You're in the right place. This is the Daily Bible Podcast, and I am Pastor Rod, your host for today. Thank you so much for joining me. Today is January 6th, and we're going to look at Job chapter 10 through 13. But before we jump into that, I want to start us off with a quote. It's from one of my favorite books on the topic of suffering. In fact, I would heartily commend it to you. I'm sure I mentioned this last year, but I offer it again to you this year for your consideration. In the book, How Long, O Lord, D. A. Carson writes this, The book of Job will not let us off the hook. There is such a thing as innocent suffering. The degree to which we struggle with this question is likely to be related to the extent of our own sufferings. He goes on to make the point that as we're prepared for it, as we prepare mentally and spiritually for the occasion of our suffering, We're going to be better able to handle some of it. Now, he concedes later on in the next paragraph, he says, thinking through the theology of suffering and resolving in advance how you will respond, however, praiseworthy the exercise cannot completely prepare you for the shock of suffering itself. And so on the one hand, he commends it and he uses Job as a good example of that. Job had considered these things in chapter three, verse 25. He says, what I feared has come upon me. What I dreaded has happened to me, which tells us that Job was thinking about these things beforehand. And. Carson submits the reason why he was able to respond nobly as he did. And I've been encouraging you these past several days, as we enter into the book of Job, so early in the year, it's good for us to use it as a preparation for the rest of the year, to help prepare us for whatever the Lord has in store for us. Ecclesiastes chapter 7 and verse 2, the preacher writes, it's better. To go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting, that is, to go to a party. He says, the reason why is that this is the end of all mankind. And the living, those of us who still have breath in our lungs, will lay it to heart. Now there he's talking about our own demise. The fact that going to a funeral is better than going to a party because you're going to have a better sense of what awaits you and that's going to help sober you into making some better decisions, ideally. Well, in these next few chapters of Job, Job is still in the pits, and he's still wrestling with how God would allow this, and why God persists in giving Job life, despite the fact that he's really eager to be done with it all. He's reached the end of it, and his frustration reaches something of a boiling point. Now we're nowhere near the end point for him, but he continues to express his frustration toward his people, and I think his friends are listening in to his prayer requests. Job chapter 10 picks up with his continued plea toward God, what he's praying. And in his prayers, a lot of things that you would have already expected for him to say things that you might've heard him saying in one way or another, but in verse two and three, I begin to send something that I think is helpful for us to notice. Look at verse two. I will say to God, do not condemn me. Let me know why you contend against me. Does it seem good to you to oppress, to despise the work of your hands and favor the designs of the wicked? Boy, Job gets really close here to charging God with evil, doesn't he? If he doesn't overstep the line, he's dancing on it really closely. But notice that Job is commanding God. Don't condemn me, number one, and tell me why, number two. Don't let me suffer because I'm innocent. And of course, once more, we have to affirm God, God says this, and so we would agree with Job. He's innocent. But then he says, tell me why. It's like that old Backstreet Boys song, tell me why Job is singing this left and right. And he's asking God, I want to know, I want to please show me, please tell me, help me understand what's going on. And we just have to, and this is another conversation I had with my friend that I mentioned yesterday. At some point, we have to confess that even if God were to try to explain to us why he does what he does. Our finite human brains could never comprehend the extent to which he plans all of creation, all of humanity and all of his wisdom. It's impossible for us to explain to an ant how the internet works. In fact, I'm not even quite sure how the internet totally works. I know that it's networking and connecting through wires and cables and underwater pipelines. But that's really the extent of my knowledge. But if I were to try to explain that to an ant, there's no way for us to do that. There's just, it's never going to work. Never going to happen in a similar way, an infinitely greater way, if God were trying to explain to us, if God were to attempt to help us understand what he knows, which is the past, the present, and the future, and to apply it in the right way, which is his wisdom, his omniscient wisdom, Wisdom. If he were to try to do that, I think our brains would explode. We just can't contain that kind of information. We don't have that level of ability. And so even though Job begs God, please tell me why, help me understand this. God stands back and effectively says, trust me because he never responds to him. At least not yet. The answer for us then is to trust him. With what we can know from scripture, with what we do read from scripture, we should be able to. Say with confidence, he's in control. He's good. He's worthy of my trust. And so Job commands God, don't condemn me and tell me why. And the reality is folks, let's just be honest. God doesn't owe us an explanation. It's more than just that he knows more than we do. It's more than just that he has infinite wisdom greater than our capacity. It's that he doesn't owe it to us. He's the creator. And don't we want that? Don't we want a God who is so high, so lofty, so exalted, so transcendent that we can say, I don't need to know. If you know, I can trust that that's good enough for me, those are some lofty thoughts, heavy thoughts, but thoughts that are worth percolating and considering. In the rest of chapter 10, Job is praying, he's asking God again, why, why do this to me? Why allow me to go through this? You made me and yet you're destroying me. This doesn't make any sense. This seems unnecessary. You renew your witnesses against me and increase your vexation toward me. You bring fresh troops again. In other words, you're sending a barrage of assaults against me. Remember, he's lost everything, his wealth. His family minus his wife. And then in