Where is God When I Need Him? | Job 22-24

Message Description:

Have you ever felt like you’ve been judged unfairly? People are often very quick to judge when something goes wrong in our lives…even when they don’t know the details of the situation. And the reality of it all is that we’ve often done nothing to cause the difficult circumstance. This was certainly true of Job.

• Let the insults and accusations fly
• Dr. Jeremiah’s message – “Where is God When I Need Him?”
• Next Time on Turning Point – “The Final Exam”

Now you see Eliz had a theology that many people have today that God is way up there totally distant from us and that He runs the universe, but he doesn’t have anything to do with us.
He doesn’t care about us. Eliz was deeply implanted in that theological world and he’s saying job, don’t fool yourself.
God doesn’t even know who you are.
So you’re walking around acting like God really cares how arrogant, how cocky can you get.
And then he says, job, you’re not only cocky, you’re covetous.
Let me tell you what I’ve observed about. You. Notice verse six of the 22nd chapter.
He says, you’ve taken pledges from your brother for no reason and you strip the naked of their clothing is saying that job is a greedy abusing person who acquired more wealth by holding people at stake for not paying their debts.
In other words, according to the text, he would take away their clothes and let them go naked until they could repay what they owed him.
They said job. You are a greedy covetous person. Of course, none of these things were true.
But how many of you know it doesn’t have to be true.
It just has to be said, isn’t that something?
And when you are so angry as these men are, they are so angry because they haven’t been able to move job one dime off of his stand on holiness, righteousness and integrity.
So now they’ve resorted to throwing everything they can throw at him whether it’s true or not, they charge him with cockiness and covetousness and notice in verses seven through nine, they charge him with callousness.
Notice verses 7 to 9, you have not given the weary water to drink job.
You have withheld bread from the hungry and the mighty man possessed the land and the honorable man dwelt in it.
You have sent widows away empty and the strength of the fatherless was crushed.
Eli charges job with callous sins against the needy.
He says this is a godly man who is a cold hearted man.
If you can put those together, he’s uncaring. He’s cruel.
He’s on the level of the worst tyrants of history.
He pictures job the way many people picture wealthy people today without ever knowing them.
They assume that they have gotten their wealth in improper ways through stepping on someone else.
And while that is true for some, it is not true for all and how shameful it is for us to say that about people when we don’t even know it to be true.
The fact is at one time, job had been the richest man of the East.
He’d been a man who had suffered greatly and yet throughout this whole book, he maintains integrity.
Satan had said that to God.
If you let me have at this man, I’ll strip him of everything that’s important to him.
I’ll take all his props away and he will curse you and die and job never did that.
He shows us what happens when integrity meets adversity.
Edwin Stanton was the Secretary of War under President Abraham Lincoln.
He was well known for his inflammable temper and the pressure of the war kept him tweaked and always on edge.
His tongue was sharp. His nerves were frayed.
And once, when he complained to President Lincoln about a certain general Lincoln said to him, why don’t you write the man a letter?
Tell him off. President Lincoln said, Edwin Stanton bolstered by the president’s support, promptly wrote a scathing letter in which he tore this general to shreds and he showed the letter to the president.
Good, said Lincoln first rate. You certainly gave it to him.
And as Stanton started to leave, Lincoln said, now, what are you gonna do with the letter?
Well, I’m going to mail it to him. Said Stanton nonsense. Snorted the president.
You don’t want to mail that letter, put that letter in the fire.
That’s what I do when I have written the letter and I’m angry you had a good time writing the letter.
So take advantage of that. Now, write another one. Put that one in the fire.
How many have ever written a letter like that? Let me see your hands.
Now, most of us don’t write letters like that. We give speeches like that in our car.
We’re driving down the street in our car.
Somebody has done something bad to us and we’re giving them a speech. Haven’t you done that?
We’ve all done that. Aren’t you glad there’s no microphone in there.
