My son, Christopher, asks questions all the time: “Why does the sun move as fast as our car, Daddy?” Of course, Jonathan, the oldest at 9, asked the biggie, “Where do babies come from?” Peter, the youngest recently asked, “Can you throw the ball way up in the sky?” David constantly wants to know, “can we wrestle, Daddy?”
Questions begin almost as soon as talking (maybe before!). They are a big part of the discovery of life.
Often, however, when my sons ask questions, I answer differently from how they expect. “Daddy, can I watch videos all day?” or “Daddy, can I have a piece of gum?” “Why can’t we eat pizza every night?” These questions all tend to get questions as a response. “Do you want to be a couch potato? Do you want to be healthy?” My job as a parent, in these situations, is to help my boys to ask the right questions.
It is important to ask the right questions in life. If we do not ask the right questions, we are likely to end up with the wrong answers.
Job is amazing. It is the first book of the Bible ever written, the first book recording the revelation of God. In it, God uses Job, a righteous man, to help to ask the right questions of life; better yet, to ask the right questions of God. In studying Job’s questions, we can be helped to keep our focus in the right place; on that which is worthy of our focus.
It could be argued that Job’s questions remain the most powerful, searching questions of all time. We are 4-5 thousand years since Job’s life. Yet, his questions are still the most relevant of all questions. They are the covenant questions of a man who trusts God.
Remember, Job is the victim of two vicious Satanic attacks, allowed by God. Those attacks destroyed his children and wealth and left him sitting on the ground scraping his diseased skin with a piece of broken pottery. Job was innocent and righteous. He asks very legitimate sincere questions of God that drive to the heart of life as we know it.
He starts with why man was created at all. He moves on to why man has to suffer. Then he grapples with how a mere man could ever approach an all-powerful God to get answers. Is it even appropriate to ask such a high God for answers; or to tell Him you think you are not getting justice from Him? This, of course, leads Job to wonder if God can be trusted with justice; if God even cares. Rounding for home, Job wonders if there is any hope for man, which leads him to wonder if the wicked should fear being wicked at all?
Job asks his questions with complete sincerity. Job asks his questions as a man who is in a covenant relationship with God. His questions are covenant questions. He walks a fine line of not accusing God of injustice while wondering why God has allowed an apparent injustice to Job. The apparent injustice leads Job to acknowledge that he has seen, with his own eyes, situations where it seemed that God allowed the wicked to prosper and righteous to suffer.
This is an important lesson: It is righteous for the righteous to ask sincere questions of God as they seek to understand life. (Read that again if you must.) Job shows us how to ask sincere but hard questions; covenant questions. He does not lose his faith, though he asks the toughest of questions. God honors Job abundantly for this.
We should note that Job, as the first book ever written in the Bible, provides the questions that God seems to spend the rest of the Bible answering. Job, like a good novel, sets up the rest of the story of the Bible. Job immediately introduces the plot of the Bible (How to deal with Satan and sin?), the important characters (God, angels, Satan, the righteous, the wicked) and the suspense-filled conflict (Why do the righteous sometimes suffer and the wicked sometimes prosper?). His questions are the great questions that the prophets anticipated being fulfilled by the coming Messiah in the Day of the Lord. His questions are ultimately answered in Christ. Those answers are fully revealed in the Bible’s final chapters, the book of Revelations.
Join with me as we ask God the covenant questions of Job.
Why was I created?
Have you ever had one of those weeks where it seemed like everything was going wrong? Bills come due that you did not expect; you or your family is sick; relationships with friends and family seem to go sour and your dog has an upset stomach leading to messes left around the house…
You know, a “when it rains it pours” type week…
Job’s week is way worse than my toughest ever. However, that does not mean that I too might not start to wonder if life is not just a waste of time. Maybe not others lives, but at least mine at certain points can seem a waste.
