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*Is There Any Comfort? *
by John Hannah
/Text:/ Job 38-42
/Topic:/ How God comforts us even when there are no answers
/Big Idea:/ When Job questioned God, God responded not with answers, but with his /character/, which brought Job comfort.
/Keywords:/ Comfort; God, goodness of; God, sovereignty of; Peace; Suffering
*Introduction: God’s deepest comforts are not attached to answers.*
/ /
*Job shares some insights gained on the anvil of experience.*
* Job lost everything – possessions, family, health – and had 3 lousy friends to boot.
* Job answers his friends with 3 answers: one correct answer, but 2 wrong ones:
- He’s correct to say it wasn’t his personal sin that caused his tragedy.
- He’s incorrect to say 1) God is uncaring, and 2) God is not in control.
* We sometimes make the same incorrect assumptions about God when in crisis.
* In Job 31:35, Job asks the universal question: “Why?”
*God responds to Job’s questions.*
* Job 38-42 is the longest discourse in the Bible in which God speaks.
* God responds to Job’s questions by raising seventy questions of his own.
* In Job 38:4-39:30, God answers Job’s charge that he is unkind.
* In Job 40:6-41:34, God answers Job’s charge that he is not in control.
*Job responds to God’s replies.*
* In Job 40:3, Job essentially says he has no right to accuse God of not caring.
* In Job 42:6, Job repents for saying God didn’t care.
* The point: Job had a terrific change of mind, even though God gave no answers.
* Job found comfort not in answers, but in God’s revealed character.
We can too.
*- */Illustration: /Hannah tells of the time his wife discovered a lump on her breast, and he found comfort in God’s character.
*Conclusion: What is the source of your comfort?
The answer is in God’s character.*
*Is There Any Comfort?*
by John Hannah
Is there any comfort when there are no answers?
I would like to argue that the deepest comforts you will ever receive come to you from the hand of God and are not attached to answers.
But how is there any comfort when there are no answers?
I think each one of us has experienced personal tragedies.
I can remember going through a very deep tragedy in our family.
If you have gone through tragedies for which you do not know the answers, you may be aware that people come and provide an array of what appears to them to be comfort.
Bur oft-times what they say is really no comfort at all.
You listen to the comfort they provide, but you find out that when you sit in your living room after the children have gone to bed, you will still wonder if there's any comfort or anybody in the universe to provide it.
What people sometimes say at the moment of tragedy is more wish fulfillment than reality.
That experience happened to me.
I felt for a while that I was overwhelmed by a sea of uncertainty and fear, and I wondered if there was any comfort in this world or any strength to be had for my situation.
*Job shares some insights gained on the anvil of experience.*
When there are no answers, is there any comfort?
To help answer that question, I would like to turn your attention to the book of Job.
Job shares with us some insights he gained on the anvil of experience.
The story line in the book of Job is simple.
You all know, I trust, that Job was a very prosperous fellow.
He had enormous wealth.
But through a series of tragedies over which he had no control, he lost not only his wealth and property, but also all of his sons and daughters and all of his livestock.
In the midst of all that tragedy he was stuck by a gruesome, terrible illness that left him sitting in a heap of ashes, wondering why all of it happened.
To make matters worse, Job had three uncomforting friends who came by to offer him comfort.
They basically said that the reason this tragedy had come upon Job was that he had dishonored God and become the object of his wrath.
That's a lot of comfort!
As he sits with sores all over his body and tears on his face for lost sons and daughters and property, he has to listen to three thoughtless, ignorant friends.
That has been my experience also.
People who lack insight and perspective are always ready to offer what they perceive to be infallible, impeccable revelations.
Job answers his three friends.
One of his answers is correct, but two are wrong.
It’s because of his wrong answers that God finally speaks to him.
But Job was right when he said to his friends that it wasn't personal sin that caused his tragedy.
Their basic opinion was that tragedies come upon us as a retributive action of God, a punishment for something that we have done.
Job replies to his three friends correctly by saying to them, "Look, I've done nothing.
I'm innocent.
I'm a righteous man, but I have lost my sons, my daughters, and all my wealth."
They were wrong.
Job /was/ a righteous man.
However, in the midst of his suffering, which was very real and poignant and terrifying, he did say two things that were wrong.
He said that God must be an uncaring God.
He must not understand.
He must not really be kind or care for people, because he let things happen.
Not only that, Job also said what had happened to him was evidence that God was not in control of his universe.
Job accuses God of two things.
He says to him, "You don't really care for me.
And even if you do, you are not able to care for me."
Those are the two charges that I think every one of us, in the midst of our suffering, raises against God.
We may not do it loudly, but we whisper it in our subconscious in order to find comfort.
"God, do you really understand my sorrow?
Do you really know?
Do you really care?"
Then, as the temperature gets hotter, we often say to God, "Are you really in control at all?"
Job goes on to say that he wishes he had never been conceived.
Furthermore, he wishes, since he had been conceived, that he had died in childbirth.
But God has granted neither wish, so he wishes that God would at least take his life in his present circumstance.
In Job 31:35 he says this: "Oh, that I had one to hear me…let the Almighty answer me!"
In the midst of his suffering he cries out to God.
He raises the question that you and I have raised repeatedly in the tragedies of our experience.
It is the question that makes us shudder when our children ask it: the question, "Why?"
Three times in this book Job says to God, "Answer me!
Tell me!
I want to know why."
*Job shares some insights gained on the anvil of experience.*
Beginning in chapter 38 God does answer him.
What is found in Job 38-42 is the longest discourse in the Bible in which God speaks.
Finally God says he will offer some answers to Job's questions.
Job has said to God, "Because I sit here in these ashes, because my children are only a fond memory, because I have lost everything I possessed, you must not care for me.
But if you do care for me you are incompetent to provide for me."
So, in chapters 38-42, God speaks to Job.
What is amazing about this is that God speaks to Job out of a whirlwind.
In the Bible a storm is often the occasion in which God reveals himself.
It's like the storm that brought ruin to Job, and destroyed his family.
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