Insight for Living

Guest (Male): Sometimes God never answers our hardest question, and somehow, even in the uncertainty, we find that's enough. Job spent crisis after crisis asking why. And when God finally spoke, he didn't explain. God didn't defend himself. He simply revealed who he is, and somehow, that changed everything for Job.

Today, on Insight for Living, Chuck Swindoll brings our study of Job to a close and shows us how a man who lost everything came to trust the God who gives no easy answers. Chuck titled his message, What Job Teaches Us About Our God.

Pastor Chuck Swindoll: Grace. The book of Job teaches us about grace. When he blesses Job, he doesn't bless a perfect man, he blesses an imperfect man. If he were perfect, he wouldn't be repenting. When are we going to get it? You don't have to earn it. Sometimes you just be downright selfish. And he still blesses.

Job is set through God's lecture, which began in chapter 38 and 39, went into chapter 40, chapter 41, and he never answers the question. He escorts Job around the universe and introduces him to several of the animals of the field and the birds of the air, but he doesn't answer Job's questions.

And remarkably, at the end of the book, Job is submitting to this God, this heavenly Father who permitted, even allowed all of these things to occur. And yet he submits. Surely he knows some things of God that we need to know as well, without having all of our questions answered.

Verse one, chapter 42. Then Job answered the Lord and said, "I know that you can do all things."

Number one in a list of seven: There is nothing God cannot do. Having heard and having realized the limitless power of his infinite God, Job puts his observation and realization into the simplest of terms, "You can do all things." There is nothing God cannot do.

There's a second, and I find it at the end of verse two, no purpose of yours can be thwarted. It is impossible to restrain or nullify God's purposes. God's intentions can neither be altered nor disrupted. What he purposes will transpire without delay, without hindrance, and without failure.

Which brings us to a third. God's plans are beyond our understanding and too deep to explain. God's plans are beyond our understanding and too deep to explain. See how Job puts it in verse three? "I have declared that which I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know."

That took some humility to say that. "Hear now, and I will speak. I will ask you."

If you ask me to give you the core message of the book of Job, I'd give you chapter 42 and verse three. Coming to an understanding that God's plans are beyond our understanding and too deep to explain.

Number four. Only through God's instruction are we able to humble ourselves and rest. Only through God's instruction are we able to humble ourselves and rest. Where do I get that? End of verse four, down through verse six. "I will ask you and you instruct me."

Oh God, I will ask you. You reveal to me whatever it is I need to know about yourself and about these circumstances. "I have heard of you with the hearing of the ear. Now my eye sees you." Therefore, "I've got an argument?" No. Therefore, "I retract and repent." And there's no force. He says, "You instruct me," and as a result of your instruction, I will willingly submit and accept it.

Remember my comment about repentance? A contrite heart makes no demands and has no expectations. Makes no demands and has no expectations. Job has no demands and has no expectations.

Now then, number five. When the day of reckoning arrives, God is always fair. When the day of reckoning arrives, God is always fair.

Remember my comment earlier when we looked at this thought, all God's accounts are not settled at the end of the month? It applies here. Patiently and with great long-suffering, God has been listening and taking note of who is saying what. Not one idle word slips by his attention. He knows who spoke what, he knows where error started and stopped, he knows who spoke truth and why.

He deals with wrongdoers at the time of his final accounting. And it's in his timetable. He blesses the one who has walked with him in his timetable. He forgives those who bring their offerings and offer them fully and sincerely. And he restores Job, who prayed for his friends, and prayed for them greatly with an open heart.

Put in the margin of your Bible, Hebrews 6:10. God is not unjust to forget. Eugene Peterson in The Message renders that God doesn't miss anything. Hebrews 6:10.

Now, some of you have been terribly abused. You have been victims of the worst kind of mistreatment. You have been taken advantage of. You have, whether young or middle-aged, whatever the age, you have been treated unfairly. Every person in this room has that in common. So have I.

Every one of us could give stories of abuse and neglect and misrepresentation and unfair treatment. God does not forget. He just doesn't march to our timetable.

I mean, I wanted God to zap Eliphaz at the moment he said that stupid thing to Job. He's waited through all of these speeches and now finally says, "Eliphaz, Bildad, Zophar, you're out to lunch." Or, you know, that's kind of a Swindoll paraphrase. He tells them they're wrong.

