:42,000 Sure. 124 00:06:42,000 --> 00:06:44,000 There's interesting stuff going on here. Let's keep going. 125 00:06:44,000 --> 00:06:49,000 Okay. How do we talk to the modern... 126 00:06:49,000 --> 00:06:53,000 Every person watching at home, you probably have at least one Job 127 00:06:53,000 --> 00:06:55,000 in your church and probably several. 128 00:06:55,000 --> 00:06:58,000 And for the pastors listening, I'm sure everyone knows exactly 129 00:06:58,000 --> 00:07:01,000 what I'm talking about because they've faced it so many times. 130 00:07:01,000 --> 00:07:05,000 The majority, about something like 80% of the book chapters, 131 00:07:05,000 --> 00:07:07,000 the characters talking to each other. 132 00:07:07,000 --> 00:07:09,000 How we talk to each other really matters in the book. 133 00:07:09,000 --> 00:07:11,000 How do we talk to Job like suffering? 134 00:07:11,000 --> 00:07:14,000 It's basically very simple. Don't blame people. That's it. 135 00:07:14,000 --> 00:07:16,000 This is a long and difficult, complicated book, 136 00:07:16,000 --> 00:07:19,000 but in some ways it's very simple. Don't blame the Job you're talking to. 137 00:07:19,000 --> 00:07:23,000 And fourth, what promises does God make to Job like suffering? 138 00:07:23,000 --> 00:07:29,000 And it's here in particular, without contradicting the beautiful promises 139 00:07:29,000 --> 00:07:32,000 that God works all things out for good, that our light momentary sufferings 140 00:07:32,000 --> 00:07:36,000 are working out for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison. 141 00:07:36,000 --> 00:07:39,000 God doesn't make those sorts of promises to Job. 142 00:07:39,000 --> 00:07:43,000 He essentially says, I see the evil and chaos in my world better than you do. 143 00:07:43,000 --> 00:07:45,000 I am more keenly aware of that than you are. 144 00:07:45,000 --> 00:07:50,000 I keep a tight leash on it for now. I tolerate it for now, but I won't forever. 145 00:07:50,000 --> 00:07:52,000 And there's coming a day I'm going to destroy that evil. 146 00:07:52,000 --> 00:07:57,000 And that's all he says. So in a nutshell, I think that's what is unique 147 00:07:57,000 --> 00:08:00,000 and important and precious about the book of Job. 148 00:08:00,000 --> 00:08:02,000 Brilliant. Thank you. That's a fantastic overview. 149 00:08:02,000 --> 00:08:04,000 Now, let's dig into this a little bit more. 150 00:08:04,000 --> 00:08:08,000 And now let's work through the book in the three main sections. 151 00:08:08,000 --> 00:08:11,000 And just help us a bit with each of these sections. 152 00:08:11,000 --> 00:08:15,000 What's going on there reminds us of what the content is 153 00:08:15,000 --> 00:08:20,000 and how you see from those particular passages these applications arising. 154 00:08:20,000 --> 00:08:25,000 So we've got chapters one and two. It's clearly the introduction to the book. 155 00:08:25,000 --> 00:08:29,000 Remind us what's going on and how do you see these applications arising out of it? 156 00:08:29,000 --> 00:08:38,000 Yes. So chapters one to two are as brief as they are, mesmerizing and troubling. 157 00:08:38,000 --> 00:08:43,000 We begin with Job. He is, in verse one, he is described, 158 00:08:43,000 --> 00:08:47,000 to use New Testament language, we could say he's a saint in complete armor. 159 00:08:47,000 --> 00:08:49,000 He is a mature Christian. He is not perfect. 160 00:08:49,000 --> 00:08:52,000 He's the first to admit that he needed to confess sin. 161 00:08:52,000 --> 00:08:56,000 But he is whole and has integrity in his relationship with God. 162 00:08:56,000 --> 00:09:00,000 And his life is blessed. He has a picture perfect life in an old covenant framework, 163 00:09:00,000 --> 00:09:03,000 which itself is important. God is playing fair with us. 164 00:09:03,000 --> 00:09:07,000 And he is saying obedience and loyalty to me will make a huge difference 165 00:09:07,000 --> 00:09:11,000 in the life of the world to come. It will make a huge difference right now. 166 00:09:11,000 --> 00:09:17,000 Unbeknownst to Job and Job's ignorance of what we learn in chapters one and two is crucial for the whole book. 167 00:09:17,000 --> 00:09:19,000 I'd like to circle back around to that later. 168 00:09:19,000 --> 00:09:24,000 He is the subject of a very unfortunate conversation in heaven, 169 00:09:24,000 --> 00:09:29,000 where the accuser says about God points Job out to the devil. 170 00:09:29,000 --> 00:09:33,000 And the devil says, oh, well, of course Job says he loves you. 171 00:09:33,000 --> 00:09:36,000 Anyone would if you treat him that well. He says that. 172 00:09:36,000 --> 00:09:40,000 Actually, what's going on, Job is a gold digger. He secretly hates you. 173 00:09:40,000 --> 00:09:46,000 And he is mouthing pious falsities just to hold on to the picture perfect life you've given him. 174 00:09:46,000 --> 00:09:49,000 Take that away. You will see how he really feels about you. 175 00:09:49,000 --> 00:09:54,000 So that terrible verse in chapter one, verse nine, does Job fear God for no reason? 176 00:09:54,000 --> 00:09:57,000 The implied answer, no. 177 00:09:57,000 --> 00:10:00,000 That's a deeply nerve wracking verse for me. 178 00:10:00,000 --> 00:10:06,000 If I had to bury one of my children and I went to church the next Sunday, 179 00:10:06,000 --> 00:10:11,000 as it were, and sat, not literally, but grieving, not repressing my emotions, Job doesn't do that, but grieving, 180 00:10:11,000 --> 00:10:19,000 would I be any less enthusiastic about worshipping God for who he is in himself? 181 00:10:19,000 --> 00:10:24,000 If there's a Christian for whom God allows some terrible tragedy and their response is, 182 00:10:24,000 --> 00:10:26,000 how dare you do that to me? You betrayed me. 183 00:10:26,000 --> 00:10:32,000 Then that person has just learned something about their motives for being in a relationship with God in the first place. 