Insight for Living

Guest (Male): When you're hurting, what you want most is an answer. Why did this happen? Why me? Why now? Job wanted answers too. He'd lost everything: his children, his health, his livelihood. And when God finally spoke, something surprising happened. God never answered a single question. And yet Job walked away from that exchange satisfied.

Today on Insight for Living, Chuck brings us to the final chapter of Job's story and to what it reveals about the God we so often misunderstand. We begin with context, as Chuck reads select passages from the book of Job.

Chuck Swindoll: Saying goodbye to Job is like saying farewell to a long-standing friend. He has become a part of our family and a part of our conversation and really a part of our lives. Just a few excerpts from the 42nd chapter. If you have your Bible open—if you're new with us and not familiar with your Bible, the largest book in the Bible is the book of Psalms, and Job is just before Psalms. We're going to look at a few verses from the last chapter of this great old book of Job.

Chapter 42 of Job, verse one: Then Job answered the Lord and said, "I know that You can do all things, and that no purpose of Yours can be thwarted. 'Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?' Therefore I have declared that which I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know. 'Hear, now, and I will speak; I will ask You, and You instruct me.' I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees You; therefore I retract, and I repent in dust and ashes."

Verse 10: The Lord restored the fortunes of Job when he prayed for his friends, and the Lord increased all that Job had twofold. Verse 12: The Lord blessed the latter days of Job more than his beginning. Verse 16: After this, Job lived 140 years and saw his sons and his grandsons, four generations. And Job died, an old man and full of days.

Guest (Male): You're listening to Insight for Living. To dig deeper into Job's story, be sure to purchase a copy of our Searching the Scriptures Bible study workbook by going to insight.org/offer. Chuck titled today's message "What Job Teaches Us About Our God."

Chuck Swindoll: It's amazing how miscommunication can lead to misunderstanding. This is especially true when what is being communicated winds up in the hearing of the wrong person. I thought of that just this past week when I came across the story of a Minneapolis couple who were there in February. It was raw and it was frigid, and they decided they would enjoy a long weekend together in Florida, under the sun and relaxing at the beach.

The problem was both of them worked, and so getting a schedule that coordinated was a tough thing to do. So the husband agreed to go just a day earlier, and he would meet his wife who would come the day following. When he got to the hotel, he pulled out his laptop and decided to send his wife an email back in Minneapolis. However, he accidentally left off one letter in her address, and so the email went to another person without his realizing it.

In Houston, a widow had just returned from her husband's funeral. He was a minister of many years and had been called home to glory following a sudden heart attack. The widow checked her email expecting condolence messages from relatives and friends. Upon reading the first message, however, she fainted and fell to the floor. The widow's son heard the noise and rushed into the room and then turned and saw the message on the computer screen, which read: "To my loving wife from your departed husband. Subject: I've arrived."

It went on to say, "I've just arrived and have been checked in. Everything went very smoothly after my departure. I also verified that everything has been prepared for your arrival tomorrow. Looking forward to seeing you then. Hope your journey is as uneventful as mine was. P.S. It sure is hot down here."

Miscommunication can lead to serious misunderstanding. That can happen and it often does in, believe it or not, even in the truths of the Bible. This is especially so when right truth is deposited in a wrong context or in the ears of someone not able to understand them.

Children are a classic example of this. They can become confused and even, if the truth were not known, embarrassed if they don't understand the context in which the Scriptures are written. Cynthia and I have a very good friend couple who several years ago with their young son Gary were enjoying the holidays and decided shortly after the holidays that they would read the Bible through. They would have their son, about 10 or 11 years old at the time, be there with them so that he would be able to make the journey.

So they got underway in the book of Genesis. It wasn't long before Adam and his wife are naked and are not ashamed. The boy listened in silence. A little later, Adam has relations with his wife, it says, and she bears the son. A little later than that, the older son murders the younger brother. And then in the fifth chapter, he again has relations with his wife and she bears another son named Seth. That leads to the story of Noah and the great flood that brought such vast destruction.

But the story of Noah ends in a shameful way where he uncovers himself in his tent and dies in a sense of shame. At about the time they got underway in chapter 19 of Genesis on Sodom and Gomorrah, Gary said, "Stop. Daddy, should I be listening to all of this stuff?" was his question. Not a thing wrong with what was being read, but in the ears of a child, he wonders, "What is this book all about?"

New believers can have the same reaction, and truth from the Scriptures can become for them confusing, even about God. Can't you imagine a young believer not knowing much about his or her Heavenly Father asking, "Why would a good God allow His chosen people, the Jews, to live 400 years and more in Egyptian bondage? Why would a good God do that?"

Why would a loving God encourage the destruction of all the Canaanites when Joshua and the Jews invaded the land and moved through Jericho? Every one of them was to be killed. And how could a holy God call David a man after my own heart when before he dies he is guilty of adultery and murder and is in fact a polygamist, numerous wives? A man after God's heart?

And while we're at it, how could a compassionate, faithful God stand back and allow an upright, good man like Job to suffer like he did? If I keep this up, you might wonder why we even take the time to open the Scriptures. But all of those questions have answers. They're not simple answers, and they won't satisfy everyone.