verse 18, he returns to a topic we've seen before. Why did you even bring me out of the womb? Would that I had died before any eye had seen me. He begs God, even though he's asking for something he can never have. Please just let me go. Let me go to the land where I won't return. The land of darkness and deep shadow. That's better, that's preferable to life. Now, it's a heavy place to be, and Job's not done, but he ceases for now in order to give way to Job chapter 11, Zophar's response. Actually, this is Zophar's first occasion to speak. You'll remember he's only going to speak twice, here and in chapter 20. So he's only got two arguments to make. And in this first one, He says this, Zophar the Nehemiathite, Should a multitude of words go unanswered, And a man full of talk be judged right. So he says, dude, Zophar to Job, You're talking so much and you're, you're saying nonsense. This is unnecessary and unhelpful. Then he says this, Zophar says, But oh, that God would speak and open his lips to you. Now remember, God is going to speak. Several chapters from now, God's going to step in and set everybody straight, at least in some way. He doesn't do it in a way that would be satisfying to Job, I can imagine. But Job does get the point. Here, Zophar predicts this. Oh, man, would God speak and tell us what we need to know? And you and I can sit here and say, oh, yes, buddy. Can't, can't wait to see how that goes for you. And so he says, let God speak. However, He also then turns around and assumes to speak on God's behalf, he says in verse six, know then that God exacts of you less than your guilt deserves. And this is a thrust of his argument. You deserve far worse than what you're getting job. So you should be grateful that God isn't giving you level 10. What you're really experiencing is level four or something like that. Some kind of less than what you deserve response. And then he goes back to the inscrutability, the transcendence of God and verses seven through 12. He says, look, God is beyond your comprehension. Deep things of God. He knows more than you. He can measure everything. He knows it all. And you're not privy to it. Now, this is an argument that I'm just making to you earlier on. I appreciate this argument. But then in verse 12, he turns and says, but a stupid man will get understanding when a wild donkey's cult is born. A man in our common vernacular. A stupid man will understand when pigs fly. That's what he's saying to Job. In other words, Job, you're going to put yourself in the camp of the fool, the stupid man, if you don't agree with me. It's kind of like one of those questions. How often do you beat your wife? There's no right way to answer that. It's a trick. And in this way, Zophar is intending to, I don't want to say manipulate, but to push Job into a corner such that he has to agree with him. Yes, I guess, I don't know. I'm not a stupid man. I understand these things as well. So, Zophar continues. It says if you prepare your heart, you will stretch out your hands toward him. If iniquity is in your hand, put it far away. Uh, you've seen this before. Repent and be restored. God will lift you up. He'll take care of you if you simply repent. Confess your sin, Job. Stop being so obstinate. Your life will be brighter than the noon day, you'll lie down and none is going to make you afraid, but the wicked, they're in trouble. So that's the extent of Zophar's arguments. Again, in a nutshell, you're getting less than you deserve. If you simply trust the fact that God has inscrutable, deep ways about his operation with mankind, man, you'll be better off. And by the way, you should repent and trust that God will restore you. In chapters 12, 13, and 14, Job does respond to Zophar. Now, Zophar has considerably less ink spilled, but Job spends a lot of time responding to his charge, and even beyond that. In chapter 12, Job replies, you are the people and wisdom will die with you. Pastor PJ and I love this part. He's saying to his friends, look, you guys got it all going on. You have it all figured out. Don't you? You are the wisest of people and wisdom will die when you perish. That's the idea here. And he says, who doesn't know these things? You guys are telling me things that I know. Have you not been listening to what I'm saying? I agree with you. God is inscrutable in his ways. I agree with you that God is doing what God does, but have you considered? And he turns the tables on them. He turns the tables on them. He says, have you considered in verses 13 through 25, that part of God's inscrutability, part of his transcendent operations with mankind is that he will often. Do the opposite of what we expect. In other words, God is in the business of role reversals. And this is part of the way that he acts. We don't always understand why he does those things, but haven't you considered guys that God reverses the expectations commonly? So he goes through a list of some of the times where he reverses things. He does things that you would not expect. He says, uh, he loosens the bonds of Kings and binds a waste cloth on their hips. He leads priests away, stripped and overthrows the mighty. He deprives of speech, those who are trusted and takes away the discernment of the elders. These are things that God does clearly as the King of the universe, as the sovereign ruler, And he says, explain that fellas, if your understanding is right, that a plus B always equals C and God is always going to act in these particular specific ways, then explain why and how these reversals take place. I think it's a fair point. Job is helping them see, look, there's a little more nuance to the way that God acts in humanity than what you're giving it credit for. Job chapter 13. Job says, look, I've all my, my eyes have seen this, my ears heard it. And what you know, I know. I'm not inferior. Everything that you're saying, I've heard before. And then he says in verse 4, As for you, you whitewash with lies. In other words, you guys aren't saying the truth here. You're being deceptive. And then he says something funny. Worthless physicians are you all. You're committing malpractice. This kind of spiritual malpractice is devastating. It's awful. Please stay silent, he says in verse five, and that would be your wisdom. And now remember, this is how they started out with Job in chapter two, verses 11 through 13. They come and they just sit with him in silence. And what a good thing that is. In fact, I was thinking about a book that I read recently. aNd by recently, I mean within the last maybe five years. Um, it's a book by, I believe it's Nancy