184 00:10:32,000 --> 00:10:38,000 It is very easy, without realizing it, to treat God as a means to some other end. 185 00:10:38,000 --> 00:10:45,000 In other words, God's generosity, irrespective of his generosity in the forgiveness of our sins in eternal life, 186 00:10:45,000 --> 00:10:53,000 his generosity in secondary earthly blessings, we can get overly attached to those, perhaps without even realizing it. 187 00:10:53,000 --> 00:10:58,000 It seems to me that for every Christian at some point in their lives, 188 00:10:58,000 --> 00:11:04,000 I don't think that God will allow suffering exactly in the same extremity that Job goes through with all his children. 189 00:11:04,000 --> 00:11:08,000 I'm not implying that. There's something unusual about Job's piety and his suffering, 190 00:11:08,000 --> 00:11:17,000 and yet there will be a kind of quality of Job-like suffering, where God really gives you a solid reason to give up on him, 191 00:11:17,000 --> 00:11:24,000 where you find yourself thinking, I treat my own kids better than God treats me. 192 00:11:24,000 --> 00:11:29,000 And you can't see any good coming out of it. It doesn't make any sense. 193 00:11:29,000 --> 00:11:37,000 And helped by the Holy Spirit, along with Job, you say, the Lord gave to me, and God has definitely taken away from me. 194 00:11:37,000 --> 00:11:41,000 Blessed be his name anyway, irregardless of what he... 195 00:11:41,000 --> 00:11:49,000 Now, that's so crucial, because if I can't learn to do that in some doubtless imperfect but sincere measure right now, 196 00:11:49,000 --> 00:11:56,000 I'm going to be bored in heaven, in the eschaton, when God is all in all. 197 00:11:56,000 --> 00:12:01,000 My family will always be so precious to me, but marriage is a part of this age. 198 00:12:01,000 --> 00:12:05,000 My wife will always be so precious to me, but there's no marriage in the eschaton. 199 00:12:05,000 --> 00:12:09,000 My children will always be so precious to me, but the relationship won't quite be the same. 200 00:12:09,000 --> 00:12:19,000 If I can't learn to enjoy God for himself, regardless of what I lose, God is fitting our souls for eternity through Job-like suffering. 201 00:12:19,000 --> 00:12:25,000 My sense is that this is... we don't necessarily have this as a life category in our context. 202 00:12:25,000 --> 00:12:33,000 We tend to think of suffering in terms of the consequences of our sin or spiritual growth, which are both perfectly valid explanations. 203 00:12:33,000 --> 00:12:38,000 But I hope more Christians have this as a possibility for interpreting what's going on. 204 00:12:38,000 --> 00:12:44,000 Just help me out here. So, you're saying Job-like suffering, which is to us apparently inexplicable. 205 00:12:44,000 --> 00:12:49,000 I can't tag it to some sin I've committed and then... it's not one of those. 206 00:12:49,000 --> 00:12:50,000 Yes. 207 00:12:50,000 --> 00:13:00,000 You've said it may not even in God's purposes be creating spiritual growth in me, but it's preparing me for eternity. 208 00:13:00,000 --> 00:13:05,000 How is preparing me for eternity different from bringing about spiritual growth in me now? 209 00:13:05,000 --> 00:13:10,000 Because I thought the way God prepared me for eternity was he brought about spiritual growth in me now. 210 00:13:10,000 --> 00:13:15,000 Of course. Of course. It's a perfectly valid question. I don't want to draw two fine distinctions here. 211 00:13:15,000 --> 00:13:20,000 What I have in the back of my mind is the list of Christian virtues and passages like Romans 5 and James 1. 212 00:13:20,000 --> 00:13:25,000 Suffering producing endurance and endurance character might be reversed. I can't remember. 213 00:13:25,000 --> 00:13:33,000 But those... things like that. Those very necessary Christ-like virtues and fruit of the Spirit that suffering produces in us. 214 00:13:33,000 --> 00:13:37,000 I understand in Job 1.1 the author to be saying Job already has those. 215 00:13:37,000 --> 00:13:42,000 He already has the character, the endurance, the fortitude, the spiritual muscle. 216 00:13:42,000 --> 00:13:49,000 So the suffering that introduces... that God introduces to his life can't give those to him or they don't need to because he already has them. 217 00:13:49,000 --> 00:13:51,000 Ah, okay. Okay. 218 00:13:51,000 --> 00:13:57,000 Furthermore, the note... the note that almost the last... almost the last thing Job says is, now my eye sees you. 219 00:13:57,000 --> 00:14:00,000 He is simply taken up in God himself. 220 00:14:00,000 --> 00:14:03,000 There are a couple different ways we could attack this. 221 00:14:03,000 --> 00:14:08,000 The whole point is does Job love God for God irrespective of how Job might or might not grow? 222 00:14:08,000 --> 00:14:12,000 Maybe we could say in some sense Job grew in his vision of God. 223 00:14:12,000 --> 00:14:15,000 But specifically in terms of Job's spiritual characteristics. 224 00:14:15,000 --> 00:14:19,000 If Job grows spiritually as a result of the ordeal, the accuser could turn around and say, 225 00:14:19,000 --> 00:14:24,000 well, okay, Job is happier as a result of these virtues being more his own. 226 00:14:24,000 --> 00:14:29,000 So does Job really love you, God? Or does he just enjoy being a better person? 227 00:14:29,000 --> 00:14:30,000 Okay. 228 00:14:30,000 --> 00:14:34,000 There's a sense in which... there's a sense in which, strange as it might sound, 229 00:14:34,000 --> 00:14:39,000 you can't benefit from a Job-like ordeal except in a deeper knowledge of God and a deeper vision of God. 230 00:14:39,000 --> 00:14:42,000 And if you want to say that's spiritual growth, that's fine with me. 231 00:14:42,000 --> 00:14:48,000 I just want to distinguish this from crucial, beautiful, true passages like Romans 5 and James 1. 232 00:14:48,000 --> 00:14:50,000 Okay. So just to ground this. 233 00:14:50,000 --> 00:14:55,000 So let's say in my church there is a really godly person. 