The problem with the Book of Job is they didn’t have anybody like President Lincoln around to help them.
They sent the letters, all of them and we have copies of them here.
Obviously, it had to have been written down or we wouldn’t even have it in the book and their letters were scathing and they were untrue and they were scandalous.
The problem was that they did not withhold their anger, they unloaded their anger and job is reeling with the constant barrage of all these angry charges that have been leveled against him.
Now, in his third appearance and last appearance before job Eliz, instead of trying to make things better, has decided to take on the role of a prosecuting attorney.
And he turns this debate into a trial and Job is sitting on the ash heap outside of the city listening to his friends about him.
It is not any longer any general advice or any general comment.
These are specific things now that these men are saying about job which are absolutely untrue. This is scandal.
This is slander. According to the Jewish Talman, the slander’s tongue kills three people.
The slander, the slanderer and him who listens to the slander and at the ash heap in us, it was death everywhere.
Joe was being so unfairly treated by his so called friends.
In the 22nd chapter of the Book of Job, they level three charges against him.
Eli cannot resist shooting a sarcastic barb at job. He says job.
Is it because you’re so good that God is doing this for you?
Is it because of your piety that you’re being so uh treated. Job.
Courts don’t try people that are righteous. They try people that are lawless.
Therefore, since God has sent this trouble to you, you must be guilty of sin and then efa indicts job on three levels.
He says he’s a horrible sinner. He’s a hypocritical sinner and he’s a hardened sinner.
He begins in verses one through 11 by saying to Job in verse five where you read the key statement is not your wickedness, great job and your iniquity.
Without end up until this time, these have been vague accusations, but now these men have become very specific.
They’re not just saying job, you’re evil, they’re saying job, you’re evil and this is how your evil wickedness appears.
He charges job first of all as a horrible sinner with cockiness. He says job, you’re arrogant, you’re cocky.
Verses one through three.
Then, Efa, the team and I answered and said to job, is it any pleasure to the Almighty that you are righteous?
Or is it gained to Him that you make your ways blameless?
According to EFA, job is acting like his life was important to God.
It was this He who were saying, who do you think you are job carrying on as though God actually cares about you?
Now you see EFA had a theology that many people have today that God is way up there totally distant from us and that He runs the universe, but he doesn’t have anything to do with us.
He doesn’t care about us was deeply implanted in that theological world. And he’s saying job don’t fool yourself.
God doesn’t even know who you are.
So you’re walking around acting like God really cares how arrogant, how cocky can you get.
And then he says, job, you’re not only cocky, you’re covetous.
Let me tell you what I’ve observed about you notice verse six of the 22nd chapter.
He says, you’ve taken pledges from your brother for no reason and you strip the naked of their clothing.
Efa is saying that job is a greedy abusing person who acquired more wealth by holding people at stake for not paying their debts.
In other words, according to the text, he would take away their clothes and let them go naked until they could repay what they owed him they said job, you are a greedy, covetous person.
Of course, none of these things were true.
But how many of, you know, it doesn’t have to be true. It just has to be said.
Isn’t that something? And when you are so angry as these men are, they are so angry because they haven’t been able to move job one dime off of his stand on holiness, righteousness and integrity.
So now they’ve resorted to throwing everything they can throw at him whether it’s true or not, they charge him with cockiness and covetousness and notice in verses seven through nine, they charge him with callousness.
Notice verses 7 to 9, you have not given the weary water to drink job.
You have withheld bread from the hungry and the mighty man possessed the land and the honorable man dwelt in it.
You have sent widows away empty and the strength of the fatherless was crushed, charges job with callous sins against the needy.
He says this is a godly man who is a cold hearted man.
If you can put those together, he’s uncaring, he’s cruel.
He’s on the level of the worst tyrants of history.
He pictures Job the way many people picture wealthy people today without ever knowing them.
They assume that they have gotten their wealth in improper ways through stepping on someone else.
And while that is true for some, it is not true for all and how shameful it is for us to say that about people when we don’t even know it to be true.
