Receiving Evil from God

[00:00:10] Most critical for us that we recognize in the Scriptures and through the Scriptures and by the Scriptures that your spirit has kept maintained that message of salvation. [00:00:34] That same message, Father, help us to hear and to see and to appreciate all that you have for us here in your word. [00:00:49] We ask this in Jesus name. Amen. [00:00:54] Please turn in your Bibles to Job two. [00:01:12] Last week we looked at that first attack of Satan upon Job. [00:01:21] And I noted in that that Satan does not know Job, but God does. [00:01:30] And here, once again, we have evidence in chapter two of that truth. [00:01:39] Again, there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord. [00:01:45] And Satan also came among them to present himself before the Lord. And the Lord said to Satan, from where have you come? Satan answered the Lord, from going to and fro on the earth, and from walking up and down on it. And the Lord said to Satan, have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth? A blameless and upright man who fears God and turns away from evil. [00:02:13] He still holds fast his integrity, although you incited me against him to destroy him without reason. [00:02:21] Then Satan answered the Lord and said, skin for skin, all that a man has he will give for his life. But stretch out your hand and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse you to your face. [00:02:34] And the Lord said to Satan, behold, he is in your hand. Only spare his life. [00:02:41] So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord and struck down Job with loathsome sores from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head. And he took a piece of broken pottery with which to scrape himself while he sat in the ashes. [00:02:59] Then his wife said to him, do you still hold fast your integrity? Curse God and die. [00:03:06] But he said to her, you speak as one of the foolish women would speak. Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil? [00:03:16] In all this Job did not sin with his lips. [00:03:22] Now, when Job had three friends heard of all this evil that had come upon him, they came each from his own place. Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, Zophar the Naamathite. [00:03:40] They made an appointment together to come to show him sympathy and comfort him. [00:03:46] And when they saw him from a distance, they did not recognize him. And they raised their voices and wept. And they tore their robes and sprinkled dust on their heads toward heaven. [00:03:58] And they sat with him on the ground seven days and seven nights. [00:04:05] And no one spoke a word to him. [00:04:08] For they saw that his suffering was great. [00:04:14] Thus ends the Reading of God's Word. [00:04:18] Please be seated. [00:04:40] Satan is a very powerful spiritual being, just as God's holy angels are powerful spiritual beings. [00:04:53] But these spirit beings have no concept of what it is to be a human being. [00:05:05] They don't have bodies that can suffer. [00:05:11] That was news to me when I was a young man and someone was pointing out that old trope about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. [00:05:24] That was a serious theological discussion, because angels don't take up space. [00:05:34] And if they don't take up space, you could have quite a few in one place. [00:05:44] Now, they can't be everywhere, and Satan is not everywhere. Notice here in our passage that he tells the Lord that he's been going up and down in the earth. [00:06:00] And God once again challenges him in terms of his servant Job, that there is none like him on earth. A blameless and upright man who fears God and turns away from evil. [00:06:22] And God adds, he still holds fast his integrity, although you incited me against him to destroy him without reason. [00:06:37] Now, this is one of those anthropomorphisms that pastor was talking about this morning that God has described in terms that we can kind of get our minds around. [00:06:54] But here God is praising Job for remaining faithful even in the face of all these difficulties that came on him. [00:07:14] But Satan is not willing to give up. [00:07:20] He answers the Lord and says, skin for skin. All that a man has he will give for his life. [00:07:28] Is that true? [00:07:32] Many of you believers here have small children or have had children in the home. [00:07:40] Job had these seven sons and three daughters who died. [00:07:47] Let me ask you a question. [00:07:50] If you had to choose between the physical ailment that comes upon Job or the death of your child, which would you choose? [00:08:03] Satan does not understand even the love that a parent naturally has for their child, let alone to understand God's love for us. [00:08:23] And so this second challenge to me, as I look at it, is rather ridiculous in the sense of all that he's lost before and he remained faithful to think that because something comes upon him personally that he would curse God. [00:08:46] Well, God gives permission for Satan to touch him, but only spare his life. [00:09:00] And he strikes Job with an awful disease. [00:09:07] Job's awful disease looks so terrible that even his wife is repulsed by it. [00:09:15] There