234 00:14:55,000 --> 00:14:59,000 They're not perfect. They're not getting glory. But they are really godly. 235 00:14:59,000 --> 00:15:01,000 And they go through some deep inexplicable suffering. 236 00:15:01,000 --> 00:15:02,000 Yes. 237 00:15:02,000 --> 00:15:06,000 And I'm wondering then, or as a Christian friend, I might be tempted to want to say to them, 238 00:15:06,000 --> 00:15:11,000 it looks as if God wants even more discernible sanctification fruit in your life. 239 00:15:11,000 --> 00:15:12,000 Yes. 240 00:15:12,000 --> 00:15:14,000 And that's kind of the thing I've got to say to them. 241 00:15:14,000 --> 00:15:15,000 Yes. 242 00:15:15,000 --> 00:15:17,000 You're wanting to say, maybe no. 243 00:15:17,000 --> 00:15:20,000 That may be an appropriate thing to say. 244 00:15:20,000 --> 00:15:26,000 We need the help of God's Spirit as we talk to each other to know where in the Bible to turn. 245 00:15:26,000 --> 00:15:33,000 But I hope more people have as a live possibility to hear these deeply comforting, refreshing words. 246 00:15:33,000 --> 00:15:38,000 You're not supposed to learn anything. God is not trying to teach you a lesson. 247 00:15:38,000 --> 00:15:40,000 He just wants you to hold on to him. 248 00:15:40,000 --> 00:15:42,000 Let's shift now. We were just in chapters one and two. 249 00:15:42,000 --> 00:15:43,000 Of course. 250 00:15:43,000 --> 00:15:45,000 Now, oh, we've just got the bulk of the book, right? 251 00:15:45,000 --> 00:15:48,000 All these really long speeches between these different characters. 252 00:15:48,000 --> 00:15:51,000 There's Job and these three friends. 253 00:15:51,000 --> 00:15:52,000 Yes. 254 00:15:52,000 --> 00:15:57,000 There's character Eli who comes up who may be a good guy, maybe not a good guy. 255 00:15:57,000 --> 00:15:58,000 Yes. 256 00:15:58,000 --> 00:15:59,000 People debate. We're not going to get into that. 257 00:15:59,000 --> 00:16:00,000 No. 258 00:16:00,000 --> 00:16:01,000 But they are long. 259 00:16:01,000 --> 00:16:02,000 Yes. 260 00:16:02,000 --> 00:16:03,000 They take a long time to read. 261 00:16:03,000 --> 00:16:04,000 Yeah. 262 00:16:04,000 --> 00:16:09,000 If you even read one of those chapters out in church, people might come up and go, hey, that was a long reading today. 263 00:16:09,000 --> 00:16:11,000 Why are we doing this? Yeah. 264 00:16:11,000 --> 00:16:14,000 What's going on in those speeches? 265 00:16:14,000 --> 00:16:20,000 And again, how are you drawing the key applications you're seeing out of all those speeches? 266 00:16:20,000 --> 00:16:23,000 Yeah. Yeah. That is a great question. 267 00:16:23,000 --> 00:16:24,000 I think there are several things going on. 268 00:16:24,000 --> 00:16:28,000 I think at a most basic level, the book, maybe I'm wrong. 269 00:16:28,000 --> 00:16:34,000 I think the book of Job is trying to frustrate us and wear us out and make us really anxious for God to speak. 270 00:16:34,000 --> 00:16:35,000 I think it wants to impress upon us. 271 00:16:35,000 --> 00:16:42,000 So if I've tried having quiet times right through the book of Job and halfway through I'm thinking, I know this is the word of God, but I'm struggling. 272 00:16:42,000 --> 00:16:43,000 Am I kind of getting the point? 273 00:16:43,000 --> 00:16:46,000 I think you are. I think you are kind of getting the point. 274 00:16:46,000 --> 00:16:50,000 I think the book of Job itself reflects the experience it explores. 275 00:16:50,000 --> 00:16:54,000 This is a tiring, difficult, exhausting subject. 276 00:16:54,000 --> 00:16:57,000 And getting through the book that talks about suffering is tiring and difficult. 277 00:16:57,000 --> 00:17:01,000 And I think we're supposed to have this keen sense we just want God to show up and speak to Job. 278 00:17:01,000 --> 00:17:08,000 And the human characters, regardless of what they say is true, have no idea how to explain what happened to Job. 279 00:17:08,000 --> 00:17:13,000 It's interesting to me that by the end of the book, Job takes back everything he says. 280 00:17:13,000 --> 00:17:14,000 I repent and dust. 281 00:17:14,000 --> 00:17:18,000 Job says, I cannot believe I have been criticizing my only true friend in all this. 282 00:17:18,000 --> 00:17:20,000 And yet all of Job's... 283 00:17:20,000 --> 00:17:22,000 Oh, so it turns out God is the real friend. 284 00:17:22,000 --> 00:17:26,000 It turns out God is the real friend, not the friends, as it turns out. 285 00:17:26,000 --> 00:17:31,000 At the same time, Job's speeches in which he criticizes God are still recorded for us. 286 00:17:31,000 --> 00:17:35,000 Why are they there when what Job says is wrong? 287 00:17:35,000 --> 00:17:41,000 When the way Job tries to interpret his situation, his suffering chapters 1 to 2, is very understandable. 288 00:17:41,000 --> 00:17:43,000 And yet we know because we've been given more information. 289 00:17:43,000 --> 00:17:44,000 He gets it completely wrong. 290 00:17:44,000 --> 00:17:50,000 He understandably draws the conclusion, I haven't given God any reason to turn on me. 291 00:17:50,000 --> 00:17:52,000 Maybe he's not the person I thought he was. 292 00:17:52,000 --> 00:17:54,000 Maybe he's not a good person. 293 00:17:54,000 --> 00:17:59,000 And you know, if when people suffer in our churches, if they feel safe enough around you, 294 00:17:59,000 --> 00:18:01,000 they will probably start to say similar things. 295 00:18:01,000 --> 00:18:05,000 It's very frightening to hear from Christian brothers and sisters to hear them say that. 296 00:18:05,000 --> 00:18:10,000 So what would be the contemporary equivalent that we could easily find ourselves hearing or even saying, 297 00:18:10,000 --> 00:18:12,000 which is like what these so-called friends say? 298 00:18:12,000 --> 00:18:17,000 So this is terrible to say, but if you hear a friend in church say something like, 299 00:18:17,000 --> 00:18:20,000 I don't know how God is not an abusive parent. 