The fact is at one time job had been the richest man of the East.
He’d been a man who had suffered greatly and yet throughout this whole book, he maintains integrity.
Satan had said to God, if you let me have at this man, I’ll strip him of everything that’s important to him.
I’ll take all his props away and he will curse you and die and job never did that.
He shows us what happens when integrity meets adversity at the end of verse 11 in chapter 22 EFA gives his summary statement of why job is having all these problems.
He says, therefore, snares are all around you.
Job and sudden fear troubles you or darkness so that you cannot see and an abundance of water covers you.
Job. You are a horrible sinner.
Now he adds to his indictment, this fact he says job, you’re not just a horrible sinner, you’re a hypocritical one.
You try to hide your sin, you post your job, you put on a spin.
In other words, job is just one big hypocrite.
This charge has been leveled at job or insinuated about him by all three of his counselors.
I wrote these verses down. They’re up on the screen. Bill.
Dad said in job 8 13, the hope of the hypocrite shall perish.
Eli said in job 15, the company of hypocrites will be barren and Z so far said in job 20 the joy of the hypocrite is.
But a moment, all three of these men think job is just faking it that he’s a hypocrite.
Now, a hypocrite is a person who doesn’t even try to live righteously but tries to make people think that they are his profession and his practice never meet.
And I’m sure you all know that the reason so many more people aren’t here today is because there’s so many hypocrites here today.
Amen. If we weren’t all such hypocrites, more people would come, then we’d have an even larger group of hypocrites.
Amen. Oh, what a tired argument. It is.
I don’t go to church because there are too many hypocrites there.
The Puritan preacher Stephen Shak once wrote it is a sad thing to be a Christian at a supper, a heathen in a shop and a devil in the closet.
Let’s face it. Folks, there are a lot of folks who claim to be Christians who don’t walk the talk.
People who make speeches that don’t live the life.
But the problem with that speech with regard to job is it wasn’t true. Job wasn’t a hypocrite.
He was straight through everything that you see in job is what he is.
When he’s angry with God, he speaks out against God. He’s not hiding anything.
Job is an absolute man of integrity.
But you see when you are angry at someone, all reason, all of the thinking process that you normally use to communicate.
You put that aside and have you ever been in the prison as somebody who they try everything and then they start making stuff up and they just get more and more angry and it doesn’t matter anymore whether it’s true.
It’s just that it’s said and it helps them feel better that they can say all these evil things against you in verses 12 through 18.
And I’m reading from the message and I’m gonna put it up on the screen so you can follow says, you agree, don’t you?
That God is in charge that he runs the universe.
Just look at the stars yet you dare to raise questions, Joe, what does God know from that distance in darkness?
How can he judge? He roams the heavens wrapped in clouds. So how can he see us?
Are you going to persist in that tired old line? That wicked men and women have always used.
Where did it get them? They died, young flash floods, sweeping them off to their doom.
They told God get lost. What good is God Almighty to us?
And yet it was God all the time that had given them everything they had.
So uh s says, you know, it’s just beyond me, how you can carry on like this joke.
The problem is Joe wouldn’t carry on like this. This is all he made up.
He’s trying everything to break this man down and get him to confess that he’s a sinner when that’s not.
What is true. Is he sinless? No. Is he perfect? No, but he’s a man of integrity.
He’s refused to curse God. The Bible says he shunned evil. He loved his wife, he loved his family.
He lived in honoring the Lord and now they’re trying to get him to break down because you see, job’s counselors have become the tools of Satan to destroy him.
We have to keep reminding ourselves as we go forward through this book that many of the things said by job’s insensitive counselors are true.
Everything Eli has said about hypocrisy is true. He just said it about the wrong man.
It’s truth directed in the wrong direction, the tragedy of hypocrisy, let’s all be honest is that it brings its own judgment sooner or later, it is revealed for what it is and the truth comes out.
You cannot be a hypocrite for very long before you found out.
