What Job Teaches Us About Ourselves, Part 2

Guest (Male): When the bottom drops out of life, who do you listen to? Sometimes the worst advice can come from the people who love us most. That's where we find Job today. He's lost nearly everything, and the counsel starts pouring in. Some of it sincere, some of it wrong, all of it well-meaning. Today on Insight for Living, Chuck Swindoll walks us through the lessons Job learned in the middle of his suffering. About discernment, about sound theology, and about the friends who simply show up and sit with us. We begin with prayer.
Chuck Swindoll: It's been a busy week, Lord. We've been engaged in family life, we've been in touch with friends and co-workers at our employment. We have driven many miles, we've passed the nights, some fretfully, some calmly and at peace. We've taught a group of students here at the church through the latter half of the week. We've encountered surprises, we've dealt with the predictable, the inevitable, and the week has run its course. How grateful we are, free of some disaster that could have leveled us, and your peace has been our habitation and the source of our comfort. Thank you for your grace. We haven't deserved your peace, but you've given it. We don't deserve your favor, but you pour it out. But a few, a few have been struck deeply with surprises and sudden, unexpected trials. You've been there through all of that too. Perhaps to them more than any other this section will speak, but ultimately to all of us. So give us ears to hear, eyes to see, minds to track with you what you have preserved through the centuries for us. Teach us through the promise of your word that whatever was written in earlier times was written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort in the scripture might have hope. Hope. What a great thing is hope. Thank you for those who wear the uniform, and today and tomorrow especially. We thank you for each woman and man, each brave soldier, sailor, marine, aviator, those who serve in whatever capacity on the seas, on the land, in the air, places at home and dangerous places abroad. Thank you for our Commander in Chief. Keep him thinking clearly and courageously. Give him the ability to turn off counsel that ought to be shunned and be sensitive to wise and correct advice. Keep him humble, open, available, decisive, morally pure, a leader worth our attention and respect. Thank you for the privilege, our Father, of all things of our giving to you. You teach us how to do that by giving to us. We do that now as you have forever done it, generously and graciously, joyfully. Thank you for our fairest Lord Jesus, our beautiful Savior, the Lord of the nations, Son of God, Son of Man. We worship him, our Father, as we worship you. In the name of the Lord Jesus, and everybody said, amen.
Guest (Male): You're listening to Insight for Living. To dig deeper into Job's story, be sure to purchase a copy of our searching the scriptures Bible study workbook by going to insight.org/offer. Chuck titled today's message "What Job Teaches Us About Ourselves."
Chuck Swindoll: I want us to come today to some sort of practical terms with what this book teaches us in a very, very practical way about the way we live our lives. What we learn about ourselves from Job and then find out what it is we learn from Job about our God. Trust me on this one, you're going to need one or more of the principles sooner than you may realize. And while we have fun with it and have enjoyed ourselves on a number of occasions today, we're rolling up our sleeves and looking at life through Job's viewpoint and learning from his example. So we'll take today's talk mainly from the early part of Job and then next time we will look at the latter chapter of the book and see what it says about God. But today about ourselves. There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job. That man was blameless, upright, fearing God, turning away from evil. We read he had 10 children, seven sons and three daughters. His possessions were great: thousands of sheep and camels, half a thousand of oxen and donkeys and, in fact, the wrap-up statement in verse three is that he was the greatest in the east. There was no one better known, perhaps wealthier, than Job. Job didn't know it, but there was a dialogue that took place in the invisible world above him as the Lord and the Satan had this encounter. For some reason, Satan allowed into the Lord's presence and the dialogue turns on the person of Job. The Lord calls Satan's attention to Job and says, "Have you noticed him?" And Satan, in standard operating procedure of sarcasm, says, "Of course. Who wouldn't serve you the way you've treated him? He's got penthouse treatment. But you touch what he owns, he'll curse you to your face." Which brings us to the first of seven lessons we learn from Job about ourselves. We never know ahead of time the plans God has for us. Job had no way of knowing this. That morning dawned like every other morning, the night had passed like most every other night. There was no early morning skywriting, there was no angelic visit, there was no tap at the window warning him that something would change or that all hell would break loose or the bottom would drop out of his life. He got up that morning like every other morning and he began the day, only to be interrupted by this messenger and that messenger and the next one and the next one. Before you could sneeze, it seems, the buildings are gone and there are carcasses on the land and the servants have been taken or killed or kidnapped. And Job knows nothing ahead of time. You can't anticipate it correctly, you're unable to predict it accurately, it's impossible to explain it fully. No one can explain it. What you enjoy today, you may not be enjoying this time next year. This isn't designed to make you afraid, it's designed to help get you ready. I remind you, these are principles to live with and to remember. Job's response in verse 20 is absolutely remarkable. Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head and fell to the ground and worshipped. He said, "Naked I came from my mother's womb and naked I will return. The Lord gave, the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord." Through all this, we read Job did not sin nor did he blame God. Lesson number two: a vertical perspective will keep us from horizontal panic. Don't misunderstand, Job doesn't escape into denial. He faces the music, somber and sad that it is. He's overwhelmed, that's why he tore his robe. He's broken and saddened and bankrupt, that's why he shaves his head and sits in ashes. He refuses to escape emotionally through denial. He falls to the ground and worships. What a remarkable response. His vertical perspective is firm, clear, in place. Nothing horizontal will cause this man to panic. I had, I enjoyed, I was blessed. I've lost, they're no longer with me. I'm heartbroken, but the same God who gave is the God who took away. Blessed be his name. I serve and honor and praise and walk with him. When things are rocking along comfortably and enjoyably and with good health and with a full family, my, my, how high is our view of God. How thrilled we are with those verses of scripture. How we hang on the words of the sermon and we sing the songs of Zion. But when the bottom drops out, our song is taken from us and we begin to wonder: was our view of God here really the right view since we're now here? It's easy to lower one's view of God when hardship assaults us. That vertical perspective will save the day. Well, it got worse. It just got worse. Job does not sin or blame God, which frustrates Satan and does not surprise our God, who already knew Job would be a man of integrity. So there was another day, round two, and Satan comes out swinging. The Lord asks, "Have you noticed my servant Job?" It must have been a great moment in that encounter when the Lord could point to Job and there had been no break in his faith or trust. And Satan has to face the music, but Satan then says, "Ah, you touch him, you touch his life, it'll be another story." Skin for skin, chapter two verse four, "All that a man has he will give for his life. Put forth your hand now and touch his bone and his flesh, he'll curse you to your face." He repeats the charge, the warning. So the Lord said, "He's in your power, only spare his life." Satan went out and smote him with boils from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head. You been sick lately? I mean really sick. Fever wouldn't go away, hospitalized, they couldn't find the cause, some exotic germ that has leveled you. It affects your job, you don't have disability and now you could no longer work. That's where he finds himself. It's horrible. He took a potsherd to scrape himself, the itching was maddening as he sat among the ashes. Verse nine, his wife said to him—look closely—"Do you still hold fast your integrity, Job? Come on, sweetheart. It's enough. Just curse God and die." You know what? She loved him. Never doubt it. The sickness hasn't made her love the less. Her compassion kicks in and she just thinks if we could just pull the plug, you curse him and he'll take you. You and I both know this will end the suffering. Until you're there, don't judge his wife, okay? Until you're there. She's lost everything too. She too has visited the gravesites of 10 precious lives. But he said to her, verse 10, "You speak as one of the foolish women speaks. Shall we indeed accept good from God and not accept adversity?" In all this, Job did not sin with his lips. Lesson number three: great discernment is needed to detect wrong advice from well-meaning people. This is his wife. Men and women, this is his wife! She's loved him through 10 births, she's loved him through the rearing of the children, she's loved him from the beginning of the business to the final building it to the point where they could at last have some relief. And she's loved him when he was nobody and loved him when he became a household word in the homes of the East. And he has to have the courage to hear what is really being said and to detect this is wrong counsel, even though it comes from the lips of my well-meaning wife. By the way, lest you overlook it, when you look at her counsel, verse nine, she questions what God had admired and she encouraged what Satan had predicted. God had said to Satan in verse three, end of the verse, "He still holds fast his integrity." And she's saying, "Job, Job, do you still hold fast your integrity?" Satan had said, verse five, "He will curse you to your face." And she says to the man she loves, "Listen, honey, just curse God." And in the presence of the netherworld, the enemy is thinking, "Yes! Yes! Do it!" And you know that his demons are at work all about Job, weakening him, but he stands firm against it. He's discerning, he's courageous. And so must you be when in the midst of a trial, someone who desires your good gives you bad advice. Don't yield. You go back to the scriptures, you find your direction, and you stand firm. Why? Because well-meaning people do not always have a divine viewpoint. The Bible always does. Job knew better. As much as he loved her, he couldn't follow her advice. Not this time. Which brings us to his response, verse 10. He said to her, "You speak as one of the foolish women speaks." Must have been hard for him to say to someone he loved like he loved her, but it needed to be said. "Don't say that. Don't even go there. These lips cannot curse God. Death is in his hands when he's ready to take me, he'll take me." How could he do it? He was so grounded in his knowledge of God. Sound theology. So valuable. Reminds me of a cartoon I saw several years ago drawn by Charles Schultz, titled back then "Peanuts," remember? Linus is standing with his blanket at the picture window in the living room and standing beside him is Lucy, who is, of course, in charge. And they're looking at it rain and it is pouring down rain. You can hardly see the trees out in the backyard from the window. The rain is pouring down here. Lucy says, "My, look at it rain. If this keeps up, it's going to flood this area, maybe the whole world." Linus says without hesitation, "That will never happen. It says in Genesis nine verses seven to 17 that God will never again flood the earth, and he's put a rainbow in the sky to prove that his promise is true." Lucy says, "You've taken a big load off my mind." Linus looks at her and says, "Sound theology has a way of doing that." Maybe this took a big load off Ms. Job's mind. How helpful it is when the one who is suffering can teach the one who is well sound theology. Quick warning here: be careful that you don't substitute psychological gobbledegook for good sound theology. Just be careful that you don't explain all of this around or away by double talk. Don't go there, it'll backfire. My birthday, I got a card, one of my favorite kind of cards. It's a Far Side card. There's a guy hanging by his collar on the limb of a tree, sort of helpless, and his camera's hanging around his neck. And two bears are talking about his fate. And one bear says to the other, "His name's Bradshaw. He says he understands I came from a single-parent den with inadequate role models." He's in the hands of the bear! It didn't matter about role models! It mattered about whether the bear's hungry or not! Sound theology keeps it on the level. Verse 10, "Shall we indeed accept good from God and not accept adversity?" Lesson number four: when things turn from bad to worse, sound theology helps us remain strong and stable. It's amazing, frankly, that Job, after suffering such a barrage of cataclysmic events, would be thinking so clearly, so correctly, without wavering. No uncertainty. Didn't even entertain her suggestion for a moment. You speak as a fool. Honey, don't say that. Don't even go there.