[AI translation] As many of you may know, our Bible reading guide now focuses on the Old Testament portion of the book of Job. A couple of days ago someone in the congregation complained that he too was reading Job, but the more he reads it, the more he becomes saddened, even despondent, the more he finds the whole book despairing. And yet the Spirit of God has not intended this book to be a source of despair, but of consolation for believers who are struggling in various situations of life. So it would be good if, for a few Sundays here in the church, we could also look at the book of Job and find in it the encouragement, comfort and strengthening that God gives to his children today. What I have read today is an account of how a truly godly person behaves in different situations in life. So let's take a closer look!As we read the account, this Job, who lived somewhere east of the Jordan, was almost like a little prince: he ruled over fabulous wealth, enjoyed a happy, beautiful family life. He was a lucky man. His deep religiousness, his true piety, was well known among the people everywhere. He himself regarded these testimonies of earthly prosperity as blessings, which he accepted with great humble gratitude from the hand of God. Through the description in the Scriptures, we also get a glimpse into Job's family life, and there we see a happy, joyful family life of a happy man. His children were grown, and there was a beautiful, intimate love affair between the grown-up sons and the parental home. The brothers and sisters invited each other to their birthday feasts, rejoiced together, had fun together, and even stayed together outside the parental home. How many parents today would be happy to see their adult children loving each other like that! Certainly Job was not afraid that if he closed his eyes one day, his children would be stuck with the inheritance. The children who grew up in a truly godly home took with them into life the blessed spirit and love of the parental home.
But even Job did not regard the sons and daughters he had sent on their own wings as having now 'done' all their parental duties. What he does is very remarkable: he goes before God in the early hours of the morning, offers a sacrifice for his children, pours out his soul, his thoughts and his anxieties about his children before the Lord, and calls out his children's names before the throne of God. Yes, a truly godly father who is not content to see his children grow up happily, settle down in the world, get married, marry, prosper, but even now sees them as responsible to God. So touching what this father is doing! He confesses to God the sins of his children, if any, as if he were confessing his own. 'Lest my sons have sinned and thought evil against God in their hearts,' he says to himself, anxiously, and lights a burnt offering for each of them separately. He does all he can to make his children's dealings with God right, for he knows that this is the highest good, the most existential cause of man! Oh, we fathers and mothers, what do we do that all the sins of our children may be laid upon that altar where the Lamb of God takes them upon Himself and atones for them! That's why Job rose early in the morning to do this for his children - not just sometimes, in a solemn uprising, but "every day", as we read in the Word. Behold, in short, such was the man Job was, no glory comes to his head, such is his conduct on the sunny side of life. A truly godly man is not conceited by wealth, is not turned away from God by riches, is not haughty, vain, conceited, pompous, does not boast of his well-off children: he can boast - as Paul once said of himself. (Phil 4,12) No wonder the children of such a father became good men - he was glad for them! Happy man was Job, truly a blessed life! Perhaps many envied this fortunate man who, behold, was so richly blessed of God!
But then, all of a sudden, there comes a great, great change in Job's life! The heavens break, and a time greets the happy man in which it must be evident that God's blessing is not so much as the outward prosperity and success of the sunny side of life. One after another the most terrible blows fall upon Job. Mournful messengers bring the sad news that hostile troops have attacked and destroyed the flock - what the people had left was destroyed by a thunderbolt - there the servants all perished! The rich man became a beggar-ass overnight! And still the plagues are not over. The fourth messenger comes, and brings the most terrible news: his children, when they were all celebrating together, have all died in an unexpected misfortune! So Job lost everything, everything that made him lucky, powerful, happy, blessed! From one hour to the next he became a beggar-poor, miserable, lonely, sad man. How will he endure this change? Will he break down, crumble under it? We have seen it before! Those of us who lived through the Second World War know only too well the despair, the hopelessness, the despair of life that such disasters can bring! Sometimes a soul is crippled for life under the weight of the losses, grief and catastrophes it has experienced! Is it not the fate of a yogi, when life strikes one so cruelly, when such incomprehensible blows fall upon one: does it not make one's mind confused, can one bear it with a sound mind and a sound faith, does not these weights crush one's faith? Would it not be natural for Job to renounce his loyalty to his heavenly Protector, for, behold, he has failed him badly? Were all those good, pious family practices, customs, sacrifices, prayers, all in vain?! What is happening here is incomprehensible!