"You didn't speak correctly of me as my servant Job." Job hadn't heard until now that he'd spoken correctly. See how it appears in verse seven? "After the Lord had spoken these words to Job, the Lord said to Eliphaz the Temanite, 'My wrath is kindled against you and against your two friends because you've not spoken to me what is right as my servant.'" God heard. He heard.

He didn't say anything at the time, but he heard it. He is not unjust to forget one idle word. He did not overlook one wrong act committed against you.

He knows his plan. His plan is unfolding. It's not a mistaken plan. It's not a frustrated plan where God sits on the edge of heaven biting his nails, wondering what he's going to do with that wrong individual. He knows exactly what he's going to do, but he's going to do it at his time. Job sees that now.

So Job, rather than looking at his friends, saying, "Yeah, see there? I told you it was wrong." He doesn't do that. There's none of that in Job's heart. That's why when God says, "I'm gonna have Job pray for you," Job says, "Heavenly Father," and he begins his prayer for his friends. Friends who wronged him, who added to his suffering. How could he do that? He realizes that the day of reckoning has come. He submitted to that.

"Now, therefore," he says, "take seven bulls and rams," and "my servant Job will offer up a burnt offering." And that's exactly what Job does. Job prays for his friends. God doesn't miss anything.

Number six. It's getting better. No one can be compared to God when it comes to blessings. Verses 11 to 15. Well, let's put 10 in there with it, 10 through 15. No one can be compared to God when it comes to blessings.

"The Lord restored the fortunes," verse 10 of Job, "when he prayed for his friends. The Lord increased all that Job had, twofold." Had his brothers and sisters and his family come back, had a family reunion, we looked at this. They all gave him money. Verse 12. "The Lord blessed the latter days of Job more than his beginning." 13, he had seven sons and three daughters. He names them and the blessing falls even on the daughters as well, I'm sure, as the sons. No one can be compared to God when it comes to blessings.

Did you miss the words the end of verse nine? Mark it. "The Lord accepted." Beginning of verse 10, "The Lord restored." End of verse 10, "The Lord increased." Beginning of verse 12, "The Lord blessed." Those are words of grace. Accepted, restored, increased, blessed.

Now, let me warn you something. Because you're conditioned, as I have been, for so many years of my life, you're conditioned in this in this cynical world because of the fallout of our cynical society. You and I are programmed to think it's cool to rush by words like this and to hurry on to the words that are negative.

Heavy trials, mold in your house, fractured families, high rate of divorce, economic woes, the homeless, the broken hearts, the brutal crimes, the drug abuse, the disasters, the premature deaths, the loss of jobs, on and on. That's what makes the evening news.

They never say, "Now, tomorrow night we'll have just good news." They say, "Tomorrow night," you think this was bad, "tomorrow, we have an exposé." And you go, "What channel? What time is that coming on?" And the exposé ends with, "You think this exposé was bad? Wait'll we show you that exposé. You will not," that's tomorrow night. "Now, you watch in tomorrow night."

I mean, even the weatherman says partly cloudy. Never says mainly sunny. It's partly cloudy. It may rain. Never says it probably won't. And furthermore, he's wrong.

And by the way, who does God bless? Job. Job. Chapter three, he cursed the day he was born. Chapter three, he resented the fact he didn't die when he was placed on his mother's breast. Chapter three at the end, he says, "I am not at peace. I am not restful." In other words, I resent what has happened. That's Job, who was wonderfully blessed at the end of the book. Why? Grace, grace, grace, grace, grace, grace, grace, grace. We don't get it.

We don't get it. You work hard, you get a promotion. You work harder, you get a bigger promotion. You work super hard, you run the company. Then you can take advantage of people who work and work hard and work super hard. That's the way the society thinks.

Grace comes along and says, "You're sick today, I'm gonna bless you mightily. You're not doing too well, I'm gonna bless you greatly. You blew it, I'm still gonna bless you," because grace doesn't wait for works to catch up.

I preached that sermon last week and poured myself into that one like I poured myself into this one. And you might think, "Boy, he must have, man, he must live a fabulous life." Well, let me just tell you, before you go that way. I went to the grocery store yesterday and one of our things on the list was eggs.

I wanted to get them in the cart and get them home before Ken Kooper caught me buying eggs. And so I quickly put them in the bag and I got home and I got I got I got bags of groceries. You know, why do you carry all of them? And you get to the door, you go, you know, to get the door, you shove the door open and you walk in and [sound of a bag dropping]. Guess what bag drops? Right. So I go, "Oh, my."

