Job After Suffering

I. Introduction
A. We have now covered the basic story of Job: his righteousness and richness, the arrangement between God and Satan, the torment of his losses and sufferings, his clashes with his friends, his enduring faith, and God’s strong rebuke. Today, we come to the last chapter, Job’s restoration.
B. Job 42:1–17 Then Job answered the LORD and said: 2 “I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted. 3 ‘Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?’ Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know. 4 ‘Hear, and I will speak; I will question you, and you make it known to me.’ 5 I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you; 6 therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes.” 7 After the LORD had spoken these words to Job, the LORD said to Eliphaz the Temanite: “My anger burns against you and against your two friends, for you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has. 8 Now therefore take seven bulls and seven rams and go to my servant Job and offer up a burnt offering for yourselves. And my servant Job shall pray for you, for I will accept his prayer not to deal with you according to your folly. For you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has.” 9 So Eliphaz the Temanite and Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite went and did what the LORD had told them, and the LORD accepted Job’s prayer. 10 And the LORD restored the fortunes of Job, when he had prayed for his friends. And the LORD gave Job twice as much as he had before. 11 Then came to him all his brothers and sisters and all who had known him before, and ate bread with him in his house. And they showed him sympathy and comforted him for all the evil that the LORD had brought upon him. And each of them gave him a piece of money and a ring of gold. 12 And the LORD blessed the latter days of Job more than his beginning. And he had 14,000 sheep, 6,000 camels, 1,000 yoke of oxen, and 1,000 female donkeys. 13 He had also seven sons and three daughters. 14 And he called the name of the first daughter Jemimah, and the name of the second Keziah, and the name of the third Keren-happuch. 15 And in all the land there were no women so beautiful as Job’s daughters. And their father gave them an inheritance among their brothers. 16 And after this Job lived 140 years, and saw his sons, and his sons’ sons, four generations. 17 And Job died, an old man, and full of days.
II. It is common to think of the end of the story as Job’s restoration, but really it was so much more than that. In almost every way, Job’s life was vastly improved after his sufferings. As it says in v.12 “And the LORD blessed the latter days of Job more than his beginning.”
A. Health: complete healing implied
B. Wealth: twice (10 “ the LORD gave Job twice as much as he had before”)
C. Kids
1. The only thing said about his first ten children was that they liked to party.
2. But his second set of children is said to have included remarkable daughters:
a. beautiful (“all the land there were no women so beautiful”),
b. named (which may be the only time in the Bible someone’s daughters are named but not the sons),
c. heiresses (“their father gave them an inheritance among their brothers”) – Job 42:14-15
3. Such beautiful things came out of Job’s sufferings!
D. Reputation/Acceptance/Status
1. Hartley: “The fact that God has Job intercede for the comforters indicates that Job has gained spiritual authority for having endured undeserved suffering & then yielding his complaint to God.”
2. This can also be seen in v.11 “Then came to him all his brothers and sisters and all who had known him before, and ate bread with him in his house. And they showed him sympathy and comforted him for all the evil that the LORD had brought upon him. And each of them gave him a piece of money and a ring of gold.”
E. Wife
1. From “Curse God and die!” to apparently bearing ten more beautiful, blessed children – it seems to imply a deep change in her heart.
F. But the biggest improvements were not in Job’s outward life, but in his inward life.
1. Job did not just return to how life was before suffering. He was a bigger and deeper man.
2. His defective theology has been corrected. He now knows that he lives purely by God’s grace.
3. He’s been humbled by God’s rebuke – like Nebuchadnezzar after his humiliation in Dan.4.
a. “I put my hand over my mouth” lasted the rest of his life.
4. Never again would Job be tempted to think God was being unjust when confusing and difficult things circumstances came into his life.
5. By virtue of his sufferings, Job has been made more aware of his neediness.
a. Knowledge of one’s weakness is a precious and important gift God gives to us, or works in us. which he did not previously know about.
6. What Job had thought was a terrible attack on him by a vicious enemy turned out to be the firm grasp of a friend. What seemed like the deadly piercing of a villain’s spear proved to be the skillful incision of the great Physician.
7. Suddenly, all of his grumbling and complaining looked so foolish and faithless.
8. What once seemed like such reasonable arguments to challenge God’s actions toward him now seemed so stupid and senseless.
9. During his suffering, Job couldn’t figure out how the idea of a God who helps and saves His people fit in with a God who remains silent while His people suffer unspeakable agony. But now after God has spoken to him out of the whirlwind, that seeming contradiction has vanished.
10. Now he knows that God is his redeemer, not only from troubles and sorrows but in the midst of them, and even through them and by means of them.
11. Whereas he had interpreted trials as signs of divine disfavor and was thus bewildered by his suffering, now he sees that trials can actually be signs of heavenly love.
12. He has learned so much about God through all of his experiences: “I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you.” – Job 42:5
13. Suffering has enabled him to see God in a fresh and much fuller way. He now sees the glory and wisdom of his God in a much deeper and richer way.
14. Satan wanted to drive a wedge between Job and his Lord, but what his efforts produced instead was that Job was driven into the arms of the Lord. God used Satan’s wedge as a bridge whereby Job was brought across the gap of his ignorance and drawn closer to the Lord than ever before.
15. Satan intended for evil, but God used it for good.
16. In the perfect wisdom of God, the suffering of Job had been just intense enough and lasted just long enough to produce the wonderful fruit of faith, humility, compassion, gratitude, etc.
17. “The LORD blessed the latter days of Job more than his beginning.”
18. Just like other Bible heroes who went through great trials, Job was so much better off after than before.
19. Not only did Job grow through this, but all God’s people did as well.
III. Surely, one of the greatest lessons of the story of Job is the benefit of suffering.
A. God knows what He’s doing. Which of us is not richer for having suffered?
1. Can you look back on disappointments, losses, failures, pains and not see good fruit?
2. It’s not enough to just move on. We need to cherish the value of our sufferings.
3. Some people have only one level of their relationship with suffering. They are so desperate to avoid it or escape it that they have no ability to appreciate it or learn from it or reflect upon it.
4. You know, when something goes wrong, so many times we ask what we could have done to prevent it. And that’s fine. But we should never let ourselves think that life will go smoothly if we just live the way we’re supposed to live.
a. Many think that if everything were done right, crises would never occur.
b. Sometimes, tragedy and calamity are something you could not have prevented.
c. Sometimes God brings it to pass out of His love for us. and not just us!
B. Job’s sufferings not only benefitted him, they benefitted all of us as well.
1. Think of the value that his story has had down through the ages for believers who have suffered.
2. So much benefit through the suffering of one man!
C. You know, when we talk like this, some people walk away dreading future suffering.
1. And it’s good to expect hardships, instead of living in the illusion that our lives will be all about fulfilling our dreams.
2. But the Lord loves us, and He gives us what is best. He will not allow us to suffer anything different than we need. And, whatever He calls us to go through, He will be with us in it.
3. And afterwards, we’ll see why it was necessary and we’ll see all the benefits it brought us – and others we love.
IV. But isn’t there another side to this? What about PTSD? What about the damage traumatic experiences do to our psyche?
A. Isn’t it true, if we’re really honest with ourselves, that when we go through traumatic experiences, though we gain a lot from it, we usually lose something too?
1. I’m sure many of us have had experiences which have left us shaken, bruised, broken, wounded.
2. And though we grow deeper and more mature through suffering, we also lose some optimism, some confidence, some hopefulness. We lose a certain spark, and we’re often a step closer to weariness.
3. Knowing human nature, isn’t it likely that Job was psychologically and emotional imprinted by the suffering he experienced. I mean on top of everything else, he lost ten kids! And though he was given ten more, those original kids were gone for good.
a. I wouldn’t be surprised if he had something like PTSD. It’s just the kind of thing which happens to the human soul when they go through trauma.
4. But we must ask ourselves whether that original spark, that hopefulness, that confidence, that optimism was actually all from the Lord in the first place.
5. When I look back at my younger years, it seems to be that much of my enthusiasm was youthful idealism.
6. The Bible repeatedly reminds us to be sober-minded and steadfast. Of course it also commands us to be thankful and joyful.
7. It’s not wrong to be excited. I love being around exuberant believers: they help me, they cheer me up. I’m just saying that losing some of it doesn’t make a person less like Jesus.
8. The fact is, in addition to joy being a part of a Biblically healthy emotional life, so are mourning and weeping and groaning. “We ourselves groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.” – Rom.8:23
9. This is a broken world, and we are broken people, and we labor under the burden of this brokenness.
B. Often Christians – especially of my generation – are accused of having a Disney-like, storybook view of the world, when really it is harsh, unjust, bleak and cruel.
1. Many times they have a good point. Many times Christians do have a Disney, storybook view of the world, and they work hard to shield themselves from the disturbing things – to prevent the harsher realities of the world from entering into their lives or their minds.
a. A few months ago I told a Christian friend that I was reading a poignant Christian book on sexual abuse, and my friend asked, “Why would you ever want to read a book like that?”
b. Job teaches us to face up to the harsh/bitter/unjust side of life. But it does so without losing sight of the good and sovereign God who rules over all things for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.
C. But it also teaches us not to slide into the cynicism which swallows up so many in the world.
1. Have you ever seen the play or movie called, Into the Woods?
a. The story intertwines the characters and plots of several classic fairy tales.
b. The first half of the movie is just like a predictable fairy tale with good guys and bad guys.
c. But the second half of the movie is very different. All of a sudden, the good guys are doing very evil, deceptive immoral things.
d. It made me feel that the creators were saying that there is a naive, childish way of viewing the world, where things are black and white, where there’s clear right and wrong, where some people are trying to be good and others not at all. And then there is a more realistic view of the world where things are much more messy. Right and wrong, good and bad, black and white are not helpful in understanding the world from this view. In this view things don’t always make sense, things don’t always go right, things are often not the way they seem. The good guys are often more messed up than the bad guys.
2. This reminds me of the story of Job. At the beginning, everything seemed to be going in a predictable direction in Job’s life. He was righteous and prosperous, and everything made sense.
3. But then everything went haywire. Suddenly, nothing made sense. Everything was off, everything was a mess. What had been a predictable and well-ordered life became a train wreck! And instead of a picture of friends caring for one another and supporting one another, we have a picture of friends fighting with one another and distrusting one another.
D. There’s actually a lot of truth to the story of In the Woods. Like with Job, there’s a lot of times in life when things just don’t make sense, when things seem to be turned on their head.
E. Many of us in this church, especially of my generation, have had our noses rubbed in the tragic, dysfunctional realities of life over the last few years. And I admit that we needed it.
F. But the thing that’s wrong with Into the Woods is that, unlike Job, the chaos is the end of the story, the chaos is the bottom line. And that, my dear friends, is a lie.
G. This is one of the great ways Job is so helpful for us.
1. It honestly teaches us to face the darker realities of the world and not hide our heads in the sand and pretend they don’t exist.
2. But it doesn’t end there. It then guides us to recognize that God rules even over what seems to be out of control, God orders what seems like chaos, God rules rightly even when things don’t seem right, God’s redemption prevails even over what seems like a horrible mess.
H. In the middle of the story, there are times when it LOOKS like the idea that a good and just God rules over the universe is all a pipedream. But then the chaos gets trumped by the unsearchable wisdom and magnificent goodness of our great God.
I. And this great God turns tragedy into triumph in a spectacular last chapter of the story, where Job is not only delivered from his afflictions, but delivered from his impression that his afflictions were evil.
J. And, in the end, we see that even Job’s sins and failures are a part of the wonderful story of his redemption. Job was not just better having suffered. He was better having failed & been rebuked.
1. The cure is better than if he had never had the disease.
V. God’s redemption story
A. There are three parts of Job’s story:
1. The righteousness and richness of his beginning,
2. The disorder and disaster of his suffering,
3. The restoration and satisfaction of his redemption.
B. Does that sound familiar to you at all? Aren’t those the same three parts of the story of mankind?
1. Creation in righteousness and richness
2. The disorder and disaster of suffering which comes about as a result of sin
3. The restoration and satisfaction of redemption through Christ
C. This is the Bible’s story. And the Bible has many stories that follow this pattern.
D. Even the story of Jesus follows this pattern.
1. Jesus comes doing good, working wonders, teaching beautiful things, modeling love.
2. But then there is a tragic backlash against Him, and there’s conflict and injustice and tragedy and confusion.
3. And then He is raised in glory and everything is right again, everything makes sense again – even His suffering.
E. And then the whole pattern starts again in the story of the NT church.
1. At Pentecost everything begins with glory and truth, everything seems right.
2. But then there’s opposition, and there’s sin, and hypocrisy, “by schism rent asunder, by heresy distressed.” And it’s easy to be confused, and to grow disenchanted, and even cynical.
3. And the cry goes up, “How long, O Lord?” How long till you make things right? How long will we flounder in sin and brokenness? But, like Job, the bride of Christ holds on, sometimes seemingly by her fingertips, as she waits for the Lord to show up to restore all things, “till with the vision glorious, her longing eyes are blest, and the great church victorious shall be the church at rest.” (Samuel Stone, The Church’s One Foundation)