Can I get a witness when I was a student in high school?
I went to the high school right across the street from the college.
My father was the president of Cedarville College.
I was an athlete in high school and I played in this little gym which is now a music building on the campus.
It was the only gym in town. The the goals were mounted on each wall.
There were seats on the side. You came in underneath the bucket to go find a seat.
And of course, I lived in Cedarville, Ohio where it snowed.
So, in the winter during the basketball season, people would truck in over the and they would go to sit down and sometimes the, the floor would get wet.
It was very difficult to keep the floor from being slippery.
Well, to make a long story short at that particular time in my life, I was a big hypocrite.
I was growing up in a Christian family trying to make everybody believe that I was really a Godly young man when I was with all of the people that were Godly, but I hung out with some pretty rough characters in high school and I wasn’t living the life.
I was living both lives. It all came down to one moment in my life.
I’ll never forget we were playing the team that was our number one rival.
And um I was out on a fast break going for the bucket and I hit one of those wet spots and I hit the ground and I slid over into the corner and there was a standing room crowd.
Only there were all these people standing in the corner and I kind of slid right into the crowd.
And before I realized which me, I was, I said a word I shouldn’t have said.
And I looked up and looking down at me were about 12 Cedarville College students who knew my father was the president and that I was his son.
And the look of shock on their face, I still remember, I wake up thinking about it at night once in a while and I went home, I’ll never forget it.
And I said, God, I don’t want to live on both sides of the street anymore.
I’m gonna be either one way or the other. I want to stand for you.
I want to live for you. I can’t tell you that I’ve been absolutely perfect ever since then.
But if I could use a well known phrase, that was my turning point.
Somebody said it this way.
Great occasions do not make heroes or cowards.
They simply unveil them to the eyes of men silently and imperceptibly as we wake or sleep, we grow strong or we grow weak.
And at last, some crisis shows what we have become. Job is not a hypocrite.
And we know that this crisis has demonstrated that he is a man who loves God and though he is troubled and he doesn’t know any of the reasons why these things are happening.
This charge against him is inaccurate. He is not a horrible sinner. He’s not a hypocritical sinner.
But here’s the worst charge that EFA brings.
He says job, you’re not just a horrible sinner and a hypocritical sinner. You’re a hardened sinner.
He charges job with being unrepentant and uncompassionate.
He tells job that he would be healed and restored if he would just repent.
Here are the key verses from this section of scripture verse 21.
Now equate yourself with God job and be at peace and good will come to you job 22 23.
If you return to the Almighty, you will be built up. You will remove iniquity far from your tent.
Verse 27 you will make your prayer to Him. He will hear you and you will pay your vows.
In other words, job. If you will just repent of all this God will forgive you and you can get on with your life and all your pain will go away.
Once again, not true, says some excellent things in this appeal.
When we get to the end of the book, we’re going to find out something very interesting.
It’s not job who needs to repent.
It’s at the end of the book, he has to repent and they have to actually ask job to intercede for them because they recognize how sinful they have been in the way they have treated this man before we listen to job’s response to these remarks.
Let me once again use job’s situation to bring instruction to our own lives. Listen to these words.
A friend should never play the Holy Spirit.
Eliz has tried to bring conviction to job’s heart by accusing him of sin, but he crossed the line with job and he went too far.
Martin Luther once said, I can only bring God’s word to the ear. I can’t get it any further.
The Holy Spirit has to take it from the ear and take it to the heart.
Unfortunately, there are a lot of people in the world today who think that they have been anointed the third person of the Trinity for a period of time and they believe they are the Holy Spirit.
And so they not only kindly deal with people, they try to indict them, they try to convict them.
Have you ever been at the other end of a would be Holy Spirit who’s trying to do a work on you?
Yes, we all have, haven’t we? Well, let me just tell you, there’s only one Holy Spirit.
Efa isn’t the Holy Spirit. You are not the Holy Spirit and I’m not the Holy Spirit.