300 00:18:20,000 --> 00:18:25,000 If I did what God did to me to my kids, that would be abuse. 301 00:18:25,000 --> 00:18:26,000 How is God any different? 302 00:18:26,000 --> 00:18:30,000 Now, for the most part, we keep that under- we know we shouldn't say that stuff. 303 00:18:30,000 --> 00:18:36,000 If Christians feel really safe around you, they might start to utter those dark thoughts about God. 304 00:18:36,000 --> 00:18:38,000 And that's essentially what Job says. 305 00:18:38,000 --> 00:18:46,000 Now, I think Job's speeches are recorded to help us be better friends to the modern day Job's we meet. 306 00:18:46,000 --> 00:18:49,000 So an essential quality of a Job-like ordeal is ignorance. 307 00:18:49,000 --> 00:18:54,000 If Job knows this is a test, then the devil can always turn around and say, 308 00:18:54,000 --> 00:18:58,000 well, of course Job said that. He knows it's a test. Job can't know it's a test. 309 00:18:58,000 --> 00:19:03,000 God has to allow Job to fall into a position where Job, where God looks mysterious to him. 310 00:19:03,000 --> 00:19:07,000 He will say in chapter 10, why'd you turn into my enemy when I didn't give you any- 311 00:19:07,000 --> 00:19:15,000 Anyway, as we read Job's speeches, we're thinking Job, you poor guy, you just don't know enough. 312 00:19:15,000 --> 00:19:18,000 And if you just hang on, this is all going to work out really well. 313 00:19:18,000 --> 00:19:23,000 And probably similar thoughts will occur to us when we talk to modern day Job's. 314 00:19:23,000 --> 00:19:29,000 Working through this difficult, tiring book is training us in a kind of enduring friendship with modern day Job's. 315 00:19:29,000 --> 00:19:34,000 Where we stick with them, we don't correct them, we don't sermonize at them, we don't win a theological argument. 316 00:19:34,000 --> 00:19:40,000 When someone starts saying really terrible things about God, it is so tempting to get in a theological argument with them. 317 00:19:40,000 --> 00:19:45,000 But it's useless. Even if you win, people in pain say crazy things. 318 00:19:45,000 --> 00:19:49,000 And if someone says something about God that you, if another Christian does that you find really troubling, 319 00:19:49,000 --> 00:19:56,000 you beat them in a theological argument. That doesn't really address the pain that gave rise to that crazy- 320 00:19:56,000 --> 00:20:01,000 So, as we're reading these long speeches by these three friends, 321 00:20:01,000 --> 00:20:06,000 and maybe Elihu as well, if you think he's getting it wrong, which I think you think he is getting it wrong. 322 00:20:06,000 --> 00:20:08,000 I think he is. 323 00:20:08,000 --> 00:20:15,000 Oh, is that basically, God's sake, through that, if you've got a friend who's going through like what Job is going through as in mysterious suffering, 324 00:20:15,000 --> 00:20:17,000 don't talk to them like this. 325 00:20:17,000 --> 00:20:18,000 Basically. 326 00:20:18,000 --> 00:20:19,000 That's it. 327 00:20:19,000 --> 00:20:20,000 Basically. And even, yes- 328 00:20:20,000 --> 00:20:24,000 And what are the key things they say, which we shouldn't say. 329 00:20:24,000 --> 00:20:31,000 Yes, yes. So as we hear Job speak and we can't speak back, we're being trained to listen to Christian brothers and sisters say terrible things 330 00:20:31,000 --> 00:20:36,000 and just stick with them and not argue with them, which is what the friends do. 331 00:20:36,000 --> 00:20:42,000 The friends draw the reasonable inference, the reasonable but completely incorrect inference. 332 00:20:42,000 --> 00:20:45,000 So, I'm sorry, let me interrupt myself and back up a little bit. 333 00:20:45,000 --> 00:20:54,000 In the first chapter of the book, in verse one, Job is a deeply sanctified, godly sinner, but a deeply sanctified saint. 334 00:20:54,000 --> 00:20:58,000 And as a result, the consequence is his life is blessed. 335 00:20:58,000 --> 00:21:07,000 As Job and his friends see him lose the blessings of his obedience, the friends draw the reasonable conclusion that Job has lost his obedience as well, 336 00:21:07,000 --> 00:21:10,000 and he has compromised integrity with God in some secret way. 337 00:21:10,000 --> 00:21:18,000 So Job needs to confess that and God is a good person, he will restore Job and the end of Job's life can be even more blessed than the beginning. 338 00:21:18,000 --> 00:21:25,000 So they continually pressure Job to confess whatever sin it was that provoked God's wrath. 339 00:21:25,000 --> 00:21:33,000 And from their perspective, that is a reasonable inference to draw and it is completely wrong because it's not Job's sin that brought this terrible- 340 00:21:33,000 --> 00:21:35,000 it's just exactly his integrity. 341 00:21:35,000 --> 00:21:43,000 I think the text is trying to scare us and as we listen to the friends talk and we think, they're actually being quite reasonable. 342 00:21:43,000 --> 00:21:52,000 And in some ways, to an extent, they could quote other parts of the Bible in support of what they're saying and they're getting it completely wrong. 343 00:21:52,000 --> 00:21:58,000 They're torturing someone that God thinks so highly of and they are incurring God's anger. 344 00:21:58,000 --> 00:22:04,000 At the end of the book, God says, Job has to pray for you and sacrifice for you because I'm so angry at how you talk to him. 345 00:22:04,000 --> 00:22:14,000 If that doesn't make you stop and soberly reconsider how you talk to people at church, then almost nothing will. 346 00:22:14,000 --> 00:22:16,000 Thank you. Just a final question on these speeches. 347 00:22:16,000 --> 00:22:17,000 Yes. 348 00:22:17,000 --> 00:22:21,000 Thinking of Job's speeches, God says at the end Job has spoken well. 349 00:22:21,000 --> 00:22:24,000 What is that talking about? 