But take this last one. Maybe we should let Job tell us what he thinks of his God. Since he's the one who went through it all and lost everything, including his 10 adult children and his even his ability to make a living once he was struck down by that dreadful plague that covered his body with boils. And then had to endure three and four friends—alleged friends—who came with their sermons and condemnation and judgment. Where was God? Even Job asked that question.

Well, I think this would make us want to listen carefully when Job begins to teach us some things about our God. I could have chosen those words of instruction from Job from several chapters, but I've decided to really limit our thinking to the last chapter. Like we did last time, I have seven particular lessons that I think Job would teach us if he were alive today, and thankfully his words are preserved for us to read.

If you were with us last time, we had you make a column of seven and to title that column "What Job Teaches Us About Ourselves." Today, please go back to that same page or if you're new with us, just find a blank page in your Bible anywhere and put at the top of the page: "What Job Teaches Us About Our God" and number one through seven.

Job has sat through God's lecture, which began in chapter 38 and 39, went into chapter 40, chapter 41. 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. 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 still doesn't give specific answers to the specific questions.

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. Theologians call this an interesting word: "omni," which means all, "potent," powerful. Omnipotent.

That tells us that there is no limitation, no condition, no reservation, no obstacle that hinders in any way the activities, the acts, the works of our Heavenly Father. Tozer put it this way: "All His acts are done without effort. He expends no energy that must be replenished. His self-sufficiency makes it unnecessary for Him to look outside Himself for a renewal of strength. All the power required to do all that He wills to do lies in undiminished fullness in His own infinite being."

Beautiful way to put it. He creates from nothing without any decrease of energy. He sustains all life without ever needing an assistance, any assistance from any other source. He even raises from the dead those He wishes to raise without facing any resistance. And He withholds the most powerful creature ever created, Satan himself, with no struggle, without the slightest effort expended on His part. Nothing stands in God's way. Nothing hinders God's work. Nothing successfully restrains His will.

That's why only He deserves the word "awesome." Now, we've cheapened the word. We've given awesome to everything. Stereos are now awesome in their sound. Back when they built them, Datsun, the early Z-car, was called awesome. I remember going to the showroom and looking at the Datsun. It didn't seem awesome the longer I looked at it. It had four wheels like every other car. It was smaller than all other cars I'd try to squeeze into. It didn't look awesome, but the kids were saying and the advertisements were saying, "It is awesome."

Let me warn you about words. Don't use that one that much. Reserve it for God. Reserve it for one who knows no limitation, faces no impossibility, hurdles no obstacle, and can accomplish whatever He sets out to do 100% of the time. Four times in the Scriptures, we read in different words that nothing is impossible with God. Here are the verses: Jeremiah 32:17, Jeremiah 32:27, Luke 1:37, Luke 18:27. Twice in Jeremiah, twice in the Gospel by Luke, all four agreeing, four specific times in the Word of God: zero impossibilities.

You sang of it when you sang the hymn: "Immortal, invisible, God only wise, in light inaccessible hid from our eyes. Most blessed, most glorious, the Ancient of Days, Almighty—ah, there it is—Victorious, Thy great name we praise." Almighty. When you use the word "Almighty," it fits only one. Isn't it interesting how ill-acquainted we are with our Heavenly Father? And this is just one of His numerous attributes.

There's a second, and I find it at the end of verse 2: "No purpose of Yours can be thwarted." It is impossible to restrain or nullify God's purposes. It is impossible to restrain or nullify God's purposes. You see the word "thwarted" if you carry a New American Standard Bible as I do. You have found the word "thwarted." The Hebrew term is the word that means to cut off. No purpose of Yours can be cut off, stopped.

God's intentions can neither be altered nor disrupted. What He purposes will transpire without delay, without hindrance, and without failure. Everything that happens on this earth falls within the framework of exactly what God has purposed, exactly. None of it surprises Him. None of it has to be anticipated on His part. It is all unfolding precisely as His perfect omniscience has planned it.

Now, I'm going to interject something here that maybe will get your attention, because some of you struggle with absolute sovereignty. It's probably because you have not faced a cataclysmic experience. Christians who go through what I would call a cataclysmic test have little trouble ultimately with grasping and embracing God's absolute sovereignty. I'll show you an example. Turn ahead to the book of Daniel. Get beyond the longer prophets, you'll get to Ezekiel and then the next book is Daniel. Ezekiel is one of the longer of the major prophets and Daniel follows Ezekiel.

Chapter four is a story of a man who is full of himself. He's the King of Babylon, which would be much like the land of Iraq today. You can make your own analogies, but Nebuchadnezzar is his name. He believed he was responsible for the kingdom as it was, for the buildings as they had been built, for the gardens as they stood, for the beauty of the waterfalls, for the wonderful pools that had been dug, for the water that flowed, for the people that lived, for all of life as it appeared in the land of Babylon, and he said so. Nebuchadnezzar saw himself as all-sovereign, and he said so. Toward the end of the chapter, verse 29, after an encounter with Daniel who prophesied this would happen, Nebuchadnezzar...