All I can do is what Martin Luther said is I can bring the word of God to your ear, but it’s the Holy Spirit who has to take it from there and bring it to your heart so that you will hear it and respond to it and do what you ought to do.
Now, job is going to respond to these arguments. Interestingly enough as you study the Book of Job.
Here’s an observation, I’m making the critics, messages are getting shorter and shorter and job’s answers are getting longer and longer.
So there’s one chapter with the charges, there’s two chapters with job’s complaints. Here’s another observation.
Job isn’t going to complain so much against Eli Faz. Job’s complaint now is with God.
He doesn’t understand why this is all happening.
And so here we have some complaints against God on the part of job. He is very angry with EFA.
He would like to answer all of his accusations.
But job basically ignores him and he speaks to the Lord and he’s made it clear that his dispute is not with men, but with God.
And so he begins by saying in verses one through 12, God, I don’t understand it.
You flee away from me. I can’t get a hold of you. You hide yourself from me. God.
God flees from me. Listen to the words, then job answered and said even today, my complaint is bitter.
My hand is listless because of my groaning.
All that I knew where I might find God that I might come to his seat.
I would present my case before him.
I would fill my mouth with arguments and I would know the words which he would answer me and understand what he would say to me.
Would he contend with me in his great power? No, but he would take note of me there.
The upright could reason with him and I would be delivered forever for my judge.
This is not the first time job has said this. He says, Lord, I can’t get anywhere with my friends.
They just don’t get it if I could just get an audience before God.
Then I could understand that God would, he would vindicate me and then this would all go away.
And we come to this next section of the Book of Job, which may be one of those mountain top spaces because in His search for God job is about to find out something.
First of all, he’s about to learn that God knows the path that He takes. Notice.
Verses 8 to 10, look, he says, I go forward and he’s not there and backward and I can’t find him.
And when he works on the left hand, I can’t behold him.
And when he turns to the right hand, I can’t see him here. It is.
But he knows the way that I take. And when he has tested me, I shall come forth as gold.
Job can’t find God. He’s not in the front. He’s not in the back.
He’s not at the right or at the left. He is not to the north or to the south.
Job could not see God and he could not find him. But job did not know where God was.
God knew where job was. God knew where job was verse 10, but he knows the way that I take.
And when he has tested me, I shall come forth as gold.
Let me say to your congregation this morning, you may be in one of those places where you can’t seem to find God my title.
This morning is where is God?
When I, when I need Him really isn’t as important that you find God as it is that, you know, that God already knows where you are.
He knows the path that you’re on. Notice. Where was job, job was in the furnace.
This is a common picture for God’s purifying ministry in the lives of his people. Deuteronomy 4 20.
Speaking of the Egyptian bondage says, but the Lord has taken you and brought you out of the iron furnace out of Egypt to be his people and inheritance as you are today.
Psalm 66 10 says for you o God have tested us. You have refined us as silver is refined.
Isaiah 48 10 says behold, I have refined you but not as silver.
I have tested you in the furnace of affliction. First Peter 16 and seven. In this. You greatly rejoice though.
Now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials that the genuineness of your faith being much more precious than gold that perishes.
Though it be tested by fire may be found to praise and honor and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
First Peter 4 12 beloved. Do not think it’s strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you as though some strange thing had happened to you.
Ladies and gentlemen, we all spend some time in the furnace between the cradle and the grave there are special places where you are taken off road for a little time in the furnace.
If you haven’t been there, you will get there.
Somebody said you’re either on your way in, on your way out or you’re already there.
I love what Warren Sby says about this furnace thing.
Listen to these words, when God puts his own people into the furnace, he keeps his eye on the clock and his hand on the thermostat, he knows how long and how much we may question why he does it to begin with or why he doesn’t turn down the heat or even turn it off.
But job 23 10 is the answer. He knows the way that I take.
And when I have been fully tested, you see gold never fears the fire.