350 00:22:24,000 --> 00:22:27,000 Do you really expect me to know that, Tim? 351 00:22:27,000 --> 00:22:31,000 You're the Old Testament guy here, Eric. 352 00:22:31,000 --> 00:22:37,000 I don't know if this is the case, there are a couple of places in the book of Job where the poet narrator was writing it out. 353 00:22:37,000 --> 00:22:42,000 I wonder if he was chuckling to himself thinking, boy, this is really going to knock them sideways. 354 00:22:42,000 --> 00:22:46,000 Job's friends are so reasonable through the speeches. 355 00:22:46,000 --> 00:22:49,000 And Job says so much dodgy sounding stuff. 356 00:22:49,000 --> 00:22:52,000 Job will very admirably hold on to God. 357 00:22:52,000 --> 00:22:54,000 He won't curse God. 358 00:22:54,000 --> 00:22:59,000 In Chapter 16, he says, God is using me for target practice. 359 00:22:59,000 --> 00:23:04,000 Literally, he says he slashes open my kidneys and it's just terrible. 360 00:23:04,000 --> 00:23:06,000 How did Job speak rightly about it? 361 00:23:06,000 --> 00:23:12,000 Okay, now, I don't think that that can be a carte blanche approval of everything Job says because not even Job approves of everything he says. 362 00:23:12,000 --> 00:23:15,000 Okay, right. 363 00:23:15,000 --> 00:23:17,000 I think there are several things going on. 364 00:23:17,000 --> 00:23:21,000 First of all, the friends only talk about God. Job talks to God. 365 00:23:21,000 --> 00:23:26,000 The friends, as the speeches go on, say less and less about God. 366 00:23:26,000 --> 00:23:32,000 Their theory of blessings for obedience dominates the whole horizon, and God stands as a midwife to that. 367 00:23:32,000 --> 00:23:35,000 I don't think the friends would have passed the accuser's test. 368 00:23:35,000 --> 00:23:39,000 They don't give much evidence of loving God for God. 369 00:23:39,000 --> 00:23:44,000 And actually, ironically, when Job protests, he shows how much he values God. 370 00:23:44,000 --> 00:23:53,000 So in Chapter 3, he says, this is not explicit, but I think what's going on in his mind, from Job's perspective, it looks like he's lost the favor and friendship of God for no reason he can think of. 371 00:23:53,000 --> 00:23:55,000 He hasn't. 372 00:23:55,000 --> 00:23:58,000 God's heart toward Job is unchanged, but it looks to him like he has. 373 00:23:58,000 --> 00:24:00,000 And Job says, he doesn't say, I wish I was dead. 374 00:24:00,000 --> 00:24:02,000 He says, I wish I had never been born in the first place. 375 00:24:02,000 --> 00:24:05,000 I wish I had never enjoyed that blessed life all these years. 376 00:24:05,000 --> 00:24:17,000 So the unstated implication is, if it turns out God and I haven't been friends this whole time, I'm not interested in the blessed life, which actually turns out to be really good theologically. 377 00:24:17,000 --> 00:24:21,000 Job is not interested in the blessings of obedience if he can't be friends with God. 378 00:24:21,000 --> 00:24:23,000 So I suspect things like that. 379 00:24:23,000 --> 00:24:38,000 There's one other point where it's a little bit complicated in the Hebrew, but I think Job essentially says, I can insist, it's in Chapters 9 and 10, Job says, I can insist I did nothing to deserve what looks like this punishment as much as I want. 380 00:24:38,000 --> 00:24:44,000 But unless Job looks on me and says, Job, you're right, all my claims to rightness mean nothing. 381 00:24:44,000 --> 00:24:53,000 So there's an odd echo with Pauline justification and God saying, you're right in my eyes, and that's the truth about you. 382 00:24:53,000 --> 00:24:57,000 Even though the language is different, I think Job has the same theology. 383 00:24:57,000 --> 00:25:07,000 So Job expresses that in a negative way because he thinks he's undeservedly under the wrath of God, but he still shows the same high value for God and God's judgment of him. 384 00:25:07,000 --> 00:25:12,000 That's where I would go to say, to explain why God says Job spoke rightly about him. 385 00:25:12,000 --> 00:25:15,000 Great. Great insights. 386 00:25:15,000 --> 00:25:17,000 Let's move on. Let's come to the end of the book. 387 00:25:17,000 --> 00:25:18,000 Yes. 388 00:25:18,000 --> 00:25:26,000 The final few chapters, God speaks in I think four chapters to close the book out before the final events of restored blessing. 389 00:25:26,000 --> 00:25:32,000 You spend like a hundred pages, I think it's two thirds of this book, in just those few chapters. 390 00:25:32,000 --> 00:25:34,000 Tell us why you think they're so significant. 391 00:25:34,000 --> 00:25:36,000 Because it's where finally God speaks. 392 00:25:36,000 --> 00:25:42,000 Yes. Well, and I think we could be forgiven a sense of confusion and anti-climax when we get to the end of the book of Job. 393 00:25:42,000 --> 00:25:52,000 Finally, God shows up and he talks about what sound like a hippopotamus and a crocodile, except as far as we know, crocodiles don't breathe fire or live in the ocean. 394 00:25:52,000 --> 00:25:55,000 So that's confusing, but it sounds like that. 395 00:25:55,000 --> 00:25:58,000 Why does God spend so much time talking about that? And why is it? 396 00:25:58,000 --> 00:26:01,000 This is the behemoth and the Leviathan. 397 00:26:01,000 --> 00:26:04,000 Thank you. The behemoth and the Leviathan, which... 398 00:26:04,000 --> 00:26:09,000 Oh behemoth. You say behemoth, I say behemoth. 399 00:26:09,000 --> 00:26:16,000 It doesn't matter. Hebrew and English are pronounced very differently. I don't care at all. 400 00:26:16,000 --> 00:26:22,000 Those chapters are confusing, maybe mostly because God says very little explicitly about himself in those chapters. 401 00:26:22,000 --> 00:26:27,000 But Job ends the chapter not by saying, oh, I understand who Leviathan is better. 402 00:26:27,000 --> 00:26:31,000 He says, now I see who you are. But God hasn't said very much about himself. 403 00:26:31,000 --> 00:26:41,000 So what inference does Job draw? Mostly evangelical commentators think that God demonstrates and vindicates his wisdom and his power in those speeches. 