Job said it like this; it does us good to read his words! "(Job 3:11-12) Why did I not perish at birth, and die as I came from the womb? 12 Why were there knees to receive me and breasts that I might be nursed? (Job 3:16) Or why was I not hidden in the ground like a stillborn child, like an infant who never saw the light of day? (Job 10:18-22) "Why then did you bring me out of the womb? I wish I had died before any eye saw me. 19 If only I had never come into being, or had been carried straight from the womb to the grave! 20 Are not my few days almost over? Turn away from me so I can have a moment's joy 21 before I go to the place of no return, to the land of gloom and deep shadow, 22 to the land of deepest night, of deep shadow and disorder, where even the light is like darkness."
It should encourage all of us (who are not as righteous as Job, except for justification by faith in Christ), that it was okay for Job, a righteous man, to feel like he was simply done with life. Job is never rebuked by God for his genuine emotional struggle with his suffering.
Nevertheless, his questions pierce to the core issue: Why are any of us created anyway? Is there any purpose to our lives? Who cares? These are all righteous, valid and sincere questions for us to ask God.
God, in scripture, abundantly reveals the answer to these most important questions. He says it one way in
This is why God created us: To be with us, love us and bless us abundantly forever. Eternal love is the Bible’s resounding answer to Job’s piercing question. Man was created to glorify God and be satisfied with Him forever.
Remember, At Job’s time, a few hundred years after Noah and the flood, the revelation of eternal life had not yet been revealed. As such, Job asks, “(Job 14:14) If a man dies, will he live again?”
Job, therefore, asks the question: Why would God create man? His question, why he was created or born, has rung down through the ages. Later, the prophets began to get magnificent glimpses of the answer to Job’s question: “I know the plans I have for you, to prosper you and not to harm you, to give you a future and a hope.” When Christ came, the question was answered once and for all, (John 10:10) “I came that you might have life and have it more abundantly… (John 17:24) "Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world.”
God created us because He wants to be with us and to share His glory with us forever. Praise God, that Job asked that question way back at the beginning. It is a most important question. It deserved an answer. The magnificent conclusion of the book, the Bible, resolves this great question with brilliant hope.
Why Suffering?
But Job’s suffering was just beginning to squeeze questions out of this righteous man. We, too, have enough suffering that we should pay attention to Job’s questions. They might help us to stay focused in our struggles.
It’s one thing to have a reason for living. It is another thing altogether to have a reason for living that brings enough hope and strength for handling meaningless suffering. Job had major, meaningless suffering.
You and I often face major suffering. Very often we are profoundly confused as to why our suffering is there. Sometimes, it is simply due to our own sinfulness; sometimes, due to other’s sinfulness. But sometimes, as with Job, it is due to an outright, meaningless Satanic attack.
Listen to Job’s questions about suffering. It is right for us to sincerely ask the same questions! (Job 3:20-23) "Why is light given to those in misery, and life to the bitter of soul, 21 to those who long for death that does not come, who search for it more than for hidden treasure, 22 who are filled with gladness and rejoice when they reach the grave? 23 Why is life given to a man whose way is hidden, whom God has hedged in? (Job 7:12) Am I the sea, or the monster of the deep, that you (God) put me under guard? (Job 7:17-21) "What is man that you (God) make so much of him, that you give him so much attention, 18 that you examine him every morning and test him every moment? 19 Will you never look away from me, or let me alone even for an instant? 20 If I have sinned, what have I done to you, O watcher of men? Why have you made me your target? Have I become a burden to you? 21 Why do you not pardon my offenses and forgive my sins? For I will soon lie down in the dust; you will search for me, but I will be no more." (Job 10:4) Do you have eyes of flesh? Do you see as a mortal sees? 5 Are your days like those of a mortal or your years like those of a man, 6 that you must search out my faults and probe after my sin- 7 though you know that I am not guilty and that no one can rescue me from your hand?”
