“Lessons From the Whirlwind: Suffering”

Scripture: Job 1:1-3,8-11,20-21

A few months ago, a friend of mine gave me a DVD titled “Whirlwind”. It was a short 15 minute presentation on the Book of Job that gave me a whole new outlook on faith, and it convinced me that I needed to do a sermon series on this book. As if that weren’t enough, about a month ago, Diane showed me a book of hers on Job, “When Suffering Comes” by J. Ellsworth Kalas, that fitted perfectly into my thoughts for the messages.
So, for the next 4 weeks, we will be looking at the trials, as well as the victory, of Job, and will consider what his life has to teach us about living and walking in a consistent way with the Lord.

Eugene Kennedy writes:
Enjoying spiritual feelings without spiritual ideas, is what tacks the foam rubber onto the cross. Spirituality, under the modern template, does not brace one for suffering that leads to inner growth. Instead, it obliterates suffering by providing the musical equivalent of an injection from Dr. Feelgood.
The New Age movement survives by ignoring or distracting us from the staples of any profound spirituality: a sense of sin, an acceptance of the tragic, and love conquering suffering and death to lead us to resurrection, or life, as the disciple John wrote, to the full.
--Eugene Kennedy, quoted by Martin Marty in Context, January 1, 1999, 2.

This week, we begin our study of Job by considering the issue of “Suffering”.

Read Job 1:1-3

Job was one of those people who had the “golden touch”. He had 10 children, with 7 of them being sons. He had flocks and herds that were so numerous that they nearly defied counting. His wealth was beyond description, and scripture tells us that he “was the greatest man among all the people of the East”. For our purposes and for that time, we can take this to mean that he was the wealthiest and most influential man in the entire known world. And if his worldly possessions and position wasn’t enough, he loved God, he lived a righteous life, and he avoided everything that might even be construed as being immoral. Job was about as perfect a man as you could ever want to meet.

Then one day, the Lord is having a meeting with his angels, and Satan joins them. Now just a word about the Evil One. The word Satan isn’t as much a name as it is a title. The word means “Accuser” – it doesn’t mean “Evil”, or “Condemner”, or even “Destroyer”. This former lead angel that Isaiah calls the fallen “son of the morning” (Isaiah 14:12), certainly goes by these other names, as well as “Deceiver” and “Oppressor” and other less complimentary names, but his primary approach in leading us away from God is through accusation. He tells us on one occasion that we are weak and unworthy, and on the next that we are just as good as God. He convinces us that we are incapable of following the Lord, and then he turns around and tells us that God can never have the last word and that whatever we want to believe and do is just fine. The name “The Accuser” fits very well. His accusations create doubt in our heart.

Read Job 1:8-11

The Satan lets God know that he has been checking out the world, apparently looking for people who he can torment, and God raises Job up as an example to a “blameless and upright” man. And Satan’s mouth begins to water, for he has discovered his next target for destruction. The stage is now set for Job’s struggle to begin.

Satan lays the first accusation, not on Job, but on the Lord. “Have you not put a hedge around him and his household and everything he has?” Of course he is upright – you’ve given him everything he has and you continue to protect him!

Therefore, an important lesson for us is this – God is greater than Satan, and the Accuser can do nothing that God would have otherwise!
But if Job is such a great guy, such a faithful man, a righteous man,
why would the Lord allow Satan to begin messing with him? Why does he torment us? Why is he allowed to range all over the world spreading his carnage? “Why is he doing this to me, Lord?”
I could probably offer a few theological reflections on these questions, but when we actually face the trials, the theory never seems to satisfy. We want to be reassured that the suffering has some greater meaning beyond the pain so that we can continue to have hope. But even the lesson that comes from this whirlwind doesn’t give us a satisfactory answer. It can only be a statement: In John 14:1, Jesus tells us “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me.” No promise, no real answer, no course of action, no glimpse of what good might come of this – just a call to trust in him. And there are many other related quotes from scripture that have basically the same message. “Trust in God, and don’t let the troubles of the day wear you down!”

And God grants Satan authority over all that Job has, and the Accuser begins his work. Slowly, all of Job’s flocks and herds are either stolen or destroyed, and all but a very few of his servants are killed. Job’s wealth is no longer his to control, and then his greatest possessions, his sons and his daughters, are also taken from him.
And how does Job respond to his dire situation? With anger? With insults? With his own accusations?

Read Job 1:20-21

He takes a stand of sorrow and repentance, and he falls to the ground in worship of his Lord. Not a single word of accusation or condemnation comes from Job’s lips – he only offers words of praise to the Almighty. He fully acknowledges that his wealth was never his to start with, that they were all gifts from God.

In verse 21, Job seems to be saying that God has taken all these things from him – “The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away” – and while this thought may not be totally accurate (remember that it was Satan who did the taking!), he never decries the loss as unfair, or hateful, or even as a punishment. He simply acknowledges the blessings that God had given him, and that now they are gone.

The Satan hasn’t won, but he isn’t done yet, either! He will go back to the Almighty and complain that it is Job’s health that is sustaining him and keeping him faithful. So the Lord gives the Accuser authority over Job’s body, but not his life. And Job then receives an attack of sores that extend from the top of his head to the bottom of his feet, but even in Job’s agony, he continues to place his entire hope and trust in God.
His life has been torn apart, his possessions have been taken, his children killed, and now his body is covered with sores. He is racked with pain,
the smell of the discharge must have been overwhelming, and his body was basically in a state of decay. There was no medicine, no doctors, no surgery to bring a cure to him. There was no comfort or respite at all – not physically, not emotionally, not intellectually.
The only hope he had was in his faith, that his God was good and gracious and giving, and that the Lord held no malice or animosity toward him - that he was truly loved. He didn’t understand the trials that had come upon him, but he never questioned God’s motives in this matter.

Many people here today have gone through trials of one kind or another. Some have had medical issues that have taxed your endurance. Some have experienced the loss of loved ones to death, and others to emotional differences that have resulted in separation. Some have had financial losses that resulted in the need for a major change in lifestyle. But I would venture a guess that none of us has ever experienced the extent of loss that Job did. And therefore, our brother Job can be a lesson for all of us.

We all want to find the answer to the questions “Why do the righteous have to suffer?” and “Why do bad things happen to good people?” But even though Job doesn’t give us the answer to these questions, there are lessons to be learned.

Lesson #1 - Suffering is a mystery. We experience it, but we don’t understand it. We face the pain as courageously as we can, but our greatest, and only, desire is that it would just stop and go away! And the answer to “Why?” never seems to come. Eventually the pain may subside, but we can never forget it and we will never understand it.

Lesson #2 - Evil exists in this world in many forms and it comes at us in unanticipated ways. Most of the time, we can do little to gain relief from the evil, but our faith calls us to believe that God is still in control and that in the end, he will triumph gloriously. Evil is, but so is God.

Lesson #3 - The Adversary exists, he is real, and he is responsible for all of the sin and pain and tragedy and loss that befalls us. We may never understand why he must be, but he is. We may never understand why he must do, but he does. We may never understand why our loving and compassionate and merciful God would give us over to this evil, but it happens.

The one thing we must always understand and never forget, though, is this: that our God is God, and The Satan is not; that our God creates and blesses, but the Satan cannot; that our God gives but the Satan only takes away; that one blessed day, our God will be all that there is, and that The Satan will be no more.

Faith can never fully explain the origins of evil, but faith knows that ultimately, evil will not win. And Job had some friends who would come to help him to understand his situation, but that’s a topic for next week.

For today, know that God is God, and that he is our God. Job knew that, and it kept him strong every day of his life – through the good times as well as in the whirlwind. Know that the Lord is always there for us, too.