404 00:26:41,000 --> 00:26:57,000 I do not think that is totally wrong, but that's not sufficient enough to create the 180 degree about face that Job makes from God is the one torturing me to God is my great champion and deliverer and defender and savior and friend. 405 00:26:57,000 --> 00:27:03,000 There are a couple of reasons why. The main one is Job continues to believe that God is very powerful and very wise. 406 00:27:03,000 --> 00:27:17,000 He says so in chapter 12 and other places throughout the book. Job never doubts God's power and Job never doubts God's wisdom in the wise, in the sense of effective ability to administer the world or something like that. 407 00:27:17,000 --> 00:27:20,000 So if that's the lesson of God's speeches at the end, that's not news. He already knew that. 408 00:27:20,000 --> 00:27:24,000 It's not news. And if that's the lesson, God is trying to convince Job of something Job already believes. 409 00:27:24,000 --> 00:27:29,000 It doesn't explain why Job, his eyes break open and he falls on his knees in worship. 410 00:27:29,000 --> 00:27:32,000 So it's kind of there in God's speeches, but you don't think it's not the thing that really makes the turn. 411 00:27:32,000 --> 00:27:34,000 It is there. It's not sufficient. 412 00:27:34,000 --> 00:27:44,000 I go into detail in the book. Some commentators, at times there seems to be a barely hidden anger at God on the part of some commentators. 413 00:27:44,000 --> 00:27:52,000 They read these two scary looking animals as being a reflection of God and a reflection of God's dark, chaotic or evil side. 414 00:27:52,000 --> 00:28:00,000 I don't know what else to say when it's blasphemous. God essentially says, yeah, I'm a monster and the way you criticized me, that's the truth of me. 415 00:28:00,000 --> 00:28:04,000 Not clear to me why would Job would worship in response to that. It's a bit of a strange response. 416 00:28:04,000 --> 00:28:10,000 It's not clear why God would restore Job to health and life and favor and blessing. What kind of monster would do that? 417 00:28:10,000 --> 00:28:12,000 I don't think that makes a lot of sense. 418 00:28:12,000 --> 00:28:15,000 That looks like a fairly different theology being imposed on the book. 419 00:28:15,000 --> 00:28:19,000 I think we can safely say fairly different theology. It's not satisfying. 420 00:28:19,000 --> 00:28:33,000 In the Old Testament and the rest of the ancient Near East, one of the ways the ancient Semites symbolized cosmic chaos and supernatural evil was through animals that don't quite look like normal animal species. 421 00:28:33,000 --> 00:28:39,000 You can find examples elsewhere in the Old Testament, which I go into at a wearying length in the book. 422 00:28:39,000 --> 00:28:51,000 Inside the Old Testament, outside the Old Testament of other examples that look just like Bahamoth and Leviathan and are clearly symbolic of supernatural chaos and evil. 423 00:28:51,000 --> 00:28:57,000 If we read the book from that perspective, everything in the book falls into place perfectly. 424 00:28:57,000 --> 00:29:06,000 God is speaking to Job in his cultural language to say, Job, look, you thought it was just you and me and I just turned on you for no reason because I'm such a terrible person. 425 00:29:06,000 --> 00:29:13,000 There are actually more factors at play here. Let me show you who your real enemy is and who my real enemy is. 426 00:29:13,000 --> 00:29:16,000 Let me show you how terrible he is. 427 00:29:16,000 --> 00:29:24,000 In chapter 41 verses 7 and 8, he says, could you fill Leviathan's side with harpoons? He talks about a sword with Bahamoth. 428 00:29:24,000 --> 00:29:26,000 So this is all the language of it. Have you seen? Have you seen? 429 00:29:26,000 --> 00:29:28,000 That's right. That's right. 430 00:29:28,000 --> 00:29:35,000 It's a way of saying to Job, I allow that creature some limited existence for now. 431 00:29:35,000 --> 00:29:45,000 There's coming a time I'm going to kill it. Tim, I think when we go through Job like ordeal, we have some vague sense that we've been caught up in something we just don't understand. 432 00:29:45,000 --> 00:29:51,000 Christopher Ash in his wonderful commentary on Job, it's my favorite commentary on Job, he says, every Christian should... 433 00:29:51,000 --> 00:29:53,000 You get big marks with me for saying that. 434 00:29:53,000 --> 00:29:57,000 I'm not just saying that. It's my favorite book on Job. 435 00:29:57,000 --> 00:30:03,000 He says, every Christian should wake up every day saying a deep, dark spiritual battle is being fought over me today. 436 00:30:03,000 --> 00:30:11,000 And we have some dim, vague sense. Job mentions Leviathan distantly as that weird creature out there that symbolizes chaos. 437 00:30:11,000 --> 00:30:17,000 God describes Leviathan at length to say, I'm the only person who sees Leviathan clearly and up close. 438 00:30:17,000 --> 00:30:22,000 I think at the end of all time, God is going to give us a front row seat, and we are going to see that evil that God tolerated. 439 00:30:22,000 --> 00:30:25,000 He kept on a tight leash. He tolerates it for now. 440 00:30:25,000 --> 00:30:36,000 And we are going to see the Lord Jesus go to battle and unsheath his sword and scour every last ounce and trace of evil out of his creation and the evil that we suffered under. 441 00:30:36,000 --> 00:30:41,000 And we're going to see him defeat that. God does not say all things work out for good, true as that is. 442 00:30:41,000 --> 00:30:46,000 He does not say our suffering now works in eternal way, glory, true as that is. 443 00:30:46,000 --> 00:30:51,000 All he says is, Job, you've been thinking, you've been portraying me as if I don't care what happens in my world. 