Job expresses misery, bitterness, a desire to be dead, powerlessness, bondage, vulnerability to probing, and almost hopelessness. Further, Job feels that God makes it worse by scrutinizing his every move. God, Job thinks, has hedged him in and put him under guard. God examines him, testing him, never looking away. Job feels no relief. His suffering is immense.
Can you relate? Ever felt like God himself was responsible for your suffering; that God seemed to enjoy making you suffer? Ever wonder if God is sitting up in heaven watching us squirm and enjoying it?
Job wants to know where the suffering comes from and why God allows it. We probably all want to know the same thing. We should be glad that Job shows that a righteous man is allowed to sincerely ask this question.
So, God, why does it seem like You put us under a microscope examination when we go through suffering and agony, especially when it seems we don’t deserve it?
Interestingly, the book of Job itself answers this question. The answer is that Satan is the cause of meaningless suffering. Satan himself desires to make even the righteous suffer. It is Satan’s very nature. When he attacks us, he wants us to feel as if there is no hope. In a powerfully, deceptive twist, Satan likes to drive us insane feeling like we can never get away from God’s scrutiny. Satan is the author of cruel, legalistic scrutiny in the midst of torturous, meaningless suffering.
That is not to say that some (or even much) of the suffering we face is not due to our own sin. I personally am not as righteous as Job. Very often, I am simply reaping what I have sown. My own sin is the cause of my agony.
However, Satan, gleefully, takes my agony and adds to it in every way possible. This is why Paul warns us not to give the devil a foothold in our lives (Eph. 4:27). God, on the other hand, encourages us to call out to Him in our time of need; to repent of our sins, humble our selves and ask for help. When we do, God promises to hear our cry, forgive us and come to our aid.
The answer to Job’s question about suffering is that sin and Satan cause suffering. Sin is a major cause of suffering. The other cause is Satan, who always looks to pile suffering on both sinners and the righteous.
God is not the cause of meaningless suffering. Satan is. However, God allows Satan to get away with perpetrating meaningless suffering, even on the righteous, for a season. During that season, a finite period of time, it becomes abundantly clear that Satan and his followers are unjust, vile and cruel. Then God comes, judges and punishes Satan for his clear wickedness; and vindicates the righteous.
Again, our sin causes suffering for us; the wage of sin is death. That is God’s just decision. If we repent, however, then God brings relief.
Finally, (and very, very important to Job’s situation), at times, Satan irrationally attacks us for being righteous and choosing God. When that happens, God allows the attack and suffering for a season, after which He saves and vindicates the righteous and avenges their suffering. God did this with the prophets of old. He did it with Christ (the only 100% perfect suffering man) and with the saints down through history. He will do it once and for all on the final Day of Judgment.
Christ is the answer to Job’s question about meaningless suffering. Christ took the sin of the world on his shoulders. He did not deserve it. It would have been meaningless except that Christ gave it meaning. He destroyed Satan’s power, took the keys of hell and death and ascended to the Father. What seemed meaningless was actually the redemption of the world. Why did Christ, the righteous man, have to suffer? To destroy the power of sin, death and Satan; to make a way for all things to be restored. In order to do so, God ordained that the righteous would suffer Satan’s attacks for a season. Christ himself suffered Satan’s attacks only for a season.
Job’s suffering squeezed out of Job this vital question that Christ would one day answer. It was no walk in the park for Job. However, mankind, all through history has been served by God’s revelation of spiritual warfare through Job.
Thank you, Job.
But Can we Trust God to Deal with Injustice?
My youngest son (2yrs old) has a bit of a tendency to scream/cry. It has been carefully developed, tweaked and, masterfully, perfected. By paying attention to what exactly gets Mom and Dad’s attention, out of a crowd of four brothers, Peter has skillfully crafted a scream/cry that elicits the quickest response from Mom and Dad. He might just want something that one of his brothers has, meaning that he is just being selfish, but his cry will bring Mom and Dad’s laser-like attention. Too often, it has helped Peter to get what he wants, at the expense of justice for his brothers.