Guthrie. I should know this. But the name of the book is what grieving people wish you knew about what really helps and what really hurts. She says in chapter four, uh, she makes a case for why you should be a listener and that's what Job commends here. You guys should be listening instead of condemning, accusing. And so Nancy says here, we need someone. This is her talking about the struggle of the sufferer who's going through grief. She says about that person, we need someone who will come alongside us and be comfortable with our confusion and with our need to simply vent the pain that is inside. for listening. She continues, for the person who's attending that sufferer, don't begin to think when you've been willing to listen that you haven't really done anything. To be a gracious and generous listener is giving a gift grieving people really need that many people are simply ill equipped to provide. This is exactly what Job is saying. You're worthless physicians. You're committing spiritual malpractice. And it would be your wisdom to simply listen. To let me speak. Now, part of us who know our theology, at least I trust that many of you do, your initial inclination is going to be, well, let me correct what you're saying. You're speaking poorly. That's not true. Let me correct your theology. Let me tell you what God is doing. And there's a right time for that. We should do that. That's part of our obligation as Christians. That's part of our obligation as Christians. But there's great wisdom in keeping our yap shut when someone's hurting and learning to listen and ask helpful questions and to give them space to share their pain with us. Nancy also says something to the effect of, the fact that people need, another person to share their pain. That's one of the most consoling and comforting things that we can do for someone who's in pain. Share the pain with them. That might mean weeping with them. That might mean crying with them and not necessarily offering a quick fix solution to resolve the pain. That's what Job says. He wishes that his friends would do. That's what they started doing until they went awry. And then he charges them in verse seven with speaking falsely for God. He's right on this. God's going to confirm this later on in the end of Job. He says you ought to be aware because you're speaking deceitfully for him. And in the end, when God holds you account accountable, will you stand or fall because of this? He says your maxims are proverbs of ashes, your defenses are defenses of clay. In other words, they're weak, fragile, inconsistent, incapable of producing the kind of thing that you're looking for. He begs them to give him silence. Please stop speaking. Let me just sit and think. And then he utters words that I hope you and I can take to heart. Maybe memorize verse 15, though he slay me, I will hope in him. Oh, I love that. Would that every Christian had this verse ready on their lips and on their heart. Though he slay me, I will hope in him. It's an interesting thing to say, isn't it? Because it affirms two things, at least, at least two things. God is in control of everything, all the things that happen to me. And two, I have no recourse, but to trust him, to hope in him. Imagine the non Christian, what would he or she do? What hope do they have? But we have him and his love, his trustworthiness has been proven in the greatest act of love that we could ever receive. Jesus, the righteous given on our behalf. So again, we see Job struggling with something and we see in him a glimpse of Jesus. Though he slay me, yet will I hope in him. Jesus gives us that hope. He gives us that confidence to the point that even if God were to slay you, we can say, so be it. May the will of the Lord be done. The last part of Job chapter 13 and verses 20 through 28, he's praying again, asks God to grant him two things, withdraw your hand and then call me. And then I would love to answer. I want to know what's my transgression. I want to know why you hide your face from me. Why am I worth all this trouble? And again, we see that Job is asking for answers to questions that he's not going to get the answer to. There are questions that all of us will ask that we may never have a solid answer to at least this life. But that doesn't mean that God doesn't want us to pursue him and to deepen our knowledge and awareness of what he's doing in our lives. There is a way to see what God is doing, although not comprehensively. So I'd encourage you to lean into your prayer in your Bible time. I commend this book to you, and I commend it to you and more than just the daily Bible reading program. In fact, one of my goals this year is to read more of the Bible. It's funny. I have a, a measurement that I'm using for that, but I'm going to do my daily Bible reading program with you. But I'm also going to read additionally on top of that and that's because I feel like I want more. I feel like I need more. I want to have a mastery of scripture and that necessitates uh, something of an obsessive approach to scripture. And I would encourage you to think about this year as you prepare for the year as you're at the beginning of 2025. How will you prepare yourself for the future to be ready to have the word of God deeply ingrained within you? So that when the evil day comes you are prepared with the word of God. Some really good things for us to think about and to prepare for. Okay. That's it for today. Thank you again for joining me. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you that you have blessed us and sustained us so much given us life. We've just finished a great year in 2024. And by great, I don't necessarily mean that everything went our way. But you demonstrated your faithfulness to us. We never have reason to doubt you This year lord. We want to deepen our trust in you I want to be ready for whatever you give us Trusting that you have good plans and purposes It's hard for us to do lord. We're fickle creatures. Our hearts can so often get distracted and weighed down by so many senseless things Please keep us focused Help us to deepen our love for you, our understanding of you through your word, and to be prepared to do good for the sake of Christ, even while we suffer, knowing that you have good purposes in store for us. Let us believe that now. Let us trust that now. Let us be ready for that now, so that you might receive all the glory that you are due. We ask all this in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. All right, folks, thank you again for joining me and I'll look forward to seeing you again tomorrow. Have a great day.