And I reached down and I get Cynthia's in the other room working and doesn't know anything about this, and I'm at the counter and I'm feeling sorry for myself, I'm doing all of this and I getting the eggs and I lift the little tray that holds the eggs in the refrigerator out. I think there's no eggs. And so there's one in there and I [sound of something else dropping]. So there's now egg on the floor.

And so I I get down and clean that up and I'm thinking, "Well, it's good," I look in the box, I think, "Well, it didn't break any." So I lift an egg out and not only had it broken, it comes down all over me. And I totally lost it. At that moment, I lost it. Totally. You could have heard me three doors away.

And my and my wife walks in and says, "Is there something wrong?" "Can I help?" "No. I've got it!" So I'm down cleaning it up. You know what? I didn't deserve to live through the night. But you know what? I woke up this morning, wonderfully blessed. Grace, grace, grace, grace, grace.

The book of Job teaches us about grace. When he blesses Job, he doesn't bless a perfect man, he blesses an imperfect man. If he were perfect, he wouldn't be repenting. If he said the right thing, he wouldn't be retracting. When are we going to get it? You don't have to earn it. You don't have to work real hard and hold your breath for five minutes and go straight home. You don't have to, you know, give a dollar to every homeless person. And you don't have to just have your heart broken over every sad story. Sometimes you just be downright selfish. And he still blesses.

We wouldn't. We say, "You do that again." "You sleep outside." You think Nebuchadnezzar had it bad? Wait'll I deal with you. Why? Because we don't get grace. We don't get it.

Job is beside himself. The boils are gone. Ah. Next thing you know, there's a knock on his door and there's a couple of guys who need work. And they know three other guys. And before you know it, he's got his family there and he's got the money and he hires them. And he looks up and the camels are coming back and the donkeys and the And they're all building his buildings and the house is getting rebuilt.

And wife says to him one morning, [sound of kissing noise] "Hey, buddy. You and I are going to be parents." She does it 10 times. Stop, Lord, stop. It's enough.

Number seven. After all this, Job lived 140 years and saw his sons and his grandsons, four generations. And then finally, he died. An old man and full of days. Great.

Here we go. Only God can fill our final years with divine music that frees us to live above our circumstances. Only God can fill our final years with divine music that frees us to live above our circumstances. It frees us. Frees us.

When I have ceased to break my wings against the faultiness of things, wrote Sara Teasdale, and learned that compromises wait behind each hardly open gate, when I can look life in the eyes, grown calm and very coolly wise, life will have given me the truth and taken an exchange, my youth.

Job has truth. Job is freed. Freed from the prison of fears, freed from the tiny cell of limited thinking and negative attitudes. He's freed from grudges. He's freed from a works theology. He's freed. He's free. Free at last. Praise God Almighty. He's free and he lives to over 200 years of age. Kids, grandkids, great grandkids all around him. And he could hardly remember when he got the boils back so many years ago.

That's music. It's music that only God can bring. Some struggling with dementia, old age is not kind to the body. Some battling a loss of memory. Some physically unable to keep up, feeling shelled when they were once engaged in life in the fast lane. And they live full of days, only God can do that.

Remember the film, The Shawshank Redemption? It's a great film that makes you think, lifts you beyond the prison cells of those men. Tim Robbins plays the part of Andy, and he's with the other prisoners struggling along with them. He carves chessmen from stone, you may remember, and petitions the state for books for the prison library and helps inmates get their high school diploma.

These are just a few of the ways that he held on to his humanity. One other way cost him two weeks in solitary confinement, you may remember. He gains access to the prison's public address system and plays a record of great music for all the prison to hear for the first time.

As the music streams through the washrooms and the prison yard, the inmates stop and stand, transfixed. The actor Morgan Freeman, playing the part of Red, has been the narrator of the story, and he says this about that moment. "I have no idea to this day what those two Italian ladies were singing about. Truth is, I don't want to know. Some things are best left unsaid. I like to think they were singing about something so beautiful it can't be expressed in words and makes your heart ache because of it. I tell you, those voices soared higher and farther than anybody in the great place dared to dream. It's like some beautiful bird flapped into Alexander's cage and made those walls dissolve away."