Over time, his scream/cry, “wolf”, has led Peter’s mother and I to moderate our response and learn to ask what happened from his brothers before we start meting out our swift, merciless discipline. This is much to Peter’s chagrin. He’d had quite a racket going for a while there. Of course, it is a parent’s bitter/sweet joy to watch their child come to terms with what true justice is like. They hem and haw, pout and try to throw temper tantrums.
Finally, they come to realize that resistance is futile. By God’s grace, they come to accept Mom and Dad’s consistent standard of right and wrong. Eventually, even, a child can come to have a good attitude about the application of justice in the home, because they have a clear sense that they are being treated with fairness; they come to understand they have responsibilities to share and be kind as well.
In a similar way, the next major question from Job strikes at the heart of our great fears: Can God be trusted to deal with injustice against us?
The reason Job struggles with this question is because there are many times when it appears that the righteous suffer and the wicked thrive. If that is so, where is God? Why does a good God allow this? Why is Job innocent and yet still suffering?
Job puts it like this: “(Job 9:24) When a land falls into the hands of the wicked, he (God) blindfolds its judges. If it is not he, then who is it? (Job 9:29) Since I am already found guilty, why should I struggle in vain? (Job 13:23-25) How many wrongs and sins have I committed? (Job 13:23-25) Show me my offense and my sin. 24 Why do you (God) hide your face and consider me your enemy? 25 Will you torment a windblown leaf? Will you chase after dry chaff? (Job 14:1-3) "Man born of woman is of few days and full of trouble. 2 He springs up like a flower and withers away; like a fleeting shadow, he does not endure. 3 Do you fix your eye on such a one? Will you bring him before you for judgment? (Job 24:1) "Why does the Almighty not set times for judgment? Why must those who know him look in vain for such days?
Job even wonders if a mere man is important enough for God to care about bringing him justice. He says this: (Job 10:2-12) “I will say to God: Do not condemn me, but tell me what charges you have against me. 3 Does it please you to oppress me, to spurn the work of your hands, while you smile on the schemes of the wicked?” (Job 10:8) "Your hands shaped me and made me. Will you now turn and destroy me? 9 Remember that you molded me like clay. Will you now turn me to dust again? 10 Did you not pour me out like milk and curdle me like cheese, 11 clothe me with skin and flesh and knit me together with bones and sinews?
God had allowed Satan a season to work his vile, cruelty on Job. To Job, it felt like God himself was responsible. Job did not understand what God was doing, (setting Satan up to attack and be ambushed by the ultimate righteous man, Christ). As a result, Job goes to God with his questions. He even asks, “If it is not God then who is it?” The answer is that it is not God but Satan. Nevertheless, it seemed to Job that it was God himself. Job wonders if God will set a time of judgment or if it is vain to expect God to bring justice.
Think about it. God formed you and me. He created us. God’s works are truly wonderful. Why would he make such a beautiful creation like you and I… and then turn and make us suffer?
This is precisely the point of all God’s revelation in the Bible. God desires us to have abundant life. Mankind, because of sin, gave Satan authority. Satan has wielded that authority with all of the tyrannical cruelty that he can muster. Through tempting man to keep on sinning, trapping us in cycles of sin and suffering, Satan gleefully destroys the lives of men and women everywhere.
How Would a Mere Man Even Approach Almighty God to get Justice?
Job, of course knows that something is wrong. He knows that he does not deserve punishment. However, he wonders how a mere man could even approach God about that. (Job 9:2) "… But how can a mortal be righteous before God? (Job 9:12) If he snatches away, who can stop him? Who can say to him, 'What are you doing?' (Job 9:14) "How then can I dispute with him? How can I find words to argue with him? (Job 9:19) And if it is a matter of justice, who will summon him? (Job 23:13) "But he stands alone, and who can oppose him? He does whatever he pleases. 22 "Can anyone teach knowledge to God, since he judges even the highest? (Job 26:14) And these are but the outer fringe of his works; how faint the whisper we hear of him! Who then can understand the thunder of his power?"