But God does not expect man to understand Him, but to trust Him! He only expects Job to bow down before Him and acknowledge that God is just, even when what is happening on earth seems to be a blatant injustice. Now is the time to show whether Job's faith was a real faith in the days of prosperity, or was he just trying to please God so that divine blessing would better oil the wheels of his life's chariot? For there is a piety which is only to secure for man a fortune, a prosperity, a chance of life for himself and his family from God. God-deniers outright claim that such selfish interest lies behind all beliefs in God. No one is a believer "for nothing", but for something! No one loves God for God's sake, but only for what he hopes from God! Now we see that in his life so far, faith in God has not only been an interest, but a sincere living in the hands of God! He gives expression to his terrible pain with Eastern symbolic gestures: he tears his clothes, falls to the ground, and - prays! He does not curse, he does not swear, he does not wail, he does not curse: he prays. In fact, he worships God! I think this is the climax of this part of the story, this is why it all happened, this is the point of it all: that the man who is torn, humiliated, robbed, falls down before God! I read somewhere that circus performers are taught to fall first of all: that's where the art begins, to be able to fall, to cut oneself without hitting oneself. The believer has the same secret: he can fall without hitting himself. If a godly man falls on his knees: no matter how hard he falls, he does not hit himself. Job fell from a very high place to a very low place, but he fell on his knees and that's why he endured! And if a man, a church, a nation, falls to his knees under the weight of the burden that is laid upon him: his suffering was not in vain.
Look: poor Job is praying! And not like a desperate man, almost out of his mind, who, confronted by a foreign, hostile power, tries to beg something, to wrest something back, but as when he was lucky: he falls down on the ground before God, worshipping, praising! This is the behaviour of this godly man, who is used to his life being in God's hands, his destiny being controlled, carried and shaped by God. It's uncanny how he says: "I came from my mother's womb naked, and I will go naked. The Lord gave, the Lord hath taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord!" In the hour of burning suffering, in the midst of adversity, only one who has already lived in true faith can speak like this! Who is not now groping, not now seeking divine support, but who has lived in dependence on God. He has not learned now, but knew already in the good days, that his goods and his children are not his own, but God's; he has received them from Him for a gift, God is Lord over him! Because he could say before in faith, "The Lord gave,... Blessed be the name of the Lord!" - so now he was also able to say in faith, "The Lord took it, blessed be the name of the Lord". And this is more than forced resignation to the unchangeable, more than resigned surrender; - it means that man has triumphed in defeat, has risen higher in defeat, - it is the assurance of triumphant faith that all things are of Him, through Him and to Him, to Him be all glory in all things! Such is the conduct of a truly godly man in the difficult hours and days of his earthly life. How different is the misfortune of the man who stands alone, without God, without hope beyond this visible world! For him there are only the things of the visible world! Such a man is utterly devastated by an experience like Job's, even if he has tried to please the so-called "God" before. He has no support, no hope, no hold, nothing to anchor a life thrown up in the turbulence of events.
It is an eternal human aspiration to insure one's fortune, one's happiness - whole insurance institutions and companies are involved in this - well: God wants more than that: He wants to insure our lives! God wants to insure us not only against misfortune and death, but against misfortune and death itself! It is a strange thing! It does not cost anything, it does not have to be paid for, the Lord offers it to everyone for free! You are included in this life insurance if you truly believe in Jesus Christ as your Saviour Lord. If you truly believe that you are a sinner, so much so that you deserve only punishment from God, but Jesus has vouched for you, paid your debt, suffered your punishment, filled it for you. Whoever dares to stake his life on the death and resurrection of Jesus, on the redeeming love of God, as the apostle Paul did, can say, as the apostle Paul did, "I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor principalities nor powers, neither things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Rom 8,38-39)
So, "I am convinced", that is, I am certain, I am assured that nothing can separate me from God! Neither prosperity nor adversity! Such a life is truly assured forever, even beyond the grave! For Jesus said, "If anyone believes in me, even if he dies, he lives" (John 11:25) - the only real assurance that gives real certainty, stability, strength in this world of fluctuating fortunes. A sense of security that cannot be broken, that cannot be shaken.
Many more burdens and sufferings fell upon Job after this, but his faith stood the first test. Anything may yet come to a believer: but fear nothing if you can pray thus with truly sincere faith:
Jesus, I trust in you,
O let me not perish!
Thou who through sin, through hell, through the grave
Thou art the only victor:
Encourage me in weak faith,
Prepare me that my soul
That my soul may see above, O Lord,
For ever and ever happy.
(Canto 295, verse 2)
Amen
Date: 10 August 1958 (Ed.)
Lesson
Jób 1,1-22