have been sermons preached on Job's wife, and I vacillate between looking at her and wondering what was she thinking to say something like that. And on the other hand, having a certain amount of empathy for her. [00:09:30] Job is suffering so terribly. [00:09:35] She has experienced the loss of her children remember that. [00:09:40] And now her husband is in this terrible condition and she just has a feeling. You just need to get it over with. [00:09:48] Isn't that what our culture tends towards now? [00:09:53] This so called euthanasia, the good death that people ought to be allowed to do in themselves if they're suffering too much. [00:10:05] What a terrible thing. [00:10:08] This is the work of the devil. Because the devil only desires to kill, to destroy, to harm. [00:10:22] But that's not God's ultimate desire for us. [00:10:30] And here Job speaks up. And notice that we're told once again that in all this Job did not sin. [00:10:38] He speaks up and he criticizes his wife properly when he tells her. You speak as one of the foolish women would speak. [00:10:51] This is a foolish notion that we need to get out of this life. We need to get beyond this suffering. [00:11:00] And the foolishness of the notion is that to the world suffering has no meaning. [00:11:11] Did you realize that? [00:11:14] There's no purpose in them suffering. [00:11:18] But to the believer, even suffering has great meaning. [00:11:35] And then Job says, shall we receive good from God? [00:11:41] And shall we not receive evil? [00:11:47] Now the word evil here may be bothering you a little bit because we often associate the term evil with sin. [00:11:55] If something is evil, it's something that's sinful. [00:11:59] But the word evil does not always mean that. [00:12:03] It can be that difference between what we would popularly refer to good and bad. [00:12:10] That one thing can be good and another thing can be bad. [00:12:17] Due to allergies and a cold that I have, my head is stuffed and I don't consider that good. [00:12:30] It would be much better if my sinuses were fully cleared. And I'm looking forward to that happening here in this next week. [00:12:41] But we do experience things in life that we consider good. One of the good things that came to Job and his wife were those children. [00:12:49] Seven sons and three daughters and all those material blessings that they had. We would see these and say, these are good things, but losing them, that's a bad thing. [00:13:06] But who's in charge? [00:13:12] Do you notice there in a reading of Chapter two and even last week's, that Satan has to get permission. [00:13:30] He's not in charge. [00:13:33] This God that we worship is perfectly holy. [00:13:38] It's not like the notion in Star Wars. I think I've got that right. Not the one where you've got the dark side of the force and the light side of the force. [00:13:52] We don't worship a God like that. In him there is no darkness. But there is a dark side to this world. [00:14:00] And the prince of that dark side is Satan himself. [00:14:07] But Satan is limited in his knowledge. Like I said, he doesn't know Job, and he's limited in his power. [00:14:16] He cannot destroy Job's faith. [00:14:22] He cannot destroy your faith if you have genuine faith. [00:14:29] And God knows this. [00:14:36] Job has these three friends. [00:14:40] You know, there's something about old friends. [00:14:44] When I've gotten. Gotten past 70, I began to realize that. And then Dolly Parton, I believe, wrote a song about that. [00:14:55] And the name of the song is, you Can't Make Old Friends. [00:14:59] And I realized that I can make new friends. I can meet new people here in Arizona. I can meet new people back in Kansas. But there's something about those friends that you've had way back. [00:15:14] I have a friend that I speak to every Monday evening, almost without fail. [00:15:21] We were roommates in college. [00:15:24] I was best man at his wedding, and I often go back to Michigan to visit him then. I always remind his wife that I was the best man at that wedding. [00:15:37] She appreciates that humor. [00:15:42] But this is a close friend. These are close friends of Job's. [00:15:48] These are not some professional counselors that are moving in here to help him out and try to get him through this. [00:15:56] These are people that. His relationship with them goes way back, and they've known him for a long time. They know him. They should know, as God points out, that he is a righteous man. [00:16:12] They should recognize that Job is not sinning in the things that he's saying here. [00:16:19] But we're going to find out that they don't do that. [00:16:23] Job's comforters. You ever heard that expression? [00:16:27] That's the people that when you suffer a loss, you don't want them showing up. [00:16:33] They. They've got an explanation as to why you've suffered that loss. [00:16:38] It's their explanation. And. And the reason they have to come up with these explanations is they're afraid that it will happen to them and that we've got to believe that you had to have done something wrong. [00:17:00] I've heard people say this about divorce, and divorce is a terrible thing. [00:17:06] But I've heard people say that when a couple divorces, it's