Job goes on to wonder if a mere man could ever even understand basic wisdom. (Job 28:12-13) "But, where can wisdom be found? Where does understanding dwell? 13 Man does not comprehend its worth; it cannot be found in the land of the living.” (Job 28:20-21) "Where then does wisdom come from? Where does understanding dwell? 21 It is hidden from the eyes of every living thing, concealed even from the birds of the air.”
Many people today will paint God out to be a big bully in the sky. He is harsh and threatening and unapproachable, they say. “Who would want to serve an unapproachable God?” they say.
On another occasion my son was doing something and I angrily lashed out for him to stop. Almost immediately, my son began to cry. I could see by the type of cry that he felt that he was being rebuked wrongly. I was abruptly brought face to face with my own self-centered emotional outburst. My son was right and I was wrong. He was crying because he knew that arguing with Dad was a no-no. He felt trapped. Would his father let him explain? Would his father be willing to listen? Would his father be just?
Job was the first to grapple with this reality about God. There is a season of doubt a believer goes through wondering how anyone could truly seek out justice from God.
It is a legitimate question. God is truly awesome. He is to be feared. Job anticipates this, with his questions about wisdom. Solomon says, (Prov. 1:7) “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.”
The proper answer to these questions is equally fearful. No man can approach God alone. It is always wrong for us to accuse God of injustice. Job did not know that it was not God, but Satan that was the perpetrator of the injustice.
Nevertheless, if God were somehow not just, we have to admit, we would be powerless to stop him. Job, knowing this to be the case, almost despairs of getting justice. This is almost enough to put him over the edge into doubt.
If it is not God, Job asks, then, who is it? This reality, that no man can approach or judge God, leads to Job’s final set of questions.
What Hope is There for a Man?
Job begins to wonder if this life is all there is:
Can you hear the powerful answer to Job’s questions catapulting out of scripture!? Yes, there is such a thing as eternal life after death. Yes! Christ has paid the price, put up the security payment, to satisfy God’s vigorous demands. Yes! Yes! Hope has descended to the very gates of death, into the dust. Christ went to the grave and took the keys of hell and death, then ascended to the Father!
It goes on! When we pray, God hears and responds! Our prayers are not a waste. They come up before Christ as incense as He vindicates the righteous in Revelation! Man’s lot, his heritage from God is eternal life, sharing God’s glory with God forever!
These questions, however, had not been answered fully in Job’s time. They lead Job naturally to wonder if there is any value in righteousness; why not just be wicked? He asks: (Job 21:7) “Why do the wicked live on, growing old and increasing in power?” In frustration, he notes the irony: (Job 21:17-22) "Yet how often is the lamp of the wicked snuffed out? How often does calamity come upon them, the fate God allots in his anger? 18 How often are they like straw before the wind, like chaff swept away by a gale? 19[It is said,] 'God stores up a man's punishment for his sons.' Let him repay the man himself, so that he will know it! 20 Let his own eyes see his destruction; let him drink of the wrath of the Almighty. 21 For what does he care about the family he leaves behind when his allotted months come to an end?”
But Job does not lose hope! He righteously digs deep and finds hope in God.
Job is confident that wickedness is not right, that God will judge it. (Job 27:8-10) “For what hope has the godless when he is cut off, when God takes away his life? 9 Does God listen to his cry when distress comes upon him? 10 Will he find delight in the Almighty? Will he call upon God at all times? (Job 31:3) Is it not ruin for the wicked, disaster for those who do wrong? 4 Does he not see my ways and count my every step? (Job 31:13-15) "If I have denied justice to my menservants and maidservants when they had a grievance against me, 14 what will I do when God confronts me? What will I answer when called to account? 15 Did not he who made me in the womb make them? Did not the same one form us both within our mothers?”
