Audio Version: http://sermon.net/daviddekock
Scriptures: Job 23:3-12 and Job 40:1-14
What is suffering?
Why does God allow suffering?
Do we bring suffering on ourselves?
How do we cope with suffering?
We all struggle sometimes. And sometimes our struggle is a consequence of our own stupidity and sin. But more frequently, it seems, suffering just comes upon us. We can’t explain it, we can’t reason with it – we just suffer.
So what is suffering? For the purpose of this sermon I want to describe it as a feeling or situation of malcontent in which we have tried our level best and still it all turns out pear-shaped. This is not a struggle that comes as a consequence. It’s about death, sorrow and pain that comes out of nowhere.
You probably know already what I mean.
It’s when you have given everything you can for your children and they still turn out delinquent. It’s when you have bent over backwards for your spouse and still your marriage fails. It’s when you put your last cent into the crop and the rain does not come – or the locusts do. It’s when you think that you have finally found happiness and the doctor diagnoses cancer. When you’ve tried to do what it seems that God wants and God does not seem to bless you. It’s when all the good things in life turn sour.
Then you suffer. Why? Why does God allow it to happen?
Job knew suffering. (And so did Jeremiah and Jesus … )
The book of Job is the oldest book in the Bible. It was written before Genesis. And it is a remarkable story about a man and His relationship with God. Job was not an Israelite for he lived in the time before Abraham in the land of Uz (around 2000BC).
The account of this man seems to come from oral sources but was written down in a time after Moses (about 500 years later). We say this for two reasons – first, there is no record of Israelite history or customs in the book, and second, on the basis of the name used for God. In the Prologue and Epilogue, as well as in the words attributed to God Himself, the name used is YHWH. In the words of Job and his four advisors, (the bulk of the book) the name used is Elohim. Elohim was the ancient name for God revealed in Genesis 1, and which was used until God revealed His personal name to Moses at the burning bush in the desert of Midian. Clearly then, the discourses between Job and his friends are ancient while the explanatory bits – the beginning, the end and God’s own answer to Job, are from a much later tradition.
The Book of Job is, in a sense, an additional and longer explanation of the struggle and disappointment which is first and briefly presented to us in Genesis 3 where the presence of Satan and the source of evil and sin is first revealed.
Job was a righteous man. He says so and God says so. In chapter 1 verse 8 – the Lord Himself says of Job, “there is no-one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil.” He is blessed in every way until Satan suggests to God that Job’s faith only remains intact because of his prosperity and lack of personal suffering. Satan is allowed by God to strike everything Job has, including his physical condition.
Despite all this, Job remains faithful, but he has some hard questions for God.
Why must the righteous suffer?
What sins have brought his pain?
Why is God so inconsistent in the punishment of the wicked?
In our first reading this morning, we have Job crying out for God – where can I find Him? Let me put my case before God? I have kept His way, I have not departed from His commands, I have treasured His words more than my daily bread?
And Job is quite right to do this. He has maintained his integrity. He has not sinned, he has maintained a righteous life. And we are not allowed the option of original sin in Job.
In a sense it is a cry of frustration because he has been “advised” by Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar that the cause of his suffering is a simple syllogism: God always punishes sin; suffering is the result of sin; therefore Job is more of a sinner than he is willing to admit.
But Job has not sinned. We know that, Job knows that and God knows that. This is not a case of simple cause and effect. Wise as their advice may sound, it is not relevant. Job is suffering – he has lost everything he had – his flocks and herds, his wife and children, yes, even his own health. And we know that he has not sinned. So why then?
A younger man by the name of Elihu then steps forward. He offers a different explanation. He says that suffering is not necessarily as a result of sin, but that God uses suffering to teach lessons and to strengthen a person.
Is this possible?
Does this loving God who sent Jesus to save us, bring suffering on us in order that we might learn a lesson? Does He seek to strengthen us by putting the burden of suffering upon us?
It seems unlikely – until you consider that the one to speak after Elihu is God Himself, AND, that the name Elihu means “He is my God”.
And the Lord’s words are challenging. “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?”
And then the words from our second reading: “Will you contend with me, to correct me? Will you discredit my justice? Do you have an arm like God’s (to save or to love)? (If so), bring out your own justice – will you humble the proud man? Will you crush the wicked man? If you can do that, then I will admit to you that you can save yourself?”
Much as we don’t like it, we must admit that God did not create a perfect world. The world He created is good, but it is not perfect. There is room for evil and there is room for suffering. And that is certainly our own personal experience.
God created Satan, for the evil one is a created spiritual being. Why did the God who knows the end from the beginning do this? Why did He allow temptation into sin? Why does He allow evil to reign.
And God could stop suffering, but He does not. War goes on, whole nations go hungry in Africa, innocent people are hurt, women and children are raped every day. And children as born deformed. And we live too long with our pain.
Is this a good God?
Should we even be here in church today?
Half the world out there – perhaps more, have given up on God because they no longer believe that God is good.
But they miss the point. And perhaps you get it!
God IS good. He is perfect in every way. It’s the world that is not.
Should the world have been made perfect?
That’s an interesting question. What is perfect? Is it physical shape? NO, then we would all have to look the same. And what would we look like – male or female, Clark Gable or Marilyn Monroe.
No, the world could not be perfect – but there is something in the nature of God which could bring more goodness into the world. And by its very nature, it could not be created – it can only be chosen. And it is the choice to love or not to love; to show mercy or not to show mercy; to have grace or not to have grace.
We are made in the image of God according to Genesis 1:26. What is missing is the love which God has. We have to choose that.
And every single choice that we make, every decision we take, affects the way in which we receive or reject God, for God is Love.
God has created a good world; not a perfect world, for undeserved suffering does exist. And this undeserved suffering exists in order to create the highest form of love that is possible: a complete and utterly selfless love of man for God, despite our circumstances and our situation.
The book of Job shows us that it is possible to love God despite everything. It shows that we do not even begin to measure God’s love for us in terms of our prosperity, our families, or even our health.
God’s love is a given – He loves us without even considering whether we are worthy of His grace.
He doesn’t care who we are, what we’ve done, or where we’ve been.
He loves us so much that He gave His Son to die – now in the concept of the Trinity we need to understand that while there are three persons there is only one God – and God died because He loves us so much. God dies! Can you fathom that – can you even begin to grasp that kind of love.
John says “Greater love has no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends”. We use that when we remember those who died in war – but Jesus intended it for Himself. It was said in order that we might understand the extent of God’s love for us. God laid down His life for us.
And He calls us to that same kind of selfless love. This is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Not to scare people out of hell and into heaven by threats of the wrath of God and endless suffering. No! It is to take up your cross, as Jesus did, and to love the loveless, to care for the difficult, to forgive the sinner and to offer grace to the traitor. And God will be with you always, even to the end of the age. This is true salvation!