equally both their faults. [00:17:14] God does not recognize that. [00:17:18] He recognizes that there are grounds for divorce, desertion, and adultery, and he does not hold the other partner responsible for those. [00:17:41] But there are people who want to believe that because they think that as long as I do everything I can to keep my marriage together, it can't possibly fall apart. [00:17:54] You know, if you raise your children right, they'll grow up to be wonderful citizens who always do everything good and right it doesn't always happen, does it? [00:18:08] The older you get, the more you realize things like that. [00:18:13] But trusting in God, you see, his friends came and they came together. They decided, we're going to get together, we're going to go see Job, because we've heard about all this terrible thing that's happened to him. They've at least heard about the destruction, his loss of property. They may not have heard about his physical condition, because notice in the text here that when they saw him from a distance, they did not recognize him. They weren't expecting to see this miserable looking man. [00:18:49] And they raised their voices and wept, and they tore their robes and sprinkled dust on their heads towards heaven. [00:18:59] And they sat with him on the ground seven days and seven nights. [00:19:05] And no one spoke a word to him. For they saw that his suffering was very great. [00:19:19] You know, if the book of Job jumped from this point to where God restores Job at the end of the book, it's a spoiler if you haven't read the book. God restores Job at the end of the book. [00:19:36] His friends come across. Well, often the best thing we can do when someone is suffering a loss is to be with them, but not to lecture them. [00:19:56] And never tell someone you understand how they feel. [00:20:00] Even though you may have gone through a similar experience, it's often the case you know someone have a similar experience, because you don't know. [00:20:14] But God knows. [00:20:16] God is aware. [00:20:21] That's the wonderful truth here in Job. But I'd like you to turn to some New Testament passages with me to get some perspective on suffering. [00:20:39] Acts, chapter 14, verses 19 through 23. [00:20:55] The apostle Paul knew something about suffering. [00:21:04] As a matter of fact, when he was called to be an apostle, he was told that he was going to suffer an awful lot. [00:21:15] I wonder if he had any notion how much that would be. But look at this incident here. [00:21:22] Acts, chapter 14 and verse 19. [00:21:26] But Jews came from Antioch in Iconium, and having persuaded the crowds, they stoned Paul and dragged him out of the city, supposing he was dead. [00:21:37] But when the disciples gathered about him, he rose up and entered the city. And on the next day he went on with Barnabas to Derbe. When they had preached the gospel to that city and had made many disciples, they returned to Lystra and to Iconium and to Antioch, strengthening the souls of the disciples, encouraging them to continue in the faith, and saying that through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God. [00:22:06] And when they had appointed elders for them in every church, with prayer and fasting they committed them to the Lord in whom they had believed. [00:22:18] We must come through many tribulations. [00:22:26] Some of you came to faith in Christ as adults. [00:22:30] Someone in all likelihood personally shared the gospel with you, and I trust that you still remember that experience. [00:22:40] But did they warn you about the tribulations? [00:22:47] I really think if we're going to be responsible in sharing the gospel with people, we need to warn them that this path, this narrow way, is not a way of ease and comfort where everything goes well and everything is positive, but that it can be difficult. [00:23:16] But you notice the use of the word tribulations there. You'll see that time and again in the Scriptures that believers do go through tribulation. [00:23:27] But there's a world of difference between tribulation and the wrath of God. [00:23:35] The wrath of God is an entirely different subject. [00:23:42] God allows tribulations in our lives. [00:23:46] He may bring them at times to strengthen our faith and for a multitude of other purposes. [00:24:00] Turn with me to 2nd Corinthians 4, 2nd Corinthians 4, beginning with verse 7. Here again the Apostle Paul is speaking to us by inspiration of the Holy Spirit. [00:24:27] But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that the surpassing power belongs to God, not to us. [00:24:37] We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed, perplexed, but not driven to despair, persecuted, but not forsaken, struck down, but not destroyed, always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifest in our bodies. [00:25:04] For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus sake, that the life of Jesus also may be manifest in our mortal flesh. [00:25:15] So death is at work in us, but life in you, since we have the same spirit of faith. According to what has been written. I believed and so I spoke. [00:25:26] We also believe, and we also speak knowing that he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us