Job is frustrated and confused. However, he is not hopeless. Listen to his confidence in God.
He cries out, (Job 19:25) “I know my redeemer lives and I will see his face on the earth.” He finds hope when he says, (Job 14:14) “I will wait for my renewal to come.” Job diligently hangs on when he says, (Job 16:19-21) “Even now my witness is in heaven; my advocate is on high. 20 My intercessor is my friend as my eyes pour out tears to God; 21 on behalf of a man he pleads with God as a man pleads for his friend.”
God’s Answers
Remember, Job does not get answers to all of his hard, covenant questions. However, he never forsakes his trust in the Lord. As such, he is vindicated by God. God restores him to a place of blessing. (Though Job does not get all the answers, the rest of the Bible written after Job, the other 65 books, thoroughly answers all his questions in Christ.)
Nevertheless, there is a key passage in God’s response to Job. God asks Job if he is able to tame the Behemoth or the Leviathan. Can Job, God asks, put a hook in Leviathan’s mouth and tame him? (Job 40:15-41:34) The rhetorical answer is an obvious, resounding NO.
Why is this so important, you ask? This is vital because God alone can tame Leviathan and the Behemoth. God alone can tame Satan and the beasts of Daniel and Revelation. When it comes to spiritual warfare strategy, we must trust God, who alone knows how to defeat Satan. Job says it best in his final response to God’s scathing reply, “I know you can do all things, no plan of yours can be thwarted” (Job 42:2)
The Apostle Paul seems to understand this well. He says, (Eph 3:8-13)…the unsearchable riches of Christ, 9 … to make plain to everyone the administration of this mystery, which for ages past was kept hidden in God, who created all things. 10 His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms, 11 according to his eternal purpose which he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord. 12 In him and through faith in him we may approach God with freedom and confidence. 13 I ask you, therefore, not to be discouraged because of my sufferings for you, which are your glory.
The answer to Job’s questions is God’s righteousness. Jesus Christ is the righteous Son of the Living God who alone is able to destroy Satan, the Leviathan/beast. Sinful man is made righteous by Christ’s blood. Christ, by His own righteousness, destroyed the power of the devil, sin and death. We, saints, patiently wait for the day of the Lord when He splits the eastern sky; opens the seals, trumpets and bowls of wrath; throws the dragon into the lake of eternal fire and marries His Bride, the
Summary:
So, let’s do a quick summary walk through Job’s basic questions and the Bible’s answers.
- Why did God give any of us breath? To show us His unfailing love and share His glory with us forever.
- Why does God allow suffering? With the righteous, He only does so for a season, to expose Satan’s vile, wickedness and ultimately to defeat Satan’s works. With the wicked, suffering may be eternal punishment for their sin.
- Can God be trusted with justice? Yes, it is Satan that cannot be trusted. God gives him a season to expose him and his followers after which God brings Satan to justice and vindicates the righteous.
- Is there any way for a mere man to approach an Almighty God about justice? No, alone we could never approach God. However, YES, Christ is our advocate and intercessor. Christ’s blood has made a way for us to come boldly to the throne of grace to get help in our time of need.
- Is there hope for mankind, a reason to not be wicked? Yes, Christ will ultimately judge all at the great white throne. He will throw Satan and his followers into the lake of eternal fire. He will wed His bride, the church, and share His glory with them forever. The dwelling of God will be with man.
Finally, is this hope enough to strengthen us in the midst of meaningless suffering? Yes. There is no other hope available. When all else fails, we still have reason to hope, for God has revealed His power and made it abundantly clear that His sovereign plan both defeated sin and death and will defeat Satan once for all. Suffering will come to an end. There will be no more tears, no more sickness and war.
It is not an easy path. There will be suffering. We saints will be victims of suffering. However, in the end, suffering itself will be destroyed. Christ will establish justice in all the earth.
What a story. What questions. What answers. I pray my sons find answers to all their questions; and those of their generation.
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