444 00:30:51,000 --> 00:30:56,000 I am more keenly aware of the suffering that happens in my world than you are. 445 00:30:56,000 --> 00:31:00,000 And there's coming a time when I'm going to destroy it. That's all he says. 446 00:31:00,000 --> 00:31:03,000 And for Job, that is enough. The scales fall from Job's eyes. 447 00:31:03,000 --> 00:31:10,000 And he sees you're actually my great champion and defender against an evil I can barely comprehend. Job's constant. 448 00:31:10,000 --> 00:31:16,000 I'm so sorry. I don't mean to cut you off. Job's constant, his obsessive desire in the debates is to reconnect with God. 449 00:31:16,000 --> 00:31:19,000 He thinks he and God are friends and where he doesn't know why. 450 00:31:19,000 --> 00:31:23,000 All he wants is to be friends with God again. He never talks about the blessed life a single time. 451 00:31:23,000 --> 00:31:29,000 And God's speeches allow him to do that by showing him there's a third party involved here that you don't know about. 452 00:31:29,000 --> 00:31:35,000 So Leviathan, Behemoth, this is now Satan in this kind of mythological form. 453 00:31:35,000 --> 00:31:37,000 Yes. 454 00:31:37,000 --> 00:31:45,000 I'd like to get into this just a little bit more because you've talked about God is in the end showing Job and therefore us about 455 00:31:45,000 --> 00:31:53,000 in a sense the joy he will take in his end time victory over Satan and all his wiles and all his ways. 456 00:31:53,000 --> 00:32:00,000 The thing which I've read in the book and heard you say in your sermons on Job, which really made me set up and think, 457 00:32:00,000 --> 00:32:06,000 oh my goodness, am I allowed to think that's true? And I have never heard anybody before say this on Job. 458 00:32:06,000 --> 00:32:13,000 And it was around that verse around it. I can only remember the older translation. Leviathan, look at his goodly frame. 459 00:32:13,000 --> 00:32:15,000 Yes. Yes. 460 00:32:15,000 --> 00:32:26,000 It's almost as if, I can't remember the way you frame it. It's as if or maybe not even as if God is taking some kind of pleasure in the power of Leviathan. 461 00:32:26,000 --> 00:32:27,000 Yes. 462 00:32:27,000 --> 00:32:35,000 That sounded iffy when I heard you say it. But I'm looking at the text going, it kind of says it. What's going on? 463 00:32:35,000 --> 00:32:41,000 So, Tim, Augustine had that idea that if an interpretation tends towards love of God, love of neighbor, well, you can't be too far wrong. 464 00:32:41,000 --> 00:32:42,000 Sure. 465 00:32:42,000 --> 00:32:48,000 And an interpretation makes you think, the news can't be that good, surely. Maybe we're not too far off the mark. 466 00:32:48,000 --> 00:32:49,000 Okay. 467 00:32:49,000 --> 00:32:58,000 What I'm trying to get at there is there's a joy animating God's speeches. The first speech, the sons of God were singing for joy when I put the world together. 468 00:32:58,000 --> 00:33:07,000 I don't tend to think of beings higher than myself singing the hallelujah chorus when I look at the world. And yet that's God's perspective on his creation. 469 00:33:07,000 --> 00:33:16,000 The way God describes Leviathan sounds the opposite of defensive, morose, nervous, apologetic. He sounds joyful. 470 00:33:16,000 --> 00:33:28,000 And he describes it's the word there that gets translated goodly in the RSV. The NIV, I think, has gracious. It's related to Hannah's name, which means gracious. 471 00:33:28,000 --> 00:33:33,000 Why would God use such a positive word to talk about the monster? It can't be that the monster is good in some way. 472 00:33:33,000 --> 00:33:44,000 Because everything he says after that is fire and claw and scale. Everything after that is this a terrifying monster that could snap you in half, Joe, without a second thought. 473 00:33:44,000 --> 00:33:49,000 Why does God say that? 474 00:33:49,000 --> 00:34:02,000 The way I try to think about this is this. If you were a British soldier fighting World War II, and your general was about to lead you into the trenches in a charge, and your general did so with unflinching courage, that would be inspiring. 475 00:34:02,000 --> 00:34:16,000 But if your general, before leading that charge, turned to you and said, look at those Nazi tanks and the guns and the architecture and the machinery and look at the discipline. 476 00:34:16,000 --> 00:34:22,000 That's impressive. And you knew that your general was still saying they're the enemy who must be defeated. They're not good. 477 00:34:22,000 --> 00:34:35,000 To be able to pay them a compliment, that's maybe not the best analogy. But to be able to speak in praiseworthy terms, maybe that's not the best analogy, Tim. I don't know. Maybe that's not helpful. 478 00:34:35,000 --> 00:34:42,000 But to be able to speak normally in the Old Testament, when two enemies face off, they insult each other, David and Goliath. 479 00:34:42,000 --> 00:34:54,000 But for God to compliment his opponent, that's something altogether different. If God can rejoice in his world, even with Leviathan in it, if not even Leviathan, who we can barely see. 480 00:34:54,000 --> 00:35:02,000 God says if you even touched him, you'd never forget it. If we could really see the evil and the chaos that's out there in God's world today, I think we'd be utterly overwhelmed. 481 00:35:02,000 --> 00:35:16,000 If not even Leviathan can dampen God's joy in his world, he's not saying Leviathan is good, if God could still rejoice in his world, then maybe Christians can be the most realistic, the most sober minded and the most joyful about the world as it is today, the real world. 482 00:35:16,000 --> 00:35:24,000 The world of abuse and cancer and Holocaust and pandemics and death. 483 00:35:24,000 --> 00:35:27,000 We can be the most realistic and the most joyful. 484 00:35:27,000 --> 00:35:39,000 I find that much easier to say than to actually live. But the kind of confident joy God has in his world, and it's not because he's viewing his world with rose colored glasses, because he is the only one who can describe Leviathan up close. 485 00:35:39,000 --> 00:35:48,000 But the kind of confidence and joy with which he describes, and even to describe Leviathan's gracious form, when it's such a horrible monster, the whole world looks different. 486 00:35:48,000 --> 00:36:07,000 I have a hard time putting into words and I struggle for analogies, but there's something very beautiful and precious there. What if I could live that way with the same kind of confidence that utterly realistic about the world and utterly joyful before the redemption of all things? 487 00:36:07,000 --> 00:36:13,000 I run out of words. I'm not sure how to articulate that, but that's what I see in the text. 488 00:36:13,000 --> 00:36:18,000 Now, Eric, let's just bring this to land with a couple of practical questions. 489 00:36:18,000 --> 00:36:20,000 Preaching and teaching, Job. 490 00:36:20,000 --> 00:36:28,000 You've already said almost the point of a large part of the book is to tire you out and make you weary. 491 00:36:28,000 --> 00:36:33,000 Give us some tips for the preaching and teaching of the book as a whole. 492 00:36:33,000 --> 00:36:35,000 Yes. 493 00:36:35,000 --> 00:36:40,000 There's not just one way to do that. I can think of a number of paths through that book. 494 00:36:40,000 --> 00:36:49,000 If I were preaching it, I would try to make the small groups in the church run parallel to the sermons and have them be reading more and longer sections of the book. 495 00:36:49,000 --> 00:37:00,000 I'd be encouraging people to read it through all the way so that they get the experience of the book contains its own sort of teaching mechanism. If you can make it through, you'll be a better Christian at the end. 496 00:37:00,000 --> 00:37:06,000 I would take one sermon on chapters one to two, focus on why does God allow these. 497 00:37:06,000 --> 00:37:16,000 I think Job chapter four is a great place to land on what the friends say and why, and why it has a certain plausibility, and yet they're getting Job completely wrong. 498 00:37:16,000 --> 00:37:25,000 That would be a really convenient place. And then you could tell individual small groups, read some more speeches by the friends and get really frustrated by them and really angry with them. 499 00:37:25,000 --> 00:37:31,000 I would take one sermon on God's first speech and look at how God re-describes the world to Job. 500 00:37:31,000 --> 00:37:45,000 I'd take one sermon on the second speech and talk about God's defeat of evil. And I'd take one sermon on Job chapter 42 and watch Job very beautifully, very beautifully repent and worship before anything in his life gets better. 501 00:37:45,000 --> 00:37:54,000 So those five weeks would be a very solid survey of the book that could be run with small groups concurrently and do justice to the length of the book. 502 00:37:54,000 --> 00:38:08,000 Yeah, thank you. That's really helpful. And then the final question is back to where we began, the application of this now into suffering, our own suffering, or as we try and be a godly encouraging help to those who know suffering like Job. 503 00:38:08,000 --> 00:38:19,000 I mean, this is a really big question. Just paint for us for you, what are the outlines of the biblical landscape on what God says into suffering? 504 00:38:19,000 --> 00:38:24,000 Yes. And then what you see the particular contribution of the book of Job. 505 00:38:24,000 --> 00:38:36,000 Yes. So I see the particular contribution of the book of Job is to make us wiser in how we interpret suffering and give us a new category to interpret, which we won't always need. 506 00:38:36,000 --> 00:38:46,000 But with the help of God's spirit, we will know when to turn to the book of Job. It is a deeply valid biblical category to say there's pain in our lives because of our own stupidity. 507 00:38:46,000 --> 00:38:52,000 Suffering always leads to, sorry, sin always leads to suffering, always, always. 508 00:38:52,000 --> 00:39:03,000 And so it's appropriate and helpful to find, if someone is saying, why did God let this happen? It's appropriate to find the right gentle words to say, is God letting the consequences of your own actions catch up with you? 509 00:39:03,000 --> 00:39:10,000 Now, if they say no, then you don't press and push and say, well, there must have been something, you know, confess, you know. 510 00:39:10,000 --> 00:39:19,000 It is appropriate and right to say, is there some aspect of your Christianity that is deficient? There's some virtue you're lacking that God is supplying by means of this suffering. 511 00:39:19,000 --> 00:39:22,000 And if they say, well, if there is, I have no idea what it is. 512 00:39:22,000 --> 00:39:32,000 Like, if they start to say the Job-like things of, I just want to talk with God and learn what happened and he's not, he's just not there anymore. 513 00:39:32,000 --> 00:39:49,000 You know, life is confusing. We may not always know with 100% certainty when we turn to the book of Job. But if the person you're talking to, if it just doesn't make sense in relation to sin, if it doesn't make sense in relation to spiritual improvement, then it may be that the book of Job is the place to turn. 514 00:39:49,000 --> 00:39:59,000 And we only ask those questions slowly, cautiously, prayerfully, with a wide, with a lot of room for a margin of error. 515 00:39:59,000 --> 00:40:11,000 But I think that's the unique contribution of the book of Job. It unfolds for us a particular kind of ordeal that God allows his children to go through, what he wants from us in it, and the happy ending that he has waiting for us. 516 00:40:11,000 --> 00:40:13,000 Eric, thank you very much. 517 00:40:13,000 --> 00:40:15,000 Thank you for having me. 518 00:40:15,000 --> 00:40:21,000 Well, I think I'm not having you. We are the co-hosts. So thank you for letting me interview you. Look forward to co-hosting with you next time. 519 00:40:21,000 --> 00:40:29,000 And really looking forward to the follow-up book, these Applied Sermons, coming out in February. 520 00:40:51,000 --> 00:40:53,000 Thank you.