The furnace can only make gold purer and brighter job says I’m in the furnace and boy, has he ever been in the furnace?
Don’t we know that this whole few passages we’ve studied job is right smack and it’s up hot, the fire is blazing.
But now he has discovered something and here’s what I want you to know about the Book of Job.
I think it’s pretty similar to how it is for us in the midst of all of his pain and anguish.
Every once in a while, job has these little insights.
God sends him an insight and he grabs hold of that and he grabs hold of it and he hangs on to it as long as he can and he doesn’t get to keep it very long because as soon as he said it, he goes back into some of the challenges that he’s facing, I’m so grateful for those little insights God gives us, aren’t you?
I don’t think we’d get through the furnace if he didn’t.
Once in a while, just break through our consciousness and say, wait a minute, I’m here. David.
Don’t you worry about me? I’m in this hospital room with you.
I’m in the midst of this trial with you.
I don’t know, I don’t know whether I’m going to tell you a lot about it, but I do know when you come out of this, you’re going to be better than you were when you went in.
So job says, first of all, he knows the path that I take and then he says, he knows the person I’m going to become, I’m going to come out of this thing as gold.
I’m going to be better. I’m not going to be bitter. I’m going to be better when I come out.
And then he says, God knows the principles I’m following.
Look down at your Bibles and see if this isn’t tremendous job.
23 11 and of my foot has held fast to his steps.
I have kept his way and not turned aside. I have not departed from the commandment of his lips.
I have treasured the words of his mouth more than my necessary food.
Do you want to know how job has made it all the way through to chapter 22? It’s right here.
He had something that he hung on to that we can hang on to too. You know what he said?
I’m in the furnace and the only thing that’s keeping me are the words that I’ve gotten from. God.
I treasure these words. He said more than my necessary food.
If I didn’t have these words, I wouldn’t be able to make it.
Ladies and gentlemen, that’s why I preach this book because it’s the only thing I can offer you whatever trial you’re going through whatever difficulty you’re facing.
I promise you that in this book, God has an answer for you. He has some encouragement for you.
These words are more necessary for you than your food when you’re in the furnace job, understood that He says, God is fleeing from me.
I don’t know where He is, but I know He knows where I am.
And then he goes on in the next section and he says, God is frightening me.
Verses 13 through 17, he says, God is unique who can make Him change whatever his soul desires.
He just does it for He performs what is appointed for me and many such things are with Him.
Therefore, I am terrified at his presence when I consider this, I’m afraid of Him.
For God made my heart weak and the Almighty terrifies me because I was not cut off from the presence of darkness.
And he did not hide deep darkness from my face.
Job says I, I know He knows where I am, but I’ll tell you where I’m at in life right now.
God makes God frightens me. I don’t know what he’s up to, even though job believed in the God, he had just described, he still fears God.
He did not understand what God was doing and he knew that he could not know what God would do.
Next job was in the dark and friends. When you’re in the dark fear is your companion.
Job was terrified by his thoughts of God because he could not sense God’s presence in his life.
Many of you may be there today, job is a good counselor for you.
He says, God flees from me. God frightens me and now you gotta understand jobs just talking from his heart.
God frustrates me. Have you ever been frustrated with God?
Come on now, y’all don’t lie to me if we just got on talking about hypocrisy, how many of you have ever been frustrated by God?
All right. Ok. That’s better. We’ll pray for the rest of you.
The 24th chapter is a very interesting chapter.
It focuses on the injustices that job sees in the way God deals with men.
He begins by expressing his frustration that God does not schedule time for people in the court of heaven.
Verse one of chapter 24 he says, since times are not hidden from the Almighty, why do those who know Him?
See not his days? Why can’t I get in to see God?
And then job does what we do sometimes when we’re going through stuff and maybe we’re being not treated the way we think we should be.
He starts to look around at what’s going on in the world.
And the first thing he notices is all the injustices that are in the country out in the county.
Notice verses two through 11, he says, I’m looking around and, and I can’t get to see God.
He won’t talk to me about my problems.
And you know, I’m not sure God is doing anything to make things right? Listen to this. Some remove landmarks.
They seize flocks violently and feed on them.
They drive away the and the fatherless, they take the widow’s ox as a pledge.
They push the needy off the road. All the poor of the land are forced to hide indeed.
Like wild donkeys in the desert. They go out to their work searching for food.
The wilderness yields food for them and their Children.
They gather their fodder in the field and glean in the vineyard of the wicked.
They spend the night naked without clothing. They have no covering in the cold.
They are with the showers of the mountains and hud around the rock for want of shelter.
Some snatch the fatherless from the breast and take a pledge from the poor.
They cause the poor to go naked without clothing. They take away the sheaves from the hungry.
They press out oil within their walls. They tread wine presses and suffer thirst.
Job is saying it’s not just me. God ain’t doing anything about anything.
He’s really in a little negative spot right now.
I need to tell you this right? He’s just in a little negative spot.
Verse five through 11 is one of the most graphic pictures of the poor found anywhere in the Bible.
Just listen to these bullet points.
They look for food in the fields like animal, they freeze in cold because they have no clothes, they’re drenched in the rain because they have no houses.
Their Children are snatched from their arms until they pay their debts.
They are forced to work for the rich and not allowed to eat any of the food that they harvest.
They work for the wine press and they go thirsty and job’s question is simply this. Why?
Why does God not deal with these injustices? He has time to harass me.
Why doesn’t he take care of these things?
Do you ever get like that?
He says there’s injustice in the country in verses 12 through 17, he talks about the injustice in the city.
I won’t read those verses but he talks about the murder of the innocent.
He talks about adultery and rape in the city. Premeditated robbery.
He actually says people sit around all day trying to figure out what house they’re gonna rob next.
And here’s this complaint. Look down at your Bibles. Here’s job’s major complaint right here.
Verse 12, the dying grown in the city and the souls of the wounded cry out and God does not charge them with wrong.
Why, why, why one thing I’ve learned about the Book of Job, it’s all right to ask questions.
Job is a Godly man who’s asking some pretty hard questions.
Why doesn’t God deal with all the things that are wrong in the world in which we live?
So one last thing from Joe before we close our bibles, bless his heart.
If God ain’t gonna do it, job decides he’ll do it.
And the last part of this chapter is a section of what we would call imp precatory phrases by job.
You know what an precatory psalm is.
It’s those psalms in the Old Testament where the psalmist gets mad and he just kind of sort of like a psalm full of curses about all the things that are wrong in the world.
Well, Job is at that point.
He says, God, you don’t do anything about the injustice in the city.
You don’t do anything about the injustice in the country. You don’t do anything about the injustice in my life.
And so he just loses it for a moment.
He says God fails me.
Listen to job’s imp precatory speech against the oppressors of people in the country and the city.
Here’s what he says. May the wicked vanish like foam on the water or snow that melts in the heat of the sun?
May they be forgotten by everyone? Even their own mothers as they rot in the grave.
May their wives be barren and give them no Children and made their sense of security and success van as quickly as they are brought low, mowed down like wheat in the harvest.
Job said I have had it with you a and with God and with all the injustice in the world, I’ve had it and he ends up verse 25.
He says, and if you don’t think it’s so if you’ll prove me a liar, go for it.
Make my speech worth nothing. But I, what I’ve said is true and you can’t do anything about it.
End of speech. The context of this whole thing with job is so intriguing because it’s so familiar to many of us that in the midst of all of the stuff we don’t know what to do with and the anguish we have.
There are these little moments where we sense.
Yeah, I don’t like all this but down deep in my heart, how many of you know that there’s who you are and then there’s who you are down deep in your heart.
Have you ever prayed this prayer? Lord God, I’ve said some things today about how things are in my life.
And maybe I haven’t said it right. And maybe I haven’t said it is a way that’s pleasing you.
But God down deep in my heart, you know that I love you and down deep in my heart, I know that you love me in the midst of all of this anguish and pain.
This poor man is suffering. The one truth that keeps coming through to us is this.
He knows that his redeemer lives.
He knows that he has an advocate between God and man and he knows that God knows who He is, that God has put him in the place where he is.
And though he doesn’t understand any of the other things that are going on this, he knows in the book finding your way.
Gary Laura tells an amazing story gleaned from the records of the United States Naval Institute following the second World War.
The US Astoria engaged the Japanese during the battle for Sabo Island before any other ships from the US naval fleet arrived during the crucial night of the battle.
August 8th. The Astoria scored several direct hits on the Japanese vessel but was itself badly damaged and it sank the next day.
Here’s how Laura tells the rest of the story. About 200 hours.
A young midwesterner signalman, third class Elgin Staples was swept overboard by the blast when the Astoria’s number 1, 88 inch gun turret exploded, wounded in both legs by shrapnel and in semi shock, he was kept afloat by a narrow life belt that he managed to activate with a simple trigger mechanism.
At around 600 hours. Staples was rescued by a passing destroyer and returned to the Astoria, whose captain was attempting to save the cruiser by beaching her.
The effort failed. And Staples still wearing the same life belt found himself back in the water.
It was lunch time picked up again this time by the US President Jackson A P 37.
He was one of 500 survivors of the battle who were evacuated on board of transport.
Staples hugging that life belt with gratitude. Looked at the small piece of equipment for the first time.
He scrutinized every stitch of the life belt that had served him so well.
It had become manufactured at Firestone tire and rubber in Akron, Ohio. And it had a registration number on it.
Given home leave. Staples told his story and asked his mother who worked for Firestone about the purpose of the number on the belt.
She replied that the company insisted on personal responsibility for the war effort and that the number was unique and assigned to only one inspector Staples remembered everything about the life belt and quoted the number.
There was a moment of stunned silence in the room and his mother spoke, that was my personal code that I affixed to every item I was responsible for approving.
I can only imagine the emotions within the hearts of mother and son as they pondered the convergence of responsibility and its impact on life.
The threads had come together in an inescapable way.
The one who gave him birth and whose DNA he bore gave him rescue in the swirling waters that threatened to take his life.
Ladies and gentlemen, if an earthly parent playing the role of procreation can provide a means of rescue without knowing when or for whom that belt would come into play.
How much more can the God of all creation accomplish that for us? By his sovereign?
Will we have come into being with an expressed and designed purpose to be able to accept the wonder and the marvel of one’s own personality, however flawed or accidental and place it in and trust to the hands of the one who made it is one of the greatest achievements in life.
His registration number is on you, your DNA matters because the essence of who you are is his every little feature and accident of your personality matter to God, consider that God’s imprint on you.
If an earthly mother could manufacture a safety belt that ultimately saved her son’s life, don’t you think Almighty God care for us?
He was caring for job all this time and job didn’t know it.
You may be in this situation where like job you’re looking around, you can’t find God where is he.
He’s not over here, not over here. Don’t worry about that.
He knows your name, he knows where you are. He made the safety belt you’re wearing. Hallelujah.
Thank you for joining us today on turning point.
If you have never taken the step to believe in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, you can do that today.
If you will allow us, Dr Jeremiah would like to send you two resources that will help you.
The first is a booklet called Your Greatest Turning Point, which will help you as you begin your relationship with Christ.
And the second is our monthly devotional magazine. Turning points to give you encouragement and inspiration throughout the year.
These resources are yours completely free when you contact turning point today, next time on turning point job had become the servant of God.
And how did he serve God? He served God through his suffering. Did you ever stop?
And think that maybe some of the suffering God allows in our lives is an opportunity for us to fellowship with the sufferings of Jesus Christ and to serve Almighty God, join Dr Jeremiah.
Next time for his message, the final exam here on turning point.