Sometimes faith come easily…. other times, not so much!  On good days we have an image of God and trust His plan.  We have confidence facing our days and our mind is at rest.

On those other days we have a hard timing knowing anything.  Our minds are troubled, and our hearts are weary.  We cannot see God or His plan.  We know that we cannot grasp the things of God.  His ways are bigger than our ways. 

It would be great to be able to say that we are progress from unbelief to faith and stay there.  However, just as we described grief earlier as messy, so is faith.  Throughout the Bible we can observe God’s people having strong faith one moment and a very real struggle the next. 

Job’s faith is just like this.  Today’s blog examines four questions Job has.  Most of our texts come from a single chapter in Job.  (Chapter 14) Through hearing Job’s struggles and questions we find hope for our own struggle. For the heartsick, bleeding soul there is hope.

In this section we observe that Job’s questions change.  His focus moves from questions about God to questions related about moving forward.  How do we live in this sin sick world?  Do we have hope? Can we even ask God these questions.

Job’s eyes move from questions about God to questions about how do I manage to live in the face of this struggle?

 

Question One: Can a man be cleansed? (Job 14:1-4)

“Mortals, born of woman, are of few days and full of trouble. ² They spring up like flowers and wither away; like fleeting shadows, they do not endure.³ Do you fix your eye on them? Will you bring them before you for judgment? ⁴ Who can bring what is pure from the impure? No one!

Job addresses a painful reality and raises a painful question.  The reality is that our lives are fleeting.  Like the flowers in the spring and shadows our lives quickly fade away.  We are frail.

While acknowledging his own frailty Job asks the question, “who can bring what is pure from the impure?  No one!”

What is the relationship between the issue Job raised and his question.  It is exactly the presence of sin in our lives that causes our lives to be fragile.  The presence of sin in our lives proves that we are mortal. 

So, Job’s question is simple, “Who can do something about this mess?”  “Who can help us overcome the sinfulness we know so deeply?” 

Paul raised the same question in Romans.

 

^{Romans 7:21} So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. ²² For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; ²³ but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. ²⁴ What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death?

Can you hear the pain dripping from Paul’s pen?  He feels a war raging in himself.  When he wants to do good he cannot.  When he wants to quit sinning he continues.  He asks who can rescue him.  We can almost see Paul putting down his quill as he cries out.

Job gives a surprising answer in 14:16-17.

Job 14:¹⁶ Surely then you will count my steps but not keep track of my sin. ¹⁷ My offenses will be sealed up in a bag; you will cover over my sin.

He believes God will do three things: not track his sin, put his sin in a bag and cover them over.

Paul, likewise, has a clear answer. (Romans 7:25 and 1 Corinthians 6:9-11)

^{Romans 7:25} Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!

^{1 Corinthians 6:9} Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men ^{r 10} nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. ¹¹ And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

Paul pauses and hears the Spirit speak to his soul.  Then with tears in his eyes he shouts, “Thanks be to God!” 

In the second passage Paul makes a list that we often see selectively used as a bully pulpit to pick one issue.  Read it again and ask this question.  Can you see yourself on this list?  Do you not see something there that describes you? 

A wrongdoer?  Check.  Greedy?  Too often.  Idolater?  While we don’t have a statue, we bow to we frequently place things before God.  Adulterer?  Don’t answer too quickly.  Jesus said to look at woman to lust after her is to commit adultery in our heart.

So, do you see yourself yet?  And what does it mean?  We could easily see hopeless.  Such people do not go to heaven.

And then the magic words.  And such WERE some of you.  You were washed, sanctified, and justified.  He cleaned us.  He washed us.

So, Job, there is someone who can do something about this mess!  Forgiveness is possible.

 

Question Two: Are our days limited? (Job 14:5)

Job’s next question is not as difficult to answer.  Job wonders if God has a simple, detailed plan for our lives.  Are each of our days numbered?

 

^{Job 14:5} A person’s days are determined; you have decreed the number of his months and have set limits he cannot exceed.

Does He have a set plan for us?  Is there a step-by-step provision for our lives? Are the days determined in advance? What happens if we then get off track?   We would then have no hope.

The Psalmist provides this answer. 

 

^{Psalm 139:1-10} You have searched me, Lord, and you know me.² You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. ³ You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. ⁴ Before a word is on my tongue you, Lord, know it completely. ⁵ You hem me in behind and before, and you lay your hand upon me. ⁶ Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain. ⁷ Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? ⁸ If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. ⁹ If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, ¹⁰ even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.

Psalm 139:13-17 “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. ¹⁴ I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. ¹⁵ My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. ¹⁶ Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. ¹⁷ How precious to me are your thoughts, God! How vast is the sum of them!

There is a plan for your life.  God knows it.  But also knows your bad days, your weak days, and the days when you stumble.  And He already sees on the other side of it.

 

Question Three: How Can I Face Death?  Can the Dead Live Again?

Job asks if there is any hope.  (Job 14:7-10)

⁷ “At least there is hope for a tree: If it is cut down, it will sprout again, and its new shoots will not fail. ⁸ Its roots may grow old in the ground and its stump die in the soil, ⁹ yet at the scent of water it will bud and put forth shoots like a plant. ¹⁰ But a man dies and is laid low; he breathes his last and is no more.

Job’s since of hopelessness is obvious.  He says that in nature there is hope.  A dead tree can sprout again.  Job doesn’t believe that there is any hope for him. 

Faith is fluid.  Job is skeptical but he still has hope.  He still waits. (14:11-15)

¹¹ As the water of a lake dries up or a riverbed becomes parched and dry, ¹² so he lies down and does not rise; till the heavens are no more, people will not awake or be roused from their sleep. ¹³ “If only you would hide me in the grave and conceal me till your anger has passed! If only you would set me a time and then remember me! ¹⁴ If someone dies, will they live again? All the days of my hard service I will wait for my renewal ^a to come. ¹⁵ You will call and I will answer you; you will long for the creature your hands have made.

What does he wait for?  Renewal!  Later Job speaks further about His faith.

^{Job 19:26} And after my skin has been destroyed yet in my flesh I will see God; ²⁷ I myself will see him with my own eyes—I, and not another. How my heart yearns within me!

He believes that he will see God.  Based on what?  He has faith in God for a truth that has not yet been proclaimed. Like all the Old Testament saints they had no knowledge of the Resurrection of our Lord.  They had no ground upon which to base their belief.  But they still had faith.

Jesus answered this question definitively in His conversation with Mary and Martha. 

^{John 11:25} Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; ²⁶ and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?”

If we believe in Jesus and place our trust in Him, we live!  We live even though we die!  Our physical deaths only open the door to our future.

 

Paul echoed and clarified Jesus’ Words. (1 Thess. 4:13-18)

Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope. ¹⁴ For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. ¹⁵ According to the Lord’s word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. ¹⁶ For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. ¹⁷ After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. ¹⁸ Therefore encourage one another with these words.

We have hope for ourselves and all those who have a relationship with God.  We will be risen when the trumpet sounds.  We will rise to meet the Lord in the air.  We see what Job did not.  We know that through Jesus we WILL live again.

 

Question Four: Can a man be Angry with God. (Job 42:7)

We could expand this question and ask, “Is it acceptable to question God?”  “Should we be bold enough to say what is on our mind.

For this answer I point you to the conclusion of the book.  God speaks to Job and his friends.  He corrects the friends for their error.

 

⁷ After the Lord had said these things to Job, he said to Eliphaz the Temanite, “I am angry with you and your two friends, because you have not spoken the truth about me, as my servant Job has.

What is missing?  Simply, they are corrected but Job is not.  They have spoken in error, Job had not. 

God had seen it all.  He heard every harsh word.  They ignored God’s mercy and sovereignty.  Job did not.

There is no condemnation on Job for his questions.  God allows his people to struggle, to ask, and even to doubt.  He permits us to struggle as long as our struggle ends seeking him.  Be willing to express your heart to the Lord.

 

As a summary to these three weeks of questions allow me to point out the things Job got right and what he missed.

 

What did Job get wrong?

• Job assumed that he was innocent.  He declared himself hopeless and blameless. 
• He blamed God instead of Satan.  He demands an answer from God, believing that God had wronged him.  He attributes malice to God.  We do well not to blame all suffering on sin or to assume God has done us wrong. He has not.

 

What did Job get right?

• He correctly attested that suffering is not a result of sin.  Everything bad that happens is not about God’s punishing iniquity.  God vindicated Job and He will us.
• Job maintained a teachable spirit.  We get to listen as Job grew.  He asked Got to show him his error and then listened. (13:23)
• Finally, Job talked to God about the struggle. He prayed.  He was honest.