with Jesus and bring us with you into his presence. [00:25:41] For it is all for your sake, so that the grace extends to more and more people. It may increase thanksgiving to the glory of God. [00:25:55] Suffering to the glory of God. [00:26:03] That's what Job was doing. Job was suffering to the glory of God. And the book of Job was written down so that we, all these centuries later, can read it and learn from it, learn something about ourselves, and more importantly, learn something about God and His faithfulness. [00:26:29] And then in second Corinthians, chapter one, beginning with verse three, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. [00:27:04] For as we share abundantly in Christ's sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too. [00:27:12] If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation. If we are comforted, it is for your comfort which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer. [00:27:26] Our hope for you is unshaken. [00:27:30] For we know that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in our comfort sharing in suffering in this life and to receive God's comfort here and now in the midst of our sufferings. [00:28:01] But in eternity, in eternity we're told he'll wipe away every tear. I remember as a child the first time I saw that I somehow I misinterpreted that because I thought of that the way my dad would say, you quit that crying, or I'll give you some reason to cry. [00:28:23] This wiping away of tears is not telling someone they cannot cry, but comforting the one who is crying so that ultimately they cease from that. [00:28:40] And in heaven there'll be no need for tears. [00:28:45] In terms of sorrow, I'm not going to rule out tears of joy. [00:28:50] I've seen that in people's faces. [00:28:58] 1st Peter 2 and beginning with verse 19, 1st Peter 2, 1925 for this is a gracious thing when mindful of God, one endures sorrows while suffering unjustly. [00:29:31] For what credit is it when you sin and are beaten for it, you endure. [00:29:38] But if when you do good and suffer for it, you endure. This is a gracious thing in the sight of God. [00:29:47] For to this you've been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example so that you might follow his steps. He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. [00:30:03] When he was reviled, he did not revile in return, when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. [00:30:20] He Himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed, for you were straying like sheep, but now have returned to the shepherd and overseer of your souls. [00:30:49] We'll be celebrating the Lord's Supper this evening. [00:30:54] And when we celebrate the Lord's Supper, we remember his death, and we remember his suffering, and how he on that cross drank the cup of God's wrath. [00:31:11] But what he offers you here this evening is not a cup of wrath. [00:31:25] But rather a cup of forgiveness, a cup of rejoicing, a cup of intimate fellowship. [00:31:45] That our relation with Jesus Christ is one of ultimate intimacy. [00:31:52] He knows you better than anyone in this room or in this world, and he still loves you. [00:32:02] That's amazing. [00:32:06] We have the responsibility to get to know him and to appreciate his love. [00:32:15] That we might have a faith like Job's, that even in life's biggest disappointments. [00:32:23] And a lot of those things vary as to how old you are. [00:32:27] But the most difficult things that we go through here and now, those very things God can use to strengthen our faith and to give us a hope that will never be disappointed. [00:32:47] That is what we celebrate in the Lord's Supper. [00:32:55] Let's look to God in prayer. [00:33:03] Father, you realize how difficult it is for us human beings to receive evil and difficulty in this life. [00:33:18] It's difficult enough for us to receive evil when we deserve it, when our behavior has been such, when our attitudes have been such, when we have brought some of these things on ourselves. [00:33:35] But, Father, we know there are times, just as Job did nothing to bring the evil upon him, that evil comes into our lives. [00:33:48] And we are tempted. [00:33:52] Tempted to do as Satan has suggested Job would do. To curse God. To curse God and die to get this life over with because it is so miserable. [00:34:07] But, Father, we know that by your Holy Spirit, we know the truth. [00:34:13] We know the ultimate outcome. [00:34:16] We know the ultimate outcome of Job and what happened to him here on this earth. But we also know the ultimate outcome of each and every one who has placed their faith and trust in Jesus Christ. [00:34:30] Blessing upon blessing, grace upon grace and eternity in the very presence of our Lord and Savior. [00:34:43] We ask, Father, that you would open our hearts and minds to what you have to say to us in the Lord's Supper. [00:34:52] And that as we partake of these physical elements, that we will clearly be remembering the death of our Lord and Savior. [00:35:08] One who willingly took upon him our sins. [00:35:16] One who was perfectly holy and deserved none of it. [00:35:23] Taking all of it. [00:35:26] Father, we stand amazed at